On Memorizing Ślokas (Part One): Gaining Focus as a Secondary Benefit

It’s been quite a while since my last post here on Vine of Devotion. As you may already know, the reason is we’ve been busy working on a new edition of Śrī Gauḍīya Gīti-guccha (the songbook), which will have almost double the number of songs compared to the previous edition. (We estimate it will be about 900 pages in total.) We’re already a couple of months behind schedule, so I’ve had to put everything else on hold, including our daily reading programs and the Bhaktivinoda-gīti-dhārā program, until we finish preparing everything for layout.

I’m only able to share this post because I’m not actually typing what you’re reading. (Except for the parts I’m editing afterward, like this sentence. 😛) On this beautiful October 1st morning, I’m taking my daily walk along the small, jungly village roads of Nabadwip, dictating this on my phone. It’s my first time trying this dictation method. If it works well, I might be able to post more regularly.

A Little Bit of Focused Time is Worth More Than a Lot of Unfocused Time

The topic of this post is about a secondary benefit of memorizing the transcendental verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and our ācāryas: focus. I’ll write about the more important and exciting benefits at another time, but since focus is a particularly relevant topic for me right now, I’d like to share some thoughts on it.

Something I’ve been noticing is that more important than the number of hours I have to work on this songbook project is the quality of those hours. Two hours of intense, deep focus—where I lose track of time and everything else around me—can be as productive as an entire day of scattered effort.

The ability to focus isn’t some superhuman trait that only a few rare people are born with. It's a skill that can be cultivated more and more with conscious effort and practice. So I’m trying out different methods to see what works best.

Memorization as a Tool for Focus

Of the few methods I’ve been trying for the past couple of weeks, one of the more effective ones is memorizing verses. It might seem counterintuitive to take on a time-consuming daily practice, especially during what’s probably my busiest time ever, but I’ve actually been gaining back that time—and more—by doing so. Anything that helps me gain better control over my mind and achieve deep, focused absorption ultimately saves me a lot of time that would otherwise be spent poorly, with a scattered brain.

Battling the Pull of Distractions

The biggest obstacle I’m facing in this songbook project is—I’m sure you can guess by now—my mind’s inability to focus and its constant search for distractions. This challenge feels even stronger than usual because of the pressure from all the work ahead of us, which makes me want to escape reality and dive into distractions—something our devices make all too easy. Social media, the news, WhatsApp, and YouTube are always competing for my attention, and when focus is already a struggle, these temptations become even harder to resist.

Companies like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter pour billions of dollars into researching how to effectively capture and hold people’s attention. The more time users spend on these platforms, the more money they make. So, it’s not simply that we lack discipline or self-control when we find ourselves losing hours to these parasitic, time-sucking apps. We’re bound to get distracted by them unless we have a solid plan to fight them back.

Replacing the Negative with the Positive

My Śrīla Gurudeva would mention that we should give more emphasis on cultivating the favorable activities of bhakti rather than fixating on rejecting the unfavorable ones. By immersing ourselves in the positive activities of bhakti, all the negative things unfavorable to bhakti naturally fall away on their own.

In other words, trying to stop a bad habit or remove an anartha by sheer force of will is not very effective. For example, if I told you not to think of a red balloon, no matter how hard you try, you'd probably still picture a red balloon. In the same way, if we focus solely on avoiding distractions like YouTube, we’ll likely find ourselves drawn to them even more.

We need something positive and fulfilling to replace the negative habit. But it’s crucial that this replacement brings a deep sense of satisfaction; otherwise, it won’t last. So, to regain control of my mind and sharpen my focus, I’ve started swapping out my phone for index cards whenever possible.

In my next post, I’ll share my system for using these index cards. I’ve experimented with various methods for learning ślokas, and this one seems to be working quite well for me. Alright, that’s all for now. Catch you in the next post!