Chapter 11 OF PAULS LETTER TO THE HEBEWS
1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Chapter 11
1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
MIND WELL, FAITH HAS 'NOTHING',ABSOLUTELY 'NOTHING', TO DO WITH BELIEF. faith is to belief what joy is to happiness.it is a question of levels.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
a moment of alert tranquility
so, my heartbeat
so, my breathing,
so, the cigarette smoke spirals up towards the ceiling
outside my window,
London, bathed in orange from the street lamps' glow
faintly roaring,
never,
quite,
asleep
so, my breathing,
so, the cigarette smoke spirals up towards the ceiling
outside my window,
London, bathed in orange from the street lamps' glow
faintly roaring,
never,
quite,
asleep
dictated by Mystery to an human being
like a breathing clock
the pendulum swings
next, last, next, last, next.
although it cannot be seen,
only for a moment is the pendulum still
yet the machine dreams, next, last, next, last , next.
the pendulum swings
next, last, next, last, next.
although it cannot be seen,
only for a moment is the pendulum still
yet the machine dreams, next, last, next, last , next.
On Attention and Understanding of "Beelzebub's Tales"
On Attention and Understanding of "Beelzebub's Tales": "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
aphorisms of mr. Gurdjieff
The aphorisms inscribed in a special script above the
walls of the Study House at the Prieure
1. Like what "it" does not like.
2. The highest that a man can attain is to be able to do.
3. The worse the conditions of life the more productive the
work, always provided you remember (the work.
4. Remember yourself always and everywhere.
5. Remember you come here having already understood the
necessity of struggling with yourself—only with yourself.
Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.
6. Here we can only direct and create conditions, but not
help.
7. Know that this house can be useful only to those who have
recognized their nothingness and who believe in the possibility
of changing.
8. If you already know it is bad and do it, you commit a sin
difficult to redress.
9. The chief means of happiness in this life is the ability to
consider externally always, internally never.
10. Do not love art with your feelings.
11. A true sign of a good man is if he loves his father and
mother. __
12. Judge others by yourself and you will rarely be mistaken.
13. Only help him who is not an idler.
14. Respect every religion.
15. I love him who loves work.
16. We can only strive to be able to be Christians.
17. Don't judge a man by the tales' of others.
18. Consider what people think of you—not what they say.
19. Take the understanding of the East and the knowledge of
the West—and then seek.
20. Only he who can take care of what belongs to others may
have his own.
21. Only conscious suffering has any sense.
22. It is better to be temporarily an egoist then never to be
just.
23. Practice love first on animals, they are more sensitive.
24. By teaching others you will learn yourself.
25. Remember that here work is not for work's sake but is
only a means.
26. Only he can be just who is able to put himself in the position
of others.
27. If you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here
is useless.
28. He who has freed himself of the disease of "tomorrow" has
a chance to attain what he came here for.
29. Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none,
but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo.
30. Rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of
sleep.
walls of the Study House at the Prieure
1. Like what "it" does not like.
2. The highest that a man can attain is to be able to do.
3. The worse the conditions of life the more productive the
work, always provided you remember (the work.
4. Remember yourself always and everywhere.
5. Remember you come here having already understood the
necessity of struggling with yourself—only with yourself.
Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.
6. Here we can only direct and create conditions, but not
help.
7. Know that this house can be useful only to those who have
recognized their nothingness and who believe in the possibility
of changing.
8. If you already know it is bad and do it, you commit a sin
difficult to redress.
9. The chief means of happiness in this life is the ability to
consider externally always, internally never.
10. Do not love art with your feelings.
11. A true sign of a good man is if he loves his father and
mother. __
12. Judge others by yourself and you will rarely be mistaken.
13. Only help him who is not an idler.
14. Respect every religion.
15. I love him who loves work.
16. We can only strive to be able to be Christians.
17. Don't judge a man by the tales' of others.
18. Consider what people think of you—not what they say.
19. Take the understanding of the East and the knowledge of
the West—and then seek.
20. Only he who can take care of what belongs to others may
have his own.
21. Only conscious suffering has any sense.
22. It is better to be temporarily an egoist then never to be
just.
23. Practice love first on animals, they are more sensitive.
24. By teaching others you will learn yourself.
25. Remember that here work is not for work's sake but is
only a means.
26. Only he can be just who is able to put himself in the position
of others.
27. If you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here
is useless.
28. He who has freed himself of the disease of "tomorrow" has
a chance to attain what he came here for.
29. Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none,
but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo.
30. Rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of
sleep.
levels of consciousness, from FRAGMENTS
consciousness.
"Neither the psychical nor the physical functions of man can
be understood," he said, "unless the fact has been grasped that they can
both work in different states of consciousness.
"In all there are four states of consciousness possible for man" (he emphasized the word "man"), "But ordinary man, that is, man number one, number two, and number three, lives in the two lowest states of consciousness only. The two higher states of consciousness are inaccessible to him, and although he may have flashes of these states, he is unable to understand them and he judges them from the point of view of those states in which it is usual for him to be.
"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.
"The third state of consciousness is self-remembering or self-consciousness or consciousness of one's being. It is usual to consider that we have this state of consciousness or that we can have it if we want it. Our science and philosophy have overlooked the fact that we do not possess this state of consciousness and that we cannot create it in ourselves by desire or decision alone.
"The fourth state of consciousness is called the objective state of consciousness In this state a man can see things as they are. Flashes of this state of consciousness also occur in man. In the religions of all nations there are indications of the possibility of a state of consciousness of this kind which is called 'enlightenment' and various other names but which cannot be described in words. But the only right way to objective con-sciousness is through the development of self-consciousness. If an ordinary man is artificially brought into a state of objective consciousness and afterwards brought back to his usual state he will remember nothing and he will think that for a time he had lost consciousness. But in the state of self-consciousness a man can have Hashes of objective consciousness and remember them.
"The fourth state of consciousness in man means an altogether different state of being; it is the result of inner growth and of long and difficult work on oneself.
"But the third state of consciousness constitutes the natural right of man as he is, and if man does not possess it, it is only because of the wrong conditions of his life. It can be said without any exaggeration that at the present time the third state of consciousness occurs in man only in the form of very rare flashes and that it can be made more or less permanent in him only by means of special training.
