Learning How To Learn

The definition of a school is a place in which people who can and wish to learn meet with one or more people who can and wish to teach. It is not a building or a place, the entire planet is a school, or is not, depending on the minds of the people who have come together.

The problem is being able to learn and being able to teach. Everyone thinks they are able and ready to learn about self help, but that is not true in the subject of mystical or personal development. This study requires an understanding then preparation and opening of the mind, first one must learn how to learn before they can learn anything.

Then the teacher must be capable of teaching. This requires decades of personal experience and development, not just study and memorization of intellectual knowledge. A teacher is one who speaks of their own life and how the things they have experienced, studied and practiced have affected them.

A student must learn to open their mind so they are capable of learning what they think they already know. This is the first thing that one must learn, that what they think they know, they do not really know, they only know the surface and thus virtually nothing. The first steps are learning how to open the mind to see and understand things at a level far below the surface, which requires acceptance that all intellectual knowledge is only at the surface level. This is the training the teacher must give.

The teacher can only know how to teach this if they have gone through the same difficulties of thinking they knew, and then being taught how to go deeper. Having gone to deeper levels of exploration, they have walked the path that they can now lead another along.

The training of learning how to learn is in fact the main lesson of knowledge. It is knowledge of ones own mind, how it functions and what prevents one from learning. With this knowledge, every moment of life has the potential to indicate opportunities for growth. This does not mean that we can learn things about ourselves in every situation, which may still be true, but rather, we can learn to understand each situation as it is. In understanding all things as they are, objectively, the students learns about themselves and intellect turns into wisdom.

The teacher cannot teach anything as such. Techniques, exercises and correct conduct can be taught, but knowledge can never be taught, it can only be acquired through experience. This is another thing that a student must learn, that they cannot learn what they seek from a teacher, but only through their own effort.

When a teacher has accepted that he cannot teach the student knowledge, he is free to teach them how to learn. When a student accepts that they cannot learn matters of great knowledge which will change their Being on a deep level, they can begin to learn how to learn.

When both have succeeded, a cup of tea can bring great wisdom. This is the secret power of the simple teaching stories.