I find myself in an ironic situation. It is ironic because when I was a boy and becoming a young man I loathed school or maybe it was I loved to sleep and the little ladies more than I desired to learn. Now however I find myself deeply passionate about learning and, more ironcally, working at my Alma Mater; walking around the very halls where I was once an absent-minded and narrowly focused football player. My mother and I laugh when we reminisce on the days she had to fight to wake me up.
Perhaps had I had a teacher who could articulate the value of education and the necesitty of applying my mind to thinking I would have accepted my fate more willingly. Those in my life who tried to fill this role, pointed to a degree in this or that because it was financially lucrative and safe. Benignly, they tried to coax me into believing that a degree was of the upmost importance because of the oppurtunities that would present themselves once I hung my shiny new degree on my wall. "Once you get that paper,” they would begin, “they can never ever take that away from you.” With much pride in their voice for added conviction. It wasnt only people who had degrees telling me but mostly everybody. I always wondered who exactly ‘they’ were; and as true as their sentiments seemed to be, I reflect back on those ideas and think that once I believed I needed that paper, they—whoever they are—have no need to take anything away from me for I have already submitted myself to their will and have been duped into believing I need that piece of paper.
The desire to remain eligible was the only force I had to drive me to apply myself in my studies. and so I did, in the barest on minimums. Yet this void in my life of any teachers to enlighten me on why education was important has been filled by life. I find myself naturual immersed in literature; and perhaps that is what makes this journey of self-education all the more enlightening: for it wasn’t forced upon me but naturally arose like a sleeping dragon from a mystical river.
Ten years after my high-school graduation I have discovered within myself a deep passion for education. But why is it important to learn; to educate oneself and what exactly is education? I do not know exactly. These questons have led me to pick up the pen and lay ink to paper to explore further these questions that have arisen. One thing I do know with a certain clarity is what education is not; and that is going to univeristy soley to earn a degree for the sake of career security.
Intellectual education alone is not enough. It is simply a phase of education, or a part or level, I know not what to call it. Though developing one’s intellect is important, it is just one piece of the whole. I can think of at least five aspects or levels of education: (1) Spiritual education: learning to cut through the noise of the world and relating to divinity while deepening ones gaze into the relation of all beings and dismissing all superficial differences. (2) Artistic education: learning to express self and the spirit truthfully through one or many art forms. (3) Physical education: cultivating a strong and flexible body that reflects the resilience and adaptability of a spiritually educated mind. (4) Emotional education: deepening one’s ability to feel the nuance of emotions. And lastly, (5) intellectual education: the ability to accumulate information, analyze deeply and speak and/or write about ideas and concepts through the process of the trivium: The grammar, logic and rhetoric phases of a classical education.
I have learned that the word education descends from the Latin word Educere, which means to lead or bring forth. But what am I attempting to lead and to where, and furthermore, what will be brought forth by my efforts? The process of educating oneself is more than just absorbing information, though this is required at the beginning. As is mandatory in any new pursuit, one must digest the basics.
Yet the intent of learning is not to regurgitate what is listened to during a lecture, or what is read from a book. To do this is self-deceptive. It is a mistake to believe one’s teachers, tutors and mentors are responsible for educating us. That is like believing that what another person eats is nutrition for my body. It is I, the student, who must bring forth his mental powers and use them to bring out the fullness of his own mind. It is to chew, swallow and assimilate the useful knowledge that is passed down to me and rid myself of the excess. It is applying one’s being to attain clarity on the world, society and cultures, and equally important, oneself.
Yet self-knowledge cannot be complete in isolation. I, in a sense, am bounded to fate. Meaning a man cannot dictate the culture he was born into, who his mother and father are, the history of the world or during what epoch of history he was born into. Though I have in the past thought the outside world does not define me, I am awakening to the possibility that that is not fully true. A well-educated mind is independent, it thinks for itself. Yet it is dependent on the world it inhabits. Self- education then, is an interdependent process that is equally internal and external.
Naturally, I have come across ideas and beliefs that conflict with my own. This has helped me immensely though at times it has been painful to reconcile that the beliefs one has about the world may be false or, at the very least, incomplete. I have learned to embrace this conflict because it is necessary. The art of holding two opposing ideas in the mind is not to be feared, but embraced. It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
The Need For Humility
Hear, hear. In Everything, my good friend—in everything. In science, engineering, medicine, math, the arts, education, yoga: and so on: Learn what is in the box before attempting to think “outside of the box.”
