Different Ways of Knowing start with the natural wonder of being a spiritual (soul) being, supporting others with our awareness of the enjoyment of life, and revealing to those around us, our passion for life (i.e. teach by example). Our spirituality fuels the Different Ways of Knowing and is an inquiry-based, arts-infused, interdisciplinary personal growth and development strategy and initiative. The body-mind-soul trinity and the social success of every individual forms the foundation of our functioning as unique individual beings.

Different Ways of Knowing can best be described as an attitude, a philosophy of life… rather than a methodology or way of doing things. Thus, from the different ways of knowing, we establish and sustain our action models, our design or set of guidelines for self-empowerment, psyche management and the sharing of wisdom and experiences, relating to efficient strategies to cope with life's many adversities or up's and down's in a meaningful and purposeful manner.

Different Ways of Knowing - the cornerstone of our spirituality and enlightenment - is best described as follows… As human beings we would like to be well-informed - that is - to understand ideas that are important, useful, beautiful and powerful. And we also want to maintain our appetite and ability to think analytically and critically, to be able to speculate and imagine, to see connections among ideas, different perspectives and to be able to use what we know to enhance our own lives and to contribute to the community at large in which we operate. Thus - in essence - accepting personal responsibility within the parameters and context of group accountabilityplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigAccountability

Many people view accountability and responsibility as the same thing, leading to many misunderstandings and unnecessary conflicts. The dictionary meaning - in short - of responsibility is “the state of being held as the cause of something that needs to be set right.

When we experience Different Ways of Knowing, we co-create a content-rich approach to life, that challenges and nurtures everyone as creative life-long learners and explorers on an exciting journey. We assist to create a communal climate of explorers and learners, that appreciates what life has to offer… both the good and the bad. We encourage everybody to become involved as co-travelers, helping to transform our current environment into an exciting environment of discovery, exploration and learning for all involved.

Through different ways of knowing we recognize that every individual has a specific talent and that we all empower ourselves by actively exploring and learning through focused, meaningful and purposeful interaction within our environment and everything within it. Different ways of knowing celebrate and build on the responsibilities of each individual - as a creative and capable explorer and learner - and take accountability for those around them. Different Way of Knowing provides us with…

• a framework for hands-on, individual-centred learning and exploration that directs our daily involvement, within the parameters of responsible self-empowerment, as well as continuous psyche management strategies.
• a wide variety of theme-based learning and exploration opportunities.
• with an interdependent community interactivity, that encourages accepting responsibility and shared accountability for everyday activities and promotes an understanding of different ideals, ideas, viewpoints and perspectives.
• guidelines, resources and references to assist with our self-development.
• a recognition that the most important kind of assessment is self-evaluation and invites active, collaborative reflection by both the individual and others involved within a particular context.

Different ways of knowing is the main source, launching platform and foundation of our spirituality (i.e. higher levels of awareness) and enlightenment in life.

What is the philosophical understanding, underlying the Different Ways of Knowing?

It is extremely difficult to provide a satisfactory answer and explanation to this question because different ways of knowing are very individualized and personal experiences, that could only materialize through active self-exploration, reflection, digestion and learning. Presently there are plenty resourcesplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigSuch as books, articles, the Internet, workshops, seminars, research findings, ...etc. to establish our own perspective and views on all the varied aspects related to the different ways of knowing, as guided by your enlightened spirituality. However, in our quest to establish different ways of knowing, we should always remain focused when we embark on our journey, by setting ourselves some specific guidelines for exploring and discovering. What we must also realize is that our learning should be grounded in gaining understanding, rather than obtaining an answer.

