“Yes,” said G. “In many cases these substances are those which you call ‘narcotics’ But they can be used in entirely different ways. There are schools which make use of narcotics in the right way. People in these schools take them for self-study; in order to take a look ahead, to know their possibilities better, to see beforehand, ‘in advance,’ what can be attained later on as the result of prolonged work. When a man sees this and is convinced that what he has learned theoretically really exists, he then works consciously, he knows where he is going. Sometimes this is the easiest way of being convinced of the real existence of those possibilities which man often suspects in himself. There is a special chemistry relating to this. There are particular substances for each function. Each function can either be strengthened or weakened, awakened or put to SLEEP. But to do this a greatknowledge of the human machine and of this special chemistry is necessary. In all those schools which make use of this method experiments are carried out only when they are really necessary and only under the direction of experienced and competent men who can foresee all results and adopt measures against possible undesirable consequences. The substances used in these schools are not merely ‘narcotics’ as you call them, although many of them are prepared from such drugs as opium, hashish, and so on. Besides schools in which such experiments are carried out, there are other schools which use these or similar substances, not for experiment or study but to attain definite desired results, if only for a short time. Through a skillful use of such substances a man can be made very clever or very strong, for a certain time. Afterwards, of course, he dies or goes mad, but this is not taken into consideration. Such schools also exist. So you see that we must speak very cautiously about schools. They may do practically the same things but the results will be totally different.” Fragments: One

“He who wants knowledge must himself make the initial efforts to find the source of knowledge and to approach it, taking advantage of the help and indications which are given to all, but which people, as a rule, do not want to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to people without effort on their own part. They understand this very well in connection with ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge, when they admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect something different. Everyone knows very well that if, for instance, a man wants to learn Chinese, it will take several years of intense work; everyone knows that five years are needed to grasp the principles of medicine, and perhaps twice as many years for the study of painting or music. And yet there are theories which affirm that knowledge can come to people without any effort on their part, that they can acquire it even in SLEEP. The very existence of such theories constitutes an additional explanation of why knowledge cannot come to people. At the same time it is essential to understand that man’s independent efforts to attain anything in this direction can also give no results. A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows” Fragments: Two

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

“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

“A modern man lives in SLEEP, in SLEEP he is born and in SLEEP he dies. About SLEEP, its significance and its role in life, we will speak later. But at present just think of one thing, what knowledge can a SLEEPing man have? And if you think about it and at the same time remember that SLEEP is the chief feature of our being, it will at once become clear to you that if a man really wants knowledge, he must first of all think about how to wake, that is, about how to change his being. Fragments: Four

Two hours later I woke up in the Tavricheskaya, that is, far away. I was going by izvostchik to the printers. The sensation of awakening was extraordinarily vivid. I can almost say that I came to. I remembered everything at once. How I had been walking along the Nadejdinskaya, how I had been remembering myself, how I had thought about cigarettes, and how at this thought I seemed all at once to fall and disappear into a deep SLEEP. Fragments: Seven

At the same time, while immersed in this SLEEP, I had continued to perform consistent and expedient actions. I left the tobacconist, called at my Hat in the Liteiny, telephoned to the printers. I wrote two letters. Fragments: Seven

I said that European and Western psychology in general had overlooked a fact of tremendous importance, namely, that we do not remember ourselves; that we live and act and reason in deep SLEEP, not metaphorically but in absolute reality. And also that, at the same time, we can remember ourselves if we make sufficient efforts, that we can awaken. Fragments: Seven

“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

“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

“Let us take some event in the life of humanity. For instance, war. There is a war going on at the present moment. What does it signify? It signifies that several millions of SLEEPing people are trying to destroy several millions of other SLEEPing people. They would not do this, of course, if they were to wake up. Everything that takes place is owing to this SLEEP. 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

“How many times have I been asked here whether wars can be stopped? Certainly they can. For this it is only necessary that people should awaken. It seems a small thing. It is, however, the most difficult thing there can be because this SLEEP is induced and maintained by the whole of surrounding life, by all surrounding conditions. Fragments: Eight

