|
EPISTEMOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY
By Sri Louise
In India, the Vedic "philosophical"
traditions are referred to as darshanas, derived from the Sanskrit root drs,
which means to see. These darshanas developed in response to various
interpretations of the Vedas, which held the nature of the self as the primary
thing to be known and because of the peculiarity of the subject matter,
epistemological analysis, how we know what we know, was imperative in
establishing the various schools of thought and their unique and variegated
ontological theses.
Each school has a very sophisticated system
of literary exposition and is culturally constrained to follow specific rules
of scholarly conduct. Any authored treatise has to consider four aspects as a
prerequisite for presentation; the subject matter, its purpose, the eligible
student, and what the connection between the text and the purpose to be
accomplished is. There is rigorous intention involved because the relationship
between means and ends is essential in establishing and discerning an
appropriate methodology for knowing/executing a given subject/action. If a door
says pull, no amount of pushing is going to yield access and it won't matter
how many pushing workshops I attend!
Collectively, the Vedic traditions agree
that the means of knowing available to an individual are all based upon
immediate sense perception of either the external world or the internal
environment via "witness" perception. Vedanta, one of the six darshanas, and my
field of study, is the most inclusive epistemologically and accepts direct
perception, inference, presumption, simile, knowledge of the absence of a given
object and word or testimony, reserved in this instance, for scriptural
knowledge, which is not based upon direct perception, but rather has its roots
in revelation.
A means of knowledge is considered valid if
it reveals something that cannot be known or contradicted by another means of
knowledge. My eyes are a means of knowledge for cognizing light and hence form.
I cannot use my ears to see the color of a flower any more that I can use my
eyes to pick up the fragrance of the same flower. Each instrument of knowledge
has its own sphere and access to that sphere is reserved for it alone. I can
use my various means of knowledge to corroborate, but not to contradict. For
example, it is possible for my eyes to see a flower and think it is real only
to have my sense of touch determine the flower to be fake. What is important to
note is that even though touch granted more information about the object it did
so, not as a contradiction to sight, but rather in corroboration with it.
For knowledge of a given object to take
place, three variables must be in alignment; the knower, the object to be known
and the means employed for knowing the object. If the mind is available to the
knower, meaning the mind is behind the eyes, the eyes are not impaired and
there is a clear view of the object, knowledge takes place. There is everything
and nothing extraordinary about this process, because you are designed to
cognize the world around you. When you employ the eyes, vision takes place … there
is no will involved in the process of sense perception. If I ask you to look at
me, but not to see the color of my skin, your eyes cannot oblige you. You can
be in denial of what you see, misconstrue what you see, project what you would
prefer to see, but the fact remains, when you open your eyes, sight takes
place.
The Vedas, and specifically the end of the
Vedas where the Upanisads are located, is esteemed by traditional Vedantins as
a pramana, a means, like your eyes, for cognizing a particular object that no
other means of knowledge has access to. The peculiarity of this is that I am no
longer trying to gain knowledge of a given object, but rather am trying to gain
knowledge of the very one employing the various means of knowledge and I cannot
turn my eyes around to objectify the subject. None of my sense organs,
including the mind, has the ability to cognize the cognizer, so what means of
knowledge is available for me to know the knower? Like it or not, this is where
scripture enters into the field of Vedic epistemology.
I met my spiritual teacher in Rishikesh in
1999 and through him I stepped into a teaching tradition that has remained
unbroken for thousands of years. The sampradaya, the tradition of teaching is
kept alive through the guru/sisya parampara, the teacher student relationship.
It is difficult for westerners to grasp the sanctity of this process because we
have been so wounded by the patriarchal line within the home, the state and the
church, so aggressed by its authority, that we have insisted upon exaggerated
individuation from our families and religion of origin and have become deeply
skeptical of needing any authority outside of ourselves, least of all a
spiritual teacher.
