In spite of the war my lectures evoked very considerABLE interest. There were more than a thousand people at each in the Alexandrovsky Hall of the Petersburg Town Duma. I received many letters; people came to see me; and I felt that on the basis of a “search for the miraculous” it would be possible to unite together a very large number of people who were no longer ABLE to swallow the customary forms of lying and living in lying. Fragments: One

I was at the same café where I had met G. the next day, and the dayfollowing, and every day afterwards. During the week I spent in Moscow I saw G. every day. It very soon became clear to me that he knew very much of what I wanted to know. Among other things he explained to me certain phenomena I had come across in India which no one had been ABLE to explain to me either there, on the spot, or afterwards. In his explanations I felt the assurance of a specialist, a very fine analysis of facts, and a system which I could not grasp, but the presence of which I already felt because G.’s explanations made me think not only of the facts under discussion, but also of many other things I had observed or conjectured. Fragments: One

In regard to his work in Moscow G. said that he had two groups unconnected with one another and occupied in different work, “according to the state of their preparation and their powers,” as he expressed it. Each member of these groups paid a thousand roubles a year, and was ABLE to work with him while pursuing his ordinary activities in life. Fragments: One

“There are several aspects of this idea,” said G. “The work of each person may involve expenses, traveling, and so on. If his life is so badly organized that a thousand roubles embarrasses him it would be better for him not to undertake this work. Suppose that, in the course of the year, his work requires him to go to Cairo or some other place. He must have the means to do so. Through our demand we find out whether he is ABLE to work with us or not. Fragments: One

“Besides,” G. continued, “I have far too little spare time to be ABLE to sacrifice it on others without being certain even that it will do them good. I value my time very much because I need it for my own work and because I cannot and, as I said before, do not want to spend it unproductively. There is also another side to this,” said G. “People do not value a thing if they do not pay for it.” Fragments: One

If there was anything I did not agree with it was simply that G. would be ABLE to collect enough money in the way he described. I realized that none of those pupils whom I had seen would be ABLE to pay a thousand roubles a year. If he had really found in the East visible and tangible traces of hidden knowledge and was continuing investigations in this direction, then it was clear that this work needed funds, like any other scientific enterprise, like an expedition into some unknown part of the world, the excavation of an ancient city, or an investigation requiring elaborate and numerous physical or chemical experiments. It was quite unnecessary to convince me of this. On the contrary, the thought was already in my mind that if G. gave me the possibility of a closer acquaintance with his activities, I should probably be ABLE to find the funds necessary for him to place his work on a proper footing and also bring him more prepared people. But, of course, I still had only a very vague idea in what this work might consist. Fragments: One

“I could accept such a condition only temporarily,” I said. “Of course it would be ludicrous if I began at once to write about what I learn from you. But if, in principle, you do not wish to make a secret of your ideas and care only that they should not be transmitted in a distorted form, then I could accept such a condition and wait until I had a better understanding of your teaching. I once came across a group of people who were engaged in various scientific experiments on a very wide scale. They made no secret of their work. But they made it a condition that no one would have the right to speak of or describe any experiment unless he was ABLE to carry it out himself. Until he was ABLE to repeat the experiment himself he had to keep silent.” Fragments: One

“If he likes he can study. He will have to study for a long time, and work a great deal on himself. When he has learned enough, then it is a different matter. He will see for himself whether he likes our work or not. If he wishes he can work with us; if not he may go away. Up to that moment he is free. If he stays after that he will be ABLE to decide or make arrangements for the future. Fragments: One

“For instance, take one point. A situation may arise, not, of course, in the beginning but later on, when a man has to preserve secrecy, even if only for a time, about something he has learned. But can a man who does not know himself promise to keep a secret? Of course he can promise to do so, but can he keep his promise? For he is not one, there are many different people in him. One in him promises, and believes that he wants to keep the secret. But tomorrow another in him will tell it to his wife, or to a friend over a bottle of wine, or a clever man may question him in such a way that he himself will not notice that he is letting out everything. Finally, he may be hypnotized, or he may be shouted at unexpectedly and frightened, and he will do anything you like. What sort of obligations can he take upon himself? No, with such a man we will not talk seriously. To be ABLE to keep a secret a man must know himself and he must be. And a man such as all men are is very far from this. Fragments: One

“You know,” G. said once, “when you went to India they wrote about your journey and your aims in the papers. I gave my pupils the task of reading your books, of determining by them what you were, and of establishing on this basis what you would be ABLE to End. So we knew what you would End while you were still on. your way there.” Fragments: One

“Yes,” said G., “that is true, but only partly true. It depends first of all on the question which mind they use for their work. If they use the proper mind they will be ABLE to think even better in the midst of all their work with machines. But, again, only if they think with the proper mind.” Fragments: One

“Then one must learn to speak the truth. This also appears strange to you. You do not realize that one has to learn to speak the truth. It seems to you that it is enough to wish or to decide to do so. And I tell you that people comparatively rarely tell a deliberate lie. In most cases they think they speak the truth. And yet they lie all the time, both when they wish to lie and when they wish to speak the truth. They lie all the time, both to themselves and to others. Therefore nobody ever understands either himself or anyone else. Think — could there be such discord, such deep misunderstanding, and such hatred towards the views and opinions of others, if people were ABLE to understand one another? But they cannot understand because they cannot help lying. To speak the truth is the most difficult thing in the world; and one must study a great deal and for a long time in order to be ABLE to speak the truth. The wish alone is not enough. To speak the truth one must know what the truth is and what a lie is, and first of all in oneself. And this nobody wants to know.” Fragments: One

“At the same time the same work of art will produce different impressions on people of different levels. And people of lower levels will never receive from it what people of higher levels receive. This is real, objective art. Imagine some scientific work — a book on astronomy or chemistry. It is impossible that one person should understand it in one way and another in another way. Everyone who is sufficiently prepared and who is ABLE to read this book will understand what the author means, and precisely as the author means it. An objective work of art is just such a book, except that it affects the emotional and not only the intellectual side of man.” “Do such works of objective art exist at the present day?” I asked. “Of course they exist,” answered G. “The great Sphinx in Egypt is such a work of art, as well as some historically known works of architecture, certain statues of gods, and many other things. There are figures of gods and of various mythological beings that can be read like books, only not with the mind but with the emotions, provided they are sufficiently developed. In the course of our travels in Central Asia we found, in the desert at the foot of the Hindu Kush, a strange figure which we thought at first was some ancient god or devil. At first it produced upon us simply the impression of being a curiosity. But after a while we began to feel that this figure contained many things, a big, complete, and complex system of cosmology. And slowly, step by step, we began to decipher this system. It was in the body of the figure, in its legs, in its arms, in its head, in its eyes, in its ears; everywhere. In the whole statue there was nothing accidental, nothing without meaning. And gradually we understood the aim of the people who built this statue. We began to feel their thoughts, their feelings. Some of us thought that we saw their faces, heard their voices. At all events, we grasped the meaning of what they wanted to convey to us across thousands of years, and not only the meaning, but all the feelings and the emotions connected with it as well. That indeed was art!” Fragments: One

“Many things are possible,” said G. “But it is necessary to understand that man’s being, both in life and after death, if it does exist after death, may be very different in quality. The ‘man-machine’ with whom everything depends upon external influences, with whom everything happens, who is now one, the next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no future of any kind; he is buried and that is all. Dust returns to dust. This applies to him. In order to be ABLE to speak of any kind of future life there must be a certain crystallization, a certain fusion of man’s inner qualities, a certain independence of external influences. If there is anything in a man ABLE to resist external influences, then this very thing itself may also be ABLE to resist the death of the physical body. But think for yourselves what there is to withstand physical death in a man who faints or forgets everything when he cuts his finger? If there is anything in a man, it may survive; if there is nothing, then there is nothing to survive. But even if something survives, its future can be very varied. In certain cases of fuller crystallization what people call ‘reincarnation’ may be possible after death, and, in other cases, what people call ‘existence on the other side.’ In both cases it is the continuation of life in the ‘astral body,’ or with the help of the ‘astral body.’ You know what the expression ‘astral body’ means. But the systems with which you are acquainted and which use this expression state that all men have an ‘astral body.’ This is quite wrong. What may be called the ‘astral body’ is obtained by means of fusion, that is, by means of terribly hard inner work and struggle. Man is not born with it. And only very few men acquire an ‘astral body.’ If it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body, and it may be born again in another physical body. This is ‘reincarnation.’ If it is not re-born, then, in the course of time, it also dies; it is not immortal but it can live long after the death of the physical body. Fragments: Two

Consider what the cultured humanity of our time spends money on; even leaving the war out, what commands the highest price; where the biggest crowds are. If we think for a moment about these questions it becomes clear that humanity, as it is now, with the interests it lives by, cannot expect to have anything different from what it has. But, as I have already said, it cannot be otherwise. Imagine that for the whole of mankind half a pound of knowledge is allotted a year. If this knowledge is distributed among everyone, each will receive so little that he will remain the fool he was. But, thanks to the fact that very few want to have this knowledge, those who take it are ABLE to get, let us say, a grain each, and acquire the possibility of becoming more intelligent. All cannot become intelligent even if they wish. And if they did become intelligent it would not help matters. There exists a general equilibrium which cannot be upset. Fragments: Two

“In the second case, that is, in relation to the functions of the four bodies, the automatism of the physical body depends upon the influences of the other bodies. Instead of the discordant and often contradictory activity of different desires, there is one single I, whole, indivisible, and permanent; there is individuality, dominating the physical body and its desires and ABLE to overcome both its reluctance and its resistance. Instead of the mechanical process of thinking there is consciousness. And there is will, that is, a power, not merely composed of various often contradictory desires belonging to different “I’s,” but issuing from consciousness and governed by individuality or a single and permanent I. Only such a will can be called “free,” for it is independent of accident and cannot be altered or directed from without. Fragments: Two

“You cannot imagine what hardships fakirs undergo. I do not know whether you have seen real fakirs or not. I have seen many; for instance, I saw one in the inner court of a temple in India and I even slept near him. Day and night for twenty years he had been standing on the tips of his fingers and toes. He was no longer ABLE to straighten himself. His pupils carried him from one place to another, took him to the river and washed him like some inanimate object. But this was not attained all at once. Think what he had to overcome, what tortures he must have suffered in order to get to that stage. Fragments: Two

“The second way is the way of the monk. This is the way of faith, the way of religious feeling, religious sacrifice. Only a man with very strong religious emotions and a very strong religious imagination can become a ‘monk’ in the true sense of the word. The way of the monk also is very long and hard. A monk spends years and tens of years struggling with himself, but all his work is concentrated on the second room, on the second body, that is, on feelings. Subjecting all his other emotions to one emotion, that is, to faith, he develops unity in himself, will over the emotions, and in this way reaches the fourth room. But his physical body and his thinking capacities may remain undeveloped. In order to be ABLE to make use of what he has attained, he must develop his body and his capacity to think. This can only be achieved by means of fresh sacrifices, fresh hardships, fresh renunciations. A monk has to become a yogi and a fakir. Very few get as far as this; even fewer overcome all difficulties. Most of them either die before this or become monks in outward appearance only. Fragments: Two

