G. often returned afterwards to this example of “prison” and “escape from prison” in his talks. Sometimes he began with it, and then his favorite statement was that, if a man in prison was at any time to have a chance of escape, then he must first of all realize that he is in prison. So long as he fails to realize this, so long as he thinks he is free, he has no chance whatever. No one can help or liberate him by force, against his will, in opposition to his wishes. If liberation is possible, it is possible only as a result of great labor and great efforts, and, above all, of conscious efforts, towards a definite AIM. Fragments: Two

All these things taken together had created in him at a very early age a leaning towards the mysterious, the incomprehensible, and the magical. He told me that when quite young he made several long journeys in the East. What was true in these stories I could never decide exactly. But, as he said, in the course of these journeys he again came across many phenomena telling him of the existence of a certain knowledge, of certain powers and possibilities exceeding the ordinary possibilities of man, and of people possessing clairvoyance and other miraculous powers. Gradually, he told me, his absences from home and his travels began to follow one definite AIM. He went in search of knowledge and the people who possessed this knowledge. And, as he said, after great difficulties, he found the sources of this knowledge in company with several other people who were, like him, also seeking the miraculous. Fragments: Two

“This aspect of the question is clear. The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear. It is even difficult to imagine all the horror of this slavery. We do not understand what people are losing. But in order to understand the cause of this slavery it is enough to see how people live, what constitutes the AIM of their existence, the object of their desires, passions, and aspirations, of what they think, of what they talk, what they serve and what they worship. Fragments: Two

“It is impossible to stabilize the interrelation of powders in a state of mechanical mixture. But the powders may be fused; the nature of the powders makes this possible. To do this a special kind of fire must be lighted under the retort which, by heating and melting the powders, finally fuses them together. Fused in this way the powders will be in the state of a chemical compound. And now they can no longer be separated by those simple methods which separated and made them change places when they were in a state of mechanical mixture. The contents of the retort have become indivisible, ‘individual.’ This is a picture of the formation of the second body. The fire by means of which fusion is attained is produced by ‘friction,’ which in its turn is produced in man by the struggle between ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no ‘friction,’ no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite AIM, he struggles with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole. Fragments: Two

“Of the four, the fakir acts in the crudest manner; he knows very little and understands very little. Let us suppose that by a whole month of intense torture he develops in himself a certain energy, a certain substance which produces certain changes in him. He does it absolutely blindly, with his eyes shut, knowing neither AIM, methods, nor results, simply in imitation of others. Fragments: Two

ONE of the next lectures began with a question asked by one of those present: What was the AIM of his teaching? “I certainly have an AIM of my own,”‘ said G. “But you must permit me to keep silent about it. At the present moment my AIM cannot have any meaning for you, because it is important that you should define your own AIM. The teaching by itself cannot pursue any definite AIM. It can only show the best way for men to attain whatever AIMs they may have. The question of AIM is a very important question. Until a man has defined his own AIM for himself he will not be able even to begin ‘to do’ anything. How is it possible ‘to do’ anything without having an AIM? Before anything else ‘doing’ presupposes an AIM.” Fragments: Six

“But the question of the AIM of existence is one of the most difficult of philosophical questions,” said one of those present. “You want us to begin by solving this question. But perhaps we have come here because we are seeking an answer to this question. You expect us to have known it beforehand. If a man knows this, he really knows everything.” Fragments: Six

“You misunderstood me,” said G. “I was not speaking of the philosophical significance of the AIM of existence. Man does not know it and he cannot know it so long as he remains what he is, first of all, because there is not one but many AIMs of existence. On the contrary, attempts to answer this question using ordinary methods are utterly hopeless and useless. I was asking about an entirely different thing. I was asking about your personal AIM, about what you want to attain, and not about the reason for your existence. Everyone must have his own AIM: one man wants riches, another health, a third wants the kingdom of heaven, the fourth wants to be a general, and so on. It is about AIMs of this sort that I am asking. If you tell me what your AIM is, I shall be able to tell you whether we are going along the same road or not. Fragments: Six