“How can one awaken? How can one escape this SLEEP? These questions are the most important, the most vital that can ever confront a man. But before this it is necessary to be convinced of the very fact of SLEEP. But it is possible to be convinced of this only by trying to awaken. When a man understands that he does not remember himself and that to remember himself means to awaken to some extent, and when at the same time he sees by experience how difficult it is to remember himself, he will understand that he cannot awaken simply by having the desire to do so. It can be said still more precisely that a man cannot awaken by himself. But if, let us say, twenty people make an agreement that whoever of them awakens first shall wake the rest, they already have some chance. Even this, however, is insufficient because all the twenty can go to SLEEP at the same time and dream that they are waking up. Therefore more still is necessary. They must be looked after by a man who is not aSLEEP or who does not fall aSLEEP as easily as they do, or who goes to SLEEP consciously when this is possible, when it will do no harm either to himself or to others. They must find such a man and hire him to wake them and not allow them to fall aSLEEP again. Without this it is impossible to awaken. This is what must be understood. Fragments: Eight

“It is possible to think for a thousand years; it is possible to write whole libraries of books, to create theories by the million, and all this in SLEEP, without any possibility of awakening. On the contrary, these books and these theories, written and created in SLEEP, will merely send other people to SLEEP, and so on. Fragments: Eight

“There is nothing new in the idea of SLEEP. People have been told almost since the creation of the world that they are aSLEEP and that they must awaken. How many times is this said in the Gospels, for instance? ‘Awake,’ ‘watch,’ ‘SLEEP not.’ Christ’s disciples even slept when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane for the last time. It is all there. But do men understand it? Men take it simply as a form of speech, as an expression, as a metaphor. They completely fail to understand that it must be taken literally. And again it is easy to understand why. In order to understand this literally it is necessary to awaken a little, or at least to try to awaken. I tell you seriously that I have been asked several times why nothing is said about SLEEP in the Gospels. Although it is there spoken of almost on every page. This simply shows that people read the Gospels in SLEEP. So long as a man SLEEPs profoundly and is wholly immersed in dreams he cannot even think about the fact that he is aSLEEP. If he were to think that he was aSLEEP, he would wake up. So everything goes on. And men have not the slightest idea what they are losing because of this SLEEP. As I have already said, as he is organized, that is, being such as nature has created him, man can be a self-conscious being. Such he is created and such he is born. But he is born among SLEEPing people, and, of course, he falls aSLEEP among them just at the very time when he should have begun to be conscious of himself. Everything has a hand in this: the involuntary imitation of older people on the part of the child, voluntary and involuntary suggestion, and what is called ‘education.’ Every attempt to awaken on the child’s part is instantly stopped. This is inevitable. And a great many efforts and a great deal of help are necessary in order to awaken later when thousands of SLEEP-compelling habits have been accumulated. And this very seldom happens. In most cases, a man when still a child already loses the possibility of awakening; he lives in SLEEP all his life and he dies in SLEEP. Furthermore, many people die long before their physical death. But of such cases we will speak later on. 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

“‘Buffers’ are created slowly and gradually. Very many ‘buffers’ are created artificially through ‘education.’ Others are created under the hypnotic influence of all surrounding life. A man is surrounded by people who live, speak, think, and feel by means of ‘buffers.’ Imitating them in their opinions, actions, and words, a man involuntarily creates similar ‘buffers’ in himself. ‘Buffers’ make a man’s life more easy. It is very hard to live without ‘buffers.’ But they keep man from the possibility of inner development because ‘buffers’ are made to lessen shocks and it is only shocks that can lead a man out of the state in which he lives, that is, waken him. ‘Buffers’ lull a man to SLEEP, give him the agreeable and peaceful sensation that all will be well, that no contradictions exist and that he can SLEEP in peace. ‘Buffers’ are appliances by means of -which a man can always be in the right. ‘Buffers’ help a man not to feel his conscience. Fragments: Eight

“If a man whose entire inner world is composed of contradictions were suddenly to feel all these contradictions simultaneously within himself, if he were to feel all at once that he loves everything he hates and hates everything he loves; that he lies when he tells the truth and that he tells the truth when he lies; and if he could feel the shame and horror of it all, this would be the state which is called ‘conscience. A man cannot live in this state; he must either destroy contradictions or destroy conscience. He cannot destroy conscience, but if he cannot destroy it he can put it to SLEEP, that is, he can separate by impenetrable barriers one feeling of self from another, never see them together, never feel their incompatibility, the absurdity of one existing alongside another. Fragments: Eight

