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it. The more one understands, the more one can get from the same efforts. But the chief thing is to remember oneself. The more you remember yourself, the better you will think, for you will find new machines. If you are conscious of yourself, you will find you will not need this mind. This mind will serve you for thinking about tables and chairs, but if you want to think about greater things you will be able to use better machines. Q. Why cannot I understand the least thing when I think about it, but sometimes understanding suddenly comes? A. Understanding always comes that way—you understand, and then you cease to understand. But if all attempts to understand something go wrong, try not to think about it but try to remember yourself, that is, to be emotional, and in time you will understand. Understanding does not become permanent at once; as in everything else there are many steps and you can understand something one day and not understand it the next day, for you may be more conscious in the same circumstances one day and more asleep the next. So many days may pass before it becomes your own. Q. Does one understand through the emotional centre? A. Understanding is a combined function of all centres. Each centre separately can only know; when they combine all their knowledge, this gives understanding. To understand something one needs at least three centres. Q. Did you mean that one must understand every side of a thing? A. No, I meant that first you must have an idea on which line, on which scale, of which whole you are thinking. And then, if you speak or think about some separate thing, you must understand this separate thing in relation to the whole. Only this is understanding: finding the place of this thing, the meaning of this thing, the relation of this thing to yourself and to other things. Try it, but you will find that it is not as easy as it seems. Q. Do we understand nothing, however limited? A. Yes, simple things, sometimes, we understand; but if something is a little more complicated, we lose ourselves and do not understand. We want to understand big things without realizing that in actual fact we cannot understand the simplest things. If we begin with them, then gradually we will begin to understand more. But if we begin with big things and refuse to think of or observe small things, we shall never understand anything properly. Q. Isn't it ever possible to understand emotionally, without understanding intellectually? You sometimes feel a thing that you cannot understand. A. Then it is feeling, not understanding. Emotional understanding is very good sometimes, only you cannot verify it. But if you can look at a thing from the point of view of one centre, another centre and a third centre, then you really understand. And even the direction of centres is
not sufficient by itself, for knowledge is necessary. Only when knowledge is connected with the direction of centres is it understanding Q. How can an intellectual understanding pass into emotional under-standing? A. As I have just said, understanding very seldom works with one centre The work of one centre can be information or feeling, but not under-standing, which is the function of several centres—two, three, four, maybe more. Q. Is there a way in which I can test my understanding of a thing? A. You ask without indicating the thing you mean, and this shows that you do not yourself understand what you are asking, because for every separate understanding there is a definite test. Suppose you say that you understand how to get here from where you live' then, if you take your car (if you have a car) and arrive here, this would mean that you have a test for your understanding. In everything else only practical application will show whether you understand or not. Q. If we reach a certain stage of understanding, shall we be of more use to the world? A. First we must be of use to ourselves. When we reach the first stage we can think about the second stage. If we are asleep, we cannot be of use to anyone, not even to ourselves. How can we understand other people when we do not understand ourselves? Men 1, 2 and 3 cannot understand one another, on this level understanding is simply accidental. If we move in the direction of man No. 4, we begin to understand one another. Q. What do you mean by understanding one another? A. When people speak, try to explain their views, they cannot They cannot even repeat correctly what they have heard, they change things. And misunderstanding grows and grows. One invents a theory, immediately five others are invented to contradict it. Thousands of years have passed from the beginning of creation, and in all this time people never understood one another. How can we expect that they will now? So first we must understand ourselves. We do not see our situation and realize our mechanicalness. We do not see that this not understanding is a law. Q. How can I understand better my mechanicalness and see that I am a machine? A. We can do nothing without trying If you want to make sure whether you are a machine or not, try to do something that a machine cannot do. Try to remember yourself, for a machine cannot remember itself. If you find that you can, it will mean that you are not a machine; if you find that you cannot, it will prove that you are a machine. And then, if you realize that you are a machine and want to find out whether you can cease being a machine, again the only method is to try.
