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in many cases where we do not see it now. Sometimes we can find examples of third force in ordinary scientific study—for example, in chemistry and in biology we can find the necessity of a third force in the creation of events and phenomena. We begin with the study of psychology. Later we shall talk more about three forces and we may find some examples of their interaction. But it is better to be prepared and get accustomed now to the idea of the need to study these three forces. The Law of Seven must also be described briefly. It means that no process in the world goes without interruptions. To illustrate this idea let us take a certain period of activity in which vibrations are increasing; suppose they begin at 1000 vibrations a second and increase to 2000 vibrations a second. This period is called an octave, because this law was applied to music and the period was divided into seven notes and a repetition of the first note. The octave, particularly the major octave, is really a picture or formula of a cosmic law, because, in cosmic arrangements, within one octave there are two moments when vibrations slow down by themselves. Vibrations do not develop regularly. In the major octave this is shown by the missing semi-tones; that is why we are told that it is a picture of a cosmic law; but this law has nothing to do with music. The reason why it is necessary to understand the Law of Seven is that it plays a very important part in all events. If there were no Law of Seven everything in the world would go to its final conclusion, but because of this law everything deviates. For instance, if rain began it would go on without stopping, if floods began they would cover everything, if an earthquake began it would go on indefinitely. But they stop, because of the Law of Seven, because at every missing semi-tone things deviate, they do not go by straight lines. The Law of Seven also explains why there are no straight lines in nature. Everything in our life and our machine is also based on this law. So we shall study it in the work of our organism; because we have to study ourselves not only psychologically, not only in connection with our mental life, but also in connection with our physical life. In our physical processes we find many examples of the working of this law. At the same time, the Law of Seven explains that, if you know how and at what moment to do it, you can give an additional shock to an octave and keep the line straight. We can observe in human activity how people start to do one thing and after some time do quite a different thing, still calling it by the first name without noticing that things have completely changed. But in personal work, particularly in work connected with this system, we must learn how to keep these octaves from deviating, how to keep a straight line. Otherwise we shall not find anything.
We have to keep returning to psychology even when studying other sides of the system, because only with the help of the psychological study shall we really increase our knowledge; without it we shall only be learning words. Only when we know how to study ourselves psychologically, in relation to the working of our minds, our cognition and so on, can we begin to understand something. I will try to give some examples of how self-study should begin. We spoke already of lying and I gave a possible definition of psychology as 'the study of lying'. So one of the first and most important things for you to observe is lying. Very much akin to lying are our illusions, things about which we deceive ourselves, wrong ideas, wrong convictions, wrong views and so on. All these must be studied because until we begin to understand our illusions we can never see truth. In everything we must first separate our illusions from facts. Only then will it be possible to see whether we can really learn something new. One of the most important and most difficult illusions to conquer is our conviction that we can 'do'. Try to understand what that means. We think that we make a plan, decide, start and achieve what we want, but the system explains that man 1, 2 and 3 cannot 'do', cannot do anything, everything just happens to him. That may sound strange, particularly now when everybody thinks they can do something. But little by little you will understand that many things we are accustomed to say about man generally could only be true about men of higher level and do not apply to men of our low level. If you say that man can 'do', that would be right about man No. 7 or No. 6. Even man No. 5 can do something in comparison with us, but we can do nothing. You might say, too, that you think man has consciousness. That would be right in relation to man No. 5, 6 or 7, beginning at No. 5, and if you were to say that man has conscience, that would be right in relation to man No. 4 but not in relation to man No. 1, 2 and 3. We must learn to distinguish to which category of man things refer, because some things are right in relation to one category but wrong in relation to another. It is very important to understand that man cannot 'do', because this is the basis of our view of ourselves, and even when we become disappointed with ourselves we think that other people can 'do'. We cannot accept completely and fully that things happen mechanically and that nobody gives a push to them. At first it is difficult to see this on a big scale, but you will see it very soon in yourself. In studying yourself, if you try to do certain things which generally you do not do, for instance, if you try to remember yourself, if you try to be aware of yourself, then very soon you will see whether you can 'do' something or not. And in most cases you will find that you cannot do it. Q. If we can do nothing with ourselves as man 1, 2 or 3, must we call in some outside agency if we want to be aware?
