In search of the miraculous

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Fig. 5

'As you see,' he said, 'there exist four quite different situations. In one case all the functions are controlled by the physical body. It is active; in relation to it everything else is passive. [See Fig. 5a.] In another case the second body has power over the physical. In the third case the 'mental' body has power over the 'astral' and the physical. And in the last case the fourth body has power over the first three. We have seen before that in man of physical body only, exactly the same order of relationship is possible between his various functions. The physical functions may control feeling, thought, and consciousness. Feeling may control the physical functions. Thought may control the physical functions and feeling. And consciousness may control the physical functions, feeling, and thought.

'In man of two, three, and four bodies, the most active body also lives the longest, that is, it is 'immortal' in relation to a lower body.'

He again drew the diagram of the ray of creation and by the side of earth he placed the physical body of man.

'This is ordinary man,' he said, 'man number one, two, three, and four. He has only the physical body. The physical body dies and nothing is left of it. The physical body is composed of earthly material and at death it returns to earth. It is dust and to dust it returns. It is impossible to talk of any kind of 'immortality' for a man of this sort. But if a man has the second body' (he placed the second body on the diagram parallel to the planets), 'this second body is composed of material of the planetary world and it can survive the death of the physical body. It is not immortal in the full sense of the word, because after a certain period of time it also dies. But at any rate it does not die with the physical body.

'If a man has the third body' (he placed the third body on the diagram parallel to the sun), 'it is composed of material of the sun and it can exist after the death of the 'astral' body.

'The fourth body is composed of material of the starry world, that is, of material that does not belong to the solar system, and therefore, if it has crystallized within the limits of the solar system there is nothing within this system that could destroy it. This means that a man possessing the fourth body is immortal within the limits of the solar system. [Fig. 6.]

'You see, therefore, why it is impossible to answer at once the question: Is man immortal or not? One man is immortal, another is not, a third tries to become immortal, a fourth considers himself immortal and is, therefore, simply a lump of flesh.'

When G. went to Moscow our permanent group met without him. There remain in my memory several talks in our group which were connected with what we had recently heard from G. We had many talks about the idea of miracles, and about the fact that the Absolute cannot manifest its will in our world and that this will manifests itself only in the form of mechanical laws and cannot manifest itself by violating these laws.

I do not remember which of us was first to remember a well-known, though not very respectful school story, in which we at once saw an illustration of this law.

The story is about an over-aged student of a seminary who, at a final examination, does not understand the idea of God's omnipotence.

'Well, give me an example of something that the Lord cannot do,' said the examining bishop.

'It won't take long to do that, your Eminence,' answered the seminarist. 'Everyone knows that even the Lord himself cannot beat the ace of trumps with the ordinary deuce.'

Nothing could be more clear.

There was more sense in this silly story than in a thousand theological treatises. The laws of a game make the essence of the game. A violation of these laws would destroy the entire game. The Absolute can as little interfere in our life and substitute other results in the place of the natural results of causes created by us, or created accidentally, as he can beat the ace of trumps with the deuce. Turgenev wrote somewhere that all ordinary prayers can be reduced to one: 'Lord, make it so that twice two be not four.' This is the same thing as the ace of trumps of the seminarist.

Another talk was about the moon and its relation to organic life on earth. And again one of our group found a very good example showing the relation of the moon to organic life.

The moon is the weight on a clock. Organic life is the mechanism of the clock brought into motion by the weight. The gravity of the weight, the pull of the chain on the cogwheel, set in motion the wheels and the hands of the clock. If the weight is removed all movements in the mechanism of the clock will at once stop. The moon is a colossal weight hanging on to organic life and thus setting it in motion. Whatever we may be doing, whether it is good or bad, clever or stupid, all the movements of the wheels and the hands of our organism depend upon this weight, which is continually exerting its pressure upon us.

Personally I was very interested in the question of relativity in connection with place, that is, with place in the world. I had long since come to the idea of a relativity dependent upon the interrelation of sizes and velocities. But the idea of place, in the cosmic order, was entirely new both to me and to all the others. How strange it was for me when, some time later, I became convinced that it was the same thing, in other words, that size and velocity determined the place and the place determined size and velocity.

I remember yet another talk that took place during the same period. Someone asked him about the possibility of a universal language—in what connection I do not remember.'A universal language is possible,' said G., 'only people will never invent it.'

'Why not?' asked one of us.

'First because it was invented a long time ago,' answered G., 'and second because to understand this language and to express ideas in it depends not only upon the knowledge of this language, but also on being. I will say even more. There exists not one, but three universal languages. The first of them can be spoken and written while remaining within the limits of one's own language. The only difference is that when people speak in their ordinary language they do not understand one another, but in this other language they do understand. In the second language, written language is the same for all peoples, like, say, figures or mathematical formulae; but people still speak their own language, yet each of them understands the other even