In Search of the Miraculous

deliberately, with his mind, following every movement, and he will see that the

quality of his work will change immediately. If he is typing, his fingers, controlled by

his moving center, find the necessary letters themselves, but if he tries to ask himself

before every letter: 'Where is "k"?' 'Where is the comma?' 'How is this word spelled?'

he at once begins to make mistakes or to write very slowly. If one drives a car with

the help of one's mind, one can go only in the lowest gear. The mind cannot keep pace

with all the movements necessary for developing a greater speed. To drive at full

speed, especially in the streets of a large town, while steering with the help of one's

mind is absolutely impossible for an ordinary man.

"Moving center working for thinking center produces, for example, mechanical

reading or mechanical listening, as when a man reads or listens to nothing but words

and is utterly unconscious of what he is reading or hearing. This generally happens

when attention, that is, the direction of the thinking center's activity, is occupied with something else and when the moving center is trying to replace the absent thinking

center;

but this very easily becomes a habit, because the thinking center is generally

distracted not by useful work, by thought, or by contemplation, but simply by

daydreaming or by imagination.

"'Imagination' is one of the principal sources of the wrong work of centers. Each

center has its own form of imagination and daydreaming, but as a rule both the

moving and the emotional centers make use of the thinking center which very readily

places itself at their disposal for this purpose, because daydreaming corresponds to its

own inclinations. Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of 'useful' mental activity.

'Useful' in this case means activity directed towards a definite aim and undertaken for

the sake of obtaining a definite result. Daydreaming does not pursue any aim, does not

strive after any result. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional or in

the moving center. The actual process is carried on by the thinking center. The

inclination to daydream is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center, that is, its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite aim and

going in a definite direction, and partly to the tendency of the emotional and the

moving centers to repeat to themselves, to keep alive or to recreate experiences, both

pleasant and unpleasant, that have been previously lived through or 'imagined.'

Daydreaming of disagreeable, morbid things is very characteristic of the unbalanced

state of the human machine, After all, one can understand daydreaming of a pleasant

kind and find logical justification for it. Daydreaming of an unpleasant character is an

utter absurdity. And yet many people spend nine tenths of their lives in just such

painful daydreams about misfortunes which may overtake them or their family, about

illnesses they may contract or sufferings they will have to endure. Imagination and

daydreaming are instances of the wrong work of the thinking center.

"Observation of the activity of imagination and daydreaming forms a very

important part of self-study.

"The next object of self-observation must be habits in general. Every grown-up man

consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having

any habits at all. This can never be the case. All three centers are filled with habits and a man can never know himself until he has studied all his habits. The observation and

the study of habits is particularly difficult because, in order to see and 'record' them, one must escape from them, free oneself from them, if only for a moment. So long as

a man is governed by a particular habit, he does not observe it, but at the very first

attempt, however feeble, to struggle against it, he feels it and notices it. Therefore in order to observe and study habits one must try to struggle against them. This opens up

a practical method of self-observation. It has been said before that a man cannot

change anything in himself, that he can only observe and 'record.' This is true. But it is also true that a man cannot observe and 'record' anything if he does not try to struggle

with himself, that is, with his habits. This struggle cannot yield direct results, that is to say, it cannot lead to any change, especially to any permanent and lasting change. But

it shows what is

there. Without a struggle a man cannot see what he consists of. The struggle with

small habits is very difficult and boring, but without it self-observation is impossible.

"Even at the first attempt to study the elementary activity of the moving center a

man comes up against habits. For instance, a man may want to study his movements,

may want to observe how he walks. But he will never succeed in doing so for more

than a moment if he continues to walk in the usual way. But if he understands that his