A. There are no outside agencies we can call in because we are mechanical. We can do nothing, but there are differences in doing and self-observation will show them; for instance, we can show some resistance. We may have some wish, some tendency, but we can show resistance to it and we can go on resisting every day. In quite small things we have choice, so although we cannot 'do' in quotation marks there are many small things we can do now. For instance, we can try to be aware of ourselves. Certainly we cannot do it for a long time. But do we try or not? This is the question. In observing these different actions of ours we see that, as a general principle, although man 1, 2 and 3 can 'do' nothing, if he becomes interested in something, if he begins to want something more than ordinary things, then he is not always on the same level and he can choose moments when he can start doing in a very elementary sense. Another very important problem we must consider is the idea of good and evil in this system, because generally people's views are very confused on this subject and it is necessary to establish for yourself how to understand it. From the viewpoint of the system there are only two things that can be compared or seen in man, the manifestation of mechanical laws and the manifestation of consciousness. If you want to find examples of what you can call good or bad, to arrive at some standard, you will see at once that what we call evil is always mechanical, it can never be conscious; and what we call good is always conscious, it cannot be mechanical. It will take a long time to see the reason for that, because these ideas of mechanical and conscious are mixed in our mind. We never describe them in the right way, so this is the next point you must consider and study. Further, in connection with the question of good and evil, we must try to understand the relative positions of morality and conscience. What is morality and what is conscience? We can say first of all that morality is not constant. It is different in different countries, in different centuries, in different decades, in different classes, with people of different education, and so on. What may be moral in the Caucasus may be immoral in Europe. For instance, in some countries blood revenge is a most moral thing; if a man refuses to kill somebody who killed his distant uncle, he would be considered most immoral. But in Europe nobody would think that, in fact most people would think a man very immoral to kill anybody, even a relative of somebody who had killed his uncle. So morality is always different, and it always changes. But conscience never changes. Conscience is a kind of emotional understanding of truth in certain definite relations, generally in relation to behaviour, to people and so on. This is always the same; it cannot change and it cannot differ in one nation or another, in one country or another, in one person or another. Try to connect in your mind what I said about the study of good and evil, mechanicalness and consciousness, morality and conscience, and then put the question, 'Is conscious evil possible?' That will require study and
observation, but from the point of view of the system there is a definite principle that conscious evil is impossible; mechanicalness must be unconscious. Q. The idea of evil being always unconscious is rather difficult to understand. Can you explain it a little more? A. I said, first of all try to find for yourself what you call evil, not by definition but by examples. When you have a certain number of examples, ask yourself, could they be conscious? Could evil things be done consciously? Later you will see they could be done only unconsciously. Another answer is that all you call evil can happen mechanically, and it always does happen mechanically, so it has no need of consciousness. I said that we should study the ideas of this system chiefly in connection with the evolution of man, and I explained that by evolution we must understand a conscious process and conscious efforts, continuous and connected. There is no mechanical evolution as it is sometimes understood. Evolution, if it is possible, can only be conscious, and the beginning of evolution is always the evolution of consciousness, it cannot be the evolution of anything else. If consciousness begins to evolve, other things begin to grow and evolve. If consciousness remains on the same level, everything else remains on the same level. There are several things which it is important to understand from the very beginning in relation to evolution. First, that out of the very large quantity of men 1, 2 and 3, only very few can become No. 4, 5, 6 and 7. or even begin. That must be very well understood, because if we begin to think that everybody can evolve we cease to understand the conditions necessary for the beginning of evolution, as I described them for you in the example of escape from prison. Q. Have all races of men the same possibility of development? A. That is an interesting question. I asked this question myself when I first came to this work and I was told that it had been discussed in very important schools at a very important period, and that after making all possible experiments in this connection they came to the conclusion that there is no difference, from the point of view of possible development, between the white, yellow, black, brown and red races. At the present time, the white and yellow races have predominance, whereas in the past it was probably one of the others. For instance, the Sphinx reminds one of a negro, not a European. Q. In connection with what you said about good and evil, could a follower of this system take part in war? A. It is his business. There are no external prohibitions or conditions. Q. But could he reconcile the two? A. Again it is his business. This particular system leaves man very free. He wants to create consciousness and will. Neither consciousness nor will can be created by following certain external restrictions. One must be free.
