Extract from In Search of the Miraculous, by P.D.Ouspensky
In
almost every one of his lectures G. reverted to a theme which he
evidently considered to be of the utmost importance but which was
very difficult for many of us to assimilate.
"There
are," he said, "two lines along which man's development
proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of being. In right
evolution the line of knowledge and the line of being develop
simultaneously, parallel to, and helping one another. But if the line
of knowledge gets too far ahead of the line of being, or if the line
of being gets ahead of the line of knowledge, man's development goes
wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill.
"People
understand what 'knowledge' means. And they understand the
possibility of different levels of knowledge. They understand that
knowledge may be lesser or greater, that is to say, of one quality or
of another quality. But they do not understand this in relation to
'being.' 'Being,' for them, means simply 'existence' to which is
opposed just 'non-existence.' They do not understand that being or
existence may be of very different levels and categories. Take for
instance the being of a mineral and of a plant. It is a different
being. The being of a plant and of an animal is again a different
being. The being of an animal and of a man is a different being. But
the being of two people can differ from one another more than the
being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do
not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on
being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they
definitely do not wish to understand it. And especially in Western
culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, for
example he may be an able scientist, make discoveries, advance
science, and at the same time he may be, and has the right to be, a
petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naive, and
absentminded man. It seems to be considered here that a
professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere. "And yet
it is his being. And people think that his knowledge does not depend
on his being. People of Western culture put great value on the level
of a man's knowledge but they do not value the level of a man's being
and are not ashamed of the low level of their own being. They do not
even understand what it means. And they do not understand that a
man's knowledge depends on the level of his being. "If knowledge
gets far ahead of being, it becomes theoretical and abstract and
inapplicable to life, or actually harmful, because instead of serving
life and helping people the better to struggle with the difficulties
they meet, it begins to complicate man's life, brings new
difficulties into it, new troubles and calamities which were not
there before. "The reason for this is that knowledge which is
not in accordance with being cannot be large enough for, or
sufficiently suited to, man's real needs. It will always be a
knowledge of one thing together with ignorance of another thing; a
knowledge of the detail without a knowledge of the whole; a knowledge
of the form without a knowledge of the essence. "Such
preponderance of knowledge over being is observed in present-day
culture. The idea of the value and importance of the level of being
is completely forgotten. And it is forgotten that the level of
knowledge is determined by the level of being. Actually at a given
level of being the possibilities of knowledge are limited and finite.
Within the limits of a given being the quality of knowledge cannot be
changed, and the accumulation of information of one and the same
nature, within already known limits, alone is possible. A change in
the nature of knowledge is possible only with a change in the nature
of being. "Taken in itself, a man's being has many different
sides. The most characteristic feature of a modem man is the absence
of unity in him and, further, the absence in him of even traces of
those properties which he most likes to ascribe to himself, that is,
'lucid consciousness,' 'free will,' a 'permanent ego or I,' and the
'ability to do.' It may surprise you if I say that the chief feature
of a modem man's being which explains everything else that is lacking
in him is sleep. "A modern man lives in sleep, in sleep he is
born and in sleep he dies. About sleep, its significance and its role
in life, we will speak later. But at present just think of one thing,
what knowledge can a sleeping man have? And if you think about it and
at the same time remember that sleep is the chief feature of our
being, it will at once become clear to you that if a man really wants
knowledge, he must first of all think about how to wake, that is,
about how to change his being. "Exteriorly man's being has many
different sides: activity or passivity; truthfulness or a tendency to
lie; sincerity or insincerity; courage, cowardice; selfcontrol,
profligacy; irritability, egoism, readiness for self-sacrifice,
pride, vanity, conceit, industry, laziness, morality, depravity; all
these and much more besides make up the being of man. "But all
this is entirely mechanical in man. If he lies it means that he
cannot help lying. If he tells the truth it means that he cannot help
telling the truth, and so it is with everything. Everything happens,
a man can do nothing either in himself or outside himself. "But
of course there are limits and bounds. Generally speaking, the being
of a modem man is of very inferior quality. But it can be of such bad
quality that no change is possible. This must always be remembered.