“At the same time the beginning of the fourth way is easier than the beginning of the ways of the fakir, the monk, and the yogi. On the fourth way it is possible to work and to follow this way while remaining in the usual conditions of life, continuing to do the usual work, preserving former relations with people, and without renouncing or giving up anything. On the contrary, the conditions of life in which a man is placed at the beginning of his work, in which, so to speak, the work finds him, are the best possible for him, at any rate at the beginning of the work. These conditions are natural for him. These conditions are the man himself, because a man’s life and its conditions correspond to what he is. Any conditions different from those created by life would be artificial for a man and in such artificial conditions the work would not be ABLE to touch every side of his being at once. Fragments: Two

“The alternation of I’s, their continual obvious struggle for supremacy, is controlled by accidental external influences. Warmth, sunshine, fine weather, immediately call up a whole group of I’s. Cold, fog, rain, call up another group of I’s, other associations, other feelings, other actions. There is nothing in man ABLE to control this change of I’s, chiefly because man does not notice, or know of it; he lives always in the last I. Some I’s, of course, are stronger than others. But it is not their own conscious strength; they have been created by the strength of accidents or mechanical external stimuli. Education, imitation, reading, the hypnotism of religion, caste, and traditions, or the glamour of new slogans, create very strong I’s in man’s personality, which dominate whole series of other, weaker, I’s. But their strength is the strength of the ‘rolls’ in the centers. And all I’s making up a man’s personality have the same origin as these ‘rolls’; they are the results of external influences; and both are set in motion and controlled by fresh external influences. Fragments: Three

“And each separate small I is ABLE to call itself by the name of the Whole, to act in the name of the Whole, to agree or disagree, to give promises, to make decisions, with which another I or the Whole will have to deal. This explains why people so often make decisions and so seldom carry them out. A man decides to get up early beginning from the following day. One I, or a group of I’s, decide this. But getting up is the business of another I who entirely disagrees with the decision and may even know absolutely nothing about it. Of course the man will again go on sleeping in the morning and in the evening he will again decide to get up early. In some cases this may assume very unpleasant consequences for a man. A small accidental I may promise something, not to itself, but to someone else at a certain moment simply out of vanity or for amusement. Then it disappears, but the man, that is, the whole combination of other I’s who are quite innocent of this, may have to pay for it all his life. It is the tragedy of the human being that any small I has the right to sign checks and promissory notes and the man, that is, the Whole, has to meet them. People’s whole lives often consist in paying off the promissory notes of small accidental I’s. Fragments: Three

“It is difficult to explain in two words,” answered G. “First of all the man is not, of course, a ‘fakir’ in the sense in which I have been using the word. At the same time you are right in thinking it is not altogether a trick. But he does not know himself how he does it. If you bribed him and made him tell you what he knows he would probably tell you that he knows a certain word which he has to say to himself, after which he is ABLE to lie down on the nails. He might even consent to tell you this word. But it would not help you in the least, because it would be a perfectly ordinary word which would have no effect whatever on you. This man has come from a school, only he was not a disciple. He was an experiment. They simply experimented with him and on him. He had evidently been hypnotized many times and under hypnosis his skin had been rendered first insensitive to pricks and afterwards ABLE to resist them. In a small way this is quite possible even for ordinary European hypnotism. Then afterwards both the insensitiveness and impenetrability of the skin were made permanent in him by means of post-hypnotic suggestion. You know what post-hypnotic suggestion is. A man is put to sleep and told that five hours after he wakes up he must do a certain thing; or he is told to pronounce a certain word and that as soon as he does so he will feel thirsty, or think himself dead, or something like that. Then he is awakened. When the time comes he feels an irresistible desire to do what he was told to do; or, if he remembers the word that was given to him, on pronouncing it he immediately falls into a trance. This is just what was done to your ‘fakir.’ They accustomed him to lie on nails under hypnosis; then they began to wake him and tell him that if he pronounced a certain word he would again be ABLE to lie down on the nails. This word puts him into a hypnotic state. This is perhaps why he had such a sleepy, apathetic look. This often happens in such cases. They worked on him, perhaps, for many years and then simply let him go, to live as he could. So he put up that iron bed for himself and probably earns a few rupees a week. There are many such men in India. Schools take them for experiment, generally buying them when they are children from parents who gladly sell them because they afterwards profit from it. But of course the man himself does not know or understand what he is doing or how it is done.” Fragments: Three

“People understand what ‘knowledge’ means. And they understand the possibility of different levels of knowledge. They understand that knowledge may be lesser or greater, that is to say, of one quality or of another quality. But they do not understand this in relation to ‘being.’ ‘Being,’ for them, means simply ‘existence’ to which is opposed just ‘non-existence.’ They do not understand that being or existence may be of very different levels and categories. Take for instance the being of a mineral and of a plant. It is a different being. The being of a plant and of an animal is again a different being. The being of an animal and of a man is a different being. But the being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it. And especially in Western culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, for example he may be an ABLE scientist, make discoveries, advance science, and at the same time he may be, and has the right to be, a petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naive, and absent­minded man. It seems to be considered here that a professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere. Fragments: Four

“Once again let us take the idea man. In the language of which I speak, instead of the word ‘man,’ seven words are used, namely: man number one, man number two, man number three, man number four, man number five, man number six, and man number seven. With these seven ideas people are already ABLE to understand one another when speaking of man. Fragments: Four

What I heard interested me very much for it connected G.’s system with the system of the Tarot, which had seemed to me at one time to be a possible key to hidden knowledge. Moreover it showed me a relation of three to four which was new to me and which I had not been ABLE to understand from the Tarot. The Tarot is definitely constructed upon the law of four principles. Until now G. had spoken only of the law of three principles. But now I saw how three passed into four and understood the necessity for this division so long as the division of force and matter exists for our immediate observation. “Three” referred to force and “four” referred to matter. Of course, the further meaning of this was still obscure for me, but even the little that G. said promised a great deal for the future. Fragments: Five

“Work on oneself must begin with the driver. The driver is the mind. In order to be ABLE to hear the master’s voice, the driver, first of all, must not be asleep, that is, he must wake up. Then it may prove that the master speaks a language that the driver does not understand. The driver must learn this language. When he has learned it, he will understand the master. But concurrently with this he must learn to drive the horse, to harness it to the carriage, to feed and groom it, and to keep the carriage in order — because what would be the use of his understanding the master if he is not in a position to do anything? The master tells him to go yonder. But he is unABLE to move, because the horse has not been fed, it is not harnessed, and he does not know where the reins are. The horse is our emotions. The carriage is the body. The mind must learn to control the emotions. The emotions always pull the body after them. This is the order in which work on oneself must proceed. But observe again that work on the ‘bodies,’ that is, on the driver, the horse, and the carriage, is one thing. And work on the ‘connections’ — that is, on the ‘driver’s understanding,’ which unites him to the master; on the ‘reins,’ which connect him with the horse; and on the ‘shafts’ and the ‘harness,’ which connect the horse with the carriage — is quite, another thing. Fragments: Five

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

“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

the exact future. I concluded from this that we ought, and that we have a right, to know the future, and that until we do know it we shall not be ABLE to organize our lives. A great deal was connected for me with this question. I considered, for instance, that a man can know, and has a right to know, exactly how much time is left to him, how much time he has at his disposal, or, in other words, he can and has a right to know the day and hour of his death. I always thought it humiliating for a man to live without knowing this and I decided at one time not to begin doing anything in any sense whatever until I did know it. For what is the good of beginning any kind of work when one doesn’t know whether one will have time to finish it or not?” Fragments: Six

“I should like to be ABLE to help people,” said another. Fragments: Six

“But are you not ABLE to foresee what is going to happen to each of us,” somebody asked, “that is to say, foretell what result each of us will reach in work on himself and whether it is worth his while to begin work?” Fragments: Six

“First of all it is necessary to understand that a Christian is not a man who calls himself a Christian or whom others call a Christian. A Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ’s precepts. Such as we are we cannot be Christians. In order to be Christians we must be ABLE ‘to do.’ We cannot do; with us everything ‘happens.’ Christ says: ‘Love your enemies,’ but how can we love our enemies when we cannot even love our friends? Sometimes ‘it loves’ and sometimes ‘it does not love.’ Such as we are we cannot even really desire to be Christians because, again, sometimes ‘it desires’ and sometimes ‘it does not desire.’ And one and the same thing cannot be desired for long, because suddenly, instead of desiring to be a Christian, a man remembers a very good but very expensive carpet that he has seen in a shop. And instead of wishing to be a Christian he begins to think how he can manage to buy this carpet, forgetting all about Christianity. Or if somebody else does not believe what a wonderful Christian he is, he will be ready to eat him alive or to roast him on hot coals. In order to be a good Christian one must be. To be means to be master of oneself. If a man is not his own master he has nothing and can have nothing. And he cannot be a Christian. He is simply a machine, an automaton. A machine cannot be a Christian. Think for yourselves, is it possible for a motorcar or a typewriter or a gramophone to be Christian? They are simply things which are controlled by chance. They are not responsible. They are machines. To be a Christian means to be re­sponsible. Responsibility comes later when a man even partially ceases to be a machine, and begins in fact, and not only in words, to desire to be a Christian.” Fragments: Six

“It was said, for instance, that somebody wanted to help people. In order to be ABLE to help people one must first learn to help oneself. A great number of people become absorbed in thoughts and feelings about helping others simply out of laziness. They are too lazy to work on themselves; and at the same time it is very pleasant for them to think that they are ABLE to help others. This is being false and insincere with oneself. If a man looks at himself as he really is, he will not begin to think of helping other people: he will be ashamed to think about it. Love of mankind, altruism, are all very fine words, but they only have meaning when a man is ABLE, of his own choice and of his own decision, to love or not to love, to be an altruist or an egoist. Then his choice has a value. But if there is no choice at all, if he cannot be different, if he is only such as chance has made or is making him, an altruist today, an egoist tomorrow, again an altruist the day after tomorrow, then there is no value in it whatever. In order to help others one must first learn to be an egoist, a conscious egoist. Only a conscious egoist can help people. Such as we are we can do nothing. A man decides to be an egoist but gives away his last shirt instead. He decides to give away his last shirt, but instead, he strips of his last shirt the man to whom he meant to give his own. Or he decides to give away his own shirt but gives away somebody else’s and is offended if somebody refuses to give him his shirt so that he may give it to another. This is what happens most often. And so it goes on. Fragments: Six

“There was a question about war. How to stop wars? Wars cannot be stopped. War is the result of the slavery in which men live. Strictly speaking men are not to blame for war. War is due to cosmic forces, to planetary influences. But in men there is no resistance whatever against these influences, and there cannot be any, because men are slaves. If they were men and were capABLE of ‘doing,’ they would be ABLE to resist these influences and refrain from killing one another.” Fragments: Six

