Education, learning and Teaching

This is the third and last entry in this little series on reality that I have been talking about.  Yesterday I spoke to you about the 2 fold reality system, that I think are body and mind reside in while we are alive on earth.  As I told you yesterday I wanted to talk to you about education, learning and teaching. I want to come at if from Plato's viewpoint.  Again this is a topic that I hope will inspire discussion, feedback and comment on this topic.

Yesterday, I was talking about Plato's Allegory of the Cave, and his postulations about reality, salvation, spiritual journeys and teaching.  I want to round out what I have been talking about with education, learning and teaching. According to Plato, he thought that the imparting of knowledge between a teacher and a student was impossible, that education is only possible by point the students mind to what is real and important, and letting them apprehend it for themselves.  Now, what Plato thought was that all knowledge and information that will ever be was recorded and housed in a great library in the spiritual or real "reality" that can only be discovered through the mind.  What I am talking about is the Akashic Record, which a little more information can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records.

In metaphysical terms the Akashic record is a library of all knowledge and thought forms that are or will ever be, some postulate that an individual can read, observe and touch these records through astral travel, meditation, and deep hypnosis.  I think that these are just some of the ways that a person or individual can touch this information.  But, I also think that at times this information flows through the spiritual plane, and into our subconscious while we sleep or rest.  I also think that the further you progress on your journey of enlightenment that our minds open up to more and more of the information  contained in the records.  I also think that as our eyes are open to more of the mysteries of the divine, God grants us more and more clarity on the things of nature that we have to deal with.

It is also my belief that as you embark on your own spiritual journey and quest for enlightenment.  God, the Divine, or Light, or however you define your own deity, puts others into our life to help us along our road and journey.  I believe that there are 3 different kinds of people that come in and out of our lives, they stay for a time and move on once they have accomplished what they have been place for.  You will find if you are observant, that you are never alone on your journey,  there are always 2 others that are with you.  You and these other two may switch roles from time to time, but if you really look you will see that they are there.  On your journey you may find someone that can mentor and teach you, the fill the role of teacher, and you would be the student, and the other person is your confidant a friend or person you can discuss things with and confide in.  As I have told you these roles are interchangeable and you may find yourself at times the teacher, or the student, or a confidant.

Remember that each person comes into your life at different times to fill different needs that you are facing.  They help you and you help them in an endless cycle. I believe that through experience and conscious thought we learn the things that we are meant to learn. As these people come in and out of your life there is nothing saying that they won't come back and in a different role.  I believe that at times we maybe the teacher, explaining our path and what we have learned to a student, and at other times we are the student and we find that we have something to learn from our previous student, and don't be surprised if your friend and confidant becomes a teacher or a student from time to time.  There is nothing saying that you will always be surrounded by the same people, remember everyone comes and go through our life in their allotted time and only for as long as they are needed.

You may not understand what I am trying to explain, but it is rather easy.  The Bible tells us that we are never given more than we can bear, and I believe this to be the honest truth.  In addition to God being with us always, I believe that we are always surrounded by help if we just look for it.  God provides for us even when we don't ask for it. It is up to us to understand and accept the blessings that He grants us.  But it takes prayer and openly listening for the answers.  Please remember that when Christ was on the cross He promised to send us the Comforter, and I believe that the Holy Ghost is who He sent to help guide us and comfort us in His absence, and it is the Holy Spirit and the angels that bring each of these individuals into our life to help us along our spiritual road and journey.

