BEING

not replacedthe first edition, which remains in print and isthe edition
favoured by most Work students.
Further reading
For Woric pupils’ commentary on Tales,see Orage in Teaching125-215 and Blake
and C°mpare
and Works and Days, and Caracciolo 1988 on TheWest 1988Non
Arabian Hesiod's Theogony
ights.

BEING
In order to evolve, a man needs to develop both knowledge and
bemg. Just as there are different levels of knowledge, so there are
different levels ofbeing (e.g. the being of a mineral is not the same as
the bemgofaplant or the bemgofananimal). The beings oftwo men
may vary more than the being of a mineral and an animal. People of
Western culture value knowledge without realising that a man’s
knowledge is dependent on his level of being.
If knowledge develops more than being, the man knows but is
powerless to do (a weak yogi); if bemg outweighs knowledge, a man
candobut does not knowwhat to do (astupidsaint). There are ‘entire
civilisations [that] haveperishedbecause knowledge outweighedbeing
or being outweighed knowledge/ Modem mans being lacks unity
ucidconsciousness , ‘freewill’, a ‘permanent ego or 1’and the ‘ability
to do . If a man wants knowledge then he must change his being to
dothat he must wakeup fromsleep. The relationshipofknowledge to
being determines understanding. Mechanicality can only be under­
stood When it is felt with the whole mass, the whole being (Search-.
64-8; see alsolawof reciprocal maintenance/reciprocal feeding
.“O'*aUcre«ures of every degree of being are defined)
With a development of being we can find a higher state of
consciousness (Views, 1922, 79). Gurdjieffwrites that as a result of
k teaching and with the help of his writings his past pupils have the
necessary data to enter the path to real being (Herald: 83).
See also: levels ofbeing; man; presence

Further reading
0859-1938^' i 22~2 dT " T ' T *° 3reiationshiP b«ween Edmund Husserl
Heideggers' 11889^1976^' \ a °J Ph*nomenoloM 1999) [1910], Marti,
r , ( . 89 V9,76’ See Heide?ger- Bdng and Time, 1996 ft 9271) am
GurdjiefFs notions of being (see also Krell 1997: 13), P

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