Problems in understanding spiritual literature

Reading and understanding spiritual literature is an important tool in assisting ones own realization. Of course, it is not absolutely necessary. Ramana, as every one knows, read none initially. Nevertheless, for most people, its an important tool whose importance wanes and grows at different times in ones effort for realization. But, there are many issues that I faced in understanding. Listing them here. Might be useful.

• The biggest and most important problem is that of appropriateness. Different books are useful at different stages. I think, for beginners, JK's writings are impressively incomprehensible! But, beyond a point the truth of his writings become clear. So, its important to choose appropriate books and authors. A lot of exploration is needed to find out appropriate literature.

• The second biggest issue is that the different people use words differently and there is a constant conflict to give different meanings to words. For eg., a lot of writing in this subject is on fear. Fear usually only means fear of being eaten by a tiger but rarely about the fear of not making it in the society (which is what is meant in this subject). So, a lot of patience is required here to dig through the subject to find out what the author means. Very often, I find that in discussions with friends, there comes a point where we have to define almost every non-trivial word. This makes it a little hard to begin with.

• The third issues is lack of what is called vitarka - scientific reasoning without a prior bias that looks down upon the subject. When scientists talk about youngs double slit experiment, we gape at the results and explanations with child like wonder. This is great. But, when any genuine spiritual writer starts to say things, our patience with them is minimal and our pseudo-intellectual biases convert our reasoning from vitarka to kutarka, which is reasoning with a prior bias that looks down upon the subject. Spiritual truths can never be recognized with kutarka.

• Another issue is the esoteric nature of the subject. For beginners, its a bit like learning a new language where every book teaching that language is in that language itself. Its hard, but with patience the breakthroughs come. Many times, a prior understanding of the truth to some extent is needed to understand more. In reality, a real time shock in life is needed that will shake the egoic structures. But, most of our lives are so fragile that our normal flow of life provides them in umpteen amounts.

• Another issue is that spiritual truths cannot be studied like how we study human anatomy. A sincere effort is constantly needed for personal transformation also. Without this, no progress can be made. Most people are only interested in intellectual understanding without serious personal transformation. In my opinion, that is not possible. Personal transformation is the hardest as it requires a total abandonment of ego!

• Another issue is that words are many times inaccurate and seldom possess mathematical precision. Also, authors sometimes miss out words that would make things clearer. For the author, the context might make the meaning obvious, but may be not for a beginner. This is true with all books but is probably more likely in this subject. For e.g., When JK says 'an action that is done with a desire in mind, can produce no genuine change for the good', people usually ask 'how is it possible to do an action without a desire in mind. When food is given to the hungry, there is the desire of elimination of their hunger'. Of course, this objection is correct, when interpreted in the way the listener did. What, I think, was actually meant there is the action done with a personal desire - the desire for greatness or moksha or something else!