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you have a certain amount of money, all in pennies. Every moment you say 'I' you use a penny. That is a mistake; even such as we are we are worth more than a penny. In this system the word 'I' can be spoken of in five ways, on five different levels. Man in his ordinary state is a multiplicity of 'I's: this is the first meaning. When a man decides to work, an 'observing I' or group of 'I's appears (shown in black on the diagram); this is the second meaning. The third meaning, indicated by the smallest circle, is when Deputy Steward appears. He has control over a number of 'I's. The fourth meaning, indicated by the middle circle, is when the Steward appears. He has control over all 'I's. The fifth meaning is that of the Master. He is drawn as the big circle outside, as he has a Time-body. He knows the past and also the future, although there must be different degrees of this. Q. Is it possible to increase the number of 'I's interested in the work? A. We have enough 'I's, they increase themselves. The aim is to connect them and help them become one 'I' interested in the work. If many different 'I's are interested and do not know one another, one 'I' or group
of 'I's can do one thing and another another thing, without knowing. You can say 'I' speaking about yourself only in relation to your work for a definite aim: self-study, study of the system, self-remembering and so on. In other things you must realize that this is not really you, but only a small part of you, mostly imaginary. When you learn to distinguish that, when it becomes almost a habit (in the sense of being constant), you will feel yourself in the right way. But if you always say 'I' to everything without discrimination, it only helps your mechanical tendencies and strengthens them. And what a quantity of things we do without wanting to do them at all! We have to do this and that, think about this, feel about that, and so one thing after another takes all our energy, and nothing remains for real work. I said in the first lecture that these hundreds and hundreds of 'I's form certain groups in which several 'I's work together. Some of these groups are natural, others are artificial, and some are even pathological. The first natural division of 'I's is according to functions: intellectual, emotional, instinctive and moving. But apart from these there are many other divisions which can be called different personalities. Q. What is the difference between personalities and 'I's? A. You can say that personalities consist of different 'I's. Everyone can find several personalities in himself, and real self-study begins with the study of these different personalities, because we cannot study 'I's—there are too many of them. But with personalities it is easier, for each personality or group of 'I's means some special inclination, a special tendency, or sometimes a disinclination. Q. Are there any special observations one can make to see personalities? A. Study of your particular likes will help. For instance, if you find something you definitely liked throughout your life from childhood, you will see that there is a certain personality built round it. We are creatures of likes; we like all sorts of things, but we only have a certain number of genuine likes. By studying them one finds personalities. Q. Are all personalities bound up with likes and none with dislikes? A. I do not think normal people have such strong dislikes. Dislikes are usually accidental, so do not trust them. But there are things you have always liked and there are some you just imagine you like. Personalities can be very different. Some are based on real facts and real tastes and inclinations, while others are based on imagination and on wrong ideas about oneself. So it is necessary to separate personalities that can be used in some way from those that cannot be useful for self-development and so have to be destroyed, or at least subdued. Q. It seems to me that some personalities disappear for quite a long period of time. A. They do not disappear, they may just go behind the scenes. If they are merely occasional 'I's they may disappear, but personalities do not
disappear so easily, although they may be hidden from view. Or they may be sacrificed, for sometimes in order to manifest one personality one has to sacrifice several others. Q. How to find out which personalities are more real and which imaginary? A. Life provides tests for personalities. Suppose you think you like something very much and then life puts you into conditions where you can enjoy what you thought you liked, but you find instead that you do not enjoy it at all, you only imagined that you liked it. Then you can see that this personality was imaginary. Q. What determines that a personality or group of 'I's is useless and should be eliminated? A. Personalities can be divided. Self-development begins with magnetic centre, that is, a group of 'I's or personality interested in certain things. When a man meets a school, his magnetic centre begins to accumulate practical and theoretical knowledge and experience which come from the study of being, and in this way it eventually becomes Deputy Steward. Besides this personality there are other personalities, some of which can develop, and some that do not agree with it at all. So some personalities can join in the work, others are neutral and, so long as they are not in the way, can be allowed to remain for some time, and some have to be eliminated. When magnetic centre becomes transformed into Deputy Steward, you make certain