“Consciousness is considered to be indefinable,” I said, “and indeed, how can it be defined if it is an inner quality? With the ordinary means at our disposal it is impossible to prove the presence of CONSCIOUSNESS in another man. We know it only in ourselves.” Fragments: Seven

“Consciousness is a state in which a man knows all at once everything that he in general knows and in which he can see how little he does know and how many contradictions there are in what he knows. Fragments: Eight

“Crystallization is possible on any foundation. Take for example a brigand, a really good, genuine brigand. I knew such brigands in the Caucasus. He will stand with a rifle behind a stone by the roadside for eight hours without stirring. Could you do this? All the time, mind you, a struggle is going on in him. He is thirsty and hot, and flies are biting him; but he stands still. Another is a monk; he is afraid of the devil; all night long he beats his head on the floor and prays. Thus crystallization is achieved. In such ways people can generate in themselves an enormous inner strength; they can endure torture; they can get what they want. This means that there is now in them something solid, something permanent. Such people can become immortal. But what is the good of it? A man of this kind becomes an ‘immortal thing,’ although a certain amount of CONSCIOUSNESS is sometimes preserved in him. But even this, it must be remembered, occurs very rarely.” Fragments: Two

“Immortality is one of the qualities we ascribe to people without having a sufficient understanding of their meaning,” said G. “Other qualities of this kind are ‘individuality,’ in the sense of an inner unity, a ‘permanent and unchangeable I,’ ‘CONSCIOUSNESS,’ and ‘will.’ All these qualities can belong to man” (he emphasized the word “can”), “but this certainly does not mean that they do belong to him or belong to each and every one. Fragments: Two

“The reason why it is possible for four bodies to exist is that the human organism, that is, the physical body, has such a complex organization that, under certain conditions, a new independent organism can grow in it, affording a much more convenient and responsive instrument for the activity of CONSCIOUSNESS than the physical body. The CONSCIOUSNESS manifested in this new body is capable of governing it, and it has full power and full control over the physical body. In this second body, under certain conditions, a third body can grow, again having characteristics of its own. The CONSCIOUSNESS manifested in this third body has full power and control over the first two bodies; and the third body possesses the possibility of acquiring knowledge inaccessible either to the first or to the second body. In the third body, under certain conditions, a fourth can grow, which differs as much from the third as the third differs from the second and the second from the first. The CONSCIOUSNESS manifested in the fourth body has full control over the first three bodies and itself. Fragments: Two

“In the terminology of certain Eastern teachings the first body is the ‘carriage’ (body), the second body is the ‘horse’ (feelings, desires), the third the ‘driver’ (mind), and the fourth the ‘master’ (I, CONSCIOUSNESS, will). 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

“Then the fourth way differs from the other ways in that the principal demand made upon a man is the demand for understanding. A man must do nothing that he does not understand, except as an experiment under the supervision and direction of his teacher. The more a man understands what he is doing, the greater will be the results of his efforts. This is a fundamental principle of the fourth way. The results of work are in proportion to the CONSCIOUSNESS of the work. No ‘faith’ is required on the fourth way; on the contrary, faith of any kind is opposed to the fourth way. On the fourth way a man must satisfy himself of the truth of what he is told. And until he is satisfied he must do nothing. Fragments: Two

“The yogi knows considerably more. He knows what he wants, he knows why he wants it, he knows how it can be acquired. He knows, for instance, that it is necessary for his purpose to produce a certain substance in himself. He knows that this substance can be produced in one day by a certain kind of mental exercises or concentration of CONSCIOUSNESS. So he keeps his attention on these exercises for a whole day without allowing himself a single outside thought, and he obtains what he needs. In this way a yogi spends on the same thing only one day compared with a month spent by the fakir and a week spent by the monk. Fragments: Two

“Has this anything to do with the CONSCIOUSNESSes of separate parts and organs of the body?” I asked him on this occasion. “I understand this idea and have often felt the reality of these CONSCIOUSNESSes. I know that not only separate organs, but every part of the body having a separate function has a separate CONSCIOUSNESS. The right hand has one CONSCIOUSNESS and the left hand another. Is that what you mean?” Fragments: Three

“In speaking of evolution it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible. The evolution of man is the evolution of his CONSCIOUSNESS. And ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and ‘will’ cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution, of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and ‘doing’ cannot be the result of things which ‘happen.’ Fragments: Three

“Taken in itself, a man’s being has many different sides. The most characteristic feature of a modem man is the absence of unity in him and, further, the absence in him of even traces of those properties which he most likes to ascribe to himself, that is, ‘lucid CONSCIOUSNESS,’ ‘free will,’ a ‘permanent ego or I,’ and the ‘ability to do.’ It may surprise you if I say that the chief feature of a modem man’s being which explains everything else that is lacking in him is sleep. Fragments: Four

“Man number seven means a man who has reached the full development possible to man and who possesses everything a man can possess, that is, will, CONSCIOUSNESS, permanent and unchangeable I, individuality, immortality, and many other properties which, in our blindness and ignorance, we ascribe to ourselves. It is only when to a certain extent we understand man number seven and his properties that we can under­stand the gradual stages through which we can approach him, that is, understand the process of development possible for us. Fragments: Four

