In Search of the Miraculous

Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people.

What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil. But this is so only for

those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are asleep.

Those who do not understand that they are asleep and those who can have no wish to

awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil. And as the overwhelming

majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are asleep, neither

good nor evil can actually exist for them.

"This contradicts generally accepted ideas. People are accustomed to think that

good and evil must be the same for everyone, and above all that good and evil exist

for everyone. In reality, however, good and evil exist only for a few, for those who

have an aim and who pursue that aim. Then what hinders the pursuit of that aim is

evil and what helps is good.

"But of course most sleeping people will say that they have an aim and that they are going somewhere. The realization of the fact that he has no aim and that he is not

going anywhere is the first sign of the approaching awakening of a man or of

awakening becoming really possible for him. Awakening begins when a man realizes

that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.

"As has been explained before, there are many qualities which men attribute to

themselves, which in reality can belong only to people of a higher degree of

development and of a higher degree of evolution than man number one, number two,

and number three. Individuality, a single and permanent I, consciousness, will, the

ability to do, a state of inner freedom, all these are qualities which ordinary man does not possess. To the same category belongs the idea of good and evil, the very

existence of which is connected with a permanent aim, with a permanent direction and a permanent center of gravity.

"The idea of good and evil is sometimes connected with the idea of truth and

falsehood. But just as good and evil do not exist for ordinary man, neither do truth and

falsehood exist.

"Permanent truth and permanent falsehood can exist only for a permanent man. If a

man himself continually changes, then for him truth and falsehood will also

continually change. And if people are all in different states at every given moment,

their conceptions of truth must be as varied as their conceptions of good. A man never

notices how he begins to regard as true what yesterday he considered as false and vice

versa. He does not notice these transitions just as he does not notice the transitions of his own I's one into another.

"In the life of an ordinary man truth and falsehood have no moral value of any kind

because a man can never keep to one single truth. His truth changes. If for a certain

time it does not change, it is simply because it is kept by 'buffers.' And a man can

never tell the truth. Sometimes 'it tells' the truth, sometimes 'it tells' a lie.

Consequently his truth and his falsehood have no value; neither of them depends upon

him, both of them depend upon accident. And this is equally true when applied to a

man's words, to his thoughts, his feelings, and to his conceptions of truth and

falsehood.

"In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life a man must

understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.

"These lies are created by 'buffers' In order to destroy the lies in oneself as well as lies told unconsciously to others, 'buffers' must be destroyed. But then a man cannot

live without 'buffers.' 'Buffers' automatically control a man's actions, words, thoughts, and feelings. If 'buffers' were to be destroyed all control would disappear. A man cannot exist without control even though it is only automatic control. Only a man who

possesses will, that is, conscious control, can live without 'buffers.' Consequently, if a man begins to destroy 'buffers' within himself he must at the same time develop a will.

And as will cannot be created to order in a short space of time a man may be left with

'buffers' demolished and with a will that is not as yet sufficiently strengthened. The

only chance he has during this period is to be controlled by another will which has

already been strengthened.

"This is why in school work, which includes the destruction of 'buffers,' a man

must be ready to obey another man's will so long as his own will is not yet fully

developed. Usually this subordination to another man's will is studied before anything

else. I use the word 'studied' because a man must understand why such obedience is

necessary and he must learn to obey. The latter is not at all easy. A man beginning the

work of self-study with the object of attaining control over himself is accustomed to

believe in his own decisions. Even the fact that he has seen the necessity for changing

himself shows him that his decisions are correct and strengthens his belief in them.