Observations on Learning and Teaching

   You teach best what you most need to learn.
                                             Anon

   Every good teacher hopes to give his students os much of his own learning that they will one day no longer need him. This is the one true goal of the teacher.
                                                     A Course in Miracles

   ...if you project perfection on most teachers you'll only be disappointed. Many, though they may offer 'perfect teachings' for you at the moemnt, may not be perfected human beings ...
                                        Stephen Levine, Guided Meditations, Explorations and Healings

   The blueprint for your work here on Earth already exists within you. You do not have to be given instruction by anything outside yourself, not by this book, a book of old, not by any person, object or event. These things may be helpful at times, but your primary task is to awaken the living Christ in your heart. This is your true identity. Express God in all that you are, and throw away the crutches that have helped you stumble through history.
                                                     Ken Carey, The Starseed Transmissions

   Native people refer to the Original Instructions often in speech and prayer, but rarely attempt to say exactly what they are. They are not like the Ten Commandments carved in stone by a stern authority figure. They are not ideas. They are reality. They are natural law, the Way Things Are -- the operational manual for a working creation -- and they cannot totally be understood in words. They must be experienced. The Original Instructions are not imposed by human minds on the world. They are of the living spirit. Other creatures follow them instinctively, and they are communicated to humankind through the heart, through feelings of beauty and love.
                         Medicine Story -- Somewhere under the Rainbow in Steven McFadden,                                                                                                    Profiles in Wisdom

   ...we told the hippies: "Go sit somewhere and figure out how you want to thank the thunder. Then it will be original, what you do. As long as it's sincere." There's no big garage sale on native ceremonies. That's all we're saying, the Indian people. We don't have a magic wand. We don't have a great mystique. And we don't have gurus. We're just human beings.
                     Loraine Canoe and Tom Porter -- Sounding a basic all to consciousness
                     in Steve McFadden, Profiles in Wisdom

   An apprenticeship never ends. Shamans are always learning; they are apprenticed to the gods.
                     Brant Secunda -- Singing the shaman's song
                     in Steven McFadden, Profiles in Wisdom

   Knowledge is a beautiful thing, but the using of knowledge in a good way is what makes for wisdom. Learning how to use knowledge in a sacred manner, that's wisdom, to me ...
                     Sun Bear -- Prophet of the earth changes
                     in Steven McFadden, Profiles in Wisdom

   I have learned to trust my intuition, and I've learned to do it sooner. It's taken a long time to realize that it isn't so important that I understnad intellectually what I'm doing. More important is that I feel the validity of my action. That is the way I know that it fits in with the deeper harmonies of the universe. 'I feel it intuitively' is heard by some as a weak and waffling response. I don't care. I'm not going to resist actions based on my intuition just because I can't justify them. I don't find my judgmental faculty nearly as wise as my intuitive one.
                     Ram Dass (and Mirabai Bush), Compassion in Action

   A woman once came to Ghandi with her young son. "Mahatma-ji, tell my son to stop eating sugar. It's not good for him." Ghandi told her to return with her son in a week's time. When they returned, Ghandi said to the boy, "Stop eating sugar." The woman was perplexed and asked Ghandi why he couldn't have told the boy that a week earlier. Ghandi replied, "Because at the time I had not given up sugar."
                     Ram Dass (and Mirabai Bush), Compassion in Action
 

You may quote from or reproduce these editorial clips if you include the following credits and email contact:
Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, M.D. 1993 Reprinted with permission of the author P.O. Box 76 Bellmawr, NJ 08099 www.WholisticHealingResearch.com   DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com

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