People whose being can still be changed are very lucky. But there are
people who are definitely diseased, broken machines with whom nothing
can be done. And such people are in the majority. If you think of
this you will understand why only few can receive real knowledge.
Their being prevents it. "Generally speaking, the balance
between knowledge and being is even more important than a separate
development of either one or the other. And a separate development of
knowledge or of being is not desirable in any way. Although it is
precisely this one-sided development that often seems particularly
attractive to people. "If knowledge outweighs being a man knows
but has no power to do. It is useless knowledge. On the other hand if
being outweighs knowledge a man has the power to do, but does not
know, that is, he can do something but does not know what to do. The
being he has acquired becomes aimless and efforts made to attain it
prove to be useless. "In the history of humanity there are known
many examples when
entire
civilizations have perished because knowledge outweighed being or
being outweighed knowledge." "What are the results of the
development of the line of knowledge without being, or the
development of the line of being without knowledge?" someone
asked during a talk upon this subject. "The development of the
line of knowledge without the line of being gives a weak yogi,"
said G., "that is to say, a man who knows a great deal but can
do nothing, a man who does not understand" (he emphasized these
words) "what he knows, a man without appreciation, that is, a
man for whom there is no difference between one kind of knowledge and
another. And the development of the line of being without knowledge
gives a stupid saint, that is, a man who can do a great deal but who
does not know what to do or with what object; and if he does anything
he acts in obedience to his subjective feelings which may lead him
greatly astray and cause him to commit grave mistakes, that is,
actually to do the opposite of what he wants. In either case both the
weak yogi and the stupid saint are brought to a standstill. Neither
the one nor the other can develop further. "In order to
understand this and, in general, the nature of knowledge and the
nature of being, as well as their interrelation, it is necessary to
understand the relation of knowledge and being to 'understanding.'
"Knowledge is one thing, understanding is another thing. "People
often confuse these concepts and do not clearly grasp what is the
difference between them. "Knowledge by itself does not give
understanding. Nor is understanding increased by an increase of
knowledge alone. Understanding depends upon the relation of knowledge
to being. Understanding is the resultant of knowledge and being. And
knowledge and being must not diverge too far, otherwise understanding
will prove to be far removed from either. At the same time the
relation of knowledge to being does not change with a mere growth of
knowledge. It changes only when being grows simultaneously with
knowledge. In other words, understanding grows only with the growth
of being. "In ordinary thinking, people do not distinguish
understanding from knowledge. They think that greater understanding
depends on greater knowledge. Therefore they accumulate knowledge, or
that which they call knowledge, but they do not know how to
accumulate understanding and do not bother about it. "And yet a
person accustomed to self-observation knows for certain that at
different periods of his life he has understood one and the same
idea, one and the same thought, in totally different ways. It often
seems strange to him that he could have understood so wrongly that
which, in his opinion, he now understands rightly. And he realizes,
at the same
time,
that his knowledge has not changed, and that he knew as much about
the given subject before as he knows now. What, then, has changed?
His being has changed. And once being has changed understanding must
change also. "The difference between knowledge and understanding
becomes clear when we realize that knowledge may be the function of
one center. Understanding, however, is the function of three centers.
Thus the thinking apparatus may know something. But understanding
appears only when a man feels and senses what is connected with it.
