But later work showed us the methods of the psychological way.
The chief difficulty for most people, as it soon appeared, was the habit of talking. No one saw this habit in himself, no one could struggle with it because it was always connected with some characteristic which the man considered to be positive in himself. Either he wanted to be "sincere," or he wanted to know what another man thought, or he wanted to help someone by speaking of himself or of others, and so on, and so on.
I very soon saw that the struggle with the habit of talking, of speaking, in general, more than is necessary, could become the center of gravity of work on oneself because this habit touched everything, penetrated everything, and was for many people the least noticed. It was very curious to observe how this habit (I say "habit" simply for lack of another word, it would be more correct to say "this sin" or "this misfortune") at once took possession of everything no matter what a man might begin to do.
In Essentuki at that time G. made us, among other things, carry out a small experiment in fasting. I had carried out experiments of this kind before and a good deal was familiar to me. But for many others the feeling of days which were endlessly long, of complete emptiness, of a kind of futility of existence, was new.
"Well, now I clearly understand," said one of our people, "what we live for and the place that food occupies in our lives."
But I personally was particularly interested in observing the place that talk occupied in life. In my opinion our first fast consisted in everybody talking without stopping for several days about the fast, that is, everybody spoke about himself. In this respect I remember very early talks with a Moscow friend about the fact that voluntary silence could be the most severe discipline to which a man could subject himself. But at that time we meant absolute silence. Even into this G. brought that wonderfully practical element which distinguished his system and his methods from anything I had known previously.
"Complete silence is easier," he said, when I began once to tell him my ideas. "Complete silence is simply a way out of life. A man should be in the desert or in a monastery. We speak of work in life. And a man can keep silence in such a way that no one will even notice it. The whole point is that we say a good deal too much. If we limited ourselves to what is actually necessary, this alone would be keeping silence. And it is the same with everything else, with food, with pleasures, with sleep; with everything there is a limit to what is necessary. After this 'sin' begins. This is something that must be grasped, a 'sin' is something which is not necessary."
"But if people abstain from everything that is unnecessary now, at once, what will the whole of life become like?" I said. "And how can they know what is necessary and what is not necessary?"
"Again you speak in your own way," said G. "I was not talking of people at all. They are going nowhere and for them there are no sins. Sins are what keep a man on one spot if he has decided to move and if he is able to move. Sins exist only for people who are on the way or approaching the way. And then sin is what stops a man, helps him to deceive himself and to think that he is working when he is simply asleep. Sin is what puts a man to sleep when he has already decided to awaken. And what puts a man to sleep? Again everything that is unnecessary, everything that is not indispensable. The indispensable is always permitted. But beyond this hypnosis begins at once. But you must remember that this refers only to people in the work or to those who consider themselves in the work. And work consists in subjecting oneself voluntarily to temporary suffering in order to be free from eternal suffering. But people are afraid of suffering. They want pleasure now, at once and forever. They do not want to understand that pleasure is an attribute of paradise and that it must be earned. And this is necessary not by reason of any arbitrary or inner moral laws but because if man gets pleasure before he has earned it he will not be able to keep it and pleasure will be turned into suffering. But the whole point is to be able to get pleasure and be able to keep it. Whoever can do this has nothing to learn. But
the way to it lies through suffering. Whoever thinks that as he is he can avail himself of pleasure is much mistaken, and if he is capable of being sincere with himself, then the moment will come when he will see this."
But I will return to the physical exercises we carried out at that time. G. showed us the different methods that were used in schools. Very interesting but unbelievably difficult were exercises in which a whole series of consecutive movements were performed in connection with taking the attention from one part of the body to another.
For instance, a man sits on the ground with knees bent and holding his arms, with the palms of the hands close together, between his feet. Then he has to lift one leg and during this time count: om, om, om, om, om, om, om, om, om, up to the tenth om and then nine times om, eight times om, seven times om, and so on, down to one and then again twice om, three times om, and so on, and at the same time "sense" his right eye. Then separate the thumb and "sense" his left ear and so on and so on.
It was necessary first to remember the order of the movements and "sensing," then not to go wrong in the counting, to remember the count of movements and sensing. This was very difficult but it did not end the affair. When a man had mastered this exercise and could do it, say, for about ten or fifteen minutes, he was given, in addition, a special form of breathing, namely, he must inhale while pronouncing om several times and exhale pronouncing om several times; moreover the count had to be made aloud. Beyond this there were still greater and greater complications of the exercise up to almost impossible things. And G. told us he had seen people who for days did exercises of this kind.
The short fast of which I spoke was also accompanied by special exercises. In the first place G. explained at the beginning of the fast that the difficulty in fasting consisted in not leaving unused the substances which are prepared in the organism for the digestion of food.
"These substances consist of very strong solutions," he said. "And if they are left without attention they will poison the organism. They must be used up. But how can they be used up if the organism gets no food? Only by an increase of work, an increase of perspiration. People make a tremendous mistake when they try to 'save their strength,' make fewer movements, and so on, when fasting. On the contrary it is necessary to expend as much energy as possible. Then fasting can be beneficial."
And when we began our fast we were not left in peace for a single second. G. made us run in the heat, doing a round of two miles, or stand with extended arms, or mark time at the double, or carry out a whole series of curious gymnastic exercises which he showed us.
And he, all the time, constantly said that these exercises we were doing were not real ones, but merely preliminary and preparatory exercises.
One experiment in connection with what G. said about breathing and fatigue explained many things to me and chiefly it explained why it is so difficult to attain anything in the ordinary conditions of life.
I had gone to a room where nobody could see me, and began to mark time at the double trying at the same time to breathe according to a particular count, that is, to inhale during a definite number of steps and exhale during a definite number. After a certain time when I had begun to tire I noticed, that is, to speak more correctly, I felt quite clearly, that my breathing was artificial and unreliable. I felt that in a very short time I would be unable to breathe in that way while continuing to mark time at the double and that ordinary normal breathing, very accelerated of course, without any count would gain the upper hand.