BEFORE I BEGIN TO EXPLAIN TO YOU in a general way what this system is about, I want particularly to impress on your minds that the most important ideas and principles of the system do not belong to me. This is chiefly what makes them valuable, because if they belonged to me they would be like all other theories invented by ordinary minds—they would give only a subjective view of things.
When I began to write A New Model of the Universe in 1907, I formulated to myself, as many other people have done before and since, that behind the surface of the life which we know lies something much bigger and more important. And I said to myself then that until we know more about what lies behind, all our knowledge of life and of ourselves is really negligible. I remember one conversation at that time, when I said, ‘If it were possible to accept as proven that consciousness (or, as I should call it now, intelligence) can manifest itself apart from the physical body, many other things could be proved. Only it cannot be taken as proved.’ I realized that manifestations of supernormal psychology such as thought transference, clairvoyance, the possibility of knowing the future, of looking back into the past, and so on, have not been proved. So I tried to find a method of studying these things, and worked on that line for several years, but the results were very elusive; and though several experiments were successful, it was almost impossible to repeat them.
I came to two conclusions in the course of these experiments: first, that we do not know enough about ordinary psychology; we cannot study supernormal psychology, because we do not know normal psychology. Secondly I came to the conclusion that certain real knowledge exists; that there may be schools which know exactly what we want to know, but that for some reason they are hidden and this knowledge is hidden. So I began to look for these schools. I traveled in Europe, Egypt, India, Ceylon, Turkey and the Near East; but it was really later, when I had already finished these travels, that I met in Russia during the war a group of people who were studying a certain system which came originally from Eastern schools. This system began with the study of psychology, exactly as I had realized it must begin.
The chief idea of this system was that we do not use even a small part of our powers and our forces. We have in us, so to speak, a very big and very fine organization, only we do not know how to use it. In this group they employed certain oriental metaphors, and they told me that we have in us a large house full of beautiful furniture, with a library and many other rooms, but we live in the basement and the kitchen and cannot get out of them. If people tell us about what this house has upstairs we do not believe them, or we laugh at them, or we call it superstition or fairy tales or fables.
This system can be divided into study of the world, on certain new principles, and study of man. The study of the world and study of man include in themselves a kind of special language. We try to use ordinary words, the same words as we use in ordinary conversation, but we attach a slightly different and more precise meaning to them.
Study of the world, study of the universe, is based on the study of some fundamental laws which are not generally known or recognized in science. The two chief laws are the Law of Three and the Law of Seven, which will be explained later. Included in this, and necessary from this point of view, is the principle of scale — a principle which does not enter into ordinary scientific study, or enters very little.
The study of man is closely connected with the idea of the evolution of man, but the evolution of man must be understood in a slightly different way from the ordinary. Ordinarily the word evolution applied either to man or to anything else presupposes a kind of mechanical evolution; I mean that certain things, by certain known or unknown laws, transform into other things, and these other things transform into still others, and so on. But from the point of view of this system there is no such evolution at all—I do not speak in general, but specifically of man. The evolution of man, if it occurs, can only be the result of knowledge and effort; as long as man knows only what he can know in the ordinary way, there is no evolution for him and there never was any evolution for him.
Serious study begins in this system with the study of psychology, that is to say with the study of oneself, because psychology cannot be studied, as astronomy can, outside oneself. A man has to study himself. When I was told that, I saw at once that we do not have any methods of studying ourselves and already have many wrong ideas about ourselves. So I realized that we must get rid of wrong ideas about ourselves and at the same time find methods for studying ourselves.
Perhaps you realize how difficult it is to define what is meant by psychology? There are so many meanings attached to the same words in different systems that it is difficult to have a general definition. So we begin by defining psychology as study of oneself. You have to learn certain methods and principles and, according to these principles and using these methods, you will try to see yourselves from a new point of view.
If we begin to study ourselves we first of all come up against one word which we use more than any other and that is the word ‘I’. We say ‘I am doing’, ‘I am sitting’, ‘I feel’, ‘I like’, ‘I dislike’ and so on. This is our chief illusion, for the principal mistake we make about ourselves is that we consider ourselves one; we always speak about ourselves as ‘I’ and we suppose that we refer to the same thing all the time when in reality we are divided into hundreds and hundreds of different ‘I’s. At one moment when I say ‘I’, one part of me is speaking, and at another moment when I say ‘I’, it is quite another ‘I’ speaking. We do not know that we have not one ‘I’, but many different ‘I’s connected with our feelings and desires, and have no controlling ‘I’. These ‘I’s change all the time; one suppresses another, one replaces another, and all this struggle makes up our inner life.
‘I’s which we see in ourselves are divided into several groups. Some of these groups are legitimate, they belong to right divisions of man, and some of them are quite artificial and are created by insufficient knowledge and by certain imaginary ideas that man has about himself.
