In Search of the Miraculous

decisions, that they can change or, in general, do anything. This for him is not being

serious. And an understanding of what is not serious can help him to value that which

is serious."

We often returned to questions on the difficulties of the way. Our own experience

of communal life and work constantly threw us up against newer and newer

difficulties that lay in ourselves.

"The whole thing is in being ready to sacrifice one's freedom," said G. "A man consciously and unconsciously struggles for freedom as he imagines it and this, more

than anything else, prevents him from attaining real freedom. But a man who is

capable of attaining anything comes sooner or later to the conclusion that his freedom

is illusion and he agrees to sacrifice this illusion. He voluntarily becomes a slave. He

does what he is told, says what he is told, and thinks what he is told. He is not afraid

of losing anything because he knows that he has nothing. And in this way he acquires

everything. Everything in him that was real in his understanding, in his sympathies,

tastes, and desires, all comes back to him accompanied by new things which he did

not have and could not have had before, together with a feeling of unity and will

within him. But to arrive at this point, a man must pass through the hard way of

slavery and obedience. And if he wants results he must obey not only outwardly but

inwardly. This requires a great determination, and determination requires a great

understanding of the fact that there is no other way, that a man can do nothing himself, but that at the same time, something has to be done.

"When a man comes to the conclusion that he cannot, and does not desire, to live

any longer in the way he has lived till then; when he really sees everything that his

life is made up of and decides to work, he must be truthful with himself in order not to

fall into a still worse position. Because there is nothing worse than to begin work on

oneself and then leave it and find oneself between two stools; it is much better not to

begin. And in order not to begin in vain or risk being deceived on one's own account a

man should test his decision many times. And principally he must know how far he is

willing to go, what he is willing to sacrifice. There is nothing more easy to say than

everything. A man can never sacrifice everything and this can never be required of him. But

he must define exactly what he is willing to sacrifice and not bargain about it

afterwards. Or it will be the same with him as with the wolf in the Armenian fairy tale.

"Do you know the Armenian fairy tale of the wolf and the sheep?

"Once there lived a wolf who slaughtered a great many sheep and reduced many

people to tears.

"At length, I do not know why, he suddenly felt qualms of conscience and began to

repent his life; so he decided to reform and to slaughter no more sheep.

"In order to do this seriously he went to a priest and asked him to hold a

thanksgiving service.

"The priest began the service and the wolf stood weeping and praying in the church.

The service was long. The wolf had slaughtered many of the priest's sheep, therefore

the priest prayed earnestly that the wolf would indeed reform. Suddenly the wolf

looked through a window and saw that sheep were being driven home. He began to

fidget but the priest went on and on without end.

"At last the wolf could contain himself no longer and he shouted:

"'Finish it, priest! Or all the sheep will be driven home and I shall be left without supper!'

"This is a very good fairy tale because it describes man very well. He is ready to

sacrifice everything, but after all today's dinner is a different matter.

"A man always wishes to begin with something big. But this is impossible; there

can be no choice, we must begin with the things of today."

I quote one talk as being a very characteristic example of G.'s methods. We were

walking in the park. There were five of us besides G. One of us asked him what his

views on astrology were, whether there was anything of value in the more or less

known theories of astrology.

"Yes," said G., "it depends upon how they are understood. They can be of value and they can be without value. Astrology deals with only one part of man, with his type,

his essence—it does not deal with personality, with acquired qualities. If you

understand this you understand what is of value in astrology."

There had been talks in our groups about types before and it seemed to us that the

science of types was the most difficult thing in the study of man because G. gave us

very little material and required of us our own observations of ourselves and others.

We continued to walk and G. continued to speak trying to explain what there was in

man that could depend upon planetary influences and what could not.

As we left the park G. stopped talking and was going a few steps ahead of us. We

five walked behind him talking together. In going round a tree G. dropped the stick—