“People are so unlike one another,” I said. “I do not think it would be possible to bring them all under the same heading. There are savages, there are mechanized people, there are INTELLECTUAL people, there are geniuses.” 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

“The ‘astral body’ is not an indispensable implement for man. It is a great luxury which only a few can afford. A man can live quite well without an ‘astral body.’ His physical body possesses all the functions necessary for life. A man without ‘astral body’ may even produce the impression of being a very INTELLECTUAL or even spiritual man, and may deceive not only others but also himself. Fragments: Two

“The way of the fakir is the way of struggle with the physical body, the way of work on the first room. This is a long, difficult, and uncertain way. The fakir strives to develop physical will, power over the body. This is attained by means of terrible sufferings, by torturing the body. The whole way of the fakir consists of various incredibly difficult physical exercises. The fakir either stands motionless in the same position for hours, days, months, or years; or sits with outstretched arms on a bare stone in sun, rain, and snow; or tortures himself with fire, puts his legs into an ant-heap, and so on. If he does not fall ill and die before what may be called physical will is developed in him, then he attains the fourth room or the possibility of forming the fourth body. But his other functions-emotional, INTELLECTUAL, and so forth — remain undeveloped. He has acquired will but he has nothing to which he can apply it, he cannot make use of it for gaining knowledge or for self-perfection. As a rule he is too old to begin new work. Fragments: Two

“But where there are schools of fakirs there are also schools of yogis. Yogis generally keep an eye on fakirs. If a fakir attains what he has aspired to before he is too old, they take him into a yogi school, where first they heal him and restore his power of movement, and then begin to teach him. A fakir has to learn to walk and to speak like a baby. But he now possesses a will which has overcome incredible difficulties on his way and this will may help him to overcome the difficulties on the second part of the way, the difficulties, namely, of developing the INTELLECTUAL and emotional functions. Fragments: Two

“So that when a man attains will on the fourth way he can make use of it because he has acquired control of all his bodily, emotional, and INTELLECTUAL functions. And besides, he has saved a great deal of time by working on the three sides of his being in parallel and simultaneously. Fragments: Two

In this connection it must be noted that the ideas were not given us in the form in which they are set out in my lectures. G. gave the ideas little by little, as though defending or protecting them from us. When touching on new themes for the first time he gave only general principles, often holding back the most essential. Sometimes he himself pointed out apparent discrepancies in the theories given, which were, in fact, precisely due to these reservations and suppressions. The next time, in approaching the same subject, whenever possible from a different angle, he gave more. The third time he gave still more. On the question of functions and centers for instance. On the first occasion he spoke of three centers, the INTELLECTUAL, the emotional, and the moving, and tried to make us distinguish these functions, find examples, and so on. Afterwards the instinctive center was added, as an independent and self-supporting machine. Afterwards the sex center. I remember that some of his remarks arrested my attention. For instance, when speaking of the sex center he said it practically never worked independently because it was always dependent on other centers, the INTELLECTUAL, the emotional, the instinctive, and the moving. Then in speaking of the energy of centers he often returned to what he called wrong workwork of centers and to the role of the sex center in this work. He spoke a great deal about how all centers rob the sex center of its energy and produce with this energy quite wrong work full of useless excitement and, in return, give to the sex center useless energy with which it was unable to work. Fragments: Three

It is possible that the idea of the three centers (INTELLECTUAL, emotional, and moving) being the expression of the three forces arose from G.’s wrongly repeated and wrongly received remarks on the relationship to each other of the three centers of the lower story. Fragments: Three

“Man number three means man on the same level of development but man in whom the center of gravity of his psychic life lies in the INTELLECTUAL center, that is, man with whom the thinking functions gain the upper hand over the moving, instinctive, and emotional functions; the man of reason, who goes into everything from theories, from mental considerations. Fragments: Four

