Commentaries on All and Everything, A.R. Orage (excerpts)
In the Conference of the Birds, the Hoopoe, telling the birds about the Third Valley, says, ‘After the valley of which I have spoken there comes another—the Valley of Understanding, which has neither beginning nor end. No way is equal to this way. Understanding, for each traveller, is enduring; but knowledge is temporary….There are different ways of crossing this valley, and all birds do not fly alike. Understanding can be arrived at variously—some have found the Mihrab, others the idol…’
Orage continues:
…”One of the chief purposes of a man is to develop from a substance called ‘essence,’ a special kind of reason …objective reason …which will establish him as a permanent brain-cell of all life. …The reason of ordinary man is the reason of knowledge; the reason of developed man is the reason of understanding. …Of objective reason, at present, we know very little; again, this can be developed only by the practice of being-Partkdolg-duty. ,,,
…In ‘being-mentation’ we are mentating with materials, which, since they are part of experience, have an emotional element. Instead of dealing with words and their associations, which makes possible verbal logic, we have to use experiences and their associations, which make possible a being logic. …
“We …have two forms of reasoning, formal and associative, and the distinction is made without reference to objective reason. It is not possible to develop objective reason so long as our center of gravity remains in associative reasoning; we have to go from formal to objective. The material of the language of gesture, posture, tone of voice, facial expression, and movement, is the material of formal reasoning, and the Gurdjieff method is designed to shift the center of gravity to formal and then to objective reasoning by making use of this material.”
Beelzebub’s Tales
Form and Sequence (excerpt)
“And now, my boy, so that what I am saying at this moment should be still more comprehensible to you, I find it necessary to repeat, in another and more definite form, what I have already mentioned many times concerning the difference between what are called ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’ in three-brained beings.
“In order that this difference should stand out more clearly, I shall again take as an example the ordinary Reason of your favorites.
“If one compares what they call their ‘conscious Reason,’ which is completely fixed in contemporary beings there, with the Reason of three-brained beings who breed on other planets of our Great Megalocosmos, then the former might be called the ‘Reason of knowing’ and the latter the ‘Reason of understanding. ‘
“The conscious ‘Reason of understanding,’ proper to three-brained beings in general, and which terrestrial beings of past epochs possessed, is ‘something’ that blends with their common presence, and therefore every kind of information perceived with this Reason becomes forever an inseparable part of themselves.
“All the information perceived with this Reason, and all the results obtained through being-contemplation of the totality of information formerly perceived by this same Reason, however much a being himself may change and whatever changes may take place in his surroundings, will be forever a part of his essence.
“As for that Reason which has become habitual for most of your contemporary favorites, and which I called the ‘Reason of knowing,’ every kind of new impression perceived through that Reason, and likewise every kind of intentional or simply automatic result of former impressions, is only a temporary part of the being, and can appear in him only in certain circumstances, and on condition that the information it is based on should without fail be, so to say, ‘refreshed’ or ‘repeated’ from time to time—otherwise these impressions change by themselves, or even entirely, so to say, ‘evaporate’ from the common presence of these three-brained beings.
“Although with respect to the sacred Triamazikamno the process of the formation of these two kinds of being-Reason occurs in the same way, the factors determining the actualization of its three independent holy forces are different.
“In the formation of the ‘Reason of knowing,’ the affirming and denying factors are the formerly perceived, contradictory impressions, crystallized in any one of a being’s three localizations, and only the new impressions received from outside serve, in this case, as the third factor.
“And in the ‘Reason of understanding,’ the first factor, that is, the Holy Affirming, consists of the newly perceived impressions in whatever localization is, at the given moment, the ‘center of gravity of functioning’, the second, or Holy Denying, consists of the corresponding data already present in another of the localizations, and the third factor consists of …’the results of perseveringly actualizing the striving to manifest one’s own individuality. ‘
Reality of Being
#26. Not Knowing
My relation with my thinking mind must change. I have to see its conditioning and lose all illusion of its capacity to perceive directly what is beyond its functioning. Truth simply cannot be thought. It cannot be looked for by the thinking alone, or by the wish to acquire or to become. Truth does not become—it is. I need to see that my thought is held back by the stubbornness of an idea or the attachment to a form. In the very moment I see this, the mind is freed from the idea or form, and a new perception can take place. To have a direct perception would mean to discover something entirely new, something unknown that my mind can never bring.
Why is it that my mind never discovers anything new? I am a prisoner of all the impressions deposited in me. I am conditioned by the reservoir of my memory, the result engraved in me of the influences that have touched me. It is all that I have to answer with in life. Little by little, I unconsciously accept this state of conditioning, and the energy of my mind deteriorates. My mind is sapped in its vitality and strength. It simply accumulates more and more information.
I can discipline my mind, polish my knowledge. It can even become brilliant. But I remain in the realm of the known. How could I go beyond this way of thinking so that something new could appear? I need to be free enough to discard everything and to question without expecting an answer. I understand that not knowing, discarding everything, is the highest form of thinking, and that if an answer comes, it will be false. I have to stay without answering and learn to see, to see without judging, without a thought, without a word. To see is an extraordinary act which requires an attention that is unknown to me. This is the factor that liberates, that brings a new thought, a new mind. Attention is the essential energy in man. And this energy can only appear when one is constantly occupied in seeing, in listening, in questioning—never in knowing with my thinking mind. We must give our complete attention to the question in front of us. The attention will not be total if we seek an answer.