“But fortunately for man, that is, for his peace and for his SLEEP, this state of conscience is very rare. From early childhood ‘buffers’ begin to grow and strengthen in him, taking from him the possibility of seeing his inner contradictions and therefore, for him, there is no danger whatever of a sudden awakening. Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. For this it is necessary to destroy ‘buffers,’ that is, to go out to meet all those inner sufferings which are connected with the sensations of contradictions. Moreover the destruction of ‘buffers’ in itself requires very long work and a man must agree to this work realizing that the result of his work will be every possible discomfort and suffering from the awakening of his conscience. Fragments: Eight

“One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good. The reason is again just the same, men’s ignorance and the deep SLEEP in which they live. Fragments: Eight

“A permanent idea of good and evil can be formed in man only in connection with a permanent aim and a permanent understanding. If a man understands that he is aSLEEP and if he wishes to awake, then everything that helps him to awake will be good and everything that hinders him, everything that prolongs his SLEEP, will be evil. Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people. What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil. But this is so only for those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are aSLEEP. Those who do not understand that they are aSLEEP and those who can have no wish to awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil. And as the overwhelming majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are aSLEEP, neither good nor evil can actually exist for them. Fragments: Eight

“There exists a possibility of experimental verification of the relation of personality to essence. In Eastern schools ways and means are known by the help of which it is possible to separate man’s personality from his essence. For this purpose they sometimes use hypnosis, sometimes special narcotics, sometimes certain kinds of exercises. If personality and essence are for a time separated in a man by one or another of these means, two beings, as it were, are formed in him, who speak in different voices, have completely different tastes, aims, and interests, and one of these two beings often proves to be on the level of a small child. Continuing the experiment further it is possible to put one of these beings to SLEEP, or the experiment may begin by putting to SLEEP either personality or essence. Certain narcotics have the property of putting personality to SLEEP without affecting essence. And for a certain time after taking this narcotic a man’s personality disappears, as it were, and only his essence remains. And it happens that a man full of the most varied and exalted ideas, full of sympathies and antipathies, love, hatred, attachments, patriotism, habits, tastes, desires, convictions, suddenly proves quite empty, without thoughts, without feelings, without convictions, without views. Everything that has agitated him before now leaves him completely indifferent. Sometimes he sees the artificiality and the imaginary character of his usual moods or his high-sounding words, sometimes he simply forgets them as though they had never existed. Things for which he was ready to sacrifice his life now appear to him ridiculous and meaningless and unworthy of his attention. All that he can find in himself is a small number of instinctive inclinations and tastes. He is fond of sweets, he likes warmth, he dislikes cold, he dislikes the thought of work, or on the contrary he likes the idea of physical movement. And that is all. Fragments: Eight

“It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror. And indeed people often do go mad because they End out something of this nature without the proper preparation, that is, they see something they are not supposed to see. In order to see without danger one must be on the way. If a man who can do nothing sees the truth he will certainly go mad. Only this rarely happens. Usually everything is so arranged that a man can see nothing prematurely. Personality sees only what it likes to see and what does not interfere with its life. It never sees what it does not like. This is both good and bad at the same time. It is good if a man wants to SLEEP, bad if he wants to awaken.” Fragments: Eight

“A great deal of energy is also spent on work which is completely unnecessary and harmful in every respect, such as on the activity of unpleasant emotions, on the expression of unpleasant sensations, on worry, on restlessness, on haste, and on a whole series of automatic actions which are completely useless. As many examples as you like can be found of such unnecessary activity. First of all there is the constantly moving flow of thoughts in our mind, which we can neither stop nor control, and which takes up an enormous amount of our energy. Secondly there is the quite unnecessary constant tension of the muscles of our organism. The muscles are tense even when we are doing nothing. As soon as we start to do even a small and insignificant piece of work, a whole system of muscles necessary for the hardest and most strenuous work is immediately set in motion. We pick up a needle from the floor and we spend on this action as much energy as is needed to lift up a man of our own weight. We write a short letter and use as much muscular energy upon it as would suffice to write a bulky volume. But the chief point is that we spend muscular energy continually and at all times, even when we are doing nothing. When we walk the muscles of our shoulders and arms are tensed unnecessarily; when we sit the muscles of our legs, neck, back, and stomach are tensed in an unnecessary way. We even SLEEP with the muscles of our arms, of our legs, of our face, of the whole of our body tensed, and we do not realize that we spend much more energy on this continual readiness for work we shall never do than on all the real, useful work we do during our life. Fragments: Nine

