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than others. There are no others here. Here people are neither
clever nor stupid, neither English nor Russian, neither good
nor bad. There are only spoiled automobiles, the same as you.
It is only thanks to these spoiled automobiles that you can at-
tain what you wished for when you came here. Everyone real-
ized this when he came here, but now you have forgotten.
Now it is necessary to awaken to this realization and to come
back to your former idea.
All that I have said can be formulated in two questions: (1)
Why am I here? and (2) Is it worthwhile my remaining?
Ill
We never accomplish what we intend doing, in big and little
things. We go to si and return to do. Similarly, self-develop-
ment is impossible without additional force from without
and also from within.
(March 25, 1922)
PRIEURE, JANUARY 30, 1923
Energy sleep
We always use more energy than is necessary, by using
unnecessary muscles, by allowing thoughts to revolve
and reacting too much with feelings. Relax muscles, use
only those necessary, store thoughts and don't express
feelings unless you wish. Don't be affected by externals as
they are harmless in themselves; we allow ourselves to be
hurt.
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Hard work is an investment of energy with a good re-
turn. Conscious use of energy is a paying investment;
automatic use is a wasteful expenditure.
(Prieure, June 12, 1923)
When one's body revolts against work, fatigue soon sets
in; then one must not rest for it would be a victory for
the body. When the body desires to rest, don't; when the
mind knows it ought to rest, do so, but one must know
and distinguish language of body and mind, and be
honest.
(March 25, 1922)
Without struggle, no progress and no result. Every
breaking of habit produces a change in the machine.
(Prieure, March 2, 1923)
You have probably heard at lectures that in the course of
every twenty-four hours our organism produces a definite
amount of energy for its existence. I repeat, a definite amount.
Yet there is much more of this energy than should be needed
for normal expenditure. But since our life is so wrong, we
spend the greater part and sometimes the whole of it, and we
spend it unproductively.
One of the chief factors consuming energy is our unneces-
sary movements in everyday life. Later you will see from cer-
tain experiments that the greater part of this energy is spent
precisely when we make less active movements. For instance,
how much energy will a man use up in a day wholly spent in
physical labor? A great deal. Yet he will spend even more if he
sits still doing nothing. Our large muscles consume less energy
because they have become more adapted to momentum,
whereas the small muscles consume more because they are less
adapted to momentum: they can be set in motion only by
force. For instance, as I sit here now I appear to you not to
move. But this does not mean I don't spend energy. Every
movement, every tension, whether big or small, is possible for
me only by spending this energy. Now my arm is tense but I
am not moving. Yet I am now spending more energy than if I
moved it like this. (He demonstrates.)
It is a very interesting thing, and you must try to under-
stand what I am saying about momentum. When I make a
sudden movement, energy flows in, but when I repeat the
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movement the momentum no longer takes energy. (He dem-
onstrates.) At the moment when energy has given the initial
push, the flow of energy stops and momentum takes over.
Tension needs energy. If tension is absent, less energy is
spent. If my arm is tense, as it is now, a continuous current is
required, which means that it is connected with the accumula-
tors. If I now move my arm thus, so long as I do it with
pauses, I spend energy.
If a man suffers from chronic tension, then, even if he does
nothing, even if he is lying down, he uses more energy than a
man who spends a whole day in physical labor. But a man
who does not have these small chronic tensions certainly
wastes no energy when he does not work or move.
Now we must ask ourselves, are there many among us who
are free from this terrible disease? Almost all of us we are not
speaking of people in general but of those present, the rest do
not concern us almost all of us have this delightful habit.
We must bear in mind that this energy about which we now
speak so simply and easily, which we waste so unnecessarily
and involuntarily, this same energy is needed for the work we
intend to do and without which we can achieve nothing.
We cannot get more energy, the inflow of energy will not
increase: the machine will remain such as it is created. If the
machine is made to produce ten amperes it will go on produc-
ing ten amperes. The current can be increased only if all the
wires and coils are changed. For instance, one coil represents
the nose, another a leg, a third a man's complexion or the size
of his stomach. So the machine cannot be changed its struc-
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