all people are machines governed by external influences‏

"People are turning into machines," I said. "And no doubt sometimes they become perfect machines. But I do not believe they can think. If they tried to think, they could not have been such fine machines."
"Yes," said G., "that is true, but only partly true. It depends first of all on the question which mind they use for their work. If they use the proper mind they will be able to think even better in the midst of all their work with machines. But, again, only if they think with the proper mind."
I did not understand what G. meant by "proper mind" and understood it only much later.
"And secondly," he continued, "the mechanization you speak of is not at all dangerous. A man may be a man" (he emphasized this word), "while working with machines. There is another kind of mechanization which is much more dangerous: being a machine oneself. Have you ever thought about the fact that all peoples themselves are machines?"
"Yes," I said, "from the strictly scientific point of view all people are machines governed by external influences. But the question is, can the scientific point of view be wholly accepted?"
"Scientific or not scientific is all the same to me," said G. "I want you to understand what I am saying. Look, all those people you see," he pointed along the street, "are simply machines—nothing more."
"I think I understand what you mean," I said. "And I have often thought how little there is in the world that can stand against this form of mechanization and choose its own path."
"This is just where you make your greatest mistake," said G. "You think there is something that chooses its own path, something that can stand against mechanization; you think that not everything is equally mechanical."
"Why, of course not!" I said. "Art, poetry, thought, are phenomena of quite a different order."
"Of exactly the same order," said G. "These activities are just as mechanical as everything else. Men are machines and nothing but mechanical actions can be expected of machines."
"Very well," I said. "But are there no people who are not machines?"
"It may be that there are," said G., "only not those people you see. And you do not know them. That is what I want you to understand."
I thought it rather strange that he should be so insistent on this point. What he said seemed to me obvious and incontestable. At the same time, I had never liked such short and all-embracing metaphors. They always omitted points of difference. I, on the other hand, had always maintained differences were the most important thing and that in order to understand things it was first necessary to see the points in which they differed. So I felt that it was odd that G. insisted on an idea which seemed to be obvious provided it were not made too absolute and exceptions were admitted.
"People are so unlike one another," I said. "I do not think it would be possible to bring them all under the same heading. There are savages, there are mechanized people, there are intellectual people, there are geniuses."
"Quite right," said G., "people are very unlike one another, but the real difference between people you do not know and cannot see. The difference of which you speak simply does not exist. This must be understood. All the people you see, all the people you know, all the people you may get to know, are machines, actual machines working solely under the power of external influences, as you yourself said. Machines they are born and machines they die. How do savages and intellectuals come into this? Even now, at this very moment, while we are talking, several millions of machines are trying to annihilate one another. What is the difference between them? Where are the savages and where are the intellectuals? They are all alike . . .
"But there is a possibility of ceasing to be a machine. It is of this we must think and not about the different kinds of machines that exist. Of course there are different machines; a motorcar is a machine, a gramophone is a machine, and a gun is a machine. But what of it? It is the same thing—they are all machines."
In connection with this conversation I remember another.
"What is your opinion of modem psychology?" I once asked G. with the intention of introducing the subject of psychoanalysis which I had mistrusted from the time when it had first appeared. But G. did not let me get as far as that.
"Before speaking of psychology we must be clear to whom it refers and to whom it does not refer," he said. "Psychology refers to people, to men, to human beings. What psychology" (he emphasized the word) "can there be in relation to machines? Mechanics, not psychology, is necessary for the study of machines. That is why we begin with mechanics. It is a very long way yet to psychology."
"Can one stop being a machine?" I asked.
"Ah! That is the question," said G. "If you had asked such questions more often we might, perhaps, have got somewhere in our talks. It is possible to stop being a machine, but for that it is necessary first of all to know the machine. A machine, a real machine, does not know itself and cannot know itself. When a machine knows itself it is then no longer a machine, at least, not such a machine as it was before. It already begins to be responsible for its actions."
"This means, according to you, that a man is not responsible for his actions?" I asked.
"A man" (he emphasized this word) "is responsible. A machine is not responsible."
.....
I asked G. what a man had to do to assimilate this teaching.
"What to do?" asked G. as though surprised. "It is impossible to do anything. A man must first of all understand certain things. He has thousands of false ideas and false conceptions, chiefly about himself, and he must get rid of some of them before beginning to acquire anything new. Otherwise the new will be built on a wrong foundation and the result will be worse than before."
"How can one get rid of false ideas?" I asked. "We depend on the forms of our perception. False ideas are produced by the forms of our perception."
G. shook his head.
"Again you speak of something different,"' he said. "You speak of errors arising from perceptions but I am not speaking of these. Within the limits of given perceptions man can err more or err less. As I have said before, man's chief delusion is his conviction that he can do. All people think that they can do, all people want to do, and the first question all people ask is what they are to do. But actually nobody does anything and nobody can do anything. This is the first thing that must be understood. Everything happens. All that befalls a man, all that is done by him, all that comes from him—all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as rain falls as a result of a change in the temperature in the higher regions of the atmosphere or the surrounding clouds, as snow melts under the rays of the sun, as dust rises with the wind.
"Man is a machine. All his deeds, actions, words, thoughts, feelings, convictions, opinions, and habits are the results of external influences, external impressions. Out of himself a man cannot produce a single thought, a single action. Everything he says, does, thinks, feels—all this happens. Man cannot discover anything, invent anything. It all happens.
"To establish this fact for oneself, to understand it, to be convinced of its truth, means getting rid of a thousand illusions about man, about his being creative and consciously organizing his own life, and so on. There is nothing of this kind. Everything happens—popular movements, wars, revolutions, changes of government, all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as everything happens in the life of individual man. Man is born, lives, dies, builds houses, writes books, not as he wants to, but as it happens. Everything happens. Man does not love, hate, desire—all this happens.
"But no one will ever believe you if you tell him he can do nothing. This is the most offensive and the most unpleasant thing you can tell people. It is particularly unpleasant and offensive because it is the truth, and nobody wants to know the truth.
"When you understand this it will be easier for us to talk. But it is one thing to understand with the mind and another thing to feel it with one's "whole mass,' to be really convinced that it is so and never forget it."

from "In Search of the Miraculous" Ouspensky: