I know, the title alone makes the hairs stand up on many people's backs. And I'm going to make it shiver further. I like unpopular subjects, I have a strange masochistic attraction to them... I'm not going to talk about school learning, or how it helps you to get on in life. These are all tired slogans. I am looking at the issue from a much broader perspective. 

Once upon a time, there was an entity. We call it God now, but only because we don't understand Him. And then we came out of that Oneness. Why? Was it not good to be there? But it was good, we just didn't understand anything about it. What you're in, you see differently. Let's take an example. It is given a child, he's being beaten or hugged at home, he doesn't know any other family, he's going to take what happens to him for granted. If he's beaten, he's beaten, if he's hugged, he's hugged. He realizes his situation when he leaves the family and learns how others live. Then the whole experience is reassessed. So, we come out of the Oneness to be able to know God. But God can only be known through His creation. And creation is what? The visible and invisible world around us, the whole material and spiritual Universe. 

Those who ken me, know that I am a spiritual person, yet I have always placed great emphasis (unlike other spiritual teachers) on knowing the material world. Why? Because it can be tangibly experienced, reproduced, verified, put into laws, described. This is a stable starting point. Knowledge of the world must begin with the material world. Anyone who does not do so will lose the thread completely. Now we have come to the point of what I have to say. What should be learned? 

1. The observation. What do we need to be good observers? Concentration on the subject, in other words, focus. Everyone has taken a photograph in their life. When you focus, you neglect the surroundings to better highlight the subject. And then, after observing it closely, you place it into its environment again so that the connections are revealed.
2. The interpretation. This answers the question, what is it? If you have not observed it well, you will not answer the question correctly.
3. The evaluation. What do I have to do with it? If the interpretation was incorrect, then the evaluation will be incorrect. To evaluate correctly, you already need the ability to shift the focus. And here comes the point. The incorrect evaluation results in the attachment or the rejection in connection with the object in question. On this way evolves that people believe about things, they have to get them, they are theirs; if they lose it, if they don't get it, they feel pain; or they reject certain things, they distance themselves from them, they become afraid. All these are based on mistaken observation, interpretation and evaluation. All these things people should first learn on the objects of the material world, and the objects can be most clearly managed are in the fields of mathematics, chemistry and physics. 

Take water as an example. This is a thought experiment. Everyone has seen water... Who and what can tell about water? Ask yourself, what do you know about water? From the answers to this question will be clear everything:  

- How good observant are you, i.e. how much do you know about water?

- How well can you interpret your observations, i.e. how well can you place your concepts about water in your knowledge system (e.g. chemical, physical, biological, spiritual properties)?

- How good is your evaluation? This covers an exhaustive answer to the question: what is water good for? I am sure that most people will have problems with water too. (E.g. at university, in science faculty, there are students who cannot tell without a thermometer when water is boiling; an even smaller percentage of foreigners can.) How will they then follow what the cookbook says: '...when the water boils, put the pasta in' or what will they know from how the substances dissolved in the water affect the boiling and melting points... These are the people who (inherently not knowing when the water boils) will be the future intellectuals from whom you buy, for example, the water purification equipment. 

Now back to the basic question, we should know God, which is beyond the material world. How will the person who had a problem with the water-task, give an objective observation, interpretation and evaluation of, say, the structure, function and operation of the spiritual world? And God is beyond even that... I tell you, he/she can not do it. When I meet a person with a reputation as a psychic, clairvoyant, etc., my first question is, how does water work? Answer:

He/she can only see the ghosts. Thanks. The three pillars (observation, interpretation, evaluation) have to work for someone who wants to be a seer, a clairvoyant, a spiritual adventurer. 

Studies in the material world train the mind. I used to say to my students, no matter what you study, the point is the process of learning. Through the process of learning will develop the sophisticated structure of the nervous system that can enable one to engage in higher intellectual activity. I am thinking here of being able to apply knowledge creatively, to have original ideas, to be able to review and evaluate independently what they have seen, heard or read. And spiritual activity goes far beyond that.

Margaret Rhasoda-Varga
UCCM head-master
(Without illusions, excerpt)