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he will see that his machine can work in different conditions of consciousness and so will try to give it better conditions. We are told in this system that man has the possibility of living in four states of consciousness but that as he is, he lives only in two. We also know that our functions are divided into four categories. So we study four categories of functions in two states of consciousness. At the same time we realize that glimpses of self-consciousness happen, and that what prevents us from having more of these glimpses is the fact that we do not remember ourselves—that we are asleep. The first thing necessary in a serious study of oneself is to understand that consciousness has degrees. You must remember that you do not pass from one state of consciousness to another, but that they are added to one another. This means that if you are in the state of sleep, when you awake, the state of relative consciousness or 'waking sleep' is added to the state of sleep; if you become self-conscious, this is added to the state of 'waking sleep'; and if you acquire the state of objective consciousness, this is added to the state of self-consciousness. There are no sharp transitions from one state to another state. Why not? Because each state consists of different layers. As in sleep, you can be more asleep or less asleep, so in the state in which we are now, you can be nearer to self-consciousness or further from it. The second thing necessary in a serious study of oneself is the study of functions by observing them, learning to divide them in the right way, learning to recognize each one separately. Each function has its own profession, its own speciality. They must be studied separately and their differences clearly understood, remembering that they are controlled by different centres or minds. It is very useful to think about our different functions or centres and realize that they are quite independent. We do not realize that there are four independent beings in us, four independent minds. We always try to reduce everything to one mind. Instinctive centre can exist quite apart from other centres, moving and emotional centres can exist without the intellectual. We can imagine four people living in us. The one we call instinctive is a physical man. The moving man is also a physical man, but with different inclinations. Then there is the sentimental or emotional man, and the theoretical or intellectual man. If we look at ourselves from this point of view, it is easier to see where we make the chief mistake about ourselves, because we take ourselves as one, as always the same. We have no means of seeing centres, but we can observe functions: the more you observe, the more material you will have. This division of functions is very important. Control of any of our faculties can only be obtained with the help of knowledge. Each function can be controlled only if we know the peculiarities and the speed of each. Observation of functions must be connected with the study of states of
consciousness and degrees of consciousness. It must be clearly understood that consciousness and functions are quite different things. To move, to think, to feel, to have sensations—these are functions; they can work quite independently of whether we are conscious or not; in other words, they can work mechanically. To be conscious is something quite different. But if we are more conscious it immediately increases the sharpness of our functions. Functions can be compared to machines working in varying degrees of light. These machines are such that they are able to work better with light than in darkness; every moment there is more light the machines work better. Consciousness is light and machines are functions. Observation of functions requires long work. It is necessary to find many examples of each. In studying them we shall unavoidably see that our machine does not work rightly; some functions are all right while others are undesirable from the point of view of our aim. For we must have an aim, otherwise no study will give any results. If we realize we are asleep, the aim is to awake; if we realize we are machines, the aim is to cease being machines. If we want to be more conscious, we must study what prevents us from remembering ourselves. So we have to introduce a certain valuation of functions from the point of view of whether they are useful or harmful for self remembering. So there are two lines of study: study of the functions of our centres, and study of unnecessary or harmful functions. Q. Is the method of this study observation? A. One can find many things in that way and it can prepare the ground for further study, but it is not sufficient by itself. By self-observation one cannot establish the most important divisions in oneself, divisions both horizontal and vertical, for there are many different divisions; one cannot know the different states of consciousness and separate one's functions. One must know the chief divisions, otherwise one will make mistakes and will not know what one observes. Man is a very complicated machine; he is really not a machine, but a big factory consisting of many different machines all working at different speeds, with different fuels, in different conditions. So it is not only a question of observation but a question of knowledge, and man cannot get this knowledge from himself, for nature did not make this knowledge instinctive—it has to be acquired by the mind. Instinctively man can know what is sour or sweet and similar things, but instinctive knowledge ends there. So man must learn, and he must learn from somebody who has learned before him. If you make a serious effort to observe functions for yourself, you will realize that ordinarily, whatever you do, whatever you think, whatever you feel, you do not remember yourself. You do not realize that you are present, that you are here. At the same time you will find that, if you make
