“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

“The ‘man-machine’ can DO NOTHING. To him and around him everything happens. In order to do it is necessary to know the law of octaves, to know the moments of the ‘intervals’ and be able to create necessary ‘additional shocks.’ Fragments: Seven

“It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror. And indeed people often do go mad because they End out something of this nature without the proper preparation, that is, they see something they are not supposed to see. In order to see without danger one must be on the way. If a man who can DO NOTHING sees the truth he will certainly go mad. Only this rarely happens. Usually everything is so arranged that a man can see nothing prematurely. Personality sees only what it likes to see and what does not interfere with its life. It never sees what it does not like. This is both good and bad at the same time. It is good if a man wants to sleep, bad if he wants to awaken.” Fragments: Eight

“One man can DO NOTHING. Fragments: Eleven

“At this stage people very often make a mistake that is constantly made. They think that the efforts they have previously made, their former merits, so to speak, give them some kind of rights or advantages, diminish the demands to be made upon them, and constitute as it were an excuse should they not work or should they afterwards do something wrong. This, of course, is most profoundly false. Nothing that a man did yesterday excuses him today. Quite the reverse, if a man did nothing yesterday, no demands are made upon him today; if he did anything yesterday, it means that he must do more today. This certainly does not mean that it is better to DO NOTHING. Whoever does nothing receives nothing. Fragments: Eleven

“Not only can you DO NOTHING,” G. said to them, “but you ought not to try because by such attempts you will destroy the last chance they have of understanding and seeing themselves. It is always very difficult to come back. And it must be an absolutely voluntary decision without any sort of persuasion or constraint. You should understand that everything you have heard about me and yourselves are attempts at self-justification, endeavors to blame others in order to feel that they are in the right. It means more and more lying. It must be destroyed and it can only be destroyed through suffering. If it was difficult for them to see themselves before, it will be ten times more difficult now.” Fragments: Thirteen

“Schools are imperative,” he once said, “first of all because of the complexity of man’s organization. A man is unable to keep watch on the whole of himself, that is, all his different sides. Only school can do this, school methods, school discipline — a man is much too lazy, he will do a great deal without the proper intensity, or he will DO NOTHING at all while thinking that he is doing something; he will work with intensity on something that does not need intensity and will let those moments pass by when intensity is imperative. Then he spares himself; he is afraid of doing anything unpleasant. He will never attain the necessary intensity by himself. If you have observed yourselves in a proper way you will agree with this. If a man sets himself a task of some sort he very quickly begins to be indulgent with himself. He tries to accomplish his task in the easiest way possible and so on. This is not work. In work only super-efforts are counted, that is, beyond the normal, beyond the necessary; ordinary efforts are not counted.” Fragments: Seventeen

“Now imagine that a man decides to think in a new way. But he feels in the old way. Imagine that he dislikes R.” He pointed to one of those present. “This dislike of R. immediately arouses old thoughts and he forgets his decision to think in a new way. Or let us suppose that he is accustomed to smoking cigarettes while he is thinking — this is a moving habit. He decides to think in a new way. He begins to smoke a cigarette and thinks in the old way without noticing it. The habitual movement of lighting a cigarette has turned his thoughts round to the old tune. You must remember that a man can never break this accordance by himself. Another man’s will is necessary, and a stick is necessary. All that a man who wants to work on himself can do at a certain stage of his work is to obey. He can DO NOTHING by himself. Fragments: Seventeen

“The whole thing is in being ready to sacrifice one’s freedom,” said G. “A man consciously and unconsciously struggles for freedom as he imagines it and this, more than anything else, prevents him from attaining real freedom. But a man who is capable of attaining anything comes sooner or later to the conclusion that his freedom is illusion and he agrees to sacrifice this illusion. He voluntarily becomes a slave. He does what he is told, says what he is told, and thinks what he is told. He is not afraid of losing anything because he knows that he has nothing. And in this way he acquires everything. Everything in him that was real in his understanding, in his sympathies, tastes, and desires, all comes back to him accompanied by new things which he did not have and could not have had before, together with a feeling of unity and will within him. But to arrive at this point, a man must pass through the hard way of slavery and obedience. And if he wants results he must obey not only outwardly but inwardly. This requires a great determination, and determination requires a great understanding of the fact that there is no other way, that a man can DO NOTHING himself, but that at the same time, something has to be done. Fragments: Seventeen