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

Before beginning the further development of this question, I wish tocite the contents of an ancient manuscript with which I accidentallybecame acquainted in quite exceptional life circumstances.This very ancient manuscript, the contents of which I intend to makeuse of, is one of those relics which is handed down from generation togeneration by a very limited number of people, that is, by "Initiates"—not such "initiates," however, as have been multiplying recently inEurope, but genuine ones.In this case, by "Initiates" of an esoteric sect which still exists at thepresent time in one of the remote corners of Central Asia.The text of this manuscript is expounded, as was done in antiquity,"podobolizovany," in the form of symbolizing, or, as it is called inesoteric science, "making alike," that is, alle-gorically—quite differentfrom the form now established for mentation among contemporarypeople.As the difference between these forms is very well-known to me, ofcourse also accidentally, I will endeavor to transmit the sense of thistext as exactly as possible but in agreement with the form of mentationnow established among contemporary people.This ancient manuscript says the following:The general psyche of every man on reaching maturity,which begins on an average in the male sex at twenty yearsand in the female sex at the beginning of the thirteenthyear, consists of three totalities of functioning which havealmost nothing in common with each other.The course of action of all three of these independenttotalities of functioning in the common