Later on one of G.’s Moscow pupils added to this that, speaking with them once of cosmoses and of different time in different cosmoses, G. had said that the SLEEP and waking of living beings and plants, that is, twenty-four hours or a day and night, constitute the “breath of organic life.” Fragments: Ten

” ‘To awake,’ ‘to die,’ ‘to be born.’ These are three successive stages. If you study the Gospels attentively you will see that references are often made to the possibility of being born, several references are made to the necessity of ‘dying,’ and there are very many references to the necessity of ‘awakening’ — ‘watch, for ye know not the day and hour . . .’ and. so on. But these three possibilities of man, to awake or not to SLEEP, to die, and to be born, are not set down in connection with one another. Nevertheless this is the whole point. If a man dies without having awakened he cannot be born. If a man is born without having died he may become an ‘immortal thing.’ Thus the fact that he has not ‘died’ prevents a man from being ‘born’; the fact of his not having awakened prevents him from ‘dying’; and should he be born without having died he is prevented from ‘being.’ Fragments: Eleven

“But there are a thousand things which prevent a man from awakening, which keep him in the power of his dreams. In order to act consciously with the intention of awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state of SLEEP. Fragments: Eleven

“First of all it must be realized that the SLEEP in which man exists is not normal but hypnotic SLEEP. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth and understanding his position. Fragments: Eleven

“Kundalini is a force put into men in order to keep them in their present state. If men could really see their true position and could understand all the horror of it, they would be unable to remain where they are even for one second. They would begin to seek a way out and they would quickly find it, because there is a way out; but men fail to see it simply because they are hypnotized. Kundalini is the force that keeps them in a hypnotic state. ‘To awaken’ for man means to be ‘dehypnotized.’ In this lies the chief difficulty and in this also lies the guarantee of its possibility, for there is no organic reason for SLEEP and man can awaken. Fragments: Eleven

“There are certain states in ordinary SLEEP in which a man wants to awaken but cannot. He tells himself that he is awake but, in reality, he continues to SLEEP — and this can happen several times before he finally awakes. But in ordinary SLEEP, once he is awake, he is in a different state; in hypnotic SLEEP the case is otherwise; there are no objective characteristics, at any rate not at the beginning of awakening; a man cannot pinch himself in order to make sure that he is not aSLEEP. And if, which God forbid, a man has heard anything about objective characteristics, Kundalini at once transforms it all into imagination and dreams. Fragments: Eleven

“There is also the possibility of being awakened by mechanical means. A man may be awakened by an alarm clock. But the trouble is that a man gets accustomed to the alarm clock far too quickly, he ceases to hear it. Many alarm clocks are necessary and always new ones. Otherwise a man must surround himself with alarm clocks which will prevent him SLEEPing. But here again there are certain difficulties. Alarm clocks must be wound up; in order to wind them up one must remember about them; in order to remember one must wake up often. But what is still worse, a man gets used to all alarm clocks and after a certain time he only SLEEPs the better for them. Therefore alarm clocks must be constantly changed, new ones must be continually invented. In the course of time this may help a man to awaken. But there is very little chance of a man doing all the work of winding up, inventing, and changing clocks all by himself, without outside help. It is much more likely that he will begin this work and that it will afterwards pass into SLEEP, and in SLEEP he will dream of inventing alarm clocks, of winding them up and changing them, and simply SLEEP all the sounder for it. Fragments: Eleven

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

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

“But it must be remembered in this connection that a ‘black magician,’ whether good or evil, has at all events been at a school. He has learned something, has heard something, knows something. He is simply a ‘half-educated man’ who has either been turned out of a school or who has himself left a school having decided that he already knows enough, that he does not want to be in subordination any longer, and that he can work independently and even direct the work of others. All ‘work’ of this kind can produce only subjective results, that is to say, it can only increase deception and increase SLEEP instead of decreasing them. Nevertheless something can be learned from a ‘black magician’ although in the wrong way. He can sometimes by accident even tell the truth. That is why I say that there are many things worse than ‘black magic.’ Such are various ‘occult’ and theosophical societies and groups. Not only have their teachers never been at a school but they have never even met anyone who has been near a school. Their work simply consists in aping. But imitation work of this kind gives a great deal of self-satisfaction. One man feels himself to be a ‘teacher,’ others feel that they are ‘pupils,’ and everyone is satisfied. No realization of one’s nothingness can be got here and if people affirm that they have it, it is all illusion and self-deception, if not plain deceit. On the contrary, instead of realizing their own nothingness the members of such circles acquire a realization of their own importance and a growth of false personality. Fragments: Eleven