You must understand that external things matter least of all. It is the internal things that are important, internal war. Q. There are many things that seem to me evil which I am capable of committing. A. You cannot take yourself because you could only take examples of evil which you have committed already. So it is better to take the idea in general. Find all possible examples—I do not mean accidents or mistakes, because many crimes are accidental—but take all that we call definite intentional evil, and you will see that it does not need consciousness; one mechanical action, and everything goes on. Q. It creates the illusion of choice. A. That is the greatest illusion—the illusion of 'doing' and the illusion of choice. These things belong to a higher level. Beginning at No. 4 one already begins to have choice, but men 1, 2 and 3 have very little choice. Q. Wouldn't you say that the study of black magic was conscious evil? A. Do you know anybody who studied it, with the exception of people who read books with terrifying pictures and deceive themselves? Q. If you deliberately set to work to deceive another person is not that deliberate evil? A. Most probably you could not help yourself; there was such a pressure of circumstances or something, that you could not do otherwise. These are all difficult problems and they take a long time to get used to, because we are accustomed to think in the wrong way. For instance, when we look at historical events, we take as conscious just those things that cannot be conscious and the things that may be conscious we take as mechanical, as a kind of process. Now if we return to this idea that only a very few can develop and find hidden possibilities in themselves, the question naturally arises: What determines the difference? Why do some people have a chance and some people have no chance? It is quite true that some people have no chance from the very beginning. They are born in such circumstances that they can learn nothing, or they are themselves defective in some way; so we exclude defective people because there is nothing to be said about them. We are interested in people who are in normal circumstances, and they themselves must be normal, with ordinary possibilities of learning, understanding and so on. Now, out of these people only a very few will be capable of making even the first step in the way of development. How and why is it so? All people in the ordinary conditions of life live under two kinds of influences. First there are the influences created in life, desire for riches, fame and so on, which we call influences A. Secondly, there are other influences which come from outside life, which work in the same condi-
tions although they are different, and we call these influences B. They reach man in the form of religion, literature or philosophy. These influences of the second kind are conscious in their origin. Influences A are mechanical from the beginning. Man can meet these B influences or he can pass them by without noticing them, or he can hear them and think that he understands them, use the words and at the same time have no real understanding at all. These two influences really determine the further development of man. If man accumulates influences B, the results of these influences crystallize in him (I use the word crystallize in the ordinary sense) and form in him a certain kind of centre of attraction which we call magnetic centre. The compact mass of memory of these influences attracts him in a certain direction, or makes him turn in a certain direction. When magnetic centre is formed in man it will be easier for him to attract to himself more influences B, and not to be distracted by influences A. With ordinary people influences A can take so much of their time that nothing is left for other influences and they are hardly affected at all by influences B. But if this magnetic centre in man grows, then after some time he meets another man, or a group of people, from whom he can learn something different, something that is not included in influences B, and which we call influence C. This influence is conscious in origin and action and can only be transmitted by direct instruction. Influences B can come through books and works of art and things like that, but influence C can only come by direct contact. If a man in whom magnetic centre has grown meets with a man or a group through whom he comes into contact with influence C, that means that he has made the first step. Then there is a possibility of development for him. Q. What does the first step mean? A. It is connected with the idea of a 'path' or 'way'. What is important to understand is that the way does not begin on the ordinary level of life; it begins on a higher level. The first step is the moment when one meets with influence C. From this moment there begins a staircase with a number of steps which have to be climbed before the way can be reached. The way does not begin at the bottom, but only after the last step has been climbed. Q. What do you call a normal man? A. It may seem paradoxical, but we have no other definition—it means a man who can develop. Q. Is there any relationship between influences B and influences A? When influences B come into a man, do they affect influences A and transform them? A. They may affect them, but at the same time one necessarily excludes another. Man lives on the earth under these two different influences; he may choose only one, or he may have both. When you speak of influences A and B, you begin to speak about facts. If you replace this expression by
one or another definite fact, you will see in which relation they stand. It is very easy. At this point the question naturally arises: Why is it so difficult for a man to start changing himself, to come to a possibility of growing? Because, you see, we must remember that man is created in a very interesting way by nature. He is developed up to a certain point; after this point he must develop himself. Nature does not develop man beyond a certain point. Later we shall learn in full detail up to what point man is developed and how his further development must begin, and we shall see why from this point of view he could never develop himself and why he cannot be developed by nature. But before that we must understand certain general conditions. It is difficult for a man even to start any kind of work on himself because he lives in a very bad place in the universe. At first that must sound a very strange idea. We do not realize that there are better and worse places in the universe, and we certainly do not realize that we happen to be in almost the worst place. We fail to realize it because, from one point of view, our knowledge of the universe is too complicated. From another point of view it does not take into account real facts. If we look for the nearest place to us in the universe we realize that we live on the earth, and that the moon is under the influence of the earth. At the same time we see that the earth is one of the planets of the solar system, that there are bigger planets, probably more powerful than the earth, and that all these planets, taken together, must somehow affect and control the earth. Next in scale comes the sun, and we realize that the sun controls all the planets and the earth at the same time. If you think from this point of view you will already have a different idea of the solar system, although there is nothing new in these things: it is only a question of how to relate one thing to another.
