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interval no shock is provided and it must be given in exactly the way we have been speaking about—by transforming negative emotions into positive, produced by non identification. The first conscious shock prepares for the second and the second prepares for the first. It is all simultaneous, you do not finish one and pass to the other. Q. Are shocks necessarily unpleasant? A. They necessitate effort, but they are not necessarily unpleasant. On the contrary, at the moment of this effort, with the entry of new energy, one may be very pleasantly surprised. Q. Can the effort to control attention act as the first conscious shock, and does it bring Carbon 12 to do 48? A. No, it is not enough. There must be self-remembering: actually, self-remembering connected with self-observation—two activities. This is what makes consciousness. One tries to be more conscious of oneself and of one's surroundings—of everything. Q. Could we hear more about what Carbon 12 is? Where does it come from? A. Carbon 12 may have many different manifestations, but generally we speak about it in relation to impressions. It is probably some energy of the emotional centre. But the important thing is not the source. What is important is how to bring it. What it is and where it comes from does not matter, because we cannot see it, we do not know where this place is. Normally Carbon 12 comes from the emotional centre, and Hydrogen 12 is the matter with which the emotional centre should work. Impressions come in as Oxygen 48 and can be transformed into Nitrogen 24 only with the help of Carbon 12, but it happens that exactly at the place where impressions can be assimilated there is no Carbon 12, or only a little. So we must bring it there by a special effort, and this effort is self-remembering and self-observation. So the method is important, not the source. Intensified observation brought about by self-remembering always has an emotional element. When you remember yourself you bring Carbon 12 to the right place and it can transform impressions. I speak in this language because you asked your question in this language, but it can be observed psychologically. Impressions come in and you do not feel them, which means that they come and do not go on. But you can make an effort to remember yourself, and then you begin to notice things. This means that impressions have become 24. Absence of Carbon 12 at the necessary place means that we are not emotional enough. By self-remembering we bring an emotional element to that particular place. Q. Are the two other Carbons at mi 48 and sol 48 the same? A. I think there is a little difference at mi 48, although they all have an emotional element. At sol 48 the same Carbon works as at do 48, but at
mi 48 it may be instinctive-emotional. It is quite possible that mi 48 works through Carbon 12 from the instinctive centre which is always there. Q. What does mi 48 represent? A. This too is arterial blood. It is a recognized fact that blood can be of very different kinds. It can be established physiologically that in different parts of the body blood has different qualities. Chemically it can also be established that its action is different, but what the difference is, science cannot tell. For instance, muscles are fed on blood 96, but brain cells are fed on blood 24, and some nerve cells are fed on blood 12 and even 6. Q. Do you mean that there is a chemical difference in the blood feeding muscles and brain? A. It cannot be established, although it is known that there is a certain difference. Generally the presence of certain matters is recognized by their effect, but they themselves cannot be separated chemically. Science does not know the history of the blood stream: at each point it gives certain things and receives certain things. Before it reaches one or another organ it is one kind of blood, when it leaves it, it is different. Q. When one has a moment of awareness, does it lead to any immediate alteration in the blood? A. Yes it does, but that depends on how deep it is and how long. If it is one second, it produces certain alterations corresponding to one second; if it is half an hour, that is another thing. Q. Can you notice even the result of one second? A. Sometimes you can, if it is sufficiently deep. You can notice the result in the sense that you see more, that ordinary sensations become more emotional. But short moments of self-awareness, just on the surface, do not produce much effect, whereas if it is sufficiently deep and long you will have impressions that you will never forget afterwards. Q. What hydrogen is thought? A. It can be very different, just as blood is different. It begins with 48 and can go up to 6. Q. Can thought count as impressions? A. Yes, but the amount of impressions coming from inside is limited; but the amount of impressions coming from outside is unlimited. Q. Is everything in the first stage of the Food Diagram entirely mechanical? A. Certainly it is all mechanical; it is a cosmic arrangement. Man's organism works according to this general scheme, if he does no work on himself and does not try to change his state of consciousness. Q. In ordinary state one makes no use of impressions? A. Very little. In this diagram it is impossible to show the small quantity that gets transformed, so we say that impressions octave goes no further. But some pass on, although not enough for development. Q. As we are now, are all impressions on the same level?
