Learning

This is an excerpt from a private consultation held in September 2005 (presented here with the permission of the client). The names of the individuals have been changed to respect their privacy:

SARAH: For a long time, I've been fascinated with the esoteric aspects of life, like quantum physics, but I don't really have the education in that field. I've been trying to decide what I want to do in my life, and I realize that I've been just waiting at a "fork in the road." But then, I started thinking, "Okay, this fork in the road isn't fun anymore." So I've made the decision to begin working as an intuitive healer.

BARATTA: Yes, indeed. Now, let us talk to you a bit about this choice that you've made, and what its implications are for you personally, all right?

First of all, there's been a certain safety in hanging around the fork, do you understand? It was comfortable, yes. And so you didn't deal with the ideas that come up like, "Well, I have no training. I have no this. I have no (as you said) ‘education' in things such as quantum physics, etcetera. And yes, we understand all of those various logical ideas, and yes, there are certain skills associated with the pursuits that you are moving towards, yes, certain skills that come with practice, that come with exploration, that come with research, etcetera, that come with study." Yes indeed. But you see, it is important to recognize that as you approach any pursuit, there is learning, and truly, the people who are alive are the ones who are always learning, do you understand? To where learning is not, "Well, I'm a student until I'm not anymore." Learning is not, "Well, I have to make up for all the things that I didn't study when I was in school." That's not learning. You see, that's fixing.

As we've talked before, with your relationship your daughter, fixing is something you want to move beyond, yes? And so, similarly, with your relationship to learning, truly, learning is part of living. Learning is an essential part of living. In fact, we will say, learning is part of being a consciousness. It is an essential part of being a consciousness, whether you are living in physical reality or not.

Learning has been tainted by school. No, it's not school itself, it is the manifestation of school built out of many energies, including the idea of fixing what's wrong with you.

SARAH: Yes. Oooh, the teachers I've had.

BARATTA: Yes. Now where does that idea come from? Shame. Shame being dumped upon you, yes indeed, by teachers, by parents, etcetera, fixing what's wrong with YOU, "So I don't have to fix what's wrong with me." And so, yes, learning, in all of its beauty and majesty and essential nature, has been tainted in your belief system. And so it becomes a matter of, "Learning is what I need to do to fix what's wrong with me."

SARAH: Oh dear. Okay. So, do I go in as the professor? No, because that would be fixing again.

BARATTA: Yes, "so I can fix other people so I don't have to be fixed." No, you don't have to be the professor. You don't have to be even the PhD, unless you want to. You don't have to be with letters after your name if you don't want to, all right, if that doesn't resonate for you. How much freedom is there in that? And so, you don't have to be the professor, and no, you don't have to be the student either. No, not at all. You see, the student, in the sense that we're talking, subjugates themselves to the teacher out of the respect for the "dues" the teacher has paid, and, "Don't be uppity with the teacher." You understand. And so, it's a way of adhering to that system of fixing.

SARAH: Oh, that pertains to everything.

BARATTA: Yes, it's a way of saying, "All right, I'm going to agree in our relationship (you, professor, and me, student) to be less than you until I am you. And I won't be arrogant, and think I'm equal to you until I've paid the dues you have. That way, you grant your knowledge to me. That way, you'll be happy with me. That way, you'll approve of me."

Now, you understand, that's dysfunction. And you see, you don't even need a physical teacher to go into that place around learning, you see?

SARAH: Oh. Yeah. Because if I entered into that, I would not be sitting around the table as an equal. I would be the little student.

BARATTA: Exactly. So you see, these are important things to consider as you go into your Great Work. Yes, to really give it space, to really take a look at that, to really take apart your relationship to learning, to really look at where you have subjugated yourself to those who have "the education" versus you who do not. To really look at, "All right, who do I need to convince that I'm enough? You see, learning is not the same as being enough. Being enough is, first of all, a choice to let go of not being enough.

SARAH: Oh. So it doesn't have to be this effort and struggle with that?

BARATTA: No. You don't have to go and get a degree. You don't have to go and do this or that in order to qualify to be enough. On the level of being enough, it is a choice to let go of not being enough. This is essential, also, in terms of clarifying and purifying that sense of what learning is in relation to life. Learning is part of living, and yes, by extension then, part of being a consciousness. If you're not learning, then you are in some ways suppressing your life, suppressing your aliveness, suppressing your consciousness.

SARAH: But Baratta, I kind of do feel like I have not been learning in the last few years. Maybe I have. Of course I have.

BARATTA: Now you see. Now you're tapping into it. You see, you have judged yourself not to be learning, because you are not adhering to any of those standards of what learning is "supposed to be." Yes, so that you're pleasing the teacher, etcetera—the teacher in your mind.

SARAH: Yeah, and it is in there saying, "You should be doing something. You should be learning something more."

BARATTA: Absolutely. Yes, "This is what's wrong with you. Fix it."

SARAH: Oh, this is incredible information for me, because it was a huge block.

BARATTA: Absolutely. You see, it quashes your spontaneity. It quashes your inspiration. It quashes your excitement, your freedom, your passion, and yes, because of all of that, it quashes your learning, even if you go so far as to discipline yourself to do that old kind of learning. It still quashes all those things.

SARAH: It does, because I can fix it to where I can't carry those books, or I can't do the papers. I can see myself doing that in learning the old way.

BARATTA: Yes indeed, and doing the learning the old way is adhering to those standards of what it is to be an acceptable student, yes, to make up for the mistakes of the past, to fix what's wrong with you. And yes, in the process, having no genuine motivation to actually learn something, but only the motivation to somehow qualify in the eyes of another, to somehow demonstrate something that someone else expects.

SARAH: Yeah.

BARATTA: And yes, that adult, that spiritual, vibrant, powerful adult needs to be free from that.

SARAH: I one hundred percent agree.

BARATTA: Yes.

SARAH: Another huge gift. Thank you.

BARATTA: You are so very, very welcome. Oh yes.