In Search of the Miraculous

reality, however, there exist between them great differences in the forms and methods

of their perception. Some perceive chiefly through their mind, others through their

feeling, and others through sensation. It is very difficult, almost impossible for men of different categories and of different modes of perception to understand one another,

because they call one and the same thing by different names, and they call different

things by the same name. Besides this, various other combinations are possible. One

man perceives by thoughts and sensations, another by thoughts and feelings, and so

on. One or another mode of perception is immediately connected with one or another

kind of reaction to external events. The result of this difference in perception and

reaction to external events is expressed in the first place by the fact that people do not understand one another and in the second by the fact that they do not understand

themselves. Very often a man calls his thoughts or his intellectual perceptions his

feelings, calls his feelings his thoughts, and his sensations his feelings. This last is the most common. If two people perceive the same thing differently, let us say that one

perceives it through feeling and another through sensation—they may argue all their

lives and never understand in what consists the difference of their attitude to a given

object. Actually, one sees one aspect of it, and the other a different aspect.

"In order to find a way of discriminating we must understand that every normal

psychic function is a means or an instrument of knowledge. With the help of the mind

we see one aspect of things and events, with the help of emotions another aspect, with

the help of sensations a third aspect. The most complete knowledge of a given subject

possible for us can only be obtained if we examine it simultaneously with our mind,

feelings, and sensations. Every man who is striving after right knowledge must aim at

the possibility of attaining such perception. In ordinary conditions man sees the world

through a crooked, uneven window. And even if he realizes this, he cannot alter

anything. This or that mode of perception depends upon the work of his organism as a

whole. All functions are interconnected and counterbalance one another, all functions

strive to keep one another in the state in which they are. Therefore when a man begins

to study himself he must understand that if he discovers in himself something that he

dislikes he will not be able to change it. To study is one thing, and to change is

another. But study is the first step towards the possibility of change in the future. And in the beginning, to study himself he must understand that for a long time all his work

will consist in study only.

"Change under ordinary conditions is impossible, because, in wanting to change

something a man wants to change this one thing only. But everything in the machine

is interconnected and every function is inevitably counterbalanced by some other

function or by a whole series of other functions, although we are not aware of this

interconnection of the various functions within ourselves. The machine is balanced in

all its details at every moment of its activity. If a man observes in himself something

that he dislikes and begins making efforts to alter it, he may succeed in obtaining a

certain result. But together with this result he will inevitably obtain another result,

which he did not in the least expect or desire and which he could not have suspected.

By striving to destroy and annihilate everything that he dislikes, by making efforts to

this end, he upsets the balance of the machine. The machine strives to re-establish the

balance and re-establishes it by creating a new function which the man could not have

foreseen. For instance, a man may observe that he is very absent-minded, that he

forgets everything, loses everything, and so on. He begins to struggle with this habit

and, if he is sufficiently methodical and determined, he succeeds, after a time, in

attaining the desired result: he ceases to forget and to lose things. This he notices, but there is something else he does not notice, which other people notice, namely, that he

has grown irritable, pedantic, fault-finding, disagreeable. Irritability has appeared as

the result of his having lost his absent-mindedness. Why? It is impossible to say. Only

detailed analysis of a particular man's mental qualities can show why the loss of one

quality has caused the appearance of another. This does not mean that loss of absentmindedness must necessarily give rise to irritability. It is just as easy for some other characteristic to appear that has no relation to absent-mindedness at all, for instance

Stinginess or envy or something else.

"So that if one is working on oneself properly, one must consider the possible

supplementary changes, and take them into account beforehand. Only in this way is it

possible to avoid undesirable changes, or the appearance of qualities which are utterly