A. Oh no. Impressions can be very varied. In the Food Diagram we take them as H 48 because that represents the great majority of impressions. They are, so to speak, indifferent impressions—maybe of one kind, maybe of another; but by themselves they produce no effect. Yet at the same time they are food. They reach us as 48, and in our ordinary state they do not go further. Man would not be able to live in these conditions But there are some impressions 24—not as many as 48 but a certain quantity of them; and in very rare cases there may be impressions 12 and even 6, but these are exceptional. They do not enter into this diagram because they transform themselves If they come as 24 they may easily be transformed into 12 and maybe further. But they come in a very small quantity In ordinary man, who is not learning to remember himself, some of these ordinary impressions 48 are also transformed, but in quite a different way. They are developed further, or helped to develop further, by reactions of a certain kind—for instance, by laughter. Laughter, in the sense of humour, plays a very important part in connection with impressions— again remember that I said in an ordinary man. With the help of laughter many impressions 48 are transformed into 24 But this is only because it is necessary for life, for we could not live without impressions. You remember I said that our chemical factory works only for itself It produces all kinds of very precious materials, but it spends them all on its own existence. It has nothing in reserve and nothing with which to develop itself So if man wants to change and become different, if he wants to awaken his hidden possibilities, he cannot rely on the mechanical means of production; he must look for conscious means But man's organism is such a wonderful invention that everything is taken into consideration, everything has its own key, so to speak. A function that looks useless, such as laughter, helps to transform certain impressions which otherwise would be lost If there were no laughter or humour on our level, this level would be even lower than it is now It can be said that for a man on the ordinary level who does not try to understand what self-remembering means, or who never heard of it, laughter fulfils a certain definite function in the organism It replaces self-remembering in a very small, insufficient way, since it helps quite dull, uninteresting impressions to pass further and become vivid This is the chief function of laughter Of course, there are many different kinds of laughter, some quite useless. What I just said about laughter and humour refers only to ordinary centres, in higher centres it is no longer useful. It means that a certain impression falls simultaneously on the positive and negative parts of a centre and this produces a feeling of exhilaration It helps to see the other side, increases the capacity of seeing things. But in higher centres there is no need for it. In higher centres we see things not as contradictions, not as opposed to one another, but we see them as they are.
Q. Laughter seems to have a physiological effect. A. Yes, maybe a contradictory impression that cannot be harmonized produces a tension, and laughter relaxes it. Impressions 48 enter constantly. As I have said, a certain amount changes mechanically but the greater amount remains unchanged. They can be changed by our becoming conscious, or trying to become conscious. If we are more awake, our impressions become more vivid. Impressions based on or requiring only Hydrogen 48 are impressions we almost miss or notice very little. An impression that attracts attention and leaves a trace already passes to 24. If you try to analyse your past and write down what you actually remember of some particular episode in it, you will see how little you do remember. This is a better way to study the material of impressions. Q. Is an impression anything I get through the medium of the five senses? A. An impression is the smallest unit of thought, sensation or emotion. Q. I cannot understand how impressions can be food? A. Taking in impressions means that a certain energy comes in with them. All energy that you receive is food. The food you eat is coarse material, air is finer, impressions are the finest and the most important food. Man cannot live a single moment without impressions. Even when he is unconscious there are impressions. Q. Are some impressions good and others bad in themselves, or are they what you make them? A. Some impressions may be bad in themselves; I do not know how impressions can be good in themselves, because if one is asleep the best impressions will produce nothing. So even if impressions are good in themselves, in order to benefit from them, it is necessary to be more awake. But bad impressions can come in sleep, there is nothing to stop them. Q. I really meant impressions that are pleasant or unpleasant. A. Many pleasant impressions may be quite bad. Try to understand one thing: impressions can be classified by hydrogens. Every impression is a certain hydrogen. We have spoken of impressions 48, but there may be much higher impressions. On the other hand impressions can belong also to the lower hydrogens of the third scale, down to the lowest. The most important thing in the division of matters in the hydrogen table is that it shows where each hydrogen comes from. Suppose you have a certain hydrogen to think about. Looking for its position in the table of hydrogens you can see that it has a definite place: it may come from the interval between the Absolute and the sun, or perhaps from a little above the sun, or from below the earth, between the earth and the moon, and so on. This possibility of placing hydrogens is an enormous advantage. At present you cannot appreciate the significance of the fact that in every matter we
