'One must not fritter away the energy one draws from food...'

What Will I Be…? 🤔

09 July 1996 💛

#memoriesfromdiaries

[Same day, twenty-five years ago] 

Those were the days you really didn’t know where you were headed to!

What next?

What lies ahead of me?

Quo vadis?

What will I be?

And just by visiting the library or the book stores around, you felt a bit safe and secure from the vast realms of cluelessness ahead!  

They proved a blessed temporary solace and a momentary reprieve for all your insecurities, assuaging your self-doubts and disenchantments, that by default, tagged along with a typical teenager, all through your rickety routines!

It was something like, when you step into a book store, the blessed angels, the pixies and the fairies of some sublime wonderland of yore gave a convincing tick mark against your name, on their ‘Book of Tireless Strivings’ that came under the able aegis of the Ministry of Labour, and then smile their gentle smile of the likes of the Cheshire cat that you find in Alice in Wonderland! (take the Disney ones please)! 🙏

Indeed, every time I step into the portals of a good library, or a good book store, I feel so insecure! So uncomfortable! So embarrassed! (more so, back then as a teenager!)

Don’t know why it happens! But it does, you see! 

That strange feeling of being in a La la land, or a Never Never Land, where you are a total newbie of sorts!

I would then proceed to ask myself, ‘How many authors among these thousands do I know?’

Literally None! Literally Nobody! 🙈

How long will it take for me to even read through a few volumes that are graciously gleaming through these stacks of knowledge?

And if at all, by fortuitous chance, I happen to read through them all, how would I retain them in memory, and how would I ever apply them, or make use of them for my life and living?

Simple teenager anxieties they were, manifested in the form of hundreds of such silly questions!

And back then, I literally hadn’t a clue anywhere around!

But today, to a little extent I do!

All thanks to God and my Gurus! 🙏

That’s hence would love to cite from a beautiful anecdote that would help us greatly with our Reading skills -

Narendranath (the premonastic name of Swami Vivekananda) had been a ‘voracious reader’ right from his childhood days. He used to spend a lot of his time on his reading.

During his stay in Meerut, in the year 1890, Narendranath, through his fellow disciples, used to read one book from the local library every day and return it the following day.

The local librarian was not ready to accept that Narendranath was reading the books. He thought that he was not reading anything at all and it was only an attempt to impress others.

So one fine day he clearly expressed his doubt to the fellow disciple.

Narendranath, upon hearing this, went to the librarian and told him, politely -

“Sir, I have read all the books very attentively. If you have any doubt, you may ask me any question you like from these any of these books we had borrowed”.

The librarian could not believe it, and so Swami Vivekananda asked him to test him.

He opened a book, selected a page and paragraph, and asked him to tell him what was written there. Swami Vivekananda repeated the sentence exactly as it was written in the book, without looking at it.

The librarian was astounded and did more tests. Each time Swami Vivekananda repeated the exact words written in the book.

Later the librarian discovered that Swami Vivekananda had a photographic memory. His eyes, his mind, would capture the image on the page, and whenever he wished, he could just recall a book, a page, a sentence. That was the capacity of his brain and mind.

Now, how did he develop this capacity?

Haripada Mitra, a Sub-divisonal Forest Officer of Belgaum recounts -

One day, in the course of a talk, Swamiji quoted verbatim some two or three pages from Pickwick Papers. I wondered at this, not understanding how a Sannyasi could memorize verbatim so much from a secular book. I thought that he must have read it quite a number of times before he took orders. When questioned he said,

“I read it twice - once when I was in school, and again some five or six months back”.

“Then how do you remember it?” I asked in wonder.

In 1901, Swami Vivekananda was sick and was staying at Belur Math, West Bengal.

A new set of 12 volumes of the newly published Encyclopedia Britannica had recently been bought for the Math's library.

One day Sharatchandra Chakravarti, a disciple of Swami Vivekananda, came to his room to meet him.

Seeing the large volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, he said,

“It is indeed very difficult to read so many volumes in one lifetime.”

Swami Vivekananda immediately replied,

“What do you mean? . . . Ask me any question from the first 10 volumes I have already read.”

Chakravarti asked Vivekananda a number of questions from each volume of the Encyclopedia.

Every time Vivekananda answered correctly, and not only that, several times he even quoted exact words used in the book.

Narendranath explained that when a child starts reading, he reads one letter or alphabet at a time, and when he reads that one alphabet his whole attention is focused on it. Gradually the child grows up, and with practice, now he can easily read one word or two-three words at a time.

Likewise, if someone goes on increasing his concentration power, he will be able to read an entire page of a book in just a glance.

Swami Vivekananda adds to say,

‘One has to read with full attention and one must not fritter away the energy one draws from food.’

The main difference between men and the animals is the difference in their power of concentration. All success in any line of work is the result of this.

High achievements in art, music, etc., are the results of concentration.

The difference in the power of concentration also constitutes the difference between one human and another human.

Compare a highly achieved human being with another man. The difference is in the degree of concentration.

This is the only difference!

he signs off!

How sweet and how true!

And well, therein lies the clue!

***

That’s some food for the mind for us all.

Now, moving on to some food for the body!

Well, Udipi Hotel, Egmore, as Chennaiites would have sure known, was quite famous in those days, for its yummy meals! 😋

Limited meals (Veg) cost you Rs.16/- and since it’s Udipi you get for yourself an extra plate of rice for Rs. 6/-

Tea & Biscuits – Rs. 2.00

Tea & Snacks  -   Rs. 4.00

[Sincere thanks to youthdotdadabhagwandotorg for this anecdote]

Title Song for this Post: [food for the soul] Che Sera Sera… HERE [Enjoyed better on earpods over a cuppa coffee]