Learning How To Be Free: An Invitation, from a painter Options

[painter]

NOTE: The original Topic Title of this thread was "Learning How To Read . . ." but I've changed it in hopes that we can begin to escape the literal associations of the word "read". If "free" suffers the same fate, I may change the Title yet again.

I've been thinking about this for a long time. Months.

Over the course of being a member of this forum, especially in the context of "Alternative Theories," I've occasionally mentioned the necessity of "knowing how to read." Of course what I mean by this isn't directly related to knowing how to read the words you see before you here. All of us know how to do that more or less. If you're not familiar with my having said anything about this, I point you specifically to this post on my pinned and closed 'esoteric' thread here: http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum//index....t&p=7894218

A few members of this forum have asked me to say more about what I mean by this "learning how to read" business and it is this that I've been contemplating for a long time now. Having given it some serious consideration I've decided to post and pin this thread here as an open "invitation."

First I am inviting you to engage with me and one another in some discussion here about this topic. However, I am very aware that discussion of this topic is by necessity limited so long as it remains nothing more than discussion. To go further requires something more of us: Specifically a willingness to engage in exercises and experiments which can begin to move us beyond mere discussion into the realm of actual experience and knowledge based upon that experience.

This invitation, therefore, is offered as a starting point in the hope that some of you may wish to go further and take all this to another level. All I will say about that at this point is that the possibility exists, although necessarily limited by this forum/text medium within which we correspond. For this purpose I'm in the process of establishing another forum, participation in which will be by invitation only and will require that users not be anonymous and have a genuine interest in coming to a more direct understanding through observation.

So, I will leave this as it is. Feel free to ask whatever questions you wish and we'll see how this goes.

[painter]

Source: http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum//index....&p=10758741

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I'm still trying to grasp if it is a particle or a wave.

I would say that gold is like knowledge, and can be expressed
just as well as an idea.
Instead of saying that knowledge is solid like gold.

In reality a nugget of gold is not much different than any other rock on the beach.
While knowledge is worth more than either.

What has weight, but is unmeasurable?
Knowledge.

So, I have to side with the wave, at the moment.

The premise of knowledge being material, like gold, is backwards.

What is knowledge?
How does it differ from information?

I know, dumb questions,
but I must ask.

imo, lunk

There is never a "dumb" question if you must ask it.

First of all, esoteric knowledge is generally presented to the novice, and is commonly available to most everyone, through myth, symbol and metaphor. There are many reasons why this is necessary but like so many things having to do with this subject, the reasons aren't always obvious. In fact they seldom are obvious to us. But perhaps it will help if we begin with at least a partial awareness that the function of esoteric knowledge is the transformation of the human being from one state (our 'ordinary' state) to another state. One common metaphor that is used to express this idea is sleep vs awakening. So it can be said, the purpose of esoteric knowledge is to "awaken" the human being from his his ordinary state of "sleep". "Sleep" is a metaphor not to be taken too literally but, at the same time, it is a far more 'apt' metaphor than we can commonly admit. Those of us who have gone through the 9/11 looking glass see "sleeping" people everywhere all around us, people who are "hypnotized" by government, media, and so on -- and we know we were once one of them (and may suspect that to some degree we still are).

From the point of view of esotericism, the human being is "asleep" to his higher potential. That is, "asleep" to -- or unaware of -- his potential to be far more conscious than he ordinarily is. However, there is a fundamental problem. The man does not know that he is "asleep," does not experience himself as "asleep". Usually if you tell a man he is "asleep" he will get quite irritated and find various means of proving you are wrong. He is an adult with adult responsibilities, perhaps he is quite well educated, maybe even a man of some importance with a lot of money -- or not. In any case, he is quite certain that if he were "asleep" he would know it -- just as many who haven't gone through the 9/11 looking glass assume that it is too big a lie to be kept secret (or whatever excuse you wish). Or, worse, the man told that he is "asleep" may "believe" you just enough that he then takes this idea and turns it into some fantastical "dream" about what it would mean to "awaken". He begins to fantasize about himself and about the history and future of humanity and read all sorts of books, attending lectures and workshops led by authoritative crack-pot sycophants eager to fleece him to his grave.

sh*t happens.

As regards your questions, I think I've said this elsewhere on this forum in some context or other but we can construct a hierarchy that looks something like this:

data > information > knowledge > understanding > wisdom > awakening > transcendence
(Your word choice may vary.)

This hierarchy is not only quantitative but qualitative -- becoming increasingly qualitative as it progresses. Regardless of your data set or range of samples, no amount of data can become "information" until it is perceived and organized, sorted and stored in some way. Similarly, a large quantity of information will not produce "knowledge" until it is somehow put to use.

