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

takes place. It is not only actual bringing of new people, because thatvery often depends on chance, on acquaintance, ability to speak. Atpresent there is a chance that belongs to all to take part in placing ofother groups, particularly in the new house we shall have new possibilities,and we may have four or five new groups, and after a time allgroups will enter into other work and prepare new possibilities.When the house is opened, I think all who come now will come in thegeneral meeting once a week—I am not sure about Tuesday, butWednesday at any rate, and immediately after that we will start newgroups, maybe two at once, but there will be now no new group untilSeptember or October. It will be simpler, the more it grows, to findpeople who want to come, but certainly a little later we will have tosort them out much more—I mean there will be bigger demands thannow, but this is not so important. The preliminary study of the systemis by itself, and those who are more prepared will stay, and those whoare less interested will be sorted out. Certainly it will be interesting tohave this large meeting, because you will see everybody and hear allsorts of questions and answers at once. Also there will be the possibilityof coming to new groups, although I cannot promise. Only after sometime it may be obligatory, even, for some people to come to newgroups and talk to new people.MR. H. In what way, what arrangements can be made to ensure that asthe work gets bigger the ideas can be kept pure—when work wasmuch smaller all could have personal contact with you.MR. O. Well that is your work—big or small you must try to getpersonal contact with me or with other people, and work not to spoilideas, because if people begin to distort them, they will have to leave.Ideas become distorted when people begin to invent their own explanationsand theorize, but so long as they work sincerely and try to verifyanything that comes into their minds, and work according to rules andprinciples, distortion is not at all necessary. In organization of schoolwork,all measures are taken against distortion, and if it happens it isonly because people forget these precautionary measures. It is generallythe influence of formatory centre, and when people begin to workwith formatory centre and nobody corrects them, there is no idea inthe world that cannot be distorted in less than twenty-four hours. Ihave met some extraordinary distortions of these ideas, only, happily,not in my own groups.