In Search of the Miraculous

terrace where we had sat the evening before, G. was sitting

in the garden twenty yards away near a round table; there were three of our people

with him.

"Ask him what happened last night," said G.

For some reason this made me angry. I turned and walked towards the terrace. As I

reached it I again heard G.'s voice in my chest.

"Stop!"

I stopped and turned towards G. He was smiling.

"Where are you going, sit down here," he said in his ordinary voice.

I sat with him but I could say nothing, nor did I want to talk. At the same time I felt

a kind of extraordinary clarity of thought and I decided to try to concentrate on certain problems which had seemed to me to be particularly difficult. The thought came to

my mind that in this unusual state I might perhaps find answers to questions which I

could not find in the ordinary way.

I began to think about the first triad of the ray of creation, about the three forces

which made one force. What could they mean? Can we define them? Can we realize

their meaning? Something began to formulate itself in my head but just as I tried to

translate this into words everything disappeared.— Will, consciousness . . . and what was the third? I asked myself. It seemed to me that if I could name the third I would at once understand everything else.

"Leave it," said G. aloud.

I turned my eyes towards him and he looked at me.

"That is a very long way away yet," he said. "You cannot find the answer now.

Better think of yourself, of your work."

The people sitting with us looked at us in perplexity. G. had answered my thoughts.

Then something very strange began that lasted the whole day and afterwards. We

stayed in Finland three days longer. During these three days there were very many

talks about the most varied subjects. And I was in an unusual emotional state all the

time which sometimes began to be burdensome.

"How can this be got rid of? I cannot bear it any more," I asked G.

"Do you want to go to sleep?" said G.

"Certainly not," I said.

"Then what are you asking about? This is what you wanted, make use of it. You are not asleep at this moment!"

I do not think that this was altogether true. I undoubtedly "slept" at some moments.

Many things that I said at that time must have surprised my companions in this

strange adventure very much. And I was surprised at many things myself. Many

things were like sleep, many things had no relation whatever to reality. Undoubtedly I

invented a lot. Afterwards it was very strange for me to remember the things I had

said.

At length we went to St. Petersburg. G. went to Moscow and we went to the

Nikolaievsky Station straight from the Finland Station.

A fairly large company had met together to see him off. He went.

But the miraculous was still far from ended. There were new and very strange

phenomena again late in the evening of that day and I "conversed" with him while seeing him in the compartment of the train going to Moscow.

After this there followed a strange period of time. It lasted about three weeks. And

during this period from time to time I saw "sleeping people."

This requires a particular explanation.

Two or three days after G.'s departure I was walking along the Troitsky street and

suddenly I saw that the man who was walking towards me was asleep. There could be no doubt whatever about this. Although his eyes were open, he was walking along

obviously immersed in dreams which ran like clouds across his face. It entered my

mind that if I could look at him long enough I should see his dreams, that is, I should

understand what he was seeing in his dreams. But he passed on. After him came

another also sleeping. A sleeping izvostchik went by with two sleeping passengers.

Suddenly I found myself in the position of the prince in the "Sleeping Princess."

Everyone around me was asleep. It was an indubitable and distinct sensation. I

realized what it meant that many things could be seen with our eyes which we do not usually see. These sensations lasted for several minutes. Then they were repeated very

weakly on the following day. But I at once made the discovery that by trying to

remember myself I was able to intensify and prolong these sensations for so long as I had energy enough not to be diverted, that is, not to allow things and everything

around me to attract my attention. When attention was diverted I ceased to see

"sleeping people" because I had obviously gone to sleep myself. I told only a few of our people of these experiments and two of them when they tried to remember

themselves had similar experiences.

Afterwards everything became normal. I could not give myself a clear account of

what exactly had taken place. But everything in me had been turned upside down. And

there is no doubt that in the things I said and thought during these three weeks there

was a good deal of fantasy.

But I had seen myself, that is, I had seen things in myself that I had never seen