“But to learn the methods of self-observation and of right self-study requires a certain understanding of the functions and the characteristics of the human machine. Thus in observing the functions of the human machine it is necessary to understand the correct divisions of the functions observed and to be ABLE to define them exactly and at once; and the definition must not be a verbal but an inner definition; by taste, by sensation, in the same way as we define all inner experiences. 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

“Even at the first attempt to study the elementary activity of the moving center a man comes up against habits. For instance, a man may want to study his movements, may want to observe how he walks. But he will never succeed in doing so for more than a moment if he continues to walk in the usual way. But if he understands that his usual way of walking consists of a number of habits, for instance, of taking steps of a certain length, walking at a certain speed, and so on, and lie tries to alter them, that is, to walk faster or slower, to take bigger or smaller steps, he will be ABLE to observe himself and to study his movements as he walks. If a man wants to observe himself when he is writing, he must take note of how he holds his pen and try to hold it in a different way from usual; observation will then become possible. In order to observe himself a man must try to walk not in his habitual way, he must sit in unaccustomed attitudes, he must stand when he is accustomed to sit, he must sit when he is accustomed to stand, and he must make with his left hand the movements he is accustomed to make with his right hand and vice versa. All this will enABLE him to observe himself and study the habits and associations of the moving center. Fragments: Six

I saw quite clearly that my first recollections of life, in my own case very early ones, were moments of self-remembering. This last realization revealed much else to me. That is, I saw that I really only remember those moments of the past in which I remembered myself. Of the others I know only that they took place. I am not ABLE wholly to revive them, to experience them again. But the moments when I had remembered myself were alive and were in no way different from the present. I was still afraid to come to conclusions. But I already saw that I stood upon the threshold of a very great discovery. I had always been astonished at the weakness and the insufficiency of our memory. So many things disappear. For some reason or other the chief absurdity of life for me consisted in this. Why experience so much in order to forget it after-‘wards? Besides there was something degrading in this. A man feels something which seems to him very big, he thinks he will never forget it; one or two years pass by — and nothing remains of it. It now became clear to me why this was so and why it could not be otherwise. If our memory really keeps alive only moments of self-remembering, it is clear why our memory is so poor. Fragments: Seven

“In the big cosmic octave, which reaches us in the form of the ray of creation, we can see the first complete example of the law of octaves. The ray of creation begins with the Absolute. The Absolute is the All. The All, possessing full unity, full will, and full consciousness, creates worlds within itself, in this way beginning the descending world octave. The Absolute is the do of this octave. The worlds which the Absolute creates in itself are si. The ‘interval’ between do and si in this case is filled by the will of the Absolute. The process of creation is developed further by the force of the original impulse and an ‘additional shock.’ Si passes into la which for us is our star world, the Milky Way. La passes into sol — our sun, the solar system. Sol passes into fa — the planetary world. And here between the planetary world as a whole and our earth occurs an ‘interval.’ This means that the planetary radiations carrying various influences to the earth are not ABLE to reach it, or, to speak more correctly, they are not received, the earth reflects them. In order to fill the ‘interval’ at this point of the ray of creation a special apparatus is created for receiving and transmitting the influences coming from the planets. This apparatus is organic life on earth. Organic life transmits to the earth all the influences intended for it and makes possible the further development and growth of the earth, mi of the cosmic octave, and then of the moon or re, after which follows another do — Nothing. Between All and Nothing passes the ray of creation. Fragments: Seven

“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

“Organic life represents so to speak the earth’s organ of perception. Organic life forms something like a sensitive film which covers the whole of the earth’s globe and takes in those influences coming from the planetary sphere which otherwise would not be ABLE to reach the earth. The vegetABLE, animal, and human kingdoms are equally important for the earth in this respect. A field merely covered with grass takes in planetary influences of a definite kind and transmits them to the earth. The same field with a crowd of people on it will take in and transmit other influences. The population of Europe takes in one kind of planetary influences and transmits them to the earth. The population of Africa takes in planetary influences of another kind, and so on. Fragments: Seven

“There are people who are ABLE to consider not only injustice or the failure of others to value them enough but who are ABLE to consider for example the weather. This seems ridiculous but it is a fact. People are ABLE to consider climate, heat, cold, snow, rain; they can be irritated by the weather, be indignant and angry with it. A man can take everything in such a personal way as though everything in the world had been specially arranged in order to give him pleasure or on the contrary to cause him inconvenience or unpleasantness. Fragments: Eight

“The opposite of internal considering and what is in part a means of fighting against it is external considering. External considering is based upon an entirely different relationship towards people than internal considering. It is adaptation towards people, to their understanding, to their requirements. By considering externally a man does that which makes life easy for other people and for himself. External considering requires a knowledge of men, an understanding of their tastes, habits, and prejudices. At the same time external considering requires a great power over oneself, a great control over oneself. Very often a man desires sincerely to express or somehow or other show to another man what he really thinks of him or feels about him. And if he is a weak man he will of course give way to this desire and afterwards justify himself and say that he did not want to lie, did not want to pretend, he wanted to be sincere. Then he convinces himself that it was the other man’s fault. He really wanted to consider him, even to give way to him, not to quarrel, and so on. But the other man did not at all want to consider him so that nothing could be done with him. It very often happens that a man begins with a blessing and ends with a curse. He begins by deciding not to consider and afterwards blames other people for not considering him. This is an example of how external considering passes into internal considering. But if a man really remembers himself he understands that another man is a machine just as he is himself. And then he will enter into his position, he will put himself in his place, and he will be really ABLE to understand and feel what another man thinks and feels. If he can do this his work becomes easier for him. But if he approaches a man with his own requirements nothing except new internal considering can ever be obtained from it. Fragments: Eight

“This is why in school work, which includes the destruction of ‘buffers,’ a man must be ready to obey another man’s will so long as his own will is not yet fully developed. Usually this subordination to another man’s will is studied before anything else. I use the word ‘studied’ because a man must understand why such obedience is necessary and he must learn to obey. The latter is not at all easy. A man beginning the work of self-study with the object of attaining control over himself is accustomed to believe in his own decisions. Even the fact that he has seen the necessity for changing himself shows him that his decisions are correct and strengthens his belief in them. But when he begins to work on himself a man must give up his own decisions, ‘sacrifice his own decisions,’ because otherwise the will of the man who directs his work will not be ABLE to control his actions. Fragments: Eight

” ‘Learn to separate the fine from the coarse’ — this principle from the ‘Emerald TABLEts of Hermes Trismegistus’ refers to the work of the human factory, and if a man learns to ‘separate the fine from the coarse,’ that is, if he brings the production of the fine ‘hydrogens’ to its possible maximum, he will by this very fact create for himself the possibility of an inner growth which can be brought about by no other means. Inner growth, the growth of the inner bodies of man, the astral, the mental, and so on, is a material process completely analogous to the growth of the physical body. In order to grow, a child must have good food, his organism must be in a healthy condition to prepare from this food the material necessary for the growth of the tissues. The same thing is necessary for the growth of the ‘astral body’; out of the various kinds of food entering it, the organism must produce the substances necessary for the growth of the ‘astral body.’ Moreover, the ‘astral body’ requires for its growth the same substances as those necessary to maintain the physical body, only in much greater quantities. If the physical organism begins to produce a sufficient quantity of these fine substances and the ‘astral body’ within it becomes formed, this astral organism will require for its maintenance less of these substances than it required during its growth. The surplus from these substances can then be used for the formation and growth of the ‘mental body’ which will grow with the help of the same substances that feed the ‘astral body,’ but of course the growth of the ‘mental body’ will require more of these substances than the growth and feeding of the ‘astral body.’ The surplus of the substances left over from the feeding of the ‘mental body’ will go to the growth of the fourth body. But in all cases the surplus will have to be very large. All the fine substances necessary for the growth and feeding of the higher bodies must be produced within the physical organism, and the physical organism is ABLE to produce them provided the human factory is working properly and economically. Fragments: Nine

“Under normal conditions, that is, the conditions of normal existence, the production of the fine matters by the factory at this point comes to a stop and the third octave sounds as do only. The highest substance produced by the factory is si 12 and for all its higher functions the factory is ABLE to use only this higher matter. Fragments: Nine

the air inhaled by different people is exactly the same, the air exhaled is quite different. Let us suppose that the air we breathe is composed of twenty different elements unknown to our science. A certain number of these elements are absorbed by every man when he breathes. Let us suppose that five of these elements are always absorbed. Consequently the air exhaled by every man is composed of fifteen elements; five of them have gone to feeding the organism. But some people exhale not fifteen but only ten elements, that is to say, they absorb five elements more. These five elements are higher ‘hydrogens.’ These higher ‘hydrogens’ are present in every small particle of air ‘we inhale. By inhaling air we introduce these higher ‘hydrogens’ into ourselves, but if our organism does not know how to extract them out of the particles of air, and retain them, they are exhaled back into the air. If the organism is ABLE to extract and retain them, they remain in it. In this way we all breathe the same air but we extract different substances from it. Some extract more, others less. Fragments: Nine

“If we now take the work of the human factory as a whole, we shall be ABLE to see at the moments when the production of fine substances is arrested by what means we can increase the productivity of the factory. We see that, under ordinary conditions and working with one mechanical ‘shock’ the factory produces a very small quantity of the fine substances, in fact only si 12. Working with one mechanical and one conscious ‘shock’ the factory now produces a much greater quantity of the fine substances. Working with two conscious ‘shocks’ the factory will produce a quantity of the fine substances such as, in the course of time, will completely change the character of the factory itself. Fragments: Nine

“The moving center works with ‘hydrogen’ 24. ‘Hydrogen* 24 is many times quicker and more mobile than ‘hydrogen’ 48. The intellectual center is never ABLE to follow the work of the moving center. We are unABLE to follow either our own movements or other people’s movements unless they are artificially slowed down. Still less are we ABLE to follow the work of the inner, the instinctive functions of our organism, the work of the instinctive mind which constitutes, as it were, one side of the moving center. Fragments: Nine

“Thus we see that our organism has the different kinds of fuel necessary for the different centers. The centers can be compared to machines working on fuels of different qualities. One machine can be worked on oil residue or crude oil. Another requires kerosene; a third will not work with kerosene but requires gasoline. The fine substances of our organism can be characterized as substances of different flash­points, while the organism itself can be compared to a laboratory in which the combustibles of different strengths required by the different centers are prepared from various kinds of raw material. Unfortunately, however, there is something wrong with the laboratory. The forces controlling the distribution of combustibles among the different centers often make mistakes and the centers receive fuel that is either too weak or too easily inflammABLE. Moreover, a great quantity of all the combustibles produced is spent quite uselessly; it simply runs out; is lost. Besides, explosions often take place in the laboratory which at one stroke destroy all the fuel prepared for the next day and possibly for even a longer period, and are ABLE to cause irreparABLE dam­age to the whole factory. Fragments: Nine