"For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it, that is, that they possess self-consciousness and everything connected with it; individuality in the sense of a permanent and unchangeable I, will, ability to do, and so on. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something which, in his opinion, he already has. On the contrary he will think either that you are mad or that you want to deceive him with a view to personal gain.
"The two higher states of consciousness—'self-consciousness' and 'objective consciousness'—are connected with the functioning of the higher centers in man.
"In addition to those centers of which we have so far spoken there are two other centers in man, the 'higher emotional' and the 'higher thinking.' These centers are in us; they are fully developed and are working all the time, but their work fails to reach our ordinary consciousness. The cause of this lies in the special properties of our socalled 'clear consciousness.'
"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 weshall 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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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. Eventhis, 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.
"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.
"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 selfconscious 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 sleepcompelling 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.
"Neither the psychical nor the physical functions of man can
be understood," he said, "unless the fact has been grasped that they can
both work in different states of consciousness.
"In all there are four states of consciousness possible for man" (he emphasized the word "man"), "But ordinary man, that is, man number one, number two, and number three, lives in the two lowest states of consciousness only. The two higher states of consciousness are inaccessible to him, and although he may have flashes of these states, he is unable to understand them and he judges them from the point of view of those states in which it is usual for him to be.
"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.
"The third state of consciousness is self-remembering or self-consciousness or consciousness of one's being. It is usual to consider that we have this state of consciousness or that we can have it if we want it. Our science and philosophy have overlooked the fact that we do not possess this state of consciousness and that we cannot create it in ourselves by desire or decision alone.
"The fourth state of consciousness is called the objective state of consciousness In this state a man can see things as they are. Flashes of this state of consciousness also occur in man. In the religions of all nations there are indications of the possibility of a state of consciousness of this kind which is called 'enlightenment' and various other names but which cannot be described in words. But the only right way to objective con-sciousness is through the development of self-consciousness. If an ordinary man is artificially brought into a state of objective consciousness and afterwards brought back to his usual state he will remember nothing and he will think that for a time he had lost consciousness. But in the state of self-consciousness a man can have Hashes of objective consciousness and remember them.
"The fourth state of consciousness in man means an altogether different state of being; it is the result of inner growth and of long and difficult work on oneself.
"But the third state of consciousness constitutes the natural right of man as he is, and if man does not possess it, it is only because of the wrong conditions of his life. It can be said without any exaggeration that at the present time the third state of consciousness occurs in man only in the form of very rare flashes and that it can be made more or less permanent in him only by means of special training.
"For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it, that is, that they possess self-consciousness and everything connected with it; individuality in the sense of a permanent and unchangeable I, will, ability to do, and so on. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something which, in his opinion, he already has. On the contrary he will think either that you are mad or that you want to deceive him with a view to personal gain.
"The two higher states of consciousness—'self-consciousness' and 'objective consciousness'—are connected with the functioning of the higher centers in man.
"In addition to those centers of which we have so far spoken there are two other centers in man, the 'higher emotional' and the 'higher thinking.' These centers are in us; they are fully developed and are working all the time, but their work fails to reach our ordinary consciousness. The cause of this lies in the special properties of our socalled 'clear consciousness.'
"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 weshall 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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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. Eventhis, 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.
"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.
"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 selfconscious 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 sleepcompelling 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.
MAN IS A PLURAL BEING
Man is a plural being.
When we speak of ourselves ordinarily, we speak of 'I.' We say, "
'I' did this," " 'I' think this," " 'I' want to do this"—but this is a
mistake.
There is no such 'I,' or rather there are hundreds, thousands
of little I's in every one of us. We are divided in ourselves but
we cannot recognize the plurality of our being except by observation
and study. At one moment it is one 'I that acts, at
the next moment it is another 'I.' It is because the I's in ourselves
are contradictory that we do not function harmoniously.
We live ordinarily with only a very minute part of our functions
and our strength, because we do not recognize that we
are machines, and we do not know the nature and working of
our mechanism. We are machines.
We are governed entirely by external circumstances. All our
actions follow the line of least resistance to the pressure of outside
circumstances.
Try for yourselves: can you govern your emotions? No. You
may try to suppress them or cast out one emotion by another
emotion. But you cannot control it. It controls you. Or you
may decide to do something—your intellectual 'I' may make
such a decision. But when the time comes, to do it, you may
find yourself doing just the opposite.
Man is subject to many influences, which can be divided into
two categories. First, those which result from chemical and
physical causes, and second, those which are associative in origin
and are a result of our conditioning.
Chemico-physical influences are material in nature and result
from the mixture of two substances which produce something
new. They arise independently of us. They act from
without.
For example, someone's emanations may combine with mine
—the mixture produces something new. And this is true not
only of external emanations; the same thing also happens inside
a man.
You perhaps have noticed that you feel at ease or ill at ease
when someone is sitting close to you. When there is no accord,
we feel ill at ease.
Each man has different kinds of emanations, with their own ,
laws, allowing of various combinations. ;
Emanations of one center form various combinations with
emanations of another center. This kind of combination is '
chemical. Emanations vary, even depending on whether I had
tea or coffee.
Associative influences are quite different. If someone pushes
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me or weeps, the resulting action on me is mechanical. It
touches off some memory and this memory or association gives
rise in me to other associations, and so on. Owing to this shock
my feelings, my thoughts change. Such a process is not chemical
but mechanical.
These two kinds of influences come from things that are
near to us. But there are also other influences which come
from big things, from the earth, from the planets and from the
sun, where laws of a different order operate. At the same time
there are many influences of these great entities which cannot
reach us if we are wholly under the influence of small things.
First, to speak about chemico-physical influences. I said that
man has several centers. I spoke about the -carriage, the horse
and the driver, and also about the shafts, the reins and the
ether. Everything has its emanations and its atmosphere. The
nature of each atmosphere is different from others because
each has a different origin, each has different properties, and a
different content. They are similar to one another, but the vibrations
of their matter differ.
The carriage, our body, has an atmosphere with its own special
properties.
My feelings also produce an atmosphere, the emanations of
which may go a long way.
When I think as a result of my associations, the result is emanations
of a third kind.
When there is a passenger instead of an empty place in the
carriage, emanations are also different, distinct from the emanations
of the driver. The passenger is not a country bumpkin;
he thinks of philosophy and not about whiskey.
