At the same time, in the whole region of my spine there began a strong almost unbearable itch, and a colic in the very center of my solar plexus, also unbearable, and all this, that is these dual, mutually stimulating sensations, after the lapse of some time suddenly were replaced by such a peaceful inner condition as I experienced in later life once only, when the ceremony of the great initiation into the Brotherhood of the “Originators of making butter from air” was performed over me; and later when “I”, that is, this “something-unknown” of mine, which in ancient times one crank — called by those around him, as we now also call such persons, a “learned man” — defined as a “relatively transferable arising, depending on the quality of the functioning of thought, feeling, and organic automatism”, and according to the definition of another also ancient and renowned learned man, the Arabian Mal-el-Lel, which definition by the way was in the course of time borrowed and repeated in a different way by a no less renowned and learned Greek, Xenophon, “the compound result of consciousness, subconsciousness, and instinct”; so when this same “I” in this condition turned my dazed attention inside myself, then firstly it very clearly constated that everything, even to each single word, elucidating this quotation that has become an “all-universal life principle” became transformed in me into some special cosmic substance, and merging with the data already crystallized in me long before from the behest of my deceased grandmother, changed these data into a “something” and this “something” flowing everywhere through my entirety settled forever in each atom composing this entirety of mine, and secondly, this my ill-fated “I” there and then definitely felt and, with an impulse of submission, became conscious of this, for me, sad fact, that already from that moment I should willy-nilly have to manifest myself always and in everything without exception, according to this inherency formed in me, not in accordance with the laws of heredity, nor even by the influence of surrounding circumstances, but arising in my entirety under the influence of three external accidental causes, having nothing in common, namely: thanks in the first place to the behest of a person who had become, without the slightest desire on my part, a passing cause of the cause of my arising; secondly, on account of a tooth of mine knocked out by some ragamuffin of a boy, mainly on account of somebody else’s “slobberiness”; and thirdly, thanks to the verbal formulation delivered in a drunken state by a person quite alien to me — some merchant of “Moscovite brand”. BTG I

Moreover, when I asked one of the people always around me, who are “eager to enter Paradise without fail with their boots on”, to read aloud straight through all that I have written in this introductory chapter, what is called my “I” — of course, with the participation of all the definite data formed in my original psyche during my past years, which data gave me among other things understanding of the psyche of creatures of different type but similar to me — constated and cognized with certainty that in the entirety of every reader without exception there must inevitably, thanks to this first chapter alone, arise a “something” automatically engendering definite unfriendliness towards me personally. BTG I

To tell the truth, it is not this which is now chiefly worrying me, but the fact that at the end of this reading I also constated that in the sum total of everything expounded in this chapter, the whole of my entirety in which the aforesaid “I” plays a very small part, manifested itself quite contrary to one of the fundamental commandments of that All-Common Teacher whom I particularly esteem, Mullah Nassr Eddin, and which he formulated in the words: “Never poke your stick into a hornets’ nest”. BTG I

“And He could not have said it because, as the same detailed investigations of mine have cleared up to me, when Saint Buddha once happened to be among His devoted disciples in the locality ‘Senkoo-ori’, He definitely said: “‘If this most sacred Prana is crystallized in you, consciously or unconsciously on the part of your “I”, you must without fail bring the perfecting of the individual Reason of the totality of its most holy atoms to the required gradations otherwise this most holy coating will, changing various exterior coatings, suffer and languish eternally’. BTG XXI

“‘Well, then, it was just then that I indubitably understood with all the separate ruminating parts representing the whole of my “I”, that if the functioning of that being-factor still surviving in their common-presences were to participate in the general functioning of that consciousness of theirs in which they pass their daily, as they here say, “waking-existence”, only then would it still be possible to save the contemporary three-brained beings here from the consequences of the properties of that organ which was intentionally implanted into their first ancestors. BTG XXVI

“‘During this period of my life I made these observations and studies of mine at all times with my whole inner real “I” while in a drunken, semidrunken, and also sober state. BTG XLII

