The art and science of Learning
A westerner asked me once why
you Indians celebrate too many festivals.
He asked me to
explain in a way that he can easily understand and convey to his children too "What
is Vijayadasami?"
I said it is a
sort acknowledging, accepting, and celebrating the 'Concept of Learning the
art and science of Learning'.
Learning about
life in all its splendours and living a life of learning with all its
aspects through various symbolic ways and different ways of worship etc.
A sort of Valentine's Day for
Learning.
The romance and joy of
learning. Vijaya Dasami.
I have read even one interpretation of Rigveda by a well-known
scientist and a great follower of Shri Aurobindo wherein he
writes Saraswathi refers symbolically to the physiological flow of
fluids in brain which contribute to the abilities of perception.
So, let us try to learn humbly
from the works of scholars something about brain, mind, and human limitation of
using them and the limitations of intellect itself to understand, interpret and
determine everything concerned with human life.
The greatest paradox is that
the human mind can explore, experiment, and execute extraordinary things
and at the same time is also incapable of dealing with very ordinary things.
The following
links which I wrote and some reproduced at different times to throw light on
the various facets of the working of human brain.
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2016/05/brains.html?m=0
Learning starts
out of curiosity; saunters through imitation and limitation; steps into
conscious observation and stops to savour into expressing whatever is
learnt through some medium and in some way.
Ironically the very process of excessive spawning of multitude of
expressions through social media throws up enormous variety which extinguish oversimplification
and over generalization and renders orchestration of mass opinion ineffective.
Though all
opinions emanating from or through social media need not be sane
or sublime but nonetheless give room for everyone to express what they want and
that is perhaps the very reason for its popularity.
I believe in and
relish gathering knowledge and learning from sources emanating from a wide
spectrum of individuals some internationally renowned spiritual leaders,
scientists, unsung and unnoticed heroes, because I follow many things and
put them all in the cauldron of desultory hobbies whose contents and
ingredients change with every dawn as I have weakness of enjoying many
wonderful things that life offers, the many colours and fragrance of multiple splendours
of nature like the butterfly that hops from flower to flower and like the
butter fly, I feel they do play a very important role in evolution of life.
" God is UNITY but always works in VARIETY" RALPH W.EMERSON
Hurdles to
learning.
The criticisms and suggestions
that we encounter may be very nice and useful but unfortunately not
implementable in all regions or societies, especially weaning away some of them
from entrenched religious doctrine oriented traditions and
excessive adoration of the past etc.
As proposing and penetration of new ideas and systems becomes tougher in
terrains occupied by luddites of various hues and colours like status quo
addicts, confirmation bias admirers and venerators of their own past tinged
with inherent insecure xenophobic reactions. These are hurdles to learning.
But sooner or later the
inevitable changes will inundate life as a part of evolution beyond and despite
all resistances.
We should welcome articles in the realms of socio-political economics into
categories like the unexplored, worth exploring and the unknown to bring in a
big pool of idea bank from which the administrators can choose their cup of
tea.
Social Media Knowledge and understanding
Of late there has been lot of
debates about lack of understanding and more knowledge in the social media.
It is good and incidentally
several years back Aldous Huxley wrote a wonderful but long essay on this topic
‘Knowledge and Understanding’ and surprisingly one may find a pdf of half
the essay in Sri Ramankrishna Mission site.
Coming back
to the subject.
It has become
normal to confuse information for knowledge.
Knowledge for
experience and thought.
Ideas
formulated based on these for wisdom.
The problem is as these may
inadvertently lead to an arrogance which may create unassailable prejudice,
petrified presumption and start projecting what we know or think we know or
presume as some great piece of tool or panacea to decipher the puzzle of life.
The most important facts of
humility are that our perception or understanding based on whatever may
be the source of knowledge my be inadequate or could be defective or at least may
not be totally prefect and therefore there is nothing that can be construed as
a panacea in this world.
Education is the enlightened awareness and
acceptance of facts of inevitable evolution of everything and experiencing life
as a flow.