decisions, formulate a certain aim, undertake a certain work. Then he can find out which personality can work with him and which cannot. If a personality is against your aim and can harm it, or does not want it, or does not know about it, then obviously it cannot work with the Deputy Steward. So they can be sorted out, but first one must know them. Then, when personalities are put in order and are grouped round magnetic centre—which means Deputy Steward—they will produce an effect on essence just by their existence. Q. Is Deputy Steward conscience? A. Conscience takes part in forming the Deputy Steward, but you cannot say it is Deputy Steward, because conscience is much bigger. Q. Is there a connection between magnetic centre and consciousness? A. Yes, but not a direct one: there are several different states between them. It is better to say that magnetic centre is the ground from which permanent 'I' grows. Through several transformations magnetic centre becomes permanent 'I' much much later. It is the seed of permanent 'I', but only the seed—it has to become something quite different first. Now try to understand the most important division of all for practical use. It is the division into 'I' and (for me) 'Ouspensky'. What is 'I'? We have no permanent 'I' as opposed to 'Ouspensky'. But all our interest in the system, all our efforts in self-study and self-development, and what is sometimes called the 'observing I'—all this is the beginning of 'I'. All the
rest is 'Ouspensky' or 'false personality'. 'Ouspensky' is our imaginary picture of ourselves, because we put into it all that we think of ourselves, which is generally imaginary. All study comes down to the study of this imaginary picture and to separating ourselves from it. So at present you can call 'I' your valuation of the system. This is 'you'. From your attitude to the system, work in the system, interest in the system, 'I' can grow. On this basis you can separate 'I' from false personality. There is no guarantee that it will be absolutely right, but this method has a great practical value. False personality is always against the work for self-development and spoils the work of all other personalities. It can never be useful. Q. What is the difference between real personalities and false personality? A. You mix two divisions which are quite different and on a different scale, so they cannot be compared. Personalities (in the plural) are spoken of in relation to essence, for I said that personality can be divided into different personalities which compose it. The division into essence and personality is at present merely theoretical and is only useful as a principle, for it is difficult to see it in oneself. We do not know our personalities, so we begin to study from two ends. We study first that personality which is connected with the work and which has developed from the magnetic centre; and then we study false personality, on quite a different scale. False personality is opposed to 'you', it is your wrong idea of yourself—exactly what you are not. This division is practical, for it is necessary to know definitely what your false personality looks like. So you must not confuse false personality with personalities, because, although they are not very real, personalities may be based on real inclinations, real tastes and likes, whereas false personality is all false and may even pretend to like something that 'you' dislike or to dislike something 'you' really like. When you speak about false personality, you take 'you' as existing and false personality as not; when you speak about personalities, you leave false personality out of the conversation and discuss different divisions of what you consider to be 'yourself'. False personality must not become just a word. Everybody who speaks about it must have some picture of himself in the power of false personality. Only if this term is used like that can it give some result. Q. Could you say more about what 'I' is? A. 'I' is only presumed; we do not know what 'I' is. But 'Ouspensky' I know and I can study him in all his manifestations. So I must begin with 'Ouspensky'. 'I' is elusive and very small; it exists only as a potentiality; if it does not grow, false personality will continue to control everything. Many people make the mistake of thinking that they know which is which. They say 'this is I', when in reality it is false personality. This is generally connected with our capacity to play roles. It is a very limited capacity; we generally have about five or six roles, whether we observe it or not. We may notice a certain, quite misleading, similarity between these roles
and then, consciously or unconsciously, come to the conclusion that behind them there stands a permanent individuality. We call it 'I' and think that it is behind all manifestations, when in reality it is an imaginary picture of ourselves. This picture has to be studied. It is impossible to have a practical knowledge of oneself if one does not know one's false personality. As long as we think we are one, all our definitions are wrong. Only when a man knows that all his intentions, desires and so on are not real, that they are false personality, only then can he get something. This is the only practical work possible, and it is very difficult False personality has to disappear, or at least be rendered powerless to hinder our work. But it will defend itself and will not give in easily. Work is struggle with false personality which will fight back, chiefly through lying, for lying is its strongest weapon. Q If you say that what we call 'I' is imaginary, what do you mean by 'self consciousness'? What 'self' can be conscious? A. Self as different from not-self. 