sufficient efforts for a sufficiently long time, you can increase your capacity for self remembering. You will begin to remember yourself more often, you will begin to remember yourself more deeply, you will begin to remember yourself in connection with more ideas—the idea of consciousness, the idea of work, the idea of centres, the idea of self-study. But the question is how to remember oneself, how to make oneself more aware? The first step is to realize that we are not conscious. When we realize this and observe it for some time, we must try to catch ourselves at moments when we are not conscious and, little by little, this will make us more conscious. This effort will show how little conscious we are, because in ordinary conditions of life it is very difficult to be conscious. Here you put yourselves in artificial conditions, you think about yourselves 'I am sitting here' or 'I am myself'—and even then you cannot do it much. But in ordinary conditions when you are thinking about something, or talking, or working, everything distracts you, and you cannot remember yourselves. This expression 'remembering oneself' is taken intentionally, for in ordinary conversation we often say 'he forgot himself' or 'he remembered himself in time'. We use this expression only in relation to extreme forms of negative emotions, but in actual fact we always forget ourselves, and with the exception of very rare moments we never remember ourselves in time. Q. Is self-remembering the initial process of this system? A. It is the centre of the initial process, and it has to go on, it must enter into everything. At first this sounds improbable, because you may try to remember yourself, and then you find that for long periods of time it does not come to your mind; then again you begin to remember about it. But efforts of this kind are never lost; something accumulates and at a certain moment when in the ordinary state you would have been completely identified and submerged in things, you find that you can stand aside and control yourself. You never know when it will be or how it comes. You must only do what you can—observe yourself, study, and chiefly try to remember yourself; then, at a certain moment, you will see results. Q. How does one begin to use memory in the sense of self-remembering? A. Self-remembering is not really connected with memory; it is simply an expression. It means self-awareness, or self-consciousness. One must be conscious of oneself. It begins with the mental process of trying to remember oneself. This capacity to remember oneself must be developed, because in self-observation we must try to study our functions separately from one another—intellectual function separately from the emotional, instinctive separately from moving. This is very important but not easy. Q. Do you mean we should practice observing these different functions? A. Yes, at certain moments of the day we must try to see in ourselves what we think, how we feel, how we move and so on. At one time you can concentrate on the intellectual function, at another time on the
emotional, then on the instinctive or the moving. For instance, try to find out what you are thinking about, why you think and how you think about it. Try to observe physical sensations such as warmth, cold, what you see, what you hear. Then, every time you make a movement you can see how you move, how you sit, how you stand, how you walk and so on. It is not easy to separate instinctive functions, because in ordinary psychology they are mixed with the emotional; it takes some time to put them in their right place. Q. Would there be any sense in breaking down certain habitual actions, such as going to bed at a certain time at night? A. Mechanical changes of that kind may be useful in the very beginning of self-study, but they cannot produce any lasting effect. They may help you to see something that you would not have seen otherwise but, by themselves, they cannot produce any change. Change must begin from inside, from change of consciousness, from the moment when you begin to remember yourself or even earlier, when you begin to realize the possibility of self-remembering and that it is really important. Only un fortunately it often happens that people start well and then lose the line of efforts. Q. Does observing mechanicalness impair mechanicalness? I was thinking of physical work. A. Without work on consciousness all the sides of us that can be conscious will become more and more mechanical. Only very uniform work without any variations is totally mechanical. If work is a little more complicated, then the more mechanical it is the worse it is.. In no work is mechanicalness useful—one has to adapt, to change methods in order to produce good work, and for that one has to be aware of what one is doing. Being efficient in physical work does not mean mechanicalness. Training does not make us more mechanical. Being an. expert means being intelligent about one's work. Q. The moving and instinctive centres seem to work more evenly and normally than the intellectual and emotional. Why is this so? A. Because otherwise people would go to the left instead of going to the right and never get where they want to go. And if the instinctive centre were like the intellectual and the emotional centres are now, a man would soon poison himself. A certain degree of normality is obligatory for the instinctive and moving centres. Other centres can go mad without immediate harm. In order to understand man's mechanicalness it is very useful to learn to think about him as a machine, to study the functions of this machine and to understand the chief divisions of functions not only in general, not merely in theory, but to study them in their activity, to learn how they work. This division into four functions is only a preliminary division, because each of them is again subdivided. All this has to be studied and
