“To establish this fact for oneself, to understand it, to be convinced of its TRUTH, means getting rid of a thousand illusions about man, about his being creative and consciously organizing his own life, and so on. There is nothing of this kind. Everything happens — popular movements, wars, revolutions, changes of government, all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as everything happens in the life of individual man. Man is born, lives, dies, builds houses, writes books, not as he wants to, but as it happens. Everything happens. Man does not love, hate, desire — all this happens. Fragments: One

“But no one will ever believe you if you tell him he can do nothing. This is the most offensive and the most unpleasant thing you can tell people. It is particularly unpleasant and offensive because it is the TRUTH, and nobody wants to know the TRUTH. Fragments: One

“Then one must learn to speak the TRUTH. This also appears strange to you. You do not realize that one has to learn to speak the TRUTH. It seems to you that it is enough to wish or to decide to do so. And I tell you that people comparatively rarely tell a deliberate lie. In most cases they think they speak the TRUTH. And yet they lie all the time, both when they wish to lie and when they wish to speak the TRUTH. They lie all the time, both to themselves and to others. Therefore nobody ever understands either himself or anyone else. Think — could there be such discord, such deep misunderstanding, and such hatred towards the views and opinions of others, if people were able to understand one another? But they cannot understand because they cannot help lying. To speak the TRUTH is the most difficult thing in the world; and one must study a great deal and for a long time in order to be able to speak the TRUTH. The wish alone is not enough. To speak the TRUTH one must know what the TRUTH is and what a lie is, and first of all in oneself. And this nobody wants to know.” Fragments: One

‘That is one aspect. The other, as I have already said, consists in the fact that no one is concealing anything; there is no mystery whatever. But the acquisition or transmission of true knowledge demands great labor and great effort both of him who receives and of him who gives. And those who possess this knowledge are doing everything they can to transmit and communicate it to the greatest possible number of people, to facilitate people’s approach to it and enable them to prepare themselves to receive the TRUTH. But knowledge cannot be given by force to anyone and, as I have already said, an unprejudiced survey of the average man’s life, of what fills his day and of the things he is interested in, will at once show whether it is possible to accuse men who possess knowledge of concealing it, of not wishing to give it to people, or of not wishing to teach people what they know themselves. Fragments: Two

“Then the fourth way differs from the other ways in that the principal demand made upon a man is the demand for understanding. A man must do nothing that he does not understand, except as an experiment under the supervision and direction of his teacher. The more a man understands what he is doing, the greater will be the results of his efforts. This is a fundamental principle of the fourth way. The results of work are in proportion to the consciousness of the work. No ‘faith’ is required on the fourth way; on the contrary, faith of any kind is opposed to the fourth way. On the fourth way a man must satisfy himself of the TRUTH of what he is told. And until he is satisfied he must do nothing. Fragments: Two

“But all this is entirely mechanical in man. If he lies it means that he cannot help lying. If he tells the TRUTH it means that he cannot help telling the TRUTH, and so it is with everything. Everything happens, a man can do nothing either in himself or outside himself. Fragments: Four

“But the concept ‘materiality’ is as relative as everything else. It we recall how the concept ‘man’ and all that refers to him — good, evil, TRUTH, falsehood, and so on — is divided into different categories (‘man number one,’ ‘man number two,’ and so on, it will be easy for us to understand that the concept ‘world,’ and everything that refers to the world, is also divided into different categories. The ray of creation establishes seven planes in the world, seven worlds one within another. Everything that refers to the world is also divided into seven categories, one category within another. The materiality of the Absolute is a materiality of an order different from that of ‘all worlds.’ The materiality of ‘all worlds’ is of an order different from the materiality of ‘all suns.’ The materiality of ‘all suns’ is of an order different from the materiality of our sun. The materiality of our sun is of an order different from the materiality of ‘all planets.’ The materiality of ‘all planets’ is of an order different from the materiality of the earth, and the materiality of the earth is of an order different from the materiality of the moon. This idea is at first difficult to grasp. People are accustomed to think that matter is everywhere the same. The whole of physics, of astrophysics, of chemistry, such methods as spectroanalysis, and so on, are based upon this assumption. And it is true that matter is the same, but materiality is different. And different degrees of materiality depend directly upon the qualities and properties of the energy manifested at a given point. Fragments: Five