'I'—and this table. When I said that 'I' was imaginary I meant it in the sense of a mental picture we have of ourselves, of what we think of ourselves When I say 'Ouspensky', it is an ornamented 'Ouspensky', made to look what he is not. I attribute to him many things he does not possess, I do not know his weaknesses The condition of growth of real 'I' is to get rid of 'Ouspensky', not to be identified with him. Q. Is 'I' never real unless it is connected with effort? A. 'I' can only be in the state of self-consciousness, and every moment in the work of creating self-consciousness means effort Nothing can 'happen' by itself If we change our being, things will be different, but in this state nothing can be different. Q It seems to me that false personality is the only thing that can adapt to some new circumstance, it can play a new role and make it more comfortable. A. False personality does not really adapt. To adapt in the ordinary sense means, more or less, a controlled action False personality reacts in a different way, according to what it is, but it cannot adapt. And it does not necessarily make things more comfortable—you cannot rely on it You must understand that you have not the slightest control of false personality. When we begin to see it we realize that it controls everything and nothing can control it. So you cannot call it adaptation. You must separate in yourself what you can control and what you cannot control What you cannot control belongs to false personality, and what you can control belongs to you Q. How can one deal with the conceit of false personality? A. You must know all its features first and then you must think rightly. When you think rightly you will find ways to deal with it You must not justify it; it lives on justification, and even glorification, of all its features.
At any moment of our life, even in quiet moments, we are always justifying it, considering it legitimate and finding all possible excuses for it. This is what I call wrong thinking. In studying false personality we begin to see mechanicalness more and more. Parallel with the realization of our mechanicalness we study how to get out of it by means of creating something that is not mechanical. How can we do it? First we must think about what we want, separate the important from the unimportant. Work on oneself, desire to know oneself and the ideas of the work, struggle to create consciousness, are not mechanical—that we can be sure of. And if we look from this point of view we will see many imaginary things in ourselves. These imaginary things are false personality—imaginary emotions, imaginary interests, imaginary ideas about ourselves. False personality is utterly mechanical, so it is again the division into conscious and mechanical. This mechanical part of us is chiefly based on imagination, on wrong views of everything, and above all on a wrong view of ourselves. We must realize how much we are in the power of this false personality and invented things which have no real existence, and we must separate what we can really depend on from what is not dependable in ourselves. That may serve as the beginning. When we know ourselves better, this will help us to awake. Q. Do you mean we must study our false personality by collecting material, observations? A. By dividing yourself, by not saying 'I' to everything. You can really use the word 'I' only in relation to the more conscious part of yourself— desire to work, desire to understand, realization of not understanding, realization of mechanicalness; that you can call 'I'. 'I' starts growing only in connection with study, with work on oneself; otherwise it cannot grow and there is no change. A permanent 'I' does not come all at once. All illusory 'I's disappear little by little and real 'I' gradually grows stronger and stronger, chiefly through self-remembering. Self-remembering in the sense of just awareness is very good, but little by little when you go on it becomes connected with other interests, with what you want to get. At present, one moment you remember it, and then for a day or a week you forget it; but it is necessary to remember it all the time. Q. Is the object of self-remembering the gradual discovery of permanent 'I'? A. Not the discovery; it is preparing the ground for it. Permanent 'I' is not there. It must grow, but it cannot grow when it is all covered with negative emotions, identification and other such things. So you begin by preparing the ground for it. But first of all, as I said before, it is necessary to understand what self-remembering is, why it is better to self-remember, what effect it will produce, and so on. It needs thinking about. Besides, in trying to self-