“How can it be recognized?” said G. “It is. impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way. This is what we are speaking about all the time. It cannot be said in two words. But from what I have said you can draw many useful conclusions if you remember everything that has been said and everything which follows from it. For example, you can see that the teacher always corresponds to the level of the pupil. The higher the pupil, the higher can be the teacher. But a pupil of a level which is not particularly high cannot count on a teacher of a very high level. Actually a pupil can never see the level of the teacher. This is a law. No one can see higher than his own level. But usually people not only do not know this, but, on the contrary, the lower they are themselves, the higher the teacher they demand. The right understanding of this point is already a very consid­erABLE understanding. But it occurs very seldom. Usually the man himself is not worth a brass farthing but he must have as teacher no other than Jesus Christ. To less he will not agree. And it never enters his head that even if he were to meet such a teacher as Jesus Christ, taking him as he is described in the Gospels, he would never be ABLE to follow him because it would be necessary to be on the level of an apostle in order to be a pupil of Jesus Christ. Here is a definite law. The higher the teacher, the more difficult for the pupil. And if the difference in the levels of the teacher and pupil go beyond a certain limit, then the difficulties in the path of the pupil become insuperABLE. It is exactly in connection with this law that there occurs one of the fundamental rules of the fourth way. On the fourth way there is not one teacher. Whoever is the elder, he is the teacher. And as the teacher is indispensABLE to the pupil, so also is the pupil indispensABLE to the teacher. The pupil cannot go on without the teacher, and the teacher cannot go on without the pupil or pupils. And this is not a general consideration but an indispensABLE and quite concrete rule on which is based the law of a man’s ascending. As has been said before, no one can ascend onto a higher step until he places another man in his own place. What a man has received he must immediately give back; only then can he receive more. Otherwise from him will be taken even what he has already been given.” Fragments: Ten

“But in order to be ABLE to attain this or at least begin to attain it, a man must die, that is, he must free himself from a thousand petty attachments and identifications which hold him in the position in which he is. He is attached to everything in his life, attached to his imagination, attached to his stupidity, attached even to his sufferings, possibly to his sufferings more than to anything else. He must free himself from this attachment. Attachment to things, identification with things, keep alive a thousand useless I’s in a man. These I’s must die in order that the big I may be born. But how can they be made to die? They do not want to die. It is at this point that the possibility of awakening comes to the rescue. To awaken means to realize one’s nothingness, that is to realize one’s complete and absolute mechanicalness and one’s complete and absolute helplessness. And it is not sufficient to realize it philosophically in words. It is necessary to realize it in clear, simple, and concrete facts, in one’s own facts. When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself. A man has seen in himself something that horrifies him. He decides to throw it off, stop it, put an end to it. But however many efforts he makes, he feels that he cannot do this, that everything remains as it was. Here he will see his impotence, his helplessness, and his nothingness; or again, when he begins to know himself a man sees that he has nothing that is his own, that is, that all that he has regarded as his own, his views, thoughts, convictions, tastes, habits, even faults and vices, all these are not his own, but have been either formed through imitation or borrowed from somewhere ready-made. In feeling this a man may feel his nothingness. And in feeling his nothingness a man should see himself as he really is, not for a second, not for a moment, but constantly, never forgetting it. Fragments: Eleven

“Before anything else he needs help. But help cannot come to one man alone. Those who are ABLE to help put a great value on their time. And, of course, they would prefer to help, say, twenty or thirty people who want to awake rather than one man. Moreover, as has been said earlier, one man can easily deceive himself about his awakening and take for awakening simply a new dream. If several people decide to struggle together against sleep, they will wake each other. It may often happen that twenty of them will sleep but the twenty-first will be awake and he will wake up the rest. It is exactly the same thing with alarm clocks. One man will invent one alarm clock, another man will invent another, afterwards they can make an exchange. Altogether they can be of very great help one to another, and without this help no one can attain anything. 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

“Furthermore, in the work of self-study one man begins to accumulate material resulting from self-observation. Twenty people will have twenty times as much material. And every one of them will be ABLE to use the whole of this material because the exchange of observations is one of the purposes of the group’s existence. 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 work of every man can proceed in three directions. He can be useful to the work. He can be useful to me. And he can be useful to himself. Of course it is desirABLE that a man’s work should produce results in all three directions. Failing this, one can be reconciled to two. For instance, if a man is useful to me, by this very fact he is useful also to the work. Or if he is useful to the work, he is useful also to me. But if, let us say, a man is useful to the work and useful to me, but is not ABLE to be useful to himself, this is much worse because it cannot last long. If a man takes nothing for himself and does not change, if he remains such as he was before, then the fact of his having by chance been useful for a short time is not placed to his credit, and, what is more important, his usefulness does not last for long. The work grows and changes. If a man himself does not grow or change he cannot keep up with the work. The work leaves him behind and then the very thing that was useful may begin to be harmful.” Fragments: Eleven

“In the first instance the intellectual center, and in the second the moving center, draw the energy necessary for their work from the small accumulators. When an accumulator is nearly empty a man feels tired. He would like to stop, to sit down if he is walking, to think of something else if he is solving a difficult problem. But quite unexpectedly he feels an inflow of strength, and he is once more ABLE to walk or to work. This means that the center has become connected with the second accumulator and is taking energy from it. Meanwhile the first accumulator is refilling with energy from the large accumulator. The work of the center goes on. The man continues to walk or to work. Sometimes a short rest is required to insure this connection. Sometimes a shock, sometimes an effort. Anyway, the work goes on. After a certain time the store of energy in the second accumulator also becomes exhausted. The man again feels tired. Fragments: Eleven

“Then suddenly, again a short rest, or an external shock, or an effort, brings a new flow of energy and the man is once more ABLE to think, to walk, or to work. Fragments: Eleven

“This means that the center has become connected directly to the large accumulator. The large accumulator contains an enormous amount of energy. Connected with the large accumulator a man is literally ABLE to perform miracles. But of course, if the ‘rolls’ continue to turn and energy which is made from air, food, and impressions continues to pour out of the large accumulator faster than it pours in, then there comes a moment when the large accumulator is drained of all energy and the organism dies. But this happens very seldom. Usually the organism automatically stops working long before this. Special conditions are necessary to cause the organism to die exhausted of all its energy. In ordinary conditions a man will fall asleep or he will faint or he will develop some internal complication which will stop the work a long time before the real danger. Fragments: Eleven

“You have noticed that you yawn when you are tired. This is especially noticeABLE, for instance, in the mountains, when a man who is unaccustomed to them yawns almost continually while he is ascending a mountain. Yawning is the pumping of energy into the small accumulators. When they empty too quickly, that is, when one of them has no time to fill up while the other is being emptied, yawning becomes almost continuous. There are certain diseased conditions which can cause stoppage of the heart when a man wishes but is not ABLE to yawn, and other conditions are known when something goes wrong with the pump, causing it to work without effect, when a man yawns the whole time, but does not pump in any energy. Fragments: Eleven

I understood now that these questions could not be answered. One must learn in order to begin to understand this. And at that time, a little over a year ago, I had thought I had the right to ask such questions just as the new people who now came to us began with precisely the same kind of questions and were surprised we did not answer them, and, as we were already ABLE to see, regarded us as artificial or as playing a part which we had learned. Fragments: Twelve

On one occasion, continuing this talk about the work of groups, G, said: “Later on you will see that everyone in the work is given his own individual tasks corresponding to his type and his chief feature or his chief fault, that is, something that will give him an opportunity of struggling more intensively against his chief fault. But besides individual tasks there are general tasks which are given to the group as a whole, in which case the whole group is responsible for their execution or their non­execution, although in some cases the group is also responsible for individual tasks. But first we will take general tasks. For instance, you ought by now to have some understanding as to the nature of the system and its principal methods, and you ought to be ABLE to pass these ideas on to others. You will remember that at the beginning I was against your talking about the ideas of the system outside the groups. On the contrary there was a definite rule that none of you, excepting those whom I specially instructed to do so, should talk to anyone either about the groups or the lectures or the ideas. And I explained then why this was necessary. You would not have been ABLE to give a correct picture, a correct impression. Instead of giving people the possibility of coming to these ideas you would have repelled them for ever; you would have even deprived them of the possibility of coming to them at any later time. But now the situation is different. You have already heard enough. And if you really have made efforts to understand what you have heard, then you should be ABLE to pass it on to others. Therefore I give you all a definite task. Fragments: Twelve

“Try to lead conversations with your friends and acquaintances up to these subjects, try to prepare those who show interest and, if they ask you to, bring them to the meetings. But everyone must realize that this is his own task and not expect others to do it for him. The proper performance of this task by each of you will show first, that you have already assimilated something, understood something, and second, that you are ABLE to appraise people, to understand with whom it is worth while talking and with whom it is not worth while, because the majority of people cannot take in any of these ideas and it is perfectly useless to talk to them. But at the same time there are people who are ABLE to take in these ideas and with whom it is worth while talking.” Fragments: Twelve

“This is nothing,” he said. “If you were to put together everything that people are ABLE to say about this system, you would not believe in it yourselves. This system has a wonderful property: even a mere contact with it calls forth either the best or the worst in people. You may know a man all your life and think that he is not a bad fellow, that he is even rather intelligent. Try speaking to him about these ideas and you will see at once that he is an utter fool. Another man, on the other hand, might appear to have nothing in him, but speak to him on these subjects and you find that he thinks, and thinks very seriously.” Fragments: Twelve

“How can we recognize people who are ABLE to come to the work?” asked one of those present. Fragments: Twelve

“How to recognize them is another question,” said G. “To do this it is necessary to a certain extent ‘to be.’ But before speaking of this we must establish what kind of people are ABLE to come to the work and what kind are not ABLE. Fragments: Twelve

“You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain luggage. He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channels about the ideas of esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner evolution of man, and so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to him as something entirely new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful also if he has at least some scientific or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and has no understanding of their essence, he will find it very difficult. In general, if a man knows but little, has read but little, has thought but little, it is difficult to talk to him. If he has a good essence there is another way for him without any talks at all, but in this case he has to be obedient, he has to give up his will. And he has to come to this also in some way or other. It can be said that there is one general rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all the old ways. A man cannot feel what is most valuABLE in the system unless he is disappointed in what he has been doing, disappointed in what he has been searching for If he is a scientist he should be disappointed in his science If he is a religious man he should be disappointed in his religion If he is a politician he should be disappointed in politics If he is a philosopher he should be disappointed in philosophy If he is a theosophist he should be disappointed in theosophy If he is an occultist he should be disappointed in occultism And so on But you must understand what this means I say for instance that a religious man should be disappointed in religion This does not mean that he should lose his faith On the contrary, it means being ‘disappointed’ in the teaching and the methods only, realizing that the religious teaching he knows is not enough for him, can lead him nowhere All religious teachings, excepting of course the completely degenerated religions of savages and the invented religions and sects of modern times, consist of two parts, the visible and the hidden To be disappointed in religion means being disappointed in the visible, and to feel the necessity for finding the hidden and unknown part of religion To be disappointed in science does not mean losing interest in knowledge It means being convinced that the usual scientific methods are not only useless but lead to the construction of absurd and self contradictory theories, and, having become convinced of this, to begin to search for others To be disappointed in philosophy means being convinced that ordinary philosophy is merely — as it is said in the Russian proverb — pouring from one empty vessel into another, and that people do not even know what philosophy means although true philosophy also can and should exist To be disappointed in occultism does not mean losing faith in the miraculous, it is merely being convinced that ordinary, accessible, and even advertised occultism, under whatever name it may pass, is simply charlatanism and self decep­tion and that, although somewhere something does exist, everything that man knows or is ABLE to learn in the ordinary way is not what he needs So that, no matter what he used to do before, no matter what used to interest him, if a man has arrived at this state of disappointment in ways that are possible and accessible, it is worth while speaking to him about our system and then he may come to the work But if he continues to think that he is ABLE to find anything on his former way, or that he has not as yet tried all the ways, or that he can, by himself, find anything or do anything, it means that he is not ready I do not mean that he must throw up everything he used to do before This is entirely unnecessary On the contrary, it is often even better if he continues to do what he used to do But he must realize that it is only a profession, or a habit, or a necessity In this case it is another matter, he will then be ABLE not to ‘identify’ “There is only one thing incompatible with work and that is ‘professional occultism,’ in other words, professional charlatanism All these spiritualists, healers, clairvoyants, and so on, or even people closely connected with them, are none of them any good to us. And you must always remember this and take care not to tell them much because everything they learn from you they might use for their own purposes, that is, to make fools of other people. Fragments: Twelve

