GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

conditions of our arising and formation, among which the chief are ofcourse heredity and the conditions under which the process of our'preparatory age' flows. It is just these uncontrollable conditions whichmay not permit this liberation. . . ."Stopping the reader at this point, I explained that of the contents ofthe subsequent few pages, omitted for the purpose of saving time, it isonly necessary for the theme of this evening to know about thecomparison which I had made there between human life as a whole andthe flow of a big river forking—at a certain place corresponding,according to my definition, to the time of man's reaching responsibleage, that is, that age when it becomes definite in a man whether he hassucceeded by that time in acquiring data for possessing his own I—intotwo streams, one of which flows into the limitless ocean for subsequentmovement evolutionary for itself, and the other into the nether regionsfor subsequent but involu-tionary movement, in this case only for theneeds of nature. Then I pointed out the place from which the readingshould in the present case be continued."For us contemporary people," continued to read the secretary, "thechief evil is that on reaching responsible age we acquire—thanks to thevarious conditions of our ordinary existence established by usourselves, chiefly in consequence of the abnormal what is called'education'—a common presence corresponding only to that stream ofthe river of life which ultimately empties itself into the 'nether regions,'and, entering it, we remain passive and, without reflecting about theconsequences of this state, submit to the flow and drift on and on."As long as we remain passive, we shall have in the course of ourfurther existence to submit slavishly to every caprice