Pages 157–168
unprofitable. And there are other people who have a feeling of right and wrong, without actually knowing what is right and what is wrong. People who belong to the first category cannot be interested in the system, it is not for them. People of the second category may be interested. What must be understood from the beginning is that man must start with a certain sense of right and wrong, otherwise nothing can be done. Then he must be sufficiently sceptical about ordinary morality and must understand that there is nothing general or stable in ordinary moral principles, for they change according to conventions, place and period. And he must understand the necessity of objective right and wrong. If he understands these three things, he will find a basis for distinguishing what is right and what is wrong in relation to each separate thing, because, if he starts rightly, he will find that there are definite standards with the help of which good and bad cease to be relative and become absolute. The whole thing is to start from a right attitude, a right point of view. If he starts from a wrong point of view, he will not find anything. Q. How can we trust our own sense of right and wrong? A. You cannot trust or mistrust; it is there. So that is not the question. You can only hesitate and be in doubt in relation to the object. Certainly, without knowledge, without development, without consciousness you cannot say definitely whether something is right or wrong; but you may be on the way to it. Morality is always different, but moral sense is permanent. If people have no moral sense, it is no use speaking to them. But the feeling of right and wrong is one thing, and the definition, the contents, is quite another. Two people may have a very strong feeling of right and wrong, but what is right for one will be wrong for the other. Feeling does not presuppose definition, so a man can have the feeling of right and wrong, and have wrong ideas about it. Q. Would the standard to apply be whether a particular thing helps or hinders consciousness? A. The standard must be connected with a system. Without a system (I do not mean this system, but one must have a system) you cannot judge. This system begins with the possibility of objective consciousness, and objective consciousness is described as a state in which we can know truth. If, when we reach it, we can know truth, we shall also know what is right and wrong. Consequently, the same way which leads to objective consciousness leads also to the understanding of right and wrong. As we have not got objective consciousness, we consider everything that helps us to develop it as right and good, and everything that hinders us in this as wrong and bad. In our ordinary understanding objective truth refers more to the intellectual side of life, but a man may want to know it also on the religious side, the moral side, the aesthetic side, and so on. The system explains that men 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are all in a different position in this
respect. There is religion No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and so on, and there is morality No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 5 and so on. It does not mean that one or another of them is wrong, but that one cannot be explained by another. For instance, Christ did not preach inquisition, and if his teaching is distorted by men 1, 2 and 3 to be used for criminal purposes, this cannot be attributed to Christ. Since we are men 1, 2 and 3, there are many things about which we can find no visible indications as to whether they help or hinder the development of consciousness. So we must look for other principles, and we can find these other principles only if we think about concrete cases of conduct. In the system one can find many sufficient indications which show how to look at one or another thing. Q. Do you think that in the course of time a new belief and morality can spring from this system? A. From this system, no. That is quite a different thing. These ideas are not for the masses, not for the multitude. You must remember that this is school teaching, and school teaching can exist only for schools. In favourable circumstances perhaps schools can increase, but that is quite a different thing; it is not the same as the appearance and growth of a religion. The aim of the system is to bring man to conscience. Conscience is a certain faculty that exists in every normal man. It is really a different expression of consciousness, only, consciousness works more on the intellectual side, and conscience more on the moral side: it helps to realize what is good and what is bad in one's conduct. Conscience is a state in which one cannot hide anything from oneself, and it must be developed in man. This development is parallel and simultaneous with the development of consciousness. We cannot say that we do not have it, so it does not mean a special development of something that does not exist in us, only in our life it is behind the scenes, buried very deep down in us and asleep. It may awake for a moment in