‘There are still other categories which are no good but we will speak of them later. In the meantime remember one thing only: A man must be sufficiently disappointed in ordinary ways and he must at the same time think or be ABLE to accept the idea that there may be something — somewhere. If you should speak to such a man, he might discern the flavor of truth in what you say no matter how clumsily you might speak. But if you should speak to a man who is convinced about something else, everything you say will sound absurd to him and he will never even listen to you seriously. It is not worth while wasting time on him. This system is for those who have already sought and have burned themselves. Those who have not sought and who are not seeking do not need it. And those who have not yet burned themselves do not need it either.” Fragments: Twelve

Our talks about people who could be interested in the system and ABLE to work, involuntarily led us towards a valuation of our friends from an entirely new point of view. In this respect we all experienced bitter disappointment. Even before G. had formally requested us to speak of the system to our friends we had of course all tried in one way or another to talk about it at any rate with those of them whom we met most often. And in most cases our enthusiasm in regard to the ideas of the system met with a very cold reception. They did not understand us; the ideas which seemed to us new and original seemed to our friends to be old and tedious, leading nowhere, and even repellent. This astonished us more than anything else. We were amazed that people with whom we had felt an inner intimacy, with whom in former times we had been ABLE to talk about all questions that worried us, and in whom we had found a response, could fail to see what we saw and above all that they could see something quite opposite. I have to say that, in regard to my own personal experience, it gave me a very strange even painful impression. I speak of the absolute impossibility of making people understand us. We are of course accustomed to this in ordinary life, in the realm of ordinary questions, and we know that people who are hostile to us at heart or narrow-minded or incapABLE of thought can misunderstand us, twist and distort anything we say, can ascribe to us thoughts we never had, words which we never uttered, and so on. But now when we saw that all this was being done by those whom we used to regard as our kind of people, with whom we used to spend very much of our time, and who formerly had seem to us to understand us better than anyone else, it produced on us a discouraging impression. Such cases of course constituted the ex­ceptions; most of our friends were merely indifferent, and all our attempts to infect them with our interest in G.’s system led to nothing. But sometimes they got a very curious impression of us. I do not remember now who was the first to notice that our friends found we had begun to change for the worse. They found us less interesting than we had been before; they told us we were becoming colorless, as though we were fading, were losing our former spontaneity, our former responsiveness to everything, that we were becoming “machines,” were ceasing to think originally, were ceasing to feel, that we were merely repeating like parrots what we heard from G. Fragments: Twelve

“Wait, there is worse to come,” he said. “Do you understand what this really means? It means that you have stopped lying; at any rate you don’t lie so well, that is, you can no longer lie in so interesting a way as before. He is an interesting man who lies well. But you are already ashamed of lying. You are now ABLE to acknowledge to yourselves sometimes that there is something you do not know or do not understand, and you cannot talk as if you knew all about everything. It means of course that you have become less interesting, less original, and less, as they say, responsive. So now you are really ABLE to see what sort of people your friends are. And on their part they are sorry for you. And in their own way they are right. You have already begun to die.” He emphasized this word. “It is a long way yet to complete death but still a certain amount of silliness is going out of you. You can no longer deceive yourselves as sincerely as you did before. You have now got the taste of truth.” Fragments: Twelve

“It means you have begun to understand,” said G. “When you under-stood nothing you thought you understood everything or at any rate that you were ABLE to understand everything. Now, when you have begun to understand, you think you do not understand. This comes about because the taste of understanding was quite unknown to you before. And now the taste of understanding seems to you to be a lack of understanding.” Fragments: Twelve

“But if there are no more than seven types around us, why can we not know them, that is, know what is the chief difference between them, and, when meeting them, be ABLE to recognize and distinguish them?” said one of us. Fragments: Twelve

“You must begin with yourself and with the observations of which I have already spoken,” said G., “otherwise it would be knowledge of which you would be ABLE to make no use. Some of you think you can see types but they are not types at all that you see. In order to see types one must know one’s own type and be ABLE to ‘depart’ from it. In order to know one’s own type one must make a good study of one’s life, one’s whole life from the very beginning; one must know why, and how, things have happened. I want to give you all a task. It will be a general and an individual task at one and the same time. Let every one of you in the group tell about his life. Everything must be told in detail without embellishment, and without suppressing anything. Emphasize the principal and essential things without dwelling on trifles and details. You must be sincere and not be afraid that others will take anything in a wrong way, because everyone is in the same position; everyone must strip himself; everyone must show himself as he is. This task will once more show you why nothing must be taken outside the groups. Nobody would dare to speak if he thought or suspected that what he said in the group would be repeated outside. But he ought to be fully and firmly convinced that nothing will be repeated. And then he will be ABLE to speak without fear with the understanding that others must do the same.” Fragments: Twelve

I am bound to say that all these attempts came to nothing. Some said too much, others said too little. Some went into unnecessary details or into descriptions of what they considered were their particular and original characteristics; others concentrated on their “sins” and errors. But everything taken together failed to produce what G. evidently expected. The result was anecdotes, or chronological memoirs which interested nobody, and family recollections which made people yawn. Something was wrong, but what exactly was wrong even those who had tried to be as sincere as they could were unABLE to determine. I remember my own attempts. In the first place I tried to convey certain early childhood impressions which seemed to me psychologically interesting because I remembered myself as I was at a very early age and was always myself astonished by some of these early impressions. But nobody was interested in this and I quickly saw that this was certainly not what was required of us. I proceeded further but almost immediately I felt a certainty that there were many things that I had no intention whatever of telling. This was a quite unexpected realization. I had accepted G.’s idea without any opposition and I thought I would be ABLE to tell the story of my life without any particular difficulty. But in reality it turned out to be quite impossible. Something in me registered such a vehement protest against it that I did not even attempt to struggle and in speaking of certain periods of my life I tried to give only the general idea and the significance of the facts which I did not want to relate. In this connection I noted that my voice and intonations changed when I talked in this way. This helped me to understand other people. I began to hear that, in speaking of themselves and their lives, they also spoke in different voices and different intonations. And there were intonations of a particular kind which I had first heard in myself and which showed me that people wanted to hide something in what they were talking about. But intonations gave them away. Observation of intonations afterwards made it possible for me to understand many other things. Fragments: Twelve

This question had interested us for a long time but we had not previously been ABLE to answer it. And G., when he had been asked before, had never given a direct reply. Fragments: Twelve

Two or three days after G.’s departure I was walking along the Troitsky street and suddenly I saw that the man who was walking towards me was asleep. There could be no doubt whatever about this. Although his eyes were open, he was walking along obviously immersed in dreams which ran like clouds across his face. It entered my mind that if I could look at him long enough I should see his dreams, that is, I should understand what he was seeing in his dreams. But he passed on. After him came another also sleeping. A sleeping izvostchik went by with two sleeping passengers. Suddenly I found myself in the position of the prince in the “Sleeping Princess.” Everyone around me was asleep. It was an indubitABLE and distinct sensation. I realized what it meant that many things could be seen with our eyes which we do not usually see. These sensations lasted for several minutes. Then they were repeated very weakly on the following day. But I at once made the discovery that by trying to remember myself I was ABLE to intensify and prolong these sensations for so long as I had energy enough not to be diverted, that is, not to allow things and everything around me to attract my attention. When attention was diverted I ceased to see “sleeping people” because I had obviously gone to sleep myself. I told only a few of our people of these experiments and two of them when they tried to remember themselves had similar experiences. Fragments: Thirteen

“And what is it that they most of all desire to preserve? First the right to have their own valuation of ideas and of people, that is, that which is more harmful for them than anything else. They are fools and they already know it, that is to say, they realized it at one time. For this reason they came to learn. But they forget all about this the next moment; they are already bringing into the work their own paltry and subjective attitude; they begin to pass judgment on me and on everyone else as though they were ABLE to pass judgment on anything. And this is immediately reflected in their attitude towards the ideas and towards what I say. Already ‘they accept one thing’ and ‘they do not accept another thing’; with one thing they agree, with another they disagree; they trust me in one thing, in another thing they do not trust me. Fragments: Thirteen

“And the most amusing part is that they imagine they are ABLE ‘to work’ under such conditions, that is, without trusting me in everything and without accepting everything. In actual fact this is absolutely impossible. By not accepting something or mistrusting something they immediately invent something of their own in its place. ‘Gagging’ begins — new theories and new explanations which have nothing in common either with the work or with what I have said. Then they begin to find faults and inaccuracies in everything that I say or do and in everything that others say or do. From this moment I now begin to speak of things about which I have no knowledge and even of things of which I have no conception, but which they know and understand much better than I do; all the other members of the group are fools, idiots. And so on, and so on, like a barrel organ. When a man says something on these lines I already know all he will say later on. And you also will know by the consequences. And it is amusing that people can see this in relation to others. But when they themselves do crazy things they at once cease to see it in relation to themselves. This is a law. It is difficult to climb the hill but very easy to slide down it. They even feel no embarrassment in talking in such a manner either with me or with other people. And chiefly they think that this can be combined with some kind of ‘work.’ They do not even want to understand that when a man reaches this notch his little song has been sung. Fragments: Thirteen

I felt awkward looking at him. It seemed to me that if I looked at him he would realize that I saw that he was lying. I glanced at the others and saw that they felt as I did and were barely ABLE to repress their smiles. I then looked at the one who was talking and I saw that he alone noticed nothing and he continued to talk very rapidly, becoming more and more carried away by his subject and not at all noticing the glances that we unintentionally exchanged with one another. Fragments: Thirteen

