by Ouspensky
I decided to go to Novorossiysk. But circumstances began to change swiftly. Within a week of G.'s departure communications even with places nearest to us came to a stop. Cossacks began to raid the branch line to
Mineralni Vodi and where we were, bolshevik robberies, "requisitions," and so on began. This was the time of the massacre of "hostages" in Pyatigorsk when General Russki, General Radko-Dimitriev, and Prince Ouroussov and many others perished.
I must confess that I felt very silly. I had not gone abroad when it was possible in order to work with G. and the final outcome was that I had parted from G. and stopped with the bolsheviks.
All of us who had stayed in Essentuki had to live through a very difficult time. For me and my family things turned out comparatively favorably. Only two people out of four got ill with typhoid. No one died. Not once were we robbed. And all the time I had work and earned money. Things were much worse for others. In January, 1919, we were set free by the Cossacks of Denikin's Army. But I was only able to leave Essentuki in the following summer of 1919.
The news we had of G. was very brief. He had traveled by railway to Maikop and from there the whole of the party with him went on foot by a very interesting but very difficult way, through the mountains to the sea at Sochi which had then been seized by the Georgians. Carrying with them the whole of their baggage they walked, with all possible kinds of adventures and dangers, over lofty passes where there were no roads and where hunters crossed but seldom. It was, apparently, only about a month after their departure from Essentuki that they reached Sochi.
But the inner situation had changed. In Sochi the greater part of the company, as I had foreseen, parted company with G. Among them were P. and Z. Only four people stayed with G. of whom Dr. S. alone belonged to the original St. Petersburg group. The others had only been in "young" groups.
In February P., who had established himself in Maikop after the rupture with G., came to Essentuki for his mother who had remained there, and from him we learned the details of everything that had taken place on the way to and on arrival at Sochi. Moscow people had gone to Kiev. G. with his four companions had gone to Tiflis. In the spring we learned that he was continuing work in Tiflis with new people and in a new direction, basing it principally on art, that is, on music, dances, and rhythmic exercises.
At the end of winter when conditions of living became slightly easier I began to look through my notes and drawings of G.'s diagrams which with G.'s permission I had preserved since St. Petersburg. My attention was particularly attracted by the enneagram. The explanation of the enneagram had clearly not been finished and I felt that there were in it hints at a possible continuation. I very soon saw that a continuation must be sought in connection with the wrong situation of the "shock"
which came into the enneagram at the interval sol-la. Then I turned my attention to what the Moscow notes, in connection with commentaries on the enneagram, said about the influences of the three octaves on one another in the "food diagram." I drew the enneagram as it had been given to us and I saw that it represented up to a certain point the "food diagram."
9 do 768
fa 96
l< 24
re 384
mi 192
Fig. 59
The point 3, or the "interval" mi-fa, was the place where the "shock" came in which gave do 192 of the second octave. When I added the beginning of this octave to the enneagram I saw that the point 6 came at the "interval" mi- fa of the second octave and the "shock" in the form of the third octave do 48 which begins at this point. The completed drawing of the octaves came out as follows:
This signified that there was no wrong place for a "shock" at all. Point 6 showed the entry of the "shock" in the second octave and the "shock" was the do which began the third octave. All three octaves reached Hi 2. In one it was si, in the second sol, and in the third mi. The second octave which ended at 12 in the enneagram ought to have gone on further. But si 12 and mi 12 required an "additional shock." I thought a great deal about the nature of these "shocks" at that time but I will speak of them later.
I felt that there was very much material in the enneagram. Points 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 represented, according to the "food diagram," different "systems" of the organism, 1— the digestive system; 2—the breathing system;
4—the blood stream; 5—the brain; 7—the spinal cord; 8—the sympathetic system and the sex organs. According to this the direction of the inner lines 1428571, that is, the content of fraction 7, showed the direction of the flow or distribution of arterial blood in the organism and then its return in the form of venous blood. It was particularly interesting that the point of return was not the heart but the digestive system which indeed is the case since venous blood is first of all mixed with the products of digestion, it then goes to the right auricle, through the right ventricle, then to the lungs to absorb oxygen, and from there goes to the left auricle and then the left ventricle and then through the aorta into the arterial system.
Fig. 6i
JUPITER Dies iovis Thursday
SATURN Su"day MOON
MARS Dies Martis Tuesday
MERCURY Dies Mercurii Wednesday
VENUS Dies Veneris Friday *
Examining the enneagram further I saw that the seven points could represent the seven planets of the ancient world; in other words the enneagram could be an astronomical symbol. And when I took the order of the planets in the order of the days of the week I obtained the following picture:
SUN Dies Solis
I did not try to go any further as I did not have the necessary books to hand and there was very little time.