—Uncle Owl
By way of my own ignorance and at my worst, arrogance and self-righteousness, I have learned that education requires humility. Susan Wise Bauer, who wrote the book, The Well-Educated Mind, written for adults who desire to educate themselves classically, discusses here that humans have a tendency to give opinions about things they do not understand. The remedy? A classical education that follows the trivium, a Latin word that means where three roads meet. The curriculum of the classical path is centered around the grammar, logic and rhetoric stages of learning. In other words the Trivium.
The first road, grammar: the building blocks of any subject from music, to religion, to sports, to history, etc. The second road is logic: thinking critically about the acquired knowledge of any given subject. For example, in the logic stage of history, one will analyze historical facts, figures and events to determine why they are important. This is where one develops original ideas. The final road is the rhetoric stage: writing, speaking and debating about these ideas with fluency. This stage allows one to refine their ideas by discussing them.
The intellectual Achilles heel that is plaguing humanity, according to Susan and an opinion I happen to agree with, is that most people skip the first two stages and speak prematurely about subjects they have neither understood nor taken the time to analyze and think deeply about. To skip the grammer and logic stages of learning is to put the cart before the horse.
Thus, in one’s educational pursuits the virtue of humility is necessary to learn deeply. Cultivating a humble spirit will allow us to see ourselves clearly and realistically. Without the spirit of humility leading us forward on our journeys, learning is impossible. Instead of being open to learn from the book of life we fall, like Lucifer, heavy with pride.
It’s our knowledge — the things we’re sure we know — that make the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning. — Walter Benjamin
It is important for us in this world, especially amidst social revolutions, that we do our due diligence and educate ourselves. We must take time to learn the basics of, for example, history. In this way we are not duped by leaders who are master rhetoricians, into adopting an idea that is built on sand. One must be able and willing to challenge “influencers” and “thought leaders” whose ideas are alluring but dangerous and at the very least lack any depth. The founding principles of America, though controversial and riddled with complexity, were founded in a spirit of debate and conversation. We mustnt forget that on a foundational level, America is a country governed by the people. Therefore, any citizen who enters the debate must be well-equiped to give an opinion that is worth listening to. If one gives an opinion and has not done their due diligence than I believe it is an unworthy opinion and one to be ignore because it is centered on an arrogant pride fueled by a man’s ignorant thinking. This is not way to a better our world.
The 5 Levels of Education
The Spiritual Level
On this level of education one can practice silent meditation, yoga, and prayer. We seek solitude to quiet our minds and retreat into nature to strenghten discernment and to develop the strength of our intuition. We must develop a sense of awe with the world and cultivate a pleasurable reverence for the totality of life. Why? Is prayer truly prayer if not down willingly and with a deep reverance? Awe is necessary to inspire our will and to align it with our Master’s to bring forth one’s hidden potential. It is to know that God is the center of all things; working in us, through us and around us. Awe gives us the humility and invokes one with a sense of purpose and simultaneously gives one perspective about how small we are. It inspires us to learn and to seek new experiences that broaden our horizons.
However, spiritual education is not limited to these practices. Spirit is what binds the different aspects of education together. It is the single thread holding together the quilt. It is all-encompassing. Whether we are learning about ourselves while deeply engaged in the arts, or in pursuit of learning about the fall of the Roman Empire, or debating with a friend, or going to the gym to exercise our body, or simply sitting in silence to process the complex inner world of our emotional landscape, we are training the Spirit. We are becoming what we do. Through the process of spiritual education we begin to understand how the things we focus on transform and become alive.
Artistic Level
Exploring oneself and our world by way of art and her many mediums is too part of one’s education. It is a vulnerable pursuit fraught with rejection. But acceptance is not the purpose of this path. Self-knowledge is. We get to know ourselves as we write or paint or make music and through these channels we discover what we think about the world we live in. Art reveals us to ourselves. It shows us who we are in that moment.
We must be willing to shed free of any fears that prevent us from exploring the art form that whispers into our ear in the silence of the night. One must express the poetry of the soul and if no one listens, good. Now you have nothing to fear and all the more reason to sing, to dance, to paint, to write, to live. And what is more, living life faithfully turns our life into a living, breathing piece of art.