Either all
or some of them as they emerge through the churning process of life where they
express the multiple dimensions of everything and the various dynamics of each
dimension emanating from inherent attributes as well as a reaction to external
impacts.
Life is an unmapped atlas where we are not even
sure whether all pieces of the jigsaw puzzles are there to create a shape.
Lot depends on proceeding on unbiased observations
beyond or besides or if necessary, even without existing loads of knowledge
because the existing bunch of knowledge could also act as a conditioning factor
if we are not alert and totally divert our understanding of anyone or anything.
Besides all these there are also factors like
our attitudes towards multiple interpretations, ideological identity-based
inhibitions to accept certain things, attitudes, and overall perspective
towards what we encounter etc.
That is why it becomes a necessity to not to
take on extreme positions in anything and instead maintain a balanced view.
Extreme positions can blur the view from seeing the
multiple possibilities that may exist everywhere.
Phenella writes in “The
Unwritten Comedy”.
“To be ignorant of many things is expected
To know you are ignorant of many things is the
beginning of wisdom.
To know a category of things of which you are
ignorant is the beginning of learning.
To know the details of that category of things
of which you are ignorant is to no longer be ignorant.”
“Everything changes as you move through three
stages of awareness:
first, that beliefs are the result of conditions;
second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions;
and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions.”
― Eric Micha'el Leventhal
“All of us have our own inner fears, beliefs,
opinions. These inner assumptions rule and govern our lives. A suggestion has
no power in and of itself. Its power arises from the fact that you accept it
mentally.”
― Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
We, most of us, swing as a pendulum between excuses
and justifications with a keenness to convince others and end up coming with
answers like these: - A tourist guide who,
when once, a lady asked him “How a row of fine rock formation was piled up”,
said “they have been piled up here by the glaciers”. When she anxiously asked
him “Where are the glaciers?” he replied “Madam, they have gone back to get
some more rocks”. Such replies are often the result of ignorance, half-knowledge,
or impatience or all of these.
The problem with human beings unlike other species
is that we are consciously aware, and we can also collect, store, and retrieve
data and reuse them. This faculty along with our intellectual thinking and
reasoning powers hamper us from having humility to accept the mere fact that
there are many unknown as well as unknowable elements to life as a whole and
even in our individual lives.
We either act or react according to what we want,
what we can and what we are destined to. At different times either one of these
three predominates i.e., what we want, we can we are destined to do.
Knowledge,
Information, Thoughts, Ideas and Teachings are ingredients,
Understanding
is making them into a tasty, cooked food,
Grasping and
Interpretations are the utensils used for cooking,
Learning is
the process of cooking a tasty, easily digestible, nutritious food.
Evolution of civilization as well as sophistication
of civilized evolution both depend on adaptation, adjustments, accommodation,
and assimilation of multiple ways of life and valuing
the variety and virtue of variety passed onto us down the ages through
various mediums, the first most effective and, perhaps the chief among them
being books which recorded the sounds, spoken words, thoughts, ideas, and
events. Both our individual self and social self are shaped by how we
largely relate with others, things, and our overall circumstances and how our
contexts relate with us.
Life is after all not mere
chronology of existence but a meaningful topology of relationships.
Life is not confined to and carried on within the
matrix of mind and matter, but it creatively works through communicating the
connectivity between these two and how these two relate with everyone and
everything.
Actually, a greater number of people read more
topics on various platforms starting from print media like newspapers,
pamphlets, text books, books of various genres to heavy reading through
electronic media in the form of mails, social media messages, E-books etc.
But then, what must be known really is:-
What they read?
Why they read?
How they read?
How they use or benefit from what they read?
How much they read?
The answer to the above questions will
provide information that may enable us to
know about the interests and intentions; to
understand the influence and impact; to
grasp the intrinsic importance; to
interpret the importance of intrinsic
values; to entertain with
imaginations; to indoctrinate through
injecting sensational ideas and sensitive and biased judgmental opinions ;
gradually to educate everyone to
evaluate [with contextual relevance] the utility or futility
of all that is being read; to discern , to
observe intelligently; to achieve academic
excellence ; to learn to
internalize great ideas and instructions; to
expand the spectrum of our conscious
awareness wider to perceive with
philosophical perspective; to peruse everything with ‘proper measurements’
and finally to enlighten us to
engage in creating in a scholarly, scientific and sane
way with a sense of responsibility and sense
of balance the sources of synergy through creative
and effective communication.
