In Search of the Miraculous

any value. But let us begin with the first question, or the first aim.

"In order to know the future it is necessary first to know the present in all its details, as well as to know the past. Today is what it is because yesterday was what it was.

And if today is like yesterday, tomorrow will be like today. If you want tomorrow to

be different, you must make today different. If today is simply a consequence of

yesterday, tomorrow will be a consequence of today in exactly the same way. And if

one has studied thoroughly what happened yesterday, the day before yesterday, a

week ago, a year, ten years ago, one can say unmistakably what will and what will not

happen tomorrow. But at present we have not sufficient material at our disposal to

discuss this question seriously. What happens or may happen to us may depend upon

three causes: upon accident, upon fate, or upon our own will. Such as we are, we are

almost wholly dependent upon accident. We can have no fate in the real sense of the

word any more than we can have will. If we had will, then through this alone we

should know the future, because we should then make our future, and make it such as

we want it to be. If we had fate, we could also know the future, because fate

corresponds to type. If the type is known, then its fate can be known, that is, both the

past and the future. But accidents cannot be foreseen. Today a man is one, tomorrow

he is different: today one thing happens to him, tomorrow another."

"But are you not able to foresee what is going to happen to each of us," somebody asked, "that is to say, foretell what result each of us will reach in work on himself and whether it is worth his while to begin work?"

"It is impossible to say," said G. "One can only foretell the future for men. It is impossible to foretell the future for mad machines. Their direction changes every moment. At one moment a machine of this kind is going in one direction and you can

calculate where it can get to, but five minutes later it is already going in quite a

different direction and all your calculations prove to be wrong. Therefore, before

talking about knowing the future, one must know whose future is meant. If a man

wants to know his own future he must first of all know himself. Then he will see

whether it is worth his while to know the future. Sometimes, maybe, it is better not to

know it.

"It sounds paradoxical but we have every right to say that we know our future. It

will be exactly the same as our past has been. Nothing can change of itself.

"And in practice, in order to study the future one must learn to notice and to

remember the moments when we really know the future and when we act in

accordance with this knowledge. Then judging by results, it will be possible to

demonstrate that we really do know the future. This happens in a simple way in

business, for instance. Every good commercial businessman knows the future. If he

does not know the future his business goes smash. In work on oneself one must be a

good businessman, a good merchant. And knowing the future is worth while only

when a man can be his own master.

"There was a question here about the future life, about how to create it, how to

avoid final death, how not to die.

"For this it is necessary 'to be' If a man is changing every minute, if there is nothing in him that can withstand external influences, it means that there is nothing in him that can withstand death. But if he becomes independent of external influences, if there

appears in him something that can live by itself, this something may not die. In ordinary circumstances we die every moment. External influences change and we

change with them, that is, many of our I's die. If a man develops in himself a permanent I that can survive a change in external conditions, it can survive the death of the physical body. The whole secret is that one cannot work for a future life without

working for this one. In working for life a man works for death, or rather, for

immortality. Therefore work for immor-

tality, if one may so call it, cannot be separated from general work. In attaining the

one, a man attains the other. A man may strive to be simply for the sake of his own life's interests. Through this alone he may become immortal. We do not speak

specially of a future life and we do not study whether it exists or not, because the laws are everywhere the same. In studying his own life as he knows it, and the lives of

other men, from birth to death, a man is studying all the laws which govern life and

death and immortality. If he becomes the master of his life, he may become the master

of his death.

"Another question was how to become a Christian.

"First of all it is necessary to understand that a Christian is not a man who calls

himself a Christian or whom others call a Christian. A Christian is one who lives in

accordance with Christ's precepts. Such as we are we cannot be Christians. In order to