"Events" gave no time to go into philosophical speculations. One had to think about living, that is to say, simply and quite plainly to think about where one could live and work. The revolution and everything connected with it aroused in me deep physical disgust. At the same time, in spite of my sympathy with the "whites" I could not believe in their success. The bolsheviks did not hesitate to promise things that neither they nor anyone else could perform. In this was their principal strength. It was something in which nobody could compete with them. In addition to this they had the support of Germany, who saw in them a possibility of revenge in the future. The volunteer army, which had freed us from the bolsheviks, was able to fight them and conquer them. But it was not able to organize in a proper way the course of life in the liberated provinces. Its leaders had neither program, knowledge, nor experience in this direction. Of course this could not be demanded of them. But facts are facts. The situation was very unstable and the wave which was still rolling towards Moscow at the time could be rolled back again any day.
It was necessary to get abroad. I had marked down London as my final aim. First because I knew more people there and second because I thought that among the English I should find the greater response and a greater interest in the new ideas I now had, than anywhere else. Besides, when I was in London on my way to India before the war and on my return voyage at the beginning of the war I had decided to go there to write and publish my book, which had been begun in 1911, under the title of The Wisdom of the Cods, and which subsequently appeared under the title of A New Model of the Universe. As a matter of fact this book, in which I touched upon questions of religion and in particular upon methods for studying the New Testament, could not have been published in Russia.
So I decided to travel to London and to try to organize lectures and groups there like those at St. Petersburg. This only came to pass three and a half years later.
In the beginning of June, 1919, 1 at last succeeded in leaving Essentuki. At that time it had become quite calm there and life had been a little re-established. But I did not trust this calm. It was necessary to go abroad. At first I went to Rostov and then to Ekaterinodar and Novorossiysk and then returned again to Ekaterinodar. Ekaterinodar at that time was the capital of Russia. There I met some of our company who had left Essentuki before me as well as some friends and acquaintances from St. Petersburg.
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There remains in my memory one of my first talks.
My friend from St. Petersburg asked me, when we had spoken of G.'s system and of work on oneself, whether I could indicate any practical results of this work.
Remembering all I had experienced during the preceding year, particularly after G.'s departure, I said that I had acquired a strange confidence, one which I could not define in one word but which I must describe.
"This is not self-confidence in the ordinary sense," I said, "quite the contrary, rather is it a confidence in the unimportance and the insignificance of self, that self which we usually know. But what I am confident about is that if something terrible happened to me like things that have happened to many of my friends during the past year, then it would be not I who would meet it, not this ordinary I, but another I within me who would be equal to the occasion. Two years ago G. asked me whether I felt a new I inside me and I had to answer that I felt no change whatever. Now I can speak otherwise. And I can explain how the change takes place. It does not take place at once, I mean that the change does not embrace every moment of life. All the ordinary life goes on in the ordinary way, all those very ordinary stupid small I's, excepting perhaps a few which have already become impossible. But if something big were to happen, something which would require the straining of every nerve, then I know that this big thing would be met not by the ordinary small I, which is now speaking, and which can be made afraid, nor by anything like it—but by another, a big I, which nothing can frighten and which would be equal to everything that happened. I cannot describe it better. But for me it is a fact. And this fact is definitely connected for me with this work. You know my life and you know that I was not afraid of many things, both inward and outward, that people are often afraid of. But this is something different, a different taste. Therefore I know, for myself, that this new confidence has not come simply as a result of a great experience of life. It is the result of that work on myself which I began four years ago."
In Ekaterinodar and afterwards in Rostov during the winter, I collected together a small group and, on a plan that I had worked out the preced ing winter, I gave them lectures expounding G.'s system as well as the things from ordinary life which lead up to it.
During the summer and autumn of 1919 I received two letters from G. in Ekaterinodar and Novorossiysk. ... He wrote that he had opened in Tiflis an "Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man" on a very broad program and enclosed a prospectus of this "Institute" which made me very thoughtful indeed. The prospectus began in this way:
With the permission of the Minister for National Education the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man based on G. I. G.'s system is being opened in Tiflis. The Institute accepts children and adults of both sexes. Study will take place morning and evening. The subjects of study are:
gymnastics of all kinds (rhythmical, medicinal, and others). Exercises for the
development of will, memory, attention, hearing, thinking, emotion, instinct, and so on.
To this was added that G. I. G.'s system
was already in operation in a whole series of large cities such as Bombay, Alexandria, Cabul, New York, Chicago, Christiania, Stockholm, Moscow, Essentuki, and in all departments and homes of the true international and laboring fraternities.
At the end of the prospectus in a list of "specialist teachers" of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man I found my own name as well as the names of "Mechanical Engineer" P. and still another of our company,]., who was living at that time in Novorossiysk and had no intention whatever of going to Tiflis.
