[loveliketheflowers]

wow, lots of great advice...

Originally Posted by n_vizion

After listening to the Power of Now, I started to develop control over my mind.
I started by first observing closely the random thoughts that would pop up. Then I eventually could control my thoughts, or lack thereof, whenever necessary. Eventually, I was able to be "in the moment" throughout most of the day. I went from barely being able to finish a book to reading a book in just a few days. The goal is to create control of the mind. But in order to do that you must take away its chaotic nature.

I read that part in the first chapter of "Power of Now". I tried to 'watch the thinker' but when I start to listen to my thoughts, i don't hear anything...but then my thoughts start running again and my mind wanders off of something i was thinking about, a person or a fantasy or a song. i can not get jordan sparks "tattoo" song out of my head! its annoying! how do you really listen to your thougthts consciously, mine seem to hide when i try to catch them....but i will take your adivce and make the goal of trying to take and create control of the mind. how do you take away the chaotic nature really?

Originally Posted by simplystephen

I guess I'll keep this simple - what is your reason for reading? What do you want to gain from it?

good question. i want to read for personal wellness, development, and knowledge. seeking a truth. i want to gain a truth that i know is already there waiting for me to get a hold of in those pages.

Originally Posted by Adrian

I read in a quiet place or a coffeeshop; I mark up my book like crazy (underline, write notes, draw arrows, box things, etc.) and constantly take breaks to think about how I can apply what I'm reading to any other subject. It works fantastically well, and I retain a good 80% of what I read using this method.

good good advice, i'm going to do that. write in the margins...my HS teacher told me to do that, but did i listen...nahh. maybe this time around i will stick to this, seems like a cool game plan. i hope i can comprehend more with this method..

Originally Posted by Power

To be more consciously and efficiently.... the term you need to be aware of is called "Active Reading".

Speed Reading teaches this concept of "Active Reading" because it helps you retain more information and your learning process is actually increased 3-5 folds than normal reading. I will Illustrate this concpet in a minute.

Now, don't confuse yourself that efficient reading is about finishing a book in 2 days and not remembering 50-75% of what's written in the book. In my opinion, it is a lot more better/efficient to recall 75% of the information even if you finished the book in 1 week. But dont worry,... I will explain to you how to recall 75% or more of its information in the shortest amount of time possible.

Normal reading is like driving a car. Can you recall what colour the car infront of you at the red lights? Clearly, you saw the car right infront of you becuase you had to step on the brakes.
How many white cars did you see on the road while driving?.... You are right! you don't know because your attention was not on how many white cars on the road while you were driving.

Normal reading is the same. You can't recall the information because your attention was not on the information, but rather, your attention was simply reading the words on the page. Hence, the term "Active reading" because you simply do not just read the words in a page.

First thing you must know and understand is that all books (apart from technical/manual books) whether how many pages it has, 50-75% of its content is fluff or useless words and information. In a paragraph or sentences, 50-75% of it are words: is, at, the, that,these, how, why, and, or, was, when, were,in, on, to, it, can, etc... So a 100 page will only have 25% useful information written on it. First, just keep this in mind.

Secondly, before you read a book you should have an objective on what you want to learn or your goal of learning in reading the book. Let me ilustrate how powerful this is; Imagine I hand you a book on Budgies. I want you to find out "what do budgies eat?". You got 2 options on how to go about this. You can either read the whole entire book or you simply go to the chapter on "budgies food". Clearly 1 objective, yet one will achieve their goal faster than the other, more consciously and more efficiently.

Active reading is about having a goal or objective before reading a book... what do you want to learn from the book? what are you expecting from the book?
Active reading is also questioning what you read... Is it true? are there any other supporting materials i've read in the past? Does it contradict what I know?

There are more ways on how to read more consciously and more effieciently (and that doesn't necessarily mean you read an entire book in an hour). Fundamentals of reading more consciously and efficiently are covered in most speed reading courses.

Active Reading...very good advice...thank you...


thank you, thank you. greatly appreciated. im going to get to my reading now. and i'm going to just read one book at a time and make an intention that i want to actively read and gain knowledge on how to control my mind and learn more about my Self.