In search of the miraculous

by Ouspensky

  "But this is only one aspect of it. Another aspect consists in the fact that, when the energy of the sex center is plundered by the other centers and spent on useless work, it has nothing left for itself and has to steal the energy of other centers which is much lower and coarser than its own. And yet the sex center is very .important for the general activity, and particularly for the inner growth of the organism, because, working with 'hydrogen' 12, it can receive a very fine food of impressions, such as none of the ordinary centers can receive. The fine food of impressions is very important for the manufacture of the higher 'hydrogens.' But when the sex center works with energy that is not its own, that is, with the comparatively low 'hydrogens' 48 and 24, its impressions become much coarser and it ceases to play the role in the organism which it could play. At the same time union with, and the use of its energy by, the thinking center creates far too great an imagination on the subject of sex, and in addition a tendency to be satisfied with this imagination. Union with the emotional center creates sentimentality or, on the contrary, jealousy, cruelty. This is again a picture of the 'abuse of sex.'"

  "What must be done to struggle against the 'abuse of sex'?" asked somebody present.

  G. laughed.

  "I was just waiting for that question," he said. "But you already ought to understand that it is just as impossible to explain to a man who has not yet begun to work on himself and does not know the structure of the machine what the 'abuse of sex' means, as it is to say what must be done to avoid these abuses. Right work on oneself begins with the creation of a permanent center of gravity. When a permanent center of gravity has been created everything else begins to be disposed and distributed in subordination to it. The question comes to this: From what and how can a permanent center of gravity be created? And to this may be replied that only 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 can create in him a permanent center of gravity.

  "The role of the sex center in creating a general equilibrium and a permanent center of gravity can be very big. According to its energy, that is to say, if it uses its own energy, the sex center stands on a level with the higher emotional center. And all the other centers are subordinate to it. Therefore it would be a great thing if it worked with its own energy. This alone would indicate a comparatively very high level of being. And in this case, that is, if the sex center worked with its own energy and in its own place, all other centers could work correctly in their places and with their own energies."

  Chapter Thirteen

  THIS period, the middle of the summer of 1916, has remained in the memory of all the members of our groups as a time of very great inner intensity in our work. We all felt that we had to hurry, that we were doing too little compared with the immensity of the task we had set ourselves. We realized that our chance of knowing more might go just as suddenly as it had come and we tried to increase the pressure of work in ourselves and to do all that we could while conditions were favorable.

  I began a series of experiments or exercises, making use of a certain experience in this direction that I had acquired earlier. I carried out a series of short but very intensive fasts. I call them "intensive" because I did not take them at all from the hygienic point of view but tried, on the contrary, to give the strongest possible shocks to the organism. In addition to this I began to "breathe" according to a definite system which, together with fasting, had given me interesting psychological results before; and also "repetition" on the method of the "prayer of the mind" which had helped me very much before to concentrate my attention and to observe myself. And also a series of mental exercises of a rather complicated kind for the concentration of the attention. I do not describe these experiments and exercises in detail because they were, after all, attempts to feel my way, without having exact knowledge of possible results.

  But all these things taken together, as well as our talks and meetings, kept me in a state of unusual tension and to a great extent, of course, prepared me for the series of extraordinary experiences which I had to go through in August, 1916, because G. kept his word and I saw facts and at the same time understood what G. meant when he said that many other things are necessary before facts.1

  These other things consisted in preparation, in understanding certain ideas, and in being in a certain state. This state, which is emotional, is exactly what we do not understand, that is, we do not understand that it is indispensable and that facts are not possible without it.

  1 Chapter One, page 30.

  I now come to a most difficult thing because there is no possibility whatever of describing the facts themselves.

  Why?

  I have often put this question to myself. And I could only answer that there was far too much in them of what was personal for them to be made common property. And I think that it was so not only in my case but that it always is so.

  I remember that assertions of this kind always made me indignant when I came across them in the memoirs or the notes of people who had passed through any sort of extraordinary experiences and afterwards refused to describe them. They had sought the miraculous and, in one form or another, they thought they had found it. But when they had found what they sought they invariably said: "I have found it. But I cannot describe what I have found."—It always seemed to me to be artificial and invented.

  And now I found myself in exactly the same position. I had found what I sought. I saw and observed facts that entirely transcended the sphere of what we consider possible, acknowledged, or admissible, and I can say nothing about them.

