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

incompatible with the one you want to get rid of, and that can beuseful, then just replace one by the other. But it can also happen thateven then they can both live happily together: one can be in theevening and another in the morning, and never meet.MRS. H. What then?MR. O. It is necessary to think in every case. In each particular casesometimes it is possible to find something. There is only one real danger:if for a long time one goes on without making sufficient efforts, orwithout doing anything seriously, then, instead of becoming one, onebecomes divided into two, and all features and personalities are dividedinto two groups, one part useful to the work and helping work, andanother part either indifferent or even unfriendly. This is the real danger,because if two parts begin to form like this, indifference of one spoils theresult of work of the other. So it is necessary to struggle very quickly andvery strongly against that, otherwise it may lead to double crystallization.MISS C. What do you mean by crystallizing?MR. O. We use this word in a particular sense—any feature may becomecrystallized, like buffers crystallize. This term came from the theosophicalterminology, it is sometimes a useful term. I think everybody has heardabout higher bodies, astral, mental and causal? This terminology isuseful because it explains things that other terminology does not explainclearly. The idea is that one has one physical body only, and developmentconsists in the development of higher bodies. So man No. 5 correspondsto crystallization of the astral body, man No. 6 to crystallization of themental body, and man No. 7 to crystallization of the causal body.M R . H . Would one know of those two groups forming in one?MR. O. Yes. If one learnt to observe oneself one can find when itbegins to happen, and one cannot leave it going on for a long time,because if one leaves it for a long time it becomes every day more andmore difficult to struggle with it. So one has to struggle with it veryquickly. But it manifests itself differently in different cases: in onepersonality it manifests itself in one way and in another in another way.MRS. S. Are you speaking of something different from identification?MR. O. Yes, I don't speak about identification. I am speaking of thedanger when, instead of becoming more and more one, one becomesdivided into two parts.MR. H. Is that characteristic of most people's work at one point oranother?