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Q Are all our actions controlled by automatic responses to outside influences? A. No, we have many things already established, such as habits, usual ways of thinking, associations, buffers and many other things So it is not simply influences to which we have a natural response. Many things are the result of previous influences Q I cannot separate the idea of not being able to 'do' from fatalism When and how have we the power of choice and how do we differ from animals? A. In the present state we differ very little. Our power of choice begins only when we begin to realize our situation, our mechanicalness, and when we begin to struggle for something else There are possibilities for that But this is a formatory way of thinking—either determinism or freedom Some things are determined, some less determined, some are in our power, if we know how to change them or how to turn them Only, we must know. Everything is relative. Q. When you said that we cannot help the same things happening, did you mean until our being has changed? A. I did not speak about work. I said it was necessary to understand that by ourselves we cannot 'do' When this is sufficiently understood, we can think about what it is possible to 'do', what conditions, what knowledge and what help are needed But first it is necessary to realize that in ordinary life everything happens. Only when this is emotionally understood is it possible to go further Q. I do not understand the distinction between what one can and what one cannot 'do'. Why is it that one can struggle with negative emotions but one cannot make oneself awake? A. Sleep is the form or the level of our being. One can do something with the help of the system, if the way is shown, but being awake indicates the level of being itself. So all this struggle with negative emotions, trying to stop unnecessary thoughts, trying to remember oneself—all this leads you to awakening, but you cannot awake before you awake. Q. But is it their doing when people try to become conscious? A. Yes; then one sees that one cannot. In trying to become conscious all man's work is his own. It is only in this system that you are told clearly that you can 'do' nothing All the other systems begin with 'doing' in one sense or another, for they say, do this or do that This system is different It is esoteric teaching, but in it you can begin in the conditions of ordinary life, it is not necessary to go to a closed school or to a monastery. Because of that it is particularly necessary to understand first of all that one cannot 'do' anything and that the only thing one can start to 'do' is trying to remember oneself—understanding the one and practising the other.
Q. I thought perhaps we ought not to take this idea that we cannot 'do’ too literally? A. No, quite literally. Only this refers to people who are not connected with any teaching. When one begins to study certain teachings or systems which give school methods, one has to try to do certain things. In the work we have to 'do', for if we do not try to 'do', nothing will happen. We have to 'do' from the very beginning—not much, but very definite things. If you can not identify it is already the beginning of 'doing'. If you can refrain from talk when you have an inclination to talk, that is already 'doing'. 'Doing' begins with going against the current—first in yourself, in personal things. You can try to remember yourself, then, when you begin to remember yourself you can get certain results and you will see that you can do more things, but all with regard to yourself. You will be able to do something about negative emotions, for instance, and to think in a new way. But outside you, things will continue to happen. Q. Would you say that one way of beginning to 'do' would be to alter things in oneself so that things happen differently? A. It is necessary once more to divide people into categories. Men 1, 2 and 3 can 'do' nothing—in their case everything 'happens'. If they do good things, it means that they cannot do bad things; if they do bad things, it means they cannot do good things. One thing is no better than another in that sense, because it is all mechanical. But when one begins to work, when one enters a school of any level, one already has to learn to 'do'. As I said, one has to begin with oneself—to know oneself, to study oneself, try to eliminate certain things, try to create control over other things and so on. Q. Have we got to observe how we react? A. Observing is always useful, but we always react in the same way. We have only five or six ways of reacting: only certain things happen to us and we always react in the same way to them. But if we try to do all that is advised, and not to do all that we are advised to refrain from doing, things will change in the right way and one day, quite unexpectedly, we will be able to do something we could not have done before. Q. Can we direct things that happen to us? A. If we direct things in ourselves. If nothing unnecessary happens in us, we shall begin to be able to control things that happen from outside, but first we must control things in ourselves. So long as things are left to 'happen' in ourselves, we cannot control anything outside. How can it be otherwise? One 'I' decides to control things, but instead all its attention will be occupied with things that happen in us and outside us. Q. If man can 'do' nothing, does it follow that all he can do is to control his own mental reaction to events outside his control? A. Quite right. That is the beginning. If he learns to control his reactions, then after some time he will find that he can control more and more, and
