Essence of True Learning

Neerja Arun, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
English Department
Bhavan’s Arts and Commerce College,
affiliated with Gujarat University, India.
E-mail:  aayusharun@yahoo.co.in

Preamble

Learning is an inner function, and though the sources of information may lie outside ourselves, the way these sources are processed and observed depends on what is within. This truth was well understood in the Upanishads, which are dialogues between a teacher and a student or between a questioner seeking knowledge and a sear. The Upanishads are regarded as part of the Vedas and, as such, form part of the oldest Hindu scriptures. They primarily discuss philosophy, meditation, and the nature of God; they form the core spiritual thought of Vedantic Hinduism. Considered as mystic or spiritual contemplations of the Vedas, their putative end and essence, the Upanishads are known as Vedānta (“the end/culmination of the Vedas”).The word “Upanishad” means to sit by the side and, hence, all Upanishads are the teachers’ attempts to bring out the knowledge from within the student by creating awareness and then building on it to carry the student forward:

A householder asked the Sage, “What is it that, when known, makes us know everything in the World?”

The Sage replied, “Those who know Spirit say that there are two kinds of knowledge, a lower and a higher. The lower is the knowledge of four Vedas and such things as pronunciation, ceremonials, grammar, etymology, poetry, astronomy... The higher knowledge is the knowledge of the Everlasting.” (Purohit 8)

Aspirations

Even those who give a thought to the process of learning are generally preoccupied with lower learning rather than higher. This article sees the aim of education as twofold: collective and individual. At the collective level, the aim is to make an individual into a good citizen— i.e. a person in harmonious relationship with other members of the community, a person useful to society and one who fulfills his obligations as a citizen. At the individual level, the student expects an educational institution to help her/him develop a strong and healthy body, build her/his character, attain self-mastery and supply her/him opportunities to discover and realize her/his natural abilities.

Both expectations are justified, but it is necessary to understand the relationship between the individual and society and that the aspirations of the two need to mutually harmonize. The human mind tends to emphasize one or the other, and the general current dominant thought is that the individual interest must be subordinated to societal interest. Therefore, the collective aim of education has overshadowed the individual aim, and the chief challenge facing educators is how to fit the individual to the demands of society.

The needs of society are determined by what society thinks it requires at that point in time. For example, at times of war, society may require defense personnel, scientists for arms industries, traders in arms and ammunition, defense strategists and others. Such societal aims are usually determined by the perceptions of the ruling class. If there are powerful patrons of culture, society will produce artists of all kinds. If industrialization is taking place, then the need will be for engineers and technicians.

There were times when family tradition would decide the type of occupation to be followed by the next generation. Most of the time it was in the line of family tradition or family business only, popularly known as hereditary trades. With the change there are less obvious societal influences on individuals. For example, if competition is a cherished value of society, a person may be thrown into the corporate jungle after completing higher education primarily on his own resources and with whatever help he can get from family and friends. This is also because a paradigm shift has taken place from hereditary trades to the freedom of choice for the individual. The price for it, choosing trade not on the basis of family tradition but out of individual liking, is greater insecurity and consequent mental tension.

Gone are the times when occupation was selected according to the field of individual choice. Modern times have seen selection of occupation on the basis of earning large wealth in shorter time; whether the occupation suits one’s liking or not became secondary. This is, perhaps, because money has come to play a vital role in modern society.  For example, in a technologically driven society, the greater the investment in research and development, the greater the number of scientific discoveries and inventions translate into increased productivity and creation of wealth. In such a society, money has become an indispensable condition of material achievement and the benchmark of success. The same money has also become a corrupting agent because it is not always the most honest and capable who get the greatest share of it but often it is the clever and the crafty.

Education is supposed to provide the intellectual elite for society and mold the individual and society through them but, in fact, systems of education and society influence each other. Since modern education is also a means of upward mobility in society, it leads to a race for marketable degrees rather than for real knowledge and much less wisdom.

Attainment

But even our acquiring of this lower learning is defective, because we mistake learning to be the acquisition of information. However, information is obtained from outside, but it is only what is within us that sheds the light of understanding on it. The word “education” itself means to draw out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education). Plato also pointed to the same truth when he said that education and knowledge is through remembrance (http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/history-of-philosophy/plato.asp). What is imbedded or secreted within is brought to the light—the light of the physical mind that is imbedded or secreted within, what one already possesses in the being and inner consciousness. Acquisition is not education. Indeed, a miser is not a rich man; rich is he who knows how to utilize his wealth.  Even so, a possessor of much information is only a carrier of loads.

According to the social sciences, there are three strands to learning: 1) to be competent; 2) to be engaged; 3) to be ethical.  Competence embraces development of skills, a critical capacity to think, ability to identify problems and suggest solutions. But what is competence itself? It is redefined continuously from one generation to another, according to the changing conditions of the world, advances in science and technology, and the general rise in human expectations.