To begin self-study it is necessary to study methods of self-observation, but that again must be based on a certain understanding of the divisions of our functions. Our ordinary idea of these divisions is quite wrong. We know the difference between intellectual and emotional functions. For instance, when we discuss things, think about them, compare them, invent explanations or find real explanations, this is all intellectual work; whereas love, hate, fear, suspicion and so on are emotional. But very often, when trying to observe ourselves, we mix even intellectual and emotional functions; when we really feel, we call it thinking, and when we think we call it feeling. But in the course of study we shall learn in what way they differ. For instance, there is an enormous difference in speed, but we shall speak more about that later.
Then there are two other functions which no system of ordinary psychology divides and understands in the right way—instinctive function and moving function. Instinctive refers to the inner work of the organism: digestion of food, beating of the heart, breathing—these are instinctive functions. To instinctive function belong also ordinary senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, the feeling of cold and warmth, things like that; and this is all, really. Of outer movements, only simple reflexes belong to instinctive function, because more complicated reflexes belong to moving function. It is very easy to distinguish between instinctive and moving functions. We do not have to learn anything that belongs to instinctive function, we are born with the capacity to use all the instinctive functions. Moving functions, on the other hand, all have to be learned—a child learns to walk, to write and so on. There is a very great difference between the two functions, since there is nothing inherent in moving functions, and instinctive functions are all inherent.
So in self-observation it is necessary first of all to divide these four functions and to classify at once everything that you observe, saying, ‘This is intellectual function’, ‘This is emotional function’ and so on.
If you practise this observation for some time you may notice some strange things. For instance, you will find that what is really difficult in observing is that you forget about it. You start to observe, and your emotions connect with some kind of thought and you forget about self-observation.
Again, after some time, if you continue this effort to observe, which is a new function not used in the same way in ordinary life, you will notice another interesting thing—that generally you do not remember yourself. If you could be aware of yourself all the time, then you would be able to observe all the time, or in any case as long as you liked. But because you cannot remember yourself, you cannot concentrate; and this is why you will have to admit that you have no will. If you could remember yourself, you would have will and could do what you liked. But you cannot remember yourself, you cannot be aware of yourself and so you have no will. You may sometimes have will for a short time, but it turns to something else and you forget about it.
This is the situation, the state of being, the state from which we have to start self study. But very soon, if you continue, you will come to the conclusion that almost from the very beginning of self-study you have to correct certain things in yourself which are not right, to arrange certain things which are not in their right places. The system has an explanation for this.
We are made in such a way that we can live in four states of consciousness, but such as we are we use only two: one when we are asleep, and the other when we are what we call ‘awake’—that is to say, in this present state, when we can talk, listen, read, write and so on. But these are only two out of four possible states. The third state of consciousness is very strange. If people explain to us what the third state of consciousness is, we begin to think that we have it. The third state can be called self-consciousness, and most people, if asked, say, ‘Certainly we are conscious!’ A sufficient time or repeated and frequent efforts of self-observation is necessary before we really recognize the fact that we are not conscious; that we are conscious only potentially. If we are asked, we say, ‘Yes, I am’, and for that moment we are, but the next moment we cease to remember and are not conscious. So in the process of self-observation we realize that we are not in the third state of consciousness, that we live only in two. We live either in sleep or in a waking state which, in the system, is called relative consciousness. The fourth state, which is called objective consciousness, is inaccessible to us because it can only be reached through self-consciousness, that is, by becoming aware of oneself first, so that much later we may manage to reach the objective state of consciousness.
So, at the same time as self-observing, we try to be aware of ourselves by holding the sensation of ‘I am here’—nothing more. And this is the fact that all Western psychology, without the smallest exception, has missed. Although many people came very near to it, they did not recognize the importance of this fact and did not realize that the state of man as he is can be changed—that man can remember himself, if he tries for a long time.
It is not a question of a day or a month. It is a very long study, and a study of how to remove obstacles, because we do not remember ourselves, we are not conscious of ourselves, owing to many wrong functions in our machine, and all these functions have to be corrected and put right. When most of these functions are put right, these periods of self-remembering will become longer and longer, and if they become sufficiently long, we shall acquire two new functions. With self-consciousness, which is the third state of consciousness, we acquire a function which is called higher emotional, although it is equally intellectual, because on this level there is no difference between intellectual and emotional such as there is on the ordinary level. And when we come to the state of objective consciousness we acquire another function which is called higher mental. Phenomena of what I call supernormal psychology belong to these two functions; and this is why, when I made those experiments twenty-five years ago, I came to the conclusion that experimental work is impossible, because it is not a question of experiment but of changing one’s state of consciousness.
I have just given you some general ideas. Now ask any questions you like.
