What do we have to unlearn in order to attain a higher spirituality?

Question absolutely everything until you come to the realization that everything you read, hear, see, and say may or may not be true.

Be willing to let go of any belief that no longer serves you.

What is Unlearning?

Unlearning is not reframing or refreezing or something along that lines. They all focus on an end state whereas unlearning is about moving away from something rather than moving towards something.

So unlearning is exactly what it says. Intending to let go of what we have already learned or acquired. It is not about right or wrong. It is about being open to and exploring something that lies underneath the judgment, underneath the right and the wrong.

Unlearning and Spirituality

In spirituality literature, we talk about liberation or freeing oneself from the bondage. Whether it is Sufi, or Hindu or Buddhism or Judeo-Christian religions, unlearning the conditined or acquired behaviors and reaching for the higher truth, or Spirit, or God is the ultimate goal. Jiddu Krishnamurti, a well known Indian philosopher of the 20th Century had said repeated that the ‘truth is a pathless land’ and focused on freeing us from the conditioned responses. The process of unlearning is about liberation or freedom from the conditioning or from the known.

Obviously in this context of exploring unlearning, learning is used as acquisition of knowledge or information. In Vedanta, they talk about ‘para vidya’ and ‘apara vidya.’ One is learning about the manifested, external world and learning to manage and become good at dealing with what is outside of you. The other is about what is inside of you and knowing yourself and exploring who you are and what you are. In other words, the first one is about objective knowledge and the second is about subjective knowledge. Unlearning what is learned so that you are open to learning ‘what is unknown’ and to experience it is a path that interests many people.

It could also be a behavioral pattern or a habit or a mental construct too.

I saw somebody using an example of zen master and emptying the cup as the metaphor for unlearning. The essence is about ’emptying’ and not about ’emptying so that we can fill it up.’

Dr. Benjamin used an example of a woman falling from the bicycle and her sari getting caught in the wheel. While the focus for the helper might be to get the woman to safety while the woman might rather focus on modesty than safety. It requires unlearning on the part of the helper to see what is really needed and how to help while including her need.

Another example is learning how to ride a bicycle (click on the title Bicycle Built for Two to read the story). You cannot focus first on balance, then on peddles and looking ahead. You have to do all of them simultaneously and it comes by letting go of the focus on any one of them and mastering all of them.

Unlearning could be also described as stripping the existing paint of a wall so that new paint sticks. As you know stripping is 70% of the job and repainting is 30%.

Another metaphor that describes unlearning is removing the old plants in the farm so that you can plant again.

Unlearning is also about a mental construct. For example, In my experience, I found that people who have high cognitive focus do not like the word unlearning at all. They would rather find another word.

In all these examples, the focus is on emptying and creating an opening. Once openness is experienced, learning and creativity become easier.

If we think about learning to have two components: one that leads to tool building (information and knowledge) and another that leads to wisdom and transformation (subjective learning), unlearning is extraordinarily important component of the second kind. So the phrase ‘learning to learn’ probably is more closely related to unlearning though the focus is ‘freeing from what we have learned.’

we have to unlearn I, me ,myself. Also known as the ego. according to certain philosophies, we came into this world empty handed and leave it the same way, so all materialistic objects we acquire do not belong to us any more than to anyone else.
A certain detachment from the world allows us to overcome negative emotions like anger, despair, revenge and live a fuller life wherein we should meditate on why we are here and our purpose in life.
However detachment shouldn’t be taken to mean living on alms and not working for a living, as a sense of purpose in life is necessary for providing us an anchor.

To attain a higher spirituality,
One must unlearn the notion that one is not there yet.
So long as such thought is held of oneself,
One would be limited by it’s bondage.

“Do or do not! There is no try.” — Yoda

Sir,

There is no pre-packaged solution to your question except one, “choice”. Unlearning or simply put, un-conditioning of one’s self is by no means an easy task to explain or to achieve. If you are serious about your question here then I will take the time to write this to you in the sacred manner. However, if you have not been honest with us here or yourself, then you will receive nothing. In order for you to understand any of what I may have to say at this juncture involves two readjustments right from the beginning.