remember it is necessary to keep the connection with all the other ideas of the system. If one takes one thing and omits another thing—for instance, if one seriously works on self-remembering without knowing about the idea of the division of 'I's, so that one takes oneself as one (as a unity) from the beginning—then self-remembering will give wrong results and may even make development impossible. There are schools, for instance, or systems which, although they do not formulate it in this way, are actually based on false personality and on struggle against conscience. Such work must certainly produce wrong results. At first it will create a certain kind of strength, but it will make the development of higher consciousness an impossibility. False personality either destroys or distorts memory. Self-remembering is a thing that must be based on right function. At the same time as working on it you must work on the weakening of false personality. Several lines of work are suggested and explained from the beginning, and all must go together. You cannot just do one thing and not another. All are necessary for creating this right combination, but first must come the understanding of the struggle with false personality. Suppose one tries to remember oneself and does not wish to make efforts against false personality. Then all its features will come into play, saying, 'I dislike these people', 'I do not want this', 'I do not want that', and so on. Then it will not be work but quite the opposite. As I said, if one tries to work in this wrong way it may make one stronger than one was before, but in such a case the stronger one becomes, the less is the possibility of development. Fixing before development—that is the danger. Q. Is that something that one should be on guard against? A. Certainly. Only a little part of you wants to self-remember, and other personalities, or 'I's, do not want it at all. It is necessary to find them and expose them, to see which are useful for this work, which are indifferent and which are so asleep that they do not know anything about it. The aim is to have control over one's 'I's, or personalities, to be able to bring one or another up, to arrange them in a certain way. The 'I' that has control will not be one of these you have now. This idea of the formation of real 'I' is most important; it cannot be formed accidentally. In most cases we are satisfied with a philosophical idea of 'I'; we believe that we have it and do not realize that actually we pass from one 'I' to another. Q. In considering likes and dislikes, how can one separate what is real and what is false personality? A. Start by realizing that it is all false personality, and then try to find out what is not. You cannot do the second before the first. First you must understand that all is false personality, and when you become convinced of that, you may find what is 'yourself'. Go on observing. Work begins from the moment one realizes that one is not. When it enters into every-
thing, when it becomes a realization, then it is productive work. But when one thinks of oneself as 'I' (the whole), then it is not productive work. You must understand that false personality is a very elusive thing. It is one, it does not consist of different personalities; but at the same time it contains contradictory and incompatible features, features that cannot manifest themselves at the same time. So it does not mean that you can see the whole of your false personality at one moment. Sometimes you can see more of it, at other times certain features of it manifest themselves separately. Also it must be remembered that false personality is often rather attractive or amusing, particularly for other people who live in their false personalities. So when you begin to lose your false personality, when you begin to struggle with it, people will not like you. They will tell you that you have become dull. Q. How can one tell what is not false personality? A. One thing false personality cannot do is make efforts. This is the easiest way to know, if you are in doubt. False personality always tries to make everything as easy as possible, always chooses what requires least effort. But you must understand that you cannot learn anything or change anything without effort. So when you find an 'I' or a group of 'I's which are ready to make efforts, it means that they do not belong to false personality. Q. Can one acquire a new false personality with regard to the system? A. If one does not think about or understand false personality and if one deceives oneself, thinking that one works, one will not acquire a new false personality, but false personality will grow. So it must be kept out, if not destroyed, soon after the beginning. Q. My idea of myself often makes me think I am not properly valued and therefore I suffer because of my picture of myself. A. Quite right, but do not think about the picture; you must only remember the direction. You may be mistaken in your ideas about yourself, but it is not important. Only, the direction must be right; you cannot go somewhere without knowing where you are going. You can see your imaginary picture of yourself only from the right point, and the right point is the direction. There is no other point from which you can see it. Q. Could you say again what takes the place of real 'I' at present? A. Desire to know. From this, real 'I' will grow, if it does. In the beginning it is difficult to define, it is the aim. If you connect yourself with a certain work, with a certain system, it begins to grow; but it cannot grow by itself merely through happy circumstances. It is quite simple to establish that we have no permanent 'I'. Try to remember yourself for fifteen minutes; this will show the degree of your being. If you had a permanent 'I', you would be able to remember yourself