I also want you to realize that it is never to late to start on your journey, and never to late to learn that which is necessary for us to succeed in our mission.  I told you once before in my blog entry on "Crucible of life" that we have all signed a spiritual contract and we have a job or part to play while we are here on earth.  It is also my firm belief that we have to learn by doing and experiencing life.  I believe that pain is the impetus to help us learn and reinforce the lessons that we have experienced.  When I tell you that it is never too late for you to start your journey and complete your mission, I mean it.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.  Let us turn our attention back to the Bible and the story of Moses.  Because it is his life that has given me the inspiration to realize that our education is on-going and life long.  Moses for the first 40 years of his life, he was raised as a child of the Pharoah, given the education of royalty, including Egyptian mysticism and how to rule the people.  However, when he was 40 he witnessed a slave being beaten, and he got so angry and killed the taskmaster that was abusing the slave.  Moses was then a murder and an outcast and had to give up his home in the palace and flee into the desert.  Where he wandered and lived for another 40 years.  During this time Moses learned how to survive and negotiate the wilds of the desert. All of this was future preparation for the task that he was yet called upon to do.  Now, you can imagine Moses' surprise when God called upon him to lead His people out of bondage from Egypt.  Moses was 80 years old at this time and thought that he was too old, and didn't know how he was going to do what he was told he must do.  He thought that maybe Lot, or Aaron were better suited for the job, but God insisted.


You want to know why?  The answer was simple, Moses had the knowledge and training that was needed. He knew how the Pharoah would react, he knew the tricks that Pharoah's magicians would use and could counter them, and most importantly Moses knew the desert and the wilds that the people would have to face while fleeing.  As I have said we are never given more than we can bear, we are well trained and suited for the job that is ahead of us.  Just as Moses had Aaron and Lot with him, I too believe that we have 2 who are going to be with us.  As I have said that our roles may change over the course of our journey, they will remain the same.  One of will be the teacher, and other a student and finally someone who we can confide in and will help us understand what we are about.  As our roles change so might the people that fulfill them, but trust me there is always going to be two around you to help you through all things.


Now, with all of this being said, I am not sure if the Akashic Record exist or not,  but as I explained in yesterday's discussion that the only thing that have permanence in this world are ideas or thought forms, I would assume that they have to be part of this record.  My reasoning behind this is we are creatures of energy, housed and contained within a shell of flesh, as I have stated before, as the body dies and fails, the energy that is us still remains.  It is further my understanding that energy follows the natural law of conversion, that it can neither be created or destroyed just manipulated and changed. If this is the case then when our body finally gives our the energy creature that is us truly moves on to another level of existence.  I also pointed out that our beliefs have power and energy of their own, and if enough people believe in something that thing will come into existence.  Therefore, if our thoughts and beliefs are energy, they too have to go somewhere and come from somewhere, and that place is what I called yesterday our 2 fold reality.  


Again, this is just something that I am exploring and have some belief in. I am not asking you to believe as I do, but I would like to know you thoughts on this.  Like I said, my origin is based in Christianity though I have adopted or collect other parts of religious beliefs to help me round out and understand God and the Philosophical and Spiritual Journey we all must travel.  Therefore, I can compare the spiritual realm that I have referred to as the Christian Heaven, or liken it to the astral plane of the mystics, but to me they are one and the same and I believe that they are the layer that overlaps our physical reality.  I believe that Plato is partially correct that we cannot transfer knowledge from teacher to student directly, that all things that are learned must be experience and discovered through ourselves.  But I think a teacher is a vital part of the equation and helps us understand that which we are experiencing and helps us to absorb and integrate our learning into our daily lives.  Plus, I believe that this journey of life is but one aspect on the road toward enlightenment and higher learning and knowledge that will help us in our transition from this plane of existence to the next.  It is also my contention that we never stop learning and if we do then we are not living, but merely existing.  


