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How many people really learn for themselves? I think we find the answers to our questions by other people's experiences and then relate them to our own lives. It seems that we either find a teacher or a teacher often finds us. Plato(Socrates) makes a point of saying that the people who are brought out of the cave would not be allowed to remain in that world without making trips back into the cave; that the point is to advance the society as a whole. Of course there are people who would rather remain in their present comfortable environment, but you have to admit that people don't always know what they are capable of. When even people who choose comfort over enlightenment face difficult challenges, they find that they are stronger than they thought, and it often leads to an unexpected state of enlightenment.