“This applies still more, of course, to the ‘mental body’ and the fourth body. Ordinary man does not possess these bodies or their corresponding functions. But he often thinks, and makes others think, that he does. The reasons for this are, first, the fact that the physical body works with the same substances of which the higher bodies are composed, only these substances are not crystallized in him, do not belong to him; and secondly, it has all the functions analogous to those of the higher bodies, though of course they differ from them considerably. The chief difference between the functions of a man possessing the physical body only and the functions of the four bodies, is that, in the first case, the functions of the physical body govern all the other functions, in other words, everything is governed by the body which, in its turn, is governed by external influences. In the second case, the command or control emanates from the higher body. Fragments: Two

“And only the man who possesses four fully developed bodies can be called a ‘man’ in the full sense of the word. This man possesses many properties which ORDINARY MAN does not possess. One of these properties is immortality. All religions and all ancient teachings contain the idea that, by acquiring the fourth body, man acquires immortality; and they all contain indications of the ways to acquire the fourth body, that is, immortality. Fragments: Two

Many people found contradictions between the first exposition of a given idea and subsequent explanations and sometimes, in trying to hold as closely as possible to the first, they created fantastic theories having no relation to what G. actually said. Thus the idea of three centers was retained by certain groups (which, I repeat, were not connected with me). And this idea was, in some way, linked up with the idea of three forces, with which in reality it had no connection, first of all because there are not three centers but five in the ORDINARY MAN. Fragments: Three

“This is ORDINARY MAN,” he said, “man number one, two, three, and four. He has only the physical body. The physical body dies and nothing is left of it. The physical body is composed of earthly material and at death it returns to earth. It is dust and to dust it returns. It is impossible to talk of any kind of ‘immortality’ for a man of this sort. But if a man has the second body” (he placed the second body on the diagram parallel to the planets), “this second body is composed of material of the planetary world and it can survive the death of the physical body. It is not immortal in the full sense of the word, because after a certain period of time it also dies. But at any rate it does not die with the physical body. Fragments: Five

The next lecture began precisely with the words: “Know thyself.” “These words,” said G., “which are generally ascribed to Socrates, actually lie at the basis of many systems and schools far more ancient than the Socratic. But although modem thought is aware of the existence of this principle it has only a very vague idea of its meaning and significance. The ORDINARY MAN of our times, even a man with philosophic or scientific interests, does not realize that the principle ‘know thyself speaks of the necessity of knowing one’s machine, the ‘human machine.’ Machines are made more or less the same way in all men; therefore, before anything else man must study the structure, the functions, and the laws of his organism. In the human machine everything is so interconnected, one thing is so dependent upon another, that it is quite impossible to study any one function without studying all the others. In order to know one thing, one must know everything. To know everything in man is possible, but it requires much time and labor, and above all, the application of the right method and, what is equally necessary, right guidance. Fragments: Six

“At the same time as we watch the work of the centers we shall observe, side by side with their right working, their wrong working, that is, the working of one center for another; the attempts of the thinking center to feel or to pretend that it feels, the attempts of the emotional center to think, the attempts of the moving center to think and feel. As has been said already, one center working for another is useful in certain cases, for it preserves the continuity of mental activity. But in becoming habitual it becomes at the same time harmful, since it begins to interfere with right working by enabling each center to shirk its own direct duties and to do, not what it ought to be doing, but what it likes best at the moment. In a normal healthy man each center does its own work, that is, the work for which it was specially destined and which it can best perform. There are situations in life which the thinking center alone can deal with and can find a way out of. If at this moment the emotional center begins to work instead, it will make a muddle of everything and the result of its interference will be most unsatisfactory. In an ‘unbalanced kind of man the substitution of one center for another goes on almost continually and this is precisely what ‘being unbalanced’ or ‘neurotic’ means. Each center strives, as it were, to pass its work on to another, and, at the same time, it strives to do the work of another center for which it is not fitted. The emotional center working for the thinking center brings unnecessary nervousness, feverishness, and hurry into situations where, on the contrary, calm judgment and deliberation are essential. The thinking center working for the emotional center brings deliberation into situations which require quick decisions and makes a man incapable of distinguishing the peculiarities and the fine points of the position. Thought is too slow. It works out a certain plan of action and continues to follow it even though the circumstances have changed and quite a different course of action is necessary. Besides, in some cases the interference of the thinking center gives rise to entirely wrong reactions, because the thinking center is simply incapable of understanding the shades and distinctions of many events. Events that are quite different for the moving center and for the emotional center appear to be alike to it. Its decisions are much too general and do not correspond to the decisions which the emotional center would have made. This becomes perfectly clear if we imagine the interference of thought, that is, of the theoretical mind, in the domain of feeling, or of sensation, or of movement; in all three cases the interference of the mind leads to wholly undesirable results. The mind cannot understand shades of feeling. We shall see this clearly if we imagine one man reasoning about the emotions of another. He is not feeling anything himself so the feelings of another do not exist for him. A full man does not understand a hungry one. But for the other they have a very definite existence. And the decisions of the first, that is of the mind, can never satisfy him. In exactly the same way the mind cannot appreciate sensations. For it they are dead. Nor is it capable of controlling movement. Instances of this kind are the easiest to find. Whatever work a man may be doing, it is enough for him to try to do each action deliberately, with his mind, following every movement, and he will see that the quality of his work will change immediately. If he is typing, his fingers, controlled by his moving center, find the necessary letters themselves, but if he tries to ask himself before every letter: ‘Where is “k”?’ ‘Where is the comma?’ ‘How is this word spelled?’ he at once begins to make mistakes or to write very slowly. If one drives a car with the help of one’s mind, one can go only in the lowest gear. The mind cannot keep pace with all the movements necessary for developing a greater speed. To drive at full speed, especially in the streets of a large town, while steering with the help of one’s mind is absolutely impossible for an ORDINARY MAN. Fragments: Six