“For instance, in all the denominations of Christianity a great part is played by the tradition of the Last Supper of Christ and his disciples. Liturgies and a whole series of dogmas, rites, and sacraments are based upon it. This has been a ground for schism, for the separation of churches, for the formation of sects; how many people have perished because they would not accept this or that interpretation of it. But, as a matter of fact, nobody understands what this was precisely, or what was done by Christ and his disciples that evening. There exists no explanation that even approximately resembles the TRUTH, because what is written in the Gospels has been, in the first place, much distorted in being copied and translated; and secondly, it was written for those who know. To those who do not know it can explain nothing, but the more they try to understand it, the deeper they are led into error. Fragments: Five

This lecture and particularly its ending provoked a great deal of talk in our groups. Many were repelled by what G. said about Christ and the Last Supper; others, on the contrary, felt in this a TRUTH which they never could have reached by themselves. Fragments: Five

“The most dangerous thing in this case is to rely on one’s own judg-ment. If a roan is lucky he may at this time have someone near him who can tell him where he is and where ‘Ouspensky’ is. But he must moreover trust this person, because he will undoubtedly think that he understands everything himself and that he knows where he is and where ‘Ouspensky’ is. And not only in relation to himself but in relation also to other people will he think that he knows and sees their ‘Ouspenskys.’ All this is of course self-deception. At this stage a man can see nothing either in rela-tion to himself or to others. The more convinced he is that he can, the more he is mistaken. But if he can be even to a slight extent sincere with himself and really wants to know the TRUTH, then he can find an exact and infallible basis for judging rightly first about himself and then about other people. But the whole point lies in being sincere with oneself. And this is by no means easy. People do not understand that sincerity must be learned. They imagine that to be sincere or not to be sincere depends upon their desire or decision. But how can a man be sincere with himself when in actual fact he sincerely does not see what he ought to see in himself? Someone has to show it to him. And his attitude towards the person who shows him must be a right one, that is, such as will help him to see what is shown him and not, as often happens, hinder him if he begins to think that he already knows better. 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

“Of course not,” said G. “People are very fond of talking about morality. But morality is merely self-suggestion. What is necessary is conscience. We do not teach morality. We teach how to find conscience. People are not pleased when we say this. They say that we have no love. Simply because we do not encourage weakness and hypocrisy but, on the contrary, take off all masks. He who desires the TRUTH will not speak of love or of Christianity because he knows how far he is from these. Christian teaching is for Christians. And Christians are those who live, that is, who do everything, according to Christ’s precepts. Can they who talk of love and morality live according to Christ’s precepts? Of course they cannot; but there will always be talk of this kind, there will always be people to whom words are more precious than anything else. But this is a true sign! He who speaks like this is an empty man; it is not worth while wasting time on him. 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

“Permanent TRUTH and permanent falsehood can exist only for a permanent man. If a man himself continually changes, then for him TRUTH and falsehood will also continually change. And if people are all in different states at every given moment, their conceptions of TRUTH must be as varied as their conceptions of good. A man never notices how he begins to regard as true what yesterday he considered as false and vice versa. He does not notice these transitions just as he does not notice the transitions of his own I’s one into another. 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

“In order to understand the interrelation of TRUTH and falsehood in life a man must understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself. 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

“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

“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

“The next demand which is made of the members of a group is that they must tell the teacher of the group the .whole TRUTH. Fragments: Eleven

“This also must be clearly and properly understood. People do not realize what a big place in their lives is occupied by lying or even if only by the suppression of the TRUTH. People are unable to be sincere either with themselves or with others. They do not even understand that to learn to be sincere when it is necessary is one of the most difficult things on earth. They imagine that to speak or not to speak the TRUTH, to be or not to be sincere, depends upon them. Therefore they have to learn this and learn it first of all in relation to the teacher of the work. Telling the teacher a deliberate lie, or being insincere with him, or suppressing something, makes their presence in the group completely useless and is even worse than being rude or uncivil to him or in his presence. 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

“Speaking in general the most difficult barrier is the conquest of lying. A man lies so much and so constantly both to himself and to others that he ceases to notice it. Nevertheless lying must be conquered. And the first effort required of a man is to conquer lying in relation to the teacher. A man must either decide at once to tell him nothing but the TRUTH, or at once give up the whole thing. Fragments: Eleven

“As I have said already, one of the first demands is sincerity. But there are different kinds of sincerity. There is clever sincerity and there is stupid sincerity, just as there is clever insincerity and stupid insincerity. Both stupid sincerity and stupid insincerity are equally mechanical. But if a man wishes to learn to be cleverly sincere, he must be sincere first of all with his teacher and with people who are senior to him in the work. This will be ‘clever sincerity.’ But here it is necessary to note that sincerity must not become ‘lack of considering.’ Lack of considering in relation to the teacher or in relation to those whom the teacher has appointed, as I have said already, destroys all possibility of any work. If he wishes to learn to be cleverly insincere he must be insincere about the work and he must learn to be silent when he ought to be silent with people outside it, who can neither understand nor appreciate it. But sincerity in the group is an absolute demand, because, if a man continues to lie in the group in the same way as he lies to himself and to others in life, he will never learn to distinguish the TRUTH from a lie. Fragments: Eleven