I consider myself extremely fortunate to
have had some incredible teachers spanning a wide range of topics, without
whom, I would not be who I am today and what I have managed to glean from all
of them, almost more relevant than the subject matter itself, was the
importance of methodology, how you teach what you profess to know. In my
experience, when I have exposed myself to teachers with pedagogy, either
personal or as part of a particular tradition, I have found my learning to be
infallible.
Unfortunately, most students take the
burden of teaching, especially if it is vague, upon themselves, willing all to
readily to accept fault, to collapse into their complex of "not-enough" rather
than simply ask, "does my teacher have the knowledge of what they profess to
teach in a way that I can understand and grow as a student?"
In chapter six of the Chandogya Upanisad,
Svetaketu returns home, somewhat boisterously from 12 years of study at the
Gurukulam (spiritual hermitage), when his father promptly, if not purposefully,
asks him, "Did you ask your teacher for that knowledge, which by knowing, all
things are as well known?" Svetaketu hesitated and then replied, "I don't think
my teacher knew such a knowledge, otherwise, surely he would have taught me."
His father retorted somewhat impatiently, "That is not what I asked you. Did
you or did you not ask your teacher for that knowledge, which by knowing, all
things are as well known?" Svetaketu, having recognized his error, humbly
approached his father and asked, "Is there such a knowledge?"
I routinely ask students of both dance and
yoga, did you learn what you needed from your class and if not, why not? Was it
because you didn't apply yourself, couldn't make the connection between the
teaching and your body, were not interested in learning or did your teacher not
have the information or the ability to communicate the subject matter in a way
that you could learn and grow as a student? This is critical pedagogy and to
confront it is crucial to maintaining teaching methodologies that are alive and
relevant. Pedagogy doesn't require tradition, but it does necessitate thought.
As a professional dancer I continue to
attend regular dance class and I can't help but make the distinction between
people who give class and people who teach class. I once had a student who
stealthfully went on to teach my class and when I called him on it, he defended
himself by saying, "I have made it my own" … which heeded the question, what is
it that makes something, particularly in the framework of teaching, one's own?
Is it a kind of melting-pot teaching in which you take a little from this
class, a little from that teacher, add a few yoga stretches, throw in some
capoeira moves and organize it into a sequence of events and call that sequence
your own? Or, is your own a combination of everything that has come before you,
distilled through years of personal practice, into a kind of in-depth research,
so that when you re-surface to share this authentic investigation with others,
you call that quest, now in the form of class, your own?
I can teach anyone to do what I do, that is
the beauty of technique and it has nothing to do with talent. This is not a
stance of arrogance, but of imperative methodology. As a teacher, the onus is
on me to teach the student and therefore I take full responsibility for my
subject matter and for conveying this to the mind of the student. I do not ask
students to do things, which I have not empowered them with the information or
physical infrastructure to achieve. I do not set them up to fail, or blunder or
grope, but rather insure their understanding by carefully and methodically
unfolding the subject matter. This doesn't mean that there is no personal
exploration; it means your personal exploration is guided to yield you the
result you seek.
On a recent trip to India, I saw an
in-flight film called “Freedom Writers” with Hillary Swank, which was based upon
the true story of a woman who was forced to spontaneously create pedagogy so
she could reach a group of students who were already deemed unreachable by the
school system. It is a wonderful story of one woman's journey to educate and in
turn, foster the previously unspoken hopes of a group of students. Together,
against enormous odds that were both personal and institutional, they piloted a
national program of creative learning while simultaneously raising the
self-esteem of everyone involved.
If you have never had a teacher go to great
lengths to insure your learning, I highly recommend you see this film. It is
why last year I told my “Move Your Sacred Ass” students that I was going to be
their Debbie Allen from the series “Fame”, because Debbie not only demanded that
you see yourself in the full light of your potential, not always visible to you
in its seed form, but she was also going to hold your dream for you until you
got there. That is the grace of a true teacher.
Thank you Allison West, Janet Panetta,
Augusta Moore, Swamini Ramananda, Carol Whitfield, and my unending namaskaram
to the person who has made all the difference in my world, Swami Dayananda
Sarasvati.
(July 6, 2008)
This is Sri Louise's website
|