“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 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

“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

“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

“The idea of good and evil is sometimes connected with the idea of truth and falsehood. But just as good and evil do not exist for ORDINARY MAN, neither do truth and falsehood exist. Fragments: Eight

“In the life of an ORDINARY MAN truth and falsehood have no moral value of any kind because a man can never keep to one single truth. His truth changes. If for a certain time it does not change, it is simply because it is kept by ‘buffers.’ And a man can never tell the truth. Sometimes ‘it tells’ the truth, sometimes ‘it tells’ a lie. Consequently his truth and his falsehood have no value; neither of them depends upon him, both of them depend upon accident. And this is equally true when applied to a man’s words, to his thoughts, his feelings, and to his conceptions of truth and falsehood. Fragments: Eight

“Therefore a man who wants to awake must look for other people who also want to awake and work together with them. This, however, is easier said than done because to start such work and to organize it requires a knowledge which an ORDINARY MAN cannot possess. The work must be organized and it must have a leader. Only then can it produce the results expected of it. Without these conditions no efforts can result in anything whatever. Men may torture themselves but these tortures will not make them awake. This is the most difficult of all for certain people to understand. By themselves and on their own initiative they may be capable of great efforts and great sacrifices. But because their first effort and their first sacrifice ought to be obedience nothing on earth will induce them to obey another. And they do not want to reconcile themselves to the thought that all their efforts and all their sacrifices are useless. Fragments: Eleven

“The second barrier is very often the conquest of fear. A man usually has many unnecessary, imaginary fears. Lies and fears — this is the atmosphere in which an ORDINARY MAN lives. Just as the conquest of lying is individual, so also is the conquest of fear. Every man has fears of his own which are peculiar to him alone. These fears must first be found and then destroyed. The fears of which I speak are usually connected with the lies among which a man lives. You must realize that they have nothing in common with the fear of spiders or of mice or of a dark room, or with unaccountable nervous fears. Fragments: Eleven

“In literature which acknowledges the existence of esotericism humanity is usually divided into two circles only and the ‘exoteric circle’ as opposed to the ‘esoteric,’ is called ordinary life. In reality, as we see, the ‘exoteric circle’ is something very far from us and very high. For ORDINARY MAN this is already ‘esotericism.’ Fragments: Fifteen

He was different! In the window we saw another man, not the one who had gone into the train. He had changed during those few seconds. It is very difficult to describe what the difference was, but on the platform he had been an ORDINARY MAN like anyone else, and from the carriage a man of quite a different order was looking at us, with a quite exceptional importance and dignity in every look and movement, as though he had suddenly become a ruling prince or a statesman of some unknown kingdom to which he was traveling and to which we were seeing him off. Fragments: Sixteen

“And it must be further understood that we are not speaking of exceptions or accidents which may or may not occur, but of general principles, of what happens every day to everyone. Ordinary man, even if he comes to the conclusion that work on himself is indispensable — is the slave of his body. He is not only the slave of the recognized and visible activity of the body but the slave of the unrecognized and the invisible activities of the body, and it is precisely these which hold him in their power. Therefore when a man decides to struggle for freedom he has first of all to struggle with his own body. Fragments: Seventeen