understood by observation, because theoretical study does not give the same result, does not lead to the same conclusions, does not show the same truth. For instance, very few systems recognize the existence of the instinctive centre or instinctive mind, and no system I have heard of recognizes the existence of an independent moving mind. Yet moving mind plays a very important part in our life, so the absence of this division spoils to a great extent the results of ordinary observation of man, particularly in modem psychology, for, since this fact is not recognized, many things are ascribed to a wrong origin. Moving centre is very important to study and observe, because it has other functions besides movement in space, such, for instance, as imitation, which is a very important function in man No. 1. Besides, moving centre also controls dreams, and not only dreams at night, but dreams in waking state—day-dreams. And since most of our life passes either in real dreams or in day-dreams, study of the moving function is most important. We think that the intellectual and emotional side is more important, but actually most of our life is controlled by instinctive and moving minds. So moving centre has many useful and many useless functions. Q. Is there a connection between behaving mechanically and moving centre? A. No, moving centre only means the mind whose legitimate function is to control movements. So 'moving' and 'mechanical' are not the same. Every centre may be mechanical; every function can be more mechanical or less mechanical, more conscious or less conscious. Certainly, there are some mechanical processes in us for which there is no need to become conscious, such as the physiological processes which are arranged and controlled by their own mind. But it is our actions as a whole, both in relation to ourselves and to other people, that can become harmful if they are left to themselves. Q. Is talking always mechanical? I often talk before I have time to stop it. A. In most cases. This is one of the first things one has to observe and struggle with. It is very difficult to observe and difficult to struggle with, but it must be done. Q. I used to think that by talking about my observations I was formulating them. But now I feel there is a danger of observation evaporating in talking. A. There may be very different talking; you can talk for the sake of talking, or you can make yourself talk, with effort. Talking can be awakening, and it can be sleep. Q. Could we be told of some way of making more efforts to observe? A. If you put yourself in a more difficult position, for instance if you assume an unaccustomed posture, you won't be able to stop observing. We do not observe ourselves because life is too easy. If you are hungry, cold, tired, you will observe yourself. But with civilization there are no
strong physical sensations. We smooth out all things before they reach a degree that will make us observe. Q, Is this the kind of observation you want us to practise? I thought it was observation of our inner states. A, Everything is useful. The study of the machine is also necessary, as well as the psychological side. You cannot study one side without the other. You must know how the machine works Q. How do you know how many centres there are? A. By observation. In the ordinary way you can observe four different functions which obviously come from different sources, controlled by different principles. Self observation shows this quite clearly and after some time you cannot mix them. Q. Why haven't modern psychologists come to that conclusion? A. Because they do not know about it. This division of centres looks very simple, yet the fact that it is not known shows that ordinary mind cannot discover it. Ordinary mind, if you take existing psychology, just feels something different but cannot definitely say that this is one thing and that is another thing. This idea comes from schools, just as does the complete idea of the division of four states of consciousness. You can find this last idea in literature, but the description is quite different, so again it comes from schools and must be explained orally. There are things which can be described in books and there are other things which can never be rightly described. Q. So the idea of centres is an old idea? A. It is very old, but we cannot discover it until we are told about it. If we are told, we can observe ourselves and find that it is true, but by ourselves we cannot discover it Facts prove this, for it has not been discovered. Q. Where are the centres situated? A. It does not matter because each centre occupies the whole body There is not a single cell in our body that is not controlled by all centres. This must not be taken too literally; for instance, you cannot say that intellect controls every cell, so there are limitations, but speaking generally, each centre controls the whole body in a different way. But we cannot know the physical side by ordinary observation; we can study functions, however, and that gives all the material that is necessary. Q. Then one can observe with the intellect? A. You can do nothing else; that is the only part of us which is to a certain extent under our control, so we can use the mind for observation. Later perhaps you can train other centres to make observations, but that cannot come for a long time. Naturally, other centres must not be in the way. For instance, if you identify emotionally with something, it will prevent your observing; you want to think about one thing, but it will constantly bring you other thoughts, other associations. For a long time