“But by studying himself, the manifestations of his thought, CONSCIOUSNESS, activity — his habits, his desires, and so on — man may learn to observe and to see in himself the action of the three forces. Let us suppose, for instance, that a man wants to work on himself in order to change certain of his characteristics, to attain a higher level of being. His desire, his initiative, is the active force. The inertia of all his habitual psychological life which shows opposition to his initiative will be the passive or the negative force. The two forces will either counterbalance one another, or one will completely conquer the other, but, at the same time, it will become too weak for any further action. Thus the two forces will, as it were, revolve one around the other, one absorbing the other and producing no result whatever. This may continue for a lifetime. A man may feel desire and initiative. But all this initiative may be absorbed in overcoming the habitual inertia of life, leaving nothing for the purpose towards which the initiative ought to be directed. And so it may go on until the third force makes its appearance, in the form, for instance, of new knowledge, showing at once the advantage or the necessity of work on oneself and, in this way, supporting and strengthening the initiative. Then the initiative, with the support of this third force, may conquer inertia and the man becomes active in the desired direction. Fragments: Four

“But at the beginning it is enough to understand the general principle: every phenomenon, of whatever magnitude it may be, is inevitably the manifestation of three forces; one or two forces cannot produce a phenomenon, and if we observe a stoppage in anything, or an endless hesitation at the same place, we can say that, at the given place, the third force is lacking. In trying to understand this it must be remembered at the same time that people cannot observe phenomena as manifestations of three forces because we cannot observe the objective world in our subjective states of CONSCIOUSNESS. And in the subjectively observed phenomenal world we see in phenomena only the manifestation of one or two forces. If we could see the manifestation of three forces in every action, we should then see the world as it is (things in themselves). Only it must here be remembered that a phenomenon which appears to be simple may actually be very complicated, that is, it may be a very complex combination of trinities. But we know that we cannot observe the world as it is and this should help us to understand why we cannot see the third force. The third force is a property of the real world. The subjective or phenomenal world of our observation is only relatively real, at any rate it is not complete. Fragments: Four

“Returning to the world in which we live we may now say that in the Absolute, as well as in everything else, three forces are active: the active, the passive, and the neutralizing. But since by its very nature everything in the Absolute constitutes one whole the three forces also constitute one whole. Moreover in forming one independent whole the three forces possess a full and independent will, full CONSCIOUSNESS, full understanding of themselves and of everything they do. Fragments: Four

“The three forces of the Absolute, constituting one whole, separate and unite by their own will and by their own decision, and at the points of junction they create phenomena, or ‘worlds.’ These worlds, created by the will of the Absolute, depend entirely upon this will in everything that concerns their own existence. In each of these worlds the three forces again act. Since, however, each of these worlds is now not the whole, but only a part, then the three forces in them do not form a single whole. It is now a case of three wills, three CONSCIOUSNESSes, three unities. Each of the three forces contains within it the possibility of all three forces, but at the meeting point of the three forces each of them manifests only one principle — the active, the passive, or the neutralizing. The three forces together form a trinity which produces new phenomena. But this trinity is different, it is not that which was in the Absolute, where the three forces formed an indivisible whole and possessed one single will and one single CONSCIOUSNESS. In the worlds of the second order the three forces are now divided and their meeting points are now of a different nature. In the Absolute the moment and the point of their meeting is determined by their single will. In the worlds of the second order, where there is no longer a single will but three wills, the points of issue are each determined by a separate will, independent of the others, and therefore the meeting point becomes accidental or mechanical. The will of the Absolute creates the worlds of the second order and governs them, but it does not govern their creative work, in which a mechanical element makes its appearance. Fragments: Four

“The souls that go to the moon, possessing perhaps even a certain amount of CONSCIOUSNESS and memory, find themselves there under ninety-six laws, in the conditions of mineral life, or to put it differently, in conditions from which there is no escape apart from a general evolution in immeasurably long planetary cycles. The moon is ‘at the extremity,’ at the end of the world; it is the ‘outer darkness’ of the Christian doctrine ‘where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Fragments: Five

“The liberation which comes with the growth of mental powers and faculties is liberation from the moon. The mechanical part of our life depends upon the moon, is subject to the moon. If we develop in ourselves CONSCIOUSNESS and will, and subject our mechanical life and all our mechanical manifestations to them, we shall escape from the power of the moon. Fragments: Five

“This question has many different sides to it. First of all what does immortal mean? Are you speaking of absolute immortality or do you admit different degrees? If for instance after the death of the body something remains which lives for some time preserving its CONSCIOUSNESS, can this be called immortality or not? Or let us put it this way: how long a period of such existence is necessary for it to be called immortality? Then does this question include the possibility of a different ‘immortality* for different people? And there are still many other different questions. I am saying this only in order to show how vague they are and how easily such words as ‘immortality’ can lead to illusion. In actual fact nothing is immortal, even God is mortal. But there is a great difference between man and God, and, of course. God is mortal in a different way to man. It would be much better if for the word ‘immortality’ we substitute the words ‘existence after death.’ Then I will answer that man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing. Fragments: Five

“In a man with two bodies the second body is active in relation to the physical body; this means that the CONSCIOUSNESS in the ‘astral body’ may have power over the physical body.” G. put a plus over the ‘astral body’ and a minus over the physical. Fragments: Five

