Inner Learning through Interacting with Others

Inner Learning through Interacting with Others

Another semester recently wrapped up and has given me a chance to reflect. I teach part-time at a college and like many teachers have taught the same course for a long time using various formats: self-paced distance learning, online lecture, and in-person classroom. This experience of teaching different formats for the same class, a sort of natural experiment, has taught me that the effectiveness of the learning method tends to increase along this continuum of interaction, at least for most people. As a rule, most people learn better when directly interacting with a teacher.

I suppose this is not a big surprise to many readers and there are exceptions to the rule. Yes, people are at times motivated to learn by themselves with some success. Whether through an academic institution or not, I have even successfully applied the knowledge acquired from online step-by-step videos to explore new fields or learn to fix things around the home. Watching someone on a video use a tool or follow steps to repair something is quite gratifying and illustrative. I have fixed many things in my house thanks to YouTube.

Because truly deep learning is driven from the learner's standpoint, all these learning formats that I mentioned earlier are effective at times. However, there are genuine limitations of stand-alone or self-help approaches, especially regarding complex and psychological topics. There are no DIY guides to waking up, for instance. If you have found one, then you do not need to return to this Facebook page.

It boils down to this: I am not going to overcome my psychological weaknesses, many of which I cannot see in my present condition, or find a true path to awakening by myself all alone. The transmission of esoteric knowledge and practice is only possible through the outside, expert help from those who understand consciousness and the enlightening process firsthand. To wake up, I need help, and I know I need help from someone who has already woken up.

True teaching is not (merely) an accumulation of knowledge; it is an awakening of consciousness which goes through successive stages. – Ancient Egyptian Texts

A Fourth Way School transmits knowledge and the light of Higher consciousness directly from the higher to the lower. People learn best through a mixture of theory and practice. But most importantly, we learn from direct contact with someone who has walked the same path before us and overcome the same obstacles to awakening. Teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions provide the bulk and basis for school-based learning, and this learning is not simply learning by rote either. The process of acquiring higher consciousness and greater being involves interactions with those who are more sensitive and more aware of themselves. This learning process is non-competitive and creative, and bestows grace, empathy, and personal transformation on the lucky ones who follow it.

Teaching is very tricky. One has to do it with love or it is the lower self doing it. − The Teacher

Like any learning, the initiative starts with me, the novice student. My “first line of work” is then accelerated by working with others and applying their advice and careful attention. Then through sustained intentional instructions and direct interactions with a Teacher and, with the help of Higher Forces, I have been taught or guided through many trials, tests, and opportunities for growth and eventually for transcending myself. My veil of sleep is lifted. It is both a deconstructive and generative process. In the end, I learn ironically that I possess all that I need and find peace and oneness in my knowing and not knowing.

This present teaching differs from many others by the fact that it affirms that the higher centers exist in man and are fully developed. − P.D. Ouspensky

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School of Aristotle, Gustav Adolph Spangenberg