later it may happen that he will be able to control, again not all, for there is a very large gradation, but certain external events. But certain other external events cannot be controlled because they are of a different size. Q. If I wish to obtain a particular result and fail, and if I then do the thing differently, will the result be still the same in spite of my effort? A. You must not deceive yourself. If you do something and the result corresponds to your expectations, it is simply luck, chance—that is all. And in some cases you may do something entirely different and still have the same result. Q. It seems that one is caught up in a vicious circle! A. Certainly one is caught, and the system is the way out of this vicious circle, for in ordinary conditions of life one cannot get out. Q. Would you say a little more about the effort to get out of that circle? A. If you take all that is given in the right way and work with sufficient effort, the school or the system, call it what you like, will give you this possibility of getting out. There is no way out without school and without knowledge. Again, if you get the knowledge and do not make efforts, it will be equally useless. When one is in a school, one is made to 'do', because one cannot make oneself, one cannot create sufficient force. But if one puts oneself in different conditions it will produce certain results. School is necessary because it is the conductor of neutralizing force. Otherwise one may have desire, one may make efforts, but one would not know how to start. It seems simple, but it is not simple. Q. What would be the active and passive forces in this case? A. Life can be taken as active force, and the passive force, I would say, is in inertia, habits, in all that 'happens'. Q. How can you distinguish between an effort that is mechanical and an effort that is not? A. There is no need to distinguish. Make efforts, and result will show. Q. Do you mean that all I have really done in my life so far is to change one form of sleep for another? A. It changed itself; you did not do even that. In life one has no control, but in the work one can acquire control. In the work there can be an escape from this state where we can do nothing and things 'happen'. Without the work there is no escape. A certain illusion of control is provided in life by ordinary education, but if circumstances change it all disappears. Q. Then will you tell me please what is the chief thing that is holding me back from escaping? A. Mechanicalness. In yourself things continue to 'happen'—things over which you should have control, but you have not acquired control. There are things in us which can and should be mechanical, such as physiological processes and things like that, and there are other things over
which we must acquire as much control as we can, because they keep us from awakening. You do not realize to what an extent one thing in us is connected with another. Everything is connected. You cannot do, or say, or even think anything out of the general line of things that happen. Our four centres, intellectual, emotional, moving and instinctive, are so co ordinated that one movement in one centre immediately produces a corresponding movement in another centre. Certain movements or certain postures are connected with certain thoughts; certain thoughts are connected with certain feelings, sensations, emotions—everything is connected. Such as we are, with all the will that we can concentrate, we can acquire some degree of control over one centre, but only one, and even that for only a short period of time. But other centres will go on by themselves and will immediately corrupt the centre we want to control and bring it again to mechanical reaction. Suppose I know all I should know, and suppose I decide to think in a new way. I begin to think in a new way but sit in the ordinary posture, or smoke a cigarette in the usual way, and I again find myself in the old thoughts. It is the same with emotions; one decides to feel in a new way about something, and then one thinks in the old way and so negative emotions come again as before, without control. So in order to change we must change things in all four centres at the same time, and this is impossible since we have no will to control four centres. In school there are special methods for attaining this control, but without a school it cannot be done. On the whole, our machine is very cleverly thought out. From one point of view it has wonderful possibilities of development, but from another point of view this development is made very difficult. You will understand why it is made like that when you finally realize what consciousness and will mean, and then you will understand that neither consciousness nor will can develop mechanically. Every small thing has to be developed by struggle, otherwise it would not be consciousness or will. It has to be made difficult. Q. I feel that if I had to do everything instead of relying on accidents nothing would happen to me at all, for my will is too weak. A. Not doing is in itself a kind of doing. But at the same time you touch here a very interesting question. When you get control, fewer and fewer things will happen, and you will have to do even small things because they will not happen to you. But this is probably very far. Q. Would you say that the sense of responsibility that one ought to do something useful in the world is imagination, since you say we cannot •do? A. It may be imagination or imitation, or it may be right. But in that case we must consider what and how, and bow is more important than what. Most people think about what to do but not about how. Often the