“Think of how you formulated your own AIM to yourselves before you came here.” Fragments: Six

“I formulated my own AIM quite clearly several years ago,” I said. “I said to myself then that I want to know the future. Through a theoretical study of the question I came to the conclusion that the future can be known, and several times I was even successful in experiments in knowing Fragments: Six

“Very well,” said G., “to know the future is the first AIM. Who else can formulate his AIM?” Fragments: Six

“I don’t care whether I know the future or not, or whether I am certain or not certain of life after death,” said another, “if I remain what I am now. What I feel most strongly is that I am not master of myself, and if I were to formulate my AIM, I should say that I want to be master of myself.” Fragments: Six

“Well, that’s enough,’ said G., “we have now sufficient material to go on with. The best formulation of those that have been put forward is the wish to be one’s own master. Without this nothing else is possible and without this nothing else will have any value. But let us begin with the first question, or the first AIM. Fragments: Six

“Freedom, liberation, this must be the AIM of man. To become free, to be liberated from slavery: this is what a man ought to strive for when he becomes even a little conscious of his position. There is nothing else for him, and nothing else is possible so long as he remains a slave both inwardly and outwardly. But he cannot cease to be a slave outwardly while he remains a slave inwardly. Therefore in order to become free, man must gain inner freedom. Fragments: Six

“Knowledge of oneself is a very big, but a very vague and distant, AIM. Man in his present state is very far from self-knowledge. Therefore, strictly speaking, his AIM cannot even be defined as self-knowledge. Self-study must be his big AIM. It is quite enough if a man understands that he must study himself. It must be man’s AIM to begin to study himself, to know himself, in the right way. Fragments: Six

“In order to find a way of discriminating we must understand that every normal psychic function is a means or an instrument of knowledge. With the help of the mind we see one aspect of things and events, with the help of emotions another aspect, with the help of sensations a third aspect. The most complete knowledge of a given subject possible for us can only be obtained if we examine it simultaneously with our mind, feelings, and sensations. Every man who is striving after right knowledge must AIM at the possibility of attaining such perception. In ordinary conditions man sees the world through a crooked, uneven window. And even if he realizes this, he cannot alter anything. This or that mode of perception depends upon the work of his organism as a whole. All functions are interconnected and counterbalance one another, all functions strive to keep one another in the state in which they are. Therefore when a man begins to study himself he must understand that if he discovers in himself something that he dislikes he will not be able to change it. To study is one thing, and to change is another. But study is the first step towards the possibility of change in the future. And in the beginning, to study himself he must understand that for a long time all his work will consist in study only. Fragments: Six

“So that if one is working on oneself properly, one must consider the possible supplementary changes, and take them into account beforehand. Only in this way is it possible to avoid undesirable changes, or the appearance of qualities which are utterly opposed to the AIM and the direction of the work. Fragments: Six

“‘Imagination’ is one of the principal sources of the wrong workwork of centers. Each center has its own form of imagination and daydreaming, but as a rule both the moving and the emotional centers make use of the thinking center which very readily places itself at their disposal for this purpose, because daydreaming corresponds to its own inclinations. Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of ‘useful’ mental activity. ‘Useful’ in this case means activity directed towards a definite AIM and undertaken for the sake of obtaining a definite result. Daydreaming does not pursue any AIM, does not strive after any result. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional or in the moving center. The actual process is carried on by the thinking center. The inclination to daydream is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center, that is, its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite AIM and going in a definite direction, and partly to the tendency of the emotional and the moving centers to repeat to themselves, to keep alive or to recreate experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, that have been previously lived through or ‘imagined.’ Daydreaming of disagreeable, morbid things is very characteristic of the unbalanced state of the human machine, After all, one can understand daydreaming of a pleasant kind and find logical justification for it. Daydreaming of an unpleasant character is an utter absurdity. And yet many people spend nine tenths of their lives in just such painful daydreams about misfortunes which may overtake them or their family, about illnesses they may contract or sufferings they will have to endure. Imagination and daydreaming are instances of the wrong work of the thinking center. Fragments: Six