“More difficult tasks, although they are only subjectively difficult, are called ‘barriers.’ The peculiarity of barriers consists in the fact that, having surmounted a serious barrier, a man can no longer return to ordinary SLEEP, to ordinary life. And if, having passed the first barrier, he feels afraid of those that follow and does not go on, he stops so to speak between two barriers and is unable to move either backwards or forwards. This is the worst thing that can happen to a man. Therefore the teacher is usually very careful in the choice of tasks and barriers, in other words, he takes the risk of giving definite tasks requiring the conquest of inner barriers only to those people who have already shown themselves sufficiently strong on small barriers. Fragments: Eleven

“Of course they can,” said G., “but it is better to die making efforts to awaken than to live in SLEEP. That’s one thing. For another thing it is not so easy to die from efforts. We have much more strength than we think. But we never make use of it. You must understand one feature of the organization of the human machine. Fragments: Eleven

One very interesting conversation took place at this time. I felt very strongly everything that took place at that time; especially strongly did I feel that in spite of every effort I was unable to remember myself for any length of time. At first something seemed to be successful, but later it all went and I felt without any doubt the deep SLEEP in which I was immersed. Failures in attempts to relate the story of my life, and especially the fact that I even failed to understand clearly what G. wanted, still further increased my bad mood which, however, as always with me, expressed itself not in depression, but in irritation. Fragments: Twelve

“This idea of repetition,” said G., “is not the full and absolute truth, but it is the nearest possible approximation of the truth. In this case truth cannot be expressed in words. But what you say is very near to it. And if you understand why I do not speak of this, you will be still nearer to it. What is the use of a man knowing about recurrence if he is not conscious of it and if he himself does not change? One can say even that if a man does not change, repetition does not exist for him. If you tell him about repetition, it will only increase his SLEEP. Why should he make any efforts today when there is so much time and so many possibilities ahead — the whole of eternity? Why should he bother today? This is exactly why the system does not say anything about repetition and takes only this one life which we know. The system has neither meaning nor sense without striving for self-change. And work on self-change must begin today, immediately. All laws can be seen in one life. Knowledge about the repetition of lives will add nothing for a man if he does not see how everything repeats itself in one life, that is, in this life, and if he does not strive to change himself in order to escape this repetition. But if he changes something essential in himself, that is, if he attains something, this cannot be lost” Fragments: Twelve

“Why has he gone to SLEEP while you have woken up?” Fragments: Twelve

Neither of them remembered anything the next day. G. explained to us that with the first man everything that constituted the subject of his ordinary conversation, of his alarms and agitation, was in personality. And when his personality was aSLEEP practically nothing remained. In the personality of the other there was also a great deal of undue talkativeness but behind the personality there was an essence which knew as much as the personality and knew it better, and when personality went to SLEEP essence took its place to which it had a much greater right. Fragments: Twelve

“At the same time sex plays a tremendous role in maintaining the mechanicalness of life. Everything that people do is connected with ‘sex’: politics, religion, art, the theater, music, is all ‘sex.’ Do you think people go to the theater or to church to pray or to see some new play? That is only for the sake of appearances. The principal thing, in the theater as well as in church, is that there will be a lot of women or a lot of men. This is the center of gravity of all gatherings. What do you think brings people to cafés, to restaurants, to various fetes? One thing only. Sex: it is the principal motive force of all mechanicalness. All SLEEP, all hypnosis, depends upon it. Fragments: Twelve

I could not go to SLEEP for a long time. In the morning as I came out onto the little terrace where we had sat the evening before, G. was sitting in the garden twenty yards away near a round table; there were three of our people with him. Fragments: Thirteen

“Do you want to go to SLEEP?” said G. Fragments: Thirteen

“Then what are you asking about? This is what you wanted, make use of it. You are not aSLEEP at this moment!” I do not think that this was altogether true. I undoubtedly “slept” at some moments. Many things that I said at that time must have surprised my companions in this strange adventure very much. And I was surprised at many things myself. Many things were like SLEEP, many things had no relation whatever to reality. Undoubtedly I invented a lot. Afterwards it was very strange for me to remember the things I had said. Fragments: Thirteen