“The experiences, of course, which I had in August,” I said. “If I were ABLE to evoke them at will and use them, it would be all that I could wish for because I think that then I should be ABLE to find all the rest. But at the same time I know that these ‘experiences,’ I choose this word only because there is no other, but you understand of what I speak” — he nodded — “depended on the emotional state I was in then. And I know that they will always depend on this. If I could create such an emotional state in myself I should very quickly come to these experiences. But I feel infinitely far from this emotional state, as though I were asleep. This is ‘sleep’ that was being awake. — How can this emotional state be created? Tell me.” Fragments: Thirteen

In such a form the tABLE was scarcely comprehensible. I was not ABLE to convince myself of the necessity of reduced scales. Fragments: Thirteen

We had an agreement in our group that whoever went to Moscow and heard any new explanations or lectures must, on his arrival in St. Petersburg, communicate it all to the others. But on the way to St. Petersburg while going carefully in my head through the Moscow talks, I felt that I would not be ABLE to communicate the principal thing because I did not understand it myself. This irritated me and I did not know what I was to do. In this state I arrived at St. Petersburg and on the following day I went to our meeting. Fragments: Thirteen

“And in this sense it is possible to speak of the symbolism of speech although this symbolism is not understood by everyone. To understand the inner meaning of what is said is possible only on a certain level of development and when accompanied by the corresponding efforts and state of the listener. But on hearing things which are new for him, instead of making efforts to understand them, a man begins to dispute them, or refute them, maintaining against them an opinion which he considers to be right and which as a rule has no relation whatever to them. In this way he loses all chance of acquiring anything new. To be ABLE to understand speech when it becomes symbolical it is essential to have learned before and to know already how to listen. Any attempt to understand literally, where speech deals with objective knowledge and with the union of diversity and unity, is doomed to failure beforehand and leads in most cases to further delusions. Fragments: Fourteen

“The triangle 9-3-6, which unites into one whole the three points on the circumference not included in the period, connects together the law of seven and the law of three. The numbers 3-6-9 are not included in the period; two of them, 3 and 6, correspond to the two “intervals’ in the octave, the third is, so to speak, superfluous and at the same time it replaces the fundamental note which does not enter the period. Moreover, any phenomenon which is ABLE to act reciprocally with a phenomenon similar to it sounds as the note do in a corresponding octave. Therefore do can emerge from its circle and enter into orderly correlation with another circle, that is, play that role in another cycle which, in the cycle under consideration, is played by the ‘shocks* filling the ‘intervals’ in the octave. Therefore, here also, by having this possibility do is connected by the triangle 3-6-9 with those places in the octave where the shocks from outside sources occur, where the octave can be penetrated to make connection with what exists outside it. The law of three stands out, so to speak, from the law of seven, the triangle penetrates through the period and these two figures in combination give the inner structure of the octave and its notes. Fragments: Fourteen

that is, in one case x between mi and fa, and in the other between sol and la, where it is not necessary. “The apparent placing of the interval in its wrong place itself shows to those who are ABLE to read the symbol what kind of ‘shock’ is required for the passage of si to do. “In order to understand this, it is essential to recollect what was said about the role of ‘shocks’ in the processes proceeding in man and in the universe. “When we examined the application of the law of octaves to the cosmos then the step ‘sun-earth’ was represented in this way: “In relation to the three octaves of radiation it was pointed out that the passage of do to si, the filling of the interval, takes place within the organism of the sun. It was pointed out in the cosmic octave in relation to the ‘interval’ do-si that this passage is accomplished by the will of the Absolute. The passage fa-mi in the cosmic octave is accomplished mechanically with the help of a special machine which makes it possible for fa, which enters it, to acquire by a series of inner processes the characteristics of sol standing above it, without changing its note, that is, to accumulate, as it were, the inner energy for passing independently into the next note, into mi. Fragments: Fourteen

“Speaking in general it must be understood that the enneagram is a universal symbol. All knowledge can be included in the enneagram and with the help of the enneagram it can be interpreted. And in this connection only what a man is ABLE to put into the enneagram does he actually know, that is, understand. What he cannot put into the enneagram he does not understand. For the man who is ABLE to make use of it, the enneagram makes books and libraries entirely unnecessary. Everything can be included and read in the enneagram. A man may be quite alone in the desert and he can trace the enneagram in the sand and in it read the eternal laws of the universe. And every time he can learn something new, something he did not know before. Fragments: Fourteen

“If two men who have been in different schools meet, they will draw the enneagram and with its help they will be ABLE at once to establish which of them knows more and which, consequently, stands upon which step, that is to say, which is the elder, which is the teacher and which the pupil. The enneagram is the fundamental hieroglyph of a universal language which has as many different meanings as there are levels of men. Fragments: Fourteen

“Before speaking of this,” said G., “principles must be understood. If you grasp the principles you will be ABLE to answer these questions yourselves. But if you do not grasp them nothing that I may say will explain anything to you. It was exactly about this that it was said — they will see with their eyes and will not perceive, they will hear with their ears and will not understand. Fragments: Fourteen

“In the second place religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he ‘lives’ his religion as much as he is ABLE, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy. Whether he likes it or not he shows his attitude towards religion by his actions and he can show his attitude only by his actions. Therefore if his actions are opposed to those which are demanded by a given religion he cannot assert that he belongs to that religion. The vast majority of people who call themselves Christians have no right whatever to do so, because they not only fail to carry out the demands of their religion but they do not even think that these demands ought to be carried out. Fragments: Fifteen

“I took the example of war as it is the most striking example. But even without war the whole of life is exactly the same. People call themselves Christians but they do not realize that not only do they not want, but they are unABLE, to be Christians, because in order to be a Christian it is necessary not only to desire, but to be ABLE, to be one. Fragments: Fifteen

“Prolonged instruction, prolonged training, is necessary to be ABLE to turn the cheek. And if this training is mechanical — it is again worth nothing because in this case it means that a man will turn his cheek because he cannot do anything else.” Fragments: Fifteen

“One must learn to pray, just as one must learn everything else. Whoever knows how to pray and is ABLE to concentrate in the proper way, his prayer can give results. But it must be understood that there are different prayers and that their results are different. This is known even from ordinary divine service. But when we speak of prayer or of the results of prayer we always imply only one kind of prayer — petition, or we think that petition can be united with all other kinds of prayers. This of course is not true. Most prayers have nothing in common with petitions. I speak of ancient prayers; many of them are much older than Christianity. These prayers are, so to speak, recapitulations; by repeating them aloud or to himself a man endeavors to experience what is in them, their whole content, with his mind and his feeling. And a man can always make new prayers for himself. For example a man says — ‘I want to be serious.’ But the whole point is in how he says it. If he repeats it even ten thousand times a day and is thinking of how soon he will finish and what will there be for dinner and the like, then it is not prayer but simply self-deceit. But it can become a prayer if a man recites the prayer in this way: He says ‘I’ and tries at the same time to think of everything he knows about ‘I.’ It does not exist, there is no single ‘I,’ there is a multitude of petty, clamorous, quarrelsome ‘I’s. But he wants to be one ‘I’ — the master; he recalls the carriage, the horse, the driver, and the master. ‘I’ is master. ‘Want’ — he thinks of the meaning of ‘I want.’ Is he ABLE to want? With him ‘it wants’ or ‘it does not want’ all the time. But to this ‘it wants’ and ‘it does not want’ he strives to oppose his own ‘I want’ which is connected with the aims of work on himself, that is, to introduce the third force into the customary combination of the two forces, ‘it wants’ and ‘it does not want.’ ‘To be’ — the man thinks of what to be, what ‘being,’ means. The being of a mechanical man with whom everything happens. The being of a man who can do. It is possible ‘to be’ in different ways. He wants ‘to be’ not merely in the sense of existence but in the sense of greatness of power. The words ‘to be’ acquire weight, a new meaning for him. ‘Serious’ — the man thinks what it means to be serious. How he answers himself is very important. If he understands what this means, if he defines correctly for himself what it means to be serious, and feels that he truly desires it, then his prayer can give a result in the sense that strength can be added to him, that he will more often notice when he is not serious, that he will overcome himself more easily, make himself be serious. In exactly the same way a man can ‘pray’ — ‘I want to remember myself.’ ‘To remember’ — what does ‘to remember’ mean? The man must think about memory. How little he remembers! How often he forgets what he has decided, what he has seen, what he knows! His whole life would be different if he could remember. All ills come because he does not remember. ‘Myself — again he returns to himself. Which self does he want to remember? Is it worth while remembering the whole of himself? How can he distinguish what he wants to remember? The idea of work! How can he connect himself with the idea of the work, and so on, and so on. Fragments: Fifteen

Indicating what had been preserved up to our time, G. at the same time pointed out what had been lost and forgotten. He spoke of sacred dances which accompanied the “services” in the “temples of repetition” and which were not included in the Christian form of worship. He also spoke of various exercises, and of special postures for different prayers, that is, for different kinds of meditation; about acquiring control over the breathing and of the necessity of being ABLE to tense or relax any group of muscles, or the muscles of the whole body at will; and about many other things having relation, so to speak, to the “technique” of religion. Fragments: Fifteen

“To ordinary knowledge,” he said, “organic life is a kind of accidental appendage violating the integrity of a mechanical system. Ordinary knowledge does not connect it with anything and draws no conclusions from the fact of its existence. But you should already understand that there is nothing accidental or unnecessary in nature and that there can be nothing; everything has a definite function; everything serves a definite purpose. Thus organic life is an indispensABLE link in the chain of the worlds which cannot exist without it just as it cannot exist without them. It has been said before that organic life transmits planetary influences of various kinds to the earth and that it serves to feed the moon and to enABLE it to grow and strengthen. But the earth also is growing; not in the sense of size but in the sense of greater consciousness, greater receptivity. The planetary influences which were sufficient for her at one period of her existence become insufficient, she needs the reception of finer influences. To receive finer influences a finer, more sensitive receptive apparatus is necessary. Organic life, therefore, has to evolve, to adapt itself to the needs of the planets and the earth. Likewise also the moon can be satisfied at one period with the food which is given her by organic life of a certain quality, but afterwards the time comes when she ceases to be satisfied with this food, cannot grow on it, and begins to get hungry. Organic life must be ABLE to satisfy this hunger, otherwise it does not fulfill its function, does not answer its purpose. This means that in order to answer its purpose organic life must evolve and stand on the level of the needs of the planets, the earth, and the moon. Fragments: Fifteen

“We have no clues from which we are ABLE to tell in what period of planetary evolution we exist and whether the moon and the earth have time to await the corresponding evolution of organic life or not. But people who know may, of course, have exact information about it, that is, they may know at what stage in their possible evolution are the earth, the moon, and humanity. We cannot know this but we should bear in mind that the number of possibilities is never infinite. 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

