(published posthumously in 1998):
The Elements of the Situation
If you are trying to teach anything, you have to bring together
certain elements. These include the knowledge, an assessment
of the student, and the method and content of the teaching.
All three factors must be present, and present in the right
order, to the right extent, and in the right manner. Any other
situation will lead to partial learning, to confusion, to lack of
progress.
If you are trying to teach, let us say, literature, chemistry,
business studies or drama to people who have been reared in
the atmosphere of the contemporary West, you will not need
to give the above requirements the very greatest attention. This
is because the minds of the learners already contain, transmitted
by the culture, a large number of elements and attitudes on
which you can build. You do not have to start from scratch.
If, however, you were starting to teach chemistry to members
of a community already thinking only in terms of alchemy; or
astronomy to people who confused it with astrology, you would
have a different problem: and so would they.
The study of metaphysics in the modern West can be likened
to an attempt to study what is in fact chemistry from the point
of view of alchemy. If you were teaching in that situation, you
would not simply plunge in and obey the demand of the students
to give them a 'higher form of alchemy'. You would have to
go to an earlier stage, and establish the framework within which
chemistry could be learnt.
You would be able to USE concepts and processes,
experiments and so on, which had been transmitted by
alchemists. But you would have to disentangle these from all
the rest: from the accretions, misunderstandings and so on which
separate chemistry and alchemy.
You would also find that some, even all, of your students
would have read and heard of all kinds of theories. They would
have read books and even carried out experiments; and they
would expect you to give them explanations which - to their
minds - were necessary and interesting.
What would you say to them?
In what order would you approach your sequence of ideas?
What equipment, instrumentation and elements would you
use?
What would you eliminate, postpone or ignore?
If you knew your job, you would have to start by instilling
concepts which would enable the .student to learn, stage by stage.
You might compromise to some extent, but only to an extent
which would not make learning more difficult, or set people
onto the wrong track.
This is the position of the Sufi teacher at the present time.
The individual who wants to solve the problem of humankind
today comes to the teacher with an often enormous ragbag of
ideas, impressions and theories, only some of which will be of
use in this particular specialisation.
The test which the learner has to pass, first of all, is to show
that he or she can study what is important and relevant. The
pupil who is his or her own enemy is the one who wants to
retain ideas, experiences, theories because they are fulfilling a
pleasure-inducing function. So, first of all, what has to be
determined is whether the student wants to learn or really (often
without knowing it) wants to 'be entertained'.
This is why the Sufis so strongly emphasise the need to
examine one's assumptions. The chief assumption which can
get in the way is usually 'I feel that this is right, therefore it
is: so I want to continue with something which continues, and
preferably amplifies, that feeling.'
Knowledge does not, however, exist for the purpose of
making people pleased, or the reverse.
Sufi study materials, which include study papers, have a dual
purpose. First, they inform: as in the foregoing paragraphs.
Second, they contain the elements which will connect, at the
appropriate time, with the frame of mind which enables the pupil
to progress. This 'frame of mind' is NOT a substitute for
conventional thinking: it is an addition to it. The Sufis do not
merely assume that people can develop their understanding by
grafting their teaching upon preconceived notions. To do so
would be analogous to taking a group of would-be alchemists
and ladling fresh material on top of unsuitable ground.
The process by which people learn, in Sufi schools, is similar
to the way in which people accumulate, in conventional societies,
the basic elements which enable them to be taught more. The
child or mature student in the modern world has, long before
starting any organised learning programme, already absorbed
a very large number of facts and experiences upon which the
learning builds.
The often disastrous assumption made by people wanting to
study Sufi knowledge is that they already have an equivalent
to that basis. It is as if someone wanted to read a book and
insisted that literacy was unnecessary. Or as if someone wanted
to learn farming and assumed that it could be learnt through
the concepts and procedures of blacksmithing.
The basic stock of knowledge and experience at the disposal
of the contemporary individual is large and extremely useful.
Through it you can learn all kinds of things. To become a Sufi
you not only have to acquire more ideas, experiences and skills:
you also have to learn to use them.
