In Search of the Miraculous – P. D. Ouspensky – Notes

Pages 1 – 15

• ‘Beyond the film of false reality exists another reality’.

• Nothing could be found in Europe – a world of obvious absurdities.

• Impossible that life led nowhere.

• Attraction to India and the East – but secret hidden. Looking for a School.

• Existing Schools: Half religious/ devotional; Sentimental/ Moral; Schools demanding too much.

• Looking for another type – rational – where one knew where one was going/ existing on an earthly plane.

• Meets Gurdjieff (G). Speaks. G ‘disguised’ – ‘completely out of keeping with place and atmosphere’.

• gave fuller answers than expected.

• describes work as ‘psychological…and chemistry plays a large part’.

• G – 2 ways of using drugs: either to strengthen the functions of certain centres with the requisite drug; or to become clever/ strong for a time. The second often led to death or madness.

• G’s pupils – ‘poor intelligentia of Moscow’.

• G’s pupil reads a piece. Begins with the ballet ‘The Struggle of the Magicians’. The piece is called “Glimpses of Truth’.

• wants to publish it, but it is too long.

• wants to tell of impressions of a young man but stops himself.

• wants to work with G. but it is 1000 roubles per month.

• was not to spend his own money on the work.

• ‘people weak in life were weak in the work’. Need to get house in order before beginning work.

• ‘People do not value it if they do not pay’.

• accepts O. anyway.

• wonders if he can keep a secret as he is a journalist. Like on issues of time and space. G; says he must not talk too much: some things are for disciples only. Rule: only speak of an experiment if you can do it yourself.

• No conditions for work – there cannot be. At the beginning, man does not knowhimself – he is not. A man who does not know himself cannot promise or commit.

• A man must knowhimself – must be.

• India is not the answer – everything can be found here.

• Philosophical schools – India; Theory – Egypt; Practice – Persia, Mesopotamia and Turkistan.

• You do not know what I mean by Philosophy, Theory and Practice.

• Where are G’s companions: some dies; some working; some went into seclusion – monasteries.

• threw me words which would interest me.

• What O. wrote on India, G. gave to his pupils: to see what you are and therefore what you would be able to find out. You see what you are.

pages 15 – 30

• O asks G about the Ballet, Glimpses of Truth; he says it is an interesting and beautiful spectacle.

• The Ballet offers a mechanism of the Solar System. It includes Sacred Dance of the Struggle of Magicians. White and Black magic. The same performers must do both. They therefore see both parts of themselves.

• Men are machines but we can work on this with the proper mind. Mechanisation is not dangerous – being a machine can be. People are machines.

• Art, poetry, thought are of the same order.

• O: people are different. G: all are machines but there is the possibility of ceasing to be a machine. Machines for machines; psychology for humans. To stop being a machine, you need to know you are one. A machine that knows itself stops being one. A man is responsible; a machine is not responsible.

• O: Is it worth reading occult literature? G: Yes! But, you do not understand what the word understand means. To know something well: words have an ordinary sense and a wider sense.

• G: There is nothing to do: first get rid of false ideas, conceptions.

• G: Man’s first illusion is that he can do; everything just happens. External influences – impressions.

• Man is a machine of words, thoughts, convictions, feelings, opinions, habits. It all just happens. To establish this, get rid of 1000 illusions.

• Man does not love, hate, desire – it all just happens. People think things should be done differently. But, they cannot be. Everything is being done in the only way it can be.

• People need to be different. Necessary to learn another language. One must learn to speak the truth. To speak the truth, one must know the truth.

• O: Facts. G: There will be facts but other things are necessary first.

• G: Man – people take advantage because he considers them. If he did not, they would be different. O: Consider has many meanings. G: No! only one meaning – consider – inner slavery/ dependence.

• War happens because of planetary influences. If people become close, they become tense. Same with planets – if they come close, there is tension. The moon plays a big part. Everything is generated from outside. Impossible to become free of one influence without becoming influenced by another. We must choose our influence.

• The planets are living beings: the Moon is not dead but growing. Sun is divine. The earth may die having attained nothing.

• There are different levels even though they look the same.

• G: I do not call art what you call art. In your art everything is subjective – the spectator perceives not what the artist intends/ wished to convey, but what the forms in which he expresses his sensations will make them feel by association.

• In real art, nothing is accidental. Mathematics. Calculated. Known. Artist knows what he wants to convey. Here, everyone has the same reaction. Different impressions on people of different levels = Objective Art. Everyone sufficiently prepared has the same reaction.

• O: Do such people exist? G: Of course. In such a figure, one grasps thoughts, feelings.

• Subjective and Objective Art.

• O: Everything G said is connected.

• G: The group is the beginning of everything. To escape prison one needs the help of escapees. But, first, one must realise one is in prison.

• Liberation = Labour, effort, conscious effort – Towards an Aim

pp. 30 – 45.

• Difficulty in making meetings – held at last minute. The chief principle was not to make things easy. Ideas valued by overcoming difficulties.

• Man machine has no life after death. For there to be afterlife, there has to be crystallization – independence of external influences. Not all men have an astral body. It may be reincarnated or live on.

• People heard different things or completely misunderstood.

• Inner unity: obtained by the friction of Yes and No. From this, permanent traits appear. Can go wrong. Then, things have to be ‘melted down’ again. Suffering.

• Sacrifice is necessary – nothing is possible without it. With crystallization, sacrifice, etc. is not necessary.

• : simple, no affectation, personal interest.

• acting and carpets. Carpet design as related to music.

• G: life: lived in Asia Minor in remote village. Met strange people. Passed years in legends and fairy tales. Journeys to the East. Tibetan monasteries. Mount Athos.

• The knowledge is not concealed but it cannot become common property.

• Knowledge is material – definite quantity. Obeys the law of quantity and effect. So, high concentration gives big results. If everyone gets it, the effects are small. Most do not want it anyway. Men can turn into complete automatation – eg. Wars. Collection of some depends on the rejection of others.

• Slavery of man is based on fear. All cannot become intelligent even if they wish it. Still, no one conceals anything. Knowledge comes with effort.

• Independent effort does not work – man must obtain from those that possess it.

• Immortality? A word we ascribe for something most do not understand – like individuality, consciousness, will. To understand man, one has to understand what he can be/ attain.

• Man as four bodies: Carnal Body (‘Carriage’, Body/ Physical Body); Natural Body (‘Horse’, feelings, Actual, desires); Spiritual Body (‘Driver’, Mind, Mental Body); Divine Body (‘Master’, consciousness, Causal body).

• The consciousness manifested in the fourth body has full control over the first three bodies.

• Man is not born with finer bodies and need to be cultivated. Astral body is a luxury.

• The physical body works with the same substances of which the higher bodies are composed. Only they are not crystalised in him/ do not belong to him.

• With a man operating only at the physical level, everything emanates form here; with a higher man, things emanate from the higher body.

• Automation depends on external influences only: I want, I like, etc. Thinking is mechanical – Will is absent. In the higher man, there is one ‘I’. Individuality. Will issuing from consciousness. Free Will. The second body fuses individual elements so there is no separateness. This happens through friction.

• With further work, new properties are given to what is formed. The Third Body. New Knowledge and powers.

• The properties of the three bodies can be fixed and made permanent. This gives the fourth body. This is the ‘true man’. He possesses immortality.

• Three ways generally to gain immortality: the way of the fakir, monk and yogi – struggle of physical body (here, emotions intellect are undeveloped).

pp. 46 – 60

• The fakir is the way of struggle with the physical body: Physical will – power over the body. But, the emotional and intellectual remain undeveloped. He acquires knowledge but not enough for self-perfection.

• The way of the monk: faith. Religious emotions. Feelings. Developing unity. But thinking and physical body remain undeveloped. Monk has to become a fakir and a yogi – few get that far.

• The way of the yogi: knowledge. Mind developed but not body or emotions. Knows everything – can do nothing.

• Fakir – No teacher; Monk – duty to teach – duty to love god; yogi needs a teacher.

• All renounce life to follow their path. Die to the world.

• Difficult to develop; necessary against the world and against god. Opposed to everyday life.

• Man does not see that development requires effort. Possibilities remain undeveloped.

• Fourth Way: Acquired in everyday life. But, first, has to be found. Conditions – the man himself. Easy at the beginning. Work on three rooms at once. Principle demand is understanding. Satisfy himself of truth.

• Fourth way principle – doing something in one room and the other two simultaneously. 3 directions at once.

• Will in fourth way is control of body, emotions and mind. It is the ‘sly’ way.

• A fourth way person knows what substances he needs for his aims. These can be acquired – suffering.

• People do not see the fakir, yogi and monk are on the way to evolution whilst developed western man is not. G says it is because people believe in progress. There is none. Modern civilisation is based on slavery and fine words. People are machines. Conscious effort is needed.

• No unity in man – no centre of gravity.

• Organ functionality consciousness exists but is relatively harmless. But, many ‘I’s.

• Everyone must see it is useless to rely on others or console oneself with others’ thoughts.

• Astral Body: can be seen under certain conditions; seen by its functions.

• Must concentrate on the body; error to think it is all about the mind. It is controlled by several minds with separate functions and spheres.

• Added instinctive and sex centres. All centres rob the sex centre of energy.

• The three centres of the lower story – sex, instinctive, and moving – work as three forces: sex centre acts as neutralising force of other two (instinctive-active, moving-passive).

• Centres: positive and negative parts. Each centre divided into 3 stories.

• Evolution: development of powers and possibilities.

• Evolution of mankind corresponds to the evolution of planets. Planets evolve in long cycles of time. Humanity exists on earth for the purpose of earth. We do not need the evolution of the masses – but of a small part. Beyond a  point would be fatal. If men were too intelligent, they would not want to be eaten by the moon.

• Evolution has to take place in the interests of the man himself and against the interests of the planetary worlds. No compulsion – nature does not need it.

• Consciousness cannot evolve consciously. Instinct knowledge of machine is not enough – it must be studied and known.

• Man cannot have a single ‘I’. He changes as quickly as his thoughts. Thousands of ‘I’s. The many ‘I’s are the results of external influences. People make decisions and do not carry them out.

• Man searches for a Master, and sometimes he has a temporary one. But, he must realise his possibilities, and have a strong desire for liberation. A willingness to sacrifice everything. To risk everything. For the sake of this liberation. 

 

• p. 61 – 76

 

• A discussion between G and O on a photo of a Fakir. About what is and is not a trick and knowledge of the practitioner.

 

• Then, talk of Buddhists – surely they must have magic!? A ‘Buddha’s Necklace’ is the chain of the Buddha’s reincarnation.In real life, a necklace of bone is sometimes worn. Someone possessing one of the bones can communicate with the individual after their death if they have developed an astral body. This is living magic.

 

• Man’s development proceeds along two lines: the line of knowledge and the line of being. People understand what knowledge is but not being.

 

• Being that is not in accordance with being is not large enough for man’s needs. It will always be knowledge of one thing rather than the whole.

 

• You can accumulate more knowledge but real knowledge only increase with a change in being.

 

• Man’s being has many sides – the most common characteristic is ‘absence of unity’ in modern man. He has an absence of what he likes to ascribe to himself: freewill, consciousness, and a permanent ‘I’.

 

• Modern man lives in sleep.

 

• The sides of man: activity or passivity, truthfulness or lying, sincerity or insincerity, courage or cowardice, self-control, profligacy, irritability, egoism, readiness, self-sacrifice, pride, vanity, conceit, industry, laziness, morality, depravity. And, more!

 

• He cannot help this – he is mechanical.

 

• Lots of knowledge without being is ‘weak yogi’. A development of being without knowledge gives us a ‘stupid saint’.

