by Ouspensky
I was obliged to spend the day in Tiflis. The train to Alexandropol went in the evening only. The following morning I was there. I found G. setting up a dynamo for his brother.
And again I observed, as before, his remarkable capacity for adapting himself to any kind of work, to any kind of business.
I met his family, his father, and his mother. They were people of a very old and very peculiar culture. G.'s father was an amateur of local tales, legends, and traditions, something in the nature of a "bard"; and he knew by heart thousands and thousands of verses in the local idioms. They were Greeks from Asia Minor, but the language of the house, as of all the others in Alexandropol, was Armenian.
For the first few days after my arrival G. was so busy that I had no opportunity to ask him what he thought of the general situation or what he thought of doing. But when at length I spoke to him about it G. told me that he disagreed with me, that in his opinion everything would soon quiet down and that we would be able to work in Russia. He then added that in any case he wanted to go to Petersburg to see the Nevsky with hawkers selling sunflower seeds that I had told him about and to decide on the spot what had best be done. I could not take what he said seriously because I knew by now his manner of speaking and I waited for something further.
Indeed while saying this with apparent seriousness G. along with it said something altogether different, that it would be good to go to Persia or even further, that he knew a place in the Transcaucasian Mountains where one could live for several years without anyone knowing, and so on.
On the whole there remained with me a feeling of uncertainty, but all the same I hoped on the way to Petersburg to persuade him to go abroad if this were still possible.
G. was evidently waiting for something. The dynamo was working faultlessly but we made no move.
In the house there was an interesting portrait of G. which told me very many things about him. It was a big enlarged portrait of G. when he was quite young, dressed in a black frock coat with his curly hair brushed straight back.
G.'s portrait determined for me with undoubted accuracy what his profession was at the time the portrait was made—though G. never spoke of it. This discovery gave me many interesting ideas. But since this was my own personal discovery I shall keep it to myself.
Several times I tried to speak to G. about my "table of time in different cosmoses," but he dismissed all theoretical conversations.
I liked Alexandropol very much. It contained a great deal which was peculiar and original.
Outwardly the Armenian part of the town calls to mind a town in Egypt or northern India. The houses with their flat roofs upon which grass grows. There is a very ancient Armenian cemetery on a hill from which the snow-clad summit of Mount Ararat can be seen. There is a wonderful image of the Virgin in one of the Armenian churches. The center of the town calls to mind a Russian country town but alongside it is the bazaar which is entirely oriental, especially the coppersmiths' row where they work in open booths. There is also the Greek quarter, the least interesting of all outwardly, where G.'s house was situated, and a Tartar suburb in the ravines, a very picturesque but, according to those in the other parts of the town, a rather dangerous place.
I do not know what is left of Alexandropol after all these autonomies, republics, federations, and so on. I think one could only answer for the view of Mount Ararat.
I hardly saw G. alone and seldom succeeded in speaking to him. He spent a great deal of time with his father and mother. I very much liked his relationship with his father which was full of extraordinary consideration. G.'s father was still a robust old man, of medium height, with an inevitable pipe in his mouth and wearing an astrakhan cap. It was dim-cult to believe that he was over eighty. He spoke very little Russian. But with G. he used to speak for hours on end and I always liked to watch how G. listened to him, occasionally laughing a little, but evidently never for a second losing the line of the conversation and the whole time sustaining the conversation with questions and comments. The old man evidently enjoyed these conversations and G. devoted to him all his spare time, and not only did not evince the least impatience, but on the contrary the whole time showed a very great deal of interest in what the old man was saying. Even if this was partly acting it could not in any case have been all acting, otherwise there would have been no sense in it. I was very interested and attracted by this display of feeling on the part of G.
I spent in all about two weeks in Alexandropol. At length on one fine morning G. said that we would be going to Petersburg in two days and we set off.
In Tiflis we saw General S. who at one time used to come to our Petersburg group and it looked as though the talk with him gave G. a fresh view on the general situation and made him somewhat change his plans.
On the journey from Tiflis I remember an interesting talk with G. at one of the small stations between Baku and Derbent. Our train stood there a long time letting through trains with "comrades" from the Caucasian front. It was very hot, a quarter of a mile away the surface of the Caspian Sea was glittering, and all around us was nothing but fine shining flint with the outlines of two camels in the distance.
I tried to lead G. to talk about the immediate future of our work. I wanted to understand what he was going to do and what he wanted from us.
"Events are against us," I said. "It is by now clear that it is not possible to do anything in the midst of this mass madness."
"It is only now that it is possible," G. replied, "and events are not against us at all. They are merely moving too quickly. This is the whole trouble. But wait five years and you will see for yourself how what hinders today will prove useful to us."
I did not understand what G. meant by this. Neither after five years nor after fifteen years did this become any clearer. Looked at from the point of view of "facts," it was difficult to imagine in what way we could be helped by events in the nature of "civil war," "murder," epidemics, hunger, the whole of Russia becoming savage, and then the endless lying of European politics and the general crisis which was undoubtedly the result of this lying.