“We must now dwell on the idea of the ‘additional shocks’ which make it possible for the lines of forces to reach a projected AIM. As I said before, shocks may occur accidentally. Accident is of course a very uncertain thing. But those lines of development of forces which are straightened out by accident, and which man can sometimes see, or suppose, or expect, create in him more than anything else the illusion of straight lines. That is to say, he thinks that straight lines are the rule and broken and interrupted lines the exception. This in its turn creates in him the illusion that it is possible to do; possible to attain a projected AIM. In reality a man can do nothing. If by accident his activity gives a result, even though it resembles only in appearance or in name the original AIM, a man assures himself and others that he has attained the AIM which he set before himself and that anyone else would also be able to attain his AIM, and others believe him. In reality this is illusion. A man can win at roulette. But this would be accident. Attaining an AIM which one has set before oneself in life or in any particular sphere of human activity is just the same kind of accident. The only difference is that in regard to roulette a man at least knows for certain whether he has lost or won on each separate occasion, that is, on each separate stake. But in the activities of his life, particularly with activities of the kind that many people are concerned in and when years pass between the beginning of something and its result, a man can very easily deceive himself and take the result ‘obtained’ as the result desired, that is, believe that he has won when on the whole he has lost. Fragments: Seven

“The greatest insult for a ‘man-machine’ is to tell him that he can do nothing, can attain nothing, that he can never move towards any AIM whatever and that in striving towards one he will inevitably create another. Actually of course it cannot be otherwise. The ‘man-machine’ is in the power of accident. His activities may fall by accident into some sort of channel which has been created by cosmic or mechanical forces and they may by accident move along this channel for a certain time, giving the illusion that AIMs of some kind are being attained. Such accidental correspondence of results with the AIMs we have set before us or the attainment of AIMs in small things which can have no consequences creates in mechanical man the conviction that he is able to attain any AIM, ‘is able to conquer nature’ as it is called, is able to ‘arrange the whole of his life,’ and so on. Fragments: Seven

“On this level of self-observation a man must understand that his whole AIM is to free himself from ‘Ouspensky.’ And since he cannot in fact free himself from ‘Ouspensky,’ because he is himself, he must therefore master ‘Ouspensky’ and make him do, not what the ‘Ouspensky’ of the given moment wants, but what he himself wants to do. From being the master, ‘Ouspensky’ must become the servant. Fragments: Eight

“It is the same case, only perhaps worse, when a man considers that in his opinion he ‘ought’ to do something when as a matter of fact he ought not to do so at all. ‘Ought’ and ‘ought not’ is also a difficult subject, that is, difficult to understand when a man really ‘ought’ and when he ‘ought not.’ This can be approached only from the point of view of ‘AIM.’ When a man has an AIM he ‘ought’ to do only what leads towards his AIM and he ‘ought not’ to do anything that hinders him from going towards his AIM. Fragments: Eight

“A permanent idea of good and evil can be formed in man only in connection with a permanent AIM and a permanent understanding. If a man understands that he is asleep and if he wishes to awake, then everything that helps him to awake will be good and everything that hinders him, everything that prolongs his sleep, will be evil. Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people. What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil. But this is so only for those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are asleep. Those who do not understand that they are asleep and those who can have no wish to awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil. And as the overwhelming majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are asleep, neither good nor evil can actually exist for them. Fragments: Eight

“This contradicts generally accepted ideas. People are accustomed to think that good and evil must be the same for everyone, and above all that good and evil exist for everyone. In reality, however, good and evil exist only for a few, for those who have an AIM and who pursue that AIM. Then what hinders the pursuit of that AIM is evil and what helps is good. Fragments: Eight

“But of course most sleeping people will say that they have an AIM and that they are going somewhere. The realization of the fact that he has no AIM and that he is not going anywhere is the first sign of the approaching awakening of a man or of awakening becoming really possible for him. Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go. Fragments: Eight

“As has been explained before, there are many qualities which men attribute to themselves, which in reality can belong only to people of a higher degree of development and of a higher degree of evolution than man number one, number two, and number three. Individuality, a single and permanent I, consciousness, will, the ability to do, a state of inner freedom, all these are qualities which ordinary man does not possess. To the same category belongs the idea of good and evil, the very existence of which is connected with a permanent AIM, with a permanent direction and a permanent center of gravity. Fragments: Eight