However, skills can be seen as fundamental, in spite of changing requirements of capacity, like the ability to read and write, proficiency in mathematics, an understanding of scientific thought and theory, and a historical consciousness. But even these get redefined with technological advances. Today knowledge can be accessed through sources not known before, from simple classrooms to a thousand different sites on the computer screen. In fact, so much information is now available that sorting, evaluating and judging it has become a critical task.

The other side to the advancement in acquiring information is that learning institutions have lost their primacy as sources of information. A person does not need a college education to gain knowledge, as most of the facts about life cannot be learned from just books; education in a liberal arts college not only teaches facts but trains the mind to think beyond the monotonous style of teaching and learning.

Engagement can be defined as the capacity of knowledge to change or transform society. While personal growth and fulfillment may be the fundamental objects of learning, human beings being social creatures naturally look outwards. The change that we seek to bring about is usually concerned with improving living standards, but that cannot be the only aim of education—not even the most fundamental one. Today, under all the glitz, “there is a genuine sense of searching. The older verities have lost their hold, and a society that is essentially rootless and ephemeral lacks the structure to build a meaningful life. This accounts for the rebirth of very structured and conservative movements. It is a sign of the spiritual emptiness that people feel. They are searching for greater clarity and security” (Gupta 32).

The desire for good and the search for truth are real and active components of every human life. Hence, morality is not to add something to human beings, but the act of coming to consciousness, and education is the vehicle to create conditions for it. Educational institutions must devise means to produce not just technologically competent individuals but also ethical beings. J. Krishnamurti has attempted to sketch what should be the aim of educational institutions. Most educational institutions all over the world produce specialists – technicians, scientists, educators and others. However, these specialists are not capable of meeting the enormously complex challenge of life, although they are supposed to provide leadership. The problem is that they are all responding to immediate problems while a long view of the challenges has also to be taken simultaneously. The function of education is to bring about a mind that can go beyond the immediate. As J. Krishnamurti points out:

The world is not only all that surrounds us, it is also our relationship to all these things and people, to ourselves, to ideas. That is, our relationship to property, to people, to concepts – in fact, our relationship to the stream of events we call life. This is the world. We see division into nationalities, into religious, economic, political, social and [ethnic] groups; the whole world is broken up and is as fragmented outwardly as its human beings are inwardly. In fact, this outer fragmentation is the manifestation of the human being’s inner division. (Khare 21)

Learning, therefore, is not the same as acquisition of knowledge because that amounts to only gathering and storing information. Since education around the world is merely concerned with the acquisition of knowledge, the mind being overloaded with information becomes dull and ceases to learn. The question then arises whether it is possible to develop a mind that simultaneously acquires not only the knowledge needed to live but also constantly learns. This can only happen when education concerns itself with the totality of life and not just with responses to immediate challenges. A person who lives only in the immediate lives a superficial and rather empty life. As Krishnamurti would say, learning is “not only [of] academic subjects” but also the whole of life.

Prospects

The question is what kind of individuals do we want our educational institutions to shape? If there is too much concentration on examinations, on technological information, and on making the child both clever and proficient in acquiring knowledge there will be neglect of the other side. The child will then grow up into a one-sided human being. A complete human being is one with inward understanding and also a capacity to explore, to examine his inward being, his inward state and the capacity of going beyond it. At the same time he is also someone who is good in what he does outwardly.  The two have to go together. Therefore, real education must take the child up to that state of mind so that when the child completes his education he is well established in goodness, both outwardly and inwardly.

Therefore, educational institutions must not only develop the technological proficiency in a student but must also uncover the deeper layers of his mind. A human being whose inner development is neglected while making him a perfect professional does not just grow into that but is also jealous, angry, frustrated, in despair and overly ambitious. Hence, there is always disorder in society. It may create a great society in which there is immense material wealth and social equality but it need not necessarily be a good society. A good society implies order that is not merely external, like trains running on time or mail efficiently delivered; the order has to be an inner one. Therefore, both technology and the inner life of a human being must be simultaneously and equally developed.  It is the job of the educational institution to unite them. As Krishnamurti says:  “The function of education is to find out how to live differently, not merely to pass exams, to get a degree, become qualified in certain ways. It is to help you to face the world in a totally different, intelligent way, knowing you have to earn a livelihood, knowing all the responsibilities, the miseries of it all” (Krishnamurti 171).

An ethical person recognizes the great potential for good in human life and so tries to cultivate it. It means having profound respect for each person which leaves no room for racism, poverty and exploitation. It is also opposed to dogma and inflexible moral positions. It leads to a realization that sexual preferences, ethnic identity, gender, learning and physical differences have to be accommodated with dignity, because when we reject them we not only sacrifice the dignity of those rejected but of all. We have to always remember that we are not islands unto ourselves but form a part of the great fabric of human activity. Our deepest personal needs remain unmet if the human mind does not rise above the narrow concerns and biases and seek the good of others.