we have to work from the intellectual centre, but at the same time we must understand that we cannot go far with it because it has definite limits; it will bring you to a certain point after which you cannot go further unless you can use the emotional centre. But the emotional centre has to be trained first. You must learn not to express negative emotions, and only if you do that for a sufficiently long time can other things be explained. Q. You cannot let your emotions guide you without your intellect, can you? A. Normally you could, but then we are not quite normal, so they may guide us in a right way or a wrong way. There is no guarantee that they will guide us in the way we want—we may want to go to one place and our emotions may lead us somewhere else. Q. Emotions would have to develop an intelligence of their own? A. I quite agree with you, but what does it mean? It means first of all that you must learn to control the expression of all unpleasant emotions; only then can you know emotionally what to do next. Q. You say that the thinking and the emotional functions are completely separate, but isn't it very difficult to tell the difference? A. No, it is not difficult at all, only a little patience and observation are necessary; after a short time you will see quite clearly what is thinking and what is feeling. Q. Are the three centres often working simultaneously? A. Yes, but 'simultaneously' may have different meanings. It is very rarely that they work simultaneously on the same subject. All the four functions can and do happen simultaneously, but they can work on different things. An example of all the four functions working simultaneously on the same subject would be artistic creation. Owing to their working simultaneously centres often get very mixed, yet it is possible to distinguish them. This is the beginning of self-observation and self understanding; we have to understand the different functions and then begin to divide them. Q. Why is it that moving centre can stop imagination? For instance I find gardening or any physical work a help to stop it. A. It means that the same centre was occupied with imagination that is occupied with gardening. It only proves that imagination is a function of moving centre. Q. I cannot see the importance of the stress laid on centres. A. It is very important to see that our mind is divided into four minds, that there is no unity in us, that the four minds or functions are quite different. This alone gives one a different picture of oneself. Q. How can one distinguish between emotion and instinct? A. It is a very important question and must be solved by one's own observation and study. Instinctive emotions are always connected with something physical. Since modem psychology does not separate instinc-
tive emotions from other emotions there is bound to be some difficulty in understanding the difference. But when you know that they are different, it is possible to distinguish between them. Q. Is there anything that can control unruly organs or cells? A. Yes, instinctive centre. Do you think we would be alive for half an hour if instinctive centre did not work? It knows the right and the wrong work of each organ. It always tries to make them work rightly. We think organs work by themselves—this is imagination. They are controlled by instinctive centre. This is 'instinct' in the real sense in relation to man. Q. Has the quality of intellect any bearing on the acquisition of consciousness? A. Yes, because we must begin with intellect. Our intellectual centre is better developed, or more under its own control. The emotional centre is more irresponsible. So, since we have more command of our intellectual centre we have to use it until either we become more conscious or learn to use other functions more efficiently and control them better than we do now. At present we have no control over instinctive and emotional functions, and only a little over the moving function. External influences move them. We cannot be glad or angry without cause, and a cause means something external. Later work must be in the emotional centre because the chief energy is in it. Intellectual centre is only auxiliary, but at present it is all we have. I want to tell you a little more about centres which will help you to understand the situation. Some centres are divided into two halves— positive and negative. This division is very clear in the intellectual and the instinctive centres. In the intellectual centre it is 'yes' and 'no', affirmation and negation. All the work of the intellectual centre consists of comparing. The division in the instinctive centre is quite plain: pleasure—pain. All instinctive life is governed by this. At a superficial glance it seems that the emotional centre also consists of two halves— pleasant and unpleasant emotions. But it is not really so. All our violent and depressing emotions and, generally, most of our mental suffering has the same character—it is unnatural, and our organism has no real centre for these negative emotions; they work with the help of an artificial centre. This artificial centre—a kind of swelling—is gradually created in us from early childhood, for a child grows surrounded by people with negative emotions and imitates them. Q. Are instinctive emotions not negative? A. They may be negative, but they are rightfully so. They are all useful. The negative half of the instinctive centre is a watchman warning us of danger. In the emotional centre negative emotions are very harmful. Then each half of a centre is divided into three parts: intellectual part,