“All that has been said before about work on oneself, about the formation of inner unity and of the transition from the level of man number one, number two, and number three to the level of man number four and further, pursues one and the same AIM. What is called according to one terminology the ‘astral body,’ is called in another terminology the ‘higher emotional center,’ although the difference here does not lie in the terminology alone. These are, to speak more correctly, different aspects of the next stage of man’s evolution. It can be said that the ‘astral body’ is necessary for the complete and proper functioning of the ‘higher emotional center’ in unison with the lower. Or it can be said that the ‘higher emotional center’ is necessary for the work of the ‘astral body.’ Fragments: Nine

“The next important feature of group work is that groups may be connected with some AIM of which those who are beginning work in them have no idea whatever and which cannot even be explained to them until they understand the essence and the principles of the work and the ideas connected with it. But this AIM towards which without knowing it they are going, and which they are serving, is the necessary balancing principle in their own work. Their first task is to understand this AIM, that is, the AIM of the teacher. When they have understood this AIM, although at first not fully, their own work becomes more conscious and consequently can give better results. But, as I have already said, it often happens that the AIM of the teacher cannot be explained at the beginning. Fragments: Eleven

“Therefore, the first AIM of a man beginning work in a group should be self-study. The work of self-study can proceed only in properly organized groups. One man alone cannot see himself. But when a certain number of people unite together for this purpose they will even involuntarily help one another. It is a common characteristic of human nature that a man sees the faults of others more easily than he sees his own. At the same time on the path of self-study he learns that he himself possesses all the faults that he finds in others. But there are many things that he does not see in himself, whereas in other people he begins to see them. But, as I have just said, in this case he knows that these features are his own. Thus other members of the group serve him as mirrors in which he sees himself. But, of course, in order to see himself in other people’s faults and not merely to see the faults of others, a man must be very much on his guard against and be very sincere with himself. Fragments: Eleven

“Let us take Petrov. Petrov consists of two parts — ‘I’ and ‘Petrov.’ But ‘I’ is powerless against ‘Petrov.’ ‘Petrov’ is the master. Suppose there are twenty people; twenty ‘I’s’ now begin to struggle against one ‘Petrov.’ They may now prove to be stronger than he is. At any rate they can spoil his sleep; he will no longer be able to sleep as peacefully as he did before. And this is the whole AIM. Fragments: Eleven

“In reality rules are the chief and the first help that they get from the work. It stands to reason that rules do not pursue the object of affording them amusement or satisfaction or of making things more easy for them. Rules pursue a definite AIM: to make them behave as they would behave ‘if they were,’ that is, if they remembered themselves and realized how they ought to behave with regard to people outside the work, to people in the work, and to the teacher. If they remembered themselves and realized this, rules would not be necessary for them. But they are not able to remember themselves and understand this at the beginning of work, so that rules are indispensable, although rules can never be either easy, pleasant, or comfortable. On the contrary, they ought to be difficult, unpleasant, and uncomfortable; otherwise they would not answer their purpose. Rules are the alarm clocks which wake the sleeping man. But the man, opening his eyes for a second, is indignant with the alarm clock and asks: Can one not awaken without alarm clocks? Fragments: Eleven

“The study of the chief fault and the struggle against it constitute, as it were, each man’s individual path, but the AIM must be the same for all. This AIM is the realization of one’s nothingness. Only when a man has truly and sincerely arrived at the conviction of his own helplessness and nothingness and only when he feels it constantly, will he be ready for the next and much more difficult stages of the work. Fragments: Eleven

On another occasion, speaking of groups, G. said: “Do not think that we can begin straight away by forming a group. A group is a big thing. A group is begun for definite concerted work, for a definite AIM. I should have to trust you in this work and you would have to trust me and one another. Then it would be a group. Until there is general work it will only be a preparatory group. We shall prepare ourselves so as in the course of time to become a group. And it is only possible to prepare ourselves to become a group by trying to imitate a group such as it ought to be, imitating it inwardly of course, not outwardly. Fragments: Eleven

