The Power of Learning is Learning How to Unlearn

"Dealing with the mud: Real peace is a process of subtraction, not addition." Photo by Jo Van de kerkhove on Unsplash

There is a lot of emphasis on the power of learning and spending time in learning and mastering many different skills in this world. And there's certainly so much to learn ever since we come out of the womb. We need to learn how to walk, we need to learn how to talk, and so on.

But I need to say that in terms of happiness, peace, and spiritual maturity, really the most important skill that we need to learn in this life is unlearning.

The Overlearned Mind

Most negative emotions come out of accumulated negative thought patterns that are running around in our minds and we identify with them and they generate anger, fear, anxiety, depression, and so on.

We overlearned these patterns so much so that we feel that we don't even have any control over them and they are just running around in our minds.

And seemingly there is no direct control over them indeed, but what can really be done is to become really really conscious of them, become aware of them. That is part of unlearning. That is part of the skill of unlearning. The first step is to recognize and be aware of the thoughts that are running around in your mind.

The Art of Subtraction

Unlearning doesn't really do anything. It doesn't fight the negative patterns, the negative thoughts. You simply become fully aware of it, recognize it, and then let it go.

Happiness and peace are a natural state and we don't really get there by adding skills and adding new beliefs. The real way to get there is by subtracting, so we unlearn what is dragging us down. Any real learning is really about helping this process of unlearning.

Even just using the words "get there" is not quite right because you are already there. You just don't know it.

The Frosting and the Mud

There is a lot of talk of positive thinking as a way to arrive at happiness, peace, a good state of mind. However, while it is a helpful stepping stone in the beginning, it's not really it.

If you have a cake of mud and then you put a lot of delicious frosting over it, it's still a cake of mud. I don't think you'll want to eat that.

There's no way around it. You really need to deal with the mud. Dealing with the mud is all the negative patterns that you have learned in your mind and disentangling them, unlearning them. That is the way.

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The Most Important Thing

I have recently read a powerful book by Adyashanti, and since then I start most of my meditations with the question, "What is the most important thing right now?" And I have found that it's a really powerful practice. He says: You could apply this concept

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How to Be Always Successful?

We could say that most people in the current modern world are almost obsessed with success, with the idea of success. There is so much written and said about "success" or "failure". But what is success or failure really in the world? Is there an absolute

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Sickness Is of the Mind

By the learning of this world, when we think about sickness, we really tend to think about the body primarily. The body does this, it feels this, it feels that, and so on. And then we judge people by the state of their body. However: "Remember, sickness is separation

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Peace Is Not About Productivity

It is natural to feel guilt, demotivation, and anxiety when your actions do not align with your desires and goals. This is from the ego's harsh judgment of yourself. And there is the deeper belief that you need to do something, you need to achieve something to be