“In a man with three bodies, the third or ‘mental body’ is active in relation to the ‘astral body’ and to the physical body; this means that the CONSCIOUSNESS in the ‘mental body’ has complete power over the ‘astral body’ and over the physical body.” G. put a plus over the ‘mental body’ and a minus over the ‘astral’ and the physical bodies, bracketed together. Fragments: Five

“In a man with four bodies the active body is the fourth. This means that the CONSCIOUSNESS in the fourth body has complete power over the ‘mental,’ the ‘astral,’ and the physical bodies.” G. put a plus over the fourth body and a minus over the other three bracketed together. Fragments: Five

“As you see,” he said, “there exist four quite different situations. In one case all the functions are controlled by the physical body. It is active; in relation to it everything else is passive. In another case the second body has power over the physical. In the third case the ‘mental’ body has power over the ‘astral’ and the physical. And in the last case the fourth body has power over the first three. We have seen before that in man of physical body only, exactly the same order of relationship is possible between his various functions. The physical functions may control feeling, thought, and CONSCIOUSNESS. Feeling may control the physical functions. Thought may control the physical functions and feeling. And CONSCIOUSNESS may control the physical functions, feeling, and thought. Fragments: Five

The third thing, which at once attracted my attention and of which I began to think the very first time I heard of it, was the idea of the moving center. The chief thing that interested me here was the question of the relation in which G. placed moving functions to instinctive functions. Were they the same thing or were they different? And further, in what relation did the divisions made by G. stand to the divisions cus­tomary in ordinary psychology? With certain reservations and additions I had considered it possible to accept the old divisions, that is, to divide man’s actions into “conscious” actions, “automatic” actions (which must at first be conscious), “instinctive” actions (expedient, but without CONSCIOUSNESS of purpose), and “reflexes,” simple and complex, which are never conscious and which can, in certain cases, be inexpedient. In addition there were actions performed under the influence of hidden emotional dispositions or inner unknown impulses. Fragments: Six

Then a great deal was elucidated for me by the idea that each center was not only a motive force but also a “receiving apparatus,” working as receiver for different and sometimes very distant influences. When I thought of what had been said about wars, revolutions, migrations of peoples, and so on; when I pictured how masses of humanity could move under the control of planetary influences, I began to understand our fundamental mistake in determining the actions of an individual. We regard the actions of an individual as originating in himself. We do not imagine that the “masses” may consist of automatons obeying external stimuli and may move, not under the influence of the will, CONSCIOUSNESS, or inclination of individuals, but under the influence of external stimuli coming possibly from very far away. Fragments: Six

ON ONE occasion while talking with G. I asked him whether he considered it possible to attain “cosmic CONSCIOUSNESS,” not for a brief moment only but for a longer period. I understood the expression “cosmic CONSCIOUSNESS” in the sense of a higher CONSCIOUSNESS possible for man in the sense in which I had previously written about it in my book Tertium Organum. Fragments: Seven

“I do not know what you call ‘cosmic CONSCIOUSNESS,’ ” said G., “it is a vague and indefinite term; anyone can call anything he likes by it. In most cases what is called ‘cosmic CONSCIOUSNESS’ is simply fantasy, associative daydreaming connected with intensified work of the emotional center. Sometimes it comes near to ecstasy but most often it is merely a subjective emotional experience on the level of dreams. But even apart from all this before we can speak of ‘cosmic CONSCIOUSNESS’ we must define in general what CONSCIOUSNESS is. Fragments: Seven

“How do you define CONSCIOUSNESS?” Fragments: Seven

“All this is rubbish,” said G., “the usual scientific sophistry. It is time you got rid of it. Only one thing is true in what you have said: that you can know CONSCIOUSNESS only in yourself. Observe that I say you can know, for you can know it only when you have it. And when you have not got it, you can know that you have not got it, not at that very moment, but afterwards. I mean that when it comes again you can see that it has been absent a long time, and you can find or remember the moment when it disappeared and when it reappeared. You can also define the moments when you are nearer to CONSCIOUSNESS and further away from CONSCIOUSNESS. But by observing in yourself the appearance and the disappearance of CONSCIOUSNESS you will inevitably see one fact which you neither see nor acknowledge now, and that is that moments of CONSCIOUSNESS are very short and are separated by long intervals of completely unconscious, mechanical working of the machine. You will then see that you can think, feel, act speak, work, without being conscious of it. And if you learn to see in yourselves the moments of CONSCIOUSNESS and the long periods of mechanicalness, you will as infallibly see in other people when they are conscious of what they are doing and when they are not. Fragments: Seven

“Your principal mistake consists in thinking that you always have CONSCIOUSNESS, and in general, either that CONSCIOUSNESS is always present or that it is never present. In reality CONSCIOUSNESS is a property which is continually changing. Now it is present, now it is not present. And there are different degrees and different levels of CONSCIOUSNESS. Both CONSCIOUSNESS and the different degrees of CONSCIOUSNESS must be understood in oneself by sensation, by taste. No definitions can help you in this case and no definitions are possible so long as you do not understand what you have to define. And science and philosophy cannot define CONSCIOUSNESS because they want to define it where it does not exist. It is necessary to distinguish CONSCIOUSNESS from the possibility of CONSCIOUSNESS. We have-only the possibility of CONSCIOUSNESS and rare flashes of it. Therefore we cannot define what CONSCIOUSNESS is.” Fragments: Seven

