Hindu tradition encourages learning from others through things such as stories, proverbs, and familial guidance.
- Stories. Whether we read the original or digested version of a text, we easily remember things that seem most relevant to our lives. Considering the Mahabharata, it is stories about intensity (e.g. Arjuna) or integrity (e.g. Yudishthira) that I find most vivid, because as I am reading them, I subconsciously consider the practical applications. On the other hand, sections listing things such as the names of deities, I do not immediately find practical — perhaps they are, but I am not able to see it. In his way, I like stories best when they appear to be applicable to my own life.
- Proverbs. This is a harder one, because I don’t think about proverbs as I act in daily life. I have included proverbs here because it seems like a large part of what dharma is comes from proverbial injunction.
- Parental guidance. This is the strongest means to learning from others — learning from the people who shape our life from its beginning. From things as simple as teaching us to walk, to telling us to concentrate on studies, to anger that gives negative feedback on our actions, to affection that gives positive feedback — parents are the most formative sources of learning from others that we have while growing up.
The question now is — when do you consider something a valid source to learn from? What it is that gives these sorts of sources their authority?
I just realized that I forgot to include friends in the above list, but I am not trying to be comprehensive here.
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So in my opinion, things become valid sources to learn from when you find that they are consistent with your values and beliefs. So when I read something like “Do unto others as you would have done to yourself,” I think, “Okay, I know that it’s important to be nice to people,” so I can learn from this proverb. I also think this is one of the reasons that we find our parents to be such important sources of learning. Since it’s our parents that have most directly shaped our value system, the things they say, do, and practice are almost certainly consistent with what we value. So we tend to use them as models and learn from them more than any of our other sources.
According to Sharmila’s theory, we can’t easily learn completely new things. Rather, we merely “discover” things we already “know” or agree with on some deeper level.
This makes a lot of sense, and yet it is pretty much a definition of closed-minded. Is this normal? Is it good/bad?
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