But if looked at, not from the point of view of "facts," but from the point of view of esoteric principles, then what G. meant becomes more comprehensible.
Why were there not these ideas earlier? Why did we not have them when Russia existed and when Europe was a comfortable and pleasant place "abroad"? It was here probably that lay the solution to G.'s enigmatic remark. Why were there not these ideas? Probably precisely because these ideas could come only in such a time when the attention of the majority is distracted in some other direction and when these ideas can reach only those who look for them. I was right from the point of view of "facts." Nothing could have hindered us more than "events." At the same time it is probable that precisely the "events" made it possible for us to receive what we had.
There remains in my memory one other conversation during this journey. Once when the train was standing a long time in some station and our fellow travelers were walking on the platform, I put one question to G. which I could not answer for myself. This was, in the division of oneself into "I" and "Ouspensky," how can one strengthen the feeling of "I" and strengthen the activity of "I"?
"You cannot do anything about it," said G. "This should come as a result of all your efforts" (he emphasized the word "all"). "Take for example yourself. By now you should have felt your 'I' differently. Try to ask yourself whether you notice the difference or not."
I tried to "feel myself" as G. had shown us, but I must say that I did not notice any difference from the way I felt before.
"That will come," said G. "And when it does come you will know. No doubt whatever is possible. It is quite a different feeling."
Later I understood about what he was speaking, that is, about which kind of feeling and which kind of change. But I began to notice this only two years after this conversation.
On the third day of our journey from Tiflis, while the train was waiting at Mozdok, G. said to us
(there were four of us) that I was to go alone to Petersburg while he and the others would stop at Mineralni Vodi and go to Kislovodsk.
"You will stop at Moscow and go to Petersburg afterwards," he said to me, "and tell them in Moscow and Petersburg that I am beginning
new work here. Those who want to work with me can come. And I advise you not to stay there long."
I said good-by to G. and his companions at Mineralni Vodi and traveled on alone.
It was clear that nothing remained of my plans for going abroad. But now this no longer troubled me. I did not doubt that we should have to live through a very difficult time but now it hardly mattered to me. I realized what I had been afraid of. I was not afraid of actual dangers, I was afraid of acting stupidly, that is, of not going away in time when I knew perfectly well what must be expected. Now all responsibility towards myself seemed to have been taken from me. I had not altered my opinions; I could say as before, that to stay in Russia was madness. But my attitude towards this was quite indifferent. It was not my decision.
I traveled still in the old way, alone in a first-class compartment, and near Moscow they charged me excess fare on my ticket because the reservation was issued for one direction and the ticket for another. In other words everything was as it ought to be. But the papers which I got on the way were full of news about shooting in the streets of Petersburg. Moreover it was now the bolsheviks who were shooting into the crowd; they were trying their strength.
The situation at this time was beginning to become defined. On the one side were the bolsheviks, as yet not fully realizing the incredible success which was awaiting them, but already beginning to feel the absence of resistance and to act more and more insolently. On the other side was the "second provisional government" with many serious people who understood the situation in the minor posts and with altogether insignificant babblers and theorists in the major posts; then there was the intelligentsia greatly decimated by the war; then the remains of former parties and the military circles. All these taken together were divided in their turn into two groups, one who, in the face of all the facts and common sense, accepted the possibility of peace parleys with the bolsheviks who very cleverly made use of this while gradually occupying one position after another; and the other who, while realizing the impossibility of any negotiations whatever with the bolsheviks, were at the same time not united and did not come out actively into the open.
The people were silent, although never perhaps in history has the will of the people been so clearly expressed—and that will was to stop the war!
Who could stop the war? This was the chief question of the moment. The provisional government did not dare. Naturally it could not come from the military circles. And yet power was bound to pass to whoever should be the first to pronounce the word: "Peace." And as often happens in such cases the right word came from the wrong side. The bolsheviks pronounced the word "peace." First of all because it was a matter of complete indifference to them what they said. They had no intention of meeting their promissory notes, therefore they could issue as many of them as they liked. This was their chief advantage and chief strength.
There was something else here besides this. Destruction is always far easier than construction. How much easier it is to bum a house than to build one.
The bolsheviks were the agents of destruction. Neither then nor since could they or can they be anything else notwithstanding all their boasting and notwithstanding all the support of their open and their hidden friends. But they could and they can destroy very well, not so much by their own activity as by their very existence which corrupts and disintegrates everything around them. This special property of theirs explained their approaching victory and all that happened much later.
We who were looking at things from the point of view of the system could see not only the fact that everything happens but even how it happens, that is, how easily everything goes downhill and breaks up once a single impulse is given to it.
I did not stay in Moscow but I managed to see a few people while waiting for the evening train to Petersburg, and I passed on to them what G. had said. Then I went to Petersburg and passed on the same message to the members of our groups.