ordinary life, and when it does, particularly at first, it always brings suffering, for it is very unpleasant to face the truth about oneself. Conscience in relation to emotions is the same as consciousness in relation to ideas. It may be easier for you to understand what conscience is if you think of the etymological meaning of the words consciousness and conscience. Consciousness means all knowledge connected together. But we cannot speak of all knowledge, because it would be too high; we can only speak of all knowledge we may have relating to the same subject. It must be connected with self-awareness, so consciousness must be yourself, connected with all you know about some particular thing. Conscience is the same thing, only in relation to emotions. To have a moment of conscience is to feel at once all that you feel about somebody or something. If you can feel all that you ever felt in relation to the same person, country,
house, book or anything else together, this would be a moment of conscience and you will see how many contradictions there are in your emotions. Unless you have had this experience, you cannot imagine how many different feelings you can have. In a state of conscience we see them all at once. This is why it is such an unpleasant state. Conscience is not very far, only we have many methods of dealing with it to prevent ourselves feeling it, such as imagination, negative emotions, justifying and so on, for it is too uncomfortable. Q. You said that conscience is feeling all our emotions at the same time. I cannot quite see how we can feel them all together. A. No, I never said that. I said that in a moment of conscience, whether you wish it or not, you will feel all your emotions on the same subject at once. But it is not a definition of conscience. Conscience can be defined as an emotional feeling of truth on a given subject. As I said, conscience is the same thing as consciousness, only it looks different to us. We are subjective, so we take things from a subjective point of view. When we think about consciousness, we think about a certain force, a certain energy or state in connection with intellectual appreciation. The same energy, the same force can manifest through emotions, and this may happen to quite ordinary men in ordinary conditions. Sometimes people may have an emotional feeling of truth— some more, others less. This is conscience. Lack of consciousness, absence of self remembering and many other things such as identification and imagination, shut us off from these moments of conscience which otherwise would be more possible. Try to think about it in this way. Seeing contradictions and conscience are connected, but they are not the same thing, and if you take them together you will never get anywhere. Our consciousness, such as we can have in our state, cannot manifest through the intellectual centre, because the intellectual centre is too slow, since it works mostly only with the formatory part. But it can at times manifest through the emotional centre, and then, as I said, it is called conscience. Consciousness, to manifest, needs long preparation, intellectual capacities and things like that, but conscience works more often and more easily than fall consciousness. Full consciousness needs much knowledge connected with the realization of one's existence, but it must be a constant realization; it is not enough to realize it to-day and forget to-morrow. At first, when conscience manifests itself in us, it turns against us, and we begin to see all our inner contradictions. Usually we cannot see them because we are always in one or another small compartment, but conscience can see from the top and show us that here we felt one thing, there another thing, and here again quite a different thing, all on the same subject. For instance, if we take the work, we must realize that at one moment
we feel one thing about it, at another moment quite a different thing, at a third moment again a different thing. And we never feel it all together. If we could feel at the same time all that we ever felt about the work, we would have a great shock. That would be conscience. All our life, all our habitual ways of thinking, have only one aim—to avoid shocks, unpleasant feelings, unpleasant realizations about ourselves. And this is the chief thing that keeps us asleep, because in order to awake we must not be afraid; we must be brave enough to see the contradictions. Even quite apart from the question of conscience, it is important to find in yourself that, when you have strong emotions (it does not refer to small emotions), when you feel strongly about some particular thing, you may be practically certain that at another moment you will have a different emotion about the same thing. If you cannot see it in yourself, see it in other people. When you realize the existence of these contradictory emotions, it will help you to understand your mechanicalness and your lack of understanding of yourself—lack of self-knowledge. So long as we feel different emotions at different times, what are we like? One moment we trust, another moment we