emotional part and moving or mechanical part. The moving part of each centre is the most mechanical and the most often used. Generally we use only the mechanical parts of centres. Even the emotional parts are used only occasionally; as to the intellectual parts, they are very seldom used in ordinary conditions. This shows how we limit ourselves, how we use only a little part, the weakest part, of our organism. It is very easy to distinguish these three parts when we begin to observe ourselves. Mechanical parts do not need attention. Emotional parts need strong interest or identification, attention without effort or intention, for attention is drawn and kept by the attraction of the object itself. And in the intellectual parts you have to control your attention. When you get accustomed to control attention, you will see at once what I mean. First the character of the action will show you which centre you are in, and then observation of attention will show you the part of centre. It is particularly important to observe the emotional parts and to study the things that attract and keep the attention, because they produce imagination Study of attention is a very important part of self-study, and if you begin to observe this division of centres into parts, in addition to the division of centres themselves, it will give you the possibility of coming to smaller details and will help you to study attention. Q. Is it possible for us as we are to give attention to something without being identified? A. Certainly Only you must distinguish attention from identification. Attention can be controlled; identification is mechanical. Q. Did you say we have three kinds of attention? A. No. Attention is one, there is no other attention But sometimes you can act without attention—you can do many things, even normal, logical things without any attention. In other cases attention is drawn and kept by the attraction of the thing itself, and in the third case attention is controlled. Q. I find that if I control my attention for even a short time I cannot imagine. A. Quite right, because imagination goes on in mechanical parts of centres, without attention. If attention is fixed on something, imagination stops. Q. Is it only when one is self-remembering that one can give controlled attention? A. It is more or less on the same line, but at the same time controlled attention is possible in ordinary life Sometimes people can control their attention and do interesting work without knowing anything about self-remembering Although controlled attention is very close to self-remembering, there is a difference. Attention can be in only one centre, whereas self-remembering needs the work of three or even four centres. Q. Isn't it very easy for controlled attention to become identification?
A. No, they are quite different. One is the maximum of control, the other is the minimum of control. There is no possibility of control in identification. Q. Can one encourage the intellectual centre to work? A. Cultivate attention. You will see that then it gives different results. Think with attention. Do not let yourself think mechanically. Mechanical thinking transforms itself into imagination. Q. What is the difference between doing things consciously and intentionally? A. We cannot speak about doing things consciously, because we are not conscious. As to doing things intentionally—if you do some work and have to give your attention to it, then, even without your noticing it, part of your effort will be connected with keeping attention on what you are doing. But if it becomes quite mechanical, you may be thinking of something else, yet your hands will be still doing it. That will be the mechanical part of the centre. If your work needs constant thinking, invention, adaptation, you have to work with intellectual parts. The mechanical part of the intellectual centre has a special name. Sometimes it is spoken of as a separate centre, and in that case it is called the formatory centre or formatory apparatus. Most people use only this part; they never use the better parts of the intellectual centre. But ideas of this system or similar ideas cannot be understood by formatory apparatus at all. Formatory apparatus has very definite limitations. One of its peculiarities is that it compares only two things, as though in any particular line only two things existed. Then formatory centre likes thinking in extremes; for instance it either knows everything or it knows nothing. Another of its peculiarities is immediately to look for the opposite. You can find many examples of formatory thinking. For instance, if I say, you must do this or you must do that, people say, 'But you said we cannot do!' If I say this needs will-power, they say, 'How, if we have no will?' If I speak of being more conscious or less conscious, people say, 'But we have no conscious-ness!' These are all examples of formatory thinking. Q. Can you give an example of formatory apparatus rightly used? A. If the intellectual centre works normally, that is, if other parts do their work, formatory centre does its work quite all right. It is a registering apparatus. We are concerned only about its wrong work. This refers not only to the formatory apparatus but to all the mechanical parts of centres. Only when they begin to work wrongly do they become dangerous. So there is no need to worry about their right work; what you must try to do is eliminate their wrong work. The mechanical part of the emotional centre wants to do the work of the higher part, and it is the same with the formatory centre—it wants to do the work of the intellectual centre, and as a result the moving part of the centre includes all the intellectual life of an ordinary person.
