Student
A student is, first and foremost, a condition for development, and second – a definition for a man who believes he possesses the qualities of a student. However, whereas the first is independent or scarcely dependent on the person, the second is a developed condition which combines the learning experience with the ability to learn.
Ultimately, we can say that the very concept of the student is shaped by prenatal and postnatal conditions.
Prenatal conditions
The first and most important condition refers to the qualities with which man is endowed at birth. However, although these conditions are important, their true function finds expression only after the age of 32 for men and 24 for women, when their initial energy is basically used up in the process of building their physique.
Exactly at the age of 24 for women and 32 for men, respectively, the formation of the brain is complete and the prenatal influence starts to manifest itself. This happens in case no serious deviations have occurred so as to force the prenatal energy to block normal development (if the child loses its parents prematurely, for example, which may lead to a disruption in its prenatal conditions). In any case, if such a block occurs, the person should first focus on the possibilities for restoration, and not on studying. Restoration and studying are two different things in spite of the fact that one depends on the other.
Approximately two-thirds of all people possess by birth the condition for being a student. The fulfillment of this condition is, first and foremost, determined by the parents, or rather the conditions these parents create, and, indeed, in which they exist. We can even say that there’s a clash of the postnatal conditions of the parents with the prenatal conditions of the child.
Parents
Every child is a volume, and parents play their role in shaping this volume. This however happens only if the parents truly understand the nature of birth, and are not themselves largely products of postnatal qualities - when people’s experiences are limited by already established forms, actions, and definitions, and the role of the student is already irrelevant.
For the underdeveloped parents the child is a reaction that expresses their own underdevelopment and inferiority. Parents in such a state often damage their own children since they are unable to comprehend the nature of their child’s experiences and view it from the position of their own reactions.
The child then becomes a toy and everything starts to depend on a number of circumstances. As a result, parents become a grave circumstance for the child, which may lead to the development of certain reflexes in the child, and prevent it from achieving the process of learning – the child would be forced to simply repeat reflectory habits or, at best, develop them repeating its parents’ mistakes.
Circumstances
The next stage in the formation of the student is related to the circumstances or the degree of regulation of human behavior and functions. Circumstances shape behavioral activity or the extent to which the person’s involvement in the process will exceed his reactions to the process. This is where the division between internal personal content vs. external occurs.
The degree to which the quality of ‘being within oneself’ is developed in the child determines the way it perceives space. The ability to interact with space or react to it determines the most important factor: the person’s attitude toward his/her actions, and environment, the ability to evaluate in the future – to make a reasonable evaluation of – one’s own needs. People who do not learn to make such an evaluation, are not only worthless for themselves but are also useless for others. Circumstances, eventually, shape the space people live in and hang on to.
Space
Space is defined easily: space is totem and egregore. It is the Earth’s power to always form traditions and shape man’s behavior (culture), providing him with a certain vibration that generally controls people.
Through their interrelatedness people have learned to form links characterized by an additional power that expresses the interest or ‘manifestation’ of all people, or even of a single person, if this person’s power allows him to regulate these relations. This is how the egregore is formed. The formula ‘egregore multiplied by totem’ actually determines the quality of space.
If a person cannot understand this quality (in order to do this, people need to possess a power commensurate with the power in the formula above), he can never be a student. And if he does something that is not inscribed in the egregore he lives in, things are even worse: without the power, it’s useless to think that you can do something that does not comply with the basis of your egregore.
So here we are faced with the following question: Does the potential student have access to someone who can teach him a power that is commensurate with the power of the egregore and the totem? If not, he will lose his last power defending himself either from the space or from the teaching, which would in fact take away his power and not increase it. What comes to the fore here is age, or in other words the when, what and why of what one becomes engaged in.
Age
Naturally, all realization depends on experience. Yet experience can be subdivided into two kinds: conscious and unconscious. Unconscious experience is extremely dangerous since it involves the development of reactions and the formation of conditions for developing the body, energy and mind. However if you haven’t been taught accordingly (i.e. so that the education would correspond to your nature) and especially if your nature has been damaged (your muscles have been erroneously developed, for example), then your energy circulation has been disrupted and you have formed a sensation of life that does not correspond to the qualities of the student.
Since development and hence studentship cannot start before the age of 21 for women and 32 for men, when the mind is finally dependent on regulated energy, then essentially no one can be called a student before reaching that age, unless this person has followed a tradition.
Up to this period, irrespective of their abilities, people have already developed certain functional attitudes towards knowledge. These can form the foundation of the student or can, reversely, cast a person astray.
Let’s examine, for example, a 14 years old gymnast. She can be a perfectly trained world champion, being at the same time absolutely distanced from the concept of the student. Although she is a carrier of the tradition, she’d be able to simply repeat the experience she has had and impose it on someone else.