are suspicious; one moment we like, another moment we dislike. So the aim is to bring those different emotions together, otherwise we will never know ourselves. If we always feel only one emotion at a time and do not remember other emotions, we are identified with it. When we have another emotion we forget the first; when we have a third, we forget the first and the second. Very early in life, by imitation and in different other ways, we learn to live in a kind of imaginary state to save ourselves from unpleasantness, so people develop in themselves this capacity to see only one emotion at a time. Remember to work. Remember yourself in one mood, then remember yourself in another mood. Try to connect them together and you will see. Q. If we have different compartments, do they express themselves? A. As I just said, one at a time. For instance, we love somebody one moment, and wish them dead the next. Only we do not see it. Yet sometimes moments come when we can feel all our emotions on the same subject together. Only you must wait until you get a taste of such a moment, because without a taste of it you will never get any further in understanding what a moment of conscience means. Conscience can be very strong and definite. But in most cases it is asleep, because, since most people are asleep, everything in them is asleep. So conscience must be awakened. We must learn to understand truth emotionally in certain cases, and we can do this only by not being afraid to face contradictions in ourselves. We have special appliances in us that prevent us from seeing these contradictions. These appliances are called buffers. Buffers are special arrangements, or a special growth if you like, which prevent us from seeing the truth about ourselves and about other things. Buffers divide
us into sort of thought-proof compartments. We may have many contradictory desires, intentions, aims, and we do not see that they are contradictory because buffers stand between them and prevent us from looking from one compartment into another. When you are in one compartment, you think it is the whole thing, then you pass into another compartment and you think that this is the whole thing. These appliances are called buffers because, as in a railway carriage, they diminish shocks. But in relation to the human machine they are even more: they make it impossible to see, so they are blinkers as well. People with really strong buffers never see; but if they saw how contradictory they were, they would be unable to move, because they would not trust themselves. That is why buffers are necessary in mechanical life. Such extreme cases mean wrong development, but even in ordinary people, in one or another line there are always deeply hidden buffers. Q. When one recognizes a buffer in oneself, can one do anything to get rid of it? A. First you must see it; before you see it nothing can be done. And whether you can do anything after you have seen it depends on the size of the buffer and on many other things. Sometimes it is necessary to take a hammer and break it; and sometimes it disappears if you throw light on it, for buffers do not like light. When buffers begin to disappear and become less strong, conscience begins to manifest itself. In ordinary life it is kept down by buffers. Q. Could you explain a little more what you mean by buffers? A. Buffers are very difficult to describe or define. As I said, they are a kind of partitions in us that keep us from observing ourselves. You may have different emotional attitudes (they always refer to emotional attitudes) towards the same thing in the morning, at midday, and in the evening, without noticing it. Or in a certain set of circumstances you have one kind of opinions and in other circumstances another kind of opinions, and buffers are walls that stand between them. Generally each buffer is based on some kind of wrong assumption about oneself, one's capacities, one's powers, inclinations, knowledge, being, consciousness and so on. They differ from ordinary wrong ideas because they are permanent; in given circumstances one always feels and sees the same thing; and you must understand that in man 1, 2 and 3 nothing must be permanent. The only chance he has of changing is that there is nothing permanent in him. Opinions, prejudices, preconceived ideas are not buffers yet, but when they become very firm, and always the same, and always have the same trick of shutting things off from our sight, they become buffers. If people have some kind of constant wrong attitude, based on wrong information, wrong work of centres, negative emotion, if they always use the same kind of excuse, they prepare buffers. And when a buffer is established and becomes permanent, it stops all possible progress. If buffers continue to