Thus every man may have four kinds of emanations, but not
necessarily. Of some emanations he may have more, of others
less. People are different in this respect; and one and the same
man may also be different at different times. I had coffee but
he hadn't—the atmosphere is different. I smoke but she sighs.
There is always interaction, at times bad for me, at other
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times good. Every minute I am this or that, and around me it
is so or so. And the influences inside me also vary. I can
change nothing. I am a slave. These influences I call chemicophysical.
Associative influences, on the other hand, are quite different.
Let us take first the associative influences on me of "form."
Form influences me. I am accustomed to see a particular
form, and when it is absent I am afraid. Form gives the initial
shock to my associations. For example, beauty is also form. In
reality we cannot see form as it is, we only see an image.
The second of these associative influences is my feelings, my
sympathies or antipathies.
Your feelings affect me, my feelings react correspondingly.
But sometimes it happens the other way round. It depends on
the combinations. Either you influence me or I influence you.
This influence may be called "relationship."
The third of these associative influences may be called "persuasion"
or "suggestion." For example, one man persuades another
with words. One persuades you, you persuade another.
Everybody persuades, everybody suggests.
The fourth of these associative influences is the superiority
of one man over another. Here there may be no influence of
form or feeling. You may know that a given man is more
clever, wealthier, can talk about certain things; in a word, possesses
something special, some authority. This affects you because
it is superior to you, and it happens without any feelings.
So these are eight kinds of influences. Half of them are
chemico-physical, the other half associative.
In addition there exist other influences which affect us most
seriously. Every moment of our life, every feeling and thought
is colored by planetary influences. To these influences also we
are slaves.
I shall dwell only briefly on this aspect and shall then return
to the main subject. Don't forget what we have been speaking
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about. Most people are inconsistent and constantly stray from
the subject.
The earth and all other planets are in constant motion, each
with a different velocity. Sometimes they approach one another,
at other times they recede from one another. Their mutual
interaction is thus intensified or weakened, or even ceases
altogether. Generally speaking, planetary influences on the
earth alternate; now one planet acts, now another, now a
third, and so on. Some day we shall examine the influence of
each planet separately, but at present, in order to give you a
general idea, we shall take them in their totality.
Schematically we can picture these influences in the following
way. Imagine a big wheel, hanging upright above the
earth, with seven or nine enormous colored spotlights fixed
round the rim. The wheel revolves, and the light of now one
and now another projector is directed toward the earth—thus
the earth is always colored by the light of the particular
projector which illuminates it at a given moment.
All beings born on earth are colored by the light prevailing
at the moment of birth, and keep this color throughout life.
Just as no effect can be without cause, so no cause can be
without effect. And indeed planets have a tremendous influence
both on the life of mankind in general and on the life of
every individual man. It is a great mistake of modern science
not to recognize this influence. On the other hand this influence
is not so great as modern "astrologers" would have us believe.
Man is a product of the interaction of three kinds of matter:
positive (atmosphere of the earth), negative (minerals, metals)
and a third combination, planetary influences, which comes
from outside and meets these two matters. This neutralizing
force is the planetary influence which colors each newly born
life. This coloring remains for the whole of its existence. If the
color was red, then when this life meets with red it feels in
correspondence with it.
Page 258
Certain combinations of colors have a calming effect, others
a disturbing effect. Each color has its own peculiar property.
There is a law in this; it depends on chemical differences.
There are, so to speak, congenial and uncongenial combinations.
For instance, red stimulates anger, blue awakens love.
Pugnacity corresponds to yellow. Thus if I am apt to lose my
temper suddenly, this is due to the influence of the planets
It does not mean that you or I are actually like that, but we
may be. There may be stronger influences. Sometimes another
influence acts from within and prevents you from feeling the
external influence; you may have such a strong preoccupation
that you are, as it were, encased in armor. And this is so not
only with planetary influences. Often a distant influence cannot
reach you. The more remote the influence, the weaker it is.
And even if it were specially sent to you, it might not reach
you because your armor would prevent it.
The more developed a man is, the more he is subject to influences.
Sometimes, wishing to free ourselves from influences,
we get free of one and fall under many others and so become
even less free, even more slaves.
We have spoken of nine influences.
Always everything influences us. Every thought, feeling,
movement is a result of one or another influence. Everything
we do, all our manifestations are what they are because something
influences us from without. Sometimes this slavery humiliates
us, sometimes not; it depends on what we like. We are
also under many influences which we share in common with
animals. We may want to get free from one or two, but having
got free of them we may acquire another ten. On the other
hand we do have some choice, that is, we can keep some and
free ourselves of others. It is possible to become free of two
kinds of influences.
To free oneself of chemico-physical influences, one has to be
passive. I repeat, these are the influences which are due to the
emanations of the atmosphere of the body, of feeling, of
Page 259
thought, and in some people also of ether. To be able to resist
these influences one has to be passive. Then one can become a
little freer of them. The law of attraction operates here. Like
attracts like. That is, everything goes toward the place where
there is more of the same kind. To him who has much, more is
given. From him who has little, even that is taken away.
If I am calm, my emanations are heavy so other emanations
come to me and I can absorb them, as much as I have room
for. But if I am agitated I have not enough emanations, for
they are going out to others.
If emanations come to me, they occupy empty places, for
they are necessary where there is a vacuum.
Emanations remain where there is calm, where there is no
friction, where there is an empty place. If there is no room, if
everything is full, emanations may hit against me but they rebound
or pass by. If I am calm, I have an empty place so I can
receive them; but if I am full they do not trouble me. So I am
ensured in either case.
To become free of influences of the second, that is, the associative
kind, requires an artificial struggle. Here the law of repulsion
acts. This law consists in the fact that where there is
little, more is added, that is, it is the reverse of the first law.
With influences of this kind everything proceeds according to
the law of repulsion.
So for freeing oneself from influences there are two separate
principles for the two different kinds of influences. If you want
to be free you must know which principle to apply in every
particular case. If you apply repulsion where attraction is
needed, you will be lost. Many do the reverse of what is required.
It is very easy to discriminate between these two influences;
it can be done at once.
In the case of other influences one has to know a great deal.
But these two kinds of influences are simple; everyone, if he
takes the trouble to look, can see what kind of influence it is.