for fifteen hours I It is all very simple, really, only we have no keys to our machine. If we had the keys, it would be easy to open it and see what is inside, and then separate the imaginary from the real. But even that we have to learn: we are too used to the unreal. So the subject of our study must be false personality, which is always there. Only if you know it in all its manifestations can you separate what is 'I'. We are identified with our imaginary picture of ourselves and it is a very dangerous form of identification. Q. How can one begin to distinguish what is real? A. You cannot. But you can distinguish what is unreal, just in the same way as you distinguish truth and lying. There is no need of philosophy; take it simply. We must first apply discrimination to simple things. Imagination plays a very important part in our life, because we believe in it. The real can grow only at the expense of the imaginary. But in ordinary life the unreal grows at the expense of the real. Q. I do not quite understand the division between work and ordinary life. A. The relation of personal work to life is precisely this relation of permanent 'I' to false personality. Work is permanent 'I' in the essence, and ordinary life is false personality. When you understand what permanent 'I' is, when you are conscious of yourself and have permanent control, this is work. At present you live in false personality. Q. I find it difficult to see the difference between 'I' and 'Miss B.'. A. As I have just said, in the division of 'I' and 'Miss B' practically all is 'Miss B'. 'You' can outgrow 'Miss B' only from your interest in the system, because real 'I' cannot grow from anything else. All the material that is there will never come to anything without these ideas, without this interest, because it keeps it on a certain line, in a certain direction. At first you study, observe yourself and so on, then, after some time, if you work, 'I' will appear for a second from time to time, but you will not be able to keep it and it will disappear again. This will go on for some time, and then, at a certain moment, it will appear and stay long enough for you to recognize and remember it. This is the way of all new things; at first they come for very short moments, then they stay longer. It is the natural way of growth, it cannot be otherwise. We have in us too many momentums of mechanical habits of thinking and too many other wrong things. Real 'I' appears and is immediately squashed. When you understand more about false personality you will realize that you are surrounded by it. You cannot see anything without the eyes of false personality, you cannot hear without the ears of false personality or speak without the voice of false personality. Everything goes through false personality, and the first step is to know it, because then you will know how much of your life it occupies. Q. Since false personality is imaginary, does it really exist?
A. It does not really exist, but we imagine it exists. It exists in its manifestations, but not as a real part of ourselves. It is a combination of 'I's that have no real foundation, but they act and produce certain effects. Do not try to define it, or you will lose your way in words, and we must deal with facts. Negative emotions exist, yet at the same time they do not exist, since there is no real centre for them. It is the same with false personality. It is one of the misfortunes of our state that we are full of non-existent things. You must understand that you cannot even begin to work on the level you are; you have to change certain things first. You can find what to change only as a result of your observations. Sometimes it becomes very clear, and only then does the fight begin, because false personality begins to defend itself. You must know false personality first. All that we speak about now, refers to the first stage—understanding that we do not know false personality, that in order to know it we must study, that all the work we do is done at the expense of false personality, that all the work we can do on ourselves means diminishing the power of false personality, and that if we begin to try and work, leaving false personality without disturbing it, all the work will come to nothing. I repeat again—you must understand that false personality is a combination of all lies, features and 'I's that can never be useful in any sense, either in life or in the work—just like negative emotions. Yet false personality always says 'I' and always ascribes to itself many capacities, such as will, self-consciousness and so on, and if it is not checked it remains an obstacle to all the work. So one of the first and most important factors, in trying to change oneself, is this division of oneself into 'I' and whatever your name may be. If this division is not made, if one forgets it and continues to think of oneself in the usual way, or if one divides oneself in a wrong way, work stops. Work on oneself can only progress on the basis of this division, but it must be the right division. It often happens that people make a wrong division: what they like in themselves they call 'I' and what they dislike, or what in their opinion is weak or unimportant, they call false personality. This is quite a wrong division; it changes nothing and one remains as one was. This wrong division is simply lying, lying to oneself, which is worse than anything, because the moment one meets with the smallest difficulty it will show itself by inner arguing and wrong understanding. If one uses a wrong division, it will not be reliable and will fail one in a moment of need. To make a right division of oneself one must understand what is 'I' and what is 'Ouspensky', 'Brown' or 'Jones', in other words, what is lying and what is oneself. As I said, even if you admit this possibility of dividing yourself, you are bound to call what you like in yourself 'I' and