 

• Understanding is another thing – it is not the same as knowledge. Understanding is the relation of knowledge to being. It changes only when being grows. Ordinarily, people do not distinguish knowledge from understanding. But, a person who does ‘self-remembering’ does.

 

• We need to see that knowledge can be one-centre based, but understanding is three-centres based.

 

• People try to give a name to what they do not understand and, when they do, they claim they understand. Sadly, people are often satisfied with names.

 

• So, the difference between knowledge and being is found in the language we speak.Because of ordinary thinking being vague and inaccurate, words can have many meanings.

 

• People do not realise how subjective there language is. The differences in a single word.

 

• People can communicate about practical issues, but not beyond this.

 

• This is clear with the simplest of words: for example, ‘man’. The word will have as many meanings as there are people who you ask. All the meanings are contradictory – but people do not notice them.

 

• G uses ‘man number 1’, ‘man number 2’, ‘man number 3’, ……’man number 7’.

 

• ‘Man number 7’ means a man who has reached the full development possible to man and who possesses everything a man can possess – consciousness, permanent and unchangeable I, individuality, immortality. Only by understanding this will we see the gradations that an individual has to go through to reach this level.

 

• Man number 6 is close to man number 7; only that some properties have not yet become permanent.

 

• Man number 5 is also an unattainable standard of man – as this is a level of unity.

 

• Man number 4 is an intermediate stage.

 

• Man numbers 1, 2 and 3 are at the same level as when they were born: 1, centre of gravity of psychic life lies in moving centre; 2, emotional centre; intellectual centre.

 

• A man is born 1, 2 or 3.

 

• Man number 4 is not born ready made – he is the product of school work. He has a permanent centre of gravity: the result of effort of a definite characteristic. He already knows himself and whither he goes.

 

• Man number 5 has already been crystalised. He can be the result of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ work. He gets to 5 by being 4 – or not. If not, he cannot develop further.Cannot become 6 and 7. In order to become number 6 he must again melt his crystalised essence, must intentionally lose his being of man number 5. And, this can be achieved only through terrible suffering. Cases of wrong development are fortunately rare (NB. No. 6 = The Prisoner).

 

• This division into seven categories – seven numbers – explains thousands of things. It gives the concept of relativity applied to man. Things are one thing or another according to the type of man he is.

 

• All that a man does and creates is divided into seven categories as well.

 

• No 1 = imitation and instinct. Learning by heart. Drilled, and Crammed. Parrot. Monkey.

 

• No 2 = knowledge of what he likes. What he does not like he does not know. He wants pleasure.

 

• No 3 = Subjective thinking, Literal word understanding. Bookworm.

 

• No 4 = knowledge comes from man no 5, who gets it from man number 6, who gets it from man number 7.But, assimilates only what is possible for him. According to his powers. In comparison to man numbers 1, 2 and 3, he begins to be free from subjective elements.

 

• No 5 = Whole, indivisible knowledge. All knowledge belongs to his I. What he knows, the whole of him knows. Nearer to objective knowledge.

 

• No 6 = complete knowledge that is possible for man. It cannot be lost.

 

• 7 = His own knowledge. It is objective and complete knowledge of All.

 

• Same with Being: 1 = instincts and sensations; 2 = sentiment and emotion; 3 = rational and theoretical. They cannot possess knowledge by reason of their being. 4, 5, 6 and 7 can. Man always reduces everything to their level.

 

• The seven categories also apply to everything in man. There is Art of Man No 1 = imitative and copying.

 

• Also with religion. Man number 1 = eternal forms, rites, sacrifices. Gloomy or spendour, brilliant or cruel.

 

• The religion of man number 2 = the religion of faith, love, adoration, impulse, enthusiasm – which quickly becomes persecution, obsession, extermination of heretics.

 

• Religion of man number 3 = intellectual , theoretical, logical argument.

 

• Religions 1, 2 and 3 are really the only ones we know. We cannot know the religion of man numbers 4, 5, 6 and 7 while we remain at the lower level.

 

• Same if we take Christianity – numbers 1, 2, 3 etc. Christianity no 1 = paganism; 2 = emotional; 3 = Protestantism. Christianity for man no 4 is not known. 1, 2 and 3 are just external imitation. Only man number 4 strives to be a Christian and only man number 5 can be one. Because to be a Christian, you have to have the being of a Christian.

 

• Man numbers 1,2 and 3 cannot live with Christ’s precepts. They are not masters of themselves.

 

• Science, philosophy and all manner of man’s life accord with these categories.

 

• So, this is what is the reality behind what we mean by ‘man’!!

 

• You could say the same for a word like ‘world’.

 

• For Vedantic philosophy it is illusion/ Maya; for a Theosophist it is different planes (physical, astral, mental, etc.); for a spiritualist it is beyond the world of spirits; for a physicist it is the structure of matter – atoms, molecules; for an astronomer its is the world od stars and nebulae; and so on….

 

• The phenomenal and the noumenal world, the world of the fourth and other dimensions, the world of good and the world of evil, the material world and the immaterial world, the proportion of power in the different nations of the world, can man be saved in the world, and so on.

 

• So, thousands of ideas of what the word ‘world’ means.

 

• Man is an image of the world – he was created by the same laws which created the whole world. The study of the two thus run in parallel.

 

• So, we need to understand that we live not in one but several worlds. Worlds are one within others, in which we have different relations. So, we need to ask what level we are talking about when we ‘discuss world’.

 

• If we are concerned with the world of organic life, what is the world for organic life?

 

• All forms of worlds are in fact one Whole. The Absolute.

 

• But man lives in these worlds in different ways.

 

• The direct influence of the Absolute does not reach man. But, the influence of the world next to him. The star world for man – but this is not acknowledged by science.

 

 

 

 

pp. 77 – 89

• On why the Absolute does not reach us.

• To understand, we must look at the transformation of the Unity into Plurality.

• The fundamental way of doing this is the Law of Three. Three principles/Three forces.

• Everything – from an atom to a cosmos obeys this law.

• One or two things can never produce a phenomenon – a third force is required.

• Active/ Positive: Passive/ Negative and Neutralising.

• They appear like this only in relation to each other.

• The third force is not easily seen by human because of the limitations of their perceptions.

• Example: desire/ initiative = active, inertia = passive. The third force that enters is New Knowledge.

• We cannot see the world in our subjective state, so we cannot see the objective world in terms of three forces. Things do not happen when the third force is lacking. *

• The three forces are active in the Absolute, but as one whole: full and independent, full consciousness, full understanding.

• The three create a series of worlds containing them to varying degrees. In each world, the three forces act. But, they are not now one will but three wills. Each of the forces contain within it the three forces.

• In second order worlds, there is not one will but three wills. The absolute creates the second order wills but does not govern their creativity.

• The forces of the second order create the worlds of the third order. Three forces – three world order. There are then six forces in the third world order which create the sixth world order. And, so on….

• As the number of worlds increase, they are further away from the Absolute.

• These worlds are reflected in the levels of universal being: ! – Absolute; 3 – All worlds; 6 – all suns; 12 – the Sun; 24 – All planets; 48 – earth; 96 – moon.

• The number of forces in each world are the number of laws to which it is subject.

• Each of these worlds feeds the lower world. So, the earth feeds the moon to become a planet; the sun feeds the earth to become a sun, etc.

• In the Absolute, there is only one force/ law, will. On the moon there are 96 orders of law.

• As orders of law increase, the Absolute has less and less opportunity to manifest itself. In world 3, a general plan is created for all the other worlds. As worlds increase, so does mechanicalness. The Absolute cannot manifest itself except according to this plan.

• On the earth we are far from the Absolute – very mechanical – and subject to 48 orders of laws. If we could liberate ourselves from half of these laws, we would be in world 24 – Planetary. If we liberated ourselves from half of these laws, we would be in world 12 – starry.

• **So, there is the possibility for man to free himself in stages from the mechanicalness.

• One can only study the world 48 laws by studying them in oneself.

• In our system, the end of the ray of creation – the growing part – is the moon. The energy for new growth and developments goes from the Earth to the Moon, where they are created in joint action with the Sun.

• There is a giant accumulator of energy in the centre of the Earth. It is all organic life on earth which feeds the moon. The moon is a huge living being feeding upon the lives which grow on the Earth. The moon is also a huge electromagnet.

• The growth of energy on the moon is thus connected to the lives and death of things on earth.

• Souls that go to the moon with a certain consciousness, are put under 96 laws – mineral life: transformation then proceeds according to evolution.

• The moon is at the extremity – the ‘Outer Darkness’.

• Man cannot tear himself free from the moon – all his life and action are controlled by the moon.

• **The liberation that comes from the growth of mental powers and faculties of liberation is liberation from the moon.

• The mechanical part of our lives comes from the control of the moon

• The next important point to understand is the materiality of the universe, which is taken from the ray of creation.

• Everything can be weighed and measured – even the Absolute and God.

• But, everything is relative: just as there is man number 1,2,3, etc. there are seven ‘planes of materiality – created by the ray of creation.

• One needs to appreciate the difference between material and energy. The world exists in a state of vibrations and matter – or of matter in a state of vibration, of vibrating matter.

• In the Absolute, vibrations are the most rapid and matter least dense. In the next world, vibrations are slower and matter denser – and so on.

• The worlds consist of atoms according to their density: world 1 is one atom; world 3 is 3 atoms; world 6 is six atoms, etc.

• So, seven worlds, seven orders of materiality. Each level, the materiality is different.

• We tend to see materiality in terms of worlds 48 and 96 – even in world 24, the matter is too rarefied to be regarded as matter from a scientific point of view.

• All these planes are not separate but intermixed. Matter is comprehensible, therefore, in terms of several states: density, solid, liquid, gaseous, radiant energy, light, magnetism.

• Everything in the universe is permeated by all the matters of the universe.

• Man is, in the full sense of the word, a ‘miniature universe – all the matters of the universe exist in him. But this is only really so if it is a ‘complete’ or ‘evolved’ man; otherwise, an incomplete man is an incomplete / unfinished world.

• Therefore, the study of oneself must go with the study of the fundamental laws of the universe. They are the same everywhere. The study of laws and planes is the study of relativity.

• Relativity is important: the place of everything in the cosmic order.

• We are on the earth and depend on the laws of the earth: everything that comes by itself or is obtained easily in another place, is on earth only acquired through hard labour. It must be fought for.

• Some get a legacy but not those in the work – we are all equal here – beggars!

pp. 89 – 104

• Ordinary science does not know how to study matter taking into account cosmic properties;

• Cosmic properties of each substance depend on its place and the force acting on it – at any given moment;

• Any substance can act as any one of the three forces – active, passive, reconciling/ neutralising;

• Every substance has a separate function;

• The four aspects or states of every substance: Carbon (Active), Oxygen (Passive), Nitrogen (neutralising). No force = Hydrogen.

• The forces are 1,2 3 and the substances are C, O, N, H.

• They correspond to the alchemical elements: Fire, Air, Water, Earth. Also connected to Tarot – three into four. * Force and Matter. 3 is force and 4 is matter.

• G promised to explain the names but never did.

• One in the audience asked, ‘is man immortal?’ G: That depends – something of consciousness remains after death for a short while. That while depends on whether man has become real: what level he has reached: Carnal, Natural, Spiritual and Divine. But, even God is not immortal.

• G spoke again about the analogy of man and carriage: horse (emotions), driver (mind), carriage (body) – and the Master of the Carriage. This time emphasising the connections between them: shafts, reins, and voice. The driver must hear the Master’s voice; must know how to drive the horse, the horse to obey the reins. Horse must be harnessed. Man must work on body and connections.

• Work begins with the driver – mind. He must be awake. Driver must learn language of the mind. But, must also be able to look after the horse. Mind must learn to control the emotions. The emotions must learn to pull the body. Driver’s understanding unites him to the Master – must learn to act accordingly with the reins/ horse.

