In Search of the Miraculous

feature or chief fault. We shall then see whether you will understand me or not."

One very interesting conversation took place at this time. I felt very strongly

everything that took place at that time; especially strongly did I feel that in spite of

every effort I was unable to remember myself for any length of time. At first

something seemed to be successful, but later it all went and I felt without any doubt

the deep sleep in which I was immersed. Failures in attempts to relate the story of my

life, and especially the fact that I even failed to understand clearly what G. wanted,

still further increased my bad mood which, however, as always with me, expressed

itself not in depression, but in irritation.

In this state I came once to lunch with G. in a restaurant on the Sadovaya opposite

the Gostinoy Dvor. I was probably very curt or on the contrary very silent.

"What is the matter with you today?" asked G.

"I myself do not know," said I, "only I am beginning to feel that with us nothing is being achieved, or rather, that I am achieving nothing. I cannot speak about others.

But I cease to understand you and you no longer explain anything as you used to

explain it in the beginning. And I feel that in this way nothing will be achieved."

"Wait a little," said G. "Soon conversations will start. Try to under-

stand me; up to now we have been trying to find each thing's place. Soon we shall

begin to call things by their proper names."

G.'s words remained in my memory, but I did not go into them, and continued my

own thoughts.

"What does it matter," I said, "how we shall call things when I can connect nothing together? You never answer any questions I ask."

"Very well," said G., laughing. "I promise to answer now any question you care to ask, as it happens in fairy tales."

I felt that he wanted to draw me out of my bad mood and I was inwardly grateful to

him, although something in me refused to be mollified.

And suddenly I remembered that I wanted above all to know what G. thought about

"eternal recurrence," about the repetition of lives, as I understood it. I had many times tried to start a conversation about this and to tell G. my views. But these

conversations had always remained almost monologues. G. had listened in silence and

then begun to talk of something else.

"Very well," I said, "tell me what you think of recurrence. Is there any truth in this, or none at all. What I mean is: Do we live only this once and then disappear, or does

everything repeat and repeat itself, perhaps an endless number of times, only we do

not know and do not remember it?"

"This idea of repetition," said G., "is not the full and absolute truth, but it is the nearest possible approximation of the truth. In this case truth cannot be expressed in

words. But what you say is very near to it. And if you understand why I do not speak

of this, you will be still nearer to it. What is the use of a man knowing about

recurrence if he is not conscious of it and if he himself does not change? One can say

even that if a man does not change, repetition does not exist for him. If you tell him

about repetition, it will only increase his sleep. Why should he make any efforts today

when there is so much time and so many possibilities ahead—the whole of eternity?

Why should he bother today? This is exactly why the system does not say anything

about repetition and takes only this one life which we know. The system has neither

meaning nor sense without striving for self-change. And work on self-change must

begin today, immediately. All laws can be seen in one life. Knowledge about the

repetition of lives will add nothing for a man if he does not see how everything

repeats itself in one life, that is, in this life, and if he does not strive to change himself in order to escape this repetition. But if he changes something essential in himself,

that is, if he attains something, this cannot be lost"

"Is the conclusion right that all the tendencies that are created or formed must

grow?" I asked.

"Yes and no," said G. "This is true in most cases, just as it is true in

one life. But on a big scale new forces may enter. I shall not explain this now; but

think about what I am going to say: Planetary influences also can change. They are not

permanent. Besides this, tendencies themselves can be different; there are tendencies

which, once they have appeared, continue and develop by themselves mechanically,

and there are others which need constant pushing and which immediately weaken and

may vanish altogether or turn into dreaming if a man ceases to work on them.

Moreover there is a definite time, a definite term, for everything. Possibilities for everything" (he emphasized these words) "exist only for a definite time."

I was extremely interested in everything G. said. Much of this I had "guessed"

before. But the fact that he recognized my fundamental premises and all that he

brought into them had for me a tremendous importance. Everything began