s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

The center of gravity of the body, its soul, is the moving
center. The center of gravity of the essence is the emotional
center, and the center of gravity of the personality is the
thinking center. The soul of the essence is the emotional cen-
ter. Just as a man may have a healthy body and a cowardly es-
sence, so personality may be bold and essence timid. Take for
instance a man of common sense; he has studied and knows
that hallucinations can occur; he knows that they cannot be
real. So in his personality he does not fear them, but his es-
sence is afraid. If his essence sees a phenomenon of this kind it
cannot help being afraid. Development of one center does not
depend on the development of another, and one center cannot
transfer its results to another.
It is impossible to say positively that a man is such or such.
One of his centers may be brave, another cowardly; one good,
another wicked; one may be sensitive, another very coarse;
one gives readily, another is slow in giving or quite incapable
108
of giving. So it is impossible to say: good, brave, strong or
wicked.
As we have said already, each of the three machines is the
whole chain, the whole system relating to one, to another, to a
third. In itself each machine is very complicated but is
brought into motion very simply. The more complicated the
parts of the machine, the fewer the levers. Each human ma-
chine is complex, but the number of levers in each one sepa-
rately may differ in one, more levers, in another, fewer.
In the course of life one machine may form many levers for
bringing it into motion, whereas another may be brought into
motion by a small number of levers. Time for the formation of
levers is limited. In its turn this time also depends on heredity
and geographical conditions. On an average, new levers are
formed up to seven or eight years of age; later, up to the age
of 14 or 15, they are capable of alterations; but after 16 or 17
years of age levers are neither formed nor altered. So later in
life only those levers act which have been already formed.
This is how things are in ordinary normal life, no matter how
much a man may be puffing and blowing. This is true even as
regards man's capacity to learn. New things can be learned
only up to the age of 17; what can be learned later is only
learning in quotation marks, that is, merely a reshuffling of the
old. At first this may seem difficult to understand.
Each individual man with his levers depends on his heredity
and the place, social circle and circumstances in which he was
born and grew up. The workings of all three centers, or souls,
are similar. Their construction is different, but their manifesta-
tion is the same.
The first movements are recorded. Records of the move-
ments of the body are purely subjective. This recording is like
that of a phonograph disc at first, up to three months, it is
very sensitive; then after four months it becomes less sensitive;
after a year, still weaker. At first even the sound of breathing
can be heard, a week later one can hear nothing below a low-
voiced conversation. It is the same with the human brain: at
first it is very receptive and every new movement is recorded.
As a final result one man may have many postures, another
only a few. For instance, one man may have acquired 55 pos-
tures while the possibility of recording them lasted, while an-
other man, living in the same conditions, may have obtained
250. These levers, these postures, are formed in each center ac-
cording to the same laws, and remain there for the rest of a
109
man's life. The difference among these postures is only in the
way they are recorded. Take, for instance, postures of the
moving center. Up to a certain time postures become formed
in every man. Then they stop being formed, but those that are
formed remain till his death. Their number is limited, so what-
ever a man may be doing he will use these same postures. If
he wishes to play one or another role, he will use a combina-
tion of postures he already has, for he will never have any oth-
ers. In ordinary life there can be no new postures. Even if a
man wishes to be an actor his position will be the same in this
respect.
The difference between sleep and waking of the body is that
when a shock comes from outside in sleep, it does not excite,
does not produce associations in the corresponding brain.
Let us say a man happens to be tired. The first shock is
given. Some lever begins to move mechanically. Equally me-
chanically it touches another lever and makes it move; that
lever touches a third, the third a fourth, and so on. This is
what we call associations of the body. The other machines also
have postures and they are brought into motion in the same
way.
Besides the central, independently working machines
body, personality and essence we also have soulless manifes-
tations which take place outside of the centers. In order to un- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]