Q. Did you say that only people of equal being can understand one another? A. This is not understood quite rightly, because if two people have an equally wrong being, they will not understand one another. It is not equality which brings understanding between people, but a certain level, not only of being but also of knowledge. Different levels, such as men No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7, presuppose levels of both knowledge and being. Men No. 5 are supposed to understand one another; men No. 6 understand better and men No. 7 understand fully. Even men No. 4 understand one another as compared with us, but we cannot understand one another, or understand only occasionally for a moment and at another moment cease to understand. We cannot rely on such understanding. People who know one another very well may work together for years and at certain moments not understand one another. This is why the place or the conditions where we are is called the place of confusion of tongues, because we all speak different languages. For this reason in a right school you first of all learn the language in which you can speak with other people in the school and then, using this language—if you use it in the right way —you will understand one another. That is why a new language is necessary. If you do not learn this language, or if the language is wrong, you will never understand one another. Q. Can the same word have a different quality of meaning according to the level of people who use it? A. Yes, it may have. Words begin to acquire objective meaning starting from the level of man No. 4. Men 1, 2 and 3 are purely subjective and everyone understands every word in his own way. But if people know this language, or even a few words of it, they can use it in the same meaning. Q. If you understand one word completely, would that mean you had got to the stage of man No. 7? A. No, you cannot understand one word completely and another incompletely. You have to know them all on a certain level, and then your being changes and you find many more divisions. So your language will become more and more complicated. And at a certain level perhaps you will need new words, new forms, because old forms will no longer be sufficient. Q. Does understanding of a term or word vary in relation to the degree of being? Would the word 'love', for instance, mean one thing to man No. 1 and another to man No. 4 or 5? A. Certainly. We can see already how the same word means one thing for man No. 1, another thing for man No. 2 and yet another for man No. 3. But on the level of man 1, 2 and 3 this is mechanical, in the sense that people cannot help it. They understand according to their level, their capacity, not according to the meaning of things.
Q. What are the indications of a change from one level to another—say from No. 3 to No. 4 or 5? A. Man No. 5 is one, he has unity. He does not live in this constant conflict of egos that we have. He has self-consciousness. He has control of higher emotional centre. So he will know himself what the change is. Other people will know only what he shows them, because he can control himself. Man No. 4 knows his aim and how his aim can be attained. He goes with his eyes open, while we go with out eyes shut. Q. What did you mean by saying in one of your lectures that understanding cannot be different? A. If people reach the highest level, they cannot understand things differently. This refers to the highest level, but since we aspire to reach it, we must take it as a principle. If people understand things differently, it means that they are all wrong. In a small way you can find examples of it even now. If two people really understand something, for instance if they can do something equally well, they will understand one another. But we lost the habit of judging things from the practical side, we judge them theoretically, by words. Q. Cannot you have some understanding before you have complete understanding? A. We cannot speak in absolutes when we speak about ourselves. We can only speak of relative values. Complete understanding is very far, but we can speak of less understanding and more understanding. If you continue trying to remember yourself and not to identify, understanding will grow. Q. Could you explain more what you mean when you say that understanding means understanding a part in relation to the whole? A. If you understand only a part, it is not understanding. It would be like blind men trying to explain the elephant, one by its tail, another by its trunk, and so on. Understanding means connecting parts with the whole. One can begin from parts, or one can begin from the whole. But whatever one begins from, the more connected things are, the better one understands—if the connections are made rightly and are not merely an illusion. Q. If you understand something in the system, do you use higher centres? A. No, only higher parts of centres. Higher centres mean higher consciousness. But there are many different states of understanding, and one can made very interesting investigations of understanding. For instance, there are things one does not understand one moment and another moment one does, and then again one loses it. Then there are things, such as many sentences in the New Testament, which have many meanings. For instance, the sentence about little children has about forty different meanings, but one can never keep them all in mind. I could never understand more than three meanings at once. I wrote down about twenty, but then they became just words. It is necessary to know our limitations.
