Knowledge

Know thyself.

Socrates

I want knowledge, not faith, not suppositions, but knowledge. I want God to stretch out his hand toward me, reveal Himself and speak to me.

The knight in Ingmar Bergman’s film: The Seventh Seal, 1957.

I've recommended to you that warrior-travelers should have a romance with knowledge, in whatever form knowledge is presented.

Carlos Castaneda, The Active Side of Infinity 1999

Knowledge defends you against every possible form of harm in existence. The more knowledge you have, the less fear you have, the less pain you have, the less stress you feel, the less anguish you feel, and the less danger you experience of any form or sort. Think of this very carefully now for this is very important: WHERE IS THERE ANY LIMITATION IN THE CONCEPT BEHIND THE WORD "KNOWLEDGE?" None! you say. Well, being that there is no limitation, what is the value of that word? INFINITE! Can you conceive how that one concept FREES YOU FROM ALL LIMITATION? But, in your finite mind, you can only have glimpses of how this is true in its greatest possible form.

You occasionally have glimpses of illumination, and this illumination comes from the knowledge that you have striven to acquire with your mind. But the TRUE KNOWLEDGE only comes through illumination. If you strive perpetually to gain and gather knowledge, rejecting nothing as impossible, then you provide yourself with protection from every possible negative occurrence that could ever happen. Do you know why this is? The more knowledge you have and the more awareness you have, the more LIGHT OF BEING you have. Eventually this knowledge, this awareness, this LIGHT, becomes so powerful and so all-encompassing that it melts and burns away the illusion of limitation, and all power inherent in your being is yours to command.

Knowledge has all substance and is the core of all existence. And, understanding that knowledge is light, when you invoke the light, it ultimately will lead to knowledge in equal degree of illumination your being is able to generate. Light is Everything and Everything is Knowledge and Knowledge is the Light of Being.

And, if you have faith, no knowledge that you acquire can possibly be false because there is no such thing. False information will ultimately fail because it is darkness of physical illusion. The very SUBSTANCE of knowledge will accrete to your being increasing your light so that any darkness will ultimately be dispelled. But, do not think that the mind of physicality will generate LIGHT or be able to determine what is TRUE KNOWLEDGE, because the mind of physicality is the mind of darkness. If this were not so, would the darkness of pain and suffering still exist in your realm?

A completely OPEN MIND is the key. Those who suffer from trials and disasters, cynicism, assumptions and beliefs that they later find to be false, are not really gathering knowledge. They are, instead, stuck at some point in their pathway and are undergoing a hidden manifestation of what is referred to as obsession. Obsession is stagnation. When one is obsessed with their own thoughts, their beliefs based on judgment, they actually CLOSE OFF absorption of light and knowledge and growth and progress and soul development. When one becomes obsessed, one deteriorates their light and all sorts of problems occur.

Consider the faith of Jesus. Many have purported to explain his Knowledge by imputing to him travels and studies of those methods and teachings which have done nothing to ameliorate the conditions of your realm. This is simply not what happened. It denies to him the manifold level of his LIGHT AND BEING. Knowledge can be acquired in a surge known as ILLUMINATIION and this comes by FAITH and COMPLETE OPENNESS. Jesus acquired his knowledge by having complete faith in his abillity to acquire the knowledge FROM A HIGHER SOURCE. This faith caused an EQUAL BALANCING INTERACTION WITH HIGHER SOURCES, which allowed him to gain SUPREME KNOWLEDGE simply by having that faith. Jesus was instilled with the awareness that total and complete faith would cause dramatic and spectacular acquisition of knowledge as well as dramatic and spectacular progression of BEING. The darkness and beings of darkness trembled at his approach, not because of silly rituals and incantations but because of THE BRILLIANCE AND VOLUME of his LIGHT, KNOWLEDGE, and BEINGNESS!

Therefore, guard against the constrictions of assumption, obsession, personal ideas and solutions and emotional beliefs. Be open to all possibilities. This is not to say that all possibilities are manifested in your realm, but the openness to them is essential in order to free yourself from the constriction that will distort or corrupt the flow of knowledge from the higher realms.

The Cassiopaeans/ arranged by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise—even in their own field.

Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind, Prometheus Books,1983.

I'm going to utter perhaps the greatest piece of knowledge anyone can voice. Let me see what you can do with it. Do you know that at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire? Do you know that you can extend yourself forever in any of the directions I have pointed to? Do you know that one moment can be eternity?