“This seems to be unjust, but one must understand the law. There is, as it were, a separate account kept for every man. His efforts and sacrifices are written down on one side of the book and his mistakes and misdeeds on the other side. What is written down on the positive side can never atone for what is written down on the negative side. What is recorded on the negative side can only be wiped out by the TRUTH, that is to say, by an instant and complete confession to himself and to others and above all to the teacher. If a man sees his fault but continues to justify himself, a small offense may destroy the result of whole years of work and effort. In the work, therefore, it is often better to admit one’s guilt even when one is not guilty. But this again is a delicate matter and it must not be exaggerated. Otherwise the result will again be lying, and lying prompted by fear.” Fragments: Eleven

‘There are still other categories which are no good but we will speak of them later. In the meantime remember one thing only: A man must be sufficiently disappointed in ordinary ways and he must at the same time think or be able to accept the idea that there may be something — somewhere. If you should speak to such a man, he might discern the flavor of TRUTH in what you say no matter how clumsily you might speak. But if you should speak to a man who is convinced about something else, everything you say will sound absurd to him and he will never even listen to you seriously. It is not worth while wasting time on him. This system is for those who have already sought and have burned themselves. Those who have not sought and who are not seeking do not need it. And those who have not yet burned themselves do not need it either.” Fragments: Twelve

“Wait, there is worse to come,” he said. “Do you understand what this really means? It means that you have stopped lying; at any rate you don’t lie so well, that is, you can no longer lie in so interesting a way as before. He is an interesting man who lies well. But you are already ashamed of lying. You are now able to acknowledge to yourselves sometimes that there is something you do not know or do not understand, and you cannot talk as if you knew all about everything. It means of course that you have become less interesting, less original, and less, as they say, responsive. So now you are really able to see what sort of people your friends are. And on their part they are sorry for you. And in their own way they are right. You have already begun to die.” He emphasized this word. “It is a long way yet to complete death but still a certain amount of silliness is going out of you. You can no longer deceive yourselves as sincerely as you did before. You have now got the taste of TRUTH.” Fragments: Twelve

“You do not understand what it means to be sincere,” said G. “You are so used to lying both to yourselves and to others that you can find neither words nor thoughts when you wish to speak the TRUTH. To tell the complete TRUTH about oneself is very difficult. But before telling it one must know it. And you do not even know what the TRUTH about yourselves consists of. Some day I will tell every one of you his chief feature or chief fault. We shall then see whether you will understand me or not.” Fragments: Twelve

“Very well,” I said, “tell me what you think of recurrence. Is there any TRUTH in this, or none at all. What I mean is: Do we live only this once and then disappear, or does everything repeat and repeat itself, perhaps an endless number of times, only we do not know and do not remember it?” 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

“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

It all started with my beginning to hear his thoughts. We were sitting in a small room with a carpetless wooden floor as it happens in country houses. I sat opposite G., and Dr. S. and Z. at either side. G. spoke of our “features,” of our inability to see or to speak the TRUTH. His words perturbed me very much. And suddenly I noticed that among the words which he was saying to us all there were “thoughts” which were intended for me. I caught one of these thoughts and replied to it, speaking aloud in the ordinary way. G. nodded to me and stopped speaking. There was a fairly long pause. He sat still saying nothing. After a while I heard his voice inside me as it were in the chest near the heart. He put a definite question to me. I looked at him; he was sitting and smiling. His question provoked in me a very strong emotion. But I answered him in the affirmative. Fragments: Thirteen

At the same time G. himself had “completely changed,” had become altogether different from what he used to be before, had become harsh, requiring, had lost all feeling and all interest for individual people, had ceased to demand the TRUTH from people; that he preferred to have round him people such as were afraid to tell him the TRUTH, who were hypocrites, who threw flowers at one another and at the same time spied on the others. Fragments: Thirteen

This was not the only case. I suddenly remembered the attempts we made in the summer to describe our lives and the “intonations” with which we spoke when we tried to hide facts. I realized that here also the whole thing was in the intonations. When a man is chattering or simply waiting for an opportunity to begin he does not notice the intonations of others and is unable to distinguish lies from the TRUTH. But directly he is quiet himself, that is, awakes a little, he hears the different intonations and begins to distinguish other people’s lies. Fragments: Thirteen