Right understanding requires a right attitude. We must understand that we have no control, that we are machines, that everything happens to us. But simply speaking about it does not change these facts. To cease being mechanical requires something else, and, first of all, it requires a change of attitude One thing over which we have a certain control is our attitudes—attitudes towards knowledge, towards the system, towards work, towards self-study, towards friends and so on We must understand that we cannot 'do', but we can change our attitudes. Attitudes can be very different For the moment we will take only two— positive and negative, not in the sense of positive and negative emotions, but referring to the positive and negative parts of intellectual centre; the part which says yes and the part which says no, that is, approval and disapproval These are the two chief attitudes It is very important to think about attitudes because very often we take a negative attitude towards things we can understand only with a positive attitude For instance, it may happen that people take a negative attitude towards something connected with the work. Then their understanding stops and they cannot understand anything until they change their attitude. We must have positive attitudes in some cases and negative attitudes in others, because often lack of understanding is caused by a wrong attitude There are many many things in life that you cannot understand unless you have a sufficiently good negative attitude towards them, for if you look at them positively you will never understand anything If a man studies life, he must come to negative conclusions, for there are too many things wrong in life. Trying to create only positive attitudes is as wrong as having only negative attitudes. Yet some people can have a negative attitude towards anything and everything, and some others try to cultivate a positive attitude towards things that need a negative attitude On the other hand, as I said, the moment you have a negative attitude towards things that refer to the work, to the ideas, methods and rules of the work, you cease to understand. You can understand, according to your capacity, only as long as you are positive. But this refers only to intellectual attitudes. In emotional centre, negative emotional attitudes mean identifying. Q. I am not sure I understand what a negative attitude is. A. It means a suspicious or unsympathetic attitude—there are many variations, an attitude of fear sometimes. Take it in the ordinary sense of accepting or not accepting. Q. Isn't an attitude the same as identification? A. Certainly not. Attitude means point of view You can have a point of view without being identified. Very often, identifying is the result of a wrong attitude. Q How can one change one's attitude? A. First, by studying oneself and life on the lines of this system. This
changes the attitude. This system is a system of different thinking, or rather of different attitudes, not merely of knowledge. Then, a certain valuation is necessary; you must understand the relative value of things. We do not speak about doing yet— we speak about study. We must study and come to understand things which are only words for us now, and often words used in a wrong sense and in a wrong place. It is necessary to understand and remember certain fundamental principles. If you do this, you will start in the right way. If you do not understand or remember them, things will go wrong. Generally there are three or four chief stumbling-blocks, and unless you understand and remember the fundamental principles you will fall over one or another of them. Q. I find that I greatly value the system with my mind, but how am I to increase my emotional valuation so as to make greater efforts? A. By better understanding and by trying to remember yourself. Understanding cannot be only in the mind; I explained that it means the working of several centres at the same time, and the part that the emotional centre plays in it is very important because there can be no deep understanding without emotional energy. Q. Can you explain more why a certain attitude is necessary in order to understand a thing? A. Try to think about it; try to see for yourself why it is necessary and try to find what an attitude or point of view means. It is a process of thinking, putting things together—all the things we already know, all the ideas and principles we have learnt, and being able to see facts from a new point of view. To think in a new way is a very difficult thing, for the old way of thinking is kept up by old habits of thinking, old associations, attitudes and the influence of things themselves. Suppose you have a certain attitude towards something, and this thing itself is trying to keep this attitude in you by all possible means. Then, if you change it, if you direct it, you will make a big step. Q. We have been told that real work on being requires a realization of how to get right understanding. You also said that we must understand what we want? A. There are several reasons for that. Understanding is the strongest force we have which can change us. The more understanding we have, the better the results of our efforts. As to knowing what you want—just imagine yourself going to a big shop with many different departments. You must know what you want to buy. How can you get something if you do not know what you want? But first of all you must know what is in the shop, otherwise you may ask for things they do not sell. This is the way to approach this problem. It is necessary always to remember why you started. Do you want to get things you can get from ordinary life or different things? Is it worth while trying? Our capacity for imagination, generally used so wrongly,