Emotional Level
Any emotion, rather positive or negative, can be destructive and knock us off balance if we are not on guard. To be emotionally educated we must be aware of the feelings that are constantly at work within us. Though we aim to be rational beings by strengthening our reasoning powers we cannot stop the reality of emotions. They are primal, and exist in us all.
In our overstimulated world we are driving ourselves farther apart from ourselves and our emotional reality is becoming an island seldom explored. We must work to understand this foreign world, lest we find ourselves acting impulsively, steering the ship that are our lives into trouble waters because of our lack of emotional awareness.
As we educate ourselves emotionally, we become more intimate with the range of feelings we experience throughout the day. We pause before we act impulsively and have space to make a conscious decision. Furthermore, having some understanding of ourselves we will better understand others. We need empathy and compassion in this world; man is nothing by himself and what one feels we all, at one time or another, have felt— emotional life is no vacuum. We need each other. But first one must grow deeply into himself and feel what is happening within.
Physical Level
What about the hardware, our bodies, shall we neglect this important instrument as we seek to grow big brains and walk around like big headed aliens?—No, no balance in all things. How could we abandon that which is the container for our minds and souls? The ancient yogis understood the importance of the body. As do the Christians who tells us that our body is our temple. Our bodies are instruments and can be attuned to the subtle spiritual realities circulating around our humanity. In fact, the word Yoga is Sanskrit for union. We must ground ourselves through the body. A strong flexible body lets us solidify ourselves to our Earth and we become immovable mountains that reach high into the heavens and into the inspiration of the celestial bodies. Let us take care of this flesh while it is still ours to nourish and before we must give them back as nourishment to the Earth.
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” — King David, Psalms 139
Intellectual Level
I touched on this level briefly when discussing the need for humility in our lives. In pursuit of intellectual education we are introduced to the world of ideas, theories, and concepts. We develop the ability to communicate and articulate ourselves through language. Through the practice of mathematics, where a problem is solved through a step by step process, we develop the ability to think logically to solve problems. Science is the discipline of speculation, objectivity, and observation. If done right we ignore our biases and step outside of ourselves as we observe the subject in study. History, the study of our past, teaches us about the rise and fall of civilizations and how the world came to be as it is as willed by man and his actions. But also, in a careful study, teaches us about the good and bad ideas, conjured by man’s intellect, that have lead to the rise and fall of our civilizations.
The mind is where one develops the ability to think. It is the home of both our self-awareness and pride, the great creator and simultaneously the great destroyer of societies. Let us remain vigilant lest we make the mistake of building statues of our selves and bowing at the alter of false gods.
Other Thoughts
In no way, am I writing authoritatively on education for I have no right to do so and never will. I am simply a beginner, exploring as I write, more for my own sake than yours, dear reader.
This began as an essay for myself to think through all I know about education, what it means to me and why it is important. None the less, I hope the ideas contained lead you forth and encourage you on your own walk through life and may it inspire you to think freely, feel deeply, and learn universally.
On our individual roads of inner transformation let us not think of progress, but process. Education is a life long pursuit. There is no rush to complete what will never end. Let not the fast-paced world we live in dictate your speed. Many of us humans are controlled by ideas, and then we seek to control others using the ideas that have us enslaved. I cannot believe this is the educated way. Education is to free and to imprison the mind. The educated individual seeks to enlighten themselves and free their minds not to become the puppet of any idea or to worship any teacher, or master. Be your own teacher, be respectful and be humble enough to learn from these who think differently than you.
Education should teach one not what to think but how to think independently, critically and creatively about the accumulated information one gathers from the world. The purpose of an education is to bring forth the dormant potential that lies within us, and to realize this potential we must humble ourselves. Without humility we will be mislead by arrogance and bravado. Inevitably we will mislead others.
In time, and with patience, we will cultivate the wisdom that shines like stars that have been fixed in the night sky and that have guided humanity out of times of confusion. Many say we are in times of chaos or in the process of crossing the threshold into darkness. Regardless if we find ourselves in the thick fog of night or basking in the rays of the sun, the idea of education I have attempted to think through here is the best I have to offer on the subject