Earth is one of the planets of the solar system and the sun is one of the stars of the Milky Way. Beyond that we can take all possible worlds. This is all we know from the ordinary point of view. As a purely philosophical term we can add to that a condition or relationship of things which we call the Absolute, a state in which everything is one. Now we can express this relation of moon to earth, earth to planets and so on in a slightly different way. Looking from the top down, we can begin to understand the vast difference in scale if we compare All Suns with our Sun, or Earth with All Planets. We can understand that they stand in a certain definite relation of scale to one another. The smallest is the Moon, and beyond the Moon we know nothing. The whole of this is called the Ray of Creation. There are other rays, because this ray does not include the whole universe, but since we live on the earth and it passes through the earth we belong to this Ray of Creation. From this diagram it is clear what is meant by a bad place in the universe. The worst place is the moon, but the earth is almost as bad. It is like living near the North Pole, which explains why so many things are difficult on the earth. We cannot change or do anything about it, but when we know, we can adapt, and in that way we can escape many things which otherwise we could not escape. But we must not let our imagination run away with us and tell us that we can escape altogether. I just want to add one thing. For reasons which are difficult to explain as yet, in the Ray of Creation all these worlds are connected with each other: influences pass from higher to lower but there is a gap between Planets and Earth. In order to bridge this gap so that influences from All Planets could reach the earth a certain instrument was invented. It is a kind of sensitive film which surrounds the earth, that is to say. Organic Life on Earth. So plants, animals and men serve a definite purpose; they serve for communication between earth and planets. With the help of organic life which can receive and retain them, planetary influences
penetrate to the earth. This is the meaning and reason for organic life on earth. Q. You assume organic life only on the earth. Do you assume there is nothing on other planets? A. No, not at all, but we are interested in organic life on earth, because we are on the earth and we are part of organic life on the earth, so we speak only about earth. All other planets we take together as a mass, but about earth we speak differently. This is the principle of scale. The nearer something is to you the nearer to full scale is your study. If you study this room you need to know how many people are coming and how many chairs will be required; you study in detail, but if you take the house only, you do not need to know such details. And if you take the street, it is again different. In the same way we study the Ray of Creation on different scales. We speak about organic life on the earth, but we do not speak about organic life on any other planet; we have no way of studying it except on the earth. I will give you a few more details about the Ray of Creation which will explain to you what I mean when I say that the earth is a bad place in the universe. You will remember that, earlier, I said we should have to come to the study of the fundamental laws of the universe, and I said that the two laws we should study would be the Law of Three and the Law of Seven, and then I also mentioned the principle of scale. Now you have already met with this principle and you understand that we do not study everything on the same scale. This is really the weakest point in ordinary science; scientists try to study everything on the same scale, without understanding that it is not necessary at all. In fact, quite the opposite. For all practical purposes we must learn to study things on different scales. We must return to the Law of Three. You will remember how it was explained that everything that happens is the result of the action of three forces and that two forces by themselves cannot produce any effect. I will try to connect this idea with the Ray of Creation. The Absolute is World 1, for the three forces in it make one. By his own will and consciousness the Absolute creates worlds. It is all intentional there and each force in it occupies each place. This is incomprehensible to us. In the next world, World 3, there are the same three forces, only they are already divided. These three forces again produce worlds of which we take one, but this World 6 is different from World 3 which is in contact with the Absolute, for it is already mechanical. World 6 has three forces from the preceding world and three of its own. The next world, World 12, has three forces from the world of the second order, six from the world of the third order and three of its own. The next
world,. World 24, has twenty-four forces, the one after forty-eight forces and the last ninety-six forces. World 1 Absolute 1 World 3 All Worlds 3 World 6 All Suns 6 (3+ 3) World 12 Sun 12 (3+ 6+ 3) World 24 All Planets 24 (3+ 6+ 12+ 3) World 48 Earth 48 (3+ 6+ 12+ 24+ 3) World 96 Moon 96 (3+ 6+ 12+ 24+ 48+ 3) These figures refer to the number of laws governing each world. The greater the number of laws, the harder it is to change anything. For instance, man lives on earth, which is under forty-eight laws. He himself is under many more laws, but even these forty-eight laws make it very difficult for him to change anything because every little thing is governed by these laws. Fortunately not all of the laws under which man lives are obligatory for him, so he may escape from some of them, and his possibility of evolution is fundamentally connected with escaping from certain laws. By climbing the prison wall, too, a man escapes from laws.
