Why Secret Knowledge Keeps Hidden? A Talk between Ouspensky and Gurdjieff

The Disciple (Ouspensky) asked the master:

 Why is knowledge kept so carefully secret? If the Ancient Knowledge has been preserved and if there is, generally speaking, a knowledge different from our science and our philosophy that even surpasses them, why does it not become common property? Why do its holders refuse to let it enter the general circuit of life, favoring a more decisive fight against lies, evil and ignorance?

And so, the Master (Gurdjieff) answered him:

There are two answers. First, this knowledge does not keep secret; Second, it cannot, by its very nature, become common property. We will first examine this second point. I will now prove to you that knowledge is much more accessible than is generally believed to those who are capable of assimilating it; The whole bad thing is that people don't want to or can't receive it.

But, first of all, it must be understood that knowledge cannot belong to everyone, it cannot even belong to the majority. Such is the law. You don't understand it because you don't realize that, like anything in the world, knowledge is material. This means that it has all the characteristics of materiality. Now, one of the first characteristics of materiality implies a limitation of matter. I mean that the amount of matter, in a given place and under given conditions, is always limited. Even desert sand and ocean water exist in invariable and strictly measured quantities. Therefore, to say that knowledge is material is to say that there is a defined quantity in a given place and time.

It can therefore be said that, during a certain period, say a century, humanity has a defined amount of knowledge at its disposal. We know, however, from even an elementary observation of life, that the matter of knowledge has entirely different qualities, depending on whether it is absorbed in small or large quantities. Taken in large quantities in a given place by one man, for example, or by a small group of men - it produces very good results; taken in a small quantity by each of the individuals that make up a very large mass of men, it does not give any results, except, sometimes, negative results, contrary to those expected.

Therefore, if a defined amount of knowledge were to be distributed among millions of men, each individual would receive very little and this small dose of knowledge would not be able to change anything, neither in his life nor in his understanding of things. No matter how many people absorb this small dose, the effect on their lives will be null, unless it becomes even more difficult.

But if, on the contrary, large amounts of knowledge can be concentrated into a small number, then this knowledge will bring great results. From this point of view, it is much more advantageous for knowledge to be preserved by a small number and not spread among the masses.

If, to gild objects, we take a certain quantity of gold, we must know the exact number of objects that it will allow us to gild. If we try to gild a very large number of objects, they will be unevenly gilded, with spots, and will look much worse than if they had never been gilded; in fact, we will have wasted our gold.

The distribution of knowledge is based on a strictly analogous principle. If knowledge were given to everyone, no one would receive anything. If it be reserved for a small number, each one will receive enough, not only to keep what he receives, but to increase it.

At first glance, this theory seems very unfair, because the situation of those who are, in a sense, denied knowledge so that others can receive more, seems very sad, undeserved and more cruel than it should be. The reality is, however, very different; In the distribution of knowledge there is no shadow of injustice. "It is a fact that the vast majority of people ignore the desire to know; they refuse their share of knowledge, they even neglect to take, in the general distribution, the share that fits them for the needs of their life.

This is particularly evident in periods of collective madness, of wars, revolutions, when men seem to suddenly lose even the grain of common sense they commonly had and, turned into perfect automatons, indulge in gigantic massacres, as if they no longer even had the instinct for conservation. Enormous amounts of knowledge thus remain, in a certain way, unclaimed and can be distributed to those who know how to appreciate its value

There is nothing unjust in all this, because those who receive knowledge are not taking anything that belongs to others, they are not despoiling anyone; they are simply taking what was rejected as useless and which would, in any case, be lost if they did not take it the accumulation of knowledge by some depends on the rejection of knowledge by others.

In the life of humanity, there are periods that generally coincide with the beginning of the decline of civilizations, in that the masses irremediably lose their reason and set out to destroy everything that centuries and millennia of culture had created. Such periods of madness, which often coincide with geological cataclysms, climatic disturbances and other phenomena of a planetary nature, release a very large quantity of this matter of knowledge. Which requires recovery work, without which it would be lost. Thus, the work of collecting the sparse material of knowledge often coincides with the decline and ruin of civilizations.

This aspect of the issue is clear. The masses do not seek knowledge, they do not want it, and their political leaders - out of interest - only reinforce this aversion, this fear of everything that is new and unknown. The state of slavery of humanity has this fear is the basis. It is even difficult to imagine all its horror. But people do not understand the value of what they lose in this way. And, to understand the cause of such a state, it is enough to observe how people live, what constitutes the reason for living of them, the object of their passions or aspirations, what they think about, what they talk about, what they serve and what they worship. See where the money goes in the cultured society of our time; leaving war aside, consider what dictates the highest prices, where the densest crowds go.

Reflecting for a moment on all these wastes, it becomes clear, then, that humanity as it currently is, with the interests for which it lives, cannot expect anything other than what it has but, as I said, it couldn't be any different. Imagine that there is, for all humanity, only half a kilo of knowledge available per year! If this knowledge were disseminated among the masses, each person would receive so little that they would remain as crazy as ever.

But, because only some men desire this knowledge, those who ask for it will be able to receive from it, so to speak, each one a grain and acquire the possibility of becoming more intelligent. Everyone couldn't be smarter even if they wanted to. And if this happened it would be of no use, as there is a general balance that could not be reversed.

Here is one aspect. The other, as I said, refers to the fact that no one hides anything; there is not the slightest mystery. But the acquisition or transmission of true knowledge requires great work and great efforts, both on the part of the one who receives and on the part of the one who gives. And those who possess this knowledge do everything they can to transmit and communicate it to as many men as possible, to facilitate their approach and enable them to prepare themselves to receive the truth. But knowledge cannot be imposed by force upon those who do not want it, and, as we have just seen, an impartial examination of the life of the average man, of his interests, of what fills his days, will immediately demonstrate that it is impossible to accuse men who possess the knowledge of hiding it, of not wanting to transmit it or of not wanting to teach others what they themselves know.

He who desires knowledge must himself make the first efforts to find its source, to get closer to it, helping himself with the indications given to everyone, but which people, as a rule, do not wish to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to men free of charge, without efforts on their part. They understand this very well when it is just ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge, when they admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect something different. Everyone knows very well, for example, that a man must work intensely for several years if he wants to learn Chinese;

No one is unaware that five years of study are essential to learn the principles of medicine and perhaps twice as long to study music or painting. And yet, certain theories claim that knowledge can come to people without efforts on their part, that it can be acquired even while sleeping. The simple fact of the existence of similar theories constitutes a supplementary explanation for the fact that knowledge cannot reach people. However, it is no less essential to understand that a man's independent efforts to achieve anything in this direction cannot give any result of themselves. A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the beginning.

It is necessary to learn from those who know.