What Can You Really Teach Another?

I like this!  Exactly so.  And can it also be said that the Learner also is simply a mirror?  That the inside learner also doesn't exist…there is no one really to receive anything….everything is already known.  The learner is like an open womb, fertile, waiting to be delighted by that which has seemingly been forgotten….that which can only blossom again, like a re-emerging spring flower.

I love this , as you can't help anyone until you help yourself , and you can't help others unless they want help. I am finding that I take something from everyone that touches my life . As someone once said keep your eyes , and ears open , and you will learn so much.

what i always remind myself whether with my students or with people in general is that there is always a lot more within each of us than we know - i never want to underestimate that, always seek to elicit that inner knowing, even if we have to dig deep for it

This reminds me of that old saying that “you can't give away knowledge”.  Because even if you share what you know with someone else - you have not given it to them, because you still possess it!

Teaching, Growing and Transforming, not all the same thing …

I have experienced that the best teacher is just on step or even less above the student. That teacher is a student himself and will learn a lot too in the process. Education is an endless pyramid, or a staircase to heaven if you want. We will most of the time build upon the old steps to go further. If a teacher is too high above the students, and has forgotten how it was when he was at their level, the synergy is gone and the teaching process becomes a bit of a bore for both parties.

While the former could be called education, there is another kind of learning process that we could call transformation.

Real transformation can only be achieved when one can attack and alter the (if not all, at least some) foundations of the pyramid. In this case, the teacher has to be a master in both worlds:
- He needs the right arguments to break down the students pyramid, by exposing the faults in its construction. He needs to do so in the language of the student, so that the pyramid actually deconstructs itself in the 'world' of the student (that is indeed the mirror).
- Then he has to start from scratch again, and build new foundations.
Now the mirror could be used, to expose innate knowledge, but such is most of the time not the case. The master of both worlds will mostly use his own example this time to awaken the new knowledge. Often this means reviewing the entire pyramid before one can actually start building it in the students new mindset.
(Knowledge necessary to build the foundations comes often from more advanced levels. This means that such a pyramid is self contained (all conceptual worlds are) and not really based on TRUE reality.)

I realize that what i wrote here is not entirely in line with this thread, but I feel that we know nothing at all to start with, and i don't believe much in innate knowledge to be awakened. In my view there is an infinite source of knowledge that we can use during flashes of 'enlightened insight'. But this source only will become permanently available when we will have truly transformed on the foundations of TRUE reality.

bert

it would be a mistake to assume bert, so, I ask you…which person then gets listed and judged as having a sound pyramid as you call it??  if, as you say the student is faulty, then how could the student be competent to be able to judge and value the teacher??

if a teacher called itself a teacher and glorified its opinions as above all others and simply wished to create a mere flawed copy of itself i suppose that would be teaching in a way…but of what kind of student and with what horrid horrid result??

namaste wanderer7

I do not think we choose a teacher out of the blue. At a given moment we experience the cracks in our edifice ourselves. Moreover - and i forgot to say that - we are not going to go for a 'pyramid' that is completely different from our own, but one that is going to transcend and include the one that we felt was incomplete. So any new system that will completely destroy the old one will not be good for us. When we deconstruct the old system, we can reuse many if not most of the old building blocks again.

How do we select the right teacher? This is very difficult indeed. And I really saw people become the victim of fake and self glorifying persons. But most of those fake masters will not be able to deconstruct our former foundations without really being in touch with those foundations. Fake teachers will try to use our own greed (even our greed for knowledge) against us, and this way we easily can get caught.

Moreover, we cannot really talk to those who have completely different systems of reference than we ourselves, so if a teacher dismisses our system of thinking by authority alone, then this teacher cannot be useful to us.

Very important is also our intuition. Feeling connected. Within a few encounters we will soon realize whether a teacher speaks our language or not. Is this knowledge that is already inside us? I don't think it is. I think intuition is part of those flashes of insight that i mentioned before. Those are available to everyone, but are not necessarily part of everyone.

Does this answer bring more light into my crazy way of thinking? And does this then bring us closer together? I hope the answer to this last question is yes. I do not want to pretend i know the answers.

Love and Light

What I been finding is that you can teach and direct a student by asking really good questions.  Not only does it allow the educator to check in with the student to see how they are assimilating information it also encourage them to find the knowledge within. It is about encouraging a outside in approach or a inside out one.

“Socrates had it right–that the true educator was one who could be the “midwife to a process of an individual becoming self-aware of the truth.” It is from this realization that we acknowledge the Socratic learning method, which is fundamentally about asking questions. When you ask a question, something quite remarkable happens. Questions draw forth. Questions elicit new synaptic connections. Questions peel back the layers of the onion to expose the truth. Questions change the world. Answers come from the inside out. Answers that can serve to bring unconscious beliefs to the surface of self-awareness.”

A link to one of my current educator's essays for the reference above.
Patient Education or Patient Teaching?

Are you seeking the truth from within or without?
Got Q&R?

Peace…
Jordan

My Teacher has said to me more than once:  If you learn anything here, it's your own damn fault. 

It used to piss me off, like he wasn't acknowleding the impact he makes as my Teacher. But I've come to realize it really is just a way of making me take absolute ownership for my learning and awakening process. Like you said, the way can be shown, but it's such an act of power to consciously decide to learn.

I agree that a teacher can only teach what already exists as potential in the student.  Another aspect of this is that the truth of teacher has to resonate with the truth of the student.  It takes specific teachers for specific students, and specific teachers for specific truths.

Hi Bert!!!

I would say your thinking is your own, and while your process makes sense to you entirely, communicating it in its entirety in the manner of your intent may create some difficulty at times, it seems far from crazy. :)  I suppose most people are or can be like that, expecially when excited and writing quickly in an online forum.  For me it is not entirely about being closer together.  Often I ask questions just to create thinking about what I asked.  More in a show me how you think and how you feel about it, and I will watch and see what my response(if any) will be. 

Also more thoughts about what you said…for me, I do not need connectedness from any teacher.  Though admittedly sometimes that feels nice.  I learn much from the arrangment of rocks on the ground, grass in a field, and waves coming in from the river.  Some could argue that to those I am connected, and I am more or less depending on what I am doing.  But I think you were referencing a human connection.  Thank you much for sharing your ideas.

P.S.  when one is near a person and they draw in a breath, what have you learned about them??  does it require one's attention to have learned it or not?