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

MR D . Is there a danger of negative attitude having a negative emotionattached to it?MR. O. Great danