Education of a system thinker

Education is the art to kindle a fire and a light in a human, so that she / he can feed the fire and the light by her / himself.

Taught with light and healed with fire will be evident to anyone who reads the fields and between the fields of system dynamic maps and notice that the art of system dynamic thinking and working is not possible without devolving and involving the total personality.

How to show the possibilities of man for learning system dynamics?

There is only one way out: practice teaching and learning. Seek the kingdom of knowledge, within and without and bring it forth into manifestation.

This is why it is necessary for the actual education of a system thinker to be taught anew in every moment; and to be taught with the methods that make the recognition of man’s inherent systems awareness possible, so that it becomes a living, actual experience, instead of something only known about.

As in all valid approaches to live and learning, system dynamics, as taught in Artes Sophiae, must be verified by the student.

This might be termed the theorematic approach. The student accepts a theorem formulated as a technique, which he experiences, first with the teacher, next, without the outer aid of the teacher, and finally, in practical application in the activities of daily living and working, as well as in practice apart from outer activity.

The student learns to carry the light of his own inner fire into home, business, profession, social life, gradually bringing a growing creative expression into every activity in which he is engaged.

The student finds his own interior sources of strength and wisdom, good will and think, as she experiences the fact of her own never ending Self: the creator of system dynamic thinking and working, involving and devolving the personality.

In system dynamics the personal living fire is used to bring light into darkened areas of consciousness. The consuming fire aspect is used to burn out obstructions to the free flow of energy from inner sources. Thus the actual design of a self-directed learning method is illuminated and the distortions and obstructions, produced by conditioning, needed to be transformed.

Here is one way in which system dynamics differs from virtually every other contemporary method of changing by learning. The latter are based on the assumption that it is enough to bring something into awareness, to make the unconscious conscious. Experience has shown, however, that this is far from the case.

To activate conditioned images and concepts, volitional and rational mechanisms operating below awareness is the smaller part of the process of transmutation. The greater part is to transform the images and concepts obstructing and deviating energy flow through the various structures and functions of personality systems, as willing, feeling and thinking as pure instruments of the self.

It is not generally recognized that experiences leave knowledge residues, just as the ingestion of food leaves physical waste matter. Just as insufficient elimination and assimilation of physical food can clog up the biochemical - physiological energy exchange processes vital to health, so unassimilated experiences and data can becloud perception and systems awareness, volitional, emotional and rational abilities.

What knowledge management calls a psycho-somatic mental complex is essentially an undigested perceptual, volitional, emotional and rational experience, a complex that couldn’t be stomached.

It is rejected by the subject and thus separated off from awareness, though still active on other levels of awareness and perceptions. A barrier of unconsciousness prevents recognition. We do not see our own blind spots though they may be blatant to others.

In system dynamics these separated, undigested psychic (volitional - emotional – rational) energy-packets, images or concepts, are handled with light-fire. That is with clear and distinct, high ordered system dynamic models and patterns. What is of value in knowledge is extracted and assimilated, what is not is parked, until it opens new perspectives and vice versa.

By practicing this method we find that the structures and functions of knowledge systems and the various levels of consciousness are programmed with numerous false-to-fact images and concepts which distort, deviate and obstruct the actual functioning of the volitional, emotional and rational abilities, and limit our perception and awareness to an infinitesimal fraction of what it could potentially be.

As these thinking and willing systems are gradually lighted from within, the creative expression of the actual Self grows in freedom from false-to-fact images and concepts, that have come to overlay the actual potentiality of man, deviating his interrelations with nature and his fellow mankind.

An example may make this clearer. Among the most destructive imaginational and conceptual distortions are those existing between teachers and students. A student relates how distressed and frustrated she felt as a student when teachers treated her as a reproductive learner instead of a productive learner. Teachers may overlook that students, as never ending actual Selves are just as clever as the teacher.

Experiences taught us how subtle and pervasive images and concepts are that deviate our relationships with another subjects and objects unless these deviations are recognized and cleared out with the help of system dynamic thinking and working within one’s own levels of consciousness.

While many have observed these obstructing images and concepts and described them, and even recognized them in themselves, to be actually free of them is quite another proposition.

It is not enough to wish they where not in the mind, or decide mentally that one is not going to react to them. Unless the imprinted and conditioned images and concepts are transformed by consuming system dynamic ordered structures on each level of consciousness, they will continue to operate in personal behaviour outside the sphere of awareness.

The consuming fire could be symbolized in the dance of Shiva, surrounded by a ring of flames, burned out the false-to-fact images and concepts which dwarf human’s ability to know. When they are consumed through the transforming power of inner fire, man can become the thinker that he actually is.

Human needs not an external destructive force like a kind of war to combat other thinking systems. Human needs only an internal destructive force to transform false-to-fact images and concepts. The super imposed images and concepts are stripped away so that the light within can shine forth. Within a man of light there is light and she lights the whole world.

System dynamic thinking and working actually support and vitalize the structures and functions of the different levels of the psyche, like willing, feeling and thinking. They become lighted instead of obscured, awakened instead of asleep and free instead of bound.

So man, according to actual action research and system dynamics has the capability of moving up or down in consciousness related to the conditions and events of the external world, the so called reality.

Men could fall into unconsciousness but she can also find a way out, jumping into awareness, carrying within her the archetype of her actual freedom, however deeply it may be buried under layers of culturally acquired imprints that take form as images and concepts.

Man has the free choice and she still has it. Each person can choose whether to follow the inner direction of the actual self or whether to continue on an stimulus-response bond basis following only external input. This free choice is a necessary aspect of the system dynamic based learning game.

Freedom of choice has become completely conditioned by cultural and scientifically images and concepts that have been created by mankind and they can victimize and enslave the person, staggering around with her mind closed to actual sight.