Reading

In school you read for information.  You may memorize some things especially for a test.  You may like to widen your base of knowledge, thinking this makes you “smarter.”  But most of this information will do little to change you.  Information has its limitations.  Another way to read is for the purpose of transformation.  You read something slowly and then ponder it, let it work on your insides where change happens.  One might read scripture or a self-help book or a meditation guide in this manner.  You might read little but you ponder it.  You could read the Bible, the Vedanta, Buddhist text, as in a class of study and be changed not one bit.  You would not become a better person.  Formation is to change the heart.  The head helps, but the heart is where all change for the better happens.  Head reads.  Heart ponders.  Person changes.  I have found it so.