I understood from what he said subsequently that this would not be a ballet in the strict meaning of the word, but a series of dramatic and mimic scenes held together by a common plot, accompanied by music and intermixed with songs and dances. The most appropriate name for these scenes would be “revue,” but without any comic element. The “ballet” or “revue” was to be called “The Struggle of the Magicians.” The important scenes represented the schools of a “Black Magician” and a “White Magician,” with exercises by pupils of both schools and a STRUGGLE between the two schools. The action was to take place against the background of the life of an Eastern city, intermixed with sacred dances. Dervish dances, and various national Eastern dances, all this interwoven with a love story which itself would have an allegorical meaning. Fragments: One

“Many things are possible,” said G. “But it is necessary to understand that man’s being, both in life and after death, if it does exist after death, may be very different in quality. The ‘man-machine’ with whom everything depends upon external influences, with whom everything happens, who is now one, the next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no future of any kind; he is buried and that is all. Dust returns to dust. This applies to him. In order to be able to speak of any kind of future life there must be a certain crystallization, a certain fusion of man’s inner qualities, a certain independence of external influences. If there is anything in a man able to resist external influences, then this very thing itself may also be able to resist the death of the physical body. But think for yourselves what there is to withstand physical death in a man who faints or forgets everything when he cuts his finger? If there is anything in a man, it may survive; if there is nothing, then there is nothing to survive. But even if something survives, its future can be very varied. In certain cases of fuller crystallization what people call ‘reincarnation’ may be possible after death, and, in other cases, what people call ‘existence on the other side.’ In both cases it is the continuation of life in the ‘astral body,’ or with the help of the ‘astral body.’ You know what the expression ‘astral body’ means. But the systems with which you are acquainted and which use this expression state that all men have an ‘astral body.’ This is quite wrong. What may be called the ‘astral body’ is obtained by means of fusion, that is, by means of terribly hard inner work and STRUGGLE. Man is not born with it. And only very few men acquire an ‘astral body.’ If it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body, and it may be born again in another physical body. This is ‘reincarnation.’ If it is not re-born, then, in the course of time, it also dies; it is not immortal but it can live long after the death of the physical body. Fragments: Two

“Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of ‘friction,’ by the STRUGGLE between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in man. If a man lives without inner STRUGGLE, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is. But if a STRUGGLE begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this STRUGGLE, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to ‘crystallize.’ But crystallization is possible on a right founda-tion and it is possible on a wrong foundation. ‘Friction,’ the STRUGGLE between ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ can easily take place on a wrong foundation. For instance, a fanatical belief in some or other idea, or the ‘fear of sin,’ can evoke a terribly intense STRUGGLE between ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and a man may crystallize on these foundations. But this would be a wrong, incomplete crystallization. Such a man will not possess the possibility of further development. In order to make further development possible he must be melted down again, and this can be accomplished only through terrible suffering. Fragments: Two

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

“In what way can one evoke the STRUGGLE between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in oneself?” someone asked. Fragments: Two

During one conversation with G. in our group, which was beginning to become permanent, I asked: “Why, if ancient knowledge has been preserved and if, speaking in general, there exists a knowledge distinct from our science and philosophy or even surpassing it, is it so carefully concealed, why is it not made common property? Why are the men who possess this knowledge unwilling to let it pass into the general circulation of life for the sake of a better and more successful STRUGGLE against deceit, evil, and ignorance?” Fragments: Two

“It is impossible to stabilize the interrelation of powders in a state of mechanical mixture. But the powders may be fused; the nature of the powders makes this possible. To do this a special kind of fire must be lighted under the retort which, by heating and melting the powders, finally fuses them together. Fused in this way the powders will be in the state of a chemical compound. And now they can no longer be separated by those simple methods which separated and made them change places when they were in a state of mechanical mixture. The contents of the retort have become indivisible, ‘individual.’ This is a picture of the formation of the second body. The fire by means of which fusion is attained is produced by ‘friction,’ which in its turn is produced in man by the STRUGGLE between ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner STRUGGLE in him, no ‘friction,’ no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he STRUGGLEs with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole. 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

