"There could be no better formulation," said G., "and if you will keep such a rule this question will never arise between us."
"Are there any conditions for joining your group?" I asked. "And is a man who joins it tied to it and to you? In other words, I want to know if he is free to go and leave your work, or does he take definite obligations upon himself? And how do you act towards him if he does not carry out his obligations?"
"There are no conditions of any kind," said G., "and there cannot be any. Our starting point is that man does not know himself, that he is not" (he emphasized these words), "that is, he is not what he can and what he should be. For this reason he cannot make any agreements or assume any obligations. He can decide nothing in regard to the future. Today he is one person and tomorrow another. He is in no way bound to us and if he likes he can at any time leave the work and go. There are no obligations of any kind either in our relationship to him or in his to us.
"If he likes he can study. He will have to study for a long time, and work a great deal on himself. When he has learned enough, then it is a different matter. He will see for himself whether he likes our work or not. If he wishes he can work with us; if not he may go away. Up to that moment he is free. If he stays after that he will be able to decide or make arrangements for the future.
"For instance, take one point. A situation may arise, not, of course, in the beginning but later on, when a man has to preserve secrecy, even if only for a time, about something he has learned. But can a man who does not know himself promise to keep a secret? Of course he can promise to do so, but can he keep his promise? For he is not one, there are many different people in him. One in him promises, and believes that he wants to keep the secret. But tomorrow another in him will tell it to his wife, or to a friend over a bottle of wine, or a clever man may question him in such a way that he himself will not notice that he is letting out everything. Finally, he may be hypnotized, or he may be shouted at unexpectedly and frightened, and he will do anything you like. What sort of obligations can he take upon himself? No, with such a man we will not talk seriously. To be able to keep a secret a man must know himself and he must be. And a man such as all men are is very far from this.
"Sometimes we make temporary conditions with people as a test. Usually they are broken very soon but we never give any serious secret to a man we don't trust so it does no matter much. I mean it matters nothing to us although it certainly breaks our connection with this man and he loses his chance to learn anything from us, if there is anything to learn from us. Also it may affect all his personal friends, although they may not expect it."
I remember that in one of my talks with G., during this first week of my acquaintance with him, I spoke of my intention of going again to the East.
"Is it worth thinking about it? And can I find what I want there?" I asked
G.
"It is good to go for a rest, for a holiday," said G., "but it is not worth while going there for what you want. All that can be found here."
I understood that he was speaking of work with him.
"But do not schools which are on the spot, so to speak, in the midst of all the traditions, offer certain advantages?" I asked.
In answering this question G. told me several things which I did not understand till later.
"Even if you found schools you would find only 'philosophical' schools," he said. "In India there are only 'philosophical' schools. It was divided up in that way long ago; in India there was 'philosophy,' in Egypt 'theory,' and in present-day Persia, Mesopotamia, and Turkestan—'practice.'"
"And does it remain the same now?" I asked.
"In part even now," he said. "But you do not clearly understand what I mean by 'philosophy,' 'theory,' and 'practice.' These words must be understood in a different way, not in the way they are usually understood.
"But speaking of schools, there are only special schools; there are no general schools. Every teacher, or guru, is a specialist in some one thing. One is an astronomer, another a sculptor, a third a musician. And all the pupils of each teacher must first of all study the subject in which he has specialized, then, afterwards, another subject, and so on. It would take a thousand years to study everything."
"But how did you study?"
"I was not alone. There were all kinds of specialists among us. Everyone
studied on the lines of his particular subject. Afterwards, when we forgathered, we put together everything we had found."
"And where are your companions now?"
G. was silent for a time, and then said slowly, looking into the distance:
"Some have died, some are working, some have gone into seclusion."
This word from the monastic language, heard so unexpectedly, gave me a strange and uncomfortable feeling.
At the same time I felt a certain "acting" on G.'s part, as though he were deliberately trying from time to time to throw me a word that would interest me and make me think in a definite direction.
When I tried to ask him more definitely where he had found what he knew, what the source of his knowledge was, and how far this knowledge went, he did not give me a direct answer.
"You know," G. said once, "when you went to India they wrote about your journey and your aims in the papers. I gave my pupils the task of reading your books, of determining by them what you were, and of establishing on this basis what you would be able to End. So we knew what you would End while you were still on. your way there."
With this the talk came to an end.
I once asked G. about the ballet which had been mentioned in the papers and referred to in the story "Glimpses of Truth" and whether this ballet would have the nature of a "mystery play."
"My ballet is not a 'mystery,'" said G. "The object I had in view was to produce an interesting and beautiful spectacle. Of course there is a certain meaning hidden beneath the outward form, but I have not pursued the aim of exposing and emphasizing this meaning. An important place in the ballet is occupied by certain dances. I will explain this to you briefly. Imagine that in the study of the movements of the heavenly bodies, let us say the planets of the solar system, a special mechanism is constructed to give a visual representation of the laws of these movements and to remind us of them. In this mechanism each planet, which is represented by a sphere of appropriate size, is placed at a certain distance from a central sphere representing the sun. The mechanism is set in motion and all the spheres begin to rotate and to move along prescribed paths, reproducing in a visual form the laws which govern the movements of the planets. This mechanism reminds you of all you know about the solar system. There is something like this in the rhythm of certain dances. In the strictly defined movements and combinations of the dancers, certain laws are visually reproduced which arc intelligible to those who know them. Such dances are called 'sacred dances.' In the course of my travels in the East I have many times witnessed such dances being performed during sacred services in various ancient temples. Some of these dances are reproduced in The Struggle of the Magicians.' Moreover there are three ideas lying at the basis of "The Struggle of the Magicians.' But if I produce the ballet on the ordinary stage the public will never understand these ideas."