THE PROCESS OF TRUE LEARNING -1
You see now, dear reader, to know that one doesn’t know is also a great thing because in that act your brain centers are receptive . When you are saying truthfully – “I do not know “, you are actually saying ‘ I want to know ‘, ‘ I will know ‘ and then the whole earth is yours to see, to know, to discover, to play with, experiment with as you please. This is the secret of learning, this is what happened and happens to great visionaries whether they are scientists, inventors artists, politicians, philosophers, cricketers, mothers whatever.
To be real and true is to see and use your brain but then really use it as a tool to know and discover NOT use it to memorize and recall and get marks. Yes! You are not a computer but a human being and now you will accept it if I say that the greatest fallacy, the greatest myth is that some are intelligent and others dull. To be born as a human being is to possess the power to look, see, know, feel, think, discover. If you didn’t have that power, you would not be all !
It is only this that explains a Newton , an Aristotle , a Socrates, a Buddha, a Kalpana Chawla…..
Whatever they saw, they saw and then they were not the same!
Have you observed their psychology? They are childlike, humble, as if they were noting! They did astounding things but to them it was simple and it really was because it was real and true, and their brains were on and they were not blind.
You see, blindness is not just of the eyes, it also pertains to the 99% of people who do not know and do not see even one thing with their own eyes, minds & hearts!
This too is a wonder!
This explains all problems of the world, doesn’t it?
There is no problem on earth but this and it is not a problem as such; it is plain, impotent, worthless ignorance, a plain nothingness and hence terrible suffering.
Not to know, not to have discovered the process and power of true learning is the most pitiable thing. True learning is simple, natural like breathing. At least it should become like that.
Now you might ask me –then what is it that the majority are doing? Don’t they know anything?
They “know “things but for me to explain that, I must bring In the concept called ‘compartmentalized learning’.
You can know physics but not biology (or the reverse) as it happen in the school. This is pretty common. People say “I am good at singing but not painting”, “My son Is good at Maths but poor in physics”.
In work a man says –“I know CAD”, ‘I know C++ “,” I know how to design buildings “and so on. They are even paid for it. A professor says – “My specialty is economics. I know everything about it “And he does, in a manner of speaking.
If you “ know “ physics but not Maths, it means you know physics in a somewhat detached, abstract way and in a disconnected way . You know for example mechanics, heat, light ,etc., separately. You know the formulas and you have accepted the explanation but, you see, such a person has not linked those facts with the whole world, to reality.
He has learnt “heat” but he doesn’t see the “heat“ in things Heat is the phenomenon of energy of atoms inside a body Everything is made up of atoms. You feel it too. If you are sincere and honest, it will stagger your imagination. You will read and get more facts (even from bad books and bad teachers), you will ask further question and think and think and ask and answers will again be got –Dalton’s postulates, discovery of electrons and protons ,Rutherford’s experiments, Bohr’s model etc.
Slowly a picture , almost a story , reality will emerge , the links will starts forming …it will take you slowly to the periodic table , to chemistry, to biology ,to geography ,to applications, to the industrial revolution, to politics etc.
You see a series of questions lead to a greater understanding of the world. One question naturally leads to another and then to another and ultimately you are forced to understand the whole world! This is not a fantasy and we are not talking about details. You will get a basic understanding of the whole world. There are many who have this kind of holistic understanding.
But think! If a person knows only a narrow compartment he has not asked how that particular information has come. He doesn’t know the roots of his knowledge so his knowledge hangs in air and only used as procedures in a narrow domain. To know how to design buildings using ready made formulas is not true knowledge. It is a procedure and you will now understand that such a person cannot go out of a procedure. He can do only that and cannot think beyond that. Of course the procedure is important in practical life but it is delimited and confined and cannot claim to be a deep, wide, powerful knowledge.
So now you understand, most people only know procedures and hence cannot be leaders, that is, cannot hold a wide vision and do wonders. Remember also that a wide knowledge created by somebody leads to procedures ultimately, not the other way round. Somebody has to discover true knowledge so that the majority can then on earn a living through acquiring compartmentalized knowledge.
So now I can answer the question –how to learn? We will see that in the next section.