“This is the basis of the correct view of human evolution. There is no compulsory, mechanical evolution. Evolution is the result of conscious STRUGGLE. Nature does not need this evolution; it does not want it and STRUGGLEs against it. Evolution can be necessary only to man himself when he realizes his position, realizes the possibility of changing this position, realizes that he has powers that he does not use, riches that he does not see. And, in the sense of gaining possession of these powers and riches, evolution is possible. But if all men, or most of them, realized this and desired to obtain what belongs to them by right of birth, evolution would again become impossible. What is possible for individual man is impossible for the masses. Fragments: Three

“The alternation of I’s, their continual obvious STRUGGLE for supremacy, is controlled by accidental external influences. Warmth, sunshine, fine weather, immediately call up a whole group of I’s. Cold, fog, rain, call up another group of I’s, other associations, other feelings, other actions. There is nothing in man able to control this change of I’s, chiefly because man does not notice, or know of it; he lives always in the last I. Some I’s, of course, are stronger than others. But it is not their own conscious strength; they have been created by the strength of accidents or mechanical external stimuli. Education, imitation, reading, the hypnotism of religion, caste, and traditions, or the glamour of new slogans, create very strong I’s in man’s personality, which dominate whole series of other, weaker, I’s. But their strength is the strength of the ‘rolls’ in the centers. And all I’s making up a man’s personality have the same origin as these ‘rolls’; they are the results of external influences; and both are set in motion and controlled by fresh external influences. Fragments: Three

“If knowledge gets far ahead of being, it becomes theoretical and abstract and inapplicable to life, or actually harmful, because instead of serving life and helping people the better to STRUGGLE with the difficulties they meet, it begins to complicate man’s life, brings new difficulties into it, new troubles and calamities which were not there before. Fragments: Four

“Change under ordinary conditions is impossible, because, in wanting to change something a man wants to change this one thing only. But everything in the machine is interconnected and every function is inevitably counterbalanced by some other function or by a whole series of other functions, although we are not aware of this interconnection of the various functions within ourselves. The machine is balanced in all its details at every moment of its activity. If a man observes in himself something that he dislikes and begins making efforts to alter it, he may succeed in obtaining a certain result. But together with this result he will inevitably obtain another result, which he did not in the least expect or desire and which he could not have suspected. By striving to destroy and annihilate everything that he dislikes, by making efforts to this end, he upsets the balance of the machine. The machine strives to re-establish the balance and re-establishes it by creating a new function which the man could not have foreseen. For instance, a man may observe that he is very absent-minded, that he forgets everything, loses everything, and so on. He begins to STRUGGLE with this habit and, if he is sufficiently methodical and determined, he succeeds, after a time, in attaining the desired result: he ceases to forget and to lose things. This he notices, but there is something else he does not notice, which other people notice, namely, that he has grown irritable, pedantic, fault-finding, disagreeable. Irritability has appeared as the result of his having lost his absent-mindedness. Why? It is impossible to say. Only detailed analysis of a particular man’s mental qualities can show why the loss of one quality has caused the appearance of another. This does not mean that loss of absent-mindedness must necessarily give rise to irritability. It is just as easy for some other characteristic to appear that has no relation to absent-mindedness at all, for instance Stinginess or envy or something else. Fragments: Six

“The next object of self-observation must be habits in general. Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all. This can never be the case. All three centers are filled with habits and a man can never know himself until he has studied all his habits. The observation and the study of habits is particularly difficult because, in order to see and ‘record’ them, one must escape from them, free oneself from them, if only for a moment. So long as a man is governed by a particular habit, he does not observe it, but at the very first attempt, however feeble, to STRUGGLE against it, he feels it and notices it. Therefore in order to observe and study habits one must try to STRUGGLE against them. This opens up a practical method of self-observation. It has been said before that a man cannot change anything in himself, that he can only observe and ‘record.’ This is true. But it is also true that a man cannot observe and ‘record’ anything if he does not try to STRUGGLE with himself, that is, with his habits. This STRUGGLE cannot yield direct results, that is to say, it cannot lead to any change, especially to any permanent and lasting change. But it shows what is there. Without a STRUGGLE a man cannot see what he consists of. The STRUGGLE with small habits is very difficult and boring, but without it self-observation is impossible. Fragments: Six

“In the sphere of the emotions it is very useful to try to STRUGGLE with the habit of giving immediate expression to all one’s unpleasant emotions. Many people find it very difficult to refrain from expressing their feelings about bad weather. It is still more difficult for people not to express unpleasant emotions when they feel that something or someone is violating what they may conceive to be order or justice. Fragments: Six