"We have spoken earlier about mechanicalness. A man cannot say
that he understands the idea of mechanicalness if he only knows about
it with his mind. He must feel it with his whole mass, with his whole
being; then he will understand it. "In the sphere of practical
activity people know very well the difference between mere knowledge
and understanding. They realize that to know and to know how to do
are two different things, and that knowing how to do is not created
by knowledge alone. But outside the sphere of practical activity
people do not clearly understand what 'understanding' means. "As
a rule, when people realize that they do not understand a thing they
try to find a name for what they do not 'understand,' and when they
find a name they say they 'understand.' But to 'find a name' does not
mean to 'understand.' Unfortunately, people are usually satisfied
with names. A man who knows a great many names, that is, a great many
words, is deemed to understand a great deal—again excepting, of
course, any sphere of practical activity wherein his ignorance very
soon becomes evident. "One of the reasons for the divergence
between the line of knowledge and the line of being in life, and the
lack of understanding which is partly the cause and partly the effect
of this divergence, is to be found in the language which people
speak. This language is full of wrong concepts, wrong
classifications, wrong associations. And the chief thing is that,
owing to the essential characteristics of ordinary thinking, that is
to say, to its vagueness and inaccuracy, every word can have
thousands of different meanings according to the material the speaker
has at his disposal and the complex of associations at work in him at
the moment. People do not clearly realize to what a degree their
language is subjective, that is, what different things each of them
says while using the same words. They are not aware that each one of
them speaks in a language of his own, understanding other
people's language either vaguely or not at all, and having no idea
that each one of them speaks in a language unknown to him. People
have a very firm conviction, or belief, that they speak the same
language, that they understand one another.
Actually
this conviction has no foundation whatever. The language in which
they speak is adapted to practical life only. People can communicate
to one another information of a practical character, but as soon as
they pass to a slightly more complex sphere they are immediately
lost, and they cease to understand one another, although they are
unconscious of it. People imagine that they often, if not always,
understand one another, or that they can, at any rate, understand one
another if they try or want to; they imagine that they understand the
authors of the books they read and that other people understand them.
This also is one of the illusions which people create for t hemselves
and in the midst of which they live. As a matter of fact, no one
understands anyone else. Two men can say the same thing with profound
conviction but call it by different names, or argue endlessly
together without suspecting that they are thinking exactly the same.
Or, vice versa, two men can say the same words and imagine that they
agree with, and understand, one another, whereas they are actually
saying absolutely different things and do not understand one another
in the least. "If we take the simplest words that occur
constantly in speech and endeavor to analyze the meaning given to
them, we shall see at once that, at every moment of his life, every
man puts into each word a special meaning which another man can never
put into it or suspect. "Let us take the word 'man' and imagine
a conversation among a group of people in which the word 'man' is
often heard. Without any exaggeration it can be said that the word
'man' will have as many meanings as there are people taking part in
the conversation, and that these meanings will have nothing in
common. "In pronouncing the word 'man' everyone will
involuntarily connect with this word the point of view from which he
is generally accustomed to regard man, or from which, for some reason
or other, he regards him at the moment. One man at the moment may be
occupied with the question of the relation between the sexes. Then
the word 'man' will have no general meaning for him and on hearing
this word he will first of all ask himself—Which? man or woman?
Another man may be religious and his first question will be—A
Christian or not a Christian? The third man may be a doctor and the
concept 'man' will mean for him a 'sick man' or a 'healthy man,' and,
of course from the point of view of his speciality. A spiritualist
will think of 'man' from the point of view of his 'astral body,' of
'life on the other side,' and so on, and he may say, if he is asked,
that men are divided into mediums and non-mediums. A naturalist
speaking of man will place the center of gravity of his thoughts in
the idea of man as a zoological type, that is to say, in speaking of
man he will think of the structure of his teeth, his fingers, his
facial angle, the distance between the eyes. A lawyer will see in
'man' a statistical unit, or a subject for the application of laws,
or a potential criminal, or a possible client.
A
moralist pronouncing the word 'man' will invariably introduce into it
the idea of good and evil, and so on, and so on. "People do not
notice all these contradictions, do not notice that they never
understand one another, that they always speak about different
things. It is quite clear that, for proper study, for an exact
exchange of thoughts, an exact language is necessary, which would
make it possible to establish what a man actually means, would
include an indication of the point of view from which a given concept
is taken and determine the center of gravity of this concept. The
idea is perfectly clear and every branch of science endeavors to
elaborate and to establish an exact language for itself. But there is
no universal language. People continually confuse the languages of
different sciences and can never establish their exact correlation.