Q. How do you account then for people occasionally living in the higher parts of the centre? One can occasionally have an idea. A. Certain combinations of ideas may 'happen', but we want control, not an explanation of things that happen by themselves. Anything may happen once or twice, but it has no practical value or meaning, just as once or twice one can find money in the street but one cannot live on it. Q. I do not understand what acting mechanically means, because one seems to spend half of one's life doing things mechanically, like writing. Has all this got to be undone? A. That is moving centre—I do not mean that. Many things are mechanical and should remain mechanical. But mechanical thoughts, mechanical feelings—that is what has to be studied and can and should be changed. Mechanical thinking is not worth a penny. You can think about many things mechanically, but you will get nothing from it. In a mechanical way you can use only a small part of your intellectual centre, the formatory apparatus, and it is not worth spending your time on. There is one thing you must understand about parts of centres, and that is that the intellectual parts differ much less from one another than the other parts. This division into intellectual, emotional and moving is very clear and sharply denned in the lower parts of centres, but it becomes much less apparent in the higher parts. Q. Do only different centres interfere with each other or can one part of the same centre interfere with another part? A. It may be anything. Supposing you work with moving centre—then instinctive centre may interfere, or emotional centre, or another part of moving centre. Or if you feel in one centre and then start speaking, you pass into another centre and may even forget what you wanted to say. Q. Does the sum of the intellectual parts of different centres make up the intellectual centre or are they separate? A. No, they can all work separately, but certainly if one could control the intellectual parts of all centres and make them work together, that would be the way to higher centres. Intellectual parts will not make up a centre by themselves, but their combined work will produce better work than they can do separately. Q. Does work on oneself diminish the functions of the mechanical parts of centres? A. It will diminish the work of the mechanical parts in the sense that it will diminish mechanicalness where attention and consciousness are useful. The mechanical parts will then do their own work for which they are intended, and perhaps do it better than at present, because now they are too occupied with things that do not concern them. This will enable the better parts of centres to work. Q. Is mechanicalness to be looked upon as a fact to be observed or as an evil to be fought against?
A. You see, you will never understand mechanicalness if you speak in this way—in relation to small things. But when you see, or find in your memory, how quite mechanically you can do the most abominable things, which later you cannot understand how you could have done, then you will know what mechanicalness is. All our life we do mechanically what we would never do consciously. That is what we must understand. If we look through our life, year by year, month by month, we see things we would never have done consciously, or things we did not do which we would have done if we were conscious. This is the way to think about mechanicalness. Q. Is formulation a proper function of the intellectual centre? A. Quite right. There may be different degrees, but at present we can only speak about formulation and formation. In this connection it is important to understand the right meaning of the word 'formatory'. There are two methods of mental conclusions: 'formation' and 'formulation'. 'Formation' is a conclusion arrived at by the way of least resistance, avoiding difficulties. It is easier because it makes itself—ready-made phrases, ready-made opinions, like a stamp. It is generally defective with the exception of the simplest cases. 'Formulation' is a conclusion arrived at on the basis of all the available material; it needs effort and is sometimes difficult, but it means the best we can do. Q. How is it possible for us to formulate? Will not certain 'I's distort the evidence? A. If they distort, they will distort the formulation. But certainly it is necessary to learn to distinguish formulation from formation. Formation is, so to speak, just one glance, sometimes quite wrong, and formulation, as I said, is when you collect all you know about a given subject and try to make some deduction from it. Q. Why is it that sometimes I find lectures interesting and sometimes not? A. Because you are in different centres. In one centre you can be interested in another centre you are not interested. Suppose you are in instinctive centre; it cannot be interested in esoteric ideas—it is interested in food and things like that. But if you are in the intellectual or partly in the emotional centre, you can be interested. You know that we have four rooms in our house, and it depends on which room we are in whether we are interested or not. Q. I find in typing routine work one types more quickly. In typing intelligent work one types more slowly. A. Because two centres work. Complicated work needs two centres. But even in copying, intellectual centre enters. Moving centre cannot be trusted much; it controls imagination and dreams. So when it works, intellectual centre watches. If one works wholly with moving centre, one is half asleep. All co-operation of centres is a certain degree of awaken ness. What does falling asleep mean? Disconnection of centres.