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

it is and suppose they were made like that for some purpose But thepoint is that there is no difference between one and the other Allorganic life on the earth is based on this principle that one thing liveson anotherMISS A Does it help one in the understanding of the ideas of time, setforth in your chapter on Eternal Recurrence, to think of the humanrace as a living organism and lives of people as cells constantlyrenewing themselves?MR O Yes, it may help, but it is not exactly our subject We mayreturn to this when we have more material to speak about itMISS A What discarded human trait does a cat embody?MR O That is difficult to answer It is an idea taken from the NewModel It may be useful, but at present we must look at things fromanother point of view Discarded traits is only one idea which wassuggested More probably, from the point of view of plan, of GreatLaboratory, all animals, insects, plants and so on are the results ofexperiments made in order to develop certain new possibilities, notdiscarded, but each complete in itself But it is only one hypothesis,not necessarily true in all casesMISS A You talk in your book of the existence in man of a principlefrom which barbarism develops Is this something apart from the badworking of centres?MR O It is mechanicalness All centres can work mechanically, canwork by themselves, so that things just happen Barbarism, evil, if youlike, all comes from this mechanicalnessMISS A Is missing a person a negative part of love? And if the persondied and one felt sorrow, would this still be negative emotion?MR O You must learn to distinguish Negative emotions are generallybased on imagination and identification, so you must not in your mindtry to find causes for real grief, feeling of loss and so on That will notexplain it You must try to look at things where there is no realemotion, because real emotions happen relatively seldom, whereas wecan be negative twenty-four hours of the dayMISS T For school-work to be constructive, it is evident that constantattention is required on the part of the individual, which I ampersonally most anxious to apply Progress to knowledge is, of necessity,slow, but there comes a time when desire for a more completeunderstanding of the teaching demands material which can only be