by Shalini Bosbyshell
Source: Sanskrit Today (an excerpt)
". . . Since attending the Sanskrit Training in 1991, I have been working toward a bachelor of science degree at a nearby University. All this time, I knew that the ideas I had learned from you were helping me to remain focused, but it was not until that first evening of Part II that I realized how much the "choice to learn" has become a part of me in the past two and a half years. I have probably raised my hand more than everyone else combined in my classes over the course of each semester (this seems to annoy some of my fellow students, but most professors are happy to have someone show some interest). However, the true gift you have given me is the ability to recognize that state of being "off the point" with such immediacy and then come back to focus. The knowledge that it is my choice to learn is the source of the power to do this with such ease.
"For some years now, I have enjoyed reading books that describe the discoveries in the field of physics early in this century, but like many others I stayed away from books with equations in them out of intense fear of mathematics. I realize now that it is the continual choosing to learn that has enabled me to go beyond my fear of math and to enjoy the subject of physics more fully through the very elegance of the equations. Though I do believe we can use this yoga to learn any subject, the ease with which I could apply your method to math and physics may imply that these subjects have certain qualities in common with the study of Sanskrit. Both mathematical truths and the energy that makes up this universe simply exist and can be discovered, just as the truth that exists within us can be discovered through the Sanskrit language. Although these subjects are highly developed and therefore complex, none are contrived. By "not contrived" I mean that they are revealed to us, and not engineered by us. There is a purity, a simplicity even, that pervades the complexity . . ."