can help in this case. But you must control it all the time and not let it run away with you. We call it imagination if it runs away with us, but if you control it, you can use it to see what a thing means, what it implies. So if you use it, it may help you to see whether you really want what you say you want or not, because very often we want something different, or we do not realize that one thing brings another thing with it. You cannot want one thing by itself; if you want one thing, you get many other things with it. Only when you know what you want will you know where you are going, and know it rightly. It is necessary to know. It may be quite fantastic, quite impossible from the ordinary point of view, and yet it may be right. Or it may look very simple and right and yet be impossible. Q. Can you tell me what one should aim at? I mean, what it is possible to acquire through the work? A. As a general answer—the only aim is change of being. The aim is to reach higher states of consciousness and to be able to work with higher centres. All the rest is for that, in order to achieve that. It is necessary to do a thousand things that seem to have no relation to it, but they are all necessary, because we live below the normal level. First we must reach the normal level, and second, we must try to develop new things and possibilities. No one can help you in this, only your own work and your own understanding. You must begin with understanding. These lectures and this system are to give understanding. The next step depends on your own efforts. Change of being can be achieved only if you remember all that was said and if you do not make exceptions for yourself and leave out things you do not like. If you do this, you will not have a right relation to what was said, and even if you try to remember it, it will change nothing. Q. What do you mean when you say that we live below our normal level? What is normality? A. Normality is capacity for development. Usually people are below normal. Only from the level of ordinary man does the possibility of development begin. But there are many states below that of the ordinary man. People who are too identified, or hypnotized by formatory ideas, or who lie too much are more machines than an ordinary man. To be an ordinary man is already a relatively high state, because from this state it is possible to move. Q. I have often tried to think what I want, but I only find a muddle of many things. A. That's it. I want you to realize how difficult it is to define what one wants. Suppose you are given full choice to have what you want: you will not know what to say. But it is important that you should understand and know it; you must be able to formulate it. About certain things you can be sure that you cannot get them in any ordinary way, but there is no guarantee that you will get them in this way either. For instance, the order
may be wrong. There is a certain order in which one can get things, which we do not know. You can be quite certain that you can get some things, but it may be you will get not what you think you want but something else. And even if you do not get the things you want, you may be quite sure that you could not have got them in any other way. The strange thing is that as a rule people do not know their aim. Aim can be formulated only if one already knows something about one's position. If a man does not realize his position, all his aims will be imaginary. So I advise you to think about your aim: what you thought about it before and how you would describe what one can get and what one must try to get. It is useless to describe an aim which you know you cannot attain. But if you have an aim that you can hope to attain, your work will be conscious, serious. In the beginning people usually set before them aims that are too abstract and remote. A person's aim is at first like a light which he sees afar off while walking by night along a dark road. He makes this light his aim and goes towards it. On the way to it he sees another light, between him and the first light, and he understands that first he should go to the nearest light, and he goes towards it. After a certain time, he sees a third light, again between him and the light towards which he is going, and so on. This is repeated several times until, at length, the man sees the light nearest to him, that is, the aim he is able to get to from where he is. So, do not have too big a view of things; do not look too far; look nearer. You cannot start working for some remote future; you work for to-morrow. You find something wrong to-day. Why? Because yesterday was wrong. So if you make to-day right, to-morrow will be right. And only with an aim is it possible to remember what you did yesterday and what you do to-day—what corresponds to your aim and what does not. The motive power in all our actions is of two kinds: something attracts or something repels us. We cannot know what we can attain in the remote future, but we know very well the situation in which we are. If we understand it, it will give us a definite aim. The aim will be to get out of this situation. We can know certain things in us from which we must try to get free. Aim must be clearly formulated, understood and remembered. Only then is it possible to come to results. If the aim is forgotten every moment, no results are possible. How can a man who realizes his position formulate his aim? He will see that the centre of gravity of his position is sleep; then his aim will be to awake. Or if he sees his mechanicalness, his aim will be to get rid of mechanicalness. Both come to the same thing. You see, it is a simple and practical view. Q. I see more clearly that what hinders progress is not wanting to escape mechanicalness sufficiently. How can one intensify the desire to escape?
