In Search of the Miraculous

in hypnotic sleep the case is otherwise; there are no objective characteristics, at any

rate not at the beginning of awakening; a man cannot pinch himself in order to make

sure that he is not asleep. And if, which God forbid, a man has heard anything about

objective characteristics, Kundalini at once transforms it all into imagination and dreams.

"Only a man who fully realizes the difficulty of awakening can understand the

necessity of long and hard work in order to awake.

"Speaking in general, what is necessary to awake a sleeping man? A good shock is

necessary. But when a man is fast asleep one shock is not enough. A long period of

continual shocks is needed. Consequently there must be somebody to administer these

shocks. I have said before that if a man wants to awaken he must hire somebody who

will keep on shaking him for a long time. But whom can he hire if everyone is asleep?

A man will hire somebody to wake him up but this one also falls asleep. What is the

use of such a man? And a man who. can really keep awake will probably refuse to

waste his time in waking others up: he may have his own much more important work

to do.

"There is also the possibility of being awakened by mechanical means. A man may

be awakened by an alarm clock. But the trouble is that a man gets accustomed to the

alarm clock far too quickly, he ceases to hear it. Many alarm clocks are necessary and

always new ones. Otherwise a man must surround himself with alarm clocks which

will prevent him sleeping. But here again there are certain difficulties. Alarm clocks

must be wound up; in order to wind them up one must remember about them; in order

to remember one must wake up often. But what is still worse, a man gets used to all

alarm clocks and after a certain time he only sleeps the better for them. Therefore

alarm clocks must be constantly changed, new ones must be continually invented. In

the course of time this may help a man to awaken. But there is very little chance of a

man doing all the work of winding up, inventing, and changing clocks all by himself,

without outside help. It is much more likely that he will begin this work and that it will afterwards pass into sleep, and in sleep he will dream of inventing alarm clocks, of

winding them up and changing them, and simply sleep all the sounder for it.

"Therefore, in order to awaken, a combination of efforts is needed. It is necessary

that somebody should wake "the man up; it is necessary that somebody should look

after the man who wakes him; it is necessary to have alarm clocks and it is also

necessary continually to invent new alarm clocks.

"But in order to achieve all this and to obtain results a certain number of people

must work together.

"One man can do nothing.

"Before anything else he needs help. But help cannot come to one man alone. Those

who are able to help put a great value on their time. And, of course, they would prefer

to help, say, twenty or thirty people who want to awake rather than one man.

Moreover, as has been said earlier, one man can easily deceive himself about his

awakening and take for awakening simply a new dream. If several people decide to

struggle together against sleep, they will wake each other. It may often happen that

twenty of them will sleep but the twenty-first will be awake and he will wake up the

rest. It is exactly the same thing with alarm clocks. One man will invent one alarm

clock, another man will invent another, afterwards they can make an exchange.

Altogether they can be of very great help one to another, and without this help no one

can attain anything.

"Therefore a man who wants to awake must look for other people who also want to

awake and work together with them. This, however, is easier said than done because

to start such work and to organize it requires a knowledge which an ordinary man

cannot possess. The work must be organized and it must have a leader. Only then can

it produce the results expected of it. Without these conditions no efforts can result in

anything whatever. Men may torture themselves but these tortures will not make them

awake. This is the most difficult of all for certain people to understand. By themselves

and on their own initiative they may be capable of great efforts and great sacrifices.

But because their first effort and their first sacrifice ought to be obedience nothing on earth will induce them to obey another. And they do not want to reconcile themselves

to the thought that all their efforts and all their sacrifices are useless.

"Work must be organized. And it can be organized only by a man who knows its

problems and its aims, who knows its methods; by a man who has in his time passed

through such organized work himself.

"A man usually begins his studies in a small group. This group is generally

connected with a whole series of similar groups on different levels which, taken

together, constitute what may be called a 'preparatory school.'

"The first and most important feature of groups is the fact that groups are not