Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way
About This Book
Shah's most psychologically sophisticated work — examining the specific mechanisms by which ordinary human learning and spiritual development are impeded by habitual patterns of thought, social conditioning, and the ego's investment in particular self-images. He draws on both modern psychology and the ancient Sufi tradition to show how most people are systematically miseducated out of their natural capacity for genuine insight, and what is required to recover it.
What You'll Learn
Most people have learned how to learn in ways that are specifically designed to prevent genuine learning — education systems produce skilled information-processors but typically inhibit the development of real understanding. The Sufi concept of "higher learning" requires a preliminary stage of "unlearning" — the deliberate dissolution of habitual thinking patterns, fixed opinions, and the social conditioning that shapes perception before it reaches consciousness. The greatest obstacle to genuine learning is the assumption that one already knows — the person who approaches a teaching with the conviction that it will confirm what they already believe extracts only confirmation, regardless of how much genuine teaching is embedded in the material.
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