  The principal part of these experiences was in their inner content and in the new knowledge which came with them. But even the outer aspect could be described only very approximately. As I have already said, after all my fasts and other experiments I was in a rather excited and nervous state and physically less steady than usual. I arrived at the country house of E. N. M. in Finland, at whose house in St. Petersburg we had of late often had our meetings. G. and about eight of our people were there. In the evening the talk went on our attempts to tell about our lives. G. was very harsh and sarcastic, as though he was trying to provoke now one, now another of us, and in particular he emphasized our cowardice and the laziness of our thought.

  I was particularly affected when he began to repeat in front of everyone something I had told him in absolute confidence, what I thought of Dr. S. What he said was very unpleasant for me principally because I had always condemned such talk in others.

  I think it was at about ten o'clock that he called me, Dr. S., and Z. into a small separate room. We sat on the floor "Turkish fashion" and G. began to explain and to show us certain postures and physical movements. I could not help noticing that there was an astonishing assurance and precision in all his movements although the movements and postures themselves did not present any particular problem and a good gymnast could have done them without exceptional difficulty. I had never had any pretensions to the role of an athlete but I could imitate them outwardly. G. explained that although a gymnast could of course do

  these movements the gymnast would do them in a different way from him and that he did them in a special way with muscles relaxed.

  Afterwards G. again passed to the question why we could not tell the story of our lives.

  And with this the miracle began.

  I can say with complete assurance that G. did not use any kind of external methods, that is, he gave me no narcotics nor did he hypnotize me by any of the known methods.

  It all started with my beginning to hear his thoughts. We were sitting in a small room with a carpetless wooden floor as it happens in country houses. I sat opposite G., and Dr. S. and Z. at either side. G. spoke of our "features," of our inability to see or to speak the truth. His words perturbed me very much. And suddenly I noticed that among the words which he was saying to us all there were "thoughts" which were intended for me. I caught one of these thoughts and replied to
it, speaking aloud in the ordinary way. G. nodded to me and stopped speaking. There was a fairly long pause. He sat still saying nothing. After a while I heard his voice inside me as it were in the chest near the heart. He put a definite question to me. I looked at him; he was sitting and smiling. His question provoked in me a very strong emotion. But I answered him in the affirmative.

  "Why did he say that?" asked G., looking in turn at Z. and Dr. S. "Did I ask him anything?"

  And he at once put another still more difficult question to me in the same way as before. And I again answered it in a natural voice. Z. and S. were visibly astonished at what was taking place, especially Z. This conversation, if it can be called a conversation, proceeded in this fashion for not less than half an hour. G. put questions to me without words and I answered them speaking in the usual way. I was very agitated by the things G. said to me and the things he asked me which I cannot trans­mit. The matter was concerned with certain conditions which I had either to accept or leave the work. G. gave me a month's time. I refused the time and said that no matter how difficult what he demanded was I would carry it out at once. But G. insisted on the month's time.

  At length he got up and we went out on the veranda. On the other side of the house was another large veranda where the rest of our people were sitting.

  What transpired after this I can say very little about, although the chief things happened after. G. was speaking with Z. and S. Then something he said about me affected me very strongly and I sprang up from my chair and went into the garden. From there I went into the forest. I walked about there for a long time in the dark, wholly in the power of the most extraordinary thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it seemed to me that I had found something, at other times I lost it again.

  This went on for one or two hours. Finally, at the moment of what felt like the climax of contradictions and of inner turmoil, there flashed through my mind a thought following which I very quickly came to a clear and right understanding of all G. had said and of my own position. I saw that G. was right; that what I had considered to be firm and reliable in myself in reality did not exist. But I had found something else. I knew that he would not believe me and that he would laugh at me if I showed him this other thing. But for myself it was indubitable and what happened later showed that I was right.

  For a long time I sat and smoked in some kind of glade. When I returned to the house it was already dark on the small veranda. Thinking that everyone had gone to bed I went to my own room and went to bed myself. As a matter of fact G. and the others were at that time having supper on the large veranda. A little while after I had gone to bed a strange excitement again began in me, my pulse began to beat forcibly, and I again heard G.'s voice in my chest. On this occasion I not only heard but I replied mentally and G. heard me and answered me. There was something very strange in this conversation. I tried to find something that would confirm it as a fact but could find nothing. And after all it could have been "imagination" or a waking dream, because although I tried to ask G. something of a concrete nature that would have left no doubt about the conversation or his participation in it, I could not invent anything weighty enough. And certain questions I asked him and which he answered I could have asked and answered myself. I even had the impression that he avoided concrete answers which later might serve as "proofs," and to one or two of my questions he intentionally gave indefinite answers. But the feeling that it was a conversation was very strong and entirely new and unlike anything else.