“The same order of division into seven categories must be applied to everything relating to man. There is art number one, that is the art of man number one, imitative, copying art, or crudely primitive and sensuous art such as the dances and music of savage peoples. There is art number two, sentimental art; art number three, INTELLECTUAL, invented art; and there must be art number four, number five, and so on. Fragments: Four

“In exactly the same way there exists the religion of man number one, that is to say, a religion consisting of rites, of external forms, of sacrifices and ceremonies of imposing splendor and brilliance, or, on the contrary, of a gloomy, cruel, and savage character, and so on. There is the religion of man number two; the religion of faith, love, adoration, impulse, enthusiasm, which soon becomes transformed into the religion of persecution, oppression, and extermination of ‘heretics’ and ‘heathens.’ There is the religion of man number three; the INTELLECTUAL, theoretical religion of proofs and arguments, based upon logical deductions, considerations, and interpretations. Religions number one, number two, and number three are really the only ones we know; all known and existing religions and denominations in the world belong to one of these three categories. What the religion of man number four or the religion of man number five and so on is, we do not know, and we cannot know so long as we remain what we are. Fragments: Four

“Observation must begin with the division of functions. All the activity of the human machine is divided into four sharply defined groups, each of which is controlled by its own special mind or ‘center.’ In observing himself a man must differentiate between the four basic functions of his machine: the thinking, the emotional, the moving, and the instinctive. Every phenomenon that a man observes in himself is related to one or the other of these functions. Therefore, before beginning to observe, a man must understand how the functions differ; what INTELLECTUAL activity means, what emotional activity means, what moving activity means, and what instinctive activity means. Fragments: Six

“The difficulty of distinguishing between the functions is increased by the fact that people differ very much in the way they feel their functions. This is what we do not generally understand. We take people to be much more alike than they really are. In reality, however, there exist between them great differences in the forms and methods of their perception. Some perceive chiefly through their mind, others through their feeling, and others through sensation. It is very difficult, almost impossible for men of different categories and of different modes of perception to understand one another, because they call one and the same thing by different names, and they call different things by the same name. Besides this, various other combinations are possible. One man perceives by thoughts and sensations, another by thoughts and feelings, and so on. One or another mode of perception is immediately connected with one or another kind of reaction to external events. The result of this difference in perception and reaction to external events is expressed in the first place by the fact that people do not understand one another and in the second by the fact that they do not understand themselves. Very often a man calls his thoughts or his INTELLECTUAL perceptions his feelings, calls his feelings his thoughts, and his sensations his feelings. This last is the most common. If two people perceive the same thing differently, let us say that one perceives it through feeling and another through sensation — they may argue all their lives and never understand in what consists the difference of their attitude to a given object. Actually, one sees one aspect of it, and the other a different aspect. Fragments: Six

“Having fixed in his own mind the difference between the INTELLECTUAL, the emotional, and the moving functions, a man must, as he observes himself, immediately refer his impressions to this or that category. And at first he must take mental note of only such observations as regards which he has no doubt whatever, that is, those where he sees at once to what category they belong. He must reject all vague or doubtful cases and remember only those which are unquestionable. If the work is carried on properly, the number of unquestionable observations will rapidly increase. And that which seemed doubtful before will be clearly seen to belong to the first, the second, the third center. Each center has its own memory, its own associations, its own thinking. As a matter of fact each center consists of three parts: the thinking, the emotional, and the moving. But we know very little about this side of our nature. In each center we know only one part. Self-observation, however, will very quickly show us that our mental life is much richer than we think, or in any case that it contains more possibilities than we think. Fragments: Six

“Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. But in proportion as personality grows, essence manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more feebly and it very often happens that essence stops in its growth at a very early age and grows no further. It happens very often that the essence of a grown-up man, even that of a very INTELLECTUAL and, in the accepted meaning of the word, highly ‘educated’ man, stops on the level of a child of five or six. This means that everything we see in this man is in reality ‘not his own.’ What is his own in man, that is, his essence, is usually only manifested in his instincts and in his simplest emotions. There are cases, however, when a man’s essence grows in parallel with his personality. Such cases represent very rare exceptions especially in the circumstances of cultured life. Essence has more chances of development in men who live nearer to nature in difficult conditions of constant struggle and danger. Fragments: Eight