A. This is one of the constantly recurring questions which it is almost impossible to answer. You have to try, and you have to compare things as they are and as they should be. More understanding is necessary, and if you want a complete explanation, self-remembering, because it is the only real answer. If self-remembering increases, all the rest increases. Q. You mentioned obstacles that have to be got over before attaining one's aim. Since then I saw so many obstacles in myself that I do not see any possibility of getting anything. A. That means you identify with them. You must see that you are always on the move, you never remain in one place; sometimes you are closer to your aim and sometimes further from it. It is necessary to observe yourself, to catch moments when you are nearer your aim. If you formulate your aim, you will know when you are closer to it and when you are further from it. If your aim is formulated rightly, you cannot be always at the same distance from it. Q. I find that I work for immediate results. Is it a wrong aim? A. There is no question of right and wrong: there is only the question of knowing your aim. Aim must always be in the present and refer to the future. No result is possible if there is no aim, no effort and no decision. Q. How can one see how to make big efforts? A. By making small efforts. A big effort depends on circumstances, situation, understanding, on many things. You cannot begin with big efforts. You must begin with small efforts, like, for instance, trying to remember yourself, or trying to stop thoughts three times a day. It is quite a small effort, but if you do it regularly, the need or the possibility of a big effort may come and you will be able to make it at the right moment. Q. When I first came to lectures, I had a very large aim, but now it has got much smaller. A. Yes, aims shrink very much when you begin to work. They start enormous—like balloons—and then they become quite small, so that you can put them in your pocket. Q. I suppose, in our present state, we cannot appreciate the difference between right and wrong? A. Quite the opposite: we can appreciate this difference, and not only can but must. Wrong or evil begins to be comprehensible from the moment we have a direction. If we have no direction, then there is no particular evil, because it is all the same. Q. By direction you mean aim? A. Yes. Aim means direction, a certain line. If my aim is to go home from here, it will be right for me to turn to the right and wrong to turn to the left. This is how the principle of good and evil can be established. There can be no definition of good and evil, or right and wrong, without first establishing an aim or direction. When you have an aim, then what is
opposed to your aim or takes you away from it is wrong, and what helps your aim is right. It must be your personal aim. If it corresponds to the possibilities of development, then the system explains these possibilities. And if you understand that what keeps us from reaching our aim is mechanicalness and what helps us is consciousness, it will follow that consciousness represents good and mechanicalness evil. So, instead of 'good' and 'evil' the system uses the words 'conscious' and 'mechanical'. This is quite sufficient for all practical purposes. If there are any questions we may go further, only you must always remember this practical definition, because it is the only sure ground we can have: what is right for us is what helps our development, our awakening and our struggle with mechanicalness; and what is wrong for us is what encourages our mechanical tendencies, what prevents our changing, what hinders our development. If we start from that, then later we will find many more criteria for discrimination. Q. Is everything mechanical evil? A. It does not necessarily mean that all that is mechanical is evil; but evil cannot be conscious, it can only be mechanical. You must ask yourself: Can evil be conscious in we? Everything else is philosophy. If there is something that from your subjective point of view you consider good, and if you try consciously to do what you consider bad, you will find that either you cannot do it, or you will lose all pleasure in it. In exactly the same way you cannot be negative consciously, without identification. Negative emotions are the best conductors of evil, because they are one of the most mechanical things we have. Q. There are many things one has to do in life that are against one's aim. A. Why against aim? You can say that many things do not correspond to your aim, but I do not see that one has to do many things against one's aim. In doing things that one must do in ordinary life, the most one can do is lose time. But there are many things that one does not have to do that are much worse than merely wasting time. If something is unavoidable, one can always make work out of any activity. Other things are much worse, such as imagination, negative emotions, and so on. They are not unavoidable. Things we are obliged to do, do not contradict work. But without being in any way obliged we do many things that do contradict work. Actions that go definitely against one's aim can only be mechanical, and many of them interrupt one's advance towards one's aim. Q. Is the aim of consciousness to be in complete control of the machine, so that, for a conscious man, all that is mechanical could not exist? A. Leave conscious man. You can understand evil only in relation to yourself—the rest is too general. In yourself you find features and tendencies that go against consciousness, that help resistance. That evil is in yourself. You will see that evil can be manifested only mechanically. A long time is necessary to understand that fully. You may often be
