Theos-Talk Archives (December 2003 Message tt00020)

Hallo Dallas and all of you,

My views are:

I think the questions you presented in the below are interesting and have
value.

1. One of them derserves to be dealt with though.

Dallas wrote:
---"I would agree that answering the question: " How do you learn how to
learn ?" is not easy.

But why ought we to even inquire into that?"---

My answer:
But Dallas - if you keep asking like that you will never learn anything
of spiritual value. Or you will most certainly waste your time in your
attempt to
avoid this inquiry.

Take a look at the following email "A currciculum of a School", which I
posted
at Theos-Talk some days ago:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/12810

By reading the above linked email the reader will
problably better understand the importance of the question
"How do you learn how to learn?"

2. I agree, that there are obstacles to a learning process.

Here are some of them:

a) There are our prejudice on spiritual matters. Those
we are aware of, and those we are not aware of yet or
those which we have a glimpse of from time to time.
There are also the prejudice we have forgotten about and
certain parts of the aura's soft spots and the habit-related
egoistical fragments.
b) There are our level of consciousness, our type of character
and the circumstances involved - i.e. the time, place, people and
circumstances - including the Teacher (the one who communicates) and the
Pupil
(the one who receives). Just like in the Upanishads.
c) There is the beginners - WANTS about what to learn
even if those WANTS are not what is - important to the beginner
at the moment. The wise Teacher knows this.
There is the spiritual - Want - of the beginner on the one hand and
there is the Knowledge of the spiritual Need on the other.
d) There is the beginners - opinion - that one only absorb
certain teachings by one mode of learning. The beginner do not
realise, that spiritual learning on Wisdom , which are adapted
to time place and people etc...cannot afford to learn by only
one mode of learning or by a narrowminded
thinking-pattern.
The beginners superficial thinking-pattern on this
issue are an obstacle.
e) The theosophical Seekers ignorance about what
litterature is relevant and what is not - and when.
Try this link on "Characteristics of Theosophical litterature"
which I emailed some days back.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/12917

If some of you go through the shelves at your loacl theosophical
libraries. You will find, that many of them has a wide range of litterature.
But you will also find - if you read the above link of mine -
that it is of a narrow kind - and that there are limits to what subjects
are being dealt with as theosophical by the library it self.
Of course many libraries are filled to the brimm.
And interestingly many of these libraries has books which
will come as an surprose to many newcomers. Some books are
even irrelevant at first sight. Some are irrlevant - because they
are not understood by the Seeker.

f) Leaning by books are not the only method. There are other methods.
Othetrs learn by having a job or learn much better at another place than
a dead-letter Theosophical Blavatsky-related one.
And they learn much more at the other place than
at the local theosophical - tea and talk group. If it wasn't for this fact
theosophy would problably look quite different today.

g) Massmedias versus Learning by watching nature.
Just sit and watch the cows in the fields. And look how they almost
look human. And look at where they differ from us.
Look at their peaceful diet.
And the rabbits. I do love those small creatures.
Have a look at them and their lack of worry. What they eat and why.
Sometimes they eat a certain plants because it secures themselves
against being sick. We humans do not even know what to eat
these days - in our masssmedia society.
We, the humans don't even know how to breathe fresh air and when
to get out of town or stay away like the animals do !

Being in town or out of town - and When - is an interesting science.
Being into theosophy or being out of it is also another topic of interest.
It is not membership or not which is important - but time place and people.
It is not the forms which are important, but the formless - the divine life.
The true theosophist lives IN the world - and is NOT OF the world.
The true theosophist are from another world.

h) The cultural obstacles and how to remove the husks
Encouraging the local Theosophical School to meet a
Middle Eastern Imam - and muslim Priest as a part of a teaching
situation is of course also out of the question - appearntly
in certain Bailey circles.
--- Of course certain Imam will encourage prejudice
others will remove it. And that will be the learning process, that
this does not happen - or - that it does. ---

There are other subject of learning and I could continue writing...

Did this help ?

from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...and a huge smile...




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dallas TenBroeck" <dalval14@earthlink.net>
To: "AA-BN--Study" <study@blavatsky.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 10:54 AM
Subject: Theos-World RE: How do you learn how to learn ?


December 2, 2003


Dear Friends:


A good question: " How do you learn how to learn ?"


Observation:

1 We are all born in a many phased environment. We continually
interact with people and things, natural events and accidents, as we
live our days. Why?

2 We are either curious about it or we are indifferent to it. Why
is this so? What does it imply? Should we do anything about it? Is
learning linked with the continuing of living -- in ourselves, and
elsewhere?

3 Ask: "Why ?" "Why learn anything? Do we already know
something?" Are we not often confronted with our own ignorance (or
limited knowledge) of many things?

4 Is "learning" or the "desire to learn" a desire? What are
possible motives? To learn or not to learn? Are our "moods" connected
with this? Are our "motives" connected with it?

5 Is it a challenge that evokes interest or annoyance at being
disturbed?

6 Is it connected with continuing our life? Or the lives of
others?

7 What value ought to be assigned to "learning?" Are we forced to
learn, always? Is our self-value, and the value that others may place
on us related to our "learning?"

8 Much of our life seems to be involved in the generalized
experience of learning, observation, emulation, improvement over the
past, of which we have memory.

9. In our world we are aware of many levels of learning (wisdom ?)
and many degrees of "achievement." How are learning and thinking
connected with that?

10 Are the concepts of virtue and vice connected with learning, or
with attempts and achievements at thinking?

I would agree that answering the question: " How do you learn how to
learn ?" is not easy.

But why ought we to even inquire into that?

Best wishes,

Dallas

=========================


-----Original Message-----
From: netemara
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 3:48 PM
To:
Subject:: What about the VISIT made to the Golden Temple

--- "Morten Nymann Olesen" ..> wrote:

> Hallo Netemara and all of you,
>
> My views are:
>
> All right then Netemara, let us suppose that you are that wise as
your below email wants the readers to believe.
>
> Then please answer me: How do you learn how to learn ?

Learning comes in many forms. There is learning which is exoteric
and extrinsically motivated and there is learning which is esoteric
(internal) and intrinsically motivated and is the highest order.
Cicero and the wise Romans wrote that the highest form of life on
earth was that of study. The most satisfying life one could live was
to read books, imbibe what one could from them and thus was part
of "The Good Life" which Cicero first coined. I am a Stoic (as in
the religion Stoicism) by nature. It is the basis of all outer
Western religions. And the basis of this religion belongs to the
learned and those who aspire to be learned.

Thanks for asking.
>
> If you can't answer this thoroughly - you will never learn ¨
> me and others anything.
>
> To Netemara:

> Do you give out a teaching, which is not adapted towards
> time, place and people ?

I give out universal teachings.

> Or do you give out a teaching, which further - culturally -
conditions the minds of the Seekers after Wisdom and Truth ?

I hope to draw seekers into seeking wisdom and truth.

> Do your versions of the Wisdom teachings give the aspirant a world
view ?

CUT





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