“There, you see,” he said, when A. had gone. “He is called a clever man. But he would not have noticed it even if I had taken his trousers off him. Only let him talk. He wants nothing else. And everybody is like that. This one was much better than many others. He told no lies. And he really knew what he talked about, in his own way of course. But think, what use is he? He is no longer young. And perhaps this was the one time in his life when there was an opportunity of hearing the TRUTH. And he talked himself all the time.” Fragments: Thirteen

“But objective knowledge, the idea of unity included, belongs to objective consciousness. The forms which express this knowledge when perceived by subjective consciousness are inevitably distorted and, instead of TRUTH, they create more and more delusions. With objective consciousness it is possible to see and feel the unity of everything. But for subjective consciousness the world is split up into millions of separate and unconnected phenomena. Attempts to connect these phenomena into some sort of system in a scientific or a philosophical way lead to nothing because man cannot reconstruct the idea of the whole starting from separate facts and they cannot divine the principles of the division of the whole without knowing the laws upon which this division is based. Fragments: Fourteen

“From this point of view another formula. Know thyself, is full of particularly deep meaning and is one of the symbols leading to the knowledge of TRUTH. The study of the world and the study of man will assist one another. In studying the world and its laws a man studies himself, and in studying himself he studies the world. In this sense every symbol teaches us something about ourselves. Fragments: Fourteen

“Each one of these systems can serve as a means for transmitting the idea of unity. But in the hands of the incompetent and the ignorant, however full of good intentions, the same symbol becomes an ‘instrument of delusion.’ The reason for this consists in the fact that a symbol can never be taken in a final and definite meaning. In expressing the laws of the unity of endless diversity a symbol itself possesses an endless number of aspects from which it can be examined and it demands from a man approaching it the ability to see it simultaneously from different points of view. Symbols which are transposed into the words of ordinary language become rigid in them, they grow dim and very easily become ‘their own opposites,’ confining the meaning within narrow dogmatic frames, without giving it even the very relative freedom of a logical examination of a subject. The cause of this is in the literal understanding of symbols, in attributing to a symbol a single meaning. The TRUTH is again veiled by an outer covering of lies and to discover it requires immense efforts of negation in which the idea of the symbol itself is lost. It is well known what delusions have arisen from the symbols of religion, of alchemy, and par-ticularly of magic, in those who have taken them literally and only in one meaning. Fragments: Fourteen

“In addition to these there are two lines known in Europe, namely theosophy and so-called Western occultism, which have resulted from a mixture of the fundamental lines. Both lines bear in themselves grains of TRUTH, but neither of them possesses full knowledge and therefore attempts to bring them to practical realization give only negative results. Fragments: Fourteen

“But such pseudo-esoteric systems also play their part in the work and activities of esoteric circles. Namely, they are the intermediaries between humanity which is entirely immersed in the materialistic life and schools which are interested in the education of a certain number of people, as much for the purposes of their own existences as for the purposes of the work of a cosmic character which they may be carrying out. The very idea of esotericism, the idea of initiation, reaches people in most cases through pseudo-esoteric systems and schools; and if there were not these pseudo-esoteric schools the vast majority of humanity would have no possibility whatever of hearing and learning of the existence of anything greater than life because the TRUTH in its pure form would be inaccessible for them. By reason of the many characteristics of man’s being, particularly of the contemporary being, TRUTH can only come to people in the form of a lie — only in this form are they able to accept it; only in this form are they able to digest and assimilate it. Truth undefiled would be, for them, indigestible food. Fragments: Fifteen

“Besides, a grain of TRUTH in an unaltered form is sometimes found in pseudo-esoteric movements, in church religions, in occult and theosophical schools. It may be preserved in their writings, their rituals, their traditions, their conceptions of the hierarchy, their dogmas, and their rules. Fragments: Fifteen

But with all this, one was struck by the striving in her to make the best use even of these last days, to find the TRUTH whose presence she clearly felt but which she was unable to touch. I did not think that I should see her again. But I could not refuse when she asked me for the address of my friends in Paris, for the address of people with whom she would be able to talk about the same things she had talked about with me. And so I had met her again at the Prieuré. We sat in the evening in one of the salons and she spoke in a feeble voice which seemed to come from the void, but it was not unpleasant. Fragments: Eighteen

“I know that this is true and that there is no other TRUTH. You know that I have long since looked upon all of us without exception as people who have suffered shipwreck and have been cast upon an uninhabited island, hut who do not yet know of it. But these people here know it. The others, there, in life, still think that a steamer will come for them tomorrow and that everythingwill go on in the old way. These already know that there will be no more of the old way. I am so glad that I can be here.” Fragments: Eighteen