can know not only its density but also the level it comes from—its place in the whole scheme of things. Our science has no approach to this yet and does not realize that matters are different by reason of the place they come from. You must understand that H 12 has an enormous advantage over, say, H 1536, so an impression that comes from 12 is one kind of impression, and an impression that comes from below the earth, say from the moon, is of quite a different kind. One is light matter, full of quick vibrations, the other consists of slow, harmful vibrations. So if you find that an impression is heavy, unpleasant—it is difficult to find the right adjective to describe it—you can tell by this very fact that it comes from some low part of the Ray of Creation. Things that make you angry, make you hate people, or give you a taste of coarseness or violence, all these impressions come from low worlds. Q. Are we, in normal circumstances, in a position to receive the impressions we need? A. It depends on what you call 'normal circumstances'. In normal circumstances in the sense of existence, we have enough, otherwise we would die. Since we do not die, it proves that we receive enough. But we are not satisfied with that. We speak about awakening and development, and here a cosmic fact comes to our aid. We cannot improve our food, because it is the only food we can eat. We cannot improve air, because it is the only kind of air we can breathe. But we can improve impressions. This is our only chance. How can we do that? Not by travelling, or going to the theatre, or something like that, but simply by awaking, or trying to awake. Q. Is it possible to receive higher hydrogens in our present state? A. It depends on what your present state is and on how much you have. It is like alchemy; you can make gold only if you have a certain amount of gold. Higher hydrogens have magnetic properties, they attract other higher hydrogens. If we have very little, that can attract only very small quantities, corresponding to what we have. But if we have more, we can get more. Remember the sentence in the New Testament which says that it shall be taken from those who have not and given to those who have. It refers to this. Q. Can you accept or reject impressions just as you can eat one thing rather than another? A. You can use some impressions and not others, if you have a certain control, but that requires a certain degree of awakening and a certain training. The more you remember yourself, the more control you will have. If you remember yourself sufficiently, you can stop certain impressions, you can isolate yourself—they will come, but they will not penetrate. And there are other impressions to which you can open yourself and they will come without delay. It is all based on self-remembering.
Q. If an impression tends to cause a certain reaction and that reaction is prevented, is that injurious? A. All impressions must produce some reaction, but you can control these reactions according to the general balance of your work, the tendencies of your life and so on. Any control and experience in this must be connected with work on the lines of this system, and then it cannot be injurious. Nothing connected with self-remembering can be injurious. Q. At first the effort to remember oneself seems to reduce impressions. A. They cannot be reduced, they can only be increased if it is self-remembering. If it is thinking about self-remembering, it may appear to diminish certain impressions. Q. Can you tell us more about different kinds of impressions? A. You can know much more by observation than by asking questions, because you yourself know what attracts you more, what attracts you less, what repels you, and so on. There are many subjective things: one person is attracted to one thing, another is repelled by the same thing. Certain impressions go to the intellectual centre, others to the emotional centre, yet others to the moving or instinctive centre. Some of them you like more, others less. This is all material for observation. Each centre has its own apparatus for receiving impressions, but they often become mixed. Sometimes the intellectual or the emotional centre tries to receive impressions intended for another centre, but each of them is meant to have separate impressions. For instance, the impression of smell cannot be received by the intellectual centre—it is received by the instinctive centre. Impressions are easier to analyse than food. People can persuade you that something is good food and sell it in a tin, and then you find that you cannot eat it; but by observation, by comparing, sometimes by talk with other people you can understand which impressions belong to higher levels and which to lower. Q. Are the impressions we must not admit the ones which give rise to negative emotions? A. You can define it like that, only sometimes they do not immediately give rise to negative emotions. Q. Even if you can distinguish between one kind of impressions and another, I do not see how you can accept or reject them? A. By being awake. If you are asleep, you cannot. But when you are awake, maybe not at once, for it needs certain work—one time you are conquered by wrong impressions, another time you are conquered, then the third time you manage to isolate yourself. But before that it is necessary to know what kinds of wrong impressions affect you, and then you can find special methods for isolating yourself. Q. You mean that if you observe you can avoid those impressions which make you negative? A. I did not speak about things that make you negative, but about bad