• Things can be in order with a man with one body and still happen by accident – ie. Not organisation. A man with two bodies – physical and astral – is able to control the first by the second.

• A man with a third body – the mental body/ consciousness – has power over both.

• When there is a fourth body – it has control over the other three. I take it this system applies through the other ‘man’ levels: 5 – 7. Each is a different situation. The highest level body lives the longest – is ‘immortal’ at this particular level. The fourth body is 6 laws – all suns; 3^rdbody – sun (12 laws); 2^ndbody – all planets (24 laws); 1^stbody – earth (48 laws). This means that a man possessing a fourth body is immortal within the limits of the solar system.

• The moon is like a weight on a clock. It is the gravity of the weight which turns the hands of the clock. The moon is a colossal weight from which the organic life on earth hangs. The motion. Whatever we do depends on this motion. O interested in place: size and velocity determine place, and place determines size and velocity.

• Universal language: depends on knowledge of language and being. 3 universal languages: 1. Can be spoken and written within limits of own language (people understand each other in it); 2. Can be spoken and written and the same for all – figures and mathematics – they speak in their own language and understand each other in ordinary language but not in the universal language; 3. same for all – written and spoken – difference disappears here.

• Is this the same as the Pentecost? G explains the meaning of Last Supper. Ordinary meaning has been subverted by retelling. What actually happened is that Jesus shared his actual body and blood the way people do when they become ‘blood brothers’. In this way, something of the astral body is passed on and lives through generations. So, communication happens at a distance. So, the Last Supper was a magical ceremony.

• Aim: it is important to have a good aim. Define your own aim. Man can only begin ‘to do’ when he has defined his aim. O: my aim was to know the future. Other aims: to know about life after death; to understand the teachings of Christ; to help people; to stop war. The only aim that G liked was to ‘be one’s own master’. To know the future all you have to do is know the past and present. What happens to us can depend on accident, fate, or will. Most of what happens is pure accident. We do not have fate or will. Fate actually corresponds to type. You cannot foretell the future of machines. Only real men can know their future through conscious work. To know the future you must first know yourself. To know the moments and act according to the knowledge.

• Question about ‘how not to die’. For this, it is necessary ‘to be’: something that is independent of external influences. This can live by itself – see above. A permanent ‘I’ can survive death. A man who becomes Master of his life becomes Master of his death.

• Question: how to become a Christian? To live according to Christ’s precepts. How to love enemies when we cannot even love our friends? To be a Christian is ‘to be’ – again, to be Master of oneself.

• What is the relation of Christianity to G’s work? It is ‘esoteric Christianity’. Of all desires, the one most right is the desire to ‘master’ oneself. So, to help others one must first help oneself. If man looks at himself as he really is, he will be ashamed, he will not think of helping others.

• To do what is difficult, one must first do what is easy.

• Question: how to stop wars? Impossible. War is the result of slavery in which men live. If men were ‘real men’ and capable of ‘doing’, they would not relish killing each other. They would resist the influences. People have tried to stop war from the beginning of the world, and yet they increase. They cannot be stopped by ordinary means. Men do not want to think about themselves – about changing themselves – they want to change others. Men are what they are and cannot be different. Only if men become free can they be free of influences on them.

• Freedom/ liberation must be the aim of men. Liberated from slavery. Man cannot free himself from outer slavery without first freeing himself of inner slavery. So, in order to become free, man must gain inner freedom.

• The first reason of inner slavery is ignorance: above all of himself. Without understanding the functions of his machine, he cannot be free. Cannot govern himself. This is why all ancient teaching begin with liberation as ‘Know thyself’.

pp, 104 – 121

• ‘Know Thyself’: ordinary man does not. One has to understand all functions – in relation to all the others.

• To study yourself, you need the right method: self – observation.

• The first thing to do is identify the right function.

• Analysis and recording. Analysis is frequent but useless – necessary to record. Observation stops when analysis begins.

• Self-observation must work with the fundamentals of the human machine: thinking, emotion, moving and instinctive.

• Some find it difficult to understand the difference between thought and feeling, feeling and sensation, thought and moving. Sensation and emotion do not reason/ do not compare. Sensations can be indifferent. Some are instinctive. Feelings are always pleasant or unpleasant.

• People differ: one man processes thoughts through emotion; individuals see different aspects.

• We need to examine simultaneously with mind, feelings and sensations.

• If someone sees something in them they do not like, they cannot change it. And, if they do, they often produce an equally unpleasant side effect.

• On intellect, moving and emotion, man must refer impressions to each of these – with no doubt!

• Each centre consists of three parts: thinking, emotion and feeling. One center cannot do the work of another. . Each must deal with its own duties. And, yet such substitution goes on all the time. EG. Emotions working for the physical centre leads to nervousness, feverishness. To have thought interfere with emotions, or sensation to movement leads to undesirable situations. A man can only understand from his experience. Having moving centre working on thinking centre produces only mechanical reading/ listening.

• Imagination is a principal source of wrong work. Daydreaming is common and the opposite of useful mental activity. The motive for daydreaming lies in the emotional or moving centre. Observing imagination is an important focus for self-observation.

• The next object of observation is habits: observe them and struggle with them. In order to see habits one must do things in a different way – like walking. Then, you can observe them.

• The struggle with undesirable emotions is another way to break habits. All are the result of external influences. Nothing comes from himself.

• Things to note: first, to observe in the right way; second, not to express unpleasant emotions; third, the idea of a moving centre; the relationship between moving and instinctive centres?

• Conscious action and automatic. Instinctive actions and reflexes? For G, conscious action was not possible in normal man because nothing was conscious.

• The same actions could originate from different centres.

• Automatic action – actions performed imperceptibly to himself . Moving actions are distinct. Automatic actions in each centre; for example, automatic thoughts/ automatic feelings.

• Reflexes are instinctive actions .

• Misuse of words instinct and instinctive . Heart beat, breathing – these are instinctive functions. Reflexes are external functions. Moving functions are learned – behaviorist. Instinctive are inborn. Moving functions can imitate. Without reasoning. So, the existing order is reproduced. Instinct v. Behaviour.

• Each centre is a motive and receiving apparatus.

• The masses do not have will or automatisms but come under the influence of distant external stimuli.

• The sex centre is the neutralising centre in relation to instinctive and moving centres. These are ‘lower story’ – emotion and thinking are not essential for life.

• Cosmic consciousness – what we call ‘consciousness’ is fantasy. What is conscious we can only know in ourselves. Even a flash – you recognize it when it comes again. It is not present or absent all the time but changes and varies. It changes continually.

• What is the most important thing to notice in self-observation? That we do not remember ourselves….you do not feel yourself – are not conscious of yourself. You do not feel: I observe, I notice, I see. Everything is Noticed!!! AFTER THE EVENT. SELF-AWARENESS IS MEMORY.

• It is difficult to do. But, in self-remembering, there is divided attention. When I observe it is one line. When I remember myself, my direction is directed both towards the object observed and towards myself. There is nothing in common with self-feeling or self-analysis. It comes when in moments of danger.

• O saw the wonderful experiences of self-remembering, but then also saw how quickly he went asleep again.

pp. 121 – 135

• Work on oneself is towards a centre of gravity; through it, psychology becomes an exact science.

• most live in ‘deep sleep’.

• The approach is a ‘miracle’ – something new. Most do not understand it.

• Observation with self-remembering is an apperception. It is hidden – even for the most intelligent.

• Laws are everywhere: they apply in men and the world simultaneously.

• The number of fundamental laws is very small – they govern man and the world.

• The first fundamental law is the law of three; the second is the law of seven.

• These need to be seen as vibrations: various sources and directions.

• Continuity and discontinuity of vibrations: they accelerate and retard.

• The original force becomes stronger and weaker. Vibrations ascend and descend. Vibrations can double or half in time.

• There are two places – or intervals – when a vibration doubles in size – where there is a retard: one near the beginning and one near the end.

• The increase can be divided into 8 unequal parts – an octave. Similar to music.  But, actually found everywhere – eg. The rainbow.

• From one doh to the octave doh, the intervals are doh, re, mi, fa, sol, la, so, doh. Their ratios are:

• Doh (1, 1), re (9/8, 1.125), mi(5/4, 1.25), fa(4/3, 1.3), sol (3/2, 1.5), la (5/3, 1.6), si (15/8, 1.9), doh(1.1).

• All are 2 semitones except mi-fa and si-doh, which are one semitone. These are the ‘intervals’ in the cosmic sense – they imply deviation. A process runs in a straight line until it reaches a point of deviation: the intervals. Octaves can then move to a different direction, or even return unto themselves.

• So, we begin to do one thing and end up doing something entirely different. The change of direction is caused by an accident/ hazard.

• Law of octaves explains: the principle of deviation of forces; nothing in the world stays the same. Things develop, ascend, descend, speed up and slow down; fluctuations are taking place all the time.

• There are two fundamental causes of self-deception: we do not see what is going on around and in us/ we do not allow for the possibility of descent when there is no ascent – or we take descent to be ascent.

• Our division of time – the days in the week – follow the octave pattern

• It is only in octaves of a cosmic order, both descending and ascending, that vibrations develop in a consecutive and orderly way, following the same direction in which we started.

• Octaves look like they develop by accident – but it is octaves developing a freedom in its vibrations.

• Passing through intervals produces an ‘additional shock’. Otherwise, it develops according to its original direction – without hindrance

• Ascending octave: first interval is mi-fa. If the right amount of energy enters at this point, it carries on to si. But, si – doh requires a lot more energy. An additional shock.

• In descending, the greater interval occurs at the beginning: after the first doh.

• We can see the law of 7 – the octave – in the ray of creation:

• The Absolute is the All: full unity, full will, full consciousness. It creates worlds within itself. Here, we have the descending world octave.  Absolute = doh; worlds are si; interval doh – si is the Will of the Absolute. Creation comes from the original impulse and the first accident/shock.

• Si passes to la – the Milky Way; la passes to sol – our sun/ solar system; sol passes to fa – the planetary world; between planetary world and our earth is an interval – so the influences from the planets are not able to reach the earth. Something is needed to receive these force – organic life on earth. This makes the growth of earth possible. Mi of the cosmic octave and then re at the moon. After which is another doh – nothing

• Between All and Nothing passes the Ray of Creation.

• Additional shock to make possible the projected aim.

• Shocks occur accidentally. It is an uncertain thing. But, they create the illusion of straight lines. That is, straight lines are seen as the norm, and broken ones the exception. This creates the illusion that it is possible to do – to attain a projected aim. In reality, man cannot do.

• The man-machine is in the power of accident. He cannot do / attain what he wants. But, he has no control. How can he gain such control?

• Octaves develop consecutively and continuously in the desired direction if additional shocks enter them at the necessary moments – when vibrations slow down. If additional shocks do not enter at the necessary moments, octaves change their direction.

• Shocks do not come from somewhere on their own . Man can go with the flow even if it contradicts his inner inclinations. Or, he can learn to recognize the intervals in the lines of his activities. And, learn to create the additional shocks. In other words, learn to apply to his own activities the method which cosmic forces make use of in creating additional shocks at the moments necessary. It is only possible to learn this in a school.

• Artificial shocks give a practical meaning to the study of the law of seven.

• The man-machine can do nothing.

• How a school is created conforms to the law of seven/ octave in union with the law of three.

• In education, man is given examples of descending (creative) and ascending (evolution) cosmic octaves.

• In Western thought, which neither knows the laws of three or seven, it confuses evolution and creativity. They are opposed.

• Octaves – in relation to each other – are divided into fundamental and subordinate octaves. The fundamental octave is like a trunk of a tree giving branches as lateral octaves. The seven notes of the octave and the two intervals – bearers of new directions – give nine links in the chain.

