| How to Learn |
| Written by David Bruce Hughes | |||
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(An excerpt from the Effective Study course of the University of Higher Knowledge Bhakta Degree Program) The most important and powerful thing that you can learn is how to learn. Once you know how to learn, you can teach yourself anything that you want to know. This article presents a simple method for teaching yourself any subject so that you can apply it in your life. You would think that the first thing they would teach you in school is how to study. How to learn stuff should be the first thing you learn; then once you know how to learn, you can teach yourself anything you want to know. If you think this makes sense (and it does), then you don't understand how school really works. Here's the truth: the people who manage the educational system don't want you to learn independently; they deliberately make you dependent on the school system so they can teach you what they want you to learn, and to keep you away from the subjects that they don't want you to learn. For example, the Esoteric Teaching. If you doubt this, then you should read up on John Taylor Gatto, a really great teacher who was named a Teacher of the Year in the New York Public School system in 1990. Then they fired him, because he started telling everybody what was really going on behind the scenes, why our schools are such a mess and why they don't really educate their students. On purpose. Gatto revealed that no public school has classes or courses on how to study or how to learn, because their purpose is not to help you learn, it is to train you to be obedient to authority. He documents the design and development of the current educational system, and proves his points from the actual writings of the architects of the public school system. I came to many of the same conclusions by observation and experience a long time ago. In fact, only the very best private schools and colleges like Harvard actually train their students in the scientific methods of how to learn. These are the schools of the social and economic elite, and they want their kids to actually be smart, to actually know how to do stuff, so they can continue their dominance of society. It is assumed that these kids are motivated to be obedient to the system, because they have so much to lose if they are not. So they are given the opportunity to actually become wise, if they so choose. Everybody else is deliberately kept ignorant, and manipulated through the media, financial controls and corporations. Being wise not only means knowing how to learn, it also means knowing how to think for yourself. Most people don't really know how to think; they simply form opinions based on whether they like or dislike something. Thinking is a higher-level skill. Knowing how to learn comes first, because you have to know how to learn before you can teach yourself how to think. And you have to teach yourself how to think, because the very nature of thinking for yourself means that it is one of those things in life that nobody can teach you—you just have to figure out for yourself. I was fortunate to discover the method of actual learning and thinking independently when I was quite young. It helped me teach myself so many things. For example, I learned to play classical music and jazz at a professional level while still in High School. This accomplishment not only gave me a lot of personal satisfaction, but I also got to tour the USA and Canada with the All-USA High School Band, which was great fun. I also learned English, math, chemistry and physics well enough to get a perfect score on my college entrance exams and qualify for a scholarship to engineering school, which I rejected because I wanted to be a musician. But no problem, I was able to put myself through music school by earning money with these skills, and since then have never had any difficulty finding a job. I can just get some books on any subject, sit down and teach myself how to do it in a few days or weeks. So I know what I am talking about here. This is coming from experience, not just theory. Learning how to learnWith the simple methods we present here, you can teach yourself any subject—not just the theory, but a professional level of practical application. All you have to do is apply the method consistently, and you will get the result. It may seem dry and boring at first, or too plodding and intellectual. But I will say it again: if you use this method you can teach yourself to understand and do anything. Anything at all! Of course we would rather that you use it to understand the Esoteric Teaching, but you get my point: just on general principles, everybody should learn how to learn, so they can teach themselves whatever they want to know.This method has three parts:
Foreground and backgroundThe proper context is a requirement for consciousness or awareness of anything. For example, we will not be aware of a black cat on a black rug in a black room with the lights off at midnight. The same cat is easily visible on a white rug in a white room at noon on a sunny day. So everything has a proper context, and this context is the key to its real meaning. Every word, symbol, picture, sound, gesture, facial expression, experience, action, perception, sentence, discussion, feeling, idea and intention exists in some context. When we hold it in the wrong context, we miss the real meaning and become confused or frustrated. When we hold it in the right context, we see the real meaning and have an "Aha!" moment, a moment of insight into reality. For example, everyone has an experience of school. If we try to hold that experience in the context of learning, it doesn't make sense and we feel confused and frustrated. But if we read Gatto, we understand that we should actually hold our experience of school in the context of a social control mechanism. Aha! Now it all makes sense, and we can understand that if we want to become wise, we have to take responsibility for our own education. Similarly, if we try to hold our experience of life in the context of the ordinary materialistic understanding, it doesn't make sense and we feel confused and frustrated. But if we hold it in the context of the Esoteric Teaching, we will have not one but many "Aha!" experiences as we get insights into the real spiritual meaning of our existence and activities. So here is the principle:If you feel confused or frustrated about learning, understanding or doing something, you are holding it in the wrong context.
