In Search of the Miraculous

I cannot say that my idea met with much approval. Most of them did not realize the

gravity of the situation and to them it seemed possible that everything might yet calm

down and become normal. Others were in the grip of the customary illusion that

everything that happens is for the best. To them my words seemed to be exaggeration;

at all events they saw no need for haste. For others the main difficulty was that we had

heard nothing from G. and had had no news of him for a long time. Since the

revolution there had only been one letter from Moscow and from this it was possible

to gather that G. had gone away but no one knew where. Finally we decided to wait.

At that time there were two groups numbering about forty persons in all and there

were also some separate groups which met at irregular intervals.

Soon after the meeting at Dr. S.'s house I received a postcard from G. written a

month before in the train on the way from Moscow to the Caucasus which had been

lying all that time at the post office owing to the prevailing disorders. It was evident

from the postcard that G. had left Moscow before the revolution and as yet knew

nothing of events

when he wrote it. He wrote that he was going to Alexandropol; he asked me to

continue the work of the groups until his arrival and he promised to return by Easter.

This communication faced me with a very difficult problem. I thought it senseless

and stupid to stay in Russia. At the same time I did not want to leave without G.'s

consent or, to speak more truthfully, without him. And he had gone to the Caucasus,

and his card, written in February, that is, before the revolution, could have no relation to the present situation. At length I again decided to wait although I saw that what was

possible today might become impossible tomorrow.

Easter came—there was no news whatever from G. A week after Easter came a

telegram in which he said he was arriving in May. The first "provisional government"

came to an end. It was already more difficult to get abroad. Our groups continued to

meet and awaited G.

Our conversations used often to come back to the "diagrams," especially when we had to talk to new people in our groups. It seemed to me the whole time that in these

"diagrams" which we had got from G. there was a good deal left unsaid and I often thought that perhaps gradually with a deeper study of the "diagrams," their inner meaning and significance would be revealed to us.

Once when looking through some notes, made the year before, I paused at the

"cosmoses." I wrote earlier that the "cosmoses" particularly attracted me because they coincided completely with the "period of dimensions" of the New Model of the Universe. I mentioned also the difficulties which arose for us at one time in

connection with the different understanding of the "Microcosmos" and the

"Tritocosmos." But by this time we had already decided to understand "man" as the

"Microcosmos" and organic life on earth as the "Tritocosmos." And in the last conversation G. silently approved of this. G.'s words about different time in different

cosmoses intrigued me very much. And I tried to remember what P. had said to me

about our "sleep and waking" and about the "breath of organic life." For a long time I could make nothing of it. Then I remembered G.'s words that "time is breath."

"'What is breath?" I asked myself.

"Three seconds. Man in a normal state takes about twenty full breaths, that is

inhalations and exhalations, to the minute. Consequently a full breath takes about

three seconds.

"Why are 'sleep and waking' the 'breath of organic life'? What are sleep and

waking?

"For man and for all organisms commensurable with him and living in similar

conditions to him, even for plants, this is twenty-four hours.

Besides this, sleep and waking are breath, as for instance plants when asleep, that is, at night, exhale, and when awake, that is, by day, inhale;

in exactly the same way for all mammals as well as for man there is a difference in

the absorption of oxygen and CO2 by night and day, in sleep and waking."

Reasoning in this way I arranged the periods of breath and of sleep and waking in

the following way:

Microcosmos breath

3 seconds

sleep and waking

24 hours

Tritocosmos

breath

24 hours

sleep and waking

?

TABLE 5

I obtained a simple "rule of three." By dividing 24 hours by 3 seconds I got 28, 800. By dividing 28, 800 (days and nights) by 365 I got within a small fraction 79

years. This interested me. Seventy-nine years, continuing the former reasoning, made

up the sleep and waking of "organic life." This did not correspond to anything that I could think of in organic life, but it represented the life of man.

"Could one not continue the parallel further?" I asked myself. I arranged the figures I had obtained in the following way:

Microcosmos

Tritocosmos

Mesocosmos

Man

Organic Life

Earth

Breath:

Breath:

Breath:

3 secs.

24 hours

79 years

Day and Night:

Day and Night:

24 hours

79 years

Life:

79 years

TABLE 6