“It would take a long time to explain,” said G., “and it cannot have a practical significance for us at the present moment. There are two processes which are sometimes called ‘involutionary’ and ‘evolutionary.’ The difference between them is the following: An involutionary process begins consciously in the Absolute but at the next step it already becomes mechanical — and it becomes more and more mechanical as it develops; an evolutionary process begins half-consciously but it becomes more and more conscious as its develops. But consciousness and conscious opposition to the evolutionary process can also appear at certain moments in the, involutionary process. From where does this consciousness come? From the evolutionary process of course. The evolutionary process must proceed without interruption. Any stop causes a separation from the fundamental process. Such separate fragments of consciousnesses which have been stopped in their development can also unite and at any rate for a certain time can live by struggling against the evolutionary process. After all it merely makes the evolutionary process more interesting. Instead of struggling against mechanical forces there may, at certain moments, be a struggle against the intentional opposition of fairly powerful forces though they are not of course comparABLE with those which direct the evolutionary process. These opposing forces may sometimes even conquer. The reason for this consists in the fact that the forces guiding evolution have a more limited choice of means; in other words, they can only make use of certain means and certain methods. The opposing forces are not limited in their choice of means and they are ABLE to make use of every means, even those which only give rise to a temporary success, and in the final result they destroy both evolution and involution at the point in question. Fragments: Fifteen

“Are we ABLE to say for instance that life is governed by a group of conscious people? Where are they? Who are they? We see exactly the opposite: that life is governed by those who are the least conscious, by those who are most asleep. Fragments: Fifteen

“Are we ABLE to say that we observe in life a preponderance of the best, the strongest, and the most courageous elements? Nothing of the sort. On the contrary we see a preponderance of vulgarity and stupidity of all kinds. Fragments: Fifteen

“Are we ABLE to say that aspirations towards unity, towards unification, can be observed in life? Nothing of the kind of course. We only see new divisions, new hostility, new misunderstandings. Fragments: Fifteen

“Are we ABLE to say that such a group exists? Perhaps we can on the basis of certain signs, but in any event we have to acknowledge that it is a very small group, quite insufficient, at any rate, to subjugate the rest of humanity. Or, looking at it from another point of view, we can say that humanity is in such a state that it is unABLE to accept the guidance of a conscious group.” 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

“Having no doubts whatever of themselves or in the correctness of their conclusions and understanding they decide to continue the work. To continue this work they form new schools, teach people what they have themselves learned, and give them the same promises that they themselves received. All this naturally can only be outward imitation. But when we look back on history it is almost impossible for us to distinguish where the real ends and where the imitation begins. Strictly speaking almost everything we know about various kinds of occult, masonic, and alchemical schools refers to such imitation. We know practically nothing about real schools excepting the results of their work and even that only if we are ABLE to distinguish the results of real work from counterfeits and imitations. Fragments: Fifteen

“But such pseudo-esoteric systems also play their part in the work and activities of esoteric circles. Namely, they are the intermediaries between humanity which is entirely immersed in the materialistic life and schools which are interested in the education of a certain number of people, as much for the purposes of their own existences as for the purposes of the work of a cosmic character which they may be carrying out. The very idea of esotericism, the idea of initiation, reaches people in most cases through pseudo-esoteric systems and schools; and if there were not these pseudo-esoteric schools the vast majority of humanity would have no possibility whatever of hearing and learning of the existence of anything greater than life because the truth in its pure form would be inaccessible for them. By reason of the many characteristics of man’s being, particularly of the contemporary being, truth can only come to people in the form of a lie — only in this form are they ABLE to accept it; only in this form are they ABLE to digest and assimilate it. Truth undefiled would be, for them, indigestible food. Fragments: Fifteen

In the first place it was clear to everyone who was ABLE and who wanted to see it that the war was coming to an end and that it was coming to an end by itself through some deep inner weariness and from the realization, though dull and obscure yet firmly rooted, of the senselessness of all this horror. No one believed now in words of any kind. No attempts of any kind to galvanize the war were ABLE to lead to anything. At the same time it was impossible to stop anything and all talk about the necessity of continuing the war or of the necessity of stopping the war merely showed the helplessness of the human mind which was even incapABLE of realizing its own helplessness. In the second place it was clear that the crash was approaching. And it was clear that nobody could stop anything nor could they avert events or direct them into some safe channel. Everything was going in the only way it could go and it could go in no other way. I was particularly struck at this time by the position of professional politicians of the left who, up to this time, had played a passive role but were now preparing to pass into an active one. To be precise they showed themselves to be the blindest, the most unprepared, and the most incapABLE of understanding what they were really doing, where they were going to, what they were preparing, even for themselves. Fragments: Sixteen

“But, as I have already said, to determine the level of being by the ‘tABLE of hydrogens’ it is usual to take the middle story. “With this as a point of departure it is possible for example to solve such problems: “Let us suppose Jesus Christ to be man number eight, how many times is Jesus Christ more intelligent than a tABLE? “A tABLE has no stories. It lies wholly between ‘hydrogen’ 1536 and ‘hydrogen’ 3072 according to the third scale of the ‘tABLE of hydrogens.’ Man number eight is ‘hydrogen’ 6. This is the center of gravity of the middle story of man number eight. If we are ABLE to calculate how many times ‘hydrogen’ 6 is more intelligent than ‘hydrogen’ 1536 we shall know how many times man number eight is more intelligent than a tABLE. But, in this connection, it must be remembered that ‘intelligence’ is determined not by the density of matter but by the density of vibrations. The density of vibrations, however, increases not by doubling as in the octaves of ‘hydrogens’ but in an entirely different progression which many times outnumbers the first. If you know the exact coefficient of this increase you will be in a position to solve this problem. I only want to show that, however strange it looks, the problem can be solved. Fragments: Sixteen

“If a man were ABLE to work on himself everything would be very simple and schools would be unnecessary. But he cannot, and the reasons for this lie very deep in his nature. I will leave for the moment his insincerity with himself, the perpetual lies he tells himself, and so on, and take only the division of the centers. This alone makes independent work on himself impossible for a man. You must understand that the three principal centers, the thinking, the emotional, and the moving, are connected together and, In a normal man, they are always working in unison. This unison is what presents the chief difficulty in work on oneself. What is meant by this unison? It means that a definite work of the thinking center is connected with a definite work of the emotional and moving centers — that is to say, that a certain kind of thought is inevitably connected with a certain kind of emotion (or mental state) and with a cer­tain kind of movement (or posture); and one evokes the other, that is, a certain kind of emotion (or mental state) evokes certain movements or postures and certain thoughts, and a certain kind of movement or posture evokes certain emotions or mental states, and so forth. Everything is connected and one thing cannot exist without another thing. Fragments: Seventeen

“Both yes and no,” said G. “The whole point is in the ‘if.’ If a man attains perfection of a moral and spiritual nature without hindrance on the part of the body, the body will not interfere with further achievements. But unfortunately this never occurs because the body interferes at the first step, interferes by its automatism, its attachment to habits, and chiefly by its wrong functioning. If the development of the moral and spiritual nature without interference on the part of the body is theoretically possible, it is possible only in the case of an ideal functioning of the body. And who is ABLE to say that his body functions ideally? Fragments: Seventeen

“And besides there is deception in the very words ‘moral’ and ‘spiritual’ themselves. I have often enough explained before that in speaking of machines one cannot begin with their ‘morality’ or their ‘spirituality,’ but that one must begin with their mechanicalness and the laws governing this mechanicalness. The being of man number one, number two, and number three is the being of machines which are ABLE to cease being machines but which have not ceased being machines.” Fragments: Seventeen

“But is it not possible for man to be at once transposed to another stage of being by a wave of emotion?” someone asked. “I do not know,” said G., “we are again talking in different languages. A wave of emotion is indispensABLE, but it cannot change moving habits; it cannot of itself make centers work rightly which all their lives have been working wrongly. To change and repair this demands separate, special, and lengthy work. Then you say; transpose a man to another level of being. But from this point of view a man does not exist for me. There is a complex mechanism consisting of a whole series of complex parts. ‘A wave of emotion’ ‘takes place in one part but the other parts may not be affected by it at all. No miracles are possible in a machine. It is miracle enough that a machine is ABLE to change. But you want all laws to be violated.” Fragments: Seventeen

“In speaking of the work of the factory in general it is indispensABLE to establish that it is necessary to stop useless waste before there can be any sense in increasing the production. If production is increased while this useless waste remains unchecked and nothing is done to stop it, the new energy produced will merely increase this useless waste and may even give rise to phenomena of an unhealthy kind. Therefore one of the first things a man must learn previous to any physical work on himself is to observe and feel muscular tension and to be ABLE to relax the muscles when it is necessary, that is to say, chiefly to relax unnecessary tension of the muscles.” Fragments: Seventeen

In this connection G. showed us a number of different exercises for obtaining control over muscular tension and he showed us certain postures adopted in schools when praying or contemplating which a man can only adopt if he learns to relax unnecessary tension of the muscles. Among them was the so-called posture of Buddha with feet resting on the knees, and another still more difficult posture, which he could adopt to perfection, and which we were ABLE to imitate only very approximately. Fragments: Seventeen

All this interested me particularly because certain experiments I had carried out had led me long ago to conclude that physical states, which are connected with new psychological experiences, begin with feeling the pulse throughout the whole body, which is what we do not feel in ordinary conditions; in this connection the pulse is felt at once in all parts of the body as one stroke. In my own personal experiments “feeling” the pulsation throughout the whole body was brought about, for instance, by certain breathing exercises connected with several days of fasting. I came to no definite results whatever in my own experiments but there remains with me the deep conviction that control over the body begins with acquiring control over the pulse. Acquiring for a short time the possibility of regulating, quickening, and slowing the pulse, I was ABLE to slow down or quicken the heart beat and this in its turn gave me very interesting psychological results. I understood in a general way that control over the heart could not come from the heart muscles but that it depended upon controlling the pulse (the second stroke or the “big heart”) and G. had explained a great deal to me in pointing out that control over the “second heart” depends upon controlling the tension of the muscles, because we do not possess this control chiefly in consequence of the wrong and irregular tension of various groups of muscles. Fragments: Seventeen

Exercises in relaxing the muscles which we began to perform gave very interesting results to some of our company. Thus one of us was suddenly ABLE to stop a bad neuralgic pain in his arm by relaxing his muscles. Then relaxation of the muscles had an immense significance in proper sleep and whoever did exercises in relaxation seriously very quickly noticed that his sleep became sounder and that he needed fewer hours of sleep. Fragments: Seventeen

“Let us try to follow what occurs. A man is walking, or sitting, or working. At that moment he hears a signal. A movement that has begun is interrupted by this sudden signal or command to stop. His body becomes immovABLE and arrested in the midst of a transition from one posture to another, in a position in which he never stays in ordinary life. Feeling himself in this state, that is, in an unaccustomed posture, a man involuntarily looks at himself from new points of view, sees and observes himself in a new way. In this unaccustomed posture he is ABLE to think in a new way, feel in a new way, know himself in a new way. In this way the circle of old automatism is broken. The body tries in vain to adopt an ordinary comfortABLE posture. But the man’s will, brought into action by the will of the teacher, prevents it The struggle goes on not for life but till the death. But in this case will can conquer. This exercise taken together with all that has been said is an exercise for self-remembering. A man must remember himself so as not to miss the signal; he must remember himself so as not to take the most comfortABLE posture at the first moment; he must remember himself in order to watch the tension of the muscles in different parts of the body, the direction in which he is looking, the facial expression, and so on; he must remember himself in order to overcome very considerABLE pain sometimes from unaccustomed positions of the legs, arms, and back, so as not to be afraid of falling or dropping something heavy on his foot. It is enough to forget oneself for a single moment and the body will adopt, by itself and almost un-noticeably, a more comfortABLE position, it will transfer the weight from one foot to another, will slacken certain muscles, and so on. This exer­cise is a simultaneous exercise for the will, the attention, the thoughts, the feelings, and for moving center. Fragments: Seventeen