develop, they become fixed ideas, and that is already insanity, or the beginning of insanity. Buffers can be very different. For instance, I knew a man who had a very interesting buffer. Every time he did something wrong, he said that he did it on purpose, as an experiment. This is a very good example of a buffer. Another man had a buffer that he was never late; so, with this buffer firmly established he was always late but never noticed it, and if his attention was drawn to it, he was always astonished and said, 'How can I be late? I am never late!' Q. When a buffer has gone down, and you see something that seems unbearable, what is the next step? A. All the work is preparation for that. If one does not work but only thinks that one works and a buffer suddenly disappears by some accident, one finds oneself in a very unpleasant situation, and one also sees that one only pretended to work. Buffers help us to pretend instead of really working. This is why people in the ordinary state cannot have conscience, because if conscience suddenly came, they would go mad. Buffers are useful in this respect; they help to keep us asleep; for if other sides are not developed, if everything is not brought into a certain balance, one would not be able to bear oneself, as one is. So it is not even advisable to destroy buffers before one is ready. One must be ready first. We can bear ourselves only because we do not know ourselves. If we knew ourselves as we are, it would be unbearable. Q. Yet one sees oneself intellectually without feeling strongly. A. Intellectual self-study is only preparation; but when you try to remember yourself and not to identify, you begin to feel emotional. Q. Do we all have buffers? A. Yes. We could not live without them; we would have to be sincere all the time, and see everything all the time. Q. What is the cause of this inner disharmony which one usually has? A. This disharmony is the normal state of man No. 1, 2 and 3. A sleeping man cannot be harmonious; if he were harmonious there would be no incentive for development and there would be no possibility. Q. But if one tries to be more awake, one becomes more aware of one's disharmony; then, having seen this, could one become more harmonious? A. This is a theoretical question. One ceases to be disharmonious when one ceases to be what one is now. As one is now, one is disharmonious, then aware of one's disharmony, then again disharmonious, again aware of it, and so on. Q. So one can never be happy? A. Happiness means balance, and balance in our state is impossible, taking balance in the sense of harmoniousness. We are always balanced in a certain way, but a wrong way. If we were harmonious in our present state, there would be no reason for us to change; so nature arranged it
very well that we cannot be harmonious such as we are, in order that we should not be happy in this state. Happiness is harmony between external circumstances and internal manifestations, and for us it is impossible, if by happiness you understand harmony. Q. Work seems to make one more unhappy. A. Study of the system, acquiring more control, cannot make one more unhappy. There is no abnegation in it. What one has to lose is imagination. Anything that is real is not an obstacle to awakening. It is the imaginary things that keep us asleep, and those we have to give up. Q. Are buffers due to education and surroundings? A. To many things; but the best buffers are created by self-education. Q. Does the system teach us to get rid of buffers? A. Yes, the system teaches us first to find them. Then, having found them, you may find methods for getting rid of them. You cannot begin to work on them before you know them. Q. How can one find buffers? A. One cannot find them unless one observes oneself in the right way. You must look for contradictions. Q. Must you find your own buffers or must you be shown? A. In any case you cannot be shown until you have done all you can for yourself. Otherwise people never believe it; they say, 'Anything but that!' Q. Is saying to oneself, 'I will do it to-morrow' a buffer? A. It is not a buffer, but a very good method of keeping the buffers going well. Q. You say that one must look for inconsistencies. I do see many of these, but I put them down to different 'I's? A. Yes, that is quite right. But when we are in one of these inconsistencies we are generally identified with one of these views and cannot see the other. When you are in neither, when you stand aside, you can say, 'Sometimes I look at it in this way and sometimes in that way', but when you are identified you cannot do that. You must try to break this identification. Q. Is to want and not to want at the same time a buffer? A. It is not a buffer. A buffer often takes the form of a strong conviction. For instance, one man I used to know was convinced that he loved all men. In reality he loved no one, but on the strength of this buffer he was free to be as unpleasant as he liked. It is a very safe and reliable buffer. Q. Can one learn about buffers by observing others? A. Yes, because that may help you to see buffers in yourself. But as things are seldom repeated literally, one would always see them only in others and not in oneself. But if one is prepared for it by finding these things in oneself first, by realizing one's mechanicalness, one could begin to see buffers. Q. When you see buffers, sometimes you seem to create others to justify yourself.
