In Search of the Miraculous

The method of exposition of which I am speaking, and G.'s suppressions in his first

talks, resulted in the creation of such misunderstanding, more particularly in later

groups not connected with my work.

Many people found contradictions between the first exposition of a given idea and

subsequent explanations and sometimes, in trying to hold as closely as possible to the

first, they created fantastic theories having no relation to what G. actually said. Thus

the idea of three centers was retained by certain groups (which, I repeat, were not connected with me). And this idea was, in some way, linked up with the idea of three

forces, with which in reality it had no connection, first of all because there are not three centers but five in the ordinary man.

This uniting of two ideas of an entirely different order, scale, and significance gave

rise to many further misunderstandings and completely distorted the whole system for

those who thought in this manner.

It is possible that the idea of the three centers (intellectual, emotional, and moving)

being the expression of the three forces arose from G.'s wrongly repeated and wrongly

received remarks on the relationship to each other of the three centers of the lower

story.

During the first and subsequent talks on centers G. added something new at almost

every talk. As I said in the beginning he spoke first of three centers, then of four, then of five, and afterwards of seven centers.

Parts of centers hardly came into these talks. G. said that centers were divided into

positive and negative parts, but he did not point out that this division was not identical for all the different centers. Then he said that each center was divided into three parts or three stories which, in their turn, were also divided into three; but he gave no examples, nor did he point out that observation of attention made it possible to distinguish the work of parts .of centers. All this and much else besides was established later. For instance, although he undoubtedly gave the fundamental basis for the study

of the role and the significance of negative emotions, as well as methods of struggling

against them, referring to non-identification, non-considering, and not expressing

negative emotions, he did not complete these theories or did not explain that negative

emotions were entirely unnecessary and that no normal center for them existed.

I shall, further on, reproduce the talks and lectures of the St. Petersburg and later

groups in the way I remember them while endeavoring to avoid what has already been

given in the first and second series of lectures. But it is impossible to avoid repetition in certain cases and the original exposition of the ideas of the system in the way G.

gave them is, in my opinion, of great interest.

Somebody asked at a meeting:

"How should evolution be understood?"

"The evolution of man," G. replied, "can be taken as the development in him of those powers and possibilities which never develop by themselves, that is,

mechanically. Only this kind of development, only this kind of growth, marks the real

evolution of man. There is, and there can be, no other kind of evolution whatever.

"We have before us man at the present moment of his development. Nature has

made him such as he is, and, in large masses, so far as we can see, such he will

remain. Changes likely to violate the general requirements of nature can only take

place in separate units.

"In order to understand the law of man's evolution it is necessary to grasp that,

beyond a certain point, this evolution is not at all necessary, that is to say, it is not necessary for nature at a given moment in its own development. To speak more

precisely: the evolution of mankind corresponds to the evolution of the planets, but

the evolution of the planets proceeds, for us, in infinitely prolonged cycles of time.

Throughout the stretch of time that human thought can embrace, no essential changes

can take place in the life of the planets, and, consequently, no essential changes can

take place in the life of mankind.

"Humanity neither progresses nor evolves. What seems to us to be progress or

evolution is a partial modification which can be immediately counterbalanced by a

corresponding modification in an opposite direction.

"Humanity, like the rest of organic life, exists on earth for the needs and purposes of the earth. And it is exactly as it should be for the earth's requirements at the present time.

"Only thought as theoretical and as far removed from fact as modem European

thought could have conceived the evolution of man to be possible apart from

surrounding nature, or have regarded the evolution of man as a gradual conquest of nature. This is quite impossible. In living, in dying, in evolving, in degenerating, man equally serves the purposes of nature—or, rather, nature makes equal use, though

perhaps for different purposes, of the products of both evolution and degeneration.