But some people, although they know that emanations exist,
don't know the difference between them. Yet, it is easy to dis-
Page 260
tinguish emanations if one observes them closely. It is very interesting
to embark upon such a study; every day one obtains
greater results, one acquires a taste for discrimination. But it is
very difficult to explain it theoretically.
It is impossible to obtain a result immediately, and become
free from these influences at once. But study and discrimination
are possible for everyone.
Change is a distant goal, requiring much time and labor.
But study does not take much time. Still, if you prepare yourselves
for the change, it will be less difficult, you won't need to
waste time on discrimination.
To study the second or associative kind of influence is easier
in practice. For instance, take influence through form. Either
you or I influence the other. But form is external: movements,
clothes, cleanliness or otherwise—what is generally called the
"mask." If you understand, you can easily change it. For example,
he likes you in black and, through that, you can influence
him. Or she can influence you. But do you wish to change
your dress only for him or for many? Some want to do it only
for him, others not. Sometimes a compromise is necessary.
Never take anything literally. I say this only as an example.
As regards the second kind of associative influence, what we
have called feeling and relationship, we should know that the
attitude of others toward us depends on us. In order to live intelligently,
it is very important to understand that the-responsibility
for almost every good or bad feeling lies in you, in your
outer and inner attitude. The attitude of other people often reflects
your own attitude: you begin and the other person does
the same. You love, she loves. You are cross, she is cross. It is a
law—you receive what you give.
But sometimes it is different. Sometimes one should love one
and not love another. Sometimes if you like her she does not
like you, but as soon as you cease to like her she begins to like
you. This is due to chemico-physical laws.
Everything is the result of three forces; everywhere there is af-
Page 261
firmation and negation, cathode and anode. Man, earth,
everything is like a magnet. The difference is only in the quantity
of emanations. Everywhere two forces are at work, one attracting,
another repelling. As I said, man is also a magnet.
The right hand pushes, the left hand pulls, or vice versa. Some
things have many emanations, some less, but everything attracts
or repels. Always there is push and pull, or pull and
push. When you have your push and pull well-balanced with
another, then you have love and right adjustment. Therefore
results may be very different. If I push and he pulls correspondingly,
or if the same thing is done not correspondingly,
the result is different. Sometimes both he and I repulse. If
there is a certain correspondence, the resulting influence is
calming. If not, it is the reverse.
One thing depends on another. For instance, I cannot be
calm; I push and he pulls. Or I cannot be calm if I cannot alter
the situation. But we can attempt some adjustment. There is a
law that after a push there is a pause. We can use this pause if
we can prolong it and not rush forward to the next push. If we
can be quiet, then we can take advantage of the vibrations
which follow a push.
Everyone can stop for there is a law that everything moves
only so long as momentum lasts. Then it stops. Either he or I
can stop it. Everything happens in this way. A shock to the
brain, and vibrations start. Vibrations go on by momentum,
similar to rings on the surface of water if a stone is thrown in.
If the impact is strong, a long time elapses before the movement
subsides. The same happens with vibrations in the brain.
If I don't continue to give shocks, they stop, quiet down. One
should learn to stop them.
If I act consciously, the interaction will be conscious. If I act
unconsciously, everything will be the result of what I am sending
out.
I affirm something; then he begins to deny it. I say this is
black; he knows it is black but is inclined to argue and begins
to assert that it is white. If I deliberately agree with him, he
Page 262
will turn around and affirm what he denied before. He cannot
agree because every shock provokes in him the opposite. If he
grows tired he may agree externally, but not internally. For
example, I see you, I like your face. This new shock, stronger
than the conversation, makes me agree externally. Sometimes
you already believe but you continue to argue.
It is very interesting to observe other people's conversation,
if one is oneself out of it. It is much more interesting than the
cinema. Sometimes two people speak of the same thing: one
affirms something, another does not understand, but argues,
although he is of the same opinion.
Everything is mechanical.
About relationships, it can be formulated like this: our external
relationships depend on us. We can change them if we
take the necessary measures.
The third kind of influence, suggestion, is very powerful.
Every person is under the influence of suggestion; one person
suggests to another. Many suggestions occur very easily, espe
cially if we don't know that we are being exposed to suggestion.
But even if we do know, suggestions penetrate.
It is very important to understand one law. As a rule, at
every moment of our life only one center works in us—either
mind or feeling. Our feeling is of one kind when another center
is not looking on, when the ability to criticize is absent. By
itself a center has no consciousness, no memory; it is a chunk
of a particular kind of meat without salt, an organ, a certain
combination of substances which merely possesses a special capacity
of recording.
Indeed it greatly resembles the coating of a recording tape.
If I say something to it, it can later repeat it. It is completely
mechanical, organically mechanical. All centers differ slightly
as to their substance, but their properties are the same.
Now, if I say to one center that you are beautiful, it believes
it. If I tell it that this is red—it also believes. But it does not
understand—its understanding is quite subjective. Later, if I
Page 263
ask it a question, it repeats in reply what I have said. It will
not change in a hundred, in a thousand years—it will always
remain the same. Our mind has no critical faculty in itself, no
consciousness, nothing. And all the other centers are the same.
What then is our consciousness, our memory, our critical
faculty? It's very simple. It is when one center specially
watches another, when it sees and feels what is going on there
and, seeing it, records it all within itself.
It receives new impressions, and later, if we wish to know
what happened the previous time, if we ask and search in another
center, we will be able to find what: has taken place in
the first center. It is the same with our critical faculty—one
center watches another. With one center we know that this
thing is red, but another center sees it as blue. One center is
always trying to 'persuade another. This is what criticism is.
If two centers go on for a long time disagreeing about something,
this disagreement hinders us in thinking about it further.
If another center is not watching, the first continues to think
as it did originally. We very seldom watch one center from another,
only sometimes, perhaps one minute a day. When we
sleep we never look at one center from another, we do so only
sometimes when we are awake.
In the majority of cases each center lives its own life. It believes
everything it hears, without criticism, and records
everything as it has heard it. If it hears something it has heard
before, it simply records. If something it hears is incorrect, for
instance, something was red before and is blue now, it resists,
not because it wants to find out what is right but simply because
it does not immediately believe. But it does believe, it
believes everything. If something is different, it only needs
time for perceptions to settle down. If another center is not
watching at the moment, it puts blue over red. And so blue
and red remain together and later, when we read the records,
it begins to answer: "red." But "blue" is just as likely to pop
out.
