The idea of studying is a gift to all humans, as the intelligence, mind, and “I can” are always at work by birth. “Study” as verb means (Collins English Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014) - to apply the mind to the learning or understanding of (a subject), especially by reading; to investigate or examine, as by observation, research. For me, I believe and also heard from great Masters, that “study” is done by babies below 3 years and scientists. In between, somehow, we unlearn/learn things as to serve selves and own self alone.

How babies learn, as we know, that is through the language of feelings. They understand everything and know a lot in detail too, which is how they react or respond accordingly. An exposure to certain situations or incidents, they imbibe the experience and become such a personality in the long run we never know how. Everything they learnt through feelings, through constant interaction with surroundings, people and things has been experiential. Any feeling-based interaction is an experiential one, that when mastered would lead to such a balance in the long run to know the purity (divine work) in every feeling (pure like fire) that arise from around us without any emotion (like smoke with sfumato or fumes to soot sometimes).

But alas, the babies when grown beyond 3 or 3.5 years, they are somehow forced to unlearn that feeling-based language to some other one. Imagine, a baby almost every day having an apple from his/her mother and suddenly you show an apple and say, for example“this is an Apple, and A for Apple”, he/her would laugh at it or wonder at us, that why we are showing that they already know very well. Slowly, in the classrooms, the unlearning of the beautiful language of feelings is lost as if it does not exist to the level that as many elders almost brush them off as useless.

Even though, it is a very difficult phenomena undergone by all children unlearning the beautiful language of feelings, the impact in learning anything is much difficult one to face and bear the consequences therein. The impact is seen in the way, mostly known to everyone these days, that they put a lot of effort in learning anything compared to effortlessness in learning while they were babies. Babies or even in some who have child-like nature or even in some who are very interested in a topic are mostly effortless in their actions.

Generally, there’s a question on what interests one in life or career to choose. I believe, to check in reverse way. While we are “studying” each topic with good interest, we would know in which topic of interest one is much effortless than in others. This is how one can figure out what interests them a lot. Now, they may choose among those topics of interest to move on further ahead in their “study”. It is not always that we get what we like, but when we start liking the one we got, the interest and effortlessness in it too gets better. We need to note and that child-like wonder should be the basis of learning, ever.

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