Fragments, Chapter 9, pp.193-198 - Reading Club posting 35
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The centers work with different hydrogens. Two higher centers. Wrong work of lower centers. Materiality of all inner processes.
"When the 'table of hydrogens' has been sufficiently understood, it shows immediately many new features in the work of the human machine, establishing clearly before anything else the reasons for the differences between the centers and their respective functions.
"The centers of the human machine work with different 'hydrogens.' This constitutes their chief difference. The center working with a coarser, heavier, denser 'hydrogen' works the slower. The center working with light, more mobile 'hydrogen' works the quicker.
The thinking or intellectual center is the slowest of all the three centers we have examined up to now. It works with 'hydrogen' 48 (according to the third scale of the 'table of hydrogens').
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"The moving center works with 'hydrogen' 24. 'Hydrogen' 24 is many times quicker and more mobile than 'hydrogen' 48. The intellectual center is never able to follow the work of the moving center. We are unable to follow either our own movements or other people's movements unless they are artificially slowed down. Still less are we able to follow the work of the inner, the instinctive functions of our organism, the work of the instinctive mind which constitutes, as it were, one side of the moving center.
"The emotional center can work with 'hydrogen' 12. In reality, however, it very seldom works with this fine 'hydrogen.' And in the majority of cases its work differs little in intensity and speed from the work of the moving center or the instinctive center.
"In order to understand the work of the human machine and its possibilities, one must know that, apart from these three centers and those connected with them, we have two more centers, fully developed and properly functioning, but they are not connected with our usual life nor with the three centers in which we are aware of ourselves.
"The existence of these higher centers in us is a greater riddle than the hidden treasure which men who believe in the existence of the mysterious and the miraculous have sought since the remotest times.
"All mystical and occult systems recognize the existence of higher forces and capacities in man although, in many cases, they admit the existence of these forces and capacities only in the form of possibilities, and speak of the necessity for developing the hidden forces in man. This present teaching differs from many others by the fact that it affirms that the higher centers exist in man and are fully developed.
"It is the lower centers that are undeveloped. And it is precisely this lack of development, or the incomplete functioning, of the lower centers that prevents us from making use of the work of the higher centers.
"As has been said earlier, there are two higher centers:
"The higher emotional center, working with hydrogen 12, and
"The higher thinking center, working with hydrogen 6.
"If we consider the work of the human machine from the point of view of the 'hydrogens' which work the centers, we shall see why the higher centers cannot be connected with the lower ones.
"The intellectual center works with hydrogen 48; the moving center with hydrogen 24.
"If the emotional center were to work with hydrogen 12, its work would be connected with the work of the higher emotional center. In those cases where the work of the emotional center reaches the intensity and speed of existence which is given by hydrogen 12, a temporary connection with the higher emotional center takes place and man experiences new emotions, new impressions hitherto entirely unknown to him, for the description of which he has neither words nor expressions. But in ordinary con-
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ditions the difference between the speed of our usual emotions and the speed of the higher emotional center is so great that no connection can take place and we fail to hear within us the voices which are speaking and calling to us from the higher emotional center.
"The higher thinking center, working with hydrogen 6, is still further removed from us, still less accessible. Connection with it is possible only through the higher emotional center. It is only from descriptions of mystical experiences, ecstatic states, and so on, that we know cases of such connections. These states can occur on the basis of religious emotions, or, for short moments, through particular narcotics; or in certain pathological states such as epileptic fits or accidental traumatic injuries to the brain, in which cases it is difficult to say which is the cause and which is the effect, that is, whether the pathological state results from this connection or is its cause.
"If we could connect the centers of our ordinary consciousness with the higher thinking center deliberately and at will, it would be of no use to us whatever in our present general state. In most cases where accidental contact with the higher thinking center takes place a man becomes unconscious. The mind refuses to take in the flood of thoughts, emotions, images, and ideas which suddenly burst into it. And instead of a vivid thought, or a vivid emotion, there results, on the contrary, a complete blank, a state of unconsciousness. The memory retains only the first moment when the flood rushed in on the mind and the last moment when the flood was receding and consciousness returned. But even these moments are so full of unusual shades and colors that there is nothing with which to compare them among the ordinary sensations of life. This is usually all that remains from so-called 'mystical' and 'ecstatic' experiences, which represent a temporary connection with a higher center. Only very seldom does it happen that a mind which has been better prepared succeeds in grasping and remembering something of what was felt and understood at the moment of ecstasy. But even in these cases the thinking, the moving, and the emotional centers remember and transmit everything in their own way, translate absolutely new and never previously experienced sensations into the language of usual everyday sensations, transmit in worldly three-dimensional forms things which pass completely beyond the limits of worldly measurements; in this way, of course, they entirely distort every trace of what remains in the memory of these unusual experiences. Our ordinary centers, in transmitting the impressions of the higher centers, may be compared to a blind man speaking of colors, or to a deaf man speaking of music.
"In order to obtain a correct and permanent connection between the lower and the higher centers, it is necessary to regulate and quicken the work of the lower centers.