Page 264
It is possible for us to ensure a critical perception of new material
if we take care that, during perception, another center
should stand by and perceive this material from aside. Supposing
I now say something new. If you listen to me with one
center, there will be nothing new for you in what I am saying;
you need to listen differently. Otherwise as there was nothing
before, so there will be nothing now. The value will be the
same: blue will be red, or vice versa, and again there will be
no knowledge. Blue may become yellow.
If you wish to hear new things in a new way, you must listen
in a new way. This is necessary not only in the work but
also in life. You can become a little more free in life, more secure,
if you begin to be interested in all new things and remember
them by new methods. This new method can be understood
easily. It would no longer be wholly automatic but
semi-automatic. This new method consists in the following:
when thought is already there, try to feel. When you feel
something, try to direct your thoughts on your feeling. Up to
now, thought and feeling have been separated.
Begin to watch your mind: feel what you think. Prepare for
tomorrow and safeguard yourselves from deceit. Speaking generally,
you will never understand what I wish to convey if you
merely listen.
Take all you already know, all you have read, all you have
seen, all you have been shown—I am certain that you understand
nothing of it. Even if you ask yourselves sincerely, do
you understand why two and two make four, you will find that
you are not sure even of that. You only heard someone else say
so, and you repeat what you have heard. And not only in questions
of daily life, but also in higher serious matters, you understand
nothing. All that you have is not yours.
You have a garbage can and, until now, you have been
dumping things into it. There are many precious things in it
which you could make use of. There are specialists who collect
all kinds of refuse from garbage cans; some make a lot of
Page 265
money this way. In your garbage cans you have enough material
to understand everything. If you understand, you will
know everything. There is no need to gather more into this
garbage can—everything is there. But there is no understanding—
the place of understanding is quite empty.
You may have a great deal of money that does not belong to
you, but you would be better off to have far less, even a
hundred dollars that is your own, but nothing you have is
yours.
A large idea should be taken only with large understanding.
For us, small ideas are all we are capable of understanding—if
even these. Generally it is better to have a little thing inside
than something big outside.
Do it very slowly. You can take anything you like and think
about it, but think in a different way than you have thought
before.iberation leads
When we speak of ourselves ordinarily, we speak of 'I.' We say, "
'I' did this," " 'I' think this," " 'I' want to do this"—but this is a
mistake.
There is no such 'I,' or rather there are hundreds, thousands
of little I's in every one of us. We are divided in ourselves but
we cannot recognize the plurality of our being except by observation
and study. At one moment it is one 'I that acts, at
the next moment it is another 'I.' It is because the I's in ourselves
are contradictory that we do not function harmoniously.
We live ordinarily with only a very minute part of our functions
and our strength, because we do not recognize that we
are machines, and we do not know the nature and working of
our mechanism. We are machines.
We are governed entirely by external circumstances. All our
actions follow the line of least resistance to the pressure of outside
circumstances.
Try for yourselves: can you govern your emotions? No. You
may try to suppress them or cast out one emotion by another
emotion. But you cannot control it. It controls you. Or you
may decide to do something—your intellectual 'I' may make
such a decision. But when the time comes, to do it, you may
find yourself doing just the opposite.
Man is subject to many influences, which can be divided into
two categories. First, those which result from chemical and
physical causes, and second, those which are associative in origin
and are a result of our conditioning.
Chemico-physical influences are material in nature and result
from the mixture of two substances which produce something
new. They arise independently of us. They act from
without.
For example, someone's emanations may combine with mine
—the mixture produces something new. And this is true not
only of external emanations; the same thing also happens inside
a man.
You perhaps have noticed that you feel at ease or ill at ease
when someone is sitting close to you. When there is no accord,
we feel ill at ease.
Each man has different kinds of emanations, with their own ,
laws, allowing of various combinations. ;
Emanations of one center form various combinations with
emanations of another center. This kind of combination is '
chemical. Emanations vary, even depending on whether I had
tea or coffee.
Associative influences are quite different. If someone pushes
Page 255
me or weeps, the resulting action on me is mechanical. It
touches off some memory and this memory or association gives
rise in me to other associations, and so on. Owing to this shock
my feelings, my thoughts change. Such a process is not chemical
but mechanical.
These two kinds of influences come from things that are
near to us. But there are also other influences which come
from big things, from the earth, from the planets and from the
sun, where laws of a different order operate. At the same time
there are many influences of these great entities which cannot
reach us if we are wholly under the influence of small things.
First, to speak about chemico-physical influences. I said that
man has several centers. I spoke about the -carriage, the horse
and the driver, and also about the shafts, the reins and the
ether. Everything has its emanations and its atmosphere. The
nature of each atmosphere is different from others because
each has a different origin, each has different properties, and a
different content. They are similar to one another, but the vibrations
of their matter differ.
The carriage, our body, has an atmosphere with its own special
properties.
My feelings also produce an atmosphere, the emanations of
which may go a long way.
When I think as a result of my associations, the result is emanations
of a third kind.
When there is a passenger instead of an empty place in the
carriage, emanations are also different, distinct from the emanations
of the driver. The passenger is not a country bumpkin;
he thinks of philosophy and not about whiskey.
Thus every man may have four kinds of emanations, but not
necessarily. Of some emanations he may have more, of others
less. People are different in this respect; and one and the same
man may also be different at different times. I had coffee but
he hadn't—the atmosphere is different. I smoke but she sighs.
There is always interaction, at times bad for me, at other
Page 256
times good. Every minute I am this or that, and around me it
is so or so. And the influences inside me also vary. I can
change nothing. I am a slave. These influences I call chemicophysical.
Associative influences, on the other hand, are quite different.
Let us take first the associative influences on me of "form."
Form influences me. I am accustomed to see a particular
form, and when it is absent I am afraid. Form gives the initial
shock to my associations. For example, beauty is also form. In
reality we cannot see form as it is, we only see an image.
The second of these associative influences is my feelings, my
sympathies or antipathies.
Your feelings affect me, my feelings react correspondingly.
But sometimes it happens the other way round. It depends on
the combinations. Either you influence me or I influence you.
This influence may be called "relationship."
The third of these associative influences may be called "persuasion"
or "suggestion." For example, one man persuades another
with words. One persuades you, you persuade another.