A. You cannot create buffers so easily. You can create lies and imaginings, but buffers are solid things, and creating them is a long process. Q. Can conscience only be understood when we experience higher emotion? A. No, as I said, conscience is a feeling possible for quite ordinary men without any school. It is a kind of inner feeling of truth in connection with one particular thing, or another thing, or a third thing. The connection may be wrong, but the feeling itself will be quite right. Q. Surely conscience is more than awareness of all one's emotions at a particular time, because it may alter one's resulting action. It seems to strengthen some emotions and weaken others. A. That is because you see them. This is the biggest of all possibilities, because when you see your different emotions about the same thing, and see them constantly, you will be horrified. Q. Isn't what we call conscience sometimes one 'I' disapproving of another? A. This is a very good observation of conscience in the ordinary sense of the word. But what I call conscience is a certain state in which we can be later. What is called conscience in ordinary life is simply certain associations. We are accustomed to think and do things in a certain way, and if for some reason we act in a different way, we have an unpleasant feeling which we call conscience. In reality conscience is a much deeper and stronger feeling, and when real conscience appears, you will see that it is not like anything you call conscience now. Q. Then the feeling we call conscience is wrong? A. Not necessarily wrong, but it is not the same thing. It can be attached to quite trivial things which have no particular moral value. Morality is always relative, conscience is absolute. Conscience is a special positive emotion. In our present state we have a very small trace of this emotion, sufficient to have a general feeling that something may be right and something else may be wrong, but insufficient to say definitely what is right and what is wrong. This has to be developed. At present the state of conscience we can have does not distinguish the big from the small, but later conscience may become quite a different method of cognition, an instrument of discrimination. Before conscience can be opened fully, we must have will, we must be able to 'do', to act according to the dictates of our conscience, otherwise, if conscience awoke fully in man in his present state he would be a most miserable being; he would not be able to forget, not able to adapt to things, and not able to change anything. Conscience destroys buffers, so that man finds himself defenceless against himself, and at the same time he has no will, so he cannot change, cannot do what he knows is right. So first he must develop will, otherwise he will find himself in a very unpleasant situation, beyond his control When he acquires
control, he may allow himself the luxury of conscience, but not before that. Q. What is the feeling of remorse which comes from having committed an action one feels is wrong? Is it conscience? A. No, conscience is different, more powerful, more all-embracing But even if one remembers moments of remorse, it is useful Only it is necessary to know on what the remorse is based Q. Is there a connection between essence and conscience? A There is a big connection, for both consciousness and conscience come from essence, but not our essence Our essence is simply mechanical Q. I suppose self-remembering does not necessarily bring with it moral uplift? A. It certainly brings another understanding, because when one becomes conscious, one understands the moral side of things better, for the opposite of morality is mechanicalness If one becomes more conscious, one will be able to control one's conduct Q. Can one's moral sense be useful or reliable in connection with one's conduct? A. It is difficult to speak in general, but the more you study the system the more you will see yourself There are many things that you can think are quite right, but which from the point of view of the system are quite wrong There are many things we do not know We can do much harm to ourselves, thinking that we are quite moral—actual harm, and not only in a moral sense The system, particularly in the later stages, has a much stricter code of rules, and at the same time it is perhaps more free than anything else But, as I said, you can always begin from the point of view of what is mechanical and what is conscious Q. I am still not clear what the function of conscience is? A. If the question is asked in this way, without adding anything else, all I can say is that if one does not have a definite aim, if one does not work for a certain definite purpose, the function of conscience is only to spoil life for a person who is unlucky enough to have it But if he works for a definite purpose, then conscience helps him to attain his aim Q. Is it not possible that, by acquiring certain knowledge and power through self remembering and other practices, man can use this power for evil purposes? A. You see, an inevitable part of the process of self-development is the awakening of conscience, and the awakening of conscience will prevent any possibility of using new powers for any wrong aim or purpose This must be definitely understood from the very beginning, because conscience, when it awakes, will not allow one to do anything selfish or contrary to other people's interests, or harmful to anybody— nothing, in fact, that we may consider wrong or evil And conscience has to be
