Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00329)

Hallo all,

My views are:

The following might be helpful to some readers:

Learning and Non-learning

Q: Why is it that so many people read so much and yet are not
changed by it? Can people not absorb theosophical information through
the written word?

A: To learn something, you may have often to be exposed to it
many times, perhaps from different perspectives; and you also
have to give it the kind of attention which will enable you to learn.
In our experience, people fail to learn from theosophical materials for
the same reason that they do not learn other things - they read
selectively.
The things that touch them emotionally, or which they like or
are thrilled by, they will remember or seek in greater quantity
and depth.
Since they are often the last materials which they will problably 
need, and since such an unbalanced attitude towards anything
makes the person in need of balance in his approach, we have the
situation to which you refer.
We may at once admit that cultures or groups which seek to highlight
crudities, things which immediately appeal, and to project them in
attractive forms and endorse and sustain them are unlikely to
produce, on the whole, people with appetites for other than more
of the same thing. But this behaviour will merely perpetuate the
same kind of personality and attitude which created it in the first 
place.
If you have a chocolate cake decorated with say sixteen cherries, and
you gobble up the cherries because you like them, and then want to
know why you have not eaten the cake - what does that make
you? And if I tell you, would you like me?
This is the barrier to surmount. It is crossed by observing it in
action, deciding to surmount it, and taking action to study 
comprehensively and not to pretend to be a student and then wonder
why one has not learned.


from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...

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