This is a powerful post. It speak to what learning and education should be about. Alfred North Whitehead suggested that education was always a religious experience as it taught duty and reverence which involve freedom and independence.
Teachings are not the truth, but a catalyst to aid in approach to the truth. There are limitations to be found in every verbal formulation and in those who give them. Good teachings have merit as general guidelines and as stimulus to thinking and reflection. Also, even in a great teaching, the specifics and their application to any time and space involve much ambiguity and vagueness. So, in this sense, we are always on our own, in other words a good teaching or teacher stimulates independent thought.
Wishing you and your family a very blessed Christmas!!!
Thank you and right back at you.