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

talks be necessary, why is school necessary? The language will spreadby itself, maybe in our lifetime, maybe later. But the ideas will enterinto general currency in a wrong form. There will be no distinctionbetween 'doing' and 'happening'. Ideas will be different, only wordswill remain.MRS. A. Are all discussions on philosophical subjects undesirable?MR. O. It depends with whom.MR. P . If a subject crops up in conversation and you feel somethingabout it, you are apt to say what you feel, and that is very likely to becoloured with system ideas. The alternative is to act almost consciouslyand to say something you don't mean at all, which is very difficult. Inpractice one is always carried away, identified.MR. O. I don't see why it is necessary to say something. Why not saynothing? But it is quite right that in practice people are carried away.Our aim, however, is that it should not happen.MRS. C. Did Mr. O. say what our position would be when he publishesfragments?MR. O. Then you will be able to write anything you like about what iswritten in them.MRS. C. He is publishing the book soon, isn't he?MR. O. Oh no, don't worry.MRS. N. Mr. O. said that the breaking of rules would be sufficient todestroy the possibility of work altogether, and I noticed that in thisconnection he mentioned only two, the rule of not talking and the ruleof not having any association with people of the earlier group. Can onetake these as the two major rules, or are there others?MR. O. You speak of two rules, and someone else heard three rules,but as a matter of fact I spoke about rules and then gave someexamples. In connection with this, some people ask for lists of rules;others are satisfied with headings. This is the most formatory methodof learning rules. You cannot make a catalogue of them. There is onlyone method of learning rules and this other method explains twothings: how to learn rules and how to think in a new way. Take onerule and try to understand it and study it: what it means, why there isthis rule, etc. Then you will see ramifications of this rule. You will seethat it touches certain other things and creates at least one other rule.Then try to understand this other rule, its purpose, etc., and in tryingto do this you will come to a third rule. In this way you come back in