Everybody persuades, everybody suggests.
The fourth of these associative influences is the superiority
of one man over another. Here there may be no influence of
form or feeling. You may know that a given man is more
clever, wealthier, can talk about certain things; in a word, possesses
something special, some authority. This affects you because
it is superior to you, and it happens without any feelings.
So these are eight kinds of influences. Half of them are
chemico-physical, the other half associative.
In addition there exist other influences which affect us most
seriously. Every moment of our life, every feeling and thought
is colored by planetary influences. To these influences also we
are slaves.
I shall dwell only briefly on this aspect and shall then return
to the main subject. Don't forget what we have been speaking
Page 257
about. Most people are inconsistent and constantly stray from
the subject.
The earth and all other planets are in constant motion, each
with a different velocity. Sometimes they approach one another,
at other times they recede from one another. Their mutual
interaction is thus intensified or weakened, or even ceases
altogether. Generally speaking, planetary influences on the
earth alternate; now one planet acts, now another, now a
third, and so on. Some day we shall examine the influence of
each planet separately, but at present, in order to give you a
general idea, we shall take them in their totality.
Schematically we can picture these influences in the following
way. Imagine a big wheel, hanging upright above the
earth, with seven or nine enormous colored spotlights fixed
round the rim. The wheel revolves, and the light of now one
and now another projector is directed toward the earth—thus
the earth is always colored by the light of the particular
projector which illuminates it at a given moment.
All beings born on earth are colored by the light prevailing
at the moment of birth, and keep this color throughout life.
Just as no effect can be without cause, so no cause can be
without effect. And indeed planets have a tremendous influence
both on the life of mankind in general and on the life of
every individual man. It is a great mistake of modern science
not to recognize this influence. On the other hand this influence
is not so great as modern "astrologers" would have us believe.
Man is a product of the interaction of three kinds of matter:
positive (atmosphere of the earth), negative (minerals, metals)
and a third combination, planetary influences, which comes
from outside and meets these two matters. This neutralizing
force is the planetary influence which colors each newly born
life. This coloring remains for the whole of its existence. If the
color was red, then when this life meets with red it feels in
correspondence with it.
Page 258
Certain combinations of colors have a calming effect, others
a disturbing effect. Each color has its own peculiar property.
There is a law in this; it depends on chemical differences.
There are, so to speak, congenial and uncongenial combinations.
For instance, red stimulates anger, blue awakens love.
Pugnacity corresponds to yellow. Thus if I am apt to lose my
temper suddenly, this is due to the influence of the planets
It does not mean that you or I are actually like that, but we
may be. There may be stronger influences. Sometimes another
influence acts from within and prevents you from feeling the
external influence; you may have such a strong preoccupation
that you are, as it were, encased in armor. And this is so not
only with planetary influences. Often a distant influence cannot
reach you. The more remote the influence, the weaker it is.
And even if it were specially sent to you, it might not reach
you because your armor would prevent it.
The more developed a man is, the more he is subject to influences.
Sometimes, wishing to free ourselves from influences,
we get free of one and fall under many others and so become
even less free, even more slaves.
We have spoken of nine influences.
Always everything influences us. Every thought, feeling,
movement is a result of one or another influence. Everything
we do, all our manifestations are what they are because something
influences us from without. Sometimes this slavery humiliates
us, sometimes not; it depends on what we like. We are
also under many influences which we share in common with
animals. We may want to get free from one or two, but having
got free of them we may acquire another ten. On the other
hand we do have some choice, that is, we can keep some and
free ourselves of others. It is possible to become free of two
kinds of influences.
To free oneself of chemico-physical influences, one has to be
passive. I repeat, these are the influences which are due to the
emanations of the atmosphere of the body, of feeling, of
Page 259
thought, and in some people also of ether. To be able to resist
these influences one has to be passive. Then one can become a
little freer of them. The law of attraction operates here. Like
attracts like. That is, everything goes toward the place where
there is more of the same kind. To him who has much, more is
given. From him who has little, even that is taken away.
If I am calm, my emanations are heavy so other emanations
come to me and I can absorb them, as much as I have room
for. But if I am agitated I have not enough emanations, for
they are going out to others.
If emanations come to me, they occupy empty places, for
they are necessary where there is a vacuum.
Emanations remain where there is calm, where there is no
friction, where there is an empty place. If there is no room, if
everything is full, emanations may hit against me but they rebound
or pass by. If I am calm, I have an empty place so I can
receive them; but if I am full they do not trouble me. So I am
ensured in either case.
To become free of influences of the second, that is, the associative
kind, requires an artificial struggle. Here the law of repulsion
acts. This law consists in the fact that where there is
little, more is added, that is, it is the reverse of the first law.
With influences of this kind everything proceeds according to
the law of repulsion.
So for freeing oneself from influences there are two separate
principles for the two different kinds of influences. If you want
to be free you must know which principle to apply in every
particular case. If you apply repulsion where attraction is
needed, you will be lost. Many do the reverse of what is required.
It is very easy to discriminate between these two influences;
it can be done at once.
In the case of other influences one has to know a great deal.
But these two kinds of influences are simple; everyone, if he
takes the trouble to look, can see what kind of influence it is.
But some people, although they know that emanations exist,
don't know the difference between them. Yet, it is easy to dis-
Page 260
tinguish emanations if one observes them closely. It is very interesting
to embark upon such a study; every day one obtains
greater results, one acquires a taste for discrimination. But it is
very difficult to explain it theoretically.
It is impossible to obtain a result immediately, and become
free from these influences at once. But study and discrimination
are possible for everyone.
Change is a distant goal, requiring much time and labor.
But study does not take much time. Still, if you prepare yourselves
for the change, it will be less difficult, you won't need to
waste time on discrimination.
To study the second or associative kind of influence is easier
in practice. For instance, take influence through form. Either
you or I influence the other. But form is external: movements,
clothes, cleanliness or otherwise—what is generally called the
"mask." If you understand, you can easily change it. For example,
he likes you in black and, through that, you can influence
him. Or she can influence you. But do you wish to change
your dress only for him or for many? Some want to do it only
for him, others not. Sometimes a compromise is necessary.
Never take anything literally. I say this only as an example.