“Our AIM, on the contrary, is to learn to connect the necessary center with the large accumulator. So long as we are unable to do this, all our work will be wasted because we shall fall asleep before our efforts can give any kind of results. Fragments: Eleven

“This is precisely what people do not understand. Therefore their AIM must be the development of the activity of the emotional center. The emotional center is an apparatus much more subtle than the intellectual center, particularly if we take into consideration the fact that in the whole of the intellectual center the only part that works is the formatory apparatus and that many things are quite inaccessible to the intellectual center. If anyone desires to know and to understand more than he actually knows and understands, he must remember that this new knowledge and this new understanding will come through the emotional center and not through the intellectual center.” Fragments: Eleven

“You think perhaps that this affords me a great deal of satisfaction,” he said. “Or perhaps you think that there is nothing else that I could do. If so you are very gravely mistaken in both cases. There are very many other things that I could do. And if I give my time to this it is only because I have a definite AIM. By now you ought better to understand in what my AIM consists and by now you ought to see whether you are on the same road as I am or not. I will say nothing more. But in the future I shall work only with those who can be useful to me in attaining my AIM. And only those people can be useful to me who have firmly decided to struggle with themselves, that is, to struggle with mechanicalness.” Fragments: Thirteen

“It has already been said that the higher psychic centers work in man’s higher states of consciousness: the ‘higher emotional’ and the ‘higher mental.’ The AIM of ‘myths’ and ‘symbols’ was to reach man’s higher centers, to transmit to him ideas inaccessible to the intellect and to transmit them in such forms as would exclude the possibility of false interpretations. ‘Myths’ were destined for the higher emotional center; ‘symbols’ for the higher thinking center. By virtue of this all attempts to understand or explain ‘myths’ and ‘symbols’ with the mind, or the formulas and the expressions which give a summary of their content, are doomed beforehand to failure. It is always possible to understand anything but only with the appropriate center. But the preparation for receiving ideas belonging to objective knowledge has to proceed by way of the mind, for only a mind properly prepared can transmit these ideas to the higher centers without introducing elements foreign to them. Fragments: Fourteen

“But this duality would seem to alternate; what is victor today is the vanquished tomorrow; what guides us today becomes secondary and subordinate tomorrow. And everything is equally mechanical, equally independent of will, and leads equally to no AIM of any kind. The understanding of duality in oneself begins with the realization of mechanicalness and the realization of the difference between what is mechanical and what is conscious. This understanding must be preceded by the destruction of the self-deceit in which a man lives who considers even his most mechanical actions to be volitional and conscious and himself to be single and whole. Fragments: Fourteen

“You must understand,” he said, “that every real religion, that is, one that has been created by learned people for a definite AIM, consists of two parts. One part teaches what is to be done. This part becomes common knowledge and in the course of time is distorted and departs from the original. The other part teaches how to do what the first part teaches. This part is preserved in secret in special schools and with its help it is always possible to rectify what has been distorted in the first part or to restore what has been forgotten. Fragments: Fifteen

“Of course there are very many people who consider that the life of humanity is not proceeding in the way in which according to their views it ought to go. And they invent various theories which in their opinion ought to change the whole life of humanity. One invents one theory. Another immediately invents a contradictory theory. And both expect everyone to believe them. And many people indeed do believe either one or the other. Life naturally takes its own course but people do not stop believing in their own or other people’s theories and they believe that it is possible to do something. All these theories are certainly quite fantastic, chiefly because they do not take into account the most important thing, namely, the subordinate part which humanity and organic life play in the world process. Intellectual theories put man in the center of everything; everything exists for him, the sun, the stars, the moon, the earth. They even forget man’s relative size, his nothingness, his transient existence, and other tilings. They assert that a man if he wishes is able to change his whole life, that is, to organize his life on rational principles. And all the time new theories appear evoking in their turn opposing theories; and all these theories and the struggle between them undoubtedly constitute one of the forces which keep humanity in the state in which it is at present. Besides, all these theories for general welfare and general equality are not only unrealizable, but they would be fatal if they were realized. Everything in nature has its AIM and its purpose, both the inequality of man and his suffering. To destroy inequality would mean destroying the possibility of evolution. To destroy suffering would mean, first, destroying a whole series of perceptions for which man exists, and second, the destruction of the ‘shock,’ that is to say, the force which alone can change the situation. And thus it is with all intellectual theories. Fragments: Fifteen