As we travel on our journey through life, actively enhancing our spirituality and broadening our different ways of knowing and our awareness, it is quite easy to get derailed, “lost” or being “seduced” by prevailing popular or “democratic” opinions and “popular” views. Therefore, it is strongly advised that we use the following set of basic guidelines, when we embark on our quest for spiritual enlightenment, raise our levels of awareness and broaden our horizons…

• The place and POWER of our Creatorplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigAlso referred to as the... Divine, Allah, Supreme Being, God, Judge, Supreme Intelligence, Divinity, Jehovah, Yahweh, the Almighty, Deity, Father, Holiness, Lord, Absolute Being, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Divine Being, Holy Spirit, King of Kings, Omnipotent, ...etc. in our life's, and whether we are a followerplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigThus, courageous and dedicated enough to walk our talk! or merely an admirerplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigAfrican Grey focus providing that - and as long as - it earns us money, prestige and status..
• The interdependency of man, amongst each other and with nature (i.e. all of creation), considering both dependency on and independence from each other, which ultimately synchronize as interdependency.
• The communion of cultures and diversities of man and a respectful understanding and acceptance of human differences.
• The body, mind and soul trinity, implying a higher consciousness and the continued existence of the soul.
• Personal responsibilities, accountabilities and being answerable to whom or what? To create, establish and stick to priorities or principles, regardless of what may happen or what is expected from us.
• Compensation and retribution, “hereafter” for all good and evil deeds done during our life time on this planet (i.e. the principle of what you sow, so shall you reap or the law of karma).

Different Ways of Knowing - a knowing for certain, without knowing for sure - implies that we expand our present knowledge spectrum to include all human intelligence, aptitudes and competencies. In addition, to becoming skilled in the application of communication, we become literate in the varied symbol systems of arts, mathematics, social studies, financial realities and science. We also become skilled in interacting with others, and gain confidence in ourselves as trouble shooters, problem solvers, explorers and learners. Thus, different Ways of Knowing, allows us to tap into and source from the collective intelligence's to our disposal, our creative and social strategies for learning, as well as our verbal and mathematical strategies for exploration, both the intuitive (gut feeling) and the logical. This provides us with the opportunity to gain excellence in the following areas of our life…

• Linguistic. We are sensitive to sounds and rhythms. We are adept at speaking, reading, writing and listening; and we can easily comprehend “language”, first to understand and then to be understood.
• Musical. We are sensitive to rhythm, pitch and timbre. Allowing us to appreciate, interpret and compose sounds.
• Logical-mathematical. We easily discern patterns and relationships, creating reasoning chains to analyze and manipulate numerical and symbolic information.
• Spatial. We are sensitive to images and forms. We can accurately visualize spatial orientation and transform perceptions.
• Bodily-kinesthetic. We are aware of our body-mind-soul trinity and synchronicity. Possess excellent large- and small-body motor coordination's, and we can use our energies to troubleshoot, co-create and problem solve.
• Inter-personal. We are sensitive to moods, temperament and relationships, becoming efficient and productive collaborators.
• Intra-personal. We possess self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-understanding and insight. Thus, being able to reflect on and monitorplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigMonitor
  
  To monitor or monitoring imply observing and checking the progress standard and quality of ...something over a period of time and keeping it under systematic review through observations, checking and keeping a continuous record by deploying the monitoring cycle. monitor our personal growth and development strategy for optimal self-actualization.

Assessing things within context, is core to the Different Ways of Knowing.

At this point we should remind ourselves that we are not all the same, nor do we all have “the same kinds of minds”. Our personal spiritual and enlightenment quest is most effective when we acknowledge and accept our human differences, diversities, talents and respect the many waysplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigManifesting as many different views, opinions, perspectives, ideas and/or interpretations. to explore our environment and to learn about and understand life. New knowledge, skills and understanding - mastered in this manner - are used by us to solve problems, explore and either gain or show insight. Music, the visual and media arts, dance, drama, literature, writing, religion, philosophy, science and mathematics… all become powerful tools for learning, as well as topics of exploration. In this manner we build our repertoire of knowledge and skills that we require to become lifelong learners and explorers, to experience higher levels of self-confidence, a sense of personal accomplishment and thrive by solving the many wicked challenges of the current emotions economy. With a continuous broadening of different ways of knowing, we can learn, understand and experience more about life. Different ways of knowing - supported by a sound spiritual strategy and healthy enlightenment quest - develops the intellectual tools that will serve us well to deal with change in a proactive manner and to grow and develop with for the rest of our life on this beautiful planet of ours and dealing successfully with the many challenges we are confronted with.

For a more practical explanation, application and usage of the Different Ways of Knowing, the TED-talk - delivered by Kai Fu Lee - provides a practical overview and some ideas of coping with future challenges…