A Record of Meetings held by P.D. Ouspensky - HolyBooks.com

eader will never be able to find the right centre of gravity, so thisbook would be like any other book. This is why there are no textbooks on the system. Things can be written only for those who havestudied. There are several books like that. The New Testament is oneof them. There are also such books on old philosophies; they are reallyonly short headings, there is no real exposition in them.MISS W. You said it is easy to lose a school. How?MR. O. One comes with the desire to know, one wants to learn. Then,when one begins, one gets dissatisfied, one says: 'This is not theknowledge I want, I want it this way and I am told it in another way.'So, instead of learning, one finds contradictions.MR. D. Does one get in school answers to problems of life, to everydayfacts?MR. O. Some are simpler to explain, others are more difficult.MR. D. Then why cannot the answer be written on paper? For instance,the answer to the question: is the League of Nations any use?MR. O. This is an imaginary thing and the school tries to deal withreality. Partly in connection with your question—one of the strangestexperiments I had was when I realized that many ideas, words, lines ofthought did not exist at all, meant absolutely nothing. When one isawake a little, one may realize this. Many words are simply emptywords. The League of Nations is one of them. So one cannot comewith a definite demand to have the League of Nations explained.MRS. S. I don't understand about heredity—I thought that certainphysical things, like glands, affect one's nature?MR. O. In a small way they may, but only to a small extent.MR. Q . Are men 1, 2. and 3 incapable to apprehend reality at all?MR. O. In simple things.MR. Q . Then they have to exercise faith until they reach the stage ofNo.4?MR. O. No, not faith. But one can start from simple realities; tables andchairs, and then verify every new idea. Certainly, at first, one mustaccept certain hypotheses, but one has to try and verify them gradually.Faith belongs only to religious way.MR. Q . You mean to test realities we don't know by those we know?MR. O. Certainly.***MR. O. We shall speak now of man's place in the universe. In ordinary