As regards the second kind of associative influence, what we
have called feeling and relationship, we should know that the
attitude of others toward us depends on us. In order to live intelligently,
it is very important to understand that the-responsibility
for almost every good or bad feeling lies in you, in your
outer and inner attitude. The attitude of other people often reflects
your own attitude: you begin and the other person does
the same. You love, she loves. You are cross, she is cross. It is a
law—you receive what you give.
But sometimes it is different. Sometimes one should love one
and not love another. Sometimes if you like her she does not
like you, but as soon as you cease to like her she begins to like
you. This is due to chemico-physical laws.
Everything is the result of three forces; everywhere there is af-
Page 261
firmation and negation, cathode and anode. Man, earth,
everything is like a magnet. The difference is only in the quantity
of emanations. Everywhere two forces are at work, one attracting,
another repelling. As I said, man is also a magnet.
The right hand pushes, the left hand pulls, or vice versa. Some
things have many emanations, some less, but everything attracts
or repels. Always there is push and pull, or pull and
push. When you have your push and pull well-balanced with
another, then you have love and right adjustment. Therefore
results may be very different. If I push and he pulls correspondingly,
or if the same thing is done not correspondingly,
the result is different. Sometimes both he and I repulse. If
there is a certain correspondence, the resulting influence is
calming. If not, it is the reverse.
One thing depends on another. For instance, I cannot be
calm; I push and he pulls. Or I cannot be calm if I cannot alter
the situation. But we can attempt some adjustment. There is a
law that after a push there is a pause. We can use this pause if
we can prolong it and not rush forward to the next push. If we
can be quiet, then we can take advantage of the vibrations
which follow a push.
Everyone can stop for there is a law that everything moves
only so long as momentum lasts. Then it stops. Either he or I
can stop it. Everything happens in this way. A shock to the
brain, and vibrations start. Vibrations go on by momentum,
similar to rings on the surface of water if a stone is thrown in.
If the impact is strong, a long time elapses before the movement
subsides. The same happens with vibrations in the brain.
If I don't continue to give shocks, they stop, quiet down. One
should learn to stop them.
If I act consciously, the interaction will be conscious. If I act
unconsciously, everything will be the result of what I am sending
out.
I affirm something; then he begins to deny it. I say this is
black; he knows it is black but is inclined to argue and begins
to assert that it is white. If I deliberately agree with him, he
Page 262
will turn around and affirm what he denied before. He cannot
agree because every shock provokes in him the opposite. If he
grows tired he may agree externally, but not internally. For
example, I see you, I like your face. This new shock, stronger
than the conversation, makes me agree externally. Sometimes
you already believe but you continue to argue.
It is very interesting to observe other people's conversation,
if one is oneself out of it. It is much more interesting than the
cinema. Sometimes two people speak of the same thing: one
affirms something, another does not understand, but argues,
although he is of the same opinion.
Everything is mechanical.
About relationships, it can be formulated like this: our external
relationships depend on us. We can change them if we
take the necessary measures.
The third kind of influence, suggestion, is very powerful.
Every person is under the influence of suggestion; one person
suggests to another. Many suggestions occur very easily, espe
cially if we don't know that we are being exposed to suggestion.
But even if we do know, suggestions penetrate.
It is very important to understand one law. As a rule, at
every moment of our life only one center works in us—either
mind or feeling. Our feeling is of one kind when another center
is not looking on, when the ability to criticize is absent. By
itself a center has no consciousness, no memory; it is a chunk
of a particular kind of meat without salt, an organ, a certain
combination of substances which merely possesses a special capacity
of recording.
Indeed it greatly resembles the coating of a recording tape.
If I say something to it, it can later repeat it. It is completely
mechanical, organically mechanical. All centers differ slightly
as to their substance, but their properties are the same.
Now, if I say to one center that you are beautiful, it believes
it. If I tell it that this is red—it also believes. But it does not
understand—its understanding is quite subjective. Later, if I
Page 263
ask it a question, it repeats in reply what I have said. It will
not change in a hundred, in a thousand years—it will always
remain the same. Our mind has no critical faculty in itself, no
consciousness, nothing. And all the other centers are the same.
What then is our consciousness, our memory, our critical
faculty? It's very simple. It is when one center specially
watches another, when it sees and feels what is going on there
and, seeing it, records it all within itself.
It receives new impressions, and later, if we wish to know
what happened the previous time, if we ask and search in another
center, we will be able to find what: has taken place in
the first center. It is the same with our critical faculty—one
center watches another. With one center we know that this
thing is red, but another center sees it as blue. One center is
always trying to 'persuade another. This is what criticism is.
If two centers go on for a long time disagreeing about something,
this disagreement hinders us in thinking about it further.
If another center is not watching, the first continues to think
as it did originally. We very seldom watch one center from another,
only sometimes, perhaps one minute a day. When we
sleep we never look at one center from another, we do so only
sometimes when we are awake.
In the majority of cases each center lives its own life. It believes
everything it hears, without criticism, and records
everything as it has heard it. If it hears something it has heard
before, it simply records. If something it hears is incorrect, for
instance, something was red before and is blue now, it resists,
not because it wants to find out what is right but simply because
it does not immediately believe. But it does believe, it
believes everything. If something is different, it only needs
time for perceptions to settle down. If another center is not
watching at the moment, it puts blue over red. And so blue
and red remain together and later, when we read the records,
it begins to answer: "red." But "blue" is just as likely to pop
out.
Page 264
It is possible for us to ensure a critical perception of new material
if we take care that, during perception, another center
should stand by and perceive this material from aside. Supposing
I now say something new. If you listen to me with one
center, there will be nothing new for you in what I am saying;
you need to listen differently. Otherwise as there was nothing
before, so there will be nothing now. The value will be the
same: blue will be red, or vice versa, and again there will be
no knowledge. Blue may become yellow.
If you wish to hear new things in a new way, you must listen
in a new way. This is necessary not only in the work but
also in life. You can become a little more free in life, more secure,
if you begin to be interested in all new things and remember
them by new methods. This new method can be understood
easily. It would no longer be wholly automatic but
semi-automatic. This new method consists in the following:
when thought is already there, try to feel. When you feel
something, try to direct your thoughts on your feeling. Up to
now, thought and feeling have been separated.
Begin to watch your mind: feel what you think. Prepare for
tomorrow and safeguard yourselves from deceit. Speaking generally,
you will never understand what I wish to convey if you
merely listen.
