"That explosion is the fulfillment, that explosion is what the divine is all about – exploding into millions of flowers. When the potential becomes the actual, only then is man fulfilled. Man is born as a potential; that is unique to man. All other animals are born complete, they are born as they are going to die. There is no evolution between their birth and their death: they move on the same plane, they never go through any transformation. No radical change in their life ever happens. They move horizontally, the vertical never penetrates them.

"If man also moves horizontally he will miss his manhood, he will not become a soul. That's what Gurdjieff meant when he used to say that all people don't have souls. It is very rare that a person has a soul. Now this is a very strange statement, because down the ages you have been told that you are born with a soul. Gurdjieff says you are born only with the potential of becoming a soul, not with the actual soul. You have a blueprint, but the blueprint has to be worked out. You have the seed, but you have to search for the soil, and the season, and the right climate, and the right moment to explode, to grow.

"Moving horizontally, you will remain without a soul. When the vertical penetrates you, you become a soul. 'Soul' means the vertical has penetrated into the horizontal. Or, as an example, you can think of the egg, the caterpillar and the butterfly.

"Man is born as a larva. Unfortunately, many die also as larvae, very few become caterpillars. A larva is static: it knows no movement, it remains stuck at one space, at one place, at one stage. Very few people grow into caterpillars. The caterpillar starts moving; dynamism enters. The larva is static, the caterpillar moves. With movement life is stirred. Again, many remain caterpillars: they go on moving horizontally, on the same plane, in one dimension. Rarely, a man like Buddha – or Jalaluddin Rumi or Jesus or Kabir – takes the final quantum leap and becomes a butterfly. Then the vertical enters in.

"The larva is static; the caterpillar moves, knows movement; the butterfly flies, knows heights, starts moving upward."