things they decide to do are impossible, like stopping wars and other such things. Q. If we try to be conscious and try to see how things really are, would it change our situation so that things do not happen to us, but we do things as we wish to do them? A. Certainly, this is the aim, but a very far aim. You see, first of all, here is a wrong use of the word 'us'. You must remember that when it was said that things happen to all people and that people cannot 'do' anything, that referred to ordinary conditions in ordinary life—what is called normal life. But in this work we are trying to get out of this 'normal' life, so we already must 'do'. Only we must first learn what we can 'do', because in our present conditions many things will continue to happen; but in certain things we can already have choice, we can show our preference, our will, as much as we can have will. So 'us' cannot be used in the same way as before. But you must understand that at first, the difference is not between 'doing' and 'not doing', but between trying to 'do' and trying to understand, and at present all your energy must be concentrated on trying to understand. What you can try to 'do' has been explained. We are trying to find things we can control in ourselves, and if we work on them, we will acquire control. This is all the 'doing' that is possible at the moment. Q. Is the full realization that we cannot 'do' anything already a long step on the way to 'doing'? A. Sometimes the step is too long, because every idea prolonged too far becomes its own opposite. So if you persuade yourself too seriously that you can do nothing, you will find that you really can do nothing. It is a question of relativity. As I said, not being able to 'do' refers to people without any possibility of school-work. Q. I think I need a teacher. I find I can do nothing by myself. A. A teacher cannot 'do' anything for you. You are given certain tasks and you have to do them. It is always like that. Instead of trying to 'do', try 'not to do'! You learn to 'do' by first learning 'not to do'. You are trying to do things that you consider desirable; try the other way round— not to do things that are undesirable. You see, this self-evolution is not obligatory, not mechanical, there is no guarantee. It depends on effort. People often ask: 'How is it that I have been working so many years and have had no experience of higher centres yet?' And I ask them: 'Have you really been working so many years?' One counts from the time one has heard these ideas, but one does not try to calculate how much one actually worked—how many days, how many hours or minutes in each day. If one makes this calculation, one will see that there is no reason to expect any results yet, although one may have heard about it a long time ago. Q. If we are machines, how can we change our being? A. We cannot wait until we change. There is one very important principle
in the work—you never have to work in accordance with your force, but always beyond your force. This is a permanent principle. In the work you always have to do more than you can; only then can you change. If you do only what is possible you will remain where you are. One has to do the impossible. You must not take the word 'impossible' on too big a scale, but even a little means much. This is different from life—in life you only do what is possible. It is necessary to put more energy into things—into self study, self-observation, self-remembering and all that. And in order to put more energy into your work it is necessary to find where it is being spent. You awake every morning with a certain amount of energy. It may be spent in many different ways. A certain amount is necessary for self-remembering, study of the system and so on. But if you spend this energy on other things, nothing remains for that. This is really the chief point. Try to calculate every morning how much energy you intend to put into work in comparison with other things. You will see that even in elementary things, simply in relation to time, you give very little to the work, if you give any at all, and all the rest is given to quite useless things. It is good if they are pleasant things, but in most cases they are not even pleasant. Lack of calculation, lack of these elementary statistics is the reason we do not understand why, with all our best intentions and best decisions, in the end we do nothing. How can we do anything if we do not give any energy or time to it? If you want to learn a language, you must learn a certain number of words every day and give some time to the study of grammar and so on. If you want to learn Russian and begin by learning five words a day, I will guarantee that you will never learn it. But if you learn two hundred words a day, in a few months you will understand Russian. It all depends on elementary statistics. In every kind of work or study there is a certain standard. If you give it a certain amount of energy and time, but just not enough, you will have no results. You will only turn round and round and remain approximately in the same place. Q. I am one of those people who only learn five words a day, but I have always taken comfort in the thought that it is bound to work in the end. A. No, it is necessary to put more pressure into it. Notice that even in conversations here only few people speak—the others only want to Listen, for it is more peaceful, more comfortable. Then, you do not follow up thoughts. I give you very very many, but most of them you do not touch. It is laziness of mind, general laziness. This laziness must be overcome. You cannot get anything by being lazy, or by doing one thing and leaving everything else. As it is I give you one line—you miss it. I give you another line—you miss that too. So in the end we have only missed lines. As I said, every kind of work, every kind of state, needs a certain definite minimum of effort and minimum of time given to it, and the work
