that was regarded as a relic—a small round ball the size of a large shot, carved, as I thought, out of ivory or mother-of-pearl.
G. listened to me attentively.
"Did they not explain to you what this ball meant?" he asked.
"They told me it was a piece of bone of one of Buddha's disciples; that it was of very great antiquity and holiness."
"It is so and it is not so," said G. "The man who showed it to you either did not know or did not want to say. It was not a piece of bone but a particular bone formation which some people get round the neck in the form of a necklace as a result of special exercises. Have you heard the expression 'Buddha's necklace'?"
"Yes," I said, "but this means something quite different. The chain of Buddha's reincarnation is called 'Buddha's necklace.'"
"Yes," said G., "that is one meaning of the expression, but I am speaking of another meaning. This necklace of bones which encircles the neck beneath the skin is directly connected with what is called the 'astral body.' The 'astral body' is, so to speak, attached to it, or, to be more accurate, this 'necklace' connects the physical body to the astral. Now if the 'astral body' continues to live after the death of the physical body, the person possessing a bone of this 'necklace' can always communicate with the 'astral body' of the dead man. This is magic. But they never speak of it openly. You are right about their having magic and this is an instance of it. It does not follow, of course, that the bone you saw was a real one. You will find these bones in almost every house; but I am telling you of the belief which lies at the bottom of this custom."
And again I had to admit that I had never before met with such an explanation.
G. drew a small sketch for me showing the position of the small bones under the skin; they went in a semicircle round the back of the neck, beginning a little in front of the ears.
This sketch at once reminded me of an ordinary diagrammatic representation of the lymphatic glands in the neck, such as can be seen in anatomical charts. But I could learn nothing else about it.
Chapter Four
G'S LECTURES led to many talks in our groups. There was still a good deal that was not clear to me, but , many things had become connected and one thing often quite unexpectedly explained another which seemed to have no connection with it whatever. Certain parts of the system had already begun vaguely to take shape, like figures or a landscape which gradually appears in the developing of a photographic plate, but many places still remained blank and incomplete. At the same time many things were contrary to what I expected. Only I tried not to come to conclusions but wait. Often one new word that I had not heard before altered the whole picture and I was obliged to rebuild for myself everything I had built up before. I realized very clearly that a great deal of time must pass before I could tell myself that I could outline the whole system correctly. And it was very strange for me to hear how people, after having come to us for one lecture, at once understood what we were talking about, explained it to others, and had completely settled and definite opinions about us. I must confess that, at such times, I often recalled my own first meeting with G. and the evening with the Moscow group. I also, at that time, had been very near passing a ready judgment on G. and his pupils. But something had stopped me then. And now, when I had begun to realize what a tremendous value these ideas had, I became almost terrified at the thought of how easily I could have passed them by, how easily I could have known nothing whatever of G.'s existence, or how easily I could have again lost sight of him if I had not asked then whether I could see him again.
In almost every one of his lectures G. reverted to a theme which he evidently considered to be of the utmost importance but which was very difficult for many of us to assimilate.
"There are," he said, "two lines along which man's development proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of being. In right evolution the line of knowledge and the line of being develop simultaneously, parallel to, and helping one another. But if the line of knowledge gets too far ahead of the line of being, or if the line of being gets ahead of the line of knowledge, man's development goes wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill.
"People understand what 'knowledge' means. And they understand the possibility of different levels of knowledge. They understand that knowledge may be lesser or greater, that is to say, of one quality or of another quality. But they do not understand this in relation to 'being.' 'Being,' for them, means simply 'existence' to which is opposed just 'non-existence.' They do not understand that being or existence may be of very different levels and categories. Take for instance the being of a mineral and of a plant. It is a different being. The being of a plant and of an animal is again a different being. The being of an animal and of a man is a different being. But the being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it. And especially in Western culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, for example he may be an able scientist, make discoveries, advance science, and at the same time he may be, and has the right to be, a petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naive, and absent- minded man. It seems to be considered here that a professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere.
"And yet it is his being. And people think that his knowledge does not depend on his being. People of Western culture put great value on the level of a man's knowledge but they do not value the level of a man's being and are not ashamed of the low level of their own being. They do not even understand what it means. And they do not understand that a man's knowledge depends on the level of his being.
"If knowledge gets far ahead of being, it becomes theoretical and abstract and inapplicable to life, or actually harmful, because instead of serving life and helping people the better to struggle with the difficulties they meet, it begins to complicate man's life, brings new difficulties into it, new troubles and calamities which were not there before.
"The reason for this is that knowledge which is not in accordance with being cannot be large enough for, or sufficiently suited to, man's real needs. It will always be a knowledge of one thing together with ignorance of another thing; a knowledge of the detail without a knowledge of the whole; a knowledge of the form without a knowledge of the essence.
"Such preponderance of knowledge over being is observed in present-day culture. The idea of the value and importance of the level of being is completely forgotten. And it is forgotten that the level of knowledge is determined by the level of being. Actually at a given level of being the possibilities of knowledge are limited and finite. Within the limits of a given being the quality of knowledge cannot be changed, and the accumulation of information of one and the same nature, within already known limits, alone is possible. A change in the nature of knowledge is possible only with a change in the nature of being.
"Taken in itself, a man's being has many different sides. The most characteristic feature of a modem man is the absence of unity in him and, further, the absence in him of even traces of those properties which he most likes to ascribe to himself, that is, 'lucid consciousness,' 'free will,' a 'permanent ego or I,' and the 'ability to do.' It may surprise you if I say that the chief feature of a modem man's being which explains everything else that is lacking in him is sleep.