We Are Programmed To Learn Things On Our Own
Once a man approached the Buddha and asked him to bestow enlightenment upon him. The glacial cool Buddha said, "Enlightenment isn't an object. It's a process. I can but show you the path. You're required to walk on that to have enlightenment." This is called heuristic guidance.
According to the lexicon, ‘heuristic’ means, 'enabling someone to discover or learn something for themselves.' This is the perfect way of learning as well as teaching unlike the spoon-feeding method of mollycoddling that doesn't help a learner learn on his own. You may have noticed that animals and birds teach their young ones to hunt and fend for themselves.
Great Persian mystic poet Urfi had many disciples. He would teach them theological tenets and after a certain stage, he would say, “Now find the Truth for yourself.” This is spiritual initiation into the realm of enlightenment and mental evolution. You're deliberately given the partial Truth. You've to complete it on your own because Truth or Enlightenment is subjective. Remember the famous Zen aphorism: the Buddha's Truth is Buddha's. It cannot be yours. You can take a horse to the pond, but you cannot make him drink. Once you're let loose in the wild, you automatically learn the ropes to protect yourself from the wild animals. One can never learn how to swim or drive so long as the trainer hovers over your head. Leave the person to find the ways, subsisting on his survival instincts.
In fact, all learning is instinctive. Even Arjun couldn't learn all tricks of warfare from Guru Dronacharya despite being his favourite disciple. Guru Drona had no malafide intention in not teaching all the tricks to his favourite disciple who was like a son to him. He did that deliberately so that Arjun could learn it in a real-life situation while facing a formidable opponent. This is auto-instinctive learning, a practical approach to learning and teaching. Apparently, cricket coach Kamal Vinayakrao Bhandarkar, who fine-tuned Sunil Gavaskar's technique, used to tell his students that their main exam would be on the wicket facing the bowlers and the opponents. The coach wouldn't be there to bat for them.
We all have been ushered in by Nature to live, survive and thrive on our own. To be precise, the entire human existence is heuristic. We learn by trial and error and by our mistakes. All our teachers, parents, peers, and others are mere pointers. None of them is a destination. To quote the Buddha yet again, you're your own destination. So very true. This is a great lesson to be followed by the teachers as well as today's helicopter-parents, who pamper, spoon-feed and mollycoddle their wards and never allow the young ones to emerge as independent individuals, learners, and seekers. Let the young ones feel the heat of life to blossom into sterling individuals. Aag mein tapkar hi sona kundan banta hai -- gold turns into 24-carat after undergoing the scorching heat of fire. This is the mantra of life and this is the secret of evolution.
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