we are trying to do needs more than many other things if we want to get even perceptible results. What does it mean to work practically? It means to work not only on intellect but also on emotions and on will. Work on intellect means thinking in a new way, creating new points of view, destroying illusions. Work on emotions means not expressing negative emotions, not identifying, not considering and, later on, also work on the emotions themselves. But what does work on will mean? It means work on one's actions. First you must ask yourselves: What is will in men No. 1, 2 and 3? It is the resultant of desires. Will is the line of combined desires, and as our desires constantly change, we have no permanent line. So ordinary will depends on desires and we can have many desires going in different directions. The line constructed out of all these angles is the resultant. This is our will. It may go in one direction one day and in another direction another day, and we think it is straight. So it is really the resultant of our blindness. We have to ask ourselves on what the will of man No. 7 could be based. It must be based on full consciousness, and this implies knowledge and understanding connected with objective consciousness and a permanent 'I'. So three things are necessary: knowledge, consciousness and a permanent 'I'. Only those people who have these three things can have real will; that means a will that is independent of desires or anything else. Q. You said no will was possible for us? A. Will is a relative term: there are different wills on different levels. A mechanical man who never thinks of development has only a multitude of small wills that are quite mechanical. He has a certain desire: one side of him wants to do something and another side is afraid he will be punished if he does it. A struggle ensues between the different tendencies and the result of this struggle we call 'will'. Q. Then in order to develop will one must go against desires? A. First of all you must become one. You are many and you have hundreds of 'I's and hundreds of wills. If you want to develop an independent will you must become one and conscious. Will depends on unity and consciousness. Q. If we are determined to do something we do not like, and manage to do it, are we not using will? A. It may be fear; perhaps you are afraid not to do it, or you may expect some reward either in this life or the next—many things are possible. Generally we are either afraid of something, or expect some kind of benefit from it. As a rule the term 'will' is used in a relative sense, but when we speak of will, we speak of a certain level. Before we can speak of the possibility of will we must at least have a central point which can control the rest. Will means liberation from the mechanical state. Q. Can useful unity be obtained by engrossment in some routine work that employs the majority of 'I's?
A. It cannot be called full unity, it is only relative unity, the unity of the 'I's employed in this work. One can train oneself very much by work of this kind, but it cannot touch the whole of you. There is no work that can touch the whole, it will always be only a small part of you. Q. How can we change or wake if we have no free will? A. If we had free will we would not be machines. How can a machine have free will? And how can we change? It was already explained that there is a possibility of change, but a very small possibility, and many different combinations of favourable circumstances are necessary in order to begin. Later, with each step, it becomes more and more difficult and requires more and more effort, and then, after some time, it becomes easier. But first a certain combination of circumstances is necessary, and later hard work as well, because school is necessary. Without a school it is impossible to change oneself. Difficulties are so great and man is so weak that he can do nothing alone. At present our will belongs to 'I's or groups of 'I's based on one personality out of many. But real will means one will, so it can only belong to a single 'I' or, if you like, to essence. So first we must be one at least at certain moments and then try to work to create will. One cannot become unified at once. Will is bound to come and go; at one moment we shall have will, at another there will be none. It will be a long time before we can speak about anything reliable in us, let alone anything permanent. Q. How does will grow? A. It cannot grow without effort. You have to save energy to collect enough for struggle with certain weaknesses. Suppose you realize something is a weakness and that you must struggle with it, but you find that you have not enough energy; you can then try to do some smaller thing which is not so difficult and in this way you will save energy. Generally speaking, we miss the opportunity of making small efforts. We disregard them, do not consider them important enough. Yet we can increase our capacity for making efforts only by making these small efforts which we disregard. Q. Is creation of unity essentially preceded by inner conflict? A. By realization of inner conflict. Inner conflicts are constant. Nobody lives without inner conflicts, they are normal and always there. But when we begin to work, conflict increases. When we do not work, we run away, we do not fight. What does 'work' mean? It means struggle with conflicting things. We have a certain aim, but many of our 'I's do not want to go that way, so naturally conflict increases. But the creation of unity is not the result of conflict—it is the result of struggle with conflict. We are many and we want to be one—this is one formulation of our aim. We realize that it is inconvenient, uncomfortable and dangerous to be so many. We decide to be at least less divided, instead of five hundred to become five. I feel that I must do something and I do not want to—this
