In Search of the Miraculous

beauty, his cleverness, his wit, his presence of mind, his originality, and all his other qualities. Requirements in their turn are based on a completely fantastic notion about

themselves such as very often occurs with people of very modest appearance. Various

writers, actors, musicians, artists, and politicians, for instance, are almost without

exception sick people. And what are they suffering from? First of all from an

extraordinary' opinion of themselves, then from requirements, and then from

considering, that is, being ready and prepared beforehand to take offense at lack of

understanding and lack of appreciation.

"There is still another form of considering which can take a great deal of energy

from a man. This form starts with a man beginning to think that he is not considering another person enough, that this other person is offended with him for not

considering him sufficiently. And he begins to think himself that perhaps he does not

think enough about this other, does not pay him enough attention, does not give way

to him enough. All this is simply weakness. People are afraid of one another. But this

can lead very far. I have seen many such cases. In this way a man can finally lose his

balance, if at any time he had any, and begin to perform entirely senseless actions. He

gets angry with himself and feels that it is stupid, and he cannot stop, whereas in such

cases the whole point is precisely 'not to consider.'

"It is the same case, only perhaps worse, when a man considers that in his opinion

he 'ought' to do something when as a matter of fact he ought not to do so at all.

'Ought' and 'ought not' is also a difficult subject, that is, difficult to understand when a man really 'ought' and when he 'ought not.' This can be approached only from the

point of view of 'aim.' When a man has an aim he 'ought' to do only what leads

towards his aim and he 'ought not' to do anything that hinders him from going

towards his aim.

"As I have already said, people very often think that if they begin to struggle with considering within themselves it will make them 'insincere' and they are afraid of this

because they think that in this event they will be losing something, losing a part of

themselves. In this case the same thing takes place as in attempts to struggle against

the outward expression of unpleasant emotions. The sole difference is that in one case

a man struggles with the outward expression of emotions and in the other case with

an inner manifestation of perhaps the same emotions.

"This fear of losing sincerity is of course self-deception, one of those formulas of lying upon which human weaknesses are based. Man cannot help identifying and

considering inwardly and he cannot help expressing his unpleasant emotions, simply

because he is weak. Identifying, consid-

ering, the expressing of unpleasant emotions, are manifestations of his weakness, his

impotence, his inability to control himself. But not wishing to acknowledge this

weakness to himself, he calls it 'sincerity' or 'honesty' and he tells himself that he does not want to struggle against sincerity, whereas in fact he is unable to struggle against

his weaknesses.

"Sincerity and honesty are in reality something quite different. What a man calls

'sincerity' in this case is in reality simply being unwilling to restrain himself. And

deep down inside him a man is aware of this. But he lies to himself when he says that

he does not want to lose sincerity.

"So far I have spoken of internal considering. It would be possible to bring forward many more examples. But you must do this yourselves, that is, you must seek these

examples in your observations of yourselves and of others.

"The opposite of internal considering and what is in part a means of fighting against it is external considering. External considering is based upon an entirely different

relationship towards people than internal considering. It is adaptation towards people,

to their understanding, to their requirements. By considering externally a man does

that which makes life easy for other people and for himself. External considering

requires a knowledge of men, an understanding of their tastes, habits, and prejudices.

At the same time external considering requires a great power over oneself, a great

control over oneself. Very often a man desires sincerely to express or somehow or other show to another man what he really thinks of him or feels about him. And if he

is a weak man he will of course give way to this desire and afterwards justify himself

and say that he did not want to lie, did not want to pretend, he wanted to be sincere.

Then he convinces himself that it was the other man's fault. He really wanted to

consider him, even to give way to him, not to quarrel, and so on. But the other man

did not at all want to consider him so that nothing could be done with him. It very

often happens that a man begins with a blessing and ends with a curse. He begins by