Our road is not an easy one, and sometimes the path is hard to find and definitely harder to follow once we are on it. But we are not ever alone on our journey, we are given assistance and help when we need it.  People come into our lives for a brief time that is allotted them and then they move on.  Some will be with us way longer than others, and then there maybe some that come and go, but are always near. Lastly, I believe that no matter where we are at on our journey, that God is always with us, and carries us and gives us the strength we need and the encouragement to continue.  Remember that the road you are on is a road of enlightenment, which is a journey to further and gain knowledge, and as you progress along this road you are going to receive direct spiritual guidance and come to know the creator and all things in nature. This is the path that was set for us when Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden of Eden and it is what defines us and makes us human. We are not angels or divine beings with the knowledge of good and evil that was not granted to us.  But we were granted dominion over the earth and all things in it. As can be found in Genesis.  It is our duty to protect that which has been give us, and do that we must learn and grow from that education.  The earth is our home and the only one we have been give, we are the caretakers and the custodians, and we haven't done a really good job taking care of it.


So please keep these things in mind as you embark upon your journey, remember what I have said, and I am sure over time you will come to see things in a different and much more enlightened light.  When you do be sure to keep your eyes and heart on God because through His Divine Grace He will reveal all things.

Again, I look forward to hearing from you, please leave a comment and join my blog.  I want to hear from you, and I would love to hear your opinions, concerns, feedback, criticisms or whatever else you would like to say to me.  All I am doing is trying to share what I have learned with you.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

2 fold reality..thought forms, and permanence

Yesterday, I spoke about beliefs and believing, and how I wanted to talk about reality.  I also told you that I was basing my understanding on Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  I am not sure how many of you have read it, but I want to give you a synopsis of it here, so that you might be able understand where I am coming from, and where I am heading in this discussion.

Before, I do that however, I want you to realize that this is for discussion purposes, and I do solicit and request your feedback and comments. This is a spiritual journey we are on, and I would love to have others opinions and questions, as well as comments on this.  Remember that nothing you say is going to be judged against you.  I would like this to be an exercise in learning and expanding our personal vision and understanding of what reality is, and how it interacts with us.

Plato wrote the Allegory of the Cave in his work called the Republic and the central characters in this allegory are Socrates, who by the time of this writing had already died, and Plato's cousin Glaucon. Steven Kreis wrote in his lecture on Modern European Intellectual History (2000).  " In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves;".  

The Allegory of the cave presents a group of people that are living in a cave from birth. They are chained and forced to look at a blank wall, they have no way of moving or looking elsewhere.  The mouth of the cave opens up to the light, but between our chained assembly is a walk way that separates them from a huge and roaring fire.  It is across this walkway that others carry and drag things and objects across, which cause shadows to form on the wall in front of the assembly, as these objects were being carried across and their reflections being seen by the assembly.  Over time the assembly would come to recognize and describe these shadows and name them, when asked what the shadows were they could guess as to the object being displayed along the wall.  Sounds associated with the crossing would also help and cue the assembly in their identification.  Now, imagine if you will that one of the assembly was taken by force and dragged from the cave into the light.  Plato theorized that they would not be able to see at first because their eyes were not accustomed to the light, and would be terrified, though as the pain lessened and they would began to see things, and they would not recognize them, for they had only known the shadows on the wall, but as they were introduced to the items they would come to understand and see them for what they were, but would not believe it at first because they had only known the shadows. Remember that their reality was only that of shadows, so physical forms would be dismissed as fake.  Though with time and patience, they would soon grasp that the forms were one and the same, and would not if taken back into the dark forget and be able to play the game of shadows with his fellows that have never left the cave because his eyes have been opened to a different sight.  Plato also theorized that the ones that had never left the cave would not believe the one who had left saying his site was corrupted and that his version of the truth could not be correct.  Therefore, because their reality was challenged and the one that had left was no longer part of the collective they would seek to kill him, because he was wrong.  

Please keep in mind that this is my own interpretation from reading the Allegory, and if you would like to read it for yourself, I would ask that you do so.  For the version I have presented here is condensed and paraphrased by me, but it is enough for me to draw the points out that I would like to convey.  If you would like to read excerpts of either Steven Kreis's lecture or Plato's Allegory of the cave I invite you to check out this link http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html.  