  After one long pause G. asked me something that at once put me all on the alert, then stopped as if waiting for an answer.

  What he said suddenly put a stop to all my thoughts and feelings. It was not fear, at least not a conscious fear when one knows that one is afraid, but I was all shivering and something literally paralyzed me completely so that I could not articulate a single word although I made terrible efforts, wishing to give an affirmative reply.

  I felt that G. was waiting and that he would not wait long.

  "Well, you are tired now," he said at last, "we will leave it till another time."

  I began to say something, I think I asked him to wait, to give me a little time to get accustomed to this thought.

  "Another time," said his voice. "Sleep." And his voice stopped.

  I could not go to sleep for a long time. In the morning as I came out onto the little terrace where we had sat the evening before, G. was sitting

  in the garden twenty yards away near a round table; there were three of our people with him.

  "Ask him what happened last night," said G.

  For some reason this made me angry. I turned and walked towards the terrace. As I reached it I again heard G.'s voice in my chest.

  "Stop!"

  I stopped and turned towards G. He was smiling.

  "Where are you going, sit down here," he said in his ordinary voice.

  I sat with him but I could say nothing, nor did I want to talk. At the same time I felt a kind of extraordinary clarity of thought and I decided to try to concentrate on certain problems which had seemed to me to be particularly difficult. The thought came to my mind that in this unusual state I might perhaps find answers to questions which I could not find in the ordinary way.

  I began to think about the first triad of the ray of creation, about the three forces which made one force. What could they mean? Can we define them? Can we realize their meaning? Something began to formulate itself in my head but just as I tried to translate this into words everything disappeared.— Will, consciousness . . . and what was the third? I asked myself. It seemed to me that if I could name the third I would at once understand everything else.

  "Leave it," said G. aloud.

  I turned my eyes towards him and he looked at me.

  "That is a very long way away yet," he said. "You cannot find the answer now. Better think of yourself, of your work."

  The people sitting with us looked at us in perplexity. G. had answered my thoughts.

  Then something very strange began that lasted the whole day and afterwards. We stayed in Finland three days longer. During these three days there were very many talks about the most varied subjects. And I was in an unusual emotional state all the time which sometimes began to be burdensome.

  "How can this be got rid of? I cannot bear it any more," I asked G.

  "Do you want to go to sleep?" said G.

  "Certainly not," I said.

  "Then what are you asking about? This is what you wanted, make use of it. You are not asleep at this moment!"

  I do not think that this was altogether true. I undoubtedly "slept" at some moments.

  Many things that I said at that time must have surprised my companions in this strange adventure very much. And I was surprised at many things myself. Many things were like sleep, many things had no relation whatever to reality. Undoubtedly I invented a lot. Afterwards it was very strange for me to remember the things I had said.

  At length we went to St. Petersburg. G. went to Moscow and we went to the Nikolaievsky Station straight from the Finland Station.

  A fairly large company had met together to see him off. He went.

  But the miraculous was still far from ended. There were new and very strange phenomena again late in the evening of that day and I "conversed" with him while seeing him in the compartment of the train going to Moscow.

  After this there followed a strange period of time. It lasted about three weeks. And during this period from time to time I saw "sleeping people."

  This requires a particular explanation.

  Two or three days after G.'s departure I was walking along the Troitsky street and suddenly I saw that the man who was walking towards me was asleep. There could be no doubt whatever about this. Although his eyes were open, he was walking along obviously immersed in dreams which ran like clouds across his face. It entered my mind that if I could look at him long enough I should see his dreams, that is, I should understand what he was seeing in his dreams. But he passed o
n. After him came another also sleeping. A sleeping izvostchik went by with two sleeping passengers. Suddenly I found myself in the position of the prince in the "Sleeping Princess." Everyone around me was asleep. It was an indubitable and distinct sensation. I realized what it meant that many things could be seen with our eyes which we do not usually see. These sensations lasted for several minutes. Then they were repeated very weakly on the following day. But I at once made the discovery that by trying to remember myself I was able to intensify and prolong these sensations for so long as I had energy enough not to be diverted, that is, not to allow things and everything around me to attract my attention. When attention was diverted I ceased to see "sleeping people" because I had obviously gone to sleep myself. I told only a few of our people of these experiments and two of them when they tried to remember themselves had similar experiences.