awakened, because with unawakened conscience one will always make mistakes and will not see contradictions in oneself. Q. Does the following of a moral code in a sleeping state help us? A. We are not always equally asleep, and at moments when we are less asleep we can make certain decisions; and even in our sleeping state we can follow these decisions more or follow them less, or not follow them at all and be absolutely in the power of our sleeping state. Besides, if one follows certain conscious ideas, by this very process one becomes more awake. Q. When one is conscious, one can realize the contradictions. Does not that, to a certain extent, annihilate them? A. No, that would be too simple; you can see them and yet they will remain. It is one thing to see and another thing to do something, one thing to know and another to alter. Q. Is absolute truth only possible with objective consciousness? A. Truth exists without us, but one can know truth only in objective consciousness. Not 'absolute' truth, but simply truth, for truth does not need qualifications. In our state we cannot know truth with the exception of very simple things, and even then we make mistakes. Q. How can one recognize truth on our level? A. By coming to simple things. In simple things one can recognize truth; one can recognize what is a door and what is a wall, and one can bring every difficult question to the same thing. It means that you have to recognize a certain quality in quite simple principles and verify other things by these simple principles. This is why philosophy—just discussion of possibilities or the meaning of words—is excluded from this system. You must try to understand simple things, and you must learn to think in this way; then you will be able to bring everything to simple things. Take for instance self-remembering. You are given all the material; if you observe yourself, you will see that you did not remember yourself at that moment; you will notice that at some moments you remember yourself more and at some moments less, and you will decide that it is better to remember yourself. This means that you have found a door, that you see the difference between a door and a wall. Q. How to prolong states of conscience? A. First we must think not about how to prolong but how to create, because in our ordinary state we have not got it. When we create or awake it, it is certainly useful to keep it longer, although it is very unpleasant. But there are no direct methods for inducing it, so it is only by doing all that is possible that one can get this taste of conscience. Generally, one of the first conditions is a great sincerity with oneself. We are never sincere with ourselves. Q. How can one learn to be sincere with oneself? A. Only by trying to see oneself. Just think about yourself, not in
emotional moments, but in quiet moments, and do not justify yourself because generally we justify and explain everything by saying that it was inevitable, or that it was somebody else's fault, and so on. Q. I have been trying to be sincere, but I see now that I do not really know what to be sincere means. A. In order to be sincere it is not enough only to wish it. In many cases we do not wish to be sincere; but even if we wished we could not be. This must be understood. Being able to be sincere is a science. And even deciding to be sincere is very difficult, for we have many reservations. Only sincerity and complete recognition of the fact that we are slaves to mechanicalness and its inevitable results can help us to find and destroy buffers with the help of which we deceive ourselves. We can understand what mechanicalness is and all the horror of mechanicalness only when we do something horrible and fully realize that it was mechanicalness in us that made us do it. It is necessary to be very sincere with oneself to be able to see it. If we try to cover it, to find excuses and explanations, we will never realize it. It may hurt dreadfully, but we must bear it and try to understand that only by fully confessing it to ourselves can we avoid repeating it again and again. We can even change results by full and complete understanding and by not trying to hide it. We can escape from the tentacles of mechanicalness and break its force by big suffering. If we try to avoid suffering, if we are afraid of it, if we try to persuade ourselves that nothing bad really happened, that, after all, it is unimportant and that things can go on just as they were going before, not only shall we never escape, but we shall become more and more mechanical, and shall very soon come to a state when there will be no possibility for us and no chance.
CHAPTER VII Plurality of our being and absence of permanent 'I'—Five meanings of the word 'I'—Different personalities and likes and dislikes—Useless and useful personalities—Magnetic centre and Deputy Steward— Division of oneself into 'I' and 'Mr. X'—False personality—What is 'I'?—Study of false personality as means of learning to remember oneself—Efforts to struggle against false personality—Need of control—False personality and negative emotions—What is reliable and what is unreliable in oneself —Suffering and its use—Not saying 'I' indiscriminately—False personality distorts the ideas of the system—Chief feature or features—Necessity of knowing one's weaknesses—Static Triad—Valuation—Danger of becoming two— Crystallisation. Q. WHEN WE ASK HOW TO BE LESS MECHANICAL, we are told to be more awake. When we ask how to wake up, the answer is not to identify, and when we ask how not to identify, the answer is to self-remember. This seems to be a circle, each method being a counterpart of the other. Can we get any further help to attempt any or all of these? A. It is not exactly right, because each of these attempts has its own peculiar feature and taste. They are all different. It is necessary to try from all possible sides in order to break the wall. It is a very high and very hard wall that we have to break. But we do not begin with that—we begin with our plurality. When I first spoke of the many 'I's in us, I said that new 'I's jump up every moment, control things for a brief time and disappear, and many of them never meet. When you realize that you are not one, that you are many, that you may know something for certain in the morning and know nothing about it in the afternoon, then this realization is the beginning. I do not mean that if we realize this plurality we can change it and become different; but this realization is the first step. Q. I do not see why different likes should mean different 'I's or groups of 'I's? A. Because the same 'I' would be identical. When you say 'I', you think of the whole thing. In reality it is only a small part of you. We can exist only because we cannot put our whole capital into each 'I', otherwise we would be bankrupt. We only put pennies. Our 'I's are pennies. Suppose