I cannot say that what was said about CONSCIOUSNESS became clear to me at once. But one of the subsequent talks explained to me the principles on which these arguments were based. Fragments: Seven

These words of G.’s made me think a great deal. It seemed to me at once that they were the key to what he had said before about CONSCIOUSNESS. But I decided to draw no conclusions whatever, but to try to remember myself while observing myself. Fragments: Seven

I did not want to argue with Volinsky. I had read Wundt. And of course what Wundt had written was not at all what I had said to Volinsky. Wundt had come close to this idea, but others had come just as close and had afterwards gone off in a different direction. He had not seen the magnitude of the idea which was hidden behind his thoughts about different forms of perception. And not having seen the magnitude of the idea he of course could not see the central position which the idea of the absence of CONSCIOUSNESS and the idea of the possibility of the voluntary creation of this CONSCIOUSNESS ought to occupy in our thinking. Only it seemed strange to me that Volinsky could not see this even when I pointed it out to him. Fragments: Seven

“Nothing can develop by staying on one level. Ascent or descent is the inevitable cosmic condition of any action. We neither understand nor see what is going on around and within us, either because we do not allow for the inevitability of descent when there is no ascent, or because we take descent to be ascent. These are two of the fundamental causes of our self-deception. We do not see the first one because we continually think that things can remain for a long time at the same level; and we do not see the second because ascents where we see them are in fact impossible, as impossible as it is to increase CONSCIOUSNESS by mechanical means. 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

AT ONE of the following lectures G. returned to the question of CONSCIOUSNESS. “Neither the psychical nor the physical functions of man can be understood,” he said, “unless the fact has been grasped that they can both work in different states of CONSCIOUSNESS. Fragments: Eight

“In all there are four states of CONSCIOUSNESS possible for man” (he emphasized the word “man”), “But ordinary man, that is, man number one, number two, and number three, lives in the two lowest states of CONSCIOUSNESS only. The two higher states of CONSCIOUSNESS are inaccessible to him, and although he may have flashes of these states, he is unable to understand them and he judges them from the point of view of those states in which it is usual for him to be. Fragments: Eight

“The two usual, that is, the lowest, states of CONSCIOUSNESS are first, sleep, in other words a passive state in which man spends a third and very often a half of his life. And second, the state in which men spend the other part of their lives, in which they walk the streets, write books, talk on lofty subjects, take part in politics, kill one another, which they regard as active and call ‘clear CONSCIOUSNESS’ or the ‘waking state of CONSCIOUSNESS.’ The term ‘clear CONSCIOUSNESS’ or ‘waking state of CONSCIOUSNESS’ seems to have been given in jest, especially when you realize what clear CONSCIOUSNESS ought in reality to be and what the state in which man lives and acts really is. Fragments: Eight

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

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

“The fourth state of CONSCIOUSNESS in man means an altogether different state of being; it is the result of inner growth and of long and difficult work on oneself. Fragments: Eight

“But the third state of CONSCIOUSNESS constitutes the natural right of man as he is, and if man does not possess it, it is only because of the wrong conditions of his life. It can be said without any exaggeration that at the present time the third state of CONSCIOUSNESS occurs in man only in the form of very rare flashes and that it can be made more or less permanent in him only by means of special training. Fragments: Eight

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

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

“In addition to those centers of which we have so far spoken there are two other centers in man, the ‘higher emotional’ and the ‘higher thinking.’ These centers are in us; they are fully developed and are working all the time, but their work fails to reach our ordinary CONSCIOUSNESS. The cause of this lies in the special properties of our so­called ‘clear CONSCIOUSNESS.’ Fragments: Eight

“In order to understand what the difference between states of CONSCIOUSNESS is, let us return to the first state of CONSCIOUSNESS which is sleep. This is an entirely subjective state of CONSCIOUSNESS. A man is immersed in dreams, whether he remembers them or not does not matter. Even if some real impressions reach him, such as sounds, voices, warmth, cold, the sensation of his own body, they arouse in him only fantastic subjective images. Then a man wakes up. At first glance this is a quite different state of CONSCIOUSNESS. He can move, he can talk with other people, he can make calculations ahead, he can see danger and avoid it, and so on. It stands to reason that he is in a better position than when he was asleep. But if we go a little more deeply into things, if we take a look into his inner world, into his thoughts, into the causes of his actions, we shall see that he is in almost the same state as when he is asleep. And it is even worse, because in sleep he is passive, that is, he cannot do anything. In the waking state, however, he can do something all the time and the results of all his actions will be reflected upon him or upon those around him. And yet he does not remember himself. He is a machine, everything with him happens. He cannot stop the flow of his thoughts, he cannot control his imagination, his emotions, his attention. He lives in a subjective world of ‘I love,’ ‘I do not love,’ ‘I like,’ ‘I do not like,’ ‘I want,’ ‘I do not want,’ that is, of what he thinks he likes, of what he thinks he does not like, of what he thinks he wants, of what he thinks he does not want. He does not see the real world. The real world is hidden from him by the wall of imagination. He lives in sleep. He is asleep. What is called ‘clear CONSCIOUSNESS’ is sleep and a far more dangerous sleep than sleep at night in bed. Fragments: Eight