“Besides being a very good method for self-observation, the STRUGGLE against expressing unpleasant emotions has at the same time another significance. It is one of the few directions in which a man can change himself or his habits without creating other undesirable habits. Therefore self-observation and self-study must, from the first, be accompanied by the STRUGGLE against the expression of unpleasant emotions. Fragments: Six

“Identifying is the chief obstacle to self-remembering. A man who identifies with anything is unable to remember himself. In order to remember oneself it is necessary first of all not to identify. But in order to learn not to identify man must first of all not be identified with himself, must not call himself ‘I’ always and on all occasions. He must remember that there are two in him, that there is himself, that is ‘I’ in him, and there is another with whom he must STRUGGLE and whom he must conquer if he wishes at any time to attain anything. So long as a man identifies or can be identified, he is the slave of everything that can happen to him. Freedom is first of all freedom from identification. Fragments: Eight

“As I have already said, people very often think that if they begin to STRUGGLE with considering within themselves it will make them ‘insincere’ and they are afraid of this because they think that in this event they will be losing something, losing a part of themselves. In this case the same thing takes place as in attempts to STRUGGLE against the outward expression of unpleasant emotions. The sole difference is that in one case a man STRUGGLEs with the outward expression of emotions and in the other case with an inner manifestation of perhaps the same emotions. Fragments: Eight

“This fear of losing sincerity is of course self-deception, one of those formulas of lying upon which human weaknesses are based. Man cannot help identifying and considering inwardly and he cannot help expressing his unpleasant emotions, simply because he is weak. Identifying, considering, the expressing of unpleasant emotions, are manifestations of his weakness, his impotence, his inability to control himself. But not wishing to acknowledge this weakness to himself, he calls it ‘sincerity’ or ‘honesty’ and he tells himself that he does not want to STRUGGLE against sincerity, whereas in fact he is unable to STRUGGLE against his weaknesses. 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

“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

“As has been said earlier, in the case of less cultured people essence is often more highly developed than it is in cultured man. It would seem that they ought to be nearer the possibility of growth, but in reality it is not so because their personality proves to be insufficiently developed. For inner growth, for work on oneself, a certain development of personality as well as a certain strength of essence are necessary. Personality consists of ‘rolls,’ and of ‘buffers’ resulting from a certain work of the centers. An insufficiently developed personality means a lack of ‘rolls,’ that is, a lack of knowledge, a lack of information, a lack of the material upon which work on oneself must be based. Without some store of knowledge, without a certain amount of material ‘not his own,’ a man cannot begin to work on himself, he cannot begin to study himself, he cannot begin to STRUGGLE with his mechanical habits, simply because there will be no reason or motive for undertaking such work. Fragments: Eight

“In beginning to STRUGGLE with all these habitual sides of his life a man saves an enormous amount of energy, and with the help of this energy he can easily begin the work of self-study and self-perfection. Fragments: Nine

“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

“A group is usually a pact concluded between the I’s of a certain group of people to make a common STRUGGLE against ‘Ivanov,’ ‘Petrov,’ and ‘Zakharov,’ that is, against their own ‘false personalities.’ 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 study of the chief fault and the STRUGGLE against it constitute, as it were, each man’s individual path, but the aim must be the same for all. This aim is the realization of one’s nothingness. Only when a man has truly and sincerely arrived at the conviction of his own helplessness and nothingness and only when he feels it constantly, will he be ready for the next and much more difficult stages of the work. Fragments: Eleven

“The STRUGGLE against the ‘false I,’ against one’s chief feature or chief fault, is the most important part of the work, and it must proceed in deeds, not in words. For this purpose the teacher gives each man definite tasks which require, in order to carry them out, the conquest of his chief feature. When a man carries out these tasks he STRUGGLEs with himself, works on himself. If he avoids the tasks, tries not to carry them out, it means that either he does not want to or that he cannot work. Fragments: Eleven

“The STRUGGLE against lying in oneself and the STRUGGLE against fears is the first positive work which a man begins to do. Fragments: Eleven