When we want to read a book, we hold it up to the light. Why? Because we can't read in the dark; we need the context of light to see the page. Similarly, if we are having trouble understanding or applying a subject, it is because we are holding it, or parts or pieces of it, in the wrong context or in the wrong relationship to the other parts. Finding the right context is both a science and an art. For those who are really into this, and want some advanced training, we will have links later on to our source material. But everyone can understand the difference between foreground and background, content and context. If you can't get something, then try putting it in another context. The next two sections give some practical tips on how to resolve contextual problems while studying. Misunderstood terminologyMisunderstood terms, words and symbols can stop you from comprehending a subject and discourage you from learning how to apply it expertly. In fact, the only reason a student becomes discouraged and gives up a study is because of misunderstood terms. Misunderstood terms are different from not-understood terms. Everyone can understand when they see an integral equation, or the word disestablishmentarianism, that they do not understand it, and look up the meaning in a dictionary or search engine. But when we think that we understand the meaning of a word or symbol, but actually don't, then we're in trouble because we will sail right on by it without realizing that we got it wrong. That is the definition of a misunderstood term.The main symptom of misunderstood terminology is that we are unable to expertly apply the subject or information we are studying.
Other symptoms of misunderstood terms include degradation of consciousness or loss of comprehension; you feel that the information you are studying makes no sense; you have forgetfulness, short-term memory loss, or loss of comprehension of material immediately after it is presented. You may also feel tired, sleepy, yawning, distracted, dreamy, dizzy, spinny, lightheaded, tense, short of breath, intoxicated, introverted, fearful, panicky, paranoid, angry, belligerent or rebellious when there is no real reason to feel that way. You may have eye trouble: the page appears to go blank, or looks dark, you feel like something is in your eyes or see shadows moving in your peripheral vision. You may have a strong irrational urge to disrupt the class, interrupt your study, close the book or escape from the classroom or other learning situation. Some people may desire to project their irrelevant personal opinions or negative emotional reactions onto the material, the presenter or the teacher. All these symptoms have one and the same cause: you have encountered a misunderstood term or symbol and gone past it without getting it properly defined. Much of the terminology used in the material on any subject, and especially on this site, is extremely specialized, scientific or technical. The most important of these terms are in the Sanskrit language and may have no direct English equivalent. Some terms used on this site are so laden with significance that thousands of lines of esoteric Sanskrit codes and years of esoteric study are required to define and understand them completely. But most of those are easily recognized as not-understood terms, so they are easy to notice and get cleared up. The worst culprits of misunderstood terms are simple words that specify relationship, such as and, thus, if, such, that, which, up, though and so forth. We think that we know what these words mean, but on close examination we will find that our concept of their meaning is so vague that we cannot describe it coherently. These are misunderstood terms. How to find your misunderstood terms When you are trying to learn something and you observe these symptoms, stop; realize their actual cause, then go back and find your misunderstood terms so you can look them up and clear them. The misunderstood terms will always be before the point where you experience the symptoms. Go back to where you were doing OK and understanding everything clearly. Then go through the material very carefully, word-by-word, until you find a term that you cannot define. That is your misunderstood term. There may be more than one. Note down your misunderstood terms so you can methodically clear them. Clearing misunderstood terms
There are several ways you can get definitions for Vedic and Sanskrit terms. You can also use an Internet search engine to look up these terms on CauselessMercy.com or the Bhaktivedanta Vedabase Network. We prefer CauselessMercy because they host the original editions of Prabhupada's books. Other sites use editions that contain unauthorized posthumous editorial changes. However, the best solution for specialized Sanskrit terms is to download and install the VedaBase, containing the entire original works of our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada. This collection is also sold online as "The Library of Vedic Culture." The VedaBase has a very powerful search utility that you can use to find the definitions of thousands of Sanskrit words. This collection is the cream of the Vedic literature.If you still cannot define technical Vedic or Sanskrit terms used on the site, please request assistance by posting a query to the Students' Forum. How to download and install the Vedabase Vedic Library:
ModelingWhat are we doing when learning something? Actually when reading or studying we are constructing a mental model of the relationships and functions of the subject and its parts. When we get confused, stuck or discouraged in learning or cannot successfully apply the material, it means that our model is an inaccurate representation of the subject; it does not work the same way as the thing we are learning about actually works in real life. Sometimes we find that even after clearing our misunderstood terms, we still do not feel good about a subject or cannot apply it expertly. The best cure for this problem is to get the model out of our mind and into physical space where we can handle it directly. This is a simple but very powerful technique: Make a model of the thing you are trying to understand out of modeling clay, blocks or odds and ends. Label its parts and walk through how the thing works by moving the model with your hands.Let's say you are studying Vedic astrology and having a tough time understanding transits. No matter how hard you try, clearing terms until you're sure you understand them, the subject still doesn't seem to jell in your mind. OK, it's time to get out the clay and make a model of the solar system. Label the parts and model what physically happens during planetary transits by moving the pieces, until something clicks in your head and you understand the subject. If you don't happen to have any modeling clay lying around, not a problem. Just gather a bunch of odds and ends—rubber bands, paper clips, string, wood blocks, little plastic models, even pieces of paper with the names of the parts of your model written on them, whatever—label them and use them to make your model. I know it sounds silly, but try it; it really works. SourcesYou're probably wondering why you never heard any of this before. Well, at the beginning of this article, I mentioned that one of the main purposes of the school system is just to keep people from finding out how to learn independently. So this information, along with a lot of other very useful knowledge, has been deliberately buried. We discuss why this is so, and how it came about in our podcast series on Vedic history. But others have asked the same questions, and discovered some very interesting answers that led to the current solutions and actually much, much more. The most important reference I can give you is Alfred Korzybski. His monumental work, Science and Sanity, gives the scientific reasoning behind these learning techniques.
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