exerpts from ISOM of P.DOuspensky, chapter 4th

“Man’s development proceeds in the line of knowledge and the line of being.
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 knowledege, man’development goes wrong.
In the history of humanity there are known many examples when entire civilizations have perished because knowledge outweighed being or being outweighed knowledge.
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 man’s knowledge depends on his being.
And specially in the Western culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, be an able scientist, make discoveries and be a petty, egoistic, mean, envious, vain, or upset-minded man. Yet it is 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.

“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, 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.

“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 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 vagueness and inaccuracy of ordinary thinking, 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.

People have a very firm conviction, or belief, that they speak the same language, 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. This also is one of the illusions which people create for themselves 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. …

One man at themoment 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 willfirst 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 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.

“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.