I am bound to say that all these attempts came to nothing. Some said too much, others said too little. Some went into unnecessary details or into descriptions of what they considered were their particular and original characteristics; others concentrated on their “sins” and errors. But everything taken together failed to produce what G. evidently expected. The result was anecdotes, or chronological memoirs which interested nobody, and family recollections which made people yawn. Something was wrong, but what exactly was wrong even those who had tried to be as sincere as they could were unable to determine. I remember my own attempts. In the first place I tried to convey certain early childhood impressions which seemed to me psychologically interesting because I remembered myself as I was at a very early age and was always myself astonished by some of these early impressions. But nobody was interested in this and I quickly saw that this was certainly not what was required of us. I proceeded further but almost immediately I felt a certainty that there were many things that I had no intention whatever of telling. This was a quite unexpected realization. I had accepted G.’s idea without any opposition and I thought I would be able to tell the story of my life without any particular difficulty. But in reality it turned out to be quite impossible. Something in me registered such a vehement protest against it that I did not even attempt to STRUGGLE and in speaking of certain periods of my life I tried to give only the general idea and the significance of the facts which I did not want to relate. In this connection I noted that my voice and intonations changed when I talked in this way. This helped me to understand other people. I began to hear that, in speaking of themselves and their lives, they also spoke in different voices and different intonations. And there were intonations of a particular kind which I had first heard in myself and which showed me that people wanted to hide something in what they were talking about. But intonations gave them away. Observation of intonations afterwards made it possible for me to understand many other things. Fragments: Twelve

“There is a good deal of truth in that,” said G. “But in that form it is, of course, much too general. Actually you did not see types of men and women but types of events. What I speak of refers to the real type, that is to say, to essence. If people were to live in essence one type would always find the other type and wrong types would never come together. But people live in personality. Personality has its own interests and its own tastes which have nothing in common with the interests and the tastes of essence. Personality in our case is the result of the wrong workwork of centers. For this reason personality can dislike precisely what essence likes — and like what essence does not like. Here is where the STRUGGLE between essence and personality begins. Essence knows what it wants but cannot explain it. Personality does not want to hear of it and takes no account of it. It has its own desires. And it acts in its own way. But its power does not continue beyond that moment. After that, in some way or other, the two essences have to live together. And they hate one another. No sort of acting can help here. In one way or another essence or type gains the upper hand and decides. Fragments: Twelve

“What must be done to STRUGGLE against the ‘abuse of sex’?” asked somebody present. Fragments: Twelve

“You know nothing in yourself,” G. told him; “if you knew you would not have that feature. And people certainly see you in the way I told you. But you do not see how they see you. If you accept what I told you as your chief feature you will understand how people see you. And if you find a way to STRUGGLE with this feature and to destroy it, that is, to destroy its involuntary manifestation” (G. emphasized these words), “you will produce on people not the impression that you do now but any impression you like.” 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 think perhaps that this affords me a great deal of satisfaction,” he said. “Or perhaps you think that there is nothing else that I could do. If so you are very gravely mistaken in both cases. There are very many other things that I could do. And if I give my time to this it is only because I have a definite aim. By now you ought better to understand in what my aim consists and by now you ought to see whether you are on the same road as I am or not. I will say nothing more. But in the future I shall work only with those who can be useful to me in attaining my aim. And only those people can be useful to me who have firmly decided to STRUGGLE with themselves, that is, to STRUGGLE with mechanicalness.” Fragments: Thirteen

“The understanding of symbols can be approached in the following way: In studying the world of phenomena a man first of all sees in everything the manifestation of two principles, one opposed to the other, which, in conjunction or in opposition, give one result or another, that is, reflect the essential nature of the principles which have created them. This manifestation of the great laws of duality and trinity man sees simultaneously in the cosmos and in himself. But in relation to the cosmos he is merely a spectator and moreover one who sees only the surface of phenomena which are moving in various directions though seeming to him to move in one direction. But in relation to himself his understanding of the laws of duality and trinity can express itself in a practical form, namely, having understood these laws in himself, he can, so to speak, confine the manifestation of the laws of duality and trinity to the permanent line of STRUGGLE with himself on the way to self-knowledge. In this way he will introduce the line of will first into the circle of time and afterwards into the cycle of eternity, the accomplishing of which will create in him the great symbol known by the name of the Seal of Solomon. Fragments: Fourteen