• The fundamental octaves are connected with the subordinate or secondary octaves in a certain way. Out of the subordinate octaves of the first order come the subordinate octaves of the second order. As with a tree, from the straight basic trunk there come out boughs on all sides which divide into branches – getting smaller and smaller. Then covered with leaves. The same construction goes on at each level: tree, branch, leaf..

• The human body bears the same correlations. It has the same basic nine basic measurements. They vary between individuals but are still the basic nine. This is a full octave of the first order. By combining in a certain way, they pass into the subordinate octaves which pass into further subordinate octaves.

• In this way, it is possible to obtain the measurements of any member or any part of the human body as they are all in definite relationship one to another.

135 – 140

• You need to understand the law of seven and octaves as a feeling more than theorizing – but then you do need to understand the theory.

• The law of seven can become a permanent centre of gravity.

• It is necessary to understand about the ‘inner vibrations’ of the law of seven.

• Each note in the octave contains another octave.

• In world 48, there are 48 coarse atoms each of which consists of 48 primordial atoms. The vibrations in this medium are divisible into octaves, divisible into notes.

• The limits of an octave proceed the vibrations of still finer substance.

• The substance of world 48 is saturated with the substance of world 24; the vibrations in the substance of world 24 stand in a definite relation to the vibrations in the substance of world 48; namely, each note of the vibrations in the substance of world 48 contains a whole octave of vibrations in the substance of world 24.

• It follows similarly with the substances of worlds 24 and 12.

• If we begin with the vibrations of world 48, we can say that one note of the vibrations in this world contains an octave or seven notes of the vibrations of the planetary world.

• The ray of creation like every other process which is complete as a given moment can be regarded as an octave – descending: do (World 1 – whole), si (world 3 – all worlds), la (world 6 – all suns), sol (world 12 – sun), fa (world 24 – all planets), mi (world 48 – Earth), re (world 96 – moon), do.

• The first interval is filled with the Will of the infinite. It fills the interval space with a conscious manifestation of neutralizing force. The space between active and passive is filled.

• However, in the second interval, something is missing – that is between the planets and the earth. Planetary influence cannot pass to the earth. An additional shock is indispensable to create new conditions – organic life on earth

• Organic life was created to fill the interval between earth and the planets. Organic life is the earth’s organ of perception. It forms a sensitive film over the earth. Life takes in and transmits influences.

• All great events in life are created by planetary influences. Taking in planetary influences. Tension in the planetary sphere can be reflected for years in one or other animation of human activity.

• Organic life on earth is an organ of perception – but also radiation. It directs rays to the sun, planets and the moon. Every thing that happens on earth creates radiation – each different for planets and moon.

• The additional or lateral octave in the ray of creation begins in the sun.

• Every note in the cosmic octave may represent a Do of another lateral octave. Or, even, any note can be any other note of an octave passing through it.

• Sol can sound as Do, thus passing into si. It then produces 3 lateral notes: la, sol, and fa – these constitute organic life on earth. . Mi of the parallel octave then blends with mi of the cosmic octave. The earth. And, thus, re with the moon.

• Of organic life as represented by the three notes: there are two higher ones, one on the level of the planets and one on the level of the sun. So, it has begun in the sun.

• Of mi and re of the lateral octave: connected to the idea of food for the moon. Some product of the disintegration of organic life on earth went to the moon. Re. With mi, organic life obviously disappeared into the earth: coral islands, earth surface, petrol, mountains, land, forests.

• A rich and thorough thought-out plan emerged.

p. 141 – 154

• We can only understand psychical and psychic states of man by understanding consciousness.

• There are four states of consciousness: two higher, two lower.

• The lower forms are real sleepand the waking state– but the latter is still ‘asleep’.

• The third is self-remembering/ self consciousness.

• The fourth state is objective consciousness. Enlightenment. This last state requires long hard work. Even educated people do not have it.

• There is also the ‘higher emotional’ and the ‘higher thinking’ centres.

• When we sleep, we are full of subjective images.

• In ‘waking state’ all actions are reflected in man’s automatic responses. He lives in a subjective world.

• How can man awake? He cannot do it by himself – he needs help or a shock.

• Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples were asleep. The issue of being asleep is on every page of the Gospels but not seen.

• A fully developed man has all four states of consciousness. He can govern his own life.

• Self observation brings man to a realization of the necessity of self-change. It throws a ray of light into his inner processes. When a man realizes this, the character of his self-observation changes.

• Our inner psychic processes (alchemy) have much in common with those chemical processes in which light changes the character of the process and they are subject to analogous laws.

• Man must take mental photographs of himself: emotional moods, thoughts, sensations, postures, movements, tones of voice, facial expressions. He then sees that his conception of himself is far from reality. He must learn to divide the real self from the invented.

• Man has his personality name – active – and an inner ‘I’ which is passive and only observes and registers. He always speaks from his personality: he takes not his real self for who he is.

• He even speaks of himself in the third person.

• In self-observation he observes his personality. He can feel this to be his enemy. From being the master, the personality must become the servant.

• Man must learn sincerity. Even if he tries not to, he will lie to himself. He does not remember his decisions. So, he has no stability. He identifies with his automatic character. So, focuses on small problems and forgets big problems. Oddly, when people see identification in themselves, they call it: ‘enthusiasm’, ‘zeal’, ‘passion’, ‘spontaneity’, ‘inspiration’. Man can become the thing he observes and owns. Even identify with the words he uses.

• Identifying is the chief obstacle to self-remembering. Man must learn not to identify with himself. Freedom is first freedom from identification.

• There is also considering – several types:

• Inner considering: what others think of him – not valuing him enough; society does not recognize his talents; there is injustice; even the weather is against him.

• Requirements: man requires that others see how remarkable he is.

• He is not considering another enough; he ought to do more; he ‘ought not’.

• The sole difference is that in one case a man struggles with the outward expression of emotions and in the other case with the inner manifestation of perhaps the same emotions.

• Fear of losing sincerity is self-deception.

• Sincerity and honesty are different. What man calls ‘sincerity’ is simply man unwilling to restrain himself.

• There is also external considering: adaptation towards people makes it easy for other people to like him; yet, he does not want to lie, pretend. He does not want others to think nothing is to be done with him.

• When a man remembers himself, he will enter into the position of another, put himself in this place, be ready to understand and feel another’s thoughts and feelings.

• Rightexternal considering is important for work. Ten times more external considering is necessary for work. Only this shows his valuation and understanding of the work.

• Work cannot begin at a level lower than the Obyvatel– lower than ordinary life.

pp. 154 – 166

• On the difficulties of our position….

• You think you can do but you do not understand the complexity of the organization of people. Behind you stand years of wrong and stupid life. The machine is dirty and rusty.

• There are ‘appliances’ which interfere with doing the right thing: ‘Buffers’. Such buffers soften the effects of our contradictions: opinions, feelings, sympathies, words and actions. So we do not see the contradictions – and we really are. Man cannot destroy his contradictions – but, with buffers, he can cease to see them.

• Buffers are created slowly and gradually. They lesson shocks. With them, man can always see himself as ‘doing right’.

• Conscience is often misunderstood. It is actually the emotional aspect of consciousness in the intellectual

• Consciousness is a state in which a man knows all at once everything that he in general knows and in which he can see how little he does know and how many contradictions there are in what he knows.

• Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general feels. His contradictory feelings, fears, self-conceit, self-satisfaction, self-praise.

• Man cannot live in this state so he destroys the contradictions or conscience.

• This state of conscience is very rare. Awakening is only possible for those who seek it. For this, the ‘buffers’ must be destroyed.

• Even with a moment of awakening, there are a thousand different ‘I’s. But, conscience can grow.

• Morality consists of buffers. A morality common to all does not exist. Christian morality supports war. People like talking about morality but it is only self-suggestion.

• He who desires truth will not talk of love or Christianity because he knows how far it is from that.

• Morality and conscience are different things.

• The idea of morality is connected with good and evil conduct; but, this is always connected with different things for man number 1, 2 and 3..

• A subjective man can have no idea of good and evil. In fact, evil does not exist for subjective man; only degrees of good. Everyone thinks they act in the interests of good. So, they slay and kill.

• Good and evil do exist apart from man – but this is within evolution through conscious efforts. Such efforts can only be found through a permanent aim. If he wants to ‘wake up’, what helps him is good and what hinders him is evil. So, good and evil only exist for a few. Acknowledging there is no aim and no direction is the first step to waking up.

• The idea of good and evil is often connected to the idea of truth and falsehood. Permanent truth and falsehood only exist for ‘permanent man’. A subjective man never tells the truth because of the buffers. To understand the idea of truth and falsehood in life he must understand it in himself.

• Self lies are created by buffers – they automatically control man’s actions, words, thoughts, and feelings.

• Only a man that posses will can live without buffers – he can then avoid being controlled by another will.

• A teacher can help him: but then he must give up is own will to find another. He cannot make his own decisions. Renunciation of his will and decisions may present problems for a man.

• He must realize that he does not exist.

• The consciousness of one’s own nothingness is the only way to conquer fear of subordination.Such fear creates the illusion that he really has principles.

• The question of will: man does not have sufficient will to do – to control his actions and thoughts.

• Most people are separated from their fate and live under accident. Fate corresponds to planet influence and personality type.

• Man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence is who a man is; personality is how he is made in life. Education creates personality. Essence is truth; personality is false. Essence can stop growing early. ‘Reality’ is not his own. Culture creates personality. It is not their own.

• Sometimes the essence is fully developed where the personality is not.

• Man must see the personality and essence in him; to grow one and let go of the other.

• A cultured man might seem to have a more developed personality – it is not so. He is just more educated. A cultured man lives far from nature, far from natural conditions of existence, in artificial conditions of life, developing his personality at the expense of his essence. Personality consists of rolls and buffers resulting from the work of the centres.

• A successful beginning of work on oneself requires the happy occurrence of an equal development of personality and essence. An abnormal development of personality leads to the arrested development of essence.

• Sometimes, essence dies before the personality. Already dead.

• If we knew the number of already dead people, we would go mad with horror. If a man who can do nothing sees the truth, he will go mad.

• Personality sees only what he likes to see and does not see what interfers with his view of life.

• Does this mean that fate is favourable to accident?

• Fate is better than accident only in the sense that it is possible to take into account that it is possible to know it beforehand. It is possible to prepare. It is possible to get away from individual fate: firstly, by getting away from general laws – collective fate.

• Collective fate and collective accident are subject to general laws. Man must free himself from them.

• Personality feeds on imagination and falsehood.

• Some people in the group showed a negative reaction to the work; especially having to pay for it. found that it was the richer people who resented paying. The poorer people did not. In fact, no one was turned away because of money. Nothing shows up people more than their attitude to money. One cannot trade knowledge – it is free.

pp. 167 – 178

• Processes taking place in the existing world.

• The action of the Absolute upon the world: all suns on the sun; the sun on the planets; the planets on the earth; the earth on the moon.

• Look at this in an abridged form: Absolute-sun-earth-moon. 3 Octaves: Absolute to sun; sun to earth; earth to moon.

• First Octave (Absolute) – two notes: do and si

• Then: la, sol, fa: then, the first shock (unknown to us), and then mi and re. Then, the next do/ si as the Sun.

• Do, Si and la act as the Triad 1, 2, 3 –  therefore Carbon, Oxygen and Nitrogen: Active, Passive and Reconciling.

• 3 – Nitrogen then becomes the 1 – Carbon of the next triad: la, sol, fa.

