"So long as man does not separate himself from himself, he can achieve nothing and no one can help him. To govern oneself is a very difficult thing – it is a problem of the future; it needs much power and demands much work.
"But this first thing, to separate oneself from oneself, does not require much strength, it only needs serious wish, the wish of a responsible man. If a man cannot do it, this shows that he lacks this wish. Consequently it proves that there is nothing for him here. What we do here can be suitable only for serious people.
"Our feelings and our thinking have nothing in common with 'us', that is, with our real selves. Usually our thinking is the result of our feelings. Our mind should live by itself, and our feelings should live by themselves. When we say 'to separate oneself from oneself, it means first of all that our mind should stand apart from our feelings.
"Our weak feelings can change at any moment, for they are dependent on many influences: on food, on our surroundings, and on chance circumstances that affect our desire to be important. But the mind depends on very few influences, and so, with a little effort, it can be kept in the desired direction.
"Even a weak man can give the desired direction to his mind. But he has little control over his feelings; great power is required to give direction to feelings, and to control them. Man's feelings do not depend on him: they can be good-tempered or bad-tempered, irritable, cheerful or sad, excitable or placid. All these reactions happen independently of him. A man may be cross because someone pushed him or scolded him. Or he may be cross because he has eaten something that has produced this effect.
"If he has no special attainments, nothing can be demanded of him. Therefore, one cannot expect from him more than he has. From a purely practical point of view, a man is certainly not responsible in this respect; it is not his fault that he is what he is. So I do not take this into consideration, for I know that you cannot expect from a weak man something that requires strength. One can make demands of a man only in accordance with the strength he has to fulfil them. Naturally, the majority of people present are here at the Institute because they lack this strength and have come here to acquire it. This proves that they want to be strong, and so strength is not demanded from them.
"But I am speaking now of the other part of us – the mind. Speaking of the mind, I know that each of you has enough strength, each of you can have the power and capacity to act not as he now does.
"The mind is capable of functioning independently but unfortunately it also has the capacity of becoming identified with the moods and feelings, of becoming a mere reflection of the feelings. In the majority of those present, their mind does not even try to be independent, but is always merely a slave of their moods.
"Every man can achieve this independent mind; everyone who has a serious wish can do it. But no one tries, and so, in spite of the fact that they have been here so long, in spite even of the desire they had for so long before coming here – they still stand on a level below that of an ordinary man; that is, the level of a man who never intended to do anything.
"I repeat again – at present we are not capable of controlling our states, and so it cannot be demanded from us. But when we acquire this capacity, corresponding demands will be made.
"And so I say that a serious man, a simple, ordinary man, a man without any extraordinary powers, whatever he decides, whatever purpose he has set himself, that purpose will always remain in his memory. Even if he cannot achieve it in practice, theoretically he will always keep it in his mind. Even if he is influenced by other dictates, his mind will not forget his aim. He has a duty to perform and, if he is honest, he will strive to perform this duty, because he is a man.
"No one can help in this remembering, in this separation of oneself from oneself. A man must do it for himself. Only from the moment that a man has the ability to achieve this separation can another man help him.
"It is true that to have a constant wish to separate one's thoughts from one's feelings is not easy, but the mind must always remember this wish. It must remember that you came here realizing the necessity of struggling only with yourself, and be thankful to anyone who gives you the opportunity to engage in this struggle.
"The programme of the Institute, the power of the Institute and the aim of the Institute can be expressed in one sentence: The Institute can help a man to be able to be a Christian. – Simple! That is all! But it can do so only if a man has this wish, and a man will have this wish only if he has a place where a constant wish can be present. But before being able one must wish to be able.
"Thus there are three periods: to wish, to be able, and finally to be. The Institute is the means. Outside the Institute, before one comes, it is necessary to wish. But here one can learn to be able and to be.
"The majority of those present here call themselves Christians, but practically all are 'Christians in quotation marks'. Let us examine this question:
"Dr. Y., are you a Christian? What do you think, should one love one's neighbour or hate him? (Answer: One should love). Who can love like a Christian? It follows that to be a Christian is almost impossible. Christianity includes many things; we have taken only one of them, to serve as an example. Can you love or hate someone to order?
"Yet Christianity says precisely this – to love all men, to bless those that hate you. But this is impossible. At the same time it is quite true that it is necessary to love. Unfortunately, with time, modern Christians have adopted only the second half of the teaching and lost the first – which should have preceded it. First one must be able to love, then only can one love. But how can one be able? It is the knowledge of this that is lost.
'It would be unjust for God to demand from man what he cannot give. So He gave this knowledge not once but many times. Only man is a fool and throws this precious knowledge away.
"Half of the world is Christian, the other half has other religions. For me, a sensible man, this makes no difference. Originally they all had the same ideals as Christianity. Therefore it is possible to say that the whole world is Christian – the difference is only in name. And it has been Christian not one year but thousands of years. There were Christians even before the coming of Christ. So common sense says to me 'For so many years men have been Christians, and God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ lived among them – how can He be so unreasonable as to demand the impossible?"
"But it is not like that. Things have not always been as they are now. People have only recently forgotten the first half of their religion and through this have lost the capacity for being able to follow the teachings of Christ. And so it became indeed impossible.
"Let everyone ask himself, simply and openly, whether he can love all men? If he has had a cup of coffee, he loves; if not, he does not love. How can that be called Christianity?
"In the past, not all men were called Christians. Some men of one and the same family were called Christians, others only half-Christians, yet others were non-Christians. So in one and the same family there could be the first, the second and the third. But now all are called Christians. It is despicable, unwise, naive and dishonest to bear a name without justification. The Bible says:
'A Christian is a man who is able to follow the commandments.'
"A man who is able to do all that is demanded of a Christian, both with his mind and in his feelings, is called a Christian without quotation marks. A man who, in his mind, wants to do all that is demanded of a Christian, but who can do so only with his mind and not with his feelings, is called a half-Christian. And a man who can do nothing even with his mind, is called a non-Christian.
"Try to understand the significance of what I wished to convey by this lecture."
[Bennett: Gurdjieff, Making a New World]