This is not a riddle; it's a fact, but only if you mount that moment and use it to take the totality of yourself in any direction.

You didn't have this knowledge before. Now you do. I have revealed it to you, but it doesn't make a bit of difference, because you don't have enough personal power to utilize my revelation.

Yet if you did have enough power, my words alone would serve as the means for you to round up the totality of yourself and to get the crucial part of it out of the boundaries in which it is contained.

Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence, 1987

When we dig as deeply into all these matters as possible, over and over again we come upon this idea that Self Knowledge is the key. It is NOT the end, but it is the means: the first stage in self-development and the beginning of awakening from sleep is to be able to know the self in an objective way so that the “predator’s mind” can be controlled. Note very clearly that I say “controlled” and NOT merged.

LKJ The Wave, Part 12e

Knowledge is more important than life, captain. We’ve only one excuse for existing, to think, to find out, to learn.

Charles Lederer, (U.S. screenwriter). From the film: The Thing from Another World, trying to convince Captain Hendry that the alien should be studied, not destroyed. 1951.

Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
That lights the pathway but one step ahead
Across a void of mystery and dread.

George Santayana, World, Thou Choosest Not the Better Part! (L. 9–11).

…Seeking knowledge is the seeking of Truth.

We do have a small key to this problem: the idea of being FREE. If it is TRUTH, it will set one free.

But what is it to be free? This word is derived from the Indo-European base “prie” which means “to be fond of, to hold dear.” It is related to the Sanskrit “priya” or “desired.” It is from the same root we get “friend.”

So, we might think that to be free means that we are full of friendliness and loving kindness and holding all we behold and experience as dear! To be free means that no power can take these feelings from us, that we have reached a level of knowing that is open and accepting of all we KNOW and that by knowing, we are capable of loving without conditions.

The idea of “friend” being related to freedom and knowledge is found in many ancient teachings. Sufi masters called “The Friends of God.” So we might think that to be FREE is to be a Friend of God. But, the most important thing about a friend is that it is someone you KNOW by virtue of being open to accepting without limitations. So, we have come around in a circle. And we might say that the thing which we need to KNOW in order to be FREE is God.

LKJ, The Wave, Part 13j

Knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another’s experience only by his own.

Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,1849, in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 1, p. 389, Houghton Mifflin (1906).

Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge—broad, deep knowledge—is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man’s progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.

Helen Keller, The Story of My Life, pt. 1,1903.

The body is a battlefield for the war-games of the mind. And these games are, very likely, planned and executed from higher densities. As above, so below. To think otherwise is to suffer the stress of separation from our Source, to experience lack of Unity. And what is it that flows between us all, linking communicating, coordinating and integrating all of the cosmos?

Knowledge.

Just as neuropeptides flow among the cells of the body, causing all the receptors to vibrate in response to information, so does knowledge act on our consciousness the way the strings of a resting violin are set to vibrating when another violin is played. Knowledge produces resonance among different people who are Unique, but Unified in their diversity. With knowledge we can truly feel what others feel – not just assume that they feel what WE feel. The oneness of Life is based on the simple fact that with Knowledge, we are all vibrating together.

Laura Knight Jadczyk, The Wave, Part 13g

Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigour and power of the mind, displaying itself from within.

Ralph J. Cudworth,Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality,1731.

There is an essential difference between esoteric Knowledge and purely intellectual Knowledge. The latter is independent of the moral qualities of the student or scientist. Being wicked or hypocritical does not in the least prevent anyone from making a scientific discovery. This is why intellectual Knowledge neither rises above the plane of information; nor pretends to. To assimilate it requires only intellectual efforts. The nature of esoteric Knowledge is different. For this kind of theory to be understood and correctly assimilated, not only is intellectual effort required, but participation of our being is also needed…Neither should we forget that traditional esoteric Knowledge – the fruit of Revelation – is a living Word. Once received, it works within us even when we do not think about it, whether we are awake or asleep, and impregnates us little by little.

Intellectual Knowledge is in its nature objective, in the sense that it does not depend on the Personality of the student or scientist: it is placed outside it. Esoteric Knowledge is necessarily subjective, since the object of its study is the student himself. It will not become objective until the Personality of the student has itself reached the objective level of being -- through its union with the real “I”. The Tradition calls this sort of Knowledge living water, in contrast to Knowledge which is purely intellectual; dead water. In fact, both orders of Knowledge are indispensable in esoteric work.

Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis, Vol.I, 1961/1989 Praxis Press.

