Reading and Listening Won't Help

"Meditation is greater than lectures on spirituality. Those polished words are like the delicious food you read about in a cookbook. If you want to keep reading the cookbook and don't cook anything, you will starve to death. That is what people do in spirituality. They go on and on reading books; they don't make the food. Just by reading and reading and listening and listening, you won't attain anything. You should meditate. Meditating is like cooking delicious food; very delicious food is created within you. These days people mainly give talks and seldom act. In Vedanta, there is a saying that a person who just keeps talking is like a ladle that doesn't know the taste of Khir, a sweet Indian pudding. Khir is served with a long wooden spoon. The spoon makes noise when it serves people. It says, "Take this Khir, take this Khir, take this Khir" It itself doesn't know the taste of Khir, but it tells everyone else to take the Khir. That is what happens when people talk too much about spirituality. They don't get the taste of what they are talking about. Some speak little and listen a little and then you can do a lot. If you spend all your time talking and listening, what do you get? Nothing in your hand."

Source: pg. 58, I have Become Alive by Swami Muktananda