A long long time ago, I wrote a piece on The Hierarchy of Power. I think I was at The American University, in Washington, DC at the time, though it might be older. The Hierarchy of Power is: cash, referent and knowledge. The idea was to see and utilize these resources, understanding their relationship to each other, and ultimately, to ourselves. The context is within political activism, but they really are universal.
Cash is the liquid, easiest (so long as people care about cash) power to use, one that all adults, and most children are experienced with. Referent power has to do with reputation, and the credibility you have with other people. Because of that credibility, people will listen and act on what you say. Fame or infamy, charisma or great sacrifice, there is a respectable characteristic that people strongly approve or disapprove, both are power.
This brings us to >knowledge<. My original quote is that: “Knowledge is Power.”
Not that I can prove it, but I might well be where George Bush Jr. got that saying from, as I had written him with that language, at that time. Regardless, people find value in that saying: “Knowledge is power.” The underlying idea is that knowing how to produce, simple competence, is the ultimate power. Cash can only buy stuff, not produce it. Fame can only get peoples attention onto things. But to create art and treasure, that is real first hand power. That is real first hand wealth creation. Its why I love the trades like I do. I love making stuff!
Thus the hierarchy of power. Cash, referent, knowledge.
But I’ve come to learn that knowledge itself isn’t power, but emotion. I no longer think of knowledge as anything other than emotion. The emotion of religion, where you FEEL certain and entitled. Dangerous stuff when we have no real certainty of things, and are not even entitled to life itself.
So if knowledge is an emotion, the emotion of religion, what represents elucidation? I’ve replaced my own use of “knowledge” with “experience and understanding.” Experience and understanding are what matter, not the feeling of knowing something.
What I like about the use of “experience and understanding,” is its tempered quality of doubt. A reservation that it can still be wrong, because it often is. This gets to the power of not knowing. If you are ego driven, this is a terrible way for you to be, because as God, you’re supposed to “know” everything. You’re supposed to be certain.
If you live spiritually, trusting beyond your ability to see and understand, then this is perfection. You recognize and accept that you are NOT God, and the more you learn, the more you realize how much you do not know. MY definition of education: “Education is the life long process of finding out how much you’ll never know.”
By the way, these are your choices in life, to be ego driven, or live spiritually. That’s it.
We’ve now gotten to the power of not knowing. “Power is in not knowing, because that is what’s true.”
Proceeding on false information leads to failure. But how do you know if it is false ahead of time? You don’t, that’s the point. But when you “know” a thing, that certainty puts blind faith into your assumptions. When we fail, we blame everything but ourself for the failure, when the fault is entirely ours.
Proceeding on unknown information, we are cautious and attentive to the validity or our “would be” assumptions. Mindful is the word for this. When we see that our assumptions were wrong, we stop proceeding on those assumptions, and look for what works. We don’t waste time doing it wrongly, nor do we blame anyone (unless we’ve been intentionally misinformed) for the misinformation.
And when we proceed from not knowing, we then find out what does indeed work, and it is joyful. The joy of finding out. There is joy in verifying what doesn’t work too, when we ride ourselves of incompetence. In both cases, the outcome is positive, even when we don’t get what we were after. We gained experience and understanding. The highest form of power.
The difference between ego and spirituality when not knowing.
Making clear the power of not knowing, and the joy of finding out, we consider the reaction of ego, versus spirituality, when faced with not knowing, and finding out.
Ego always knows, so its just going to do a thing, and when it fails to work out as entitled, ego rage occurs, blame is spewed everywhere but on itself, and finding out is a tragedy of martyrdom. That’s ego. No learning, no competence, only destruction and chaos.
On the occasions that ego has doubts about itself, it plans forever, and when it does act, and fails, ego rage, blame, destruction and chaos ensue, same as before. Lots of times ego will never act, because regardless of preparation, until it FEELS as if it’s “got it” it doesn’t do anything else.
Spirituality never knows, even when doing the familiar, and when things don’t work out as wanted, learning occurs. It is recognized that something went wrong, and finding out retrieves value from the effort. Nothing wasted, no blame, except for those things found wanting. Chill.
Because spirituality never knows, it proceeds on an objective, and figures out what it does not yet know to do, as it goes along. No fear, no hesitation. No wasted effort. Finding out satisfies our curiosity.
Finding out for ego, threatens or destroys its self-delusion. On the rare occasions in which things do work out as entitled: “well it is clearly because of the godly magnificence of the ego, of which it never had any doubts.”
Uh huh, you know the word.
It is in your best interests to use the power of not knowing, and the joys of finding out in your daily life. Recognize knowledge as an emotion, and replace it with “experience and understanding.” Commend yourself for taking action on things you care about, but would otherwise never pursue believing them to be too hard.
There is so much more around us than we can see and understand, and so many more ways in which to do things then we can foresee. Embracing the power of not knowing, and the joy of finding out frees you from our own limits of seeing and understanding. Spirituality at its finest.
There’s nothing mysterious about that.
David Weeks, Information Developer, Tampa, Florida. God love us.