Knowledge and Being

As the meeting began, "R" brought information about the work of Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi, a teacher of the Spanish school of Kabbalah, whose school holds regular events in London.

"R" also reccomended the books "Views from the Real World" by Gurdjieff (as a very readable introduction to the Work), and "Gurdjieff - A Master in Life" by Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch, as an excellent account by a pupil.

The meeting continued with a reading from "In Search of the Miraculous" by Ouspensky, Chapter 4, on the relationship of knowledge and being.

Gurdjieff said "Man's development proceeds [along] the line of knowledge and the line of being." If one gets too far ahead of the other "Man's development goes wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill."

"R" quoted from Meetings with Remarkable Men: "Only understanding can lead to being, whereas knowledge is but a passing presence in it."

The reading continued and paused at Gurdjieff's assertion that "entire civilizations have perished because knowledge outweighed being or being outweighed knowledge".

"R" suggest the development of the atom bomb as an example of this. "L" proferred how colonisation undermined established cultures, and "R" Mahatma Gandhi's protest against the salt tax in India.

"R" pointed out that one should not confuse Being and Knowledge with Essence and Personality.

L gave the example of chess, in which studying theory alone (knowledge) is of little assistance unless combined with playing.

T gave the example of appropriate technology in the developing world.

RM gave the example of athletes at the winter Olympics, who have combined being and knowledge and are a delight to watch.

Gurdjieff continues: "In ordinary thinking, people ... think that greater understanding depends on greater knowledge. Therefore they accumulate knowledge ... but they do not know how to accumulate understanding and do not bother about it."

RM said he sees this a lot in education.

Coming to the issue of language, Gurdjieff says "Two men can ... argue endlessly together without suspecting that they are thinking exactly the same. Or, vice versa, two men can ... imagine that they agree with ... one another, whereas they ... do not understand one another in the least."

(Read more on this from the book itself. An electronic version of this book is available from the link on the right.)

RK thought that personal experience was worth more than she had seen in the book.