mistaken, you may take for evil what is not evil, or take something mechanical for conscious. Q. Can we easily do something wrong if we just act according to our upbringing, mechanically? Would it be better to act against it? A. To act against it would be equally mechanical, you will only oppose one mechanicalness to another mechanicalness. If you do something against what you are accustomed to, it will not necessarily be right. Besides, it does not mean that everything you are taught or accustomed to is wrong. That would be too simple. Take some examples of your actions and you will see that when things happen, when you let them happen, they may be right or they may be wrong. But if you were conscious you could choose; that would be quite a different situation. Q. Must we find ordinary standards of conduct, or find new ones in the work? A. Very often we excuse ourselves or find excuses for not remembering ordinary standards, because we think that we must have new ones. When we are in the process of acquiring new ones, at a certain moment we have none, so you must understand that you have to follow ordinary standards until you have new ones. If you take the essence of ordinary moral laws, you will find nothing particularly different from what you can see in the system. For instance, take ordinary rules of relationship with people. They are very simple: do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. It is quite logical and clear, and is fully accepted in the system. Q. Should we not find out for ourselves what is right and wrong, and not be told? A. How can you find it out for yourself? People have looked for an answer to this problem from the creation of the world and have not found it yet. If you could find for yourself what is right and wrong, you could find out everything else. No, you have to learn this, like many other things that have to be learned. Only when you appreciate the value of self-remembering, do you begin to have right values and can judge and weigh. Q. There are many things one does deliberately, knowing that they are wrong, but one is not strong enough to stop it. A. Certainly, because if you are mechanical in everything, you cannot become conscious in only one thing. Besides, deliberately does not mean consciously; things just happen. If everything happens, one thing cannot not happen; it has to happen also. Q. Is there a moral standard peculiar to this system? A. Yes, certainly, but, as I have just said, in relation to this system it is very easy to understand. It is the relation of mechanical to conscious. This means that certain things are mechanical and should remain mechanical, but certain other things that are now mechanical must become conscious.
You see, one of the most difficult things is to recognize right and wrong, or good and evil. Our mind is not accustomed to think about it in relation to consciousness. We think that there must be a permanent external definition that can be accepted, remembered and followed, and we do not realize that there can be no external definition. But there are inner qualities of actions which determine things. This idea of the relation of good and bad to conscious and unconscious is a very useful thing to think about, particularly when you begin to find right analogies; not only because it gives you a certain definite understanding, but also because by keeping your mind on this and similar ideas you hear in the system, you keep it on the highest level possible for us, that is, in the intellectual parts of centres. You cannot profitably think about such things with the lower, mechanical parts of centres, for nothing would come of it. In order to get some understanding, you have to use intellectual parts of centres, and not only one, but two or three at the same time. What is morality? Understanding of the laws of conduct? It is not sufficient. If we say, like a savage, 'If you steal from me it is bad, but if I steal from you it is good', it is not morality; it is merely savage conduct. Because morality begins when one has a feeling of good and bad in relation to one's own actions, and is capable of renouncing what one considers bad, and doing what one considers good. What is good? And what is bad? Generally, at this first stage, man borrows moral principles from religious, philosophical or scientific ideas, or simply adopts conventional taboos. He believes that some things are good and some other things are bad. But this is subjective morality, and the understanding of good and evil is purely relative. In all countries and at all epochs certain moral codes were accepted which tried to explain what is good and what is bad. But if we try to compare the existing theories we shall see that they all contradict one another and are full of contradictions in themselves. There is no such thing as general morality; there is no such thing even as Christian morality. For instance, Christianity says you must not kill, but nobody takes this seriously. Many moralities have been built on the basis of killing. For instance, as I said in the first lecture, in some countries it is considered a most immoral thing to refuse blood revenge. And why in one case can a man kill and in another not? All that is known about ordinary morality is full of inconsistencies. So, if you think about this problem, you will understand that in spite of hundreds of moral systems and teachings man cannot say what is right and what is wrong, for moral values change, there is nothing permanent in them. At the same time, according to their attitude to the idea of right and wrong people can be divided into two categories. There are people who have no feeling of right and wrong at all; all they have instead of moral sense is the idea of pleasant and unpleasant, profitable and