How Important Do You Consider Academic Knowledge In Personal Development?

[Guest]

I think academics and theory is equally important to practical knowledge. My approach to personal development is in using the academic and the practical to complement one another. What's your view?

[Ayla]

Theory is only valuable for you to remove the theory that's already there, so that you are able to throw it all away in the end  

[Mohsinuddin]

See...I am good at academic education but then I don't want to fall into trap where I get lost in the knowledge world and not finding the truth.

[Lifes2short]

I believe they are both necessities, although I find myself addicted to gaining knowledge and learning, but I know if I sit around reading all day nothing will happen. You have to at some stage put your knowledge into practice. I'm not sure what your routine is like, but I work full time so I dedicate my time to practicality (in my case writing and music) in the hours I have available on weekdays at night time after work and exercise, if I have spare time on the weekend I use that to read and gain knowledge. It was a hard sacrifice because I love reading but like I said I knew at some stage I had to start using up more of time to get things done. If I was to give you a ratio I would say evenly distribute 70% of your time to practice and 30% of your time to theory (these are approximate figures). I think its all about finding that certain balance.

[Dhana Choko]

You can be in whatever "world", let it be business, academic, unemployed, whatever and one can be "sucked" into unawareness. It is not about what you do but how aware you can be through the experience. You can definitely be in the academic world and do spiritual/enlightenment work.

[Mohsinuddin]

@Dhana ChokoBut academic world you putting more thoughts in your head which is opposite to enlightenment?

[Dhana Choko]

15 minutes ago, Mohsinuddin said:

@Dhana ChokoBut academic world you putting more thoughts in your head which is opposite to enlightenment?

Thoughts arise from the nothingness and turn into nothingness. It might look like a certain "environment" puts thoughts into your head but you really need to question that belief. It goes far deeper than that. You can be in a slum with kids with no education and you will still have magnitude of thoughts running in your head.

[Son of leo]

This question is mind boggling for students. Gaining knowledge from different resources like Anime, personal development, books etc but don't know who to trust. The best way to find the answer is to Experiment like Issac Newton said.

[Jesper]

I think that theory is important to start with - you have to learn the principles, study, find out how things work and how your own psychology works.

But just learning theory isn't going to get you results - putting the theory into practice, and experimenting with it in your own life, is essential. By studying your rational mind can learn things, but the only way your subconscious mind can learn things is by trying them out and by experiencing what it is like. For example, you can't become really self-confident only by learning theoretically what it means. You have to experience and feel what it is like to make your subconscious really accept it and to really change your own internal self-image.

Learning the theory is not very hard for me. Putting the theory into practice, that's the hardest thing in personal development. That's where I encounter resistance, because it's scary to put myself on the line and do things that I've never done before. I often have to overcome my resistance by reminding myself why I'm doing this. Be scared and do it anyway, because I know where I want to be.

[Ben Landrail]

You have to make a distinction between different kinds of academic disciplines. In humanities (like literary theory, comparative and cultural studies, art history, all sorts of criticisms), it's mostly about interpretation. Someone wrote a book 200 years ago. Then a critic wrote a book about this book. Then an academic wrote a book about the critics. Then another academic wrote a book about all three books, comparing them to Taylor Swift's lyrics. The problem is, this kind of discourse, as they call it in academia, is absolutely speculative and relative. You learn theories about theories, split hairs, wade through shit only to find more shit. It's all mental masturbation.

Natural and applied sciences are quite different. They tell you how something works, how it should work optimally and so on. But science doesn't answer metaphysical and ethical questions. So you have to decide for yourself how are you going to apply what you learn. Same thing with social sciences.

I see the theory/practice problem this way. You follow your inclinations, dreams, whatever, gather practical knowledge and experience, spot problem areas and something you'd like to improve and understand. Then you go study what the science has to tell you about that, and then make an informed decision, followed by an action. 

[Rito]

I dont think formal education is important but you need to be a well read and well rounded person in order to deepen your understanding of life which is a definite a prerequisite for personal development.Academic Knowledge can give you some degree of perspective.What will give it true completion is practical implementation and experimentation.Practical experiences give theory new meaning and dimension and one is incomplete without the other.If you have practical knowledge only your appreciation of it is limited.For example If I know how to drive a car that it is okay,but if I read about the development of internal combustion engines and several factors about the automobile field,my driving experience would have a whole new meaning.

On the other if I just read about cars and stuff and never drove one I would never even begin to appreciate what a automobile actually is.

[Pallero]

Interesting question. As a person with a University degree I have thought about this a lot.

What is important about academic knowledge in general is that if you study it you are very curious about life. And that curiosity is the beginning of personal development and enlightenment. Studying people like Einstein, Hawking et cetera will make you so curious and imaginative that you will start to feel that if you don't get into it in some way, you'll pop!

And that is the motivation you'll need to start your own journey.

[Guest]

@Ayla Would you please elaborate?

[Ayla]

9 minutes ago, Saitama said:

@Ayla Would you please elaborate?

Everything you learn in self-development only serves for you to un-learn whatever you've learnt by now so that in the end, no learning is left

 

[Guest]

@Ayla I think I'm still missing something here. This seems really foreign to me. Could you elucidate with an example?

[Ayla]

@Saitama, 

This is one of Papaji's analogies: 

If a painful thorn enters your foot, you need another thorn to get it out, to remove it from there. Once you have used the thorn (knowledge) to remove the thorn from your foot (what you have already learnt), you will throw both away - not needing any of it anymore. 

That's enlightenment

 

[Guest]

@Ayla 

I still don't think I understand. Are you suggesting enlightenment entails no longer needing knowledge whatsoever?

Edited February 13, 2016 by Saitama

[RyanSubconscious]

@Ayla I find your comments full of depth and wonder. I kind of understand what you mean but I'm with Saitama with the last question posted. If you no longer need any knowledge at all, then what was its purpose in learning it in the first place if only to throw it all away? Also, let us be practical, if I were to unlearn everything I know, I'd be without a job. Can you dive a little deeper for us? 

[Ayla]

What purpose has the smell of a flower? 

[Ayla]

You can see everything with your eyes. Isn't it so? Still, the eyes cannot see themselves. To do that, they need a mirror. 7 billiard mirrors that reflect back to the eyes (and those are just the humans)

Have you ever been into one of these? 

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/carnaval_ooc/38490.html