“Both states of CONSCIOUSNESS, sleep and the waking state, are equally subjective. Only by beginning to remember himself does a man really awaken. And then all surrounding life acquires for him a different aspect and a different meaning. He sees that it is the life of sleeping people, a life in sleep. All that men say, all that they do, they say and do in sleep. All this can have no value whatever. Only awakening and what leads to awakening has a value in reality. Fragments: Eight

“Now turn your attention to what I have pointed out to you before. A fully developed man, which I call ‘man in the full sense of the word,’ should possess four states of CONSCIOUSNESS. Ordinary man, that is, man number one, number two, and number three, lives in two states of CONSCIOUSNESS only. He knows, or at least he can know, of the existence of the fourth state of CONSCIOUSNESS. All these ‘mystical states’ and so on are wrong definitions but when they are not deceptions or imitations they are flashes of what we call an objective state of CONSCIOUSNESS. Fragments: Eight

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

G. began the next talk as follows: “Man’s possibilities are very great. You cannot conceive even a shadow of what man is capable of attaining. But nothing can be attained in sleep. In the CONSCIOUSNESS of a sleeping man his illusions, his ‘dreams’ are mixed with reality. He lives in a subjective world and he can never escape from it. And this is the reason why he can never make use of all the powers he possesses and why he always lives in only a small part of himself. Fragments: Eight

“It has been said before that self-study and self-observation, if rightly conducted, bring man to the realization of the fact that something is wrong with his machine and with his functions in their ordinary state. A man realizes that it is precisely because he is asleep that he lives and works in a small part of himself. It is precisely for this reason that the vast majority of his possibilities remain unrealized, the vast majority of his powers are left unused. A man feels that he does not get out of life all that it can give him, that he fails to do so owing to definite functional defects in his machine, in his receiving apparatus. The idea of self-study acquires in his eyes a new meaning. He feels that possibly it may not even be worth while studying himself as he is now. He sees every function as it is now and as it could be or ought to be. Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity for self-change. And in observing him-self a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self­change, a means of awakening. By observing himself he throws, as it were, a ray of light onto his inner processes which have hitherto worked in complete darkness. And under the influence of this light the processes themselves begin to change. There are a great many chemical processes that can take place only in the absence of light. Exactly in the same way many psychic processes can take place only in the dark. Even a feeble light of CONSCIOUSNESS is enough to change completely the character of a process, while it makes many of them altogether impossible. Our inner psychic processes (our inner alchemy) have much in common with those chemical processes in which light changes the character of the process and they are subject to analogous laws. Fragments: Eight

“In ordinary life the concept ‘conscience’ is taken too simply. As if we had a conscience. Actually the concept ‘conscience’ in the sphere of the emotions is equivalent to the concept ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ in the sphere of the intellect. And as we have no CONSCIOUSNESS we have no conscience. Fragments: Eight

“Conscience is a general and a permanent phenomenon. Conscience is the same for all men and conscience is possible only in the absence of ‘buffers.’ From the point of view of understanding the different categories of man we may say that there exists the conscience of a man in whom there are no contradictions. This conscience is not suffering; on the contrary it is joy of a totally new character which we are unable to understand. But even a momentary awakening of conscience in a man who has thousands of different I’s is bound to involve suffering. And if these moments of conscience become longer and if a man does not fear them but on the contrary co­operates with them and tries to keep and prolong them, an element of very subtle joy, a foretaste of the future ‘clear CONSCIOUSNESS’ will gradually enter into these moments. Fragments: Eight

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

“This CONSCIOUSNESS of one’s nothingness alone can conquer the fear of subordination to the will of another. However strange it may seem, this fear is actually one of the most serious obstacles on a man’s path. A man is afraid that he will be made to do things that are opposed to his principles, views, and ideas. Moreover, this fear immediately creates in him. the illusion that he really has principles, views, and convictions which in reality he never has had and never could have. A man who has never in his life thought of morality suddenly begins to fear that he will be made to do something immoral. A man who has never thought of his health and who has done everything possible to ruin it begins to fear that he will be made to do something which will injure it. A man who has lied to everyone, everywhere, all his life in the most barefaced manner begins suddenly to fear that he will be made to tell lies, and so on without end. I knew a drunkard who was afraid more than anything else that he would be made to drink. Fragments: Eight

“The work of the factory consists in transforming one kind of matter into another, namely, the coarser matters, in the cosmic sense, into finer ones. The factory receives, as raw material from the outer world, a number of coarse ‘hydrogens’ and transforms them into finer hydrogens by means of a whole series of complicated alchemical processes. But in the ordinary conditions of life the production by the human factory of the finer ‘hydrogens,’ in which, from the point of view of the possibility of higher states of CONSCIOUSNESS and the work of higher centers, we are particularly interested, is insufficient and they are all wasted on the existence of the factory itself. If we could succeed in bringing the production up to its possible maximum we should then begin to save the fine ‘hydrogens.’ Then the whole of the body, all the tissues, all the cells, would become saturated with these fine ‘hydrogens’ which would gradually settle in them, crystallizing in a special way. This crystallization of the fine ‘hydrogens’ would gradually bring the whole organism onto a higher level, onto a higher plane of being. Fragments: Nine

“All the substances necessary for the maintenance of the life of the organism, for psychic work, for the higher functions of CONSCIOUSNESS and the growth of the higher bodies, are produced by the organism from the food which enters it from outside Fragments: Nine

