In Search of the Miraculous

whole, in which case the whole group is responsible for their execution or their nonexecution, although in some cases the group is also responsible for individual tasks.

But first we will take general tasks. For instance, you ought by now to have some

understanding as to the nature of the system and its principal methods, and you ought

to be able to pass these ideas on to others. You will remember that at the beginning I

was against your talking about the ideas of the system outside the groups. On the

contrary there was a definite rule that none of you, excepting those whom I specially

instructed to do so, should talk to anyone either about the groups or the lectures or the ideas. And I explained then why this was necessary. You would not have been able to

give a correct picture, a correct impression. Instead of giving people the possibility of coming to these ideas you would have repelled them for ever; you would have even

deprived them of the possibility of coming to them at any later time. But now the

situation is different. You have already heard enough. And if you really have made

efforts to understand what you have heard, then you should be able to pass it on to

others. Therefore I give you all a definite task.

"Try to lead conversations with your friends and acquaintances up to these subjects, try to prepare those who show interest and, if they ask you to, bring them to the

meetings. But everyone must realize that this is his own task and not expect others to

do it for him. The proper performance of this task by each of you will show first, that

you have already assimilated something, understood something, and second, that you

are able to appraise people, to understand with whom it is worth while talking and

with whom it is not worth while, because the majority of people cannot take in any of

these ideas and it is perfectly useless to talk to them. But at the same time there are

people who are able to take in these ideas and with whom it is worth while talking."

The next meeting after this was very interesting. Everyone was full of impressions

of talks with friends; everyone had a great many questions;

everyone was somewhat discouraged and disappointed.

It proved that friends and acquaintances asked very shrewd questions to which most

of bur people had no answers. They asked for instance what we had got from the work

and openly expressed doubts as to our "remembering ourselves." On the other hand others had themselves no doubt whatever that they "remembered themselves." Others found the "ray of creation" and the "seven cosmoses" ridiculous and useless; "What has 'geography' to do with this?" very wittily asked one of my friends parody-ing a sentence from an amusing play which had been running shortly before this;

others asked who had seen the centers and how they could be seen; others found

absurd the idea that we could not "do." Others found the idea of esotericism

"entertaining but not convincing." Others said that this idea in general was a "new invention." Others were not prepared to sacrifice their descent from apes. Others found that there was no idea of the "love of mankind" in the system. Others said that our ideas were thorough-going materialism, that we wanted to make people machines, that

there was no idea of the miraculous, no idealism, and so on, and so on.

G. laughed when we recounted to him our conversations with our friends.

"This is nothing," he said. "If you were to put together everything that people are able to say about this system, you would not believe in it yourselves. This system has

a wonderful property: even a mere contact with it calls forth either the best or the

worst in people. You may know a man all your life and think that he is not a bad

fellow, that he is even rather intelligent. Try speaking to him about these ideas and

you will see at once that he is an utter fool. Another man, on the other hand, might

appear to have nothing in him, but speak to him on these subjects and you find that he

thinks, and thinks very seriously."

"How can we recognize people who are able to come to the work?" asked one of

those present.

"How to recognize them is another question," said G. "To do this it is necessary to a certain extent 'to be.' But before speaking of this we must establish what kind of

people are able to come to the work and what kind are not able.

"You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain

luggage. He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channels about the ideas of esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner

evolution of man, and so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to

him as something entirely new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful

also if he has at least some scientific or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and