what you dislike 'Not I', for the right division cannot be found at once; you must find some indications in connection with the work which will help. For instance, if you say that your aim is to be free, it is first of all necessary to understand that you are not free. If you understand to what extent you are not free and if you formulate your desire to be free, you will then see in yourself which part of you wants to be free and which part does not. This would be a beginning. Q Can one see false personality without help? A. There is nothing against it theoretically, only I never saw such a case Even with help, people will not see it. You can show a man a mirror, and he will say, 'This is not me, it is an artificial mirror, not a real mirror. It is not a reflection of me.' Q. How can one eliminate false personality? A. You cannot eliminate it. It is just the same as trying to cut your head off. But you can make it less insistent, less permanent If your false personality is there for twenty three hours out of the twenty-four, when work begins it will be there only twenty-two hours and 'you' will be present an hour longer. If, at a certain moment, you feel the danger of a manifestation of false personality and you find a way to stop it, this is what you have to begin with. The question of elimination does not enter at all—it is connected with quite different things. You must have control. Q. Isn't the study of false personality analysing oneself? I thought it was a bad thing? A. To a certain extent it is analysing. What was said about refraining from analysis was in the first lecture. I said then that analysis was impossible because you do not know enough. Analysis means establishing causes and effects. So at first I said that you have to abstain from analysis and just observe, observe, observe, nothing more, because the time for analysis would come when you knew the laws. Now we are studying these laws, so certainly you have to analyse more and more. You see, rules for observation and thinking in the first lecture are one thing, but with the passing of time they change and modify. What one cannot do in the first month one already must do in the second month. Both difficulties and possibilities increase all the time. Analysis must be used carefully, when it is necessary, not for everything. Sometimes it is only a waste of time. Q. Would you say that false personality is sometimes built up by other people—for instance, when people say in front of a child that they hate strangers? A. Quite right. False personality is built up from many sides, and certainly to a great extent by suggestions from other people. A child gets many suggestions, especially about his likes and dislikes. Q. I don't quite follow how to find the 'I's that object to the work. Does it mean we should sift out what the 'I's are? A. You must not think theoretically about it. Try to find what in you
objects to the ideas of the system, or try to find the 'I's (or you can call them anything you like) which are indifferent to it. Suppose you have certain definite tastes in food. These 'I's which are interested in food cannot be interested in self-remembering. Then there are other 'I's interested in things opposed to self-remembering. There are many things you can do with pleasure only if you do not remember yourself, and naturally these 'I's will be very inimical to self-remembering, because it will only spoil their pleasure. Try to find them in that way. Theoretical approaches will not help. Q. What is the origin of these artificial groups of 'I's? A. They may be formed by imitation, desire to be original, to be attractive, to be admired by people and so on. Q. When you find a group of 'I's which do not want to self-remember, what do you do about it? A. Leave it alone. If it does not want to, what can you do with it? If there are groups of 'I's that want to, work on them. Those 'I's which realize the necessity to self-remember must work with other 'I's that also want to. They must not spend their time in persuading other 'I's. Q. Is it to be expected that some 'I's in a man would be frightened of the idea of separating 'I' from 'Mr. A'? A. Certainly all 'I's which constitute false personality will be frightened, because it is death to them. But you must understand that they may show their fear only for some time and, after that, they may disguise themselves in order not to die. You may seriously think that you have finished with false personality, whereas it is only concealing itself inside some feature, ready to appear. This feature is always weakness. So long as it remains it takes all energy, but it may be very well disguised, and in that form it may even become stronger, growing parallel with the growth of real 'I'. So the realization of the necessity of this division into 'I' and 'Mr. A' is not sufficient to destroy it. You must remember that false personality defends itself. Q. Is false personality based on negative emotions? A. There are many other things in false personality besides negative emotions. For instance, there are always bad mental habits; false personality, or parts of false personality are always based on wrong thinking. Although to a certain extent you are right: in some cases if you take negative emotions away from false personality it collapses, for it cannot live without them. On the other hand, some false personalities can function on most pleasant emotions. There are very cheerful false personalities and in this way your false personality can deceive you and make you believe that you are struggling with negative emotions. It can deceive you in many different ways. Q. Do all negative emotions spring from false personality? A. How could it be otherwise? It is, so to speak, a special organ for