Dev Bhagavān

Becoming Genius

Episode 1–Duplication

Transcription

Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān

Video Link: YouTube

How to Learn

This video is about how to learn skillfully: the science of study.

If you duplicate and apply these methods in your study of Skillful Living, you will get much more out of the materials.

Most schooling deliberately teaches you the wrong way to learn. First, you should not approach a subject because someone else is making you study it; you should approach it because you want to learn it and put it into practical use in your life. In other words, you should learn to acquire skills.

The first necessary skill in the art of Skillful Living is how to learn skillfully.

Presentation Design

The presentation design in an informational course is intended to leave you informed. The presentation design in this course is intended to open up a new world of experience for you: the experience of Skillful Living and specifically, the skill of being able to teach yourself any skill you desire. We use an unusual form of presentation to accomplish this.

We have developed precise language for the materials that experience and testing show we must make available to deliver our promise to you. Quite a bit of thought and testing has gone into the language: the semantics or the way things are stated.

On most of the slides, we will read the slide aloud while you read those same words silently to yourself. Please read the slides to yourself at the same time you are listening to them being read. From time to time, we will pause to comment on what has been read, demonstrate a technique, or have a discussion with you.

At any time, if you do not understand a word that is used, or the meaning of what is read is not clear for you, please stop the video and look up the term in a good dictionary. If you have a comment or question about what has been read, please post it in the comments.

One reason we use this form of presentation is to deal with the following problem: when we read a new or counterintuitive idea, often after we read all of the words in a passage, we have to go back and read it again to get clear on the meaning of what we read.

In fact, when reading any new material to ourselves, often we are not clear about the meaning of what is said in the beginning of a paragraph until we have read the entire paragraph. This even happens with sentences, where the meaning of the beginning of the sentence is sometimes not clear until we have read the entire sentence.

There are a lot of new ideas in Skillful Living. In these cases the impact of what was in the first few words of a sentence; the first few sentences in a paragraph; or the first few paragraphs in a section, is diminished.

The person reading this material out loud is familiar with the subject being presented. As a result, we can convey the meaning of what is being read through tone of voice, so it’s clear right from the beginning. In addition, because the meaning is being conveyed by the tone of the reader’s voice, hearing it as it is meant will help avoid misinterpreting the meaning of the material.

If you have had the experience of listening to an author reading from his or her own writing, you know that that experience is often much richer than when we read the same thing to ourselves.

Moreover, because you will also be reading the words to yourself as they are being read out loud, what is said comes into you through two senses: hearing and sight. The combination of reading when the meaning is clear from the beginning, and the use of two senses, results in a clarity and impact that is not available when reading something challenging for the first time by yourself.

We also intentionally employ a certain amount of repetition. We do this because as the course proceeds, and you master later material, reviewing what we covered earlier deepens the meaning and impact of that earlier material.

efficiency comparison listening vs reading while using Voice Reader

When listening to text being read out loud while simultaneously reading it to yourself, there is a 44% increase in comprehension efficiency over reading to yourself only. And in this study, this increase was produced by a computer-generated voice, that speaks with no understanding of what is being read, as contrasted with the way it will be read to you in this course.

With the combination of reading to yourself as we read out loud, and the other study techniques presented in this course, your comprehension of the material will increase tremendously over conventional study methods.

However: at all times during this video if you hear a word you don’t know the meaning of, or you can’t follow something that’s said, stop the video and look up the words in a good dictionary. If necessary, post a query for clarification in the comments.

If you don’t do this, there is a good chance that you will be unable to apply the material and will not be able to realize the full benefits of the course.

Learning How to Learn

The most important and powerful thing that you can learn is how to learn. Once you know how to learn, you can teach yourself any skill you want to know. This video presents a simple method for teaching yourself any subject so that you can apply it in practice in your life.

You would think that the first thing they would teach you in school is how to study. How to learn stuff should be the first thing you learn; then once you know how to learn, you can teach yourself anything you want to know. If you think this makes sense (and it does), then you don’t understand how school really works.

Here’s the truth: the people who manage the educational system don’t want you to learn independently. They are more interested in control than imparting knowledge or skill. They deliberately make you dependent on the school system, so they can teach you what they want you to learn, and to keep you away from the subjects that they don’t want you to learn:

For example, the art and science of Skillful Living.

If you doubt this, then you should read up on John Taylor Gatto, a really great teacher who was named a ’Teacher of the Year’ in the New York public school system twice in the 1990s.