• The first interval between do and si is filled by the influence of the sun’s mass upon radiation passing through it. And the third interval do-si is filled by the action of the earth’s mass upon radiations passing through it. Only the interval between fa and mi have to be filled by additional shocks. These additional shocks can come either from other octaves which can pass across the given point, or parallel octaves which start from higher points. We know nothing about the shock between mi-fa in the first Absolute-Sun octave. But the shock in the octave Sun-Earth is organic life on earth – the three notes la, sol, fa. The shock of the Earth-Moon interval is also unknown to us.

• Each triad is a hydrogen. A point is space can be designated by the hydrogens which predominate there. The active carbon force creates the note do in the Absolute – it is the maximum frequency of vibrations or the greatest density of vibration (the less in matter)

• Density of vibrations corresponds to frequency of vibrations and is the opposite of matter. The higher density of matter, the lower the density of vibration; the higher density of vibration, the lower the density of matter.

• H 6 Triad: 1, 2, 3; 1, 3, 2; 1, 2, 3 corresponds to do , si, la –   C O  N   the nitrogen acts as the next Carbon.

• Triads 2 -> 12 =  Hydrogens 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, 768, 536, 3072, 6144, 12288.   That is the 12 energies.

• BUT: at the place where we are situated within the limits of our ordinary powers and capacities hydrogen 6 is irresolvable; we can therefore take it as hydrogen 1  – giving the 7 triads/ energies/ hydrogens 1 – 7: 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96.

• All matters from hydrogen 6 to 3072 are to be found and play a part in the human organism. Each hydrogen includes a very large group of chemical substances known to us, linked together by some function in connection with our organism.

• Any simple element is a hydrogen of a certain density. Any combination of elements, which possess a definite function, either in the world or in the human organism, is also a hydrogen.

• Hydrogen 768 is food – all substances which can serve as food for man; Substances which cannot serve as food – wood – are hydrogen 1536. Then matter poor as food will be 384.

• Hydrogen 384 is water; 192 is air; 96 are rarefied gases.

• Hydrogen 48, 24, 12, 6 are the ‘finer substances’ – unknown to physics and chemistry: psychic and spiritual.

• So, the chemistry we speak of here is different from normal chemistry.

• This is an alchemy which regards matter first as a point of view of the functions which determines its place in the universe and its relations to other matters and then from the point of view of its relations to man and man’s functions.

• By an ‘atom of a substance’ is meant a certain small quantity of the given substance that retains all of its chemical, cosmic and psychic properties, because in addition to its cosmic properties , every substance also posses its psychic properties – that is a certain degree of intelligence.

• The table of hydrogens makes possible to examine all substances making up man’s organism from the point of view of their relation to different planes of the universe.

• As every function of man is a result of the action of definite substances, and as each substance is connected with definite substances, and as substance is connected with a definite plane in the universe, this fact enables us to establish the relation between man’s functions and the planes of the universe.

• The ladder between earth and heaven: the micro and the macro.

• tells the story of sleeping through a G lecture because he already knew what he was saying and then showing that he did not understand it two years later. G remembers and points out that he would have known the answer IF he had not slept through the lecture.

• Man never wants to pay for anything; above all he does not want to pay for what is most important to him.

1. 178 – 202

• We want to do, but everything we can do is linked to that of our organism. Everything has a certain kind of energy attached to it.

• Energy is mostly spent on unnecessary emotions and unpleasant things. We waste attention.

• The human organism is a ‘chemical factory’. It transforms one kind of energy to another.

• ‘Hydrogens’ are really a triad of energy.

• Man must separate the finer substances from the coarse. The growth of the astral body is analogous to the growth of the physical body. But, the higher body energy is still produced in the physical body.

• There are three kinds of food: the food we eat; the air we breath; impressions. Man can live without food for a while, and air for a short while but would die instantly without impressions. Impressions drive us.

• The law of octaves. Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen act as Triads (Active, Passive, Reconciling) in the transformation to higher energies. So, physical food is converted to higher energy. A shock is needed to do this.

• A shock is connected to the moment of reception of an impression. A certain effort is made at that moment.

• The difference is as follows: ‘ In an ordinary psychic state, I simply look at the street. But, if I remember myself, I do not simply look at the street; U feel I am looking through saying: ‘I am looking’. So, I look at myself looking’.

• Self-remembering brings an element of emotion. This remembering carries us from world 48 to 24.

• Although people breath in the same air, the exhale different air.

• Fine substances in the organism act as a magnet for fine substances. ‘In order to make gold, you first need a quantity of real gold’. Alchemy is nothing but a description of the human factory.

• A second conscious shock is needed for the octaves to proceed. Generally, connected with the emotional life.

• The practice of not expressing negative emotions is preparation for the second effort.

• Working with mechanical shock produces small quantities of the finer substances; conscious shock – intentional suffering and conscious labour/ sacrifice – produces much more.

• The Universe and Man – 3 octaves: Absolute to the Sun ; from sun the earth; from earth to moon. They all lack a semitone fa and mi; that place is taken by a certain kind of shock. In the lower it is physical food; the shock in middle octave is air; the shock in the higher octave is impressions.

• Each Hydrogen/ Triad has a purpose.

• Three stages in the evolution of human machine – 3 octaves: first created by nature – man number 1, 2 and 3 – food; second is air – 4; the third is impressions – 5, 6, 7 .

• Seven notes in the first octave, three in the second, one in the third. The third is a full picture of the human factory.

• Man must provide for his second shock.

• Volitional shock. Work in emotional centre. The transformation and transmutation of emotions. This becomes physical only after long practice.

• The table of hydrogens, when understood, show the relationsghip between centres and functions.

• Physical food = man number 1,2,3; Air = Man 4; Impressions = man 5, 6, 7.

• Moving centre = works with World 24.

• Emotional centre = World 12

• Two more centres: The Higher Emotional Centre (12) and the Higher Thinking Centre (6).

• If the emotional centre were to work with hydrogen 12, its work would be connected with the Higher emotional centre. No work can take place if we do not hear the call of our higher emotional centre.

• Normally, it is useless to connect with the higher thinking centre; when a ordinary man does this, he becomes unconscious.

• The mind refuses to take in the flood of thoughts, emotions, images, and ideas which suddenly burst into it.

• The memory retains only the last moment.

• Our ordinary centres, in transmitting the impressions of the higher centres, may be compared to a blind man speaking of colours, or of a deaf man speaking of music.

• In order to obtain a correct and permanent connection between the lower and higher centres, it is necessary to regulate and quicken the work of the lower centres.

• A great deal of energy is spent on unnecessary work.: first, the constant flow of thoughts; second , muscular tension; third is unnecessary talking and daydreaming. We have to economise energy.

• The fourth body requires the complete and harmonious working of all centres and it implies control. The table of hydrogens helps us understand the physicality of psychic, intellectual, emotional and volitional centres.

• Thus, there are different forms of necessary fuel: bad moods take this away.

• All psychic processes are material.

• Man lives his life under the law of accident. Two kinds of influences: the first created in life itself; the second outside of life. The second are conscious in origin. Religious ideas can ‘contaminate’ life.

• The beginning of the way depends on discriminating between the two influences: One needs to differentiate between them. Accident is accident, but the unexpected comes from conscious work like a magnet.

• A man cannot ascend a higher step in the fourth way without placing another man upon his own step.

• A man does not have to see himself as a teacher but his work must come from actual fact – the esoteric centre – can differentiate the esoteric – objective ideas from subjective scientific and philosophical ideas.

pp. 202 – 216

• Man may be mistaken about what he is and is doing. 1) He may genuinely be mistaken and think that he knows something when he knows nothing; 2) He may believe another man, who in his turn is mistaken; 3) He may deceive consciously.

• It is impossible to know a wrong way without knowing a right way.

• The teacher always corresponds to the level of the teacher. The pupil never sees the level of the teacher. This is a law. To follow Jesus, were you to meet him, would require being at the same level as the apostles.

• In the fourth way, there is not one Whoever is the elder is the teacher. The teacher and pupil are indispensable to each other. He must place another at his level until ascending to a higher step.

• You cannot speak of knowledge because you do not know what knowledge is.

• The universe is a large cosmos and man a small cosmos. As above, so below: The first cosmos is the Protocosmos (absolute); the second cosmos is the Ayocosmos ( All worlds); the third cosmos is the Macrocosmos ( Starry Worlds); the fourth cosmos is the Deuterocosmos (Sun/ Solar System); the firth cosmos is the Mesocosmos ( All planets); the sixth cosmos is the Titrocosmos (Man); the seventh cosmos is the Microcosmos ( Atom).

• The atom is the smallest amount of substance.

• Each cosmos is a living being.

• In order to know one cosmos, it is necessary to know the two adjacent cosmoses – hence, a Triad – Law of Three.

• A cosmos is related to another as zero is to infinity. This explains the division of cosmoses and the relation of cosmoses to each other.

• The idea of cosmoses helps us understand our place in the world.

• The idea of the possibility of broadening man’s consciousness and increasing his capacities for knowledge stands in direct relation to the teaching on cosmoses.

• In reality, this means that if, for instance, a man begins to feel the life of the planets, or if his consciousness passes to the level of the planetary world, he begins at the same time to feel the life of atoms – or his consciousness passes to that level. So consciousness proceeds in two directions.

• We may take the cosmoses in three directions: 1) in its relation to itself; 2) in its relation to higher or larger cosmoses; 3) in its relation to lower or smaller cosmoses.

• The manifestation of the law of one cosmos in another cosmos constitutes what we call a miracle.

• The relation of one cosmos to another is the relation of two bodies of different dimensions.

• The three-dimensional body differs from the point, the line, and the plane by the fact that it has a real physical existence for our perception.

• The plane is in fact only a project of a body.

• Time as we feel it, is the fourth dimension.

• But, existence in time does not embrace all the aspects of existence. Apart from existing in time everything that exists also exists in eternity.

• Therefore, if time is the fourth dimension, eternity is the fifth dimension.

• Every moment of time contains a certain number of possibilities – smaller or greater at different times.

• Every act is the actualisation of a single potential.

• But, each moment of time has an infinite existence in eternity. All eternal possibilities in eternity cannot be actualized.

• The sixth dimension is the line of the actualization of all possibilities.

• The fifth dimension is the line of the eternal existence or repetition of the actualised possibilities.

•  The fourth dimension is the sequence of the moments of the actualization of one possibility.

• As every cosmos has a real physical existence, every cosmos therefore is three-dimensional for itself.

• For a three dimensional body, such as is a cosmos, the fourth dimension lies as much in the realm of very large magnitudes as in the realm of very small magnitudes, as much in the realm of what is actually infinity as in the realm of what is actually zero.

• Only a six-dimensional body can be completely real. A five dimensional body is only an incomplete view of a six dimensional body; a four dimensional view is only an incomplete view of a five dimensional body. Etc.

• This six dimensional earth can also be three-dimensional for itself, only we do not know and we can have no conception of the form in which the earth sees itself.

• Time is breath.

• Breath is organic life.

• Microcosmos: Man is very small.

• All possibilities of man are actualized in the sun.

• Man number seven becomes immortal.

• Usually, science takes man as three-dimensional – as the whole of organic life. The sun, the solar system, the milky way.

• The earth cannot be regarded as three-dimensional.

• Seven cosmoses represent a ‘period of dimensions’.

pp. 217 – 231

 

• A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first be awake.

• When a man awakes, he can die. When he dies, he can be born.

• If a man dies without having awakened he cannot be born.

• Man must free himself from a thousand petty identifications and attachments. Attachments to things.

• To awaken is to realize one’s nothingness.

• So long that a man is not horrified at himself, he knows nothing about himself.

• Continual consciousness of nothing will enable a man to die.

• One must first of all awaken for short periods.

• Man usually exists in hypnotic sleep.