One of the words the Shaykh uses for "transformation" is "fluctuation," from which root is also derived "heart."

The Shaykh sees the heart as the place of constant change and fluctuation. In many texts, the heart is the locus for knowledge rather than sentiment or feeling. Understanding and intelligence is attributed to a healthy heart.

Ibn al-'Arabi compares the heart to the Ka'aba, the "house of the stone." He also declares it to be the "throne of God." The only other divine attribute which possesses such an all-embracing nature is knowledge; in the words of the angels who bear the Throne: "Thou embracest all things in mercy and knowledge."

In discussing the spiritual station of "longing," the Shaykh points out that there are different kinds of longing: longing for the Real which can manifest as either "longing for stability OR change."

Many esotericists suggest that longing for stability is the highest aspiration. However, Ibn-al'Arabi disagrees. He says that longing for "variegation is the higher longing SINCE IT CORRESPONDS TO THE NATURE OF THINGS, THE DIVINE TRANSMUTATION.'

William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge

An apprentice's energy level, which steadily grows, one day reaches a threshold that allows him to disregard assumptions and prejudgments about the nature of man, reality, and perception. That day he becomes enamored with knowledge, regardless of logic or functional value, and, above all, regardless of personal convenience.

Carlos Castaneda, The Art of Dreaming 1993

Although all knowledge begins with experience it does not necessarily all spring from experience.

Immanuel Kant

The difficulty is our reluctance to accept the idea that knowledge can exist without words to explain it. Accepting this proposition is not as easy as saying you accept it. The whole of humanity has moved away from the abstract. It takes years for an apprentice to be able to go back to the abstract, that is, to know that knowledge and language can exist independent of each other.

The crux of our difficulty in going back to the abstract is our refusal to accept that we can know without words or even without thoughts. Knowledge and language are separate.

I told you there is no way to talk about the spirit because the spirit can only be experienced. Sorcerers try to explain this condition when they say that the spirit is nothing you can see or feel. But it's there looming over us always. Sometimes it comes to some of us. Most of the time it seems indifferent.

The spirit in many ways is a sort of wild animal. It keeps its distance from us until a moment when something entices it forward. It is then that the spirit manifests itself.

For a sorcerer an abstract is something with no parallel in the human condition. For a sorcerer, the spirit is an abstract simply because he knows it without words or even thoughts. It's an abstract because he can't conceive what the spirit is. Yet without the slightest chance or desire to understand it, a sorcerer handles the spirit. He recognizes it, beckons it, entices it, becomes familiar with it, and expresses it with his acts.

Think about the proposition that knowledge might be independent of language, without bothering to understand it.

Consider this. It was not the act of meeting me that mattered to you. The day I met you, you met the abstract. But since you couldn't talk about it, you didn't notice it. Sorcerers meet the abstract without thinking about it or seeing it or touching it or feeling its presence.

The second abstract core of the sorcery stories is called the Knock of the Spirit. The first core, the Manifestations of the Spirit, is the edifice that intent builds and places before a sorcerer, then invites him to enter. It is the edifice of intent seen by a sorcerer. The Knock of the Spirit is the same edifice seen by the beginner who is invited--or rather forced--to enter.
Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence, 1987

Silent knowledge is something that all of us have, something that has complete mastery, complete knowledge of everything. But it cannot think, therefore, it cannot speak of what is know.

Sorcerers believe that when man became aware that he knew, and wanted to be conscious of what he knew, he lost sight of what he knew. This silent knowledge, which you cannot describe, is, of course, intent --the spirit, the abstract. Man's error was to want to know it directly, the way he knew everyday life. The more he wanted, the more ephemeral it became.

Man gave up silent knowledge for the world of reason. The more he clings to the world of reason, the more ephemeral intent becomes.

Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence, 1987

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
Bertrand Russell

We very seldom judge according to the matter itself, but instead according to the concept which we have about the matter. within this lie our limitations and errors.

...I am of the opinion that it is worthwhile to subject everything miraculous and incomprehensible to cold-blooded examination, to prove that only the one who examines without passion will find the truth of things. The essence of this process is directed towards one thing: to bring the human being back to Nature and back to the Creator. As human beings, we can find wisdom and Truth only in God, and this can only be accomplished through "approximation."

By walking a path of errors, you distance yourself from God.