Then they fired him, because he started telling everybody what was really going on behind the scenes; why our schools are such a mess, and why they don’t really educate their students—on purpose.

He is famous for claiming: “School is a 12-year jail sentence!”

Gatto revealed that no public school has classes or courses on how to study or how to learn; because their purpose is not to help you learn, it is to train you to be obedient to authority. He documents the design and development of the current educational system, and proves his points from the actual writings of the architects of the public school system. This isn’t esoteric knowledge: anyone can come to the same conclusions by simple observation and experience.

In fact, only the very best private schools, and colleges like Harvard, actually train their students in the scientific methods of how to learn. Those are the schools of the social and economic elite, so they want their kids to actually be smart—to actually be skillful—so the same families can continue their dominance of society.

It is assumed that these kids are motivated to be obedient to the system, because they have so much to lose if they aren’t. So the offspring of the elites are given the opportunity to actually become wise, if they so choose. Everyone else is deliberately kept ignorant, and manipulated through the media, financial controls and corporations.

By the way, being wise not only means knowing how to learn, it also means knowing how to think for yourself. Most people simply form opinions based on whether they like or dislike something. Thinking is a higher-level skill. Knowing how to learn comes first, because you have to know how to learn before you can teach yourself how to think. And you have to teach yourself how to think, because the very nature of thinking for yourself means that it is one of those things in life that nobody can teach you—you have to figure it out independently. That’s another reason you need to learn how to learn.

With the simple method we present here, you can teach yourself any subject or skill. Not just the theory or words about the subject, but a skilled level of practical application. If you apply this method consistently, you will get the result. It may seem dry and boring at first, or too plodding and intellectual.

But let’s say it again: if you use the Skillful Living science of study method, you can teach yourself any skill. Any subject or skill at all!

Think about it—what would you like to be able to do, but cannot learn to do at your present level of skill?

Of course, we would suggest that you use the science of study method to understand and teach yourself Skillful Living. But, you get my point: just on general principles, everybody should learn how to learn, so they can teach themselves any skill they want

The science of study self-learning method has three main parts:

Now we will discuss each of these parts, beginning with putting things in context.

Foreground and Background

The proper context is a requirement for consciousness or awareness of anything. For example, we will not be aware of a black cat on a black rug in a black room with the lights off at midnight. The same cat is easily visible on a white rug in a white room at noon on a sunny day.

So everything has a proper context, and this context is the key to its real meaning. Every word, symbol, picture, sound, gesture, facial expression, experience, action, perception, sentence, discussion, feeling, idea and intention exists in some context. When we hold it in the wrong context, we miss the real meaning and become confused or frustrated. When we hold it in the right context, we see the real meaning and have an “Aha!” moment—a moment of insight into reality.

For example, everyone has an experience of school. if we try to hold that experience in the context of learning, it doesn’t make sense, and we feel confused and frustrated. But once we read or hear John Taylor Gatto, we get that we should actually hold our experience of school in the context of a social control mechanism. Aha! Now it all makes sense, and we can understand that if we want to become wise, we have to take responsibility for our own education.

Similarly, if we try to hold our experience of life in the context of the ordinary materialistic understanding, it doesn’t make sense, and we feel confused and frustrated. But if we hold life in the context of Skillful Living, we will have not one, but many “Aha!” experiences as we get insights into the real meaning of our existence and activities.

Similarly, all learning should be held in the context of acquiring a skill. Acquiring skillfulness is also a skill in itself.

When we want to read a book, we hold it up to the light. Why? Because we can’t read in the dark; we need the context of light to see the page. Similarly, if we are having trouble understanding or applying a subject, it is because we are holding it, or parts or pieces of it, in the wrong context, or in the wrong relationship to the other parts.

Finding the right context is both a science and an art. The subject of context will come up again and again as we go through the materials on Skillful Living. If you already can sense its importance and want some advanced training, we will have links later on to our source materials. But everyone can understand the difference between foreground and background, content and context. If you can’t get something, then try putting it in another context.

So, here is the first principle of the Science of Learning:

if you feel confused

The rest of this video gives some practical tips on how to resolve contextual problems while studying. Knowledge of Skillful Living is very scientific and precise. To transfer this knowledge to you, we must find a way to define and communicate precise concepts. So the first area of content and context is in the definitions of terms.

Misunderstood Terminology

Each and every letter, word, symbol, figure—even the graphical layout of a text—has a specific meaning and definition. If you cannot quote the definition, you don’t know the meaning of the terminology. In other words, you’re guessing—and will probably get it wrong.