I hesitate to say anything beyond the mid-point of this schematic, "knowledge," because to go further up this 'ladder' requires qualities that are very difficult to define. Still, I think you can 'get it' at least that even a very knowledgeable man may not be a very "understanding" man. He may be very powerful but he may not "understand" the world, the other people around him, or even himself -- and never quite manages to no matter how many books he reads or authorities he consults. Something qualitative is missing.

But, so far, all that I've been describing with this little flow chart is ordinary knowledge such as you and I possess as we are. We're not yet talking about the kind of great knowledge that Gurdjieff says is "material" and for which he uses "gold" to represent symbolically. To even begin to understand this requires that 'something qualitative' that is missing from mere knowledge in the ordinary sense.

At another place in the book quoted above, Gurdjieff says a man's understanding is equal to his level of being. This word "being" is a bit hairy but suffice it to say that although a rock, a flower, a dog and a man may all "exist", they do not have the same "being". What is being proposed, here, is that men, too, can have different levels of "being" (which, in esoteric terms, can range almost as much as the examples I've used). According to this idea, a man can not understand anything beyond his level of being. Perhaps we could just as well say that a man's understanding is his level of being. If you want to know what a man is as opposed to what he believes himself to be or pretends to be, look at his level of understanding -- of himself, the world, others, etc. You and I and almost any man or woman we come in contact with are on the same level of being (more or less). Therefore, to understand something greater than we do -- and humanity in general does -- requires not only an increase in knowledge but also an increase in being.

The question you are asking (if I've understood you) is, in what sense of the word is this knowledge, esoteric knowledge, "material" in nature. Chances are this is a "new" idea, not one you've ever come across before and, indeed, it seems counter-intuitive -- which is to say, contradicted by everything you know or think you know already. Most everyone would agree with you, I'm sure. In what sense can "knowledge" be "matter"?

Perhaps it will help if we both agree that matter is energy of a certain density, having certain properties that can be analyzed and comprehended. You've seen before where I've said that living beings are transformers of energy. We take in the matter of food and air into our bodies and they, in turn, through various autonomic processes extract the elements and nutrients that are then transformed into all the functional properties of our organism. However, what is not commonly understood is that air and physical food (including water) are not the only materials that enter our bodies. Right now as I sit here typing this and as you sit there reading, our senses are being bombarded with a flood of energetic stimuli. We are being "fed" constantly through our nervous system, "stimulated" we call it, far more so than we commonly realize. And we can prove this to ourselves through intentionally shifting our attention. If I suggest, for example, that while reading these words you shift a part of your attention to sensing your left foot, you may find that, although it isn't easy, it can be done. Wiggle your toes if you need to and sense what that feels like. Perhaps now you can also sense your socks (if you're wearing any) or the pressure of your shoes at specific points on your foot. All that energy of sensation was already there stimulating your brain but it did not rise to the level of your 'conscious attention' because you were not paying attention to it. You should be able to verify this directly for yourself. But I'll go a bit further because if your experience of this is at all like mine as you continue to read these words within a relatively short time you will once again forget to pay attention to your foot and this stimulation, though still there, will no longer be available to your awareness. This is a fundamental model of the entirety of the human condition: We are but we do not continuously and directly know that we are. This is our "level of being." We have learned and been conditioned to focus our attention in specific ways in order to accomplish given tasks. For example, all of us here know how to "read" in the conventional, 'reading comprehension' sense and it isn't necessary to have a sensation of one's left foot (or, indeed, much of any sensation of the body what ever) to do so. Whether it is reading or writing or talking or walking or screwing or driving a car or taking a sh*t or performing brain surgery or plotting the overthrow of the American Republic and the institution of a New World Order -- it is all the same. All these things are done by men and women who are operating out of a certain very restricted level of being, completely unaware that something more might be possible for us if we could only learn to pay attention in a new way.

Gurdjieff speaks of the "matter of knowledge" because he's speaking of the possibility of receiving more directly, consciously and intentionally, the "energy of impressions," -- the "food" necessary for our transformation -- trough a simultaneous growth of both knowledge and being. The whole esoteric proposal is actually quite simple: We will change as the center of gravity of our attention changes. But to read these words is one thing, to engage in the activity is quite another and not without certain risks. Mostly these 'risks' are of no particular consequence. For one thing, most people, even when they come across this idea, and even if they find it momentarily a little bit interesting, soon forget all about it and, like having taken the blue pill instead of the red one, they wake up the next morning believing whatever they want to believe, brush themselves off, and go about their lives as though nothing had happened. It is, indeed, extremely rare that someone becomes sufficiently interested in this proposal to begin to make efforts and experiments coupled with researching the necessary texts that may, in time, lead them to encounter "one who knows". Well, at least someone who honestly knows they don't know enough but may have a clue. Perhaps even someone who has begun to learn how to digest and transform the energies of impressions such that they have begun to develop within themselves a new being.

IMO: painter

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