“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 this connection certain teachings compare man to a house of four rooms. Man lives in one room, the smallest and poorest of all, and until he is told of it, he does not suspect the existence of the other rooms which are full of treasures. When he does learn of this he begins to seek the keys of these rooms and especially of the fourth, the most important, room. And when a man has found his way into this room he really becomes the MASTER of his house, for only then does the house belong to him wholly and forever. Fragments: Two

“Thanks to this, the fourth way affects simultaneously every side of man’s being. It is work ore the three rooms at once. The fakir works on the first room, the monk on the second, the yogi on the third. In reaching the fourth room the fakir, the monk, and the yogi leave behind them many things unfinished, and they cannot make use of what they have attained because they are not MASTERs of all their functions. The fakir is MASTER of his body but not of his emotions or his mind; the monk is MASTER of his emotions but not of his body or his mind; the yogi is MASTER of his mind but not of his body or his emotions. Fragments: Two

“Not altogether,” said G. “These consciousnesses also exist but they are comparatively harmless. Each of them knows its own place and its own business. The hands know they must work; the feet know they must walk. But these Ivans, Peters, and Nicholases are different. They all call themselves ‘I.’ That is, they consider themselves MASTERs and none wants to recognize another. Each of them is caliph for an hour, does what he likes regardless of everything, and, later on, the others have to pay for it. And there is no order among them whatever. Whoever gets the upper hand is MASTER. He whips everyone on all sides and takes heed of nothing. But the next moment another seizes the whip and beats him. And so it goes on all one’s life. Imagine a country where everyone can be king for five minutes and do during these five minutes just what he likes with the whole kingdom. That is our life.” Fragments: Three

“Thus, in one teaching, man is compared to a house in which there is a multitude of servants but no MASTER and no steward. The servants have all forgotten their duties; no one wants to do what he ought; everyone tries to be MASTER, if only for a moment; and, in this kind of disorder, the house is threatened with grave danger. The only chance of salvation is for a group of the more sensible servants to meet together and elect a tem­porary steward, that is, a deputy steward. This deputy steward can then put the other servants in their places, and make each do his own work: the cook in the kitchen, the coachman in the stables, the gardener in the garden, and so on. In this way the ‘house’ can be got ready for the arrival of the real steward who will, in his turn, prepare it for the arrival of the MASTER. Fragments: Three

“The comparison of a man to a house awaiting the arrival of the MASTER is frequently met with in Eastern teachings which have preserved traces of ancient knowledge, and, as we know, the subject appears under various forms in many of the parables in the Gospels. Fragments: Three

“The next idea which it is necessary to MASTER is the materiality of the universe which is taken in the form of the ray of creation. Everything in this universe can be weighed and measured. The Absolute is as material, as weighable and measurable, as the moon, or as man. If the Absolute is Cod it means that God can be weighed and measured, resolved into component elements, ‘calculated,’ and expressed in the form of a definite formula. Fragments: Five

He again used the Eastern comparison of man with a carriage, horse, driver, and MASTER, and drew the diagram with one addition that was not there before. Fragments: Five

“Man is a complex organization,” he said, “consisting of four parts which may be connected or unconnected, or badly connected. The carriage is connected with the horse by shafts, the horse is connected with the driver by reins, and the driver is connected with the MASTER by the MASTER’s voice. But the driver must hear and understand the MASTER’s voice. He must know how to drive and the horse must be trained to obey the reins. As to the relation between the horse and the carriage, the horse must be properly harnessed. Thus there are three connections between the four sections of this complex organization. If something is lacking in one of the connections, the organization cannot act as a single whole. The connections are therefore no less important than the actual ‘bodies.’ Working on himself man works simultaneously on the ‘bodies’ and on the ‘connections.’ But it is different work. Fragments: Five

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

“It sometimes happens that the bodies are quite good and in order, but that the ‘connections’ are not working. What then is the use of the whole organization? Just as in the case of undeveloped bodies, the whole organization is inevitably controlled from below, that is, not by the will of the MASTER, but by accident. Fragments: Five

“I don’t care whether I know the future or not, or whether I am certain or not certain of life after death,” said another, “if I remain what I am now. What I feel most strongly is that I am not MASTER of myself, and if I were to formulate my aim, I should say that I want to be MASTER of myself.” Fragments: Six

“Well, that’s enough,’ said G., “we have now sufficient material to go on with. The best formulation of those that have been put forward is the wish to be one’s own MASTER. Without this nothing else is possible and without this nothing else will have any value. But let us begin with the first question, or the first aim. Fragments: Six

“And in practice, in order to study the future one must learn to notice and to remember the moments when we really know the future and when we act in accordance with this knowledge. Then judging by results, it will be possible to demonstrate that we really do know the future. This happens in a simple way in business, for instance. Every good commercial businessman knows the future. If he does not know the future his business goes smash. In work on oneself one must be a good businessman, a good merchant. And knowing the future is worth while only when a man can be his own MASTER. Fragments: Six

“For this it is necessary ‘to be’ If a man is changing every minute, if there is nothing in him that can withstand external influences, it means that there is nothing in him that can withstand death. But if he becomes independent of external influences, if there appears in him something that can live by itself, this something may not die. In ordinary circumstances we die every moment. External influences change and we change with them, that is, many of our I’s die. If a man develops in himself a per­manent I that can survive a change in external conditions, it can survive the death of the physical body. The whole secret is that one cannot work for a future life without working for this one. In working for life a man works for death, or rather, for immortality. Therefore work for immortality, if one may so call it, cannot be separated from general work. In attaining the one, a man attains the other. A man may strive to be simply for the sake of his own life’s interests. Through this alone he may become immortal. We do not speak specially of a future life and we do not study whether it exists or not, because the laws are everywhere the same. In studying his own life as he knows it, and the lives of other men, from birth to death, a man is studying all the laws which govern life and death and immortality. If he becomes the MASTER of his life, he may become the MASTER of his death. Fragments: Six