“It does not mean that all the ways are closed to him. The way of the fakir and the way of the monk, which do not require any INTELLECTUAL development, remain open to him. But the methods and the means which are possible for a man of a developed intellect are impossible for him. Thus evolution is equally difficult for a cultured or an uncultured man. A cultured man lives far from nature, far from natural conditions of existence, in artificial conditions of life, developing his personality at the expense of his essence. A less cultured man, living in more normal and more natural conditions, develops his essence at the expense of his personality. A successful beginning of workwork on oneself requires the happy occurrence of an equal development of personality and essence. Such an occurrence will give the greatest assurance of success. If essence is very-little developed, a long preparatory period of work is required and this work will be quite fruitless if a man’s essence is rotten inside or if it develops some irreparable defects. Conditions of this kind occur fairly often. An abnormal development of personality very often arrests the development of essence at such an early stage that the essence becomes a small deformed thing. From a small deformed thing nothing else can be got. Fragments: Eight

The thinking or INTELLECTUAL center is the slowest of all the three centers we have examined up to now. It works with ‘hydrogen’ 48 (according to the third scale of the ‘table of hydrogens’). 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

“The INTELLECTUAL center works with hydrogen 48; the moving center with hydrogen 24. Fragments: Nine

“What is necessary to understand and what the ‘table of hydrogens’ helps us to grasp, is the idea of the complete materiality of all the psychic, INTELLECTUAL, emotional, volitional, and other inner processes, including the most exalted poetic inspirations, religious ecstasies, and mystical revelations. Fragments: Nine

“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

“This however is possible only with the help of the emotional center. It is essential that this be understood. The connection with the large accumulator can be effected only through the emotional center. The instinctive, moving, and INTELLECTUAL centers, by themselves, can feed only on the small accumulators. Fragments: Eleven

“This is precisely what people do not understand. Therefore their aim must be the development of the activity of the emotional center. The emotional center is an apparatus much more subtle than the INTELLECTUAL center, particularly if we take into consideration the fact that in the whole of the INTELLECTUAL center the only part that works is the formatory apparatus and that many things are quite inaccessible to the INTELLECTUAL center. If anyone desires to know and to understand more than he actually knows and understands, he must remember that this new knowledge and this new understanding will come through the emotional center and not through the INTELLECTUAL center.” Fragments: Eleven

“Laughter is also directly connected with accumulators. But laughter is the opposite function to yawning. It is not pumping in, but pumping out, that is, the pumping out and the discarding of superfluous energy collected in the accumulators. Laughter does not exist in all centers, but only in centers divided into two halves — positive and negative. If I have not yet spoken of this in detail, I shall do so when we come to a more detailed study of the centers. At present we shall take only the INTELLECTUAL center. There can be impressions which fall at once on two halves of the center and produce at once a sharp ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ Such a simultaneous ‘yes’ and ‘no’ produces a kind of convulsion in the center and, being unable to harmonize and digest these two opposite impressions of one fact, the center begins to throw out in the form of laughter the energy which flows into it from the accumulator whose turn it is to supply it. In another instance it happens that in the accumulator there has collected too much energy which the center cannot manage to use up. Then every, the most ordinary, impression can be received as double, that is, it may fall at once on the two halves of the center and produce laughter, that is, the discarding of energy. Fragments: Eleven