Take all you already know, all you have read, all you have
seen, all you have been shown—I am certain that you understand
nothing of it. Even if you ask yourselves sincerely, do
you understand why two and two make four, you will find that
you are not sure even of that. You only heard someone else say
so, and you repeat what you have heard. And not only in questions
of daily life, but also in higher serious matters, you understand
nothing. All that you have is not yours.
You have a garbage can and, until now, you have been
dumping things into it. There are many precious things in it
which you could make use of. There are specialists who collect
all kinds of refuse from garbage cans; some make a lot of
Page 265
money this way. In your garbage cans you have enough material
to understand everything. If you understand, you will
know everything. There is no need to gather more into this
garbage can—everything is there. But there is no understanding—
the place of understanding is quite empty.
You may have a great deal of money that does not belong to
you, but you would be better off to have far less, even a
hundred dollars that is your own, but nothing you have is
yours.
A large idea should be taken only with large understanding.
For us, small ideas are all we are capable of understanding—if
even these. Generally it is better to have a little thing inside
than something big outside.
Do it very slowly. You can take anything you like and think
about it, but think in a different way than you have thought
before.iberation leads
Chapter Eight
AT ONE of the following lectures G. returned to the question of
consciousness.
"Neither the psychical nor the physical functions of man can
be understood," he said, "unless the fact has been grasped that they can
both work in different states of consciousness.
"In all there are four states of consciousness possible for man" (he emphasized the word "man"), "But ordinary man, that is, man number one, number two, and number three, lives in the two lowest states of consciousness only. The two higher states of consciousness are inaccessible to him, and although he may have flashes of these states, he is unable to understand them and he judges them from the point of view of those states in which it is usual for him to be.
"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.
"The third state of consciousness is self-remembering or self-consciousness or consciousness of one's being. It is usual to consider that we have this state of consciousness or that we can have it if we want it. Our science and philosophy have overlooked the fact that we do not possess this state of consciousness and that we cannot create it in ourselves by desire or decision alone.
"The fourth state of consciousness is called the objective state of consciousness In this state a man can see things as they are. Flashes of this state of consciousness also occur in man. In the religions of all nations there are indications of the possibility of a state of consciousness of this kind which is called 'enlightenment' and various other names but which cannot be described in words. But the only right way to objective con-sciousness is through the development of self-consciousness. If an ordinary man is artificially brought into a state of objective consciousness and afterwards brought back to his usual state he will remember nothing and he will think that for a time he had lost consciousness. But in the state of self-consciousness a man can have Hashes of objective consciousness and remember them.
"The fourth state of consciousness in man means an altogether different state of being; it is the result of inner growth and of long and difficult work on oneself.
"But the third state of consciousness constitutes the natural right of man as he is, and if man does not possess it, it is only because of the wrong conditions of his life. It can be said without any exaggeration that at the present time the third state of consciousness occurs in man only in the form of very rare flashes and that it can be made more or less permanent in him only by means of special training.
"For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it, that is, that they possess self-consciousness and everything connected with it; individuality in the sense of a permanent and unchangeable I, will, ability to do, and so on. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something which, in his opinion, he already has. On the contrary he will think either that you are mad or that you want to deceive him with a view to personal gain.
"The two higher states of consciousness—'self-consciousness' and 'objective consciousness'—are connected with the functioning of the higher centers in man.
"In addition to those centers of which we have so far spoken there are two other centers in man, the 'higher emotional' and the 'higher thinking.' These centers are in us; they are fully developed and are working all the time, but their work fails to reach our ordinary consciousness. The cause of this lies in the special properties of our socalled 'clear consciousness.'
"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 thingstake 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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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. Eventhis, 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.
"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.
"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 selfconscious 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 sleepcompelling 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.
AT ONE of the following lectures G. returned to the question of
consciousness.
"Neither the psychical nor the physical functions of man can
be understood," he said, "unless the fact has been grasped that they can
both work in different states of consciousness.
"In all there are four states of consciousness possible for man" (he emphasized the word "man"), "But ordinary man, that is, man number one, number two, and number three, lives in the two lowest states of consciousness only. The two higher states of consciousness are inaccessible to him, and although he may have flashes of these states, he is unable to understand them and he judges them from the point of view of those states in which it is usual for him to be.
"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.
"The third state of consciousness is self-remembering or self-consciousness or consciousness of one's being. It is usual to consider that we have this state of consciousness or that we can have it if we want it. Our science and philosophy have overlooked the fact that we do not possess this state of consciousness and that we cannot create it in ourselves by desire or decision alone.
"The fourth state of consciousness is called the objective state of consciousness In this state a man can see things as they are. Flashes of this state of consciousness also occur in man. In the religions of all nations there are indications of the possibility of a state of consciousness of this kind which is called 'enlightenment' and various other names but which cannot be described in words. But the only right way to objective con-sciousness is through the development of self-consciousness. If an ordinary man is artificially brought into a state of objective consciousness and afterwards brought back to his usual state he will remember nothing and he will think that for a time he had lost consciousness. But in the state of self-consciousness a man can have Hashes of objective consciousness and remember them.
"The fourth state of consciousness in man means an altogether different state of being; it is the result of inner growth and of long and difficult work on oneself.
"But the third state of consciousness constitutes the natural right of man as he is, and if man does not possess it, it is only because of the wrong conditions of his life. It can be said without any exaggeration that at the present time the third state of consciousness occurs in man only in the form of very rare flashes and that it can be made more or less permanent in him only by means of special training.
"For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it, that is, that they possess self-consciousness and everything connected with it; individuality in the sense of a permanent and unchangeable I, will, ability to do, and so on. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something which, in his opinion, he already has. On the contrary he will think either that you are mad or that you want to deceive him with a view to personal gain.
"The two higher states of consciousness—'self-consciousness' and 'objective consciousness'—are connected with the functioning of the higher centers in man.
"In addition to those centers of which we have so far spoken there are two other centers in man, the 'higher emotional' and the 'higher thinking.' These centers are in us; they are fully developed and are working all the time, but their work fails to reach our ordinary consciousness. The cause of this lies in the special properties of our socalled 'clear consciousness.'
"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 thingstake 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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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. Eventhis, 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.
"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.
"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 selfconscious 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 sleepcompelling 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.
Friday, 30 July 2010
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