Learning How to Learn Introduction by Doris Lessing
'Beginning to Begin'
1. Real and Imagined Study
Sufis and their Imitators
Attaining Knowledge
Secrets and the Sufis
When to have Meetings
The Ceiling
Conflicting Texts
Self-Deception
Journeys to the East
What a Sufi Teacher Looks Like
Books and Beyond Books
Saintliness
Secrecy
'You Can't Teach by Correspondence'
Background to 'Humility'
How Serious is the Student?
Social and Psychological Elements in Sufi Study
2. On Attention
Characteristics of Attention and Observation
Operation of the Attention Factor
Motivation of Transactions
Attention under Personal Control
Excess and Deprivation of Attention
Study of People and Ideas apart from their Attention Value
Identification of Underlying Factors
Raising the Emotional Pitch
Fossil Indicators
3. Sufi Study Themes
Assumptions Behind Actions
Exercising Power through Kindness
Copying Virtue
Finding a Teacher
What is gained from Repetition
Robes and Apparatus of the Sufi
Why you are asked to Help
Laziness
4. Things of the World
An Eastern Sage and the Newspapers
Basis for People's Interest
Thinking in Terms of Supply-and-Demand
The Effect of Tales and Narratives
Stories of the Miraculous
Continuous versus Effective Activity
Capacity comes before Opinion
Sanctified Greed
Psychic Idiots
When Criticism can Stop
Information and Experience
The Teaching is a Matter of Conduct
Knowing one's own Sincerity
The Would-Be and Should-Be people
Satisfactions and Purpose of Ritual
Real and Ostensible Self-Improvement
Roles of Teacher and Student
5. Action and Meaning
Real and Relative Generosity
Why do Sufis Excel?
Confusion as a Personal Problem
Being a 'Guru'
Systems
The Vehicle and the Objective
Concern and Campaign
Use, Misuse and Disuse of forms of Study
Potentiality and Function
Conditioning and Education
The Search for an Honest Man
How can one method be as good as another?
6. Twenty-Three Study Points
A Viable Unit
Being Supported
Being Physically present
Intensely Standardised
Organisations and Greed
Generosity as a Greed
What you do for Yourself
Graduating to a Higher Morality
Concluding that we are Worthless
That which attracts you about us...
Giving and Withholding
and External Assessment
Standing between you and Knowledge
Direct Contact with a Source of Knowledge
Latent Knowledge
Provoking Capacity
Systematic Study
Consistency and System
Illumination and Information
Habit of Judging
Higher-Level Work
Games and Annoyance
Aspirations and Acquisition
Opinion and Fact
7. Overall Study
Learning and Non-Learning
Some Characteristics of Sufi Literature
Impartiality as a Point of View
Characteristics and Purposes of a Sufi Group
Prerequisites for a Student of Sufism
In Step is out of Step
'Dye your Prayer-Rug with Wine'
The Master-Dyer
Method, System and Conditioning
Western Culture
The Western Tradition
How does the Sufi Teach?
Idiot's Wisdom?
Attacking Fires
A Bridge and its Use
Deterioration of Studies
Community and Human Growth
The Value of Question and Answer Sessions
Dedication, Service, Sincerity
Sufis and Scholars
An Enterprise is measured by Intention, not by Appearance
Sufi Organisations
8. Sufi Studies
Coming Together
Concealment of Shortcomings
Saints and Heroes
The Levels of Service
Ritual and Practice
To be Present
The Way to Sufism
The Giving of Charity
The Number of Readings of a Book
Decline in Religious Influence
Why can't we have a British Karakul Lamb?
Teaching Methods and Prerequisites
Sorrow in 'Spiritual Enterprises'
Shock-Teaching
Emotional Expectations
Jumping to Conclusions
The Rosary and the Robe
Random Exercises
On the Lines of a School
Conduct-Teaching
The Curriculum of a School
Knowing all About Someone
Remarks upon the Matter of the Dervish Path
Meetings, Groups, Classes
Internal Dimensions
Explanation