If everybody could bear the look of Truth, and if the numbers people who are good were greater, then you would not have to be concerned about the desecration of the secrets of Nature. But, as long as the majority of people are as they are - willfully ignorant - the Naturalist is only entitled to point out the path to the Truth. To those human beings who have an honest heart, a hint is enough. They will go there, and they will find what they are looking for.

I am asking the seeker to never judge a single sentence unless he has also read the sentences which precede and which follow. The seeker should not form concepts out of concepts, but should seek to compare the concept to the matter itself. As far as discovering secrets, a certain amount of physiological and physical knowledge are of absolute necessity. If you do not have such knowledge, put away your quest and study science which you will require to

understand.

The secrets of higher knowledge are not for the dull of mind or the lazy who do not want to make any effort on their part to investigate or spend time in contemplation. The secrets of higher knowledge are also not revealed to "universal geniuses" who "know everything with one look."

Words are means by which Human Beings communicate and we call it a language. In order to communicate, you have to have an understanding of the words you use and that is where problems arise.

the meanings of most of the words we use were learned in context with other words, and we ASSUME from the context in which WE learned them, that WE know the meaning of the word.

When a person does this, and their understanding of the meaning of the word - when the context in which they learned the word - is correct and "universal," then no problem arises. However, when what a person assumes is the

meaning of a word, and this is not the real meaning of the word as understood "universally," then misunderstanding is the result.

By seeking the true understanding of what is meant by words, one is well rewarded in "communication."

One of the keys to higher knowledge is careful understanding of words. The other lies in opening your mind.

[…]

The first principle: Only when you have a good heart do you deserve and have access to the secret sciences.

Wisdom is like the Sun, it warms the human being and illuminates the crown. The physical body is necessary to feel this warmth. If you do not possess the ability to smell, the scent of a flower would be for nothing.

Evil human beings are not worthy of this knowledge. Even the most wholesome herb can, through lack of knowledge of its power, turn into a dangerous poison. It is also the nature of the moth to fly into the flame because it lacks the

knowledge of what effect the flame has.

You do not obtain understanding only by reading and studying. When you are looking for gems in a muddy area, you search slowly and thoroughly, otherwise you will not succeed.

Von Eckartshausen, Higher Knowledge.

Inside every human being is a gigantic, dark lake of silent knowledge which each of us could intuit. Sorcerers are the only beings on earth who deliberately go beyond the intuitive level by training themselves to do two transcendental things: first, to conceive the existence of the assemblage point, and second, to make that assemblage point move.

The most sophisticated knowledge sorcerers possess is of our potential as perceiving beings, and the knowledge that

the content of perception depends on the position of the assemblage point.

Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence, 1987

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

Kahlil Gibran, In A Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran, trans. by Anthony Ferris, 1962.

It is a hundred times better not to do anything than to act without knowledge. You said that knowledge is concealed. That is not so. It is not concealed but people are incapable of understanding it. If you begin a conversation about higher mathematical ideas with a man who did not know mathematics, what good could it be? He simply would not understand you. And here the matter is more complicated. I personally should be very glad if I could speak now to somebody, without trying to adapt myself to his understanding, on those subjects which are of interest to me. But if I began to speak to you in this way, for instance, you would take me for a madman or worse.

G.I. Gurdjieff, “Glimpses of the Truth” written by one of Gurjieff’s circle in Moscow 1914. Extracted from “Views from the Real World.” 1973.

We are half-educated like tadpoles or more often simply “educated” people with a little information about many things but all of it woolly and inadequate. Indeed, it is merely information. We cannot call it knowledge, since knowledge is an inalienable property of a man; it cannot be more it cannot be less. For a man “knows” only when he himself “is” that knowledge.

[…]

…in order to do you must know; but to know you must find out how to know. We cannot find this out by ourselves.

G.I. Gurdjieff, Essenuki, 1918, from “Views from the Real World.” 1973.

A:…Every religion points to the existence of a common center of knowledge. In every sacred book knowledge is there, but people do not wish to know it.

Q: But haven’t we a great store of knowledge already?

A: yes, too may kinds of knowledge. Our present knowledge is based on sense perceptions—like children’s. If we wish to acquire the right kind of knowledge, we must change ourselves. With a development of our being we can find a higher state of consciousness. Change of knowledge comes from change of being. Knowledge in itself is nothing. We must first have self-knowledge, and with the help of self-knowledge, we shall learn how to change ourselves—if we wish to change ourselves.

Q: And this change must come from without?

A: Yes. When we are ready for new knowledge it will come to us.

G.I. Gurdjieff, London,1922 “Views from the Real World.” 1973.