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

Monday. September 13th 1937.[Questions read.]MR. O. There are many questions on different subjects, but some I willanswer later when we come to these subjects. Now I will speak aboutthe Society and about what you call expansion.The organization of the Society became necessary for several reasons,and some of these reasons you also feel in your questions, but you donot know how things must be organized. You see, even if we continuein the same way as we are working now we will have more and morepeople. Now we have about three hundred people; in a year or two wewill have perhaps six hundred. But already now, in the presentconditions, it becomes impossible to follow everybody's individualwork and to really help people. Before, when there were less people, Iknew them all personally, and knew what everybody was doing. Butwhen the number of people passes a certain limit this becomes impossible,and it is not possible to help people enough without a specialorganization. Organization means division into groups. Suppose weare three hundred and I divide people into ten groups of thirty peopleeach, and each group has one person who will look after this group,collect questions, bring me the questions, etc. From time to time I visiteach group. In this way each person will be able to receive help in theirpersonal difficulties and answers to their questions.But even such a small organization (ten groups) needs a differentplace. So first of all it is necessary to have a house with a certainnumber of rooms where these groups can meet, because, if they meetin different places, in private houses—it is not the same thing. Apartfrom rooms for groups to meet we need one big room, about two orthree times larger than this one, for it will save a lot of time for me if,instead of repeating the same thing three or four times at smallergroups (like this one), everybody could hear it at once. So we need ahouse with one big room and a certain number of smaller rooms.This is connected with the idea of Society. Also a name is necessary.