is conflict, and by constantly recurring it builds up resistance and produces unification Q. Does not resistance stop most people achieving anything? A. Resistance may be very different in nature, because we have many habits, physical and mental, which sometimes we cannot overcome Habits may be so strong that there is no place for anything new There we come again to the question of schools, because by oneself, even if one knows, one cannot overcome either internal or external resistance Q If everything is going smoothly and one is not aware of any 'yes' and 'no' conflict, is it a good thing to try and induce it? A There is no need The moment one starts working, trying to remember oneself, trying not to identify, to remember the system, at once friction begins Friction creates energy If things are easy, there is no friction But if you put spokes in the wheel of mechanicalness, this creates friction, which creates energy Q. What would unity mean? Is it unity between centres? A. Unity is not between centres, because centres are different, but between personalities or groups of 'I's Each centre has its own work and our centres are too co ordinated, for the work of one centre mechanically produces work of another centre This is not desirable at all, and it is partly due to this wrong co-ordination that personalities are not sufficiently connected many of them are quite independent and contradictory Q Can desire to develop be called will? A Call it desire, this is quite sufficient It is not will. Will belongs to the whole and is another side of consciousness Q In our state of consciousness can we know the difference between desire and will? A Certainly desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want Q How can we make a right use of inner conflict? A It is very simple One part of us—magnetic centre or one personality— wants to awake But the larger part of us wants to sleep You must decide on whose side you are, and then help that side In order to study how to begin work on will, how to transform will, one has to give up one's will This is a very dangerous expression if it is misunderstood It is important to understand rightly what 'to give up one's will' means We have no will, so how are we to give up what we do not have? First you must realize you never agree that you have no will, you only agree in words Secondly, you must understand that we do not always have will but only at times will in our state means a strong desire If there is no strong desire, there is no will and so there is nothing to give up At another moment we have a strong desire that is against work, and if we stop it, it means we give up will. It is not at every
moment that we can give up will but only at special moments. And what does 'against work' mean? It means against rules and principles of the work or against something you are personally told to do or not to do. There are certain general rules and principles, and there may be personal conditions for different people. Q. Should one ask for further personal directions? A. Yes, but if one asks, one must obey. One is not obliged to do anything apart from following the general rules and principles if one does not ask, so before asking one must think twice. Q. If one is prepared to obey, will you give directions? A. If opportunity offers. It must be at a moment when you have will. There must be a definite desire to do something that affects work or other people. Usually we have bad will; we very seldom have good will. If you have good will, I do not speak about it; I simply say, 'Go on, continue, learn'. You do not know how to think about will. One moment you realize that you are machines, but the next moment you want to act according to your own opinion. At that moment you must be able to stop, not to do what you want. This does not apply to moments when you have no intention of doing anything, but you must be able to stop if your desire goes against rules or principles, or against what you have been told. It often happens that people go on studying and miss these moments. They think they work when nothing happens. We cannot always work equally; at one moment passive study is sufficient, at another moment it is necessary to go against oneself, to stop. Q. What causes these moments? A. Desire. As I said, our will is a resultant of desires. It is not a system expression, it is an old psychological definition but a good one. Desires may be very different: they may be intellectual desires, such as desire to know, curiosity, or emotional, instinctive or moving desires. If one strong desire conquers, it gives direction to desires. I now speak of desires that may have a connection with the work. Q. We are told to keep rules. This presupposes we can keep them, which would be 'doing’. It seems to me incompatible with the idea that we cannot 'do'. A. Everything is relative. We can 'do' some inner actions, for we have a certain control. For instance, we have a certain control of our thoughts: we can think about one thing or another. This is the beginning of the possibility. If we continue to keep our interests directed in a certain line, our thinking process acquires a certain power and, after some time, it can create at least moments of self-awareness which, when it comes more often and stays longer, can begin to change other things. So there are ways out of this absolute mechanicalness. But if one is in conditions of ordinary life, without knowing that everything happens, one can do