“But what is meant by an ‘artificial shock’? It is connected with the moment of the reception of an impression. The note dodo 48 designates the moment when an impression enters our CONSCIOUSNESS. An ‘artificial shock’ at this point means a certain kind of effort made at the moment of receiving an impression. Fragments: Nine

“If we could connect the centers of our ordinary CONSCIOUSNESS with the higher thinking center deliberately and at will, it would be of no use to us whatever in our present general state. In most cases where accidental contact with the higher thinking center takes place a man becomes unconscious. The mind refuses to take in the flood of thoughts, emotions, images, and ideas which suddenly burst into it. And instead of a vivid thought, or a vivid emotion, there results, on the contrary, a complete blank, a state of unCONSCIOUSNESS. The memory retains only the first moment when the flood rushed in on the mind and the last moment when the flood was receding and CONSCIOUSNESS returned. But even these moments are so full of unusual shades and colors that there is nothing with which to compare them among the ordinary sensations of life. This is usually all that remains from so-called ‘mystical’ and ‘ecstatic’ experiences, which represent a temporary connection with a higher center. Only very seldom does it happen that a mind which has been better prepared succeeds in grasping and remembering something of what was felt and understood at the moment of ecstasy. But even in these cases the thinking, the moving, and the emotional centers remember and transmit everything in their own way, translate absolutely new and never previously experienced sensations into the language of usual everyday sensations, transmit in worldly three-dimensional forms things which pass completely beyond the limits of worldly measurements; in this way, of course, they entirely distort every trace of what remains in the memory of these unusual experiences. Our ordinary centers, in transmitting the impressions of the higher centers, may be compared to a blind man speaking of colors, or to a deaf man speaking of music. Fragments: Nine

“The idea of the possibility of broadening man’s CONSCIOUSNESS and increasing his capacities for knowledge stands in direct relation to the teaching on cosmoses. In his ordinary state a man is conscious of himself in one cosmos, and all the other cosmoses he looks at from the point of view of one cosmos. The broadening of his CONSCIOUSNESS and the intensifying of his psychic functions lead him into the sphere of activity and life of two other cosmoses simultaneously, the one above and the one below, that is, one larger and one smaller. The broadening of CONSCIOUSNESS does not proceed in one direction only, that is, in the direction of the higher cosmoses; in going above, at the same time it goes below. Fragments: Ten

“In reality this means that if, for instance, a man begins to feel the life of the planets, or if his CONSCIOUSNESS passes to the level of the planetary world, he begins at the same time to feel the life of atoms, or his CONSCIOUSNESS passes to their level. In this way the broadening of CONSCIOUSNESS proceeds simultaneously in two directions, towards the greater and towards the lesser. Both the great and the small require for their cognition a like change in man. In looking for parallels and analogies between the cosmoses we may take each cosmos in three relations: “1. in its relation to itself, “2. in its relation to a higher or a larger cosmos, and Fragments: Ten

“This continual CONSCIOUSNESS of his nothingness and of his helplessness will eventually give a man the courage to ‘die,’ that is, to die, not merely mentally or in his CONSCIOUSNESS, but to die in fact and to renounce actually and forever those aspects of himself which are either unnecessary from the point of view of his inner growth or which hinder it. These aspects are first of all his ‘false I,’ and then all the fantastic ideas about his ‘individuality,’ ‘will,’ ‘CONSCIOUSNESS,’ ‘capacity to do,’ his powers, initiative, determination, and so on. Fragments: Eleven

“This is the ‘abuse of sex.’ It is necessary, further, to remember that the sex center works with ‘hydrogen’ 12. This means that it is stronger and quicker than all other centers. Sex, in fact, governs all other centers. The only thing in ordinary circumstances, that is, when man has neither CONSCIOUSNESS nor will, that holds the sex center in submission is ‘buffers.’ ‘Buffers’ can entirely bring it to nought, that is, they can stop its normal manifestation. But they cannot destroy its energy. The energy remains and passes over to other centers, finding expression for itself through them; in other words, the other centers rob the sex center of the energy which it does not use itself. The energy of the sex center in the work of the thinking, emotional, and moving centers can be recognized by a particular ‘taste,’ by a particular fervor, by a vehemence which the nature of the affair concerned does not call for. The thinking center writes books, but in making use of the energy of the sex center it does not simply occupy itself with philosophy, science, or politics — it is always fighting something, disputing, criticizing, creating new subjective theories. The emotional center preaches Christianity, abstinence, asceticism, or the fear and horror of sin, hell, the torment of sinners, eternal fire, all this with the energy of the sex center. … Or on the other hand it works up revolutions, robs, bums, kills, again with the same energy. The moving center occupies itself with sport, creates various records, climbs moun­tains, jumps, fences, wrestles, fights, and so on. In all these instances, that is, in the work of the thinking center as well as in the work of the emotional and the moving centers, when they work with the energy of the sex center, there is always one general characteristic and this is a certain particular vehemence and, together with it, the uselessness of the work in question. Neither the thinking nor the emotional nor the moving centers can ever create anything useful with the energy of the sex center. This is an example of the ‘abuse of sex.’ Fragments: Twelve

