Desire for Knowledge and the Capacity to Know

An Unfinished 1932 Lecture on Knowledge, Consciousness, and Spiritual Realization

By Roberto Assagioli
Course of Lectures on Individual Psychology
Lesson XIV (1932). Individual (spiritual) elements in personality
Unfinished Notes: [1]
(Doc. #23249 – Assagioli Archives – Florence)
Original title: Desiderio di sapere e capacità di conoscere
Translated with notes by Jan Kuniholm

Editorial Note
This text consists of unfinished lecture notes delivered by Roberto Assagioli in 1932 as part of a course on Individual Psychology. The structure reflects outline form rather than finished prose. The abstract, subheading, and cross-sections have been added for clarity and navigation. The original wording, sequence, and unfinished character have been preserved.

Abstract

In this 1932 lecture outline, Roberto Assagioli examines the desire for knowledge as a fundamental spiritual element within personality. Distinguishing human beings from animals, he explores successive levels of knowledge: sensory perception, rational and intellectual cognition, subjective and relative understanding, intuitive spiritual knowledge, and liberating realization. Drawing from Western philosophy and Eastern traditions, Assagioli outlines an epistemology that culminates in disidentification, unity with the universal Spirit, and conscious participation in higher states of awareness. The lecture anticipates key themes of psychosynthesis, including the development of intuition, self-mastery, discipline, and the realization of the true Self.

We have begun to consider the individual elements that exist in personality, the energies [2] that descend from the spiritual “I,” or Self, and penetrate in a more or less attenuated, discolored and refracted form to the level of our conscious personality. We considered (in the previous lecture) what reveals itself to us as moral consciousness. Let us examine today what manifests itself as the desire for knowledge and the capacity to know.

1. The Human Thirst for Knowledge

The thirst to know constitutes one of the clearest differences between man and animal. Animals do not have a desire to know anything other than what directly relates to their needs and instincts: the search for food, defense, etc. Only humans have the yearning to know for the sake of knowing. This tendency is already evident in children. The famous “why’s” of children must be wisely used by educators. Children must never be depressed or discouraged, never laughed at; they must not be given answers in a way that “talks down” to them, because they grasp and intuit far more than they are given credit for. Their minds are concrete; one should never speak to them in abstract terms. They are free of obstacles and preconceptions. It is appropriate to respond to children with symbols, analogies and parables.

2. Surface Curiosity and Existential Inquiry

On the surface

a. Knowledge of the outside world. It is the first step (the “Ulysses”) for boys and young people; explorers of the earth’s surface, the depths of the sea, the air, the stratosphere.

b. Intimate knowledge of nature, natural phenomena; Laws, scientists; noble passion; ascetics and heroes of Science (such as Pasteur).
In depth

Desire to know the secret “meaning of life.” Why? How? What are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The problem of pain. The problem of evil (included in the problem of creation). Philosophical search (Philosophy means Love of and search for Truth).
Desire to know, to understand, first the external world, then the laws that govern it, then its origin. From here one is drawn to search for the First Cause, the invisible Reality behind everything; the Power that created everything, the Spirit, God.
Everyone, even the farmer, the worker and the unassuming woman, has their own conception of life, albeit unconscious, unformulated and rudimentary.
The importance of the conception of Life; the importance of recognizing it clearly in ourselves. It determines our actions and our most important decisions: it gives us faith and strength, or skepticism and discouragement. Certain pessimistic conceptions have led to suicide.

3. The Psychology of Knowledge and Its Distortions

Vain, personal, superficial curiosity about other people’s affairs. Denial. Excessive doubt; dodging of research. Sterile metaphysical ruminations. Fanaticism. Intolerance. Persecution. Excessive self-confidence.

Theological, philosophical, and scientific dogmatism leads to the critique of knowledge (“gnoseology” [3]).

Organs — States and planes (of knowledge. Their scope and limits.

4. Sensory Knowledge: Nature and Limits

The five windows to the world (the five senses). Stimuli (vibrations); Sensation, Perception, Apperception; mental reconstruction of sensible data.