Inner Act

We somehow feel compelled to suppress with great force the inner feeling and voice that reminds us, from time to time, that our true task is some kind of mystical evolution. Why do we do this? Perhaps because to acknowledge it would make most of our political gyrations, battles on grounds of religious dogma, and financial maneuverings not only counter productive but also trivial. Today this quest for ultimate meaning has broken the bound of rationalist movement, as is evident from the amazingly large number of books and magazines on the theme of personal and social change. The desire for meaning in life and fulfillment is growing to be a part of something that is greater than just as. We seek these answers although we know that the reality will not become perfectly clear to us and that our questions will remain unanswered. However, we still embark on the quest, because we are convinced that even our striving makes us grow as human beings.

Perhaps the best description of education is to be found in the Katha-Upanishad:  “Count the links of the chain; worship the triple Fire: knowledge, meditation, patience; the triple-process: evidence, inference, experience; the triple duty: study, concentration, renunciation; understand that everything comes from spirit, that spirit alone is sought and found, attain everlasting peace; mount beyond birth and death” (Purohit 10).

Many view the concentration on inner growth and development as egocentric and self-centered, but there are others who recognize the moral idea that lies behind this commitment to inner growth and evolution, which is a picture of what a better or higher mode of life would be, where “better” and “higher” are defined not in terms of what we happen to desire or need but offer a standard of what we ought to desire. For many, this ideal involves a pursuit of meaning; for others, it is the need to become authentic, to define ourselves as true to one’s own originality. It is only through authenticity that we become better equipped to create harmony in ourselves and in others. Paradoxical though it may sound, personal change leads to social change, because those who undergo personal change bring their ideas and vision into the mainstream of society.

If we really do have a capacity to develop psychologically toward greater integration, consciousness and wholeness, it means we have a capacity to develop not just horizontally, as in the expansion of knowledge and skills, but also vertically, as in the evolution and transcendence of ourselves, our perspectives and world views. Vertical education for transcendence and integration moves beyond horizontal expansion, and through its challenges and support of growth and development, promotes those processes of integration and transformation.

In institutions of higher education, there is considerable experience in addressing development along the horizontal plane but very little on how to develop along the vertical plane. Universities have not had issues of spirituality, transformation, and transcendence on their agenda. Educators themselves are not ready to accept that spiritual strivings and personal transformation are part of the challenge of higher education. Many see it as self-indulgence or are wary of supporting moral ideas outside their sphere of work. Also, in the age of computation and measurable outcomes, education that attends to personal transformation is at odds with education that promotes observable knowledgeable skills. Successful programs on the vertical plane would require adult educators who themselves are on the development path of the transformation of the self.

Final word

Students often have well-worked out career-related goals, but the inner dissatisfaction and groping arise out of a need to know more about themselves and develop their own selves. Themes of meaning, spirituality, and human consciousness need to be given a place. Educators tend to get too involved in extrinsic aspects of motivation and miss the intrinsic goal, which is to foster human qualities that would contribute to the functioning of the whole integrated personality. Hence, a more central place needs to be given to self-development and consciousness studies in education through different courses, conferences, symposia and study groups.

Another important task would be to create opportunities for self-reflection. It is important to be consciously self-reflective, aware of the way our organs register information and how we can direct and control our experiences. A brief moment occurs, if we can train ourselves to be aware of it, between the stimulus and our response to it, which can be used for self-reflection. With self-reflection we begin to write our own program for action—it is to be proactive in a very specific way, because then we stop reacting, we get a moment to reflect on our own action, and we figure out whether we are contributing to our own problems.

If educational institutions can teach us to view ourselves to become witnesses to our own thoughts and actions and to have the honesty and courage to act dispassionately apart from making us technologically proficient, they will impact society in a way so as to create a better and more humane world for all to live in.  Educational institutions would then have attained their true goal both for the individual and the collective.

References

Gupta, Nolini Kanta.  Education as the Growth of Consciousness: Dimensions of Spiritual Education.  Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Society.  1974. 2nd ed. 1996.

Khare, Brij B.  Presented by Things of the Mind, J. Krishnamurti.  Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1988.

Krishnamurti, J.  Beginnings of Learning.  London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1975.

Purohit Swami, Shree and W. B. Yeats, trans.  “Katha-Upanishad”.  Ten Principal Upanishads.  Vol. III, No. 3.  Ed. Ruikmini Sekhar.  New Delhi:  A Spic Macay Publication, 1995.

- - - - - .  “Mundeka-Upanishad”.  Ten Principal Upanishads.  Vol. III, No. 3.  Ed. Ruikmini Sekhar.  New Delhi:  A Spic Macay Publication, 1995.

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