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

He said once that there was no sense in our going on any further in this way and that we ought to make a definite decision whether we wanted to go on with him, wanted to work, or whether it was better to abandon all attempts in this direction, because a half-serious attitude could give no results whatever. He added that he would continue the work only with those who would make a definite and serious decision to struggle with mechanicalness in themselves and with SLEEP. Fragments: Thirteen

“You already know by this time,” he said, “that nothing terrible is demanded of you. But there is no sense in sitting between two stools. Whoever does not want to wake up, at any rate let him SLEEP well.” Fragments: Thirteen

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

“The process of evolution, of that evolution which is possible for humanity as a whole, is completely analogous, to the process of evolution possible for the individual man. And it begins with the same thing, namely, a certain group of cells gradually becomes conscious; then it attracts to itself other cells, subordinates others, and gradually makes the whole organism serve its aims and not merely eat, drink, and SLEEP. This is evolution and there can be no other kind of evolution. In humanity as in individual man everything begins with the formation of a conscious nucleus. All the mechanical forces of life fight against the formation of this conscious nucleus in humanity, in just the same way as all mechanical habits, tastes and weaknesses fight against conscious self-remembering in man.” Fragments: Fifteen

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

“Complete silence is easier,” he said, when I began once to tell him my ideas. “Complete silence is simply a way out of life. A man should be in the desert or in a monastery. We speak of work in life. And a man can keep silence in such a way that no one will even notice it. The whole point is that we say a good deal too much. If we limited ourselves to what is actually necessary, this alone would be keeping silence. And it is the same with everything else, with food, with pleasures, with SLEEP; with everything there is a limit to what is necessary. After this ‘sin’ begins. This is something that must be grasped, a ‘sin’ is something which is not necessary.” Fragments: Seventeen

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

“You must realize that there are three kinds of breathing. One is normal breathing. The second is ‘inflation.’ The third is breathing assisted by movements. What does this mean? It means that normal breathing goes on unconsciously, it is managed and controlled by the moving center. ‘Inflation’ is artificial breathing. If for instance a man says to himself that he will count ten inhaling and ten exhaling, or that he will inhale through the right nostril and exhale through the left — this is done by the formatory apparatus. And the breathing itself is different because the moving center and the formatory apparatus act through different groups of muscles. The group of muscles through which the moving center acts are neither accessible nor subordinate to the formatory apparatus. But in the event of a temporary stoppage of the moving center the formatory apparatus has been given a group of muscles which it can influence and with whose help it can set the breathing mechanism in motion. But its work will of course be worse than the work of the moving center and it cannot go on for long. You have read the book about ‘yogi breathing,’ you have heard or have also read about the special breathing connected with the ‘mental prayer’ in Orthodox monasteries. It is all one and the same thing. Breathing proceeding from the formatory apparatus is not breathing but ‘inflation.’ The idea is that if a man carries out this kind of breathing long enough and often enough through the formatory apparatus, the moving center which remains idle during this period can get tired of doing nothing and start working in ‘imitation’ of the formatory apparatus. And indeed this sometimes happens. But so that this should happen many conditions are necessary, fasting and prayer are necessary and little SLEEP and all kinds of difficulties and burdens for the body. If the body is well treated this cannot happen. You think there are no physical exercises in Orthodox monasteries? Well, you try to carry out one hundred prostrations according to all the rules. You will have an aching back that no kind of gymnastics could ever give. Fragments: Eighteen

“This all has one aim: to bring breathing into the right muscles, to hand it over to the moving center. And as I said, sometimes this is successful. But there is always a big risk that the moving center will lose its habit of working properly, and since the formatory apparatus cannot work all the time, as for instance during SLEEP, and the moving center does not want to, then the machine can find itself in a very sorry situation. A man may even die from breathing having stopped. The disorganization of the functions of the machine through breathing exercises is almost inevitable when people try to do ‘breathing exercises’ from books by themselves without proper instruction. Many people used to come to me in Moscow who had completely disorganized right functioning of their machines by so-called ‘yogi breathing’ which they had learned from books. Books which recommend such exercises represent a great danger. Fragments: Eighteen