• The fire of Kundalini: seen in occult literature as some sort of strange force. In reality, it is the power of the imagination. The power of fantasy which takes the place of real function. It is put into men to keep them in their present state.

• If a man awakens, he normally falls asleep again.

• To wake a man a good shock is needed.

• Alarm clocks are needed.

• A man usually begins his work in small groups. A group needs a teacher to follow. They need to believe in their work and not talk about it to others. He must tell the teacher the whole truth. They must remember why they came to this group. If a man distrusts the teacher, he must leave.

• There is the personality and the ‘I’.

• Only a man who can be silent when necessary can be a master to himself.

• The Chief Feature – the Chief fault. Every man must struggle against his own. The teacher will tell him – to realize his own nothingness.

• Black magic – to use people without their knowledge and understanding, either by producing in them faith and infatuation or by acting upon them through fear.

• Faith is required in groups.

• Having surmounted a barrier, a man cannot return to sleep/ ordinary life.

• Nothing shows a man’s worth more than his attitude to the work once he has left it. In fact, sometimes the teacher sends him away in order to see how he reacts. Sometimes he invents fabrications, justifications, and lies. This is its own punishment.

• Lying is the worst.

• ** Every effort a man makes puts more pressure on him. ** More work.

• Nothing that a man did yesterday excuses him today.

• The next biggest barrier is fear.

pp. 246 – 259

 

• Types: the science of types; you meet only types – everything else is imagination; some say there are twelve types – like the apostles; types cannot be described in ordinary language; we cannot name them all in the same way we cannot name the 48 laws.

• A different being is needed for some knowledge.

• Begin with your own type: to know types you must know your own.

• The exercises of talking about one’s type came to nothing: but anecdotes, memoirs, recollections. Although noticed voice change in different subjects.

• Personality and essence: essence hides behind personality and personality hides behind essence.

• One must know where one’s characteristics comes from; everything you have is not your own – they come from other sources – other people, books, etc. Sooner or later you have to go through all this. Most people lie all the time – they do not know what it is to be sincere.

• Once O had lunch with G. O was unhappy and G asked him about this. G asks O to ask a question: O asks about ‘eternal recurrence’. G explains: It is not the absolute truth but it is near to it. Without change, repetition does not exist for him. It cannot have sense without striving for change. Everything is changing – like planetary influences. O was very interested in all this and therefore happier but G mocked him: how easy it was to change his mood with stories. But, this did not affect O – he learnt all the same and understood more about G’s intonations.

• G carried out an experiment about essence and personality: he took two men – one older and one younger. The older one spoke about all sort of things – war, family, etc. and complained about them but then went silent. ‘What are you thinking about?’ ‘Nothing’, he said. He also remembered nothing about what he said. G asked him a question but he would not reply. G asked him what he liked – ‘nothing’. The voice of the second man said, ‘why are you questioning him?’ The second man said he was asleep but he was awake. He had woken up. Neither remembered the next day. G explained that everything with the first man was consistent with his personality. Nothing is remembered from personality.  But, the essence behind the personality knew as much and knew it better. When personality went to sleep, essence took over. Essence remembers. One said it was a kind of ‘black magic’. G said ‘worst’ – ‘wait and see, you will get worst than that’.

• They speak of relations and sex: every man/ woman comes across a certain type of woman/man. If they lived the life of their essence, they would come across their essence type. Instead, they gravitate towards personality types. It is the wrong work of centres.

• Mechanical man cannot love. At the same time, sex plays a large part in maintaining the mechanicalness of life. Everything that people do is connected to sex: politics, religion, art, theatre, music. Sex is the motive force of mechanicalness. Sex by itself -not dependent on anything else – is a great achievement. ‘What should be changed’, someone asked. For G this question was expected but naive. Even God could not change it. Like the 48 laws, some things cannot be changed. But, liberation from them is possible. That is, changing the state of affairs for oneself. One cannot escape from the general law.

• Hydrogen 12, Si, is the hydrogen which represents the final product of the transformation of food in the human organism. This is the matter with which sex works and which sex manufactures. It is ‘seed’ or ‘fruit’.

• Hydrogen Si 12 can pass into Do of the next octave with the help of an additional shock. But, this shock can be a dual nature and different octaves can begin, one outside the organism and the other inside the organism itself. The union of male and femaleSi and 12 and all that accompanies it constitutes the shock of the first kind and the new octave begun with its help develops independently as a new organism or a new life.

• This new life can be the ‘astral body’ – it is born of the same material as the physical body since they are permeated with emanations of 12. When they are sufficiently saturated, then 12 becomes crystalised.

• The transition of matter Si 12 into emanation and the gradual saturation of the whole organism by it is what alchemy calls ‘transmutation’ or transformation. It is just the transformation of the physical body into the astral that is alchemy. This is the coarse being transformed into the finer.

• Is sexual abstinence necessary? Yes and No. It is for the transformation of certain types. Not others.

• It is useful to have abstinence in all centres. If there is abstinence in just one centre, this can cause problems. When man does not know, better not to attempt anything. If a man begins to theorise and invent in this sphere (imagination), it will lead to nothing but psychopathy.

• There are only two ways of expending sexual energy: normal sexual life and transmutation. All other inventions here are dangerous. Often abstinence is exchanging normal sensations for abnormal because abnormal are more easily hidden.

• It is not sex that is the problem but the ‘abuse of sex’. The work of the sex centre through other centres is wrong, as is the actions of the other centres through the sex centre. The functioning of the sex centre with energy borrowed from the other centres and the functioning of the other centres with energy borrowed from the sex centre is problematic.

• Is sex an independent centre?. G: ‘It can be said. At the same time, if all the lower story is taken as a whole, then sex can be regarded as the neutralsing part of the moving centre’.

• The sex centre works with hydrogen 12 – or ought to. Si 12. But the fact is that it really works with its own hydrogen. So, there are abnormalities.

• In the sex centre as well as the higher emotional centre and the higher intellectual centre, there are normally no negative sides. In all the other centres except the higher ones , in the thinking, in the emotional, in the moving, in the instinctive, in all of them there are, so to speak, two halves – the positive and the negative; affirmation and negation – yes, and no in thinking, pleasant/ unpleasant in emotional. There is no such division in the sex centre. It is either pleasant feeling/ sensation or nothing. But, the sex centre can unite with the negative aspect of other centres – emotional or instinctive. A certain kind of stimulation then calls forth unpleasant feelings. Ideas – imagination. It is simply disease. Sex should be either pleasant or indifferent. This is the abuse of sex.

• The sex centre works with hydrogen 12. It is stronger and quicker than the other centres. In fact, sex governs all the other centres. The only thing that holds sex in submission is buffers – for the man with no consciousness or will. Buffers can withhold it but not destroy it.

• Work of the sex centre in the emotional or thinking centre calls forward a certain ‘taste’. So, in thinking, like writing books, it is inclined towards subjective theories – always fighting; disputing, criticising. In the emotional centre it calls forth hell fire. Or works on revolutions, robbery, burns, etc. Sex in the moving centre is occupied with sport.

• Neither the thinking nor the emotional nor the moving centres can ever create anything useful with the energy of the sex center. This is an example of the abuse of sex.

• But, there is another aspect: when the energy of the sex centre is plundered by the other centres, and spent on useless work, it has nothing left for itself and has to steal energy from the other centres. Lower and more coarse.

• Sex centre is important for the growth of the organism – working with hydrogen 12, it can receive a very fine food of impressions. This fine food is important is important for the manufacture of the higher hydrogens. But, if the sex centre works with lower hydrogens – 48 or 24 – the impressions become much coarser and ceases to play the role in the organism that it can play. If the sex centre unifies with the thinking centre, there is too much imagination on the subject of sex – indeed, to be satisfied with the imagination. Union with the emotional centre and the sex centres creates jealousy, sentimentality and cruelty.

• It is impossible to describe to a man who has not yet begun to work on himself how to deal with such ‘abuse of sex’.

• Right work on oneself begins with the creation of a ‘permanent centre of gravity’. When this happens, every thing begins to be disposed and distributed in subordination to it.

• So, how to create a ‘permanent centre of gravity’? A man’s attitude to the work, to school, his valuation of the work, and his realization of the mechanicalness and aimlessness of everything else. This begins the creation of the centre of gravity.

• The role of the sex centre in creating a general equilibrium and centre of gravity is big. The sex centre stands on the same level as the higher emotional centre. All other centres are subordinate to it. So, it is good if it works with its own energy. This is already a high level of being. If the sex centre worked with its own energy and in its own place, all the other centres could work correctly in their places and with their own energies.

pp.  260 – 282

 

• O began a series of ‘fasts’ and breath exercises. Also, the ‘prayer of the mind’. These were ‘extraordinary experiences’ necessary to see reality in a new way.

• We do not understand the ‘emotional’. New facts.

• There is too much that is ‘common property in these facts for them to be ‘common property’. But, they transcend the sphere we normally encounter. What is important is the ‘inner content’ and new knowledge that came with them.  was sarcastic with us when we tried to articulate them.

• G showed certain physical postures. Movements. A gymnast might do them but he did them in a special way – with relaxed muscles.

• O began to hear G’s thoughts. G put questions into O without words. There were conditions of work, which we had to accept or leave the work.

• I realized that G was right and what I considered to be firm and reliable in myself in reality did not exist.

• The Ray of Creation – the triads. Will, Consciousness – what is the third? G said it was better to think of yourself – your work. Struggle with what you have – not the work. It is the difference between being asleep and being awake.

• O ceased to see sleeping people when he was asleep himself.

• No phenomena can be observed or investigated by ordinary means or in an ordinary state of consciousness.

• O: formulation of aims, desires, aspirations – changed. Weakening of individualism. To feel community with others. The impossibility of violence.

• Chief Feature – not everyone’s can be named or defined. When it is, the first thing someone does is to deny it. Then, to get angry. To struggle with it is to destroy its involuntary manifestation.

• Desirable and undesirable impressions on others. Inner and outer considering…

• Psychology ought to be art.

• Other examples: that someone did not exist; or had no conscience.

• G would only work with those ready to struggle with themselves. Who would be useful to him.

• In the work, the teacher of the work cannot be deceived.

• We must destroy self-justification – that we are in the right. People bring their subjective attitude into the work. And they imagine they can ‘work’. Amusing!!

• G’s pupils were not afraid to keep silent; others thought it was directed against them.

• Talk arises from self-defense. A reluctance to see something.

• It was not possible to tell lies. There was always a clue in the intonations in the way we speak when we try to hide facts. Others do not distinguish between lies and facts. Someone ‘clever’ was invited to lunch but all he wanted to do was talk.

• How to produce a centred emotional state: 1) it can come by itself; 2) someone can create it in you; 3) we can create it ourselves.

• For 3) Sacrifice is necessary. Sacrifuce Faith, Tranquility and Health. Actually it is a sacrifice of some thing possessed only in the imagination. People must also sacrifice their suffering. Some find it easier to sacrifice their pleasure.

• The Seventh Scale: The Absolute – Hydrogen 96. Fire is an example of hydrogen 96. If the Absolute is Wood, then the fire consumes it. Fire => Wood, Water => Sugar.

• Transition 1,2, 3 to 1, 3, 2. It is necessary to see the diagrams as ‘moving’. It describes moving from matter energy to another.

• G always came back to two issues: self-remembering and the imperfection of language. The second also relates to the issue of ‘objective truths’. All scientific theories based on facts were subjective; knowledge based on ancient methods and principles of observation – knowledge of things in themselves, things with an accompanying state of consciousness – was objective knowledge.

• Central idea of objective knowledge was ‘unity in diversity’. It is our task to transmit it. But, those to whom the idea was to be transmitted needed preparation. The idea had to be put in a logical form or a religious structure.