nothing. The real possibility of changing these conditions begins with control of thoughts and control as far as possible of consciousness, that is, with inner work on ourselves. By doing this inner work, by trying to acquire control of oneself, one learns how to 'do'. It does not mean one can 'do', for one cannot; but if one begins, then, little by little, one learns how to 'do'. Q. Is self-imposed discipline good, or must it be school discipline? A. Discipline is good if it is discipline. But if it is just an arbitrary invention, then it can give no result. The most important aspect of discipline is not expressing negative emotions and not indulging in negative emotions. Mechanical tasks cannot give any result, but if you catch yourself at a moment of negative emotion and stop it—this is discipline. If we want to be in the work, we must verify all our thoughts, words and actions from the point of view of the work. So if you want to work, you are no longer free— you must lose the illusion of freedom. The question is, have you freedom? Have you something to lose? This is why self-remembering is necessary. Self-remembering is not only elf awareness, it means also a certain capacity to act in a certain way, to do what you want. You see, in our logical thinking, logical knowledge, we divide consciousness from will. Consciousness means will. In Russian, for instance, the same word is used for will and for freedom. Consciousness means will, and will means freedom. Q. Is attention synonymous with will? A. No, otherwise it would not have been necessary to use two words. But controlling attention is the beginning of will. Q. You spoke about bringing things under control. What is it in us which controls? A. That depends on what you want. In every particular line of action aim is the controlling factor. In work on yourself or study you have a certain aim. This aim will control your actions. But you did not mean that: you asked what is there in us that can control. To answer this I must return again to groups of 'I's, in this case the magnetic centre. At present, in relation to our personal work, our aim is to be under the control of magnetic centre and not of stray 'I's, one of them interested in one thing and another in another thing. If every one of them wants to control us, it means that in the end nobody controls; but if we are controlled by magnetic centre it already means a certain control. The determination and definition of aim is a very important moment in the work. It usually happens that one defines one's aim quite rightly, in quite the right direction, only one takes an aim that is very far off. Then, with this aim in view, one begins to learn and to accumulate material. The next time one tries to define aim, one defines it a little
differently, finding an aim that is a little nearer; the next time again a little nearer, and so on, until one finds an aim that is quite close—to-morrow or the day after to morrow. This is really the right way in relation to aims, if we speak about them without more precision. We can find many aims that have been definitely mentioned already. 'To be one.' Quite right, a very good aim. 'To be free.' How? Only when one acquires control of the machine. One person may say, 'I want to be conscious'; another may say, 'I want to be awake', or 'I want to have will'. These are all aims on the same line, only at different distances. Q. I have come to the conclusion that most of my aims are too remote and I want to work more on the practical side. A. Yes, because before you can reach remote aims, there are many things you can do here and now, and that is where this system differs from almost all other systems. Nearly all other systems begin with aims at least ten thousand miles ahead which have no practical meaning; but this system begins in this room. That is the difference and that is what must be understood first of all. Again and again we must return to this question of what we want from the work. Do not use the terminology of the system but find what you yourself want. If you say you want to be conscious, that is all very good, but why? What do you want to get by being conscious? You must not think that you can answer this question immediately. It is very difficult. But you must keep coming back to it. And you must understand that before the time comes when you will be able to get what you want, you must know what it is. This is a very definite condition. You can never get anything until you can say, 'I want this'. Then perhaps you may get it or perhaps you may not; but you can never get it unless you know what it is. You can formulate it in your own way, and you must be sincere with yourself. Then you can ask yourself: 'Will the system be able to help me to get it?' If we remember our aim, think about it, find more and more reasons why we should work, our will will move in one direction and will get stronger. If we forget our aim, we get slack. I have spoken about the question of aim because I advise you to think about it, to revise what you have already thought about aim and think how you would define your aim now, after a study of these ideas. I would say that what a man can get, what can be promised him on condition that he works, is that after some time of work he will see himself. Other things that he may get, such as consciousness, unity, connection with higher centres, all come after this— and we do not know in what order they come. But we must remember one thing; until we get this— until we see ourselves—we cannot get anything else. Until we begin to work with this aim in view we cannot say that we have begun to work. So, after some time we must be able to formulate our immediate aim as being able to see oneself. Not even to know oneself (this comes later), but