And even in each separate branch of science new terminologies, new
nomenclatures, are constantly appearing. And the further it goes the
worse it becomes. Misunderstanding grows and increases instead of
diminishing and there is every reason to think that it will continue
to increase in the same way. And people will understand one another
ever less and less. "For exact understanding exact language is
necessary. And the study of systems of ancient knowledge begins with
the study of a language which will make it possible to establish at
once exactly what is being said, from what point of view, and in what
connection. This new language contains hardly any new terms or new
nomenclature, but it bases the construction of speech upon a new
principle, namely, the principle of relativity; that is to say, it
introduces relativity into all concepts and thus makes possible an
accurate determination of the angle of thought—for what precisely
ordinary language lacks are expressions of relativity. "When a
man has mastered this language, then, with its help, there can be
transmitted and communicated to him a great deal of knowledge and
information which cannot be transmitted in ordinary language even by
using all possible scientific and philosophical terms. "The
fundamental property of the new language is that all ideas in it are
concentrated round one idea, that is, they are taken in their mutual
relationship from the point of view of one idea. This idea is the
idea of evolution. Of course, not evolution in the sense of
mechanical evolution, because such an evolution does not exist, but
in the sense of a conscious and volitional evolution, which alone is
possible. "Everything in the world, from solar systems to man,
and from man to atom, either rises or descends, either evolves or
degenerates, either develops or decays. Bur nothing evolves
mechanically. Only degeneration and destruction proceed mechanically.
That which cannot evolve consciously—degenerates. Help from outside
is possible only in so far as it is valued and accepted, even if it
is only by feeling in the beginning. "The language in which
understanding is possible is constructed upon
the
indication of the relation of the object under examination to the
evolution possible for it; upon the indication of its place in the
evolutionary ladder. "For this purpose many of our usual ideas
are divided according to the steps of this evolution. "Once
again let us take the idea man. In the language of which I speak,
instead of the word 'man,' seven words are used, namely: man number
one, man number two, man number three, man number four, man number
five, man number six, and man number seven. With these seven ideas
people are already able to understand one another when speaking of
man. "Man number seven means a man who has reached the full
development possible to man and who possesses everything a man can
possess, that is, will, consciousness, permanent and unchangeable I,
individuality, immortality, and many other properties which, in our
blindness and ignorance, we ascribe to ourselves. It is only when to
a certain extent we understand man number seven and his properties
that we can understand the gradual stages through which we can
approach him, that is, understand the process of development possible
for us. "Man number six stands very close to man number seven.
He differs from man number seven only by the fact that some of his
properties have not as yet become permanent. "Man number five is
also for us an unattainable standard of man, for it is a man who has
reached unity. "Man number four is an intermediate stage. I
shall speak of him later. "Man number one, number two, and
number three, these are people who constitute mechanical humanity on
the same level on which they are born. "Man number one means man
in whom the center of gravity of his psychic life lies in the moving
center. This is the man of the physical body, the man with whom the
moving and the instinctive functions constantly outweigh the
emotional and the thinking functions. "Man number two means man
on the same level of development, but man in whom the center of
gravity of his psychic life lies in the emotional center, that is,
man with whom the emotional functions outweigh all others; the man of
feeling, the emotional man. "Man number three means man on the
same level of development but man in whom the center of gravity of
his psychic life lies in the intellectual center, that is, man with
whom the thinking functions gain the upper hand over the moving,
instinctive, and emotional functions; the man of reason, who goes
into everything from theories, from mental considerations. "Every
man is born number one, number two, or number three.
"Man
number four is not born ready-made. He is born one, two, or three,
and becomes four only as a result of efforts of a definite character.
Man number four is always the product of school work. He can neither
be born, nor develop accidentally or as the result of ordinary
influences of bringing up, education, and so on. Man number four
already stands on a different level to man number one, two, and
three; he has a permanent center of gravity which consists in his
ideas, in his valuation of the work, and in his relation to the
school. In addition his psychic centers have already begun to be
balanced; one center in him cannot have such a preponderance over
others as is the case with people of the first three categories. He
already begins to know himself and begins to know whither he is
going. "Man number five has already been crystallized; he cannot
change as man number one, two, and three change. But it must be noted
that man number five can be the result of right work and he can be
the result of wrong work. He can become number five from number four
and he can become number five without having been four. And in this
case he cannot develop further, cannot become number six and seven.
