I say it is a strange theory, because it is not true. And I say it is very meaningful, because something like this is needed – at least in the West it is needed. Otherwise, nobody bothers about the soul. But all the techniques that Gurdjieff was using are basically the same techniques that we have used in the East for discovering the soul. He simply changed the words. He called it “creating the soul,” “integrating the soul,” “crystallizing the center.” But those techniques are the same.

You are already integrated. Not on the periphery – on the periphery there is much turmoil. You are fragmented on the periphery. Move inwards, and the deeper you go, the more you will find that you are integrated. There comes a point, at the very innermost shrine of your being, where you suddenly find you are a unity, absolute unity. So it is a question of discovering. How to discover it?

I would like to give Nisagar a technique. It is a very simple technique, but in the beginning it looks very hard. If you try, you will find it is simple. If you don’t try and only think about it, it will look very hard. The technique is: only do that which you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy, don’t do it. Try it – because enjoyment comes only from your center. If you are doing something and you enjoy it, you start getting reconnected with the center. If you do something which you don’t enjoy, you are disconnected from the center. Joy arises from the center, and from nowhere else. So let it be a criterion, and be a fanatic about it.

You are walking on the road; suddenly you recognize that you are not enjoying the walk. Stop. Finished – this is not to be done.

I used to do it in my university days, and people thought that I was crazy. Suddenly I would stop, and then I would remain in that spot for half an hour, an hour, unless I started enjoying walking again. My professors were so afraid that when there were examinations they would put me in a car and take me to the university hall. They would leave me at the door and wait there: had I reached to my desk or not? If I was taking my bath and suddenly I realized that I was not enjoying it, I would stop. What is the point then? If I was eating and I recognized suddenly that I was not enjoying, then I would stop.

I had joined the mathematics class in my high school. The first day, I went in and the teacher was just introducing the subject. In the middle I stood up and tried to walk out. He said, “Where are you going? Without asking, I won’t allow you in again.” I said, “I’m not coming back again; don’t be worried. That’s why I am not asking. Finished – I am not enjoying it. I will find some other subject which I can enjoy, because if I cannot enjoy it I am not going to do it. It is torture, it is violence.”

And, by and by, it became a key. I suddenly recognized that whenever you are enjoying something you are centered. Enjoyment is just the sound of being centered. Whenever you are not enjoying something, you are off-center. Then don’t force it; there is no need. If people think you crazy, let them think you crazy. Within a few days you will, by your own experience, find how you were missing yourself. You were doing a thousand and one things which you never enjoyed, and still you were doing them because you were taught to. You were just fulfilling your duties.