People constantly approach Sufis and tell them that such-and-such
contacts, reading, experiences 'have led them to the teacher'.
They seek an assurance that they are right in this belief; they
seek further stimulus of a similar kind: they often expect that
the Sufi will elucidate mysteries and give answers to problems.
They seldom realise that mysteries and problems are not always
there for the purpose of being elucidated. Still less do they
generally understand that the path which has brought them to
the Sufi almost always ceases to have relevance when they have
found the source of teaching.
They have never heard (or have not heeded) the admonition:
'When the donkey has brought you to the door, however
admirable it may be, you have to dismount from it before
entering.'
The main obstacle to learning, though not to imagining that
one can learn or has learnt, is making what are (in fact if not
in appearance) random assumptions. Sufi study materials are
designed to help in dealing with this problem.
Impatience and vanity are deprecated in virtually all religious
systems. Why? Because they reduce the human being, instead
of elevating him or her.
Impatience and vanity are deprecated, too, in all moral and
ethical systems. They are disliked and opposed everywhere: in
the law, in social contact, in science, everywhere. Why? Because
they make life more difficult for someone or something, and
retard developmental progress.
Because from our earlier days, whoever we are, we are
constantly told to overcome these characteristics, they go
underground. People are not even aware that they are vain or
impatient; or else will argue fiercely that 'At least in my desire
for truth, knowledge, etc., I am not impatient or vain. I want
to know so that I can help other people; I want to hurry because
I have achieved so little in my life'. Throughout history, Sufis
have enabled people to deal with these negative characteristics.
They cannot be dealt with by suppression; only by
observation and examination and finally detachment from them.
The monastic systems which once specialised in illustrating these
things fairly soon turned into repressive or mechanical
organisations. Why? Because one factor fell into disuse: the
analysis and prescribing of specific remedies. Something which
started out as a flexible and interacting school turned into an
automatic one: with the same prayers, meditations, litanies,
tunes, activities and so on imposed upon everyone regardless
of need and potentiality. Human beings were, effectively, being
treated like animals being trained: with threat and promise,
tension and repetition, and all the rest.
Western society has in the past few decades taken a great step
forward, which gives its members a perhaps unparalleled
opportunity, This has been due to the final recognition of the
way in which people can be (and are) conditioned to believe
virtually anything. Although this knowledge existed earlier, it
was confined to a few, and was taught to relatively small groups,
because it wag considered subversive. Once, however, the
paradox of change of 'faith' began to disturb Western scientists
in the Korean war, they were not long in explaining - even
in replicating - the phenomenon. As with so many other
discoveries, this one had to wait for its acceptance until there
was no other explanation. Hence, work which Western scientists
could have done a century or more earlier was delayed.
Still, better late than never. What remains to be done is that
the general public should absorb the facts of mind-manipulation.
Failure to do so has resulted in an almost free field for the cults
which are a bane of Western existence. In both East and West,
the slowness of absorption of these facts has allowed narrow
political, religious and faddish fanaticisms to arise, to grow and
to spread without the necessary 'immunisation'. In illiberal
societies it is forbidden to teach these facts. In liberal ones, few
people are interested: but only because mind-manipulation is
assumed to be something that happens to someone else, and
people are selfish in many ways, though charitable in others.
Yet the reality is that most people are touched by one or other
of an immense range of conditioned beliefs, fixations even, which
take the place of truth and are even respected because 'so-and-so
is at least sincere'.
Naturally, such mental sets are not to be opposed. Indeed,
they thrive on opposition. They have to be explained and
contained. The foregoing remarks will not 'become the property'
of the individual or of the group on a single reading. An
unfamiliar and previously untaught lesson, especially when it
claims careful attention and remembering, will always take time
to sink in. This presentation, therefore, forms a part of materials
which need to be reviewed at intervals. Doing this should enable
one to add a little ability and to receive a minute quantity of
understanding, each time.
--from Knowing How To Know, p. 242-247
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