Exploring Understanding

Within the narrative of my book “Navigating The Ship of You” there are many occasions when the reader encounters the word “Understanding”.

“Understanding” is another of those words where the meaning has become ambiguous through modern parlance, and where it is deemed to be synonymous with knowing. So, I’ll talk about the meaning I wish to convey, which is, needless to say, quite different from “knowing” – For, we can know about something, without necessarily understanding it!

The clue to the meaning I wish to convey is in a word that I have already mentioned in this paragraph several times.

Meaning

Meaning runs much deeper than knowing, within our psyche. We can know about life but not about the meaning of life. Meaning is the bridge between knowledge and purpose. And purpose is much more akin to Understanding than knowing is.

This is a spiral argument, tinged with paradox – yet, if you think about it, we instinctively know when we understand something. Something in our body tells us that, not something in our intellect.
It’s the “Oh I GET it!” or “Eureka!” type moments of feeling compared to the “Yea, I know all about that,” moments of thought.

In a sense, this is a pivotal pointer towards the chapters in the book when I invite the reader to explore the connective interfacing of our verbal, sensory and inner languages. Metaphorically you might say this pointer is like the signpost that Julius Caesar saw when he crossed the Rubicon – the signpost that pointed towards Rome and Destiny.

Understanding versus Knowledge

“It is generally accepted that understanding is the comprehension of knowledge” – but which form of knowledge do we mean?

The problem with that accepted comprehension notion, is that we think that knowledge tends to reside in the intellect, placed there through a process of intellectually-based study. It is the knowledge we are not born with, and the intellect is the repository of things we have learned.

Then there’s bodily knowledge, which does not reside in the intellect at all. Interestingly, there's one branch of bodily knowledge we call muscle-memory, which is decidedly different from “intellect-memory”. It is not placed in the muscles through a process of intellectually-based study. It is learned through modelling a physical process, and then conditioning it.

Finally there is innate knowledge which, since we can never be sure where it resides or how it gets there, we actually give a different label to. And we call it Wisdom. We might be so bold to say that it resides in our ‘centre of wisdom’ – but that I feel is being creatively fanciful! Maybe it resides in our centre of excellence, if indeed we had one.

So let’s take another look from a different perspective at just what do I mean by Understanding?

Here’s a clue – in the form of a small, yet tongue in cheek, caveat.

“You do not have to know something fully but it may harm your security if you do not understand when questioned something you rely on as truth. Anything you think you know may be given as evidence."

This tells us that when life comes knocking on our door asking questions, we should only rely on something we fully understand, and not just something we think we know.

The psychiatrist R.D.Laing is noted for a number of famous quotes. In terms of knowing and not knowing, this next one encapsulates one of the biggest pitfalls we encounter:

“If I don’t know I don’t know, I think I know.
If I don’t know I know, I think I don’t know.”

Understanding, for a navigator, means not relying on what you think you know as being true. Use what you know, yet treat it as only being what you think you know. Blend it with current evidence and you will continually update what you know. Through that process there will always be more to know, and you will grow your Understanding. You may rely on your knowledge but you must always question it.

In terms of self-navigation, always keep this perspective. It will serve you well and in ways you may not yet have even encountered or considered. Without this perspective, the full meaning and consequences of another R.D. Laing quote will be lost upon you.

“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”

 “Doing the Math”

When I was young, mathematics was my best subject. I loved and understood it, and my understanding underpinned my confidence and a lot of other things in life I was good at.

I had not long commenced studying Degree level Maths when it was proved to me that 2 + 2 did not necessarily = 4. Now, I had an extensive mathematical knowledge and expertise up to A-level, and certainly felt I understood the piece of simple arithmetic 2+2=4 that I had learned and then relied on since I was very, very much younger.

But here’s the thing – I only knew the numerical answer.

I also knew thousands of other mathematically related answers, since maths, for me, was all about questions and answers. For every problem, there was a solution. It had a simplicity that came easy to me. And although 2+2=4 added up for me - I definitely did not UNDERSTAND the true mathematics behind the question. 

My problem was that I didn’t know that I did not understand it, so I thought I did.

It was a pivotal moment in my life. I had gone through all my childhood, all my schooling, and reached the age of eighteen – only to discover that one of the cornerstones of my understanding of the world was totally flawed.

I was totally undermined and devastated and from this point on, the entire perspective of my life shifted into a downward spiral.
This was my particular Rubicon.

The Zen of Understanding

So should we always question our Understanding of anything and everything?

Well, since our Understanding is something that we grow, there is no real threshold below which we don’t have it and after which we do. It is like the graph of Mastery, where we never reach a point of zenith. 

There was a story told to Bruce Lee by his sufi, about the Japanese Zen master who received a university professor who came to enquire about Zen.

“It was obvious to the master from the start of the conversation that the professor was not so much interested in learning about Zen as he was in impressing the master with his own opinions and knowledge. The master listened patiently and finally suggested they have tea.

The master poured his visitor’s cup full and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the cup overflowing until he could no longer restrain himself.
“The cup is overfull, no more will go in.”
“Like this cup,” the master said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen until you first empty your cup?”