Limitation and relativity of sensory data:

We perceive only a small fraction of existing vibrations, from about 16-20,000 per second (sounds), out of trillions of vibrations. Qualifying relativity of sensory perceptions. Our senses are specialized in a given way, but it is only one of many possible sensory modes. One could see sounds, hear lights. Tools for turning light into sound.

5. Rational and Intellectual Knowledge

Its nature and limits. Concepts — ideas.

Second-level processing of the data of experience. Autonomous rational activity.

Categories and a priori forms into which we place and frame experience: time, space, quality, quantity, causality, relation.

6. Subjectivity and the Limits of Reason

Kant. His great merit is to have specified and demonstrated this in a definitive way. Phenomenon and Noumenon. Essence, “the thing in itself.” This eludes rational knowledge. But there is a way out. Namely:

7. Spiritual Higher Knowledge

Conscious immersion. Intuition. Illumination. “Cosmic” consciousness. Realization. Orientals: Plotinus [4] , Bergson [5] , Carpenter [6] , Bucke [7] , Ouspensky [8] .

8. Liberating Knowledge and Self-Realization

Already in the scientific field. Knowing gravity and its laws enables one to fly. Knowledge gives freedom, power, dominion, fulfillment (Keyserling). Sense of ultimate liberation from Maya (illusion): East. Vedanta, [9] Buddhism, and Jnana Yoga. [10] Vivekananda, [11] Ramacharaka. [12]

Disidentification: realization of the true Self (Vedanta). Realization of unity of individual Spirit with Universal Spirit. Silence. Contemplation. Aspiration. Devotion. Raja Yoga. [13] See: Vivekananda, Patanjali, A. Bailey ( From Intellect to Intuition ), [14] etc.

9. Discipline, Practice, and the Light of Truth

It is a faculty that, like any other, develops with practice, so it requires discipline. Self-mastery, development, elevation of the whole personality. But it is worth it. We don’t have to do it only by our own effort “from below.” If we create the necessary conditions (elimination of obstacles: See: Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms ) according to the Energy of Spirit. Truth has an irresistible power: it escapes the darkness, mists, and mirages of ignorance. It is a sun that enlivens, fertilizes, and creates. In its Light, we are transfigured, we recognize ourselves as we are in spirit and truth: Children of God, an integral part of the SUPREME.

Notes:

[1] It appears that the author used these notes to speak extemporaneously to his audience. -Oath.

[2] “rays” in the original, here interpreted as “energies”. — Tr.

[3] “Gnoseology,” also known as gnoseology or gnostology, is the philosophical study of knowledge, its nature, and its limits. It is broader in scope than the philosophical study of “epistemology.” -Oath.

[4] Plotinus (204-270) was a Greek philosopher who was born in Egypt and later lived in Rome and Sicily. -Oath.

[5] Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was a French philosopher. -Oath.

[6] Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was an English poet and philosopher. -Oath.

[7] Richard Maurice Bucke (1837-1902) was a Canadian psychiatrist and author of Cosmic Consciousness. -Oath.

[8] PD Ouspensky (1878-1947) was a Russian philosopher and esotericist. -Oath.

[9] Vedanta is a school of Hindu philosophy that emphasizes ultimate Reality (Brahman) and the individual soul (Atman). Among its most important texts are the Upanishads, the Brahma sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita. -Oath.

[10] Jnana Yoga, also called the “path of knowledge,” is a spiritual practice focused on achieving self-realization through wisdom and understanding. It is one of the four main paths of yoga in Hindu philosophy. -Oath.

[11] Swami Vivikananda (1863-1902) was an Indian philosopher, teacher and disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a major figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world. -Oath.

[12] Ramacharaka was a pseudonym of William Walter Atkinson (1862-1932), an American writer, occultist and pioneer of the “New Thought” movement. -Oath.

[13] Raja Yoga is considered by some to be a distinct form of yoga. This is also the modern term for the practice of yoga presented in the 1896 book Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda in his interpretation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which date to the second century BC —Ed.

[14] Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949) was a British and American theosophist and writer, author of 24 channeled books of esoteric knowledge. She founded the Arcane School and was a colleague of the author in esoteric work. Her publishing company, Lucis Publishing Co., issued the first monograph on psychosynthesis. Her book From Intellect to Intuition, first published in 1932, contained instructions for developing the mind to open to higher consciousness. -Oath.