Misunderstood terminology can stop you from getting the sense of a subject, and distract you from learning how to apply it skillfully. In fact, the main reason a student becomes discouraged and gives up the study of a skill is because of misunderstood terms.

Misunderstood terms are different from not-understood terms. Everyone knows when they see a math equation or a big word like ’antidisestablishmentarianism’, that they don’t understand it. Then they can look up the definition in a dictionary or search engine.

But, when we think that we understand the meaning of a word or symbol, but actually don’t, then we’re in trouble because we will sail right on by it without recognizing that we got it wrong. This is the definition of a misunderstood term.

Much of the terminology used in the expert-level material on any subject—including Skillful Living—is extremely specialized, scientific or technical. Terms originating in other languages and cultures may have no direct English equivalent. Some terms used in the study of Skillful Living are so laden with significance that an elaborate discussion with intricate logic is required to define and understand them to the point where you can apply them skillfully.

But most technical terms are easily recognized as not-understood terms, so they are easy to notice and get cleared up. Most misunderstood terms are simple words that specify relationship: such as and, thus, if, such, that, which, up, though and so forth. We think that we know what these words mean, but on close examination we will find that our concept of their meaning is so vague that we cannot define them coherently. These small relationship words are the most commonly misunderstood terms.

Symptoms of Misunderstood Terms

The main symptom of misunderstood terminology is that one is unable to skillfully apply the subject or information one is studying.

Other symptoms of misunderstood terms include degradation of consciousness or loss of comprehension; you feel that the information you are studying makes no sense; forgetfulness, short-term memory loss, or loss of comprehension of material immediately after it is presented or read. You may also feel tired, sleepy, yawning, distracted, dreamy, dizzy, spinny, lightheaded, tense, short of breath, intoxicated, introverted, fearful, panicky, paranoid, angry, belligerent or rebellious when there is no real reason to feel that way.

You may have eye trouble: the page appears to go blank, or looks dark; you feel like something is in your eyes, or see shadows moving in your peripheral vision. You may have a strong irrational urge to disrupt the class, interrupt your study, close the book or escape from the classroom or other learning environment. Some people may desire to project their irrelevant personal opinions or negative emotional reactions onto the material, the presenter or the teacher.

All these symptoms have one and the same cause: you have encountered a misunderstood term or symbol and gone past it without getting it properly defined.

Finding Misunderstood Terms

When you are trying to learn something and you observe the symptoms of misunderstood terms, stop. First realize the actual cause of the symptoms, then go back, and find your misunderstood terms, so you can look them up and clear them.

The misunderstood terms will always be before the point where you experience the symptoms. Go back to where you were doing OK and understand everything clearly. Then go through the material very carefully—word-by-word, until you find a term that you cannot define. That is your misunderstood term. There may be more than one. Note down your misunderstood terms so you can methodically clear them.

Clearing misunderstood terms

Now, let’s go through a demonstration of how to clear a misunderstood term, using this same screen that we were looking at a minute ago.

Let’s say, I want to look up the term up. I don’t know what it means there. Can I quote the definition? “Look up.” Well, mmm, kind of vague isn’t it?

So, let’s use the Writing Tools. Look up in Dictionary the word up. What does it mean in this context? “Toward the sky or a higher position”? I don’t think so. “To the place where someone is”? Well, no. “At or to a higher level of intensity, volume or activity”? Maybe. “Into the desired or a proper condition.” Ah, that sounds pretty good; let’s let’s look at the other ones to make sure. “Into a happy mood”? No. “Displayed on a bulletin board or other…”? No, “Of sailing against the current or the wind; (baseball) at bat; from a lower or higher to a higher point”? No, it’s definitely an adverb because it’s in conjunction with the word look, which is a verb. So we’re going to look “into the desired or proper condition” the term. OK? “Look up the term.”

Here’s an original sentence: “Fill up the tank with gas. Beam me up, Scotty.” That’s not very original; but that’ll do to show how we make up a sentence. And are there any other terms in this definition that are misunderstood? Well, I’m sure we could find some, but not right now. So that’s it; that’s how you look up a misunderstood term.

Science of Study Benefits

If you go through this Science of Study carefully, and apply it in your own study, you will notice a sharp increase in your comprehension—especially in your ability to apply the materials skillfully. Clearing misunderstood terms may go slowly in the beginning; but before long, your reading speed will increase beyond anything you thought possible.

In our experience, full comprehension of, and ability to apply the Skillful Living materials depends on your using the techniques in this video. Don’t believe me, but take some time to experiment with our methods, and experience their benefits for yourself!