G. wrote in his letter that he was preparing his ballet "The Struggle of the Magicians" and without making any reference at all to past difficulties he invited me to go and work with him in Tiflis. This was very characteristic of him. But for various reasons I could not go there. In the first place there were very great material obstacles and secondly the difficulties which had arisen in Essentuki were for me very real ones. My decision to leave G. had cost me very dear and I could not give it up so easily, the more so as all his motives were to be seen. I must confess that I was not very enthusiastic about the program of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. I realized, of course, that it meant that G. was obviously obliged to give some sort of outward form to his work having regard to outward conditions, as he had done at Essentuki, and that this outward form was somewhat in the nature of a caricature. But I also realized that behind this outward form stood the same thing as before and that this could not change. I was doubtful only of my own ability to adapt myself to this outward form. At the same time I was confident that I should soon have to meet G. again.
P. came to Ekaterinodar from Maikop and we spoke together a great deal about the system and G. P. was in a fairly negative frame of mind. But it seemed to me that my idea that it was imperative to make a distinction between the system and G. helped him to understand the position of affairs better.
I was beginning to get very interested in my groups. I saw a possibility of continuing the work. The ideas of the system found a response and obviously answered the needs of people who wanted to understand what was taking place both in them and around them. And around us was being concluded that brief little epilogue to Russian history which had frightened our friends and "allies" so much. Ahead of us everything was quite dark. I was in Rostov in the autumn and beginning of winter. There
I met another two or three of the St. Petersburg company as well as Z. who had arrived from Kiev. Z. like P. was in a very negative frame of mind in relation to all of the work. We settled down together in the same quarters and it seemed that talks with me made him revise many things and convince himself that the original valuations were right. He decided to try to get through to G. in Tiflis. But he was not fated to accomplish this. We left Rostov almost at the same time, Z. leaving one or two days after me, but he arrived in Novorossiysk already ill and in the first days of January, 1920, he died of the smallpox.
Soon afterwards I managed to leave for Constantinople.
At that time Constantinople was full of Russians. I met acquaintances from St. Petersburg and with their assistance I began to give lectures in the offices of the "Russki Miyak." I at once collected a fairly large audience mostly of young men. I continued to develop the ideas begun in Rostov and Ekaterinodar, connecting general ideas of psychology and philosophy with ideas of esotericism.
I got no further letters from G., but I was sure that he would come to Constantinople. He actually arrived in June with a fairly large company.
In former Russia, even in its distant outskirts, work had become impossible and we were gradually approaching the period which I had foreseen in St. Petersburg, that is, of working in Europe.
I was very glad to see G. and to me personally it seemed then that, in the interests of the work, all former difficulties could be set aside and that I could again work with him as in St. Petersburg. I brought G. to my lectures and handed over to him all the people who came to my lectures, particularly the small group of about thirty persons who met upstairs in the offices of the "Miyak."
G. gave to the ballet the central position of his work at that time. Besides this he wanted to organize a continuation of his Tiflis Institute in Constantinople, the principal place in which would be taken by dances and rhythmic exercises which would prepare people to take part in the ballet. According to his ideas the ballet should become a school. I worked out the scenario of the ballet for him and began to understand this idea better. The dances and all the other "numbers" of the ballet, or rather "revue," demanded a long and an entirely special preparation. The people who were being prepared for the ballet and who were taking part in it, would, in so doing, be obliged to study and to acquire control over themselves, in this way approaching the disclosure of the higher forms of consciousness. Into the ballet there entered, and as a necessary part of it, dances, exercises, and the ceremonies of various dervishes as well as many little known Eastern dances.
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It was a very interesting time for me. G. often came to me in Prinkipo. We went together through the Constantinople bazaars. We went to the Mehlevi dervishes and he explained something to me that I had not been able to understand before. And this was that the whirling of the Mehlevi dervishes was an exercise for the brain based upon counting, like those exercises that he had shown to us in Essentuki. Sometimes I worked with him for entire days and nights. One such night in particular remains in my memory, when we "translated" a dervish song for "The Struggle of the Magicians." I saw G. the artist and G. the poet, whom he had so carefully hidden inside him, particularly the latter. This translation took the form of G. recalling the Persian verses, sometimes repeating them to himself in a quiet voice and then translating them for me into Russian. After a quarter of an hour, let us say, when I had completely disappeared beneath forms, symbols, and assimilations, he said: "There, now make one line out of that." I did not try to create any measure or to find a rhythm. This was quite impossible. G. continued and again after a quarter of an hour he said: "That is another line." We sat until the morning. This was in Koumbaradji Street a little below the former Russian consulate. At length the town began to wake. I had written, I think, five verses and had stopped at the last line of the fifth verse. No kind of effort could make my brain turn any more. G. laughed but he also was tired and could not go on. So the verse remained as it was, unfinished, because he never returned again to this song.
Two or three months passed by in this way. I helped G. all I could in organizing his Institute. But gradually the same difficulties arose before me as in Essentuki. So that, when the Institute was opened, I think in October, I was unable to join it. But in order not to hinder G. or to give rise to discord among those who came to my lectures, I put an end to my own lectures and ceased to visit Constantinople. A few of those who came to my lectures visited me in Prinkipo and there we continued the talks begun in Constantinople.