Certain terms have been underlined and rendered in
bold letters [almost as a wordle] because they are in fact the preferred and
prioritized outcomes of most readings and book centric learning.
We all must humbly accept that we learnt some or all
the above underlined aspects; or still in the process of learning or perfecting
or enhancing the quality and quantity of what we have already learnt.
It was mostly through our reading them in books or
listening to and learning from those who have read and passed them on. Learning
is a lifelong process.
So, as Dani Johnson says,
“Never stop being teachable. If you think you know everything, you will never
learn anything.”
Inquisitiveness and inquiry
are the eternal springs of human psyche, and it is through this stream that
flows from the springs that traces of ignorance are washed away.
Writer/creators of other art
forms are humble, curious, and unbiased observers of synergy and synthesis,
either occurring as an aspect of evolution or consciously effected through a
culture of compassion, that enable to understand better the inter connectivity,
interrelatedness, and interdependence of living as a whole.
Reality and the real reasons
of life or living are not uniform or predefined and hence, are not that easy to
grasp because besides what has been stated above life is involved in the
constant process of churning called living which is dynamic in the cauldron of
social life [ the multiple shapes , size, and material of which this
cauldron is made of is also not fully known].
Add to these what is
the kirn- staff or churning stick [that is evaluation tool used to churn]
is also not known.
So, reality is reality
with all its multiple facets and faces; dimensions and dynamics;
polarities and probabilities; positives and negatives; victors
and victims and so on.
We try to grasp it, give it
various names depending on how we perceive and relate based on our attitudes
and perspectives.
After all life is a
constant process of learning and adjustment wherein, we can neither deny nor
defy the importance of anything or anyone.
Evolution goes
about its jobs unmindful of whatever we do or do not do, that decides and determines everything including
our birth and death as biochemical organisms which are bound to decay or to die
or to reorganize or to be reborn or to recreate into something else eventually.
While innards and inherent
qualities are inevitable and beyond our choice, at least, our utilization of
strengths /reactions to shortcomings can be sane and more sensible in short,
our MINDSET, and that is what must be the attempt of any subject,
be it philosophy, spiritual science, or pure science.
Evolution has
ensured that human beings as a species have moved from kuru disease
contacting cannibals to cyber gurus.
So, it becomes obvious that we
cannot analyse anything through any templates of ideological fixations or
subject it to satisfy socio- political or socio-cultural or religious
justifications.
We must also know that
everything has its own inherent attributes, intrinsic values, internal mechanism,
and logic for its existence besides, beyond, exclusive of and unmindful of
human intellectual justifications, acceptance, acknowledgement, social or
religious approvals, political support and therefore, it is purely absurd to
extrapolate anything with specific ideological fixations.
Education and learning are not confined to classrooms.
With schools and colleges closed during Covid many
talking of missing learning and education!!!
We tend to not only visualize, verbalize but also
conceptualize and resort to a presumptive stereotyping a whole lot of terms
which are in a wordle with one big aspect of life called ‘education’ like: -
classroom, academic qualification, institutions, teachers, communication
skills, knowledge, understanding, learning etc.
Though every one of these terms may be part of
learning and education, if we zoom any specific part as representing the whole,
then we may be doing injustice to learning and enfeebling the enormity of
education.
We must know and understand that learning is
neither confined to classrooms nor is it limited to being of some service to
others at home or office nor is it confined to mere academic excellence and so
on, rather beyond and besides these learnings and EDUCATION must
Evolve to
experience, to experiment, to explore, to evaluate and to get enlightened,
Develop
discretionary skills to decide, to decipher the different dimensions and
dynamics of life.
Understand the
underlying causes and unravel the characteristics of as many things as
possible.
