Knowledge, understanding and attainment
Question from the Internet:
“What is the relationship between knowledge and understanding?”
We usually consider knowledge something theoretical when we gain some intellectual knowledge of something, like uploading data to memory. We do not change; we simply gain some extra information.
Understanding comes when we have already used that knowledge and gained experience, tested if the knowledge was correct, and sorted out what was useful and correct and what wasn’t. As a result of that understanding, we start to change since we know how to use the knowledge to refine and improve ourselves.
Attainment is the highest level of understanding when we already “know” something “in our bones” when something has become our integral part when we absorbed it so much that what we attained and our self have become one. Through attainment, we have become what we have attained, even if that something was completely different or even opposite to what we were at the beginning.