“The third state of consciousness is self-remembering or SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS or consciousness of one’s being. It is usual to consider that we have this state of consciousness or that we can have it if we want it. Our science and philosophy have overlooked the fact that we do not possess this state of consciousness and that we cannot create it in ourselves by desire or decision alone. Fragments: Eight

“The fourth state of consciousness is called the objective state of consciousness In this state a man can see things as they are. Flashes of this state of consciousness also occur in man. In the religions of all nations there are indications of the possibility of a state of consciousness of this kind which is called ‘enlightenment’ and various other names but which cannot be described in words. But the only right way to objective consciousness is through the development of SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. If an ordinary man is artificially brought into a state of objective consciousness and afterwards brought back to his usual state he will remember nothing and he will think that for a time he had lost consciousness. But in the state of SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS a man can have Hashes of objective consciousness and remember them. Fragments: Eight

“For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS consists in the fact that they think they possess it, that is, that they possess SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS and everything connected with it; individuality in the sense of a permanent and unchangeable I, will, ability to do, and so on. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something which, in his opinion, he already has. On the contrary he will think either that you are mad or that you want to deceive him with a view to personal gain. Fragments: Eight

“The two higher states of consciousness — ‘SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS’ and ‘objective consciousness’ — are connected with the functioning of the higher centers in man. Fragments: Eight

“But man does not know of the third state of consciousness or even suspect it. Nor can he suspect it because if you were to explain to him what the third state of consciousness is, that is to say, in what it consists, he would say that it was his usual state. He considers himself to be a conscious being governing his own life. Facts that contradict that, he considers to be accidental or temporary, which will change by themselves. By considering that he possesses SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, as it were by nature, a man will not of course try to approach or obtain it. And yet without SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, or the third state, the fourth, except in rare flashes, is impossible. Knowledge, however, the real objective knowledge towards which man, as he asserts, is struggling, is possible only in the fourth state of consciousness, that is, it is conditional upon the full possession of the fourth state of consciousness. Knowledge which is acquired in the ordinary state of consciousness is intermixed with dreams. There you have a complete picture of the being of man number one, two, and three.” Fragments: Eight