Create confidence
and clarity to connect with contextual relevance and communicate effectively.
Accommodate all
possible and relevant frames of references to analyze all things beyond mere
academics.
Think beyond and
besides time tested templates and to tread beyond trends, taboos, and
traditions.
Internalize
intrinsically important values and interpret in tune with inherent attributes
and contextual relevance.
Open the horizon of
opportunities with open mindedness and synergy to seamlessly,
Nurture the natural
interrelatedness, interconnectivity and interdependence of everything and
everyone.
With closure of educational institutions many have
been discussing about how to make children learn as if classroom is the only
place of learning.
In my honest opinion learning
happens mainly: -
Out of curiosity generated observation and listening.
Out of impulse to imitate what or whom we consider
as interesting and appealing.
Out of fear and/or love through the manifestation
of these emotions, with varying degrees of intensities like obligations,
rewards, punishments, likings and so on.
So, that way almost 90% plus real learning happens
only outside the classroom and besides the syllabus.
However, basic literacy to enable one to learn in a
systematic manner or methods or processes may be imparted inside the classroom.
Classrooms can at best instil, motivate, and direct
to get informed, acquire knowledge, indicate the methods of understanding and
allow individuals to explore the possibilities of interpretations without
restricting the number of or range of frames of references.
Some unique features of human species over the rest
like conscious awareness and ability to internalize are very useful tools to
learn better, more and use whatever one has learnt.
In our
enthusiasm to promote certain technological advancements let us not belittle
human activities
Childhood's
treasury of learnings .
Innocent
curiosity, intense observations, playful imitations, delicious daydreams,
incredible imaginations, far-fetched fantasies are part of childhood's
treasury of learnings which get any normal child's mind instantly involved,
intensely internalized but everything without any obligation and hangover.
Learning meanders through all of these are we grow.
As one grows
the acquired knowledge, accumulated thoughts, acquired or adopted biases,
impulses, instincts, intuitions, various levels of understanding, experience
gained through churning of life in all its actions, interactions, reactions and
so on , most of these calibrated and
lead to conditioning through
the ideological, religious, political and socio-cultural milieu-based
influences and impacts. There are components of Collaborative
intelligence, Creative intelligence, Existential
intelligence, Intrapersonal intelligence, Naturalistic
intelligence, Emotional intelligence, Interpersonal
intelligence, Musical intelligence, Body-kinaesthetic
intelligence, Linguistic intelligence, Logical-mathematical
intelligence, Scientific intelligence, Spiritual
intelligence, Spatial intelligence, Predictive intelligence, Visualization intelligence, Conceptualizing intelligence, Philosophical
enquiring intelligence to seek
meanings and grasp the unknown and vaguely perceived aspects of life etc.
In addition, we have as part of all the above or existing besides all
the above critical thinking, analysis, and creativity all of which
manifest in the process of learning, understanding and expressions.
All
influence and impact our perceptions and perspectives; ideas, identity and
interpretations; extrapolations and expressions; reasoning, excuses,
justifications and our conceptualization of ideals.
Almost all of these are parts of overall
learning, understanding, and thinking. Each one may manifest in various
degrees at different times or in different topics and situations.
So, human intelligence as a whole or even parts of it cannot be
over simplified, over generalized, and not at all be homogenized.
Hence, cannot
be replaced through any short cut methods or means or tweaked through any of
the much-hyped technologies or software though they may help
in speeding up lot of repetitive, routine, mundane tasks and manual work
and spatially shrink expanse of area of monitoring etc.
Gather knowledge from as many sources as possible-like a butterfly that
hops from flower to flower.
I have without any exaggeration more than 1000
books and articles all very interesting, factual, sane, superb, and most
importantly highly scientific on different types of craving of the human body
physically, emotionally, and psychologically and most of which are the result
of explainable but not necessarily easily controllable and/or correctable.
