Human Development
Four-fold knowledge
Description:
Subsistence is the limitation of existence within a framework that must be experienced through not less than four independent terms. It specifies and event. It is the form of all activities that lead to a change of order and as such is inherently inflexible. Its very nature is to be an activity of transformation. Its lack of central emphasis allows activity to be experienced as ordered diversity, but prevents the association of the activity with a particular entity. Indeed it does not allow for the existence of separate entities. This form of knowledge requires an active participation that is absent from the first three forms. Knowledge of self is significant only when it distinguishes between different levels of experience within the same being. Self-knowledge is thus the condition pre-requisite of value knowledge; for without it there can be no standards of comparison and therefore no discrimination of values. This knowledge conveys a feeling for values. All the individual can make a right assessment of experience, he remains closed to its hidden possibilities. The power of subsistential knowledge is to bring about an order within the functions by connecting intellectual and physical apprehension with an emotional attitude. Out of this connection comes the moment of knowledge by which the individual himself undergoes functional change.Context:
The fourth in a sequence of twelve modes of knowledge, identified by J G Bennett, inspired by G Gurdjieff.< Broader:
Systematics