Firstly, to begin your journey one must give up something that does not belong to us as a natural state of being. This one thing is the key to most all people’s problems to begin with. Control!!! We control nothing except the moment we are in! Oh yes, one may think that they do, and one may act like they do, but in the reality of where you are trying to go or your destination (according to your question now), this quantum DOES NOT exists.

Secondly, past history is just that, past history! It is essential to be intuitively aware of parts of the greater-self, but as one brings that facet of themselves into the ‘now’, the implications or theme is consistent with one question. Did you learn the lesson for that particular part of your journey? Are you being given the opportunity to resolve an issue(s) that still needs attention? Do you have the ability to take responsibility for the karma you have created; resolve it and really meet your spiritual self?

I am a Native American Indian. Born and raised primarily on the reservation. My beliefs have nothing to do with what I am saying to you in this moment, because man’s religion is far from the spiritually you may be seeking. However, the truth be known, most all of the general American public are seriously stuck in their wee little worlds of illusion about reality, religions, and short-term gains. They all honestly believe that they control it all. Needless to say, immediate self-gratification and petty gains rule your worlds!!!!!!!!!

In general, most all people choose denial as their means of escape and simply throw important lessons and moments in the ‘now’ to the side and return to whatever conditionings are comfortable for them. Separatists, such as warriors on the other hand, do not have time for such hockey-puck. We don’t need comforting nor consolation in these matters because we have made a choice…to finish all the lessons. You don’t need past history to move down the “road less traveled”.

What is prevalent here is not who you think you were, but who you are right now! This moment! There is no other moment!!!! As long as you are not in the moment or you so choose to ignore it, all else in your life will continue to elude you including true spiritually. You will be forever searching for something you KNOW, but can not touch. Today, man’s dogmatic religions, combined with a societal conditioning so controlling and a psyche so entrenched with rhetoric, that real (natural) spiritualility is never grasped until the solemn death bed.

Seeking one’s own spirituality is parallel with the quest for knowledge. Knowledge unto itself comes in its own timing, not ours! One can not force it, only re-enforce it! But one’s natural spirit is forever no further than in front of him. It can not be seen by the average person because man’s conditionings have blocked the true knowledge. Knowledge and understanding of one’s true natural spirituality is gained at a very painful price dear friend. It is unconditional. One can not lead a duel life and expect to be successful within limited conditions. Limited conditions with limited knowledge is the resultant. Knowledge comes through diligent hard work at un-conditioning one’s self from the ways of mankind’s folly, (Clarity).

It comes with pain and it comes with loneliness like you have never known. It comes with a mind-set that can not be twisted and construed with religious based conditioning and expectations of others. It comes alone, in the darkness, it makes you cry out into the night in one’s darkest hours, Like death, it sits right off your left shoulder, watching. It makes you mad with desire, yet there is none. It is called the ‘void’! It does not have shape. It does not have form. It only has existence. Much like ourselves! It has been hidden from all of you by those in power. You do not have control of it, if and when it comes. It is, and always will be, pure spirit and unconditional love. The moment one tries to control it, it becomes ambiguous and harder to retrieve.

In the sacred manner, if you HAVE NOT done your time in the wilderness ALONE, if you have not dumped your soul upon mother earth and danced the vision quest. If you have not purged and cleansed your very being of all the useless lies about your life and the lies you have conformed to and collected; if you have not beat your drum around the sacred fire until you could beat no more; if you have not fasted and prayed for your vision in the sacred manner alone; if you have not heard the sacred messages as the wind fingers itself across your sacred circle; if you have not listened to the lone raven squawk its message and understood that it was your own inner-self; and seen the lowly moth arriving to seal your vision… Then you have done nothing!!! And you will receive nothing!!! Except eternal clarity! There are no exceptions!!! None!!!