Any fool can read The Bible, and many do. Any fool can understand The Bible — it ain’t rocket science — and many do. Practicing the Bible is another matter, and no fool does that.

The Bible is meant to be heard, not read. The ear picks up more knowledge than does the eye. The Bible came into existence as a hearing, not as a writing, after all. The Word of God means, BTW, words God spoke in the hearing of a person, not words God wrote through the agency of a person.

Stats on Bible-reading have little meaning. Stats on Bible-hearing would have much meaning. Stats on Bible-practice would have the most meaning. Yet, the greatest saint would not dare to claim, much less report, that they practice the Bible. Only God can say who practices or understands the Bible.

Remember always that it is easy to do what is pleasant, but it is difficult to be engaged in what is beneficial. Not all that is pleasant is profitable. Success comes to those who give up the path strewn with roses, and brave the hammer-blows and sword thrusts of the path fraught with danger. As a matter of fact, no road is strewn with rose petals. Life is a battlefield, a Dharmakshethra, where duties and desires are always in conflict. Smother the fiery fumes of desire, of hatred and anger that rise up in your hearts; it is sheer cowardice to yield to these enemies that turn you into beasts. When obstacles come, meet them with courage. They harden you, make you tough! The best way to get rid of weakness is to strike at the very taproot of the tree – the mistake that you are the body with this name and this form, these senses, this intelligence and this mind.