How do I keep my intellectual growth constant?

We stop growing in our learning because our brain loses energy. The modern life is very complex and demanding. We have no time for leisure, and without leisure the brain gets exhausted. It gets no time to rejuvenate ourselves.

We are constantly running on this treadmill of modern life because of our desires. We would like to keep up with the Joneses. So we get locked in a mechanical pattern of existence, a pattern spawned by a capitalistic system of society, which treats an individual like a cog in a giant industrial machine. This system values you for your productivity in economic terms. It values you only to the extent you are economically viable or successful. It has got no value for wisdom. It has got even no value for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Every thing you know has to be converted to some measure of utility in life.

So till the time the brain is locked in this system of measurement, it is locked in a pattern of fear and desire. One is not free to learn according to one’s own wish. One is copying and imitating others in life so that one does not lose the race of getting status, recognition or rewards.

Greatest intellectual growth or learning happens when one is not learning for any purpose. Notice that you learn more when you don’t have to learn for an exam. When you choose what to learn, when to learn, there is greater freedom and therefore greater energy for learning and growth.

Even more greater learning and growth happens when one is learning without any motive. Any learning for a motive is born out of a desire. A desire is a preconceived notion. Have you seen a child learn? It learns out of pure curiosity, looking something for the first time. It has no motive, no preconceived notion for learning except curiosity. In that state of curiosity, there is joy, because the whole being participates. The brain is alert and attentive without any effort. The entire energy of the brain is present for learning because the energy has not been channelized by preconceived notions and desire.

Look at what schooling and organizations do to this pure joy of spontaneous learning in a child. It forces his brain into being an industrial worker. For that matter any culture does the same thing in varying degrees. Can one understand this whole process of conditioning and regain the curiosity of the child?

So, the short and poetic answer to your question is that one can keep one’s learning constant if one remains innocent like a child.