• Objective knowledge includes the idea of ‘objective consciousness’. With objective consciousness it is possible to see/ feel the unity in everything. This is more than an intellectual thought – but there remains the insurmountable difficulty of language to express unity. Sometimes people have tried to express it in myths and symbols. The aim of ‘myths’ and ‘symbols’ was to reach man’s higher centres (emotional and mental)- to transmit to him ideas inaccessible to the intellect, to exclude the possibility of false interpretations. Myths are for the higher emotional centre and symbols for the higher mental centre. To attempt to understand these in the mind is doomed to failure.

• The study and construction of symbols is an important part of preparation.

• Symbols are divided into Fundamental and Subordinate. The first include principles of separate domains of knowledge; the second expresses the essential nature of phenomena in their relation to unity.

• The principle governing them is: ‘As above, so below’ (Emerald Tablets of Hermes Trimegisttus). So, Atoms, Man and the Universe contain the same homologies/ principles.

• Hence important to ‘know thyself’.

• Man often sees duality – opposition. Or trinity. Man sees these as external, but he might also see them in himself.

• The transmission of symbols to a man who does not see them in himself is impossible. You can only give to one who already knows inside.

• The quality of number: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc.

• Man is taken by duality in his normal state. Impressions, feelings, thoughts, sensation are seen as positive or negative, necessary/ unnecessary, good/ bad, pleasant/ unpleasant. Thoughts oppose feelings.

• But this is alternate: victor/ vanquished. Primary => secondary.

• Going beyond this begins with the realization of mechanicalness. The difference between mechanicalness and conscious. The need for to get rid of self-deceit.

• When self-deceit is destroyed, a man begins to see the difference between mechanical and consciousness.

• The creation of the permanent third principle is for man the transformation of the duality into the trinity.

• Strengthening decision and bringing it constantly and infallibly into all events which were normally accidental shocks used to give accidental results gives a permanent line of results in time and is the transformation of the trinity into the quarternity. Then, quaternity into quinternity and the construction of the pentagram.

pp. 282 – 304

 

• The Pentagram has many meanings – one relates to the work of the centres.

• The construction of a new man begins with the construction of a new machine: five centres – thinking, emotional, moving, instinctive, sex. If ‘man’ brings them into harmonious balance, they are locked in a pentagram within him. Bringing these together brings into contact with higher centres and a permanent connection with objective consciousness and objective knowledge.

• And, then, man becomes the six-pointed star: by being locked within the circle of life – independent and complete in itself – he becomes isolated from foreign influences or accidental shocks. He embodies the ‘seal of Solomon’.

• You can also examine the same process in terms of the ‘law of octave’. The seven fundamental tones together wit the two ‘intervals’ and ‘additional shocks’ give nine steps. By incorporating the ‘do’ of the next octave there are ten steps: the end of the last and the beginning of the next cycle. This is part of the symbolism of numbers.

• In Western esotericism, there is such a thing as ‘theosophical addition’. Numbers are connected with geometrical patterns.

• There exists also a symbology of magic, a symbology of alchemy, and a symbology of astrology. The Tarot unites them. Each can transmit the unity of man.

• A symbol can never be taken in a final and definite meaning. Symbols that are transposed into words become rigid.

• It is well known that delusions have arisen from the symbols of religion, alchemy and magic in those who take them literally.

• At the same time, understanding of symbols can lead to ‘Great Doing’.

• To understand symbolism, it is only possible at a certain level of development, that which goes with corresponding efforts.

• To understand speech about symbols, it is necessary first to learn how to listen. Any attempt to understand literally where speech deals with objective knowledge and with the union of diversity, is doomed to failure and can lead to further delusions. Looking for logical definitions does not help.  

• Details communicated to a man before he has acquired an understanding of the essential nature of a thing makes it difficult for him to understand its essential nature.

• No-one can give him what he did not possess before; no-one can do the work he has to do himself.

• Every note/ tone on a scale is itself a new octave. The law of octaves connects everything in the universe. The enneagram takes on the symbol of this.

• The interrelation of teachings: it must be remembered the ways, which lead to the cognition of unity approach.

• The lines of approach are: Hebraic, Egyptian, Persian and Hindu. There is also Western Esotericism.

• Enneagram: the circle is divided into 9 equal parts. Six points are connected by a figure, which is symmetrical in relation to a diameter passing through the uppermost point of the divisions of the circumference. Further, the uppermost point of the divisions is the apex of an equilateral triangle linking together the points of the divisions, which do not enter into the construction of the original complicated figure. This represents the law of seven in its union with the law of three.

 

• Together with the two additional shocks, which fill the ‘intervals’ mi-fa and si-do, there are nine intervals.

• The whole is a ‘do’. The ninth completes the cycle. Begins anew. The beginning and completion is at the apex. The laws of unity are reflected in all phenomena.

• The inner triangle stands for the presence of higher elements according to the scale of hydrogen in a given organism.

• All knowledge can be included in the enneagram. Only what man puts into the enneagram does he actually know. What he cannot put in he does not understand. The laws of the universe.

• The enneagram is in perpetual motion. It is also the philosopher’s stone.

• The four beasts of the apocalypse can be put into the enneagram: Bull, Lion, Man, Eagle.

• Men have tried to invent a universal language. There are three: the first allows people to express their thoughts and understand the thoughts of others in relation to things that ordinary language cannot express.

• What about art? There is art and art. Ordinary talks about art are meaningless. There are two kinds of art: Objective and Subjective. Most of what we call art is subjective. Only objective art is real. Subjective art is akin to invariable action. It has the same effect on everyone. With objective art, the artist really does create – he makes what he intends. He puts into art specific emotions and feelings and these are received. Nothing is accidental. Nothing is indefinite.

• G: ‘I measure art by its consciousness and others by unconsciousness’.

• Objective music is all based on inner octaves. Definite psychological results with definite physical results. There is a music that can kill a man.

• Man number 1, 2, 3 only have subjective art; objective art requires at least objective consciousness.

• Religion is a relative concept, which corresponds to man’s being. Religion for each Man – 1, 2, 3 – are each separate. Religion for Man 4, 5, 6 etc. is different .

• Men live their religion. His actions show his religion. His attitude.

• No-one has a right to call himself a Christian if he does not follow Christ’s precepts. It is necessary to wish to be a Christian.

• Prolonged Instruction and Training is necessary. Can man turn the other cheek?

• Subjective prayer only gives subjective results. Self-consolation; Self-suggestion; Self-hypnosis. One must learn to pray – then there are results.

• Ancient prayers are recapitulations. When a man prays and says ‘I’, he thinks of everything this means – ‘I’.

• In Christian prayers there are many where it is necessary to reflect on each word. ‘God have mercy upon me’.  Every word here is a meditation.

• When a man has this relationship, he can do what he would have God do.

• Christianity did not borrow from paganism. It was not invented by the Church fathers. A Church was a School.

• The Liturgy records all the processes of creation.

• Every ceremony or rite has a value – if performed without alteration.

• There are special exercises and postures in Christianity.

• When you pronounce ‘I’, where does this word sound? Head, Heart of Hands?

• Every religion has two parts: what? is to be done and how?.

• Cosmoses as different from Kant’s phenomena and noumena.

pp. 305 – 345

 

• The orderly connectedness of everything in the universe: there is nothing accidental or unnecessary in nature – everything has a definite function.

• Organic life transmits planetary influences of various kinds to the earth and to feed the moon so that it can grow.

• But the earth is also growing in terms of greater consciousness.

• Organic life has to evolve to adapt to the planets and life on earth. Organic life needs to satisfy the hunger.

• The Ray of Creation – from the Absolute to the Moon – is like a branch of a tree. The Ray of Creation depends on organic life on earth.

• The Earth-Moon part of the Ray of Creation is like separate branches in a tree.

• In organic life, everything depends on each other. General growth is only possible when the end of the branch grows.

• The evolving part of organic life is humanity. If humanity does not evolve, organic life will stop. And, the Ray of Creation will stop. Humanity is moving in a circle.

• The appearance of a quality immediately evokes the appearance of another.

• Refinement evokes vulgarity; freedom evokes slavery.

• A balanced process proceeds in a certain way until it reaches a crossroads. If nothing happens at these crossroads, the process will continue in a mechanical way. Something can be done only at certain moments – crossroads.

• People contradict each other: one has a theory, another invents a counter theory. All these theories are certainly quite fantastic, chiefly because they do not take into account the most important thing, namely, the subordinate part which humanity and organic life plays in the world process.

• The direction of involution is towards mechanicalness; the direct of evolution is towards consciousness: Incarnation and Adulteration. An involutionary process begins consciously in the Absolute but at the next step it becomes mechanical – and more and more as it does so. An evolutionary process begins half consciously but it becomes more and more conscious as it develops. But, consciousness and conscious opposition to the evolutionary process can also appear in the involutionary process. The evolutionary process must proceed without interruption. Opposing forces may even sometimes conquer: the forces guiding evolution have a more limited choice of means – they can only make use of certain means and methods. The opposing forces are not limited in their methods. They destroy both evolution and involution.

• To destroy inequality would mean destroying the process of evolution; to destroy suffering would mean destroying first a whole set of perceptions for which man exists and second the destruction of the ‘shock’ – the force which can change the situation.

• A group of cells become conscious and then attract another set of cells.

• **In humanity, as in an individual, everything begins with a conscious nucleus. **

• Can it be said that there is a conscious force which fights against the evolution of humanity? G: Yes – from a certain point of view.

• Are we able to say that life is governed by a group of conscious people?

• We only see new divisions, new misunderstandings.

• We see a growth of automatism: there is nothing that points to evolution.

• Man’s bravery grows.

• The evolution of humanity can proceed only through the evolution of a certain group.

• But, humanity is in such a state that it cannot accept guidance of this group.

• Conscious people recognize each other: two hundred conscious people could change the whole of life on earth.

• The influences on humanity are guided by two different directions. First, planetary influences – mechanically acted and received) involuntary and unconsciously). Second, influences proceeding from inner circle of humanity.

• What we know as history, pre-history, science and civilization is really only the outer circle of humanity. There are in fact concentric circles.

• The inner circle is the esoteric : people who have attained higher development – an indivisible ‘I’. Control over states of consciousness. No discord. No differences.

• The mesoteric: their’s is a knowledge of a more theoretical nature. Cosmic knowledge. They know more than what has found itself into the way they act. Their understanding is the same as with the esoteric people. No discord or misunderstanding. One understands as the whole and the whole understand as One. But, they are more theoretical than the esoteric ones.

• The exoteric: the outer part of the inner circle. They possess similar to that of the esoteric people. But, their cosmic knowledge is more philosophical – more abstract that the knowledge of the mesoteric group. The mesoteric calculate, the exoteric contemplates. But, there is no difference in understanding.

• The outer circle is the circle of mechanical humanity. Here, there is no common understanding. Confusion of tongues. Mutual understanding is impossible.

• If we imagine the four concentric circles, there are four gates on the third one – exoteric – where people from the mechanical circle can enter the inner circle. The four gates are those as in the Fourth Way: the ways of the Fakir, Yogi, Monk and Fourth Way. The first three are tied to permanent forms that have existed for a long time. At their base is religion. The fourth way is never permanent: no definite forms, no institutions. It appears and disappears according to its own laws.

• Mechanical help cannot be required in the Fourth Way, only conscious work can be useful in all understanding.

• The quicker a man grasps the aim of the work, which is being executed, the quicker can it becomes useful to it.

• When the work is done, the 4W schools close. But, having no doubts about the understanding and knowledge of this work, new schools are formed. It is impossible to see the real end and beginning. The only thing we know about these schools is their work.

