– Pre­de­ter­min­a­tion is com­fort­able, safe, and bur­dens no one with respons­ib­il­ity – said the mas­ter. – Free­dom, by con­trast, must be fought for, is full of uncer­tainty and, yes, lays respons­ib­il­ity upon man.

– I believe you, but let us leave com­fort to the old! – replied the young­er man, who, for all his swag­ger, was in fact respect­ful towards the mas­ter. – Which do you believe in, mas­ter, free­dom or determ­in­ism?

– Let me ask you that – the mas­ter countered eleg­antly. – Which do you claim as your own?

– Free­dom! – the youth shot back without a thought. – No one can live in slavery.

– Very well, I accept your choice, but let me draw your atten­tion to the advant­ages I men­tioned. Com­fort­able – because you need not think about what you ought to be doing; safe, because it offers a ready-made, famil­i­ar world; and, let us admit it, most people can­not bear respons­ib­il­ity.

– That is so typ­ic­al of the dull-wit­ted, but I would like to live oth­er­wise.

– Do not think that com­fort is only for fools, or that pre­de­ter­min­a­tion can only be bad. Being an obed­i­ent mem­ber of a good sys­tem is no bad thing.

– Come now, any kind of fit­ting in is a limit! What becomes of soar­ing, then?

– Of course, I thought so too… free­dom is a prim­al need of man.

– I have only one fear – said the youth, at which the mas­ter nar­rowed his eyes: ‘If only I had just one fear…’ – karma! Karma does bind, after all! How could one be freed from the com­pul­sion of karma?

– A loop­hole! – answered the mas­ter. – A loop­hole out of the law of karma, that is all it takes…

– Then you think the com­pul­sion of karma is not ever­last­ing after all?

– No, it is not. But karma determ­ines everything for a very long time. Not as a pun­ish­ment, but as an appoin­ted course that has to be run.

– Then how do you believe in free­dom? As a pos­sib­il­ity in prin­ciple, yes, but in prac­tic­al free­dom, no?

– What is truly inter­est­ing is lib­er­a­tion from the bond. Pre­de­ter­min­a­tion is strong, it is true, and yet lib­er­a­tion is pos­sible. The karma-loop must be broken, this is import­ant! Do not pass on what you received – espe­cially if some of it was bad.

– Could this be like the mat­rix fall­ing apart?

– Per­haps like that… some­thing sim­il­ar. I would rather say, escape velo­city. To leave the pull of a plan­et, you must reach escape velo­city.

It is impossible to break free of one influ­ence without [man] fall­ing under anoth­er. Everything, all work on one­self, con­sists in man choos­ing the influ­ence he wants to come under, and actu­ally com­ing under that influ­ence. That is why it is neces­sary to know in advance which influ­ence is the more use­ful. (Ous­pensky)

– How is it done? – the youth's eyes lit up.

– The first step is recog­nising your lim­its. Pre­de­ter­min­a­tion is a medi­um that holds man in an unnoticed, uncon­scious bond­age. That is why this bond­age must first be recog­nised. Then one must seek out that place from which, once reached, one need never return. Bond­age can be dis­solved only by a power drawn from bey­ond bond­age. What is needed is not licence and ‘free­dom’, but free­dom and life…

– Yes, mas­ter…