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

MR. O. We may talk about scales later.[End of written questions.]***MRS. S. Ought one to be able to induce sleep whenever one wants?MR. O. Yes, I think one must be able to do that.MRS. S. How?MR. O. That is the thing. There are very many different causes thatmay prevent sleep, and first one must know which and then perhapsone will be able to remove it.MRS. S. How can one learn to stop thinking?MR. O. By self-remembering. Thinking stops at once. Everything inyourself that you can stop must help self-remembering. Pain, physicalor mental, thoughts—all can be useful for self-remembering.MR. M. I think a man with higher consciousness must soon become farmore acutely aware of his various organs, does he not?MR. O. If he has control, he will be aware of what he needs to be awareof. What means control? He will not be aware of what he does notneed to be aware of.MRS. S. Can he cure himself of illnesses?MR. O. First, there are different illnesses. Some are the result of imagination;some the result of disregarding the demands of instinctive centre.Or perhaps the cause happened long ago and he cannot change it. Orperhaps it comes from an external cause. You cannot speak of illnessall together like that.MR. M. There is one very curious fact he would perceive, is there not,namely that these organs, although they can think, are incapable ofthinking beyond themselves? So they have no sense of teamwork, so tospeak, of the human body as a wholeMR. O. But there are centres. This is right in relation to organs, butsuppose you take the organs controlled by instinctive centre. Eachseparately does not know, but instinctive centre looks after them andcontrols them, adjusts one to another. Instinctive centre looks after allorgans if it can. If energy is taken by another centre or goes some wayon useless work, then it cannot Then one becomes ill. But in thenormal organism it has many possibilities of controlling, repairingorgans and so on. So certainly we can suppose that in higher states ofconsciousness this faculty can be increased and can be quite conscious.But this is only supposition. We must study our present state.