• Pseudi-esoteric systems also play a part in the work and activities of esoteric circle. They are intermediaries between humanity, which is entirely based in materialistic life and schools, which are interested in the education of a certain number of people; as much for the purposes of their existences as for the purposes of the work of the cosmic character.

• Without the pseudo-esoteric, humanity would have no chance of hearing and learning of anything greater than themselves.

• Truth can only come to some people in the form of a lie. They contain a grain of truth.

• Tibetan and Indian Temples are often built with four concentric walls/ gates.

• The fourth way is only for the Brahmin and Priests.

• A change of being cannot be brought about by rites or initiations. They only mark what has been accomplished. In reality, only self-initiation, self-presentation exist.

• Schools can indicate methods and ways but cannot do the work of man that he has to do himself.

• 316 -> 342: Exploration of Cosmoses.

• 342: O: Events are against us. G: It is only now that it is possible. Events are not against us. They are moving too quickly. In five years, you will see what hinders us today in fact is useful to us.

• These ideas could come only in such a time when the attention of the majority is distracted in some other directions and when these ideas can only reach those who look for them.

• O: How can I strengthen ‘I’? G: You cannot do anything about it. This should come as a result of all your efforts. For you, by now you should have felt ‘I’ differently. Have you noticed?

pp. 346 – 368

• Schools are imperative. A man is unable to keep watch on the whole of himself. He is too lazy. He spares himself – afraid to do anything unpleasant. Can never attain the apparent intensity himself.

• Super effort: beyond the necessary. Even more difficult when I do not decide it myself.Another person is necessary.

• In a normal man, the three centres – physical, emotional and intellectual – are connected in unison. A certain kind of work is connected to the emotional centre, and mental work to posture. One does not exist without another.

• What if he thinks in a new way, but feels in an old way.So, when he feels in an old way, old thoughts arise. So, he needs constant supervision. He cannot do it by himself. Working with others also creates tensions, which chip away at old patterns.

• Work on the moving centre can only really take place in a school. Making the other centres work should begin with the moving centre. A lazy body stops work by holding on to habits.The body has many automatisms, which prevent work.

• We cannot begin with our ‘spirituality’ or ‘morality’. Need to begin with mechanicalness.

• To change requires special and lengthy work.

• This is a general rule – not an exception of accident (which exist).

• When a man decides to struggle for freedom, he first has to struggle with his own body.

• In terms of the body as a three-story building, most energy produced is wasted. We must stop this wastage. A good exercise is to begin with the muscles of the face; feeling the hands, feet, fingers.

• Circular exercise: Nose, right Ear, right hand, right foot, left foot, left hand, left ear. Repeat from nose.

• Feel the pulse through the whole body.

• The ‘Stop’ exercise. Here, Stop is called and everyone has to stop in whatever position they are. This makes clear each man’s repository of posture. A man cannot change his thoughts and feeling until he has changed his postures.

• Every one of our movements, voluntary or involuntary, is an unconscious transition from one posture to another.

• It is an illusion to say our movements are voluntary. They are all automatic.

• In ordinary conditions we do not know how much out thoughts, feelings and postures depend on one another. If a man takes a posture that corresponds to sadness or despondency, then very soon he becomes sad or despondent.

• A man’s will is sufficient to govern one centre for a short time. But, the other two centres prevent this. His will can never be sufficient to govern all three.

• The Stop exercise affords a man the possibility of getting out of his automatisms.

• A ‘non-mechanical’ study of oneself is only possible with the help of the Stop exercise.With an unaccustomed posture, man looks at himself anew. He must remember himself to do the exercise, to notice the new muscles in the body, overcome the pain of a new position.

• The Stop exercise is considered sacred in schools. Only Man number 6 can give it.

• It requires also unconditional obedience. Constant alertness.

• First, it shows anyone’s attitude to the work.

• Talking is a major habit. This can become the centre of gravity of one’s work.

• Gurdjieff said complete silence as an alternative was easier than necessary talking.It is a question of necessity: also with food, sleep, etc.

• How can you know what is and is not necessary? This is a subjective question. Sins are what keep man asleep; sins exist only for those approaching the way. Not for general people.

• The indispensable is always permitted.

• Work consists of submitting oneself – voluntarily – to temporary suffering. People are afraid of suffering. They want pleasure. But, pleasure is an aspect of paradise and must be earned. If man gets pleasure before he has earned it, he will not be able to keep it. It will turn to suffering.

• The work consists of diverse and complex elements. Each step needs effort and help. A man must value what he gets today – not think of tomorrow.

• Is there any difference between us working people and ordinary man? Are we all ‘food for the moon’?

• G: There is nothing outside of the way. People who become involved in the way select themselves by accident and hunger.By general laws, some simply do not encounter it.

• IF a man is hungry, he has a chance to come in contact with the work. In order to do the Fourth way, a man must have encountered many disappointments. He must have at least thought about the ways of the monk, yogi and fakir, even if he has not tried them.

• ‘Ways’ are simply ways to help.

• People can evolve outside of the way, but it is slower and more difficult.

• There are two ways: subjective and objective. Subjective is what is normally called ‘objective’. ‘Objective’ is actually about the individual. It admits many more individual peculiarities. People in this way simply live in life. They do not do much good, but neither much evil. They can be uneducated, simple. Their way is slow with many repetitions.

• It sometimes seems to people of the subjective way that people of the objective way are not moving. But, this is a mistake.

• A simple inhabitant – an obyvatel – can contain the kernel of life. Some of these are thieves and fools, but a good obyvatel does not hinder the work. He might not need to enter a monastery – he lives a good life and fulfills his ambitions with respect to job and family.

• Intellectuals sometimes look down on such a man, but they are ‘tramps’. Even poets, artists, bohemians. They cannot exist without the obyvatel. The obyvatel is a good citizen – unlike the tramps.

• An obyvatel does not believe in words. A good deal of incomprelension is there because people do not take into account the meaning of words. Even simple ones. For example, ‘serious’ – to have a serious attitude. What does that mean?

• The mistake is that the concept ‘serious’ is taken conditionally – different for each man. Such cannot be taken conditionally. A man must be more aware or less aware of seriousness but the seriousness of things will not alter on his account.

• Only one thing can be serious: to escape the general laws and become free.

• So, to say an obyvatel is more serious than a tramp, it is because the latter live by fantasies – like they are able to do something. The obyvatel is accustomed to deal with real values, the possibilities of the ‘ways’ – of ‘salvation’ and ‘liberation’. Compared to a man who lives in imagination and imagery interests. The obyvatel knows that such people promise all sorts of things but actually are simply pleasing themselves.

• A man consciously and unconsciously struggles for freedom as he imagines it and this, more than anything else, prevents him from attaining real freedom.

• A man capable of attaining anything comes to the conclusion that freedom is an illusion. And, lets go of it. He knows he has nothing. He lets go of this illusion.

• He is not afraid of losing anything because he knows that he has nothing. In this way, he acquires everything. A man must pass through a hard way of slavery and obedience. If he wants results, he must obey inwardly and outwardly.

• Once a man comes come to the conclusion that he no longer wants to live this way, then he must be truthful with himself not to fall into another worse situation. A man should test his decision many times. He must know how far he is willing to go. The sacrifice. There is nothing more easy than to say ‘everything’.

• Like the Armenian wolf who asks the priest to give a thanksgiving because he has stopped slaughtering sheep. Only to ask the priest to hurry up when he sees sheep from the window of the church because they are his supper!

• Astrology: deals only with one part of man – his essence. G. drops his stick: one does not see it – he is looking another way; one thought it was intentional – so he was curious what G. would do next; one was absorbed in the previous discussion; one thought of picking it up but another did; the last one watched himself pick it up. All these are astrological types.

• announces he is stopping his work. O’s confidence in G began to waver. They both nevertheless moved on.  

pp, 369 – 389

 

• Chapter 18 begins with an account of Gurdjieff moving to Tuapse and Ouspensky in St. Petersburg. Including what happened with certain other students.

• They also began what he calls ‘rhythmic exercises’; clearly, what were to become ‘the Movements’. They also undertook ‘thought-reading’ exercises, ‘clairvoyance’, etc. G. said it was necessary to study these ‘tricks’ because, without knowing them, it would not be possible to study ‘phenomena of supernormal character’. You need to be able to differentiate the sham from the real.

• notes that G’s work began to change, and he was separating the ideas from the man.O accepts that in this esoteric work it is not possible to disagree with the Leader. One comes to learn and to take no other role. But, every Guru/ teacher works according to his own ‘script’.  A man has to wait until he meets a Guru whose speciality he is able to study with. Each Guru may be a monk, fakir or yogi. O saw G as moving fast towards the way of religion – not his way.

• There is then further work on the Enneagram. Point 3 – or the mi-fa interval – was the second shock – the beginning of the second octave. Point 6 is then the mi-fa interval of the second octave and shock point. Point 6 is the beginning of the third octave. Point 3 is Doh 192.

• So, no wrong place for a shock at all. All three octaves reached H12: in first it was si, second sol, third mi. The second octave, which ended at 12 in the enneagram, ought to have gone on further. But si 12 and mi 12 require an ‘additional shock’.

• Points 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 represented, according to the ‘food diagram’ different ‘systems’ of the organism: 1 – digestive system; 2 – the breathing system; 4 – the blood stream; 5 – the brain; 7 – the spinal chord; 8 – the sympathetic system and sex organs.

• Looking at the diagram again, O saw the seven planets and days of the week: 1 – Moon (Monday); 2 – Mars (Tuesday); 4 – Mercury (Wednesday); 5 – Jupiter (Thursday); 7 – Venus (Friday); 8 – Saturday (Saturn); 9 – Sun (Sunday).

• Things became difficult politically in Russia – things promised that could not be fulfilled. But, following G’s work, O had developed a ‘strange confidence’. He felt that he would be equal to any occasion: not the ‘him’ but another ‘him’ within.

• Movements require: Will, Memory, Attention, Hearing, Thinking, Emotion, Instinct, etc.

• O began working with his own groups. G worked on his ballet: The Struggle of the Magicians.

• G planned to come to London but it did not work out. So, he rented the Château Prieuré in Katherine Mansfield was there. They were known as the ‘forest philosophers’ and they introduced the first Dervish dances in Europe.

• Movements: ‘Right exercises, which lead direct to the aim of mastering the organism and subjecting its conscious and unconscious functions to the will, begin with breathing exercises. Without mastering breathing nothing can be mastered. But, to master breathing is not easy’.

• 3 kinds of breathing: 1) Normal breathing; 2) inflated breathing; 3) assisted by movements.

• Breathing proceeding from the formatory apparatus is not breathing but ‘inflation’. That if a man does this long enough, he gets tired and begins to parallel the formatory apparatus (imitation). But, fasting, prayer and little sleep are necessary for this. Prostrations are the means to bring breathing into the right muscles, to hand it over to the moving centre. However, when people try to do it on their own. There tends to be disorganization. It can even be dangerous.

• The transition of breathing from the control of the formatory apparatus into the control of the moving centre can never be attained by amateurs. For this transition to take place the organism must be brought to the last stage of intensity, but a man himself can never do this.

• The third way of breathing is through movements and postures and bring forth any kind of breathing you like. It is another form of ‘normal’ breathing – not ‘formatory.’

• Different breathing is needed for different people – different types.

• Different breathing also goes with different centres, and a man can bring into a centre activity or stop it by different breathing.

• Each centre has three parts according to the primary division: ‘thinking’, ‘feeling’, ‘moving’. Each centre is also divided into two: positive and negative. And all these are groups of ‘rolls’ – connected together, some in one direction, others in another. This is what explains ‘individuality’ in people. This, however, is not individuality’ but just differences in associations and rolls.

• The same movements produce different breathing with different people.

• In 1924, G with some of the students went to America. O. began working on his own in London in 1921.

 

THE END