The worst is that by the age of 25-30 people cannot even compare the positions of right and unnecessary because they live according to the concepts of ‘good and bad’. However students cannot live in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Their only concepts are ‘necessary’ and ‘unnecessary’.
As a result of this, depending on the experience that stems not only from one’s age but also from the time of studying, people form an algorithm of action that has a certain constancy for them comparable with the objectives of the tradition.
Tradition
We should, of course, be very careful when we talk of traditions today. Man has undertaken multiple initiatives to rationalize this concept. Imagine, for example, a translator from Chinese who describes the traditions of the Daoist Tianshi Dao or Way of the Celestial Teachers movement not being himself involved in the practical methods of this movement. He transfers his views of the tradition to the ones who come in contact with his work. Yet what should we expect from translations when even canonical knowledge, the Bible itself, has multiple transcripts, and the Buddhist doctrines are supplemented with commentaries and ratiocinations of the followers speaking about Buddha and what he, supposedly, meant to say. Of course, when advanced and deeply receptive masters make a statement or a judgment, their words are worthy of attention, yet where are those who can understand their true meaning?
No tradition can exist today for a very simple reason: the basis of all traditions is their rhythm. Traditions can exist only in natural rhythm. And today when the mind cannot keep up with computers and phones, man is already unable to live in a tradition.
You might say that this is the normal and natural way for things to be. Yet the answer here is very simple: your power of concentration and even simply your energy force are unable to keep your body and mind in a concentrated state. Therefore from the standpoint of serious doctrines you are incapable of learning. Even if being sick is perfectly natural to you, this cannot be called a tradition (according to the laws of evolution). This is why the only thing we can substitute tradition for is the method. Method is the framework that helps to explain and take man to his natural state and to the development of power. Here again the ability to operate your brain is crucial. Then you have to compare the method and tradition, i.e. determine what prevails in your teaching: the rational or the irrational.
Culture
Culture is the first and most important factor when comparing a tradition. We cannot always apply the method in the cultural realities we inhabit. Therefore, in this case we can be students only by continuing the work, so to speak, of our fathers and grandfathers. This is a fact, and it’s not subject to a discussion.
External positioning
Being engaged in something we must understand that development and therefore the function of the student can stem from real qualities – development of the inner strength, concentration and awareness. We are talking about a primarily internal process. And until it is well developed, the task of the student is to serve the one who leads him to this state. If you are concerned about external appearance, social status, power, then you are in no way a student. Because the task of the student is to maximally invest his time in himself. This applies also to the question of money (see the Q&A section of Money).
Internal change
The student understands the method or the tradition and follows the algorhythm of development. The Algorhythm of development is his most important task. He must not depend on external pleasures and must understand the difference between satisfaction and pleasure. This is what the tradition or the method should teach.
Learning
Learning is in fact the most important factor that makes someone a student. And the most crucial criterion here is the ability to learn. Only when you are taught the ability to learn, you’ll be able to recognize your teacher, and your teacher will be able to recognize you as a student.
If a teacher considers someone his student, yet the student has not mastered the ability to learn, then we have two lost sheep. Although, of course, if you believe your children are you students, this is your right as a parent, with all subsequent consequences. The most important skill of the student lies in the state of his mind. The ability to learn is the basis of the focused mind. The student cannot wish to be a student, he simply is such, and all his actions must go in this direction or else he is simply playing a role. The task of the teacher is to abstain from demonstrating game qualities to the student for this would be detrimental not only to the one who calls himself a student but also to the teacher himself.
So, the student can be formed as such only when he has correctly prepared his mind. This state will help him start to form and acquire knowledge, and develop the skill to ask questions, essentially to ask himself questions, and find or perceive the answers. For the teacher those who cannot learn cannot hear, cannot see, cannot feel, and cannot speak.
Postnatal conditions
In addition to all above listed factors we must never forget postnatal conditions, i.e. the ones that are developed in the process of living. These are mostly uncontrolled actions and thoughts, which disrupt quite a few of our internal processes. Sometimes these disruptions are so serious that it takes years to fix them.
For example a stretched tendon, a hanging muscle, or a disrupted balance lead to a kid of balance in motion, both external and internal (energy), that changes the circulation and decreases the nourishment of the brain, disrupting the symmetry of the brain and changing the position of the kidney. And since this happens everywhere man cannot detect the source of the change, sometimes simply due to lack of concentration, and then he turns into a hybrid of chaotic sensations.
Then this hybrid wants to study under someone. Yet for the teacher this is simply an underdeveloped monkey. Can you imagine how much time it takes to make this creature comprehend what he has done to himself! He doesn’t have the orientation senses the teacher has, for example. In this case an agreement for cooperation should be put in place, according to which the teacher is to wait until this person’s consciousness is reorganized in a different format of perception. So postnatal conditions are one of the biggest traps for false students.