impressions. You change the meaning. I spoke about impressions themselves. As to what can make you negative, that depends on your state. In a certain state anything can make you negative, even the best thing in the world. Q. Could one stop having impressions if one wanted to? A. No, certainly not. You cannot stop impressions altogether, but, as I said, you can keep off undesirable impressions and attract to yourself another kind of impressions, for we must already understand that certain impressions we must not admit. There are many wrong impressions which may spoil one's whole life if one admits them for a sufficiently long time, or if one has the habit of looking for certain bad impressions. For instance, people stand in the street looking at a street accident, and then talk about it until the next accident. These people collect wrong impressions. People who gather all kinds of scandal, people who see something wrong in everything—they also collect wrong impressions. You have to think not so much about choosing the right impressions as about isolating yourself from wrong impressions. Only by doing this will you have a certain control. If you try to choose right impressions, you will only deceive yourself. So, although you cannot bring desirable impressions to yourself, you can, even from the very beginning, learn to control them by isolating yourself from certain kinds of wrong impressions. Again you must remember that, in order to control impressions, you must already awake to a certain extent. If you are asleep, you cannot control anything. In order to control quite simple, obvious things you must awake and practise, because if you are accustomed to impressions of a certain kind which are wrong for you, it will take some time. One 'I' will know that it is necessary to isolate yourself, but maybe ten other 'I's will like these impressions. Q. Is the impression that a creation of objective art can produce an example of higher impression? A. It depends entirely on you and your state. If you are in intellectual centre, it may produce no impression; if you are in moving centre, it will produce still less, but if you are in emotional centre, it can produce an impression. Q. Does each hydrogen determine the activity of which one is capable? A. This is formatory. Try to think along the lines that are given. We are speaking about impressions. You do not understand it, and yet you try to bring in more. It means that your mouth is full of food and you try to put in more and choke yourself. Swallow first. Q. That is what I find so difficult—I never really follow. A. It must be difficult; all work is difficult. Nothing is easy in the work, but you can get something because it is difficult. If it were easy, you would get nothing.
Q How is it that man, as he is, is able to appreciate the high hydrogens that must be in B influences? A Man's centres are made for work with very high hydrogens and for receiving very high impressions He may not receive them, he may live on lower impressions, but he is capable of receiving very fine impressions and he gets these from B influences Q. Then why is it that some people are born like that and some are not? A. People are different, they are not made on the same pattern, besides, there may be many defects due to degeneration, diseases, pathological states All normal people must be able to receive these impressions, but first they must be normal Q When hydrogens are transmitted from higher worlds to lower, are they made lower? A No, they can be transmitted in a pure form The question is, can you recieve them? They can only be received by certain parts of centres Q Can you receive them and then debase them? A If one part of you receives high influences and another part low influences, this may create an explosion Q Can we in time observe which hydrogen is which? A To a certain extent you can After a certain time of observation you will know the difference, for example, between emotions 24 and 12, or between impressions 48— tasteless things—and impressions 24 But you must understand that each hydrogen shown in the Table is a do and between it and the next hydrogen there is a whole octave, so there is an enormous distance between one hydrogen and another To understand the principle we create standards for thinking—we cannot begin by studying the whole scale in detail Q What is the point at which the possibility of further transformation of the three octaves of food exist? A As I said, the possibility of further transformation exists at the point where impressions enter the body as do 48, but ordinarily fail to develop for lack of Carbon 12 at the place of entry In mechanical functioning, the entry to impressions by the senses immediately gives rise to associative thinking or imagination on the level of H 48, or to emotional reactions of a more or less instinctive nature Very occasionally—in times of emotional stimulation or danger, for instance—it may happen that Carbon 12 is brought to the point of entry of impressions Everything is then related to the emotional state, and man has the impression that all he sees is extraordinarily vivid, new and significant But in ordinary man such experiences are accidental, they lead nowhere and are quickly overlaid with imagination The emotional condition which gives rise to them passes, and is replaced by an impulse or desire leading in a quite different direction. Such experiences in an