Now what I would like to do is break this down a little for you, because I find that those chained in the cave and learning in the darkness is humanity as a whole and we learn by what is revealed by our senses.  Though I also believe that it is true that nothing in this world hold permanence because just as with the images on the cave wall, and the items that were shown the escapee, they corrupt, rust, crumble, decay and fade away.  However, in the true spiritual world the idea, or concept remains, and therefore is the truth.  This might be hard for you to understand, but I will try and make it easy.  Philosopher's refer to what I am talking about is thought forms, I call them base objects.  These base objects are the ideas that we use to create things.  Therefore, the idea is what is permanent, not the actual object themselves.  From the idea more objects can be created and made.  Therefore as long as someone can remember the idea or base object that object can still exist.  An example of this is a chair, we all know what a chair is, we know that it is eventually going to rip, tear-up, get broken or disintegrate, unfortunately time has a way of doing that to all things including the human body.  However, a new chair can be created to replace the old chair.  Why can we create a new chair because we know of the concept or idea of the chair, it is the thought form or base object that is remembered and passed on.    

What I am trying to tell you is that there seems to be a 2 fold reality at work in our universe, there is the one that we can see, touch, taste and smell, but that is just a mere reflection of the true reality that is made of thoughts, ideas, energy.  As humans we rely on our senses to show us and guide us, it is how we learn, but there is more to the learning, and we have to leave the darkness of our cave and climb into the light. Though it maybe painful, and we have to wait for our eyes to adjust to the brightness and the pain, then we have to learn it all over again.  Because what we have known as reality and truth, is not entirely accurate.  This is the philosophers journey, but is also a spiritual journey toward enlightenment, and a closer understanding of the divine.  I believe that which we live and reside in is our physical reality, but there is a spiritual plane of existence that is super imposed upon this one.  It is here where the angels and God reside, it is where our prayers, meditations and desires are manifest.  I also believe that the universe has constant laws that are opposite between both realities.  If you go back and look at my blog entries on "Creative Visualization" you will see the law of attraction and how in the physical reality or plane of existence opposites attract, such as when you hold a negative and positive end of a magnet toward each other.  In the spiritual reality or plane of existence the inverse happens, like attracts like and negative attracts negative.  

I am hoping that you can see what I am trying to say.  If you were the person that was taken from the cave and shown all the things that you once saw and thought of as real were not, and come to realize that all that you have known was wrong, could you go back into the cave and see the same things, I don't think you could.  Because once you have seen what is real the reflections of them would no longer be relevant to you.  I believe it is the same with any revelation. Once your eyes are open to the truth you can no longer go back to seeing them the way you once did.  When you take your first steps on your journey your eyes may not understand what they are seeing, and you may even doubt, but as you keep going you are going to realize that what you once thought was reality, isn't.  No matter how much you want to go back and liberate those that you left behind on your journey.  They aren't going to see the same things as you, you are going to be different, and they won't accept or believe you until they start their own journey.

A friend of mine wrote to me on Facebook that he was glad to see that I am taking everything with a positive attitude.  My response was that it is hard to see the negative side of things anymore because so many wonderful things have been happening.  It is true, I don't look at things the same way I once did, because I don't see them the same exact way.  I don't see the negative, I only see the good things that have come from my journey.  I know this all sounds so confusing and hard to understand.  But as you progress and make your own journey you are going to see that your attitude as well as your vision changes.  Things that were once so bothersome, are now small and mundane, and are mere reflections of a much larger picture.

Even if you don't agree with me, I hope that you will take some time and research what I have been talking about.  Maybe you will come away with something different from the Allegory of the Cave then I did, and I hope that you will be willing to share it with me.

I hope you will come back tomorrow, because I want to focus a little bit on what Plato was talking about when he was speaking on education and learning. Because I believe that learning and education are an important part of understanding the journey that we are on in this life.  I also believe that as we learn and grow, we mature, and tend to comprehend more, and when that comprehension builds it drives us toward further enlightenment.  The more enlightened we become the more we understand.  

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B