The sensation of the student
This is what actually determines if someone is a real student. Is the teaching for the student something that goes beyond his established reactions and judgments? If the student responds negatively to the words of the teacher, if he discusses and evaluates him, he begins to assess the knowledge and puts himself above the learning process by responding to the knowledge. Which is not a true knowledge, but a reflex, "I know."
Such a student can not be considered a true student. Nor the person he has grown into. The sensation of being a student lies in the ability to experience the learning process. Of course, if he does not or cannot experience this learning process, he obviously hasn’t been taught how to be a student, and may call himself however he wants, without having or lacking the right to it.
The most dangerous thing is to play the role of a student, or play for too long the game of a school, a tradition, or a teacher. We have to learn the art of becoming a student, and not make haste to be one, or else we can turn from a non-student into a non-master or a non-teacher.
The level of the student
While learning the student must go through several levels. The first level is external serving when he must perform everything flawlessly, and is not yet ready to assessed the internal. This is the most dangerous period since he must open himself, and develop his power, or else he may well remain a part of something, and even degrade his qualities.
Depending on the age this period varies with different people between 3 and 5 years. The most important thing you should find out in this stage is the following: Does your teacher perceive you as his student? If he does, he will see an opportunity and will use this period to make you his student. If you consider someone your teacher then you too bear the responsibility of learning about the stages of growth, otherwise you may not have achieved anything even in 10, 15 or 30 years.
If the teacher has identified you as a student and in 3 years time you have not yet understood the method, nor have you noticed any change in yourself, then you are no student to this teacher, or perhaps he is no teacher at all.
Remember the following rule: If a teacher considers you a student, then you must entrust yourself to him completely, for he bears full responsibility for you. If a teacher accepts you as his student, he must then see and understand what he should do with you as quickly as possible. If a teacher considers you his student and you have worked with him less than three years, then again something is wrong, since you haven’t had enough experience in communicating with him and he hasn’t prepared you for studentship yet.
The assumption that the teacher sees all and has super-magical powers is like a tale of love - you will spend a happy honeymoon together, and then you’ll be replaced with someone else.
What you need
Future students need to remember the following formula ‘persistence – responsibility – obedience’. This formula must always be in your mind, or else you cannot call yourself a student.
What you accept
It is crucial that you understand what you accept as a student. Essentially knowledge and the teacher impose upon in you not only the scheme of studentship but also behavior. If you accept certain things from your teacher and discard others, then you cannot claim that you have an internal student-teacher relationship.
The teacher is obliged to give you and teach you more than what you have. In other words he improves you, he transforms you into something more than what was born. So, for a certain time, he becomes for you the highest instance.
The student can not have faith in his teacher. He may have faith in knowledge, but not in his teacher. The student, having learned the method, can have no doubts in his teacher. Even the slightest doubt is impossible for a student. You may study something under somebody, and doubt it as much as you want, but if you consider yourself the student of a particular teacher, and the teacher considers you his student, then you are not allowed any doubt!
What is subject to change
The period of studentship is variable. The student should make constant evaluations using the measures of knowledge and change. No expectations are allowed. If change does not occur, this is an indication of a disruption in the teacher-student relationship.
Of course, the reason for this might be that the student has overtaken his teacher. In this case the stage of studentship under this teacher must be ended here. In spite of this the teacher should still remain a teacher in the mind of the student if he has managed to bring him to a higher level, however the teacher should not, he does not have the right to, hold the student back.
A very important factor here is transition - which many people who consider themselves students make ignorantly, thus damaging their own prenatal position. This should not be forgotten. It usually happens when a master or a teacher has outlived the student in himself. If the master is a real master, then he should demonstrate a different level of studentship. The same applies to the teacher. Therefore if your teacher considers himself a student, never compare yourself to him, because the teacher puts himself in your place from the very beginning.
What is subject to recognition
This is where we come back to the concepts of tradition and method. The fact is that tradition needs to be above all served. And this is a problem. It is the reason why often children of different teachers follow a tradition and attain mastery at the age of 15-20 and then they lose it all, they lose the space they’ve been in touch with. In other words they essentially change one rhythm for another however then they cannot position or manage themselves. So today the method is the most important function for those who want to be students. What’s crucial in these conditions is to recognize the learning process since this can help us to remain students regardless of the mastery.
Correctness
The criterion for growth is the satisfaction of our actions. In order to achieve this we must understand that a true student can be only someone who maintains a geometric, an arithmetic concept of education, that is, one who simply builds up.
A student may not like or dislike the teaching. He’s guided by satisfaction, which increases his sensually experienced qualities - when every day is, even by a tiny bit, better than the last.
Correctness lies in this case in the developed constancy, which is based on true force, which is characterized by the quality of the energy. In other words, a real student is someone who understands and knows how to nurture and improve his energy, and not someone who practices certain techniques or belongs to a certain school.
10 february 2012
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