everything that they call ideas, convictions, views, conceptions of the world, has all been pilfered from various sources. And all of it together makes up personality and must be cast aside."
"But you yourself said that work begins with personality," said someone there.
"Quite true," replied G. "Therefore we must first of all establish of what precisely we are speaking—of what moment in a man's development and of what level of being. Just now I was simply speaking of a man in life who had no connection whatever with the work. Such a man, particularly if he belongs to the 'intellectual' classes, is almost entirely composed of personality. In most cases his essence ceases to develop at a very early age. I know respected fathers of families, professors full of various ideas, well- known authors, important officials who were almost ministers, whose essence had stopped developing approximately at the age of twelve. And that is not so bad. It sometimes happens that certain aspects of essence stop at five or six years of age and then everything ends; all the rest is not their own; it is repertoire, or taken from books;
or it has been created by imitating ready-made models."
After this there were many conversations, in which G. took part, during which we tried to find out the reason for our failure to fulfill the task set by G. But the more we talked the less we understood what he actually wanted from us.
"This only shows to what extent you do not know yourselves," said G. "I do not doubt that at least some of you sincerely wished to do what I said, that is, to relate the story of their lives. At the same time they see that they cannot do it and do not even know how to begin. But remember that sooner or later you will have to go through this. This is, as it is called, one of the first tests on the way. Without going through this no one can go further."
"What is it we do not understand?" asked someone.
"You do not understand what it means to be sincere," said G. "You are so used to lying both to yourselves and to others that you can find neither words nor thoughts when you wish to speak the truth. To tell the complete truth about oneself is very difficult. But before telling it one must know it. And you do not even know what the truth about yourselves consists of. Some day I will tell every one of you his chief feature or chief fault. We shall then see whether you will understand me or not."
One very interesting conversation took place at this time. I felt very strongly everything that took place at that time; especially strongly did I feel that in spite of every effort I was unable to remember myself for any length of time. At first something seemed to be successful, but later it all went and I felt without any doubt the deep sleep in which I was immersed. Failures in attempts to relate the story of my life, and especially the fact that I even failed to understand clearly what G. wanted, still further increased my bad mood which, however, as always with me, expressed itself not in depression, but in irritation.
In this state I came once to lunch with G. in a restaurant on the Sadovaya opposite the Gostinoy Dvor. I was probably very curt or on the contrary very silent.
"What is the matter with you today?" asked G.
"I myself do not know," said I, "only I am beginning to feel that with us nothing is being achieved, or rather, that I am achieving nothing. I cannot speak about others. But I cease to understand you and you no longer explain anything as you used to explain it in the beginning. And I feel that in this way nothing will be achieved."
"Wait a little," said G. "Soon conversations will start. Try to under-
stand me; up to now we have been trying to find each thing's place. Soon we shall begin to call things by their proper names."
G.'s words remained in my memory, but I did not go into them, and continued my own thoughts.
"What does it matter," I said, "how we shall call things when I can connect nothing together? You never answer any questions I ask."
"Very well," said G., laughing. "I promise to answer now any question you care to ask, as it happens in fairy tales."
I felt that he wanted to draw me out of my bad mood and I was inwardly grateful to him, although something in me refused to be mollified.
And suddenly I remembered that I wanted above all to know what G. thought about "eternal recurrence," about the repetition of lives, as I understood it. I had many times tried to start a conversation about this and to tell G. my views. But these conversations had always remained almost monologues. G. had listened in silence and then begun to talk of something else.
"Very well," I said, "tell me what you think of recurrence. Is there any truth in this, or none at all. What I mean is: Do we live only this once and then disappear, or does everything repeat and repeat itself, perhaps an endless number of times, only we do not know and do not remember it?"
"This idea of repetition," said G., "is not the full and absolute truth, but it is the nearest possible approximation of the truth. In this case truth cannot be expressed in words. But what you say is very near to it. And if you understand why I do not speak of this, you will be still nearer to it. What is the use of a man knowing about recurrence if he is not conscious of it and if he himself does not change? One can say even that if a man does not change, repetition does not exist for him. If you tell him about repetition, it will only increase his sleep. Why should he make any efforts today when there is so much time and so many possibilities ahead—the whole of eternity? Why should he bother today? This is exactly why the system does not say anything about repetition and takes only this one life which we know. The system has neither meaning nor sense without striving for self-change. And work on self-change must begin today, immediately. All laws can be seen in one life. Knowledge about the repetition of lives will add nothing for a man if he does not see how everything repeats itself in one life, that is, in this life, and if he does not strive to change himself in order to escape this repetition. But if he changes something essential in himself, that is, if he attains something, this cannot be lost"
"Is the conclusion right that all the tendencies that are created or formed must grow?" I asked.
"Yes and no," said G. "This is true in most cases, just as it is true in one life. But on a big scale new forces may enter. I shall not explain this now; but think about what I am going to say: Planetary influences also can change. They are not permanent. Besides this, tendencies themselves can be different; there are tendencies which, once they have appeared, continue and develop by themselves mechanically, and there are others which need constant pushing and which immediately weaken and may vanish altogether or turn into dreaming if a man ceases to work on them. Moreover there is a definite time, a definite term, for everything. Possibilities for everything" (he emphasized these words) "exist only for a definite time."
I was extremely interested in everything G. said. Much of this I had "guessed" before. But the fact that he recognized my fundamental premises and all that he brought into them had for me a tremendous importance. Everything began immediately to become connected. I felt that I saw the outline of the "majestic building" which was spoken of in the "Glimpses of Truth." My bad mood vanished, I did not even notice when.
G. sat there smiling.
"You see how easy it is to turn you; but perhaps I was merely romancing to you, perhaps there is no recurrence at all. What pleasure is it when a sulky Ouspensky sits there, does not eat, does not drink. 'Let us try to cheer him up,' I think to myself. And how is one to cheer a person up? One likes funny stories. For another you must find his hobby. And I know that Ouspensky has this hobby—'eternal recurrence.' So I offered to answer any question of his. I knew what he would ask."