Q. To attain the higher state of consciousness is it necessary to be permanently aware of oneself?
A. We cannot do that, so there is no question of being permanently aware. We can only talk now about the beginning. We must study ourselves in connection with this division of different functions when we can—when we remember to do it—because in this we depend on chance. When we remember, we must try to be aware of ourselves. This is all we can do.
Q. Must you be able to be conscious of your instinctive functions?
A. Only of the senses. Inner instinctive work does not need to become conscious. It is conscious for itself, independently of the intellectual function, and there is no need to increase this. We must try to become conscious of ourselves as we see ourselves, not of our inner functions. After some time we may become aware of certain inner functions of which it is useful to be aware; but not yet. You see, we do not acquire any new feelings. We only classify better our ordinary impressions, the ordinary things we get from life, from people, from everything.
Q. Would it be correct to say that when learning anything like driving a car, intellectual function tells moving function what to do and that, when proficient, moving function works by itself?
A. Quite right. You can observe many things like that. First you learn by intellectual function.
Q. How important is the knowledge gained by watching our physical actions? Is this merely an exercise for watching our minds?
A. No, it is very important because we mix many things and do not know the causes of many things. We can understand causes only by constant watching for a long time.
Q. May we have instruction about how to work on each of the four functions?
A. All that will be explained, but for the present, and for a long time, you can only observe.
Q. Would it be an example of different ‘I’s working when one goes to bed late and fully decides to go to bed early next night and, when night comes, does otherwise?
A. Quite right, one ‘I’ decides and another has to do it.
Q. How do we set about trying to be more conscious of ourselves?
A. This is quite simple to explain, although it is very difficult to achieve. There are no roundabout ways. A better state can only be achieved by direct effort, just by trying to be more conscious, by asking oneself as often as possible, ‘Am I conscious or not?’
Q. But how does one attain any certainty that your method is right?
A. Just by comparing one observation with another. And then we talk when we meet. People speak about their observations; they compare them; I try to explain what they cannot understand; there are other people who help me; and in that way one becomes sure of ordinary things, just as one knows that grass is green. There is no question of faith or belief in all this. Quite the opposite, this system teaches people to believe in absolutely nothing. You must verify everything that you see, hear and feel. Only in that way can you come to something. At the same time you must realize that our machine docs not work perfectly; it works far from perfectly, because of many wrong functions, so that a very important part of self-study is connected with the study of these wrong functions. We must know them in order to eliminate them. And one of the particularly wrong functions, which we sometimes like in ourselves, is imagination. In this system imagination does not mean conscious or intentional thinking on some subject or visualisation of something, but imagination that turns without any control and without any result. It takes very much energy and turns thinking in a wrong direction.
Q. When you say ‘imagination’, do you mean imagining something to be true, not drawing pictures?
A. Imagination has many aspects; it may be just ordinary day-dreams or, for instance, imagining non-existent powers in oneself. It is the same thing, it works without control, it runs by itself.
Q. Each one is self-deception?
A. One does not take it as self-deception: one imagines something, then believes it and forgets that it was imagination. Studying man in his present state of sleep, absence of unity, mechanicalness and lack of control, we find several other wrong functions which are the result of his state—in particular, lying to himself and to other people all the time. The psychology of ordinary man could even be called the study of lying, because man lies more than anything else; and as a matter of fact, he cannot speak the truth. It is not so simple to speak the truth; one has to learn how to do it, and sometimes it takes a very long time.
Q. Would you mind explaining what you mean by lying?
A. Lying is thinking or speaking about things that one does not know; this is the beginning of lying. It does not mean intentional lying—telling stories, as for instance that there is a bear in the other room. You can go to the other room and see that there is no bear in it. But if you collect all the theories that people put forward on any given subject, without knowing anything about it, you will see where lying begins. Man does not know himself, he does not know anything, yet he has theories about everything. Most of these theories are lying.
Q. I want to know the truth that it is good for me to know in my present state. How can I discover whether it is a lie?
A. For almost everything you know you have methods for verifying. But first you must know what you can know and what you cannot. That helps verifying. If you start with that you will soon hear lies, even without thinking. Lies have a different sound, particularly lies about things we cannot know.
Q. As regards imagination—if you are thinking instead of imagining, should you be aware of the effort all the time?
A. Yes, you will be aware of it—not so much of effort as of control. You will feel that you control things, they do not just go on by themselves.
Q. When you say ‘remember yourself’, do you mean by that to remember after you have observed yourself, or do you mean to remember the things we know are in us?
A. No, take it quite apart from observation. To remember oneself means the same thing as to be aware of oneself—’I am’. Sometimes it comes by itself; it is a very strange feeling. It is not a function, not thinking, not feeling; it is a different state of consciousness. By itself it only comes for very short moments, generally in quite new surroundings, and one says to oneself: ‘How strange. I am here’. This is self remembering; at this moment you remember yourself.
