Swadhyaya Practice.mov

Swadyaya is sometimes associated with the practice of reciting of sacred texts. Both in content and process, the recitation of certain texts is said to cultivate one-pointed attention that is necessary for insight and "self-knowledge."

I recorded this practice on a saturday morning during the usual three hours of recitation, chanting, meditating, and hearing a talk on some aspect of spiritual life. This was all part of the weekly schedule in this private school for 5th to 10th graders in Pune, India.

The audio keeps getting lost! will try to fix soon.

Actually, without sound you can actually see the learning and attentional training better! The classical paradigm of learning being practiced here is "hearing-reciting-remembering." There is someone "calling" the verse that the students then repeat back and on and on in call and response fashion. Swami Muktananda noted about this practice of textual repetition that the posture, the breath, the focus of the eyes, ears and mind; attention to the sound and the precise enunciation of the syllables; control of mind wandering, all of this mind-body complex was engaged in this single practice of one-pointedness on the pronunciation and immersion in the sound of the text. Indeed, for those who practice this, one finds themselves, through concentration, entering most perfect states of awareness in the rhythmic recitation of hearing-reciting-silence cycles. This is the "nectar of chanting" that appears possible not only when chanting the many beautiful names of God as in the practice of namasankirtana, but also in terms of the recitation of sacred texts (swadyaya)

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Education

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• adolescents
• school
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