In twelve days time I was again in the Caucasus. In Pyatigorsk I learned that G. was not living at Kislovodsk but at Essentuki and in two hours time I was with him in a small country villa in Panteleimon Street.
G. asked me in detail about everyone I had seen, what each had said, who was going to come and who not, and so on. Next day three more people followed me from Petersburg, then two more, and so on. In all, excluding G. and myself, there forgathered twelve people.
Chapter Seventeen
I ALWAYS have a very strange feeling when I remember this period. On this occasion we spent about six weeks in Essentuki. But this now seems to be altogether incredible. Whenever I chance to speak with any one of those who were there they can hardly believe that it lasted only six weeks. It would be difficult even in six years to find room for everything that was connected with this time, to such an extent was it filled.
Half of our number, myself among them, lived throughout this period with G. in a small house on the outskirts of the village; the others came in in the morning and stayed late into the night. We went to bed very late and got up very early. We slept for four hours, at the most, five. We did all the housework; and the rest of the time was occupied with exercises of which I will speak later. G. several times arranged excursions to Kislovodsk, Jeleznovodsk, Pyatigorsk, Beshtau, and so on.
G. superintended the kitchen, and often prepared dinner himself. He proved to be a wonderful cook and knew hundreds of remarkable eastern dishes. Every day we had dinner in the style of some eastern country; we ate Tibetan, Persian, and other dishes.
I am not attempting to describe everything that took place in Essentuki; a whole book would have to be written in order to do this. G. led us at a fast pace without losing a single minute. He explained many things during our walks, while music was being played in the Essentuki park, and in the midst of housework.
In general, during the short period of our stay at Essentuki, G. unfolded to us the plan of the whole work. We saw the beginnings of all the methods, the beginnings of all the ideas, their links, their connections and direction. Many things remained obscure for us; many things we did not rightly understand, quite the contrary; but in any case we were given some general propositions by which I thought we could be guided later on.
All the ideas we had come to know up to that time brought us face to face with a whole series of questions connected with the practical realization of work on oneself, and, naturally, they evoked many discussions among the members of our group.
G. always took part in these discussions and explained different aspects of the organization of schools.
"Schools are imperative," he once said, "first of all because of the complexity of man's organization. A man is unable to keep watch on the whole of himself, that is, all his different sides. Only school can do this, school methods, school discipline—a man is much too lazy, he will do a great deal without the proper intensity, or he will do nothing at all while thinking that he is doing something; he will work with intensity on something that does not need intensity and will let those moments pass by when intensity is imperative. Then he spares himself; he is afraid of doing anything unpleasant. He will never attain the necessary intensity by himself. If you have observed yourselves in a proper way you will agree with this. If a man sets himself a task of some sort he very quickly begins to be indulgent with himself. He tries to accomplish his task in the easiest way possible and so on. This is not work. In work only super-efforts are counted, that is, beyond the normal, beyond the necessary; ordinary efforts are not counted."
"What is meant by a super-effort?" someone asked.
"It means an effort beyond the effort that is necessary to achieve a given purpose," said G. "Imagine that I have been walking all day and am very tired. The weather is ba
d, it is raining and cold. In the evening I arrive home. I have walked, perhaps, twenty-five miles. In the house there is supper; it is warm and pleasant. But, instead of sitting down to supper, I go out into the rain again and decide to walk another two miles along the road and then return home. This would be a super-effort. While I was going home it was simply an effort and this does not count. I was on my way home, the cold, hunger, the rain—all this made me walk. In the other case I walk because I myself decide to do so. This kind of super-effort becomes still more difficult when I do not decide upon it myself but obey a teacher who at an unexpected moment requires from me to make fresh efforts when I have decided that efforts for the day are over.
"Another form of super-effort is carrying out any kind of work at a faster rate than is called for by the nature of this work. You are doing something—well, let us say, you are washing up or chopping wood. You have an hour's work. Do it in half an hour—this will be a super-effort.
"But in actual practice a man can never bring himself to make super-efforts consecutively or for a long time; to do this another person's will is necessary which would have no pity and which would have method.
"If a man were able to work on himself everything would be very simple and schools would be unnecessary. But he cannot, and the reasons for this lie very deep in his nature. I will leave for the moment his insincerity with himself, the perpetual lies he tells himself, and so on, and take only the division of the centers. This alone makes independent work on himself impossible for a man. You must understand that the three principal centers, the thinking, the emotional, and the moving, are con-
nected together and, In a normal man, they are always working in unison. This unison is what presents the chief difficulty in work on oneself. What is meant by this unison? It means that a definite work of the thinking center is connected with a definite work of the emotional and moving centers—that is to say, that a certain kind of thought is inevitably connected with a certain kind of emotion (or mental state) and with a certain kind of movement (or posture); and one evokes the other, that is, a certain kind of emotion (or mental state) evokes certain movements or postures and certain thoughts, and a certain kind of movement or posture evokes certain emotions or mental states, and so forth. Everything is connected and one thing cannot exist without another thing.