I began to think about the first triad of the ray of creation, about the three forces which made one force. What could they mean? Can we define them? Can we realize their meaning? Something began to formulate itself in my head but just as I tried to translate this into words everything disappeared. — Will, CONSCIOUSNESS . . . and what was the third? I asked myself. It seemed to me that if I could name the third I would at once understand everything else. Fragments: Thirteen

One thing I understood even then with undoubted clarity, that no phenomena of a higher order, that is, transcending the category of ordinary things observable every day, or phenomena which are sometimes called “metaphysical,” can be observed or investigated by ordinary means, in an ordinary state of CONSCIOUSNESS, like physical phenomena. It is a complete absurdity to think that it is possible to study phenomena of a higher order like “telepathy,” “clairvoyance,” foreseeing the future, mediumistic phenomena, and so on, in the same way as electrical, chemical, or meteorological phenomena are studied. There is something in phenomena of a higher order which requires a particular emotional state for their observation and study. And this excludes any possibility of “properly conducted” laboratory experiments and observations. Fragments: Thirteen

As I have already mentioned before, G. used the expressions “objective” and “subjective” in a special sense, taking as a basis the divisions of “subjective” and “objective” states of CONSCIOUSNESS. All our ordinary knowledge which is based on ordinary methods of observation and verification of observations, all scientific theories deduced from the observation of facts accessible to us in subjective states of CONSCIOUSNESS, he called subjective. Knowledge based upon ancient methods and principles of observation, knowledge of things in themselves, knowledge accompany­ing “an objective state of CONSCIOUSNESS,” knowledge of the All, was for him objective knowledge. Fragments: Fourteen

“One of the most central of the ideas of objective knowledge,” said G., “is the idea of the unity of everything, of unity in diversity. From ancient times people who have understood the content and the meaning of this idea, and have seen in it the basis of objective knowledge, have endeavored to find a way of transmitting this idea in a form comprehensible to others. The successive transmission of the ideas of objective knowledge has always been a part of the task of those possessing this knowledge. In such cases the idea of the unity of everything, as the fundamental and central idea of this knowledge, had to be transmitted first and transmitted with adequate completeness and exactitude. And to do this the idea had to be put into such forms as would insure its proper perception by others and avoid in its transmission the possibility of distortion and corruption. For this purpose the people to whom the idea was being transmitted were required to undergo a proper preparation, and the idea itself was put either into a logical form, as for instance in philosophical systems which endeavored to give a definition of the ‘fundamental principle’ or from which everything else was derived, or into religious teachings which endeavored to create an element of faith and to evoke a wave of emotion carrying people up to the level of ‘objective CONSCIOUSNESS.’ The attempts of both the one and the other, sometimes more sometimes less successful, run through the whole history of mankind from the most ancient times up to our own time and they have taken the form of religious and philosophical creeds which have remained like monuments on the paths of these attempts to unite the thought of mankind and esoteric thought. Fragments: Fourteen

“But objective knowledge, the idea of unity included, belongs to objective CONSCIOUSNESS. The forms which express this knowledge when perceived by subjective CONSCIOUSNESS are inevitably distorted and, instead of truth, they create more and more delusions. With objective CONSCIOUSNESS it is possible to see and feel the unity of everything. But for subjective CONSCIOUSNESS the world is split up into millions of separate and unconnected phenomena. Attempts to connect these phenomena into some sort of system in a scientific or a philosophical way lead to nothing because man cannot reconstruct the idea of the whole starting from separate facts and they cannot divine the principles of the division of the whole without knowing the laws upon which this division is based. Fragments: Fourteen

“None the less the idea of the unity of everything exists also in intellectual thought but in its exact relation to diversity it can never be clearly expressed in words or in logical forms. There remains always the insurmountable difficulty of language. A language which has been constructed through expressing impressions of plurality and diversity in subjective states of CONSCIOUSNESS can never transmit with sufficient completeness and clarity the idea of unity which is intelligible and obvious for the objective state of CONSCIOUSNESS. Fragments: Fourteen

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

“When self-deceit is destroyed and a man begins to see the difference between the mechanical and the conscious in himself, there begins a struggle for the realization of CONSCIOUSNESS in life and for the subordination of the mechanical to the conscious. For this purpose a man begins with endeavors to set a definite decision, coming from conscious motives, against mechanical processes proceeding according to the laws of duality. The creation of a permanent third principle is for man the transformation of the duality into the trinity. Fragments: Fourteen

“The development of the human machine and the enrichment of being begins with a new and unaccustomed functioning of this machine. We know that a man has five centers: the thinking, the emotional, the moving, the instinctive, and the sex. The predominant development of any one center at the expense of the others produces an extremely one-sided type of man, incapable of further development. But if a man brings the work of the five centers within him into harmonious accord, he then ‘locks the pentagram within him’ and becomes a finished type of the physically perfect man. The full and proper functioning of five centers brings them into union with the higher centers which introduce the missing principle and put man into direct and permanent connection with objective CONSCIOUSNESS and objective knowledge. Fragments: Fourteen

“I do not know what you are talking about,” said G. “We have different standards: I measure the merit of art by its CONSCIOUSNESS and you measure it by its unCONSCIOUSNESS. We cannot understand one another. A work of objective art ought to be a ‘book’ as you. call it; the only difference is that the artist transmits his ideas not directly through words or signs or hieroglyphs, but through certain feelings which he excites consciously and in an orderly way, knowing what he is doing and why he does it.” Fragments: Fourteen