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

“Of the desires expressed the one which is most right is the desire to be MASTER of oneself, because without this nothing else is possible. And in comparison with this desire all other desires are simply childish dreams, desires of which a man could make no use even if they were granted to him. Fragments: Six

“He begins to be afraid of ‘Ouspensky,’ begins to feel that he is his ‘enemy.’ No matter what he would like to do, everything is intercepted and altered by ‘Ouspensky.’ ‘Ouspensky’ is his ‘enemy.’ ‘Ouspensky’s’ desires, tastes, sympathies, antipathies, thoughts, opinions, are either opposed to his own views, feelings, and moods, or they have nothing in common with them. And, at the same time, ‘Ouspensky’ is his MASTER. He is the slave. He has no will of his own. He has no means of expressing his desires because whatever he would like to do or say would be done for him by ‘Ouspensky.’ Fragments: Eight

“On this level of self-observation a man must understand that his whole aim is to free himself from ‘Ouspensky.’ And since he cannot in fact free himself from ‘Ouspensky,’ because he is himself, he must therefore MASTER ‘Ouspensky’ and make him do, not what the ‘Ouspensky’ of the given moment wants, but what he himself wants to do. From being the MASTER, ‘Ouspensky’ must become the servant. Fragments: Eight

“Exactly the same appliances are to be found within man. They are created, not by nature but by man himself, although involuntarily. The cause of their appearance is the existence in man of many contradictions; contradictions of opinions, feelings, sympathies, words, and actions. If a man throughout the whole of his life were to feel all the contradictions that are within him he could not live and act as calmly as he lives and acts now. He would have constant friction, constant unrest. We fail to see how contradictory and hostile the different I’s of our personality are to one another. If a man were to feel all these contradictions he would feel what he really is. He would feel that he is mad. It is not pleasant to anyone to feel that he is mad. Moreover, a thought such as this deprives a man of self-confidence, weakens his energy, deprives him of ‘self-respect.’ Somehow or other he must MASTER this thought or banish it. He must either destroy contradictions or cease to see and to feel them. A man cannot destroy contradictions. But if ‘buffers’ are created in him he can cease to feel them and he will not feel the impact from the clash of contradictory views, contradictory emotions, contradictory words. Fragments: Eight

“At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good MASTER who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians. Fragments: Eleven

“Let us take Petrov. Petrov consists of two parts — ‘I’ and ‘Petrov.’ But ‘I’ is powerless against ‘Petrov.’ ‘Petrov’ is the MASTER. Suppose there are twenty people; twenty ‘I’s’ now begin to struggle against one ‘Petrov.’ They may now prove to be stronger than he is. At any rate they can spoil his sleep; he will no longer be able to sleep as peacefully as he did before. And this is the whole aim. Fragments: Eleven

“The other and no less important side consists in the fact that it is very difficult for a man to keep silent about things that interest him. He would like to speak about them to everyone with whom he is accustomed to share his thoughts, as he calls it. This is the most mechanical of all desires and in this case silence is the most difficult abstinence of all. But if a man understands this or, at least, if he follows this rule, it will constitute for him the best exercise possible for self-remembering and for the development of will. Only a man who can be silent when it is necessary can be MASTER of himself. Fragments: Eleven

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

In this connection G. showed us an exercise that was quite new for us, without which, according to him, it was impossible to MASTER moving nature. This was, as he called it, the “stop” exercise. Fragments: Seventeen

“Obyvatel is a strange word in the Russian language. It is used in the sense of ‘inhabitant,’ without any particular shade. At the same time it is used to express contempt or derision — ‘obyvatel’ — as though there could be nothing worse. But those who speak in this way do not understand that the obyvatel is the healthy kernel of life. And from the point of view of the possibility of evolution, a good obyvatel has many more chances than a ‘lunatic’ or a ‘tramp.’ Afterwards I will perhaps explain what I mean by these two words. In the meantime we will talk about the obyvatel. I do not at all wish to say that all obyvatels are people of the objective way. Nothing of the kind. Among them are thieves, rascals, and fools; but there are others. I merely wish to say that being a good obyvatel by itself does not hinder the ‘way’ And finally there are different types of obyvatel. Imagine, for example, the type of obyvatel who lives all his life just as the other people round him, conspicuous in nothing, perhaps a good MASTER, who makes money, and is perhaps even close-fisted. At the same time he dreams all his life of monasteries, for instance, and dreams that some time or other he will leave everything and go into a monastery. And such things happen in the East and in Russia. A man lives and works, then, when his children or his grandchildren are grown up, he gives everything to them and goes into a monastery. This is the obyvatel of which I speak. Perhaps he does not go into a monastery, perhaps he does not need this. His own life as an obyvatel can be his way. Fragments: Seventeen

“Right exercises,” G. said once, “which lead direct to the aim of MASTERing the organism and subjecting its conscious and unconscious functions to the will, begin with breathing exercises. Without MASTERing breathing nothing can be MASTERed. At the same time to MASTER breathing is not so easy. Fragments: Eighteen