'The Commanding Self

Nowadays, few people contest the importance of knowing about conditioning in order to examine belief-systems. Why, therefore, is it so difficult to communicate with so many people along these lines? The answer is very simple. We are at a stage in understanding human behaviour analogous to that which obtained when people began to try to talk of chemistry to those who were fixated upon the hope of untold wealth (or, sometimes, spiritual enlightenment) through alchemy. Like the alchemist or those who want easy riches, people want dramatic inputs (emotional stimuli, excitement, reassurance, authority-figures and the rest) rather than knowledge.

It is only when the desire for knowledge and understanding becomes as effective as the craving for emotional stimulus that the individual becomes accessible to change, to knowledge, to more than a very little understanding.

So learning must be preceded by the capacity to learn. THAT, in turn, comes about at least in part by right attitude. And THAT, again, is where the would-be learner has to exercise effort.

From 'The Commanding Self ' Idries Shah