“So you see that art is not merely a language but something much bigger. And if you connect what I have just said with what I said earlier about the different levels of man’s being, you will understand what is said about art. Mechanical humanity consists of men number one, number two, and number three and they, of course, can have subjective art only. Objective art requires at least flashes of objective CONSCIOUSNESS; in order to understand these flashes properly and to make proper use of them a great inner unity is necessary and a great control of oneself.” Fragments: Fourteen

“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

I am putting this on record because it would seem to contradict what he said before, namely, that there are only two forces struggling in the world — “CONSCIOUSNESS” and “mechanicalness.” 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

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

” ‘The outer circle’ is the circle of mechanical humanity to which we belong and which alone we know. The first sign of this circle is that among people who belong to it there is not and there cannot be a common understanding. Everybody understands in his own way and all differently. This circle is sometimes called the circle of the ‘confusion of tongues,’ that is, the circle in which each one speaks in his own particular language, where no one understands another and takes no trouble to be understood. In this circle mutual understanding between people is impossible excepting in rare exceptional moments or in matters having no great significance, and which are confined to the limits of the given being. If people belonging to this circle become conscious of this general lack of understanding and acquire a desire to understand and to be understood, then it means they have an unconscious tendency towards the inner circle because mutual understanding begins only in the exoteric circle and is possible only there. But the CONSCIOUSNESS of the lack of understanding usually comes to people in an altogether different form. Fragments: Fifteen

“So far,” he said, “we have looked upon the ‘table of hydrogens’ as a table of vibrations and of the densities of matter which are in an inverse proportion to them. We must now realize that the density of vibrations and the density of matter express many other properties of matter. For instance, till now we have said nothing about the intelligence or the CONSCIOUSNESS of matter. Meanwhile the speed of vibrations of a matter shows the degree of intelligence of the given matter. You must remember that there is nothing dead or inanimate in nature. Everything in its own way is alive, everything in its own way is intelligent and conscious. Only this CONSCIOUSNESS and intelligence is expressed in a different way on different levels of being — that is, on different scales. But you must understand once and for all that nothing is dead or inanimate in nature, there are simply different degrees of animation and different scales. Fragments: Sixteen

“The ‘table of hydrogens,’ while serving to determine the density of matter and the speed of vibrations, serves at the same time to determine the degree of intelligence and CONSCIOUSNESS because the degree of CONSCIOUSNESS corresponds to the degree of density or the speed or vibrations. This means that the denser the matter the less conscious it is, the less intelligent. And the denser the vibrations, the more conscious and the more intelligent the matter. Fragments: Sixteen

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

It became more and more difficult for me to breathe and to mark time, and to observe the count of breaths and steps. I was pouring with sweat, my head began to turn round, and I thought I should fall. I began to despair of obtaining results of any kind and I had almost stopped when suddenly something seemed to crack or move inside me and my breathing went on evenly and properly at the rate I wanted it to go, but without any effort on my part, while affording me all the amount of air I needed. It was an extraordinarily pleasant sensation. I shut my eyes and continued to mark time, breathing easily and freely and feeling exactly as though strength was increasing in me and that I was getting lighter and stronger. I thought that if I could continue to run in this way for a certain time I should get still more interesting results because waves of a sort of joyful trembling had already begun to go through my body which, as I knew from previous experiments, preceded what I called the opening of the inner CONSCIOUSNESS. Fragments: Seventeen

“A man, if he is hungry, has a chance to come into contact with the beginning of a way. But besides hunger still other ‘rolls’ are necessary. Otherwise a man will not see the way. Imagine that an educated European, that is, a man who knows nothing about religion, comes into touch with the possibility of a religious way. He will see ‘nothing and he will understand nothing. For him it will be stupidity and superstition. But at the same time he may have a great hunger though formulated intellectually. It is exactly the same thing for a man who has never heard of yoga methods, of the development of CONSCIOUSNESS and so on. For him, if he comes into touch with a yoga way, everything he hears will be dead. The fourth way is still more difficult. In order to give the fourth way a right valuation a man must have thought and felt and been disappointed in many things beforehand. He ought, if not actually to have tried the way of the fakir, the way of the monk, and the way of the yogi previously, at least to have known and thought about them and to be convinced that they are no good for him. It is not necessary to understand what I say literally. This thinking process can be unknown to the man himself. But the results of this process must be in him and only they can help him to recognize the fourth way. Otherwise he can stand very near to it and not see it Fragments: Seventeen

G. gave to the ballet the central position of his work at that time. Besides this he wanted to organize a continuation of his Tiflis Institute in Constantinople, the principal place in which would be taken by dances and rhythmic exercises which would prepare people to take part in the ballet. According to his ideas the ballet should become a school. I worked out the scenario of the ballet for him and began to understand this idea better. The dances and all the other “numbers” of the ballet, or rather “revue,” demanded a long and an entirely special preparation. The people who were being prepared for the ballet and who were taking part in it, would, in so doing, be obliged to study and to acquire control over themselves, in this way approaching the disclosure of the higher forms of CONSCIOUSNESS. Into the ballet there entered, and as a necessary part of it, dances, exercises, and the ceremonies of various dervishes as well as many little known Eastern dances. Fragments: Eighteen