And the fourth, which should also be a separate part of the whole individual, is none other than the manifestation of the totality of the results of the already automatized functioning of all the three enumerated personalities separately formed and independently educated in him, that is to say, it is that part which is called, in a being, “I”. BTG XLVIII

Only then can the “I” which should be in a man, be his own “I”. BTG XLVIII

For a comprehensive and visible clarification to oneself of the varied sources of the arising and the varied qualities of the manifested personalities in the general organization of man, and also of the difference between what is called that “I” which should be in the common presence of a “man-without-quotation-marks”, that is, a real man; and, as it can be expressed, the pseudo “I” which people today mistake for it, an analogy can be very well made. Though this analogy, as is said, has been “worn threadbare” by contemporary what are called spiritualists, occultists, theosophists, and other specialists in “catching fish in muddy waters”, in their cackle about what are called the “mental”, “astral”, and still other such bodies which are supposed to be in man, nevertheless it is well adapted to throw light on the question we are now considering. BTG XLVIII

It must first of all be remarked that the difference between a real man and a pseudo man, that is between one who has his own “I” and one who has not, is indicated in the analogy we have taken by the passenger sitting in the carriage. In the first case, that of the real man, the passenger is the owner of the carriage; and in the second case, he is simply the first chance passer-by who, like the fare in a “hackney carriage”, is continuously being changed. BTG XLVIII

The body of a man with all its motor reflex manifestations corresponds simply to the carriage itself; all the functionings and manifestations of feeling of a man correspond to the horse harnessed to the carriage and drawing it; the coachman sitting on the box and directing the horse corresponds to that in a man which people call consciousness or mentation; and finally, the passenger seated in the carriage and commanding the coachman is that which is called “I”. BTG XLVIII

And so, to resume all that has been said, one must willy-nilly acknowledge that every man should strive to have his own “I”; otherwise he will always represent a hackney carriage in which any fare can sit and which any fare can dispose of just as he pleases. BTG XLVIII

And here it will not be superfluous to point out that the Institute-for-the-Harmonious-Development-of-Man, organized on the system of Mr. Gurdjieff, has, among its fundamental tasks, also the task of on the one hand correspondingly educating in its pupils each of the enumerated independent personalities separately as well as in their general reciprocal relationship; and on the other hand of begetting and fostering in each of its pupils what every bearer of the name of “man without quotation marks” should have — his own “I”. BTG XLVIII

Although the real man who has already acquired his own “I” and also the man in quotation marks who has not, are equally slaves of the said “Greatness”, yet the difference between them, as I have already said, consists in this, that since the attitude of the former to his slavery is conscious, he acquires the possibility, simultaneously with serving the all-universal Actualizing, of applying a part of his manifestations according to the providence of Great Nature for the purpose of acquiring for himself “imperishable Being”; whereas the latter, not cognizing his slavery, serves during the flow of the entire process of his existence exclusively only as a thing, which when no longer needed, disappears forever. BTG XLVIII

This something, which in the common presence of a drop of water is a factor actualizing in it the property corresponding to one or another of the streams, is in the common presence of each man who attains responsible age that “I”, which was referred to in today’s lecture. BTG XLVIII

A man who has in his common presence his own “I” enters one of the streams of the river of life; and the man who has not, enters the other. BTG XLVIII

As most of the hearers present have already, as is said, “crossed over” into responsible age and frankly cognize that until now they have not acquired their own “I”, and at the same time, according to the substance of all I have said here, have not pictured for themselves any particularly agreeable perspectives, then, in order that you — just you who cognize this — should not be greatly, as is said, “disheartened” and should not fall into the usual what is called “pessimism” everywhere prevalent in the contemporary abnormal life of people, I say quite frankly, without any arrière-pensée, that, according to my convictions which have been formed thanks to long years of investigations strengthened by numerous quite exceptionally conducted experiments on the results of which are based the “Institute-for-the-Harmonious-Development-of-Man” founded by me — even for you, it is not yet too late. BTG XLVIII

The point is that the said investigations and experiments showed me very clearly and very definitely that in everything under the care of Mother Nature the possibility is foreseen for beings to acquire the kernel of their essence, that is to say, their own “I”, even after the beginning of their responsible age also. BTG XLVIII