“The moving center works with ‘hydrogen’ 24. ‘Hydrogen* 24 is many times quicker and more mobile than ‘hydrogen’ 48. The intellectual center is never able to follow the WORK OF THE MOVING CENTER. We are unable to follow either our own movements or other people’s movements unless they are artificially slowed down. Still less are we able to follow the work of the inner, the instinctive functions of our organism, the work of the instinctive mind which constitutes, as it were, one side of the moving center. Fragments: Nine

“The emotional center can work with ‘hydrogen’ 12. In reality, however, it very seldom works with this fine ‘hydrogen.’ And in the majority of cases its work differs little in intensity and speed from the WORK OF THE MOVING CENTER or the instinctive center. Fragments: Nine

“Then work on moving center can only be properly organized in a school. As I have already said, the wrong, independent, or automatic WORK OF THE MOVING CENTER deprives the other centers of support and they involuntarily follow the moving center. Often, therefore, the sole possibility of making the other centers work in a new way is to begin with the moving center; that is with the body. A body which is lazy, automatic, and full of stupid habits stops any kind of work.” 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