“The inner circle is called the ‘esoteric’; this circle consists of people who have attained the highest development possible for man, each one of whom possesses individuality in the fullest degree, that is to say, an indivisible ‘I,’ all forms of consciousness possible for man, full control over these states of consciousness, the whole of knowledge possible for man, and a free and independent will. They cannot perform actions opposed to their understanding or have an understanding which is not expressed by actions. At the same time there can be no discords among them, no differences of understanding. Therefore their activity is entirely co-ordinated and leads to one common AIM without any kind of compulsion because it is based upon a common and identical understanding. Fragments: Fifteen

“The fourth way is never without some work of a definite significance, is never without some undertaking around which and in connection with which it can alone exist. When this work is finished, that is to say, when the AIM set before it has been accomplished, the fourth way disappears, that is, it disappears from the given place, disappears in its given form, continuing perhaps in another place in another form. Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work which is being carried out in connection with the proposed undertaking. They never exist by themselves as schools for the purpose of education and instruction. Fragments: Fifteen

“The quicker a man grasps the AIM of the work which is being executed, the quicker can he become useful to it and the more will he be able to get from it for himself. Fragments: Fifteen

“But no matter what the fundamental AIM of the work is, the schools continue to exist only while this work is going on. When the work is done the schools close. The people who began the work leave the stage. Those who have learned from them what was possible to learn and have reached the possibility of continuing on the way independently begin in one form or another their own personal work. Fragments: Fifteen

“At the same time ‘stop’ demands unconditional obedience, without any hesitations or doubts. And this makes it the invariable method for studying school discipline. School discipline is something quite different from military discipline, for instance. In that discipline everything is mechanical and the more mechanical it is the better. In this everything should be conscious because the AIM consists in awakening consciousness. And for many people school discipline is much more difficult than military discipline. There it is always one and the same, here it is always different. Fragments: Seventeen

“Think out something like Sodroojestvo (“union of friends for common AIM”) and ‘earned by work’ or ‘international’ at the same time,” said G. “In any case they will not understand. But it is necessary for them to be able to give us some kind of name.” Fragments: Eighteen

It was necessary to get abroad. I had marked down London as my final AIM. First because I knew more people there and second because I thought that among the English I should find the greater response and a greater interest in the new ideas I now had, than anywhere else. Besides, when I was in London on my way to India before the war and on my return voyage at the beginning of the war I had decided to go there to write and publish my book, which had been begun in 1911, under the title of The Wisdom of the Cods, and which subsequently appeared under the title of A New Model of the Universe. As a matter of fact this book, in which I touched upon questions of religion and in particular upon methods for studying the New Testament, could not have been published in Russia. Fragments: Eighteen

“Right exercises,” G. said once, “which lead direct to the AIM of mastering the organism and subjecting its conscious and unconscious functions to the will, begin with breathing exercises. Without mastering breathing nothing can be mastered. At the same time to master breathing is not so easy. Fragments: Eighteen

“This all has one AIM: to bring breathing into the right muscles, to hand it over to the moving center. And as I said, sometimes this is successful. But there is always a big risk that the moving center will lose its habit of working properly, and since the formatory apparatus cannot work all the time, as for instance during sleep, and the moving center does not want to, then the machine can find itself in a very sorry situation. A man may even die from breathing having stopped. The disorganization of the functions of the machine through breathing exercises is almost inevitable when people try to do ‘breathing exercises’ from books by themselves without proper instruction. Many people used to come to me in Moscow who had completely disorganized right functioning of their machines by so-called ‘yogi breathing’ which they had learned from books. Books which recommend such exercises represent a great danger. Fragments: Eighteen