“You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances,” said G. in this connection. “He has a role for every kind of circumstance in which he ordinarily finds himself in life; but put him into even only slightly different circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for, a short time he becomes himself. The study of the roles a man plays represents a very necessary part of self-knowledge. Each man’s repertoire is very limited. And if a man simply says ‘I’ and ‘Ivan Ivanich,’ he will not see the whole of himself because ‘Ivan Ivanich’ also is not one; a man has at least five or six of them. One or two for his family, one or two at his office (one for his subordinates and another for his superiors), one for friends in a restaurant, and perhaps one who is interested in exalted ideas and likes INTELLECTUAL conversation. And at different times the man is fully identified with one of them and is unable to separate himself from it. To see the roles, to know one’s repertoire, particularly to know its limitedness, is to know a great deal. But the point is that, outside his repertoire, a man feels very uncomfortable should something push him if only temporarily out of his rut, and he tries his hardest to return to any one of his usual roles. Directly he falls back into the rut everything at once goes smoothly again and the feeling of awkwardness and tension disappears. This is how it is in life; but in the work, in order to observe oneself, one must become reconciled to this awkwardness and tension and to the feeling of discomfort and helplessness. Only by experiencing this discomfort can a man really observe himself. And it is clear why this is so. When a man is not playing any of his usual roles, when he cannot find a suitable role in his repertoire, he feels that he is undressed. He is cold and ashamed and wants to run away from everybody. But the question arises: What does he want? A quiet life or to work on himself? If he wants a quiet life, he must certainly first of all never move out of his repertoire. In his usual roles he feels comfortable and at peace. But if he wants to work on himself, he must destroy his peace. To have them both together is in no way possible. A man must make a choice. But when choosing the result is very often deceit, that is to say, a man tries to deceive himself. In words he chooses work but in reality he does not want to lose his peace. The result is that he sits between two stools. This is the most uncomfortable position of all. He does no work at all and he gets no comfort whatever. But it is very difficult for a man to decide to throw everything to the devil and begin real work. And why is it difficult? Principally because his life is too easy and even if he considers it bad he is already accustomed to it. It is better for it to be bad, yet known. But here there is something new and unknown. He does not even know whether any result can be got from it or not. And besides, the most difficult thing here is that it is necessary to obey someone, to submit to someone. If a man could invent difficulties and sacrifices for himself, he would sometimes go very far. But the point here is that this is not possible. It is necessary to obey another or to follow the direction of general work, the control of which can belong only to one person. Such submission is the most difficult thing that there can be for a man who thinks that he is capable of deciding anything or of doing anything. Of course, when he gets rid of these fantasies and sees what he really is, the difficulty disappears. This, however, can only take place in the course of work. But to begin to work and particularly to continue to work is very difficult and it is difficult because life runs too smoothly.” Fragments: Twelve

“Quite true,” replied G. “Therefore we must first of all establish of what precisely we are speaking — of what moment in a man’s development and of what level of being. Just now I was simply speaking of a man in life who had no connection whatever with the work. Such a man, particularly if he belongs to the ‘INTELLECTUAL’ classes, is almost entirely composed of personality. In most cases his essence ceases to develop at a very early age. I know respected fathers of families, professors full of various ideas, well­known authors, important officials who were almost ministers, whose essence had stopped developing approximately at the age of twelve. And that is not so bad. It sometimes happens that certain aspects of essence stop at five or six years of age and then everything ends; all the rest is not their own; it is repertoire, or taken from books; or it has been created by imitating ready-made models.” After this there were many conversations, in which G. took part, during which we tried to find out the reason for our failure to fulfill the task set by G. But the more we talked the less we understood what he actually wanted from us. Fragments: Twelve

“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

“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

“People of the objective way simply live in life. They are those whom we call good people. Particular systems and methods are not necessary for them; making use of ordinary religious or INTELLECTUAL teachings and ordinary morality, they live at the same time according to conscience. They do not of necessity do much good, but they do no evil. Sometimes they happen to be quite uneducated, simple people but they understand life very well, they have a right valuation of things and a right outlook. And they are of course perfecting themselves and evolving. Only their way can be very long with many unnecessary repetitions.” 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