Slokam 9

Brahma takes on the obligation of teaching the Vedas to all his offspring.  But he encountered resistance to the imparting of the knowledge.  So Brahma turns to the Paramathma for support.

The resistance to learning, it seems, was inbuilt into all creations and is a major barrier to overcome, regardless of capability. 

This barrier to learning arises from the duality and conflict that is inbuilt into our psyche. 

On the one hand we are required to “know”.  This requires “Shravanam” or the ability to listen and partake off the teachings from elders and others.  This is supposed to be one of the most difficult of all qualities to imbibe.  Shravanam requires putting a stop to the constant flow of thoughts from within.  In other words, to actually quieten the mind.  However,  learning is a two way process. Learning requires one to compare or relate  the incoming flow of knowledge and information to what is already known.  Without this interconnection between pre-existing knowledge and the inflow of information,  there is no ability to retain or make sense of the new information. 

So the ability to learn or Shravanam has to be consciously developed. It will not happen on its own.  This is why much of the scriptures, and the Puranas are written in the form of storylines that are easy to imbibe, because they can be related, to some extent, to events in our own lives. We accept what we already know.  Like adding building blocks, we would have to add the new information to the existing knowledge and thought structure in our minds. 

Sometimes, it may so happen that the new information or knowledge is in contradiction to what we already know. This creates a problem of acceptance of the new information.

So there are two issues with learning –

• We may not be able to relate the incoming information to what is known to us already.
• The incoming information may be in complete contradiction to what we already know.

In the first instance, we would have to modify existing mental structures to fill in the new information into the Gaps in the structure.  This requires us to accept incoming information as the Truth and relate it to what is already known to us. Accepting anything that we are told as the Truth,  requires either a belief system to be ingrained into us, or it should be a reiteration what our own past experience was.  Any new concept will require substantial illustration and convincing to become an “understanding” within us.

So it is not a surprise that our scriptures are versed into repeatable and easily memorizable slokams.  Also, these are scripted as characters and events, like life itself, to enable us to easily relate to, understand and make sense of.  So attributes such as Dharma are illustrated using characters that are Dharmic and generous.  Their life events and outcomes are contrasted to those that are not Dharmic.  This way the consequences are laid out, which will enable the mind to accept the Dharmic path as the correct path to pursue. 

Likewise Sri Krishna and Sri Rama take on avatars, seemingly as human beings so we can relate to  and understand them.  Their actions are seen to destroy the evil and support the good.  This way we have no hesitation in identifying and choosing the correct path,  which is prescribed and followed by them.

The Vedas are scripted as the ultimate principles to be followed.  Since these may appear esoteric to us and therefore may not be acceptable,  the Vedas have been scripted  into everyday life-like events that illustrates the principles to be adhered to.

May we be blessed with the capability for Shravanam, to imbibe knowledge and adhere to the prescribed paths without deviation