In order to become number six he must again melt his crystallized
essence, must intentionally lose his being of man number five. And
this can be achieved only through terrible sufferings. Fortunately
these cases of wrong development occur very rarely. "The
division of man into seven categories, or seven numbers, explains
thousands of things which otherwise cannot be understood. This
division gives the first conception of relativity as applied to man.
Things may be one thing or another thing according to the kind of man
from whose point of view, or in relation to whom, they are taken. "In
accordance with this, all the inner and all the outer manifestations
of man, all that belongs to man, and all that is created by him, is
also divided into seven categories. "It can now be said that
there exists a knowledge number one, based upon imitation or upon
instincts, or learned by heart, crammed or drilled into a man. Number
one, if he is man number one in the full sense of the term, learns
everything like a parrot or a monkey. "The knowledge of man
number two is merely the knowledge of what he likes; what he does not
like he does not know. Always and in everything he wants something
pleasant. Or, if he is a sick man, he will, on the contrary, know
only what he dislikes, what repels him and what evokes in him fear,
horror, and loathing. "The knowledge of man number three is
knowledge based upon subjectively logical thinking, upon words, upon
literal understanding. It is the knowledge of bookworms, of
scholastics. Men number three, for example, have counted how many
times each letter of the Arabic alphabet
is
repeated in the Koran of Mohammed, and upon this have based a whole
system of interpretation of the. Koran. "The knowledge of man
number four is a very different kind of knowledge. It is knowledge
which comes from man number five, who in turn receives it from man
number six, who has received it from man number seven. But, of
course, man number four assimilates of this knowledge only what is
possible according to his powers. But, in comparison with man number
one, man number two, and man number three, man number four has begun
to get free from the subjective elements in his knowledge and to move
along the path towards objective knowledge. "The knowledge of
man number five is whole, indivisible knowledge. He has now one
indivisible I and all his knowledge belongs to this I. He cannot have
one I that knows something which another does not know. What he
knows, the whole of him knows. His knowledge is nearer to objective
knowledge than the knowledge of man number four. "The knowledge
of man number six is the complete knowledge possible to man; but it
can still be lost. "The knowledge of man number seven is his own
knowledge, which cannot be taken away from him; it is the objective
and completely practiced knowledge of All. "It is exactly the
same with being. There is the being of man number one, that is, the
being of a man living by his instincts and his sensations; the being
of man number two, that is to say, the being of the sentimental, the
emotional man; the being of man number three, that is, the being of
the rational, the theoretical man, and so on. It is quite clear why
knowledge cannot be far away from being. Man number one, two, or
three cannot, by reason of his being, possess the knowledge of man
number four, man number five, and higher. Whatever you may give him,
he may interpret it in his own way, he will reduce every idea to the
level on which he is himself. "The same order of division into
seven categories must be applied to everything relating to man. There
is art number one, that is the art of man number one, imitative,
copying art, or crudely primitive and sensuous art such as the dances
and music of savage peoples. There is art number two, sentimental
art; art number three, intellectual, invented art; and there must be
art number four, number five, and so on. "In exactly the same
way there exists the religion of man number one, that is to say, a
religion consisting of rites, of external forms, of sacrifices and
ceremonies of imposing splendor and brilliance, or, on the contrary,
of a gloomy, cruel, and savage character, and so on. There is the
religion of man number two; the religion of faith, love, adoration,
impulse, enthusiasm, which soon becomes transformed into the religion
of persecution, oppression, and extermination of 'heretics' and
'heathens.' There is the religion of man number three; the
intellectual, theoretical religion of
proofs
and arguments, based upon logical deductions, considerations, and
interpretations. Religions number one, number two, and number three
are really the only ones we know; all known and existing religions
and denominations in the world belong to one of these three
categories. What the religion of man number four or the religion of
man number five and so on is, we do not know, and we cannot know so
long as we remain what we are