However, evolution, as it must and as it does
always, either with or without our active participation or defective
indifference, keeps exploring, expressing the secrets through some unprejudiced
probing souls or enlightened wise spiritual beings. Surprisingly many things
that happen to us or that we make to happen are decided by many factors, but of
these at least some are determined by certain hormones and genes and are
scientifically provable but yet only some scientists and only certain quarters
of knowledge hubs make them known or available as the rest are curled up in
their comfort zone of narrow spectrum which sometimes is eulogized as focus and
specialization. Life when perceived however well through any micro analysis
will miss the overall splendour of macro view.
Certain facts of science which are very important to know and interesting to
know are therefore left uncommunicated and later on when that causes problems,
we regret why we did not know.
Knowledge is power but blocked knowledge is
dangerous.
For example, it is the genetic makeup that would
kill pregnant chettiyar community women if she is administered scoline because
one of the 24 sects of Chettiyars, are fatally allergic to this anaesthetic
administration. Multanis in Pakistan, certain tribes of across the globe this
defect.
One of the major objectives of learning is to
acquire WISDOM
Facets of Universal WISDOM
Universal wisdom may
be like this whether sanctioned or sanctified by either social mores or
religious morality.
Wisdom is the workshop
where works of evolutionary trends and experiences of everyone in it emerge to
express wisely the essence of everything to enlighten everyone.
A wisdom which
prioritizes living in the present context and along with practicing certain time-tested
values which have relevance in present context but with global perspective to
bequeath a liveable planet, a lovable society with lovely infrastructures and
improved living conditions;
A wisdom that evaluates everything and everyone with contextual
relevance and based on the inherent attributes or merits of what or who is
being evaluated without extrapolating any presumptions, opinions,
judgments, perceptions, expectations, ideologies, doctrines, identity-based
ideology and so on.
A wisdom which is
willing to make minor adjustments, small compromises, spontaneous
cooperation to create compatible and conducive atmosphere with humility devoid
of any egocentric pride.
A wisdom with the
realization and a perspective that must be aware that life is a constant
process of learning of the multiple dimensions of many things and the various
dynamics of those dimensions involving the constant interaction and interrelationship
with everyone and everything.
A wisdom that is
willing to accommodate multiple methods or means of life with some overall
tolerant attitude embedded on humanitarian concerns towards all human life and environmental
or natural concern towards all other species.
A wisdom that gets
its clarity of understanding through a churning process that takes into
consideration several aspects from the practical to the philosophical to all
fantasies of the mind.
Probably, in brief, we may
summarize in a A to Z free verse format as follows.
Learning involves:-
Assimilating to ameliorate awareness
and avidness to access knowledge.
Building a bigger bank of ideas beyond
blinkered biases and beliefs.
Childlike curiosity that observes without
the carry bag of conditioning.
Developing diligent discretions to
decipher in depth dynamics of differences.
Exploring, experimenting, expressing,
and evaluating everything as it evolves.
Facing facts to follow the flow of
facets of functional life further from fixations.
Grasping
great ideals to grow out of ideologies of identities
and grow up.
Harbouring
humility and hopes in heart and head with humanitarian
values.
Imbibing imitations, inspirations, imaginations-all
ingredients of intelligence.
Journeying inwards and joining outward knowledge
to create a judicious mix.
Keeping keenness to know the kaleidoscopic
kingdom of knowledge.
Living life with lateral thinking and lively
engagement in listening.
Measuring meaningfully and mapping the
world of mind and matter.
Noticing nuances and necessities of
living in the now in tune with nature.
Operating with open mindedness to obtain optimum
outcomes of opportunities.
Perceiving to prioritize, to plan, and to
philosophically face life’s problems.
Questioning to qualify to quantify the quests
to lead a life of high quality.
Researching to revisit, to reason and to review
how we relate with all.
Seeking
to synergize with sense of balance scientific temper in society.
Thinking beyond templates
to tread through trends, taboos, and traditions.
Understanding the unexplored to unravel unknown universe of things.
Valuing variety
and various hues of life.
Widening the wisdom
to know the worth of ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ of life.
X-raying in and x-axially
to expand our vision.
Yoking the yin
and yang to get what we yearn for .
Zero in on the zeitgeist
of the present times.
