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

it in a philosophical way, but have not made the right deductionsTolstoy, for instance, described it well and said that for certain resultscertain kinds of activity were necessary, but he could not follow it upMISS F I find I am becoming negative over the things I observe inmyself—as I see I am very trivial and inconsistent about everything Ifeel doubtful that I shall ever change How can I avoid becomingnegative and what is the right attitude?MR O The right attitude is to understand that you are not one, that youare many What you describe is only one 'I' out of many Try to see othersMISS F You said that with increasing consciousness one developsconscience I don't know if I have developed one, but I find myselfworrying over all sorts of details which I never thought about beforeSince worrying is a form of negative emotion, I suppose this is notconscience working How can one recognize real conscience and whatis it?MR O Try not to identify Accept all this worrying and then perhapsyou will see something more That will be the next stepMR A I believe that the understanding we are seeking is attainableonly by some Is it not very probable that many of us may get to ablank wall of eliminations and no further?MR O Nothing can be guaranteed I have now a comparatively longexperience and in some cases I can say almost at once that it is notworth while for the person to try I never try to keep anybody when Iam sure it is no use It happens sometimes But if one wants somethingand tries to work and does not show some particular unpleasantfeature which is very difficult to deal with, then one has a chance Thatis all I can say One has exactly the same chance as anybody else Youmay see one side of people and not another One person may have verygood and very beautiful features, and yet behind this have one smallfeature which makes work very difficult for him, more difficult perhapsthan it is for somebody else who does not have such brilliant featuresMR D Is some special school discipline necessary in order that a manmay be able to struggle against self will successfully?MR O Yes, it is useful in some cases It is one thing just to try andorientate and work on the principles one has learnt, and another thingto be told 'do this, do not do that'' If one is told, it produces manyobjections, many difficult moments, and sometimes this is usefulMR S Is it the addition of the third force to the two others that makes