Maurice Nicoll: Goodness is of Being, and Knowledge is of Mind

In the first volume of his Commentaries, Maurice Nicoll discusses the two sides of a person’s development—knowledge and being—and how these two must go hand in hand, resulting in understanding. (p93) Maurice makes several points about knowledge, being, and understanding:

• understanding is the most powerful force we can create in ourselves 
• understanding is the midpoint between knowledge and being (p94)
• in the Work a person is defined as their understanding 
• we act from our being, not from our knowledge 
• the effort we make towards knowledge, as in reading Maurice, must be balanced by an effort toward being 
• the effort towards being is conscious work  

Maurice outlines the situation on p93: we have more knowledge than we have Being for, but it is difficult to unite the knowledge with being. The starting point must be to value the knowledge, to like it, to desire it. Unite knowledge with being through desire and willingness. “One must will what one knows.”  (Sounds like Jacob Boehme) If we apply our will, “then knowledge will begin to turn into understanding through a union between the will of your Being and the knowledge in your mind.” 

On Commentaries, p146, Maurice notes that the knowledge contained in the Work (and the Gospel of Thomas) comes from a level of humanity far above our level of Being. Therefore, a full understanding of this knowledge will not be possible until we raise our level of Being. (Remember, understanding is the midpoint between knowledge and Being) In our modern world, we tend to equate the level of knowledge with progress and success, but descriptors such as good, bad, evil, self-righteous, etc, all refer to the side of Being. And a final point from today’s reading, as I encounter the word Good: “If you have something good in your Being, you will be able to understand something of the Work and not merely know it.” There’s another trail marker—that relationship between Good and level of Being.

On Commentaries, p163 Maurice continues his teachings on knowledge, Being, truth, and Goodness. The problem is how to raise man’s level of being apart from his level of knowledge because goodness is of being, and knowledge is of mind. Our minds are taught the knowledge or truth about a higher level of being first, but the objective of our Wisdom teachings is to raise our level of being.

Note: all references to Psychological Commentaries or just Commentaries refer to the 5 volume set, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll, published by Eureka Editions.