ordinary man are disconnected and have nothing to do with the intentional development of consciousness. With the attempt to self-remember many new sensations begin to awaken in man, particularly sensations connected with his own existence and his relation to the surrounding world. And these in turn may give rise to the realization of the different influences playing upon him and to the possibility of choosing between them. Q. How do you know when emotional centre is working with H 12? A. After a time you will know by a different taste It is the same as knowing the difference between thinking about eating and actually eating With a certain practice of self-observation we can distinguish each of these manifestations and put labels on them. In the ordinary way we recognize differences in emotions—one is more emotional or less emotional. Observing with a certain purpose we shall see how this or that emotion must correspond to a certain density. Only you must not begin with H 12 for it is very unusual. When we know its taste we will never mistake anything else for it. Q Must we draw a distinction between impressions and the things which produce then? A. Yes, a drum is different from the sound of the drum, so you cannot say that the moment you hear it the drum enters into your being So it you want to take it theoretically, you must separate them. But for what purpose? What is important now is to understand that if we do not remember ourselves we are open to impressions which may be very low on the scale of hydrogens. Q. But the hydrogen varies according to which centre the impression is made on? A. A hydrogen means a certain matter. How can it differ by being in one room or another? I have explained already that each centre is adapted to work with a certain hydrogen. One centre needs a lower, another a higher hydrogen. If it uses a wrong hydrogen, that produces wrong work in one or another sense, depending on which hydrogen is used and how it is used. Usually centres try to steal better energy, but sometimes they work on worse energy, try to be lazy. Sometimes instinctive centre tries to work on energy 48, for instance; this leads to very bad work and one becomes ill. Often illness is the result of that. Q. Can one control that? A. To some extent. It has to do with negative emotion. Energy can be distracted from the right places and put in the wrong places by negative emotion. As long as one cannot control negative emotions one cannot control anything else as regards instinctive centre. There is only one way of saving energy and many ways of wasting it. Q. Do vivid impressions use a different energy from faint ones?
A. Not use, they bring energy. If you have vivid impressions it means that certain hydrogens enter into you. Receiving impressions means getting a certain matter into yourself. Q. When one has a very high impression, why does it often make such a devastating effect? A. If a really high impression produces a devastating effect, it means that we are in a very bad state; all the machine works wrong, all centres use wrong hydrogens, we are too asleep, have too many buffers. It should not produce such an effect in a normal machine. Higher impressions should produce not a devastating but a liberating effect. Q. What is the relation between si 12, mi 12 and sol 12? A. You will understand this later. If you like, I can say that mi 12 refers to the emotional centre, sol 12 to the instinctive centre and si 12 to the sex centre. We can work only on mi 12. We have too little of si 12, and sol 12 passes higher to a very small amount of H 6 which, though it is so small, keeps the higher centres alive. Q. What is the characteristic of mi 12? How to recognize it? A. As I have already explained, it is the energy behind negative emotions. It does not mean that all negative emotions reach the intensity of H 12, but they can reach it, and intense negative emotions bum mi 12. Q. Why does one need to study the food factory? Does it hold an important place in the system? A. A very important place. Again, it depends on what you want. If you want to know yourself with the idea of improving the work of your machine, you must know everything about yourself that is important; and knowing how your machine works and what materials it receives is very important because, with the help of these diagrams, you can understand what you are doing; otherwise, even if you try to do something, you will not know. Q. It is difficult to see where the third force enters in the Food Diagram. Is it just the result of the other two? A. Very often it looks like result, but if you think one minute you will see that it is not like that. Take the process of digestion. All the stages of the process are continually going on in the organism. Suppose one is not actually eating at a given moment, but the third and fourth triads of the digestive process are in action; this means that a certain amount of what you call 'result', which is the third force, is already there, for if it were not there, perhaps things which look in the diagram as if they precede that stage, would not happen. It is necessary to understand that not only carbons but also nitrogens must be there. We cannot determine the moment when the Food Diagram begins. It begins when one is born, or soon after, and then it goes on throughout life. For example, it is well known in ordinary physiology that certain processes in the mouth happen in the way they do because certain other processes in the stomach happen