“Stop” had an immense, influence on the whole of our life, on the understanding of our work and our attitude towards it. First of all, attitude towards “stop” showed with undoubted accuracy what anyone’s attitude was to the work. People who had tried to evade work evaded “stop.” That is, either they did not hear the command to “stop” or they said that it did not directly refer .to them. Or, on the other hand, they were always prepared for a “stop,” they made no careless movements, they took no glasses of hot tea in their hands, they sat down and got up very quickly and so on. To a certain extent it was even possible to cheat with the “stop.” But of course this would be seen and would at once show who was sparing himself and who was ABLE not to spare himself, ABLE to take the work seriously, and who was trying to apply ordinary methods to it, to avoid difficulties, “to adapt themselves.” In exactly the same way “stop” showed the people who were incapABLE and undesirous of submitting to school discipline and the people who were not taking it seriously. We saw quite clearly that without “stop” and other exercises which accompanied it, nothing whatever could be attained in a purely psychological way. Fragments: Seventeen

“Again you speak in your own way,” said G. “I was not talking of people at all. They are going nowhere and for them there are no sins. Sins are what keep a man on one spot if he has decided to move and if he is ABLE to move. Sins exist only for people who are on the way or approaching the way. And then sin is what stops a man, helps him to deceive himself and to think that he is working when he is simply asleep. Sin is what puts a man to sleep when he has already decided to awaken. And what puts a man to sleep? Again everything that is unnecessary, everything that is not indispensABLE. The indispensABLE is always permitted. But beyond this hypnosis begins at once. But you must remember that this refers only to people in the work or to those who consider themselves in the work. And work consists in subjecting oneself volun­tarily to temporary suffering in order to be free from eternal suffering. But people are afraid of suffering. They want pleasure now, at once and forever. They do not want to understand that pleasure is an attribute of paradise and that it must be earned. And this is necessary not by reason of any arbitrary or inner moral laws but because if man gets pleasure before he has earned it he will not be ABLE to keep it and pleasure will be turned into suffering. But the whole point is to be ABLE to get pleasure and be ABLE to keep it. Whoever can do this has nothing to learn. But the way to it lies through suffering. Whoever thinks that as he is he can avail himself of pleasure is much mistaken, and if he is capABLE of being sincere with himself, then the moment will come when he will see this.” Fragments: Seventeen

“People who are definitely thinking about ways, particularly people of intellectual ways, very often look down on the obyvatel and in general despise the virtues of the obyvatel. But they only show by this their own personal unsuitability for any way whatever. Because no way can begin from a level lower than the obyvatel. This is very often lost sight of on people who are unABLE to organize their own personal lives, who are too weak to struggle with and conquer life, dream of the ways, or what they consider are ways, because they think it will be easier for them than life and because this, so to speak. Justifies their weakness and their inadaptability. A man who can be a good obyvatel is much more helpful from the point of view of the way than a ‘tramp’ who thinks himself much higher than an obyvatel. I call ‘tramps’ all the so-called ‘intelligentsia’ — artists, poets, any kind of ‘bohemian’ in general, who despises the obyvatel and who at the same time would be unABLE to exist without him. Ability to orientate oneself in life is a very useful quality from the point of view of work. A good obyvatel should be ABLE to support at least twenty persons by his own labor. What is a man worth who is unABLE to do this?” Fragments: Seventeen

“People who are not serious for the obyvatel are people who live by fantasies, chiefly by the fantasy that they are ABLE to do something. The obyvatel knows that they only deceive people, promise them God knows what, and that actually they are simply arranging affairs for themselves — or they are lunatics, which is still worse, in other words they believe everything that people say.” Fragments: Seventeen

“The obyvatel perhaps may not know it in a philosophical way, that is to say, he is not ABLE to formulate it, but he knows that things ‘do themselves’ simply through his own practical shrewdness, therefore, in his heart, he laughs at people who think, or who want to assure him, that they signify anything, that anything depends on their decisions, that they can change or, in general, do anything. This for him is not being serious. And an understanding of what is not serious can help him to value that which is serious.” Fragments: Seventeen

Exercises on this occasion were much more difficult and varied than during the preceding summer. We began rhythmic exercises to music, dervish dances, different kinds of mental exercises, the study of different ways of breathing, and so on. Particularly intensive were the exercises for studying various imitations of psychic phenomena, thought-reading, clairvoyance, mediumistic displays, and so forth. Before these exercises began G. explained to us that the study of these “tricks,” as he called them, was an obligatory subject in all Eastern schools, because without having studied all possible counterfeits and imitations it was not possible to begin the study of phenomena of a supernormal character. A man is in a position to distinguish the real from the sham in this sphere only when he knows all the shams and is ABLE to reproduce them himself. Besides this G. said that a practical study of these “psychic tricks” was in itself an exercise which could be replaced by nothing else, which was the best of all for developing certain special characteristics: keenness of observation, shrewdness, and more particularly for the enlargement of other characteristics for which there are no words in ordinary psychological language but which must certainly be developed. Fragments: Eighteen

“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

At the same time this does not at all mean that a man has no choice or that he is obliged to follow something which does not respond to what he is seeking. G. himself said that there are no “general” schools, that each “guru” or leader of a school works at his own specialty, one is a sculptor, another is a musician, a third is again something else, and that all the pupils of such a guru have to study his specialty. And it stands to reason that here a choice is possible. A man has to wait until he meets a guru whose specialty he is ABLE to study, a specialty which suits his tastes, his tendencies, and his abilities. Fragments: Eighteen

There is no doubt that there may be very interesting ways, like music and like sculpture. But it cannot be that every man should be required to learn music or sculpture. In school work there are undoubtedly obligatory subjects and there are, if it is possible to put it in this way, auxiliary subjects, the study of which is proposed merely as a means of studying the obligatory. Then the methods of the schools may differ very much. According to the three ways the methods of each guru may approximate either to the way of the fakir, the way of the monk, or the way of the yogi. And it is of course possible that a man who is beginning work will make a mistake, will follow a leader such as he cannot follow for any distance. It stands to reason that it is the task of the leader to see to it that people do not begin to work with him for whom his methods or his special subjects will always be alien, incomprehensible, and unattainABLE. But if this does happen and if a man had begun to work with a leader whom he cannot follow, then of course, having noticed and realized this, he ought to go and seek another leader or work independently, if he is ABLE to do so. Fragments: Eighteen

All of us who had stayed in Essentuki had to live through a very difficult time. For me and my family things turned out comparatively favorably. Only two people out of four got ill with typhoid. No one died. Not once were we robbed. And all the time I had work and earned money. Things were much worse for others. In January, 1919, we were set free by the Cossacks of Denikin’s Army. But I was only ABLE to leave Essentuki in the following summer of 1919. Fragments: Eighteen

“Events” gave no time to go into philosophical speculations. One had to think about living, that is to say, simply and quite plainly to think about where one could live and work. The revolution and everything connected with it aroused in me deep physical disgust. At the same time, in spite of my sympathy with the “whites” I could not believe in their success. The bolsheviks did not hesitate to promise things that neither they nor anyone else could perform. In this was their principal strength. It was something in which nobody could compete with them. In addition to this they had the support of Germany, who saw in them a possibility of revenge in the future. The volunteer army, which had freed us from the bolsheviks, was ABLE to fight them and conquer them. But it was not ABLE to organize in a proper way the course of life in the liberated provinces. Its leaders had neither program, knowledge, nor experience in this direction. Of course this could not be demanded of them. But facts are facts. The situation was very unstABLE and the wave which was still rolling towards Moscow at the time could be rolled back again any day. Fragments: Eighteen

It was a very interesting time for me. G. often came to me in Prinkipo. We went together through the Constantinople bazaars. We went to the Mehlevi dervishes and he explained something to me that I had not been ABLE to understand before. And this was that the whirling of the Mehlevi dervishes was an exercise for the brain based upon counting, like those exercises that he had shown to us in Essentuki. Sometimes I worked with him for entire days and nights. One such night in particular remains in my memory, when we “translated” a dervish song for “The Struggle of the Magicians.” I saw G. the artist and G. the poet, whom he had so carefully hidden inside him, particularly the latter. This translation took the form of G. recalling the Persian verses, sometimes repeating them to himself in a quiet voice and then translating them for me into Russian. After a quarter of an hour, let us say, when I had completely disappeared beneath forms, symbols, and assimilations, he said: “There, now make one line out of that.” I did not try to create any measure or to find a rhythm. This was quite impossible. G. continued and again after a quarter of an hour he said: “That is another line.” We sat until the morning. This was in Koumbaradji Street a little below the former Russian consulate. At length the town began to wake. I had written, I think, five verses and had stopped at the last line of the fifth verse. No kind of effort could make my brain turn any more. G. laughed but he also was tired and could not go on. So the verse remained as it was, unfinished, because he never returned again to this song. Fragments: Eighteen

But with all this, one was struck by the striving in her to make the best use even of these last days, to find the truth whose presence she clearly felt but which she was unABLE to touch. I did not think that I should see her again. But I could not refuse when she asked me for the address of my friends in Paris, for the address of people with whom she would be ABLE to talk about the same things she had talked about with me. And so I had met her again at the Prieuré. We sat in the evening in one of the salons and she spoke in a feeble voice which seemed to come from the void, but it was not unpleasant. Fragments: Eighteen

G.’s own work during this time, that is, from 1922, was dedicated chiefly to the development of methods of studying rhythm and plastics. He never stopped working the whole time on his ballet, bringing into it the dances of various dervishes and Sufis and recalling by memory the music he had listened to in Asia many years before. In this work was a very great deal that was new and interesting. Dervish dances and music were reproduced in Europe undoubtedly for the first time. And they produced a very great impression on all who were ABLE to hear and see them. Fragments: Eighteen

“The fundamental idea of this method consists in the fact that certain movements and postures can call forth any kind of breathing you like and it is also normal breathing, not ‘inflation.’ The difficulty is in knowing what movements and what postures will call forth certain kinds of breathing in what kind of people. This latter is particularly important because people from this point of view are divided into a certain number of definite types and each type should have its own definite movements to get one and the same breathing because the same movement produces different breathing with different types. A man who knows the movement which will produce in himself one or another kind of breathing is already ABLE to control his organism and is ABLE at any moment he likes to set in motion one or another center or cause that part which is working to stop. Of course the knowledge of these movements and the ability to control them like everything else in the world has its degrees. A man can know more or less and make a better or a worse use of it. In the meantime it is important only to understand the principle. Fragments: Eighteen