"Moreover, as has been already said, lower centers work in a wrong
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way, for very often, instead of their own proper functions, one or another of them takes upon itself the work of other centers. This considerably reduces the speed of the general work of the machine and makes acceleration of the work of the centers very difficult. Thus in order to regulate and accelerate the work of the lower centers, the primary object must consist in freeing each center from work foreign and unnatural to it, and in bringing it back to its own work which it can do better than any other center.
"A great deal of energy is also spent on work which is completely unnecessary and harmful in every respect, such as on the activity of unpleasant emotions, on the expression of unpleasant sensations, on worry, on restlessness, on haste, and on a whole series of automatic actions which are completely useless. As many examples as you like can be found of such unnecessary activity. First of all there is the constantly moving flow of thoughts in our mind, which we can neither stop nor control, and which takes up an enormous amount of our energy. Secondly there is the quite unnecessary constant tension of the muscles of our organism. The muscles are tense even when we are doing nothing. As soon as we start to do even a small and insignificant piece of work, a whole system of muscles necessary for the hardest and most strenuous work is immediately set in motion. We pick up a needle from the floor and we spend on this action as much energy as is needed to lift up a man of our own weight. We write a short letter and use as much muscular energy upon it as would suffice to write a bulky volume. But the chief point is that we spend muscular energy continually and at all times, even when we are doing nothing. When we walk the muscles of our shoulders and arms are tensed unnecessarily; when we sit the muscles of our legs, neck, back, and stomach are tensed in an unnecessary way. We even sleep with the muscles of our arms, of our legs, of our face, of the whole of our body tensed, and we do not realize that we spend much more energy on this continual readiness for work we shall never do than on all the real, useful work we do during our life.
"Still further we can point to the habit of continually talking with anybody and about anything, or if there is no one else, with ourselves; the habit of indulging in fantasies, in daydreaming; the continual change of mood, feelings, and emotions, and an enormous number of quite useless things which a man considers himself obliged to feel, think, do, or say.
"In order to regulate and balance the work of the three centers whose functions constitute our life, it is necessary to learn to economize the energy produced by our organism, not to waste this energy on unnecessary functions, and to save it for that activity which will gradually connect the lower centers with the higher.
"All that has been said before about work on oneself, about the formation of inner unity and of the transition from the level of man number
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one, number two, and number three to the level of man number four and further, pursues one and the same aim. What is called according to one terminology the 'astral body,' is called in another terminology the 'higher emotional center,' although the difference here does not lie in the terminology alone. These are, to speak more correctly, different aspects of the next stage of man's evolution. It can be said that the 'astral body' is necessary for the complete and proper functioning of the 'higher emotional center' in unison with the lower. Or it can be said that the 'higher emotional center' is necessary for the work of the 'astral body.'
"The 'mental body' corresponds to the 'higher thinking center.' It would be wrong to say that they are one and the same thing. But one requires the other, one cannot exist without the other, one is the expression of certain sides and functions of the other.
"The fourth body requires the complete and harmonious working of all centers; and it implies, or is the expression of, complete control over this working.
"What is necessary to understand and what the 'table of hydrogens' helps us to grasp, is the idea of the complete materiality of all the psychic, intellectual, emotional, volitional, and other inner processes, including the most exalted poetic inspirations, religious ecstasies, and mystical revelations.
"The materiality of processes means their dependence upon the quality of the material or substance used on them. One process demands the expenditure, that is, as it were, the burning, of hydrogen 48; another process cannot be obtained with the help of hydrogen 48; it requires a finer, a more combustible substance—hydrogen 24. For a third process hydrogen 24 is too weak; it requires hydrogen 12.
"Thus we see that our organism has the different kinds of fuel necessary for the different centers. The centers can be compared to machines working on fuels of different qualities. One machine can be worked on oil residue or crude oil. Another requires kerosene; a third will not work with kerosene but requires gasoline. The fine substances of our organism can be characterized as substances of different flashpoints, while the organism itself can be compared to a laboratory in which the combustibles of different strengths required by the different centers are prepared from various kinds of raw material. Unfortunately, however, there is something wrong with the laboratory. The forces controlling the distribution of combustibles among the different centers often make mistakes and the centers receive fuel that is either too weak or too easily inflammable. Moreover, a great quantity of all the combustibles produced is spent quite uselessly; it simply runs out; is lost. Besides, explosions often take place in the laboratory which at one stroke destroy all the fuel prepared for the next day and possibly for even a longer period, and are able to cause irreparable damage to the whole factory.
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"It must be noted that the organism usually produces in the course of one day all the substances necessary for the following day. And it very often happens that all these substances are spent or consumed upon some unnecessary and, as a rule, unpleasant emotion. Bad moods, worry, the expectation of something unpleasant, doubt, fear, a feeling of injury, irritation, each of these emotions in reaching a certain degree of intensity may, in half an hour, or even half a minute, consume all the substances prepared for the next day; while a single flash of anger, or some other violent emotion, can at once explode all the substances prepared in the laboratory and leave a man quite empty inwardly for a long time or even forever.
"All psychic processes are material. There is not a single process that does not require the expenditure of a certain substance corresponding to it. If this substance is present, the process goes on. When the substance is exhausted, the process comes to a stop."
[End of chapter]
