Knowledge vs Understanding
Transmitting understanding is not the same as sharing knowledge. What, then, is understanding? And how do we convey it? Many of us sense an urgency towards the end of our lives to pass on what we have learned. In Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff addresses the problem of trying to transmit to others what one has understood for oneself.
In the chapter called “Professor Skridlov,” Father Giovanni explains,
“Understanding is the essence obtained from information intentionally learned and from all kinds of experiences personally experienced.”
As I age, I can relate to this notion of acquired knowledge digested through personal experience.
But then Gurdjieff, through the character of Father Giovanni pronounces,
“It is a hundred times easier…’for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle’ than for anyone to give to another the understanding formed in him.”
I begin to see that understanding is a personal affair, alchemical even, given each individual’s attainment of knowledge mixed with their own unique experience. How then, do I bequeath my portion of “precious metal”?
Two Instances of Transmitting
In the same chapter of Meetings, Gurdjieff has Father Giovanni relay the story of Brother Ahl and Brother Sez. These two elderly and revered monks come to visit Father Giovanni’s monastery once or twice a year. Their arrival is always met with great joy. The monks self-imposed mission in visiting the different monasteries of the brotherhood is to “explain various aspects of the essence of divinity.”
All the monks listen, entranced, by Brother Ahl’s voice, his words “purling” like gems of wisdom. Enraptured, they wish for his sermons never to end. Though no less loved and respected, Father Ahl’s speech is indistinct and hard to follow. He seems older and frail compared to his similarly aged companion, who exudes heartiness.
Yet in the days after the two depart, the brethren notice that the beautiful words of Brother Sez begin to fade and soon are forgotten. Whereas the indecipherable words of Brother Ahl somehow take root. The “gist of it” grows until it becomes “instilled as a whole into the heart where it remains forever.”
Transmission through Being
Pondering this repeated phenomenon following the visits of Brother Ahl and Brother Sez, Father Giovanni relays his conclusion.
“The sermons of Brother Sez proceeded only from his mind, and therefore acted on our minds, whereas those of Brother Ahl proceeded from his being and acted on our being. … Only understanding can lead to being, whereas knowledge is but a passing presence in it. New knowledge displaces the old and the result is, as it were, a pouring from the empty into the void.”
The Take-Away
As I dive deeper into Fourth Way knowledge and continue my practice, I recognize that something solid grows in me. At times I hear it in my voice. My need to transmit what I have learned calls. As my understanding forms, it feeds my being. It’s from the precious metal of my Being I sense transmission becomes possible.