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

“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

“It would take a long time to explain,” said G., “and it cannot have a practical significance for us at the present moment. There are two processes which are sometimes called ‘involutionary’ and ‘evolutionary.’ The difference between them is the following: An involutionary process begins consciously in the Absolute but at the next step it already becomes mechanical — and it becomes more and more mechanical as it develops; an evolutionary process begins half-consciously but it becomes more and more conscious as its develops. But consciousness and conscious opposition to the evolutionary process can also appear at certain moments in the, involutionary process. From where does this consciousness come? From the evolutionary process of course. The evolutionary process must proceed without interruption. Any stop causes a separation from the fundamental process. Such separate fragments of consciousnesses which have been stopped in their development can also unite and at any rate for a certain time can live by struggling against the evolutionary process. After all it merely makes the evolutionary process more interesting. Instead of struggling against mechanical forces there may, at certain moments, be a STRUGGLE against the intentional opposition of fairly powerful forces though they are not of course comparable with those which direct the evolutionary process. These opposing forces may sometimes even conquer. The reason for this consists in the fact that the forces guiding evolution have a more limited choice of means; in other words, they can only make use of certain means and certain methods. The opposing forces are not limited in their choice of means and they are able to make use of every means, even those which only give rise to a temporary success, and in the final result they destroy both evolution and involution at the point in question. Fragments: Fifteen

“More than anything else he needs constant supervision and observation. He cannot observe himself constantly. Then he needs definite rules the fulfillment of which needs, in the first place, a certain kind of self-remembering and which, in the second place, helps in the STRUGGLE with habits. A man cannot do all this by himself. In life everything is always arranged far too comfortably for man to work. In a school a man finds himself among other people who are not of his own choosing and with whom perhaps it is very difficult to live and work, and usually in uncomfortable and unaccustomed conditions. This creates tension between, him and the others. And this tension is also indispensable because it gradually chips away his sharp angles. Fragments: Seventeen

“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

“Even if a man recognizes this and begins to STRUGGLE with it, his will is not sufficient. You must understand that a man’s will can be sufficient to govern one center for a short time. But the other two centers prevent this. And a man’s will can never be sufficient to govern three centers. Fragments: Seventeen

“Let us try to follow what occurs. A man is walking, or sitting, or working. At that moment he hears a signal. A movement that has begun is interrupted by this sudden signal or command to stop. His body becomes immovable and arrested in the midst of a transition from one posture to another, in a position in which he never stays in ordinary life. Feeling himself in this state, that is, in an unaccustomed posture, a man involuntarily looks at himself from new points of view, sees and observes himself in a new way. In this unaccustomed posture he is able to think in a new way, feel in a new way, know himself in a new way. In this way the circle of old automatism is broken. The body tries in vain to adopt an ordinary comfortable posture. But the man’s will, brought into action by the will of the teacher, prevents it The STRUGGLE goes on not for life but till the death. But in this case will can conquer. This exercise taken together with all that has been said is an exercise for self-remembering. A man must remember himself so as not to miss the signal; he must remember himself so as not to take the most comfortable posture at the first moment; he must remember himself in order to watch the tension of the muscles in different parts of the body, the direction in which he is looking, the facial expression, and so on; he must remember himself in order to overcome very considerable pain sometimes from unaccustomed positions of the legs, arms, and back, so as not to be afraid of falling or dropping something heavy on his foot. It is enough to forget oneself for a single moment and the body will adopt, by itself and almost un-noticeably, a more comfortable position, it will transfer the weight from one foot to another, will slacken certain muscles, and so on. This exer-cise is a simultaneous exercise for the will, the attention, the thoughts, the feelings, and for moving center. Fragments: Seventeen

The chief difficulty for most people, as it soon appeared, was the habit of talking. No one saw this habit in himself, no one could STRUGGLE with it because it was always connected with some characteristic which the man considered to be positive in himself. Either he wanted to be “sincere,” or he wanted to know what another man thought, or he wanted to help someone by speaking of himself or of others, and so on, and so on. Fragments: Seventeen

I very soon saw that the STRUGGLE with the habit of talking, of speaking, in general, more than is necessary, could become the center of gravity of work on oneself because this habit touched everything, penetrated everything, and was for many people the least noticed. It was very curious to observe how this habit (I say “habit” simply for lack of another word, it would be more correct to say “this sin” or “this misfortune”) at once took possession of everything no matter what a man might begin to do. 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

The decision to leave G.’s work and leave him exacted from me a great inner STRUGGLE. I had built very much upon it and it was difficult for me now to reconstruct everything from the beginning. But there was nothing else to do. Of course, all that I had learned during those three years I retained. But a whole year passed by while I was going into all this and until I found it possible to continue to work in the same direction as G. but independently. Fragments: Eighteen