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

observation of centres is a little too much from thought. You justthink about this problem, whereas the study of centres and parts ofcentres must come from many practical observations and comparisonof these.MR. H. In the Vedanta philosophy, the expressions 'the self' and 'theessence' appear to be used to describe the same thing. Is the unified 'I'a part of essence according to the present system?MR. O. I cannot be responsible for the terminology of other systems.They may occasionally coincide or they may not. Particularly in Indianphilosophy, it is difficult to be sure about the terms because oftranslation. In many cases the meaning cannot be found; in others themeaning has changed through the years. So we cannot compare terminology.MR. H. When a man dies, the different parts of him go to differentplaces. Of how many separate parts does a conscious man consist, andwhat are their names?MR. O. We can speak about this only theoretically. We cannot knowabout conscious man. About ourselves we can speak theoretically, butnot about degrees of men different from us.MR. H. What is the meaning of the word 'soul' according to thissystem?MR. O. That I mentioned last time. It means simply life principle.Some kind of higher matters which make the body alive, and disappearfrom the body after death.MR. H. Buffers were mentioned the week before last. What are they?MR. O. That will come a little later. In the meantime, I can just saythis; buffers are connected with conscience. Conscience is a word weuse generally in a conventional sense, to mean a sort of educatedemotional habit. Really conscience is a special capacity which everybodypossesses but which nobody can use in the state of sleep. Even if wefeel conscience for a moment, accidentally, it will be a very painfulexperience, so painful that immediately we want to get rid of it. Peoplewho have glimpses occasionally invent all kinds of methods to get ridof this feeling. It is the capacity to feel at the same time all that we feelat different times. Try to understand that all these different 'I's havedifferent feelings. One 'I' feels that he likes something, while anotherhates it and a third 'I' is indifferent. But we never feel them at the sametime because between them are things called buffers. Because of these