CHAPTER II Man is an incomplete being—He lives below his legitimate level—Re- valuation of old values—'Useful' and ''harmful'—Illusions—Man is asleep—Practical self-study—Study of obstacles—Psychology of lying— Man is a machine—Creating a permanent 'I'—Allegory of a house in disorder—Roles—Buffers—Self-remembering—Why this system cannot be popular—Prison—Formulation of aim—To be free— Sin—Repentance —Helping humanity—Attraction and repulsion—Self- observation— Division of all that belongs to man into seven categories—Knowledge and being—Their relationship—We can have more knowledge—Necessity of changing being—Understanding— Harmful functions—Expression of negative emotions—Unnecessary talk—Difference between this system and others—levels of being— Thinking in different categories—Dangers of the present situation. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO REVISE IN YOUR MEMORY what I Said last time, because many things I said were not folly developed. I only gave hints, a general idea, of things we have to study; so it is necessary to recall the order of things and their relative importance. Because some things I said were essential for the understanding of further ideas, while some I brought in merely in explanation of other things. But first I would like to stress again one important point. This system belongs to the class of systems which regard man as an incomplete being and study him from the point of view of his possible development. Ordinary psychology is very far from reality. The man it studies is an imaginary quantity. Man is not what he is supposed to be. We ascribe to ourselves many qualities we do not possess. We are not conscious. If we are not conscious we cannot have unity, cannot have individuality, cannot have an Ego or 'I'. All these things are invented by man to keep the illusion of consciousness. Man can be conscious, but at present he is not. It must be recognized that man lives below his legitimate level. There are also other things man may attain, but now I speak of what belongs to him by right, but what he does not have. This system turns everything we know or ever thought of upside down. It cannot be reconciled with ordinary psychological ideas. We have to decide how we are to see man: as an egg or as a bird. And if we see him as an egg we must not ascribe to him properties of a bird. When we see
him as an egg the whole psychology becomes different: all human life becomes the life of embryos, of incomplete beings. And for some the meaning of life becomes the possibility of passing to another state. It is very important to understand what is a complete being and what is an incomplete being, because if this is not understood from the beginning it will be difficult to go further. Perhaps an example will help to illustrate what I mean. Let us compare a horse-carriage with an aeroplane. An aeroplane has many possibilities that an ordinary carriage does not have, but at the same time an aeroplane can be used as an ordinary carriage. It would be very clumsy and inconvenient and very expensive, but you can attach two horses to it and travel in an aeroplane by road. Suppose the man who has this aeroplane does not know that it has an engine and can move by itself and suppose he learns about the engine— then he can dispense with the horses and use it as a motor car. But it will still be too clumsy. Suppose that the man studies this machine and discovers that it can fly. Certainly it will have many advantages which he missed when he used the aeroplane as a carriage. This is what we are doing with ourselves; we use ourselves as a carriage, when we could fly. But examples are one thing and facts are another. There is no need of allegories and analogies, for we can speak about actual facts if we begin to study consciousness in the right way. If we return for a moment to the analogy of an aeroplane, what is the reason why our aeroplane cannot fly? Naturally the first reason is because we do not know the machine, how to work it and how to put it in motion. And the second reason is that as a result of this ignorance the machine works at a very slow speed. The effect of this slow speed is much greater than if we compare a horse-carriage and an aeroplane. To follow the ideas and methods of the system fully, it is necessary to recognize and agree upon two points: the low level of consciousness and the practical absence of will and individuality in man. When these are accepted, it is very useful and necessary to learn the right use of two ideas, two words, 'useful' and 'harmful'; because it is rather difficult to apply these words to a psychological state and find what is useful in the psychological structure of man and what is harmful in it. But if you regard man from the point of view of his possible development, it becomes dear that what helps his development is useful, and what hinders it is harmful. It is very strange that it is necessary even to explain this, but unfortunately our ordinary thought, particularly when it meets with serious problems, docs not use this idea; somehow we lose the understanding of what is useful and harmful. Our thought has acquired many bad habits, and one of them is thinking without purpose. Our thinking has become automatic; we are quite satisfied if we think of and develop possible side-issues without having any idea why we are doing it. From the point of view of this system such thinking is useless. All study, all thinking and investigation