in a certain way. It is all connected and what looks like result is very often the cause. Well, as I said, what is important to understand first is that this Table of Hydrogens shows from which layer of hydrogens each matter comes. With the help of this Table you can see that all the hydrogens in our body, what we eat, what we drink, the air we inhale, all our impressions and many other things, all come from different layers of matter in the Ray of Creation. In this way we can see the relation of every action, every thought, every function to a certain part of the universe governed by its own laws. We think it is all on earth, but although things happen on earth their origin is not on earth—it may be above or below the earth. And this is what the Table of Hydrogens shows. Energies or matters existing in the outside world can only be understood or assimilated by man in so far as he already has corresponding hydrogens in himself. Thus in order to become receptive to the higher matters or influences he has to produce in himself sufficient corresponding hydrogens to set his higher centres working. From this point of view self-study becomes the study of the working of different energies in oneself; of their present wastage in useless and harmful functions, and their possible accumulation for the purpose of self-development. The Study of hydrogens and their relation to one another also helps us to understand centres and their different speeds. Intellectual centre works with H 48, moving and instinctive centres with H 24, emotional centre should work with H 12, but it never receives the right fuel and never works as it should. If we could make it work faster, it would make a great difference to our perceptions and other faculties. Q. I do not understand about the speed of emotions. How can it be measured? A, By realizing how many different feelings can pass in you during one thought or during one swing of the pendulum. Q. By speed of emotions do you mean the time between the cause and effect of an emotion? A. No, it is the quantity of impressions. You put it objectively, but it is subjective; it means that in one thought one can have thousands of emotions. Q. The rate varies according to the degree of consciousness? A. Your observation will vary according to the degree of consciousness, but the fact will remain the same. But, as I said, the emotional centre in us does not work with its proper speed, because mostly only the moving parts of it work; and when a centre works with the moving part its speed is much slower, whereas when it works with the intellectual part it is much quicker.
Q. If we use the emotional centre at its highest speed, can we have positive emotions? A. Then we become connected with higher centres and can have positive emotions. But we must be conscious first, because it can happen only when we have a sufficiently complete control over consciousness. Q. The Food Diagram shows that there is very high matter in man as he is. How does it show itself? A. Without higher matters man would not be able to live. The soul, which consists of higher hydrogens, must be fed. Essence must be fed. Even personality must be fed, although personality lives on something different. As I said, higher hydrogens can be extracted from air, but impressions—special, purified impressions—can give much more. The human organism is built on cosmic principles, so quantity is very important. Q. To me diagrams are only knowledge—I do not get any understanding out of them that helps me to struggle. A. They cannot help with struggling, but they can help your thinking. Even now, in this initial form, diagrams can help you to solve many of your troubles and problems. They can serve as a formula to find your position in regard to them. They may not give an answer, but they will give you knowledge about where and how you can look for an answer. This is the real meaning of diagrams. They speak in a language that you learn a little ahead. We will be able really to use this language only when we are able to use higher centres. Suppose you get control over higher emotional centre. With knowledge of the diagrams you will be able to interpret many of the new feelings, sensations, ideas that will come to your mind, and transfer this interpretation to the ordinary mind. Without diagrams you will not be able to do it. They are the intermediate language which will connect the language of the higher emotional centre with our ordinary centres. At the same time this language is a kind of ladder by which we can climb from ordinary thinking to the thinking of higher emotional centre. Q. In our present condition, do higher centres function, or merely lie idle? A. There are three different theories about this. One is that they function and that we could not live without their functioning, but that they are not connected with ordinary centres because of the enormous difference of speed; that it is necessary to eliminate from the ordinary centres all the wrong functions and bring them to their highest possible speed, which can happen only when we pass to another level of consciousness. The second explanation is that higher centres are latent; they are fully developed, but they do not work as they should. The third is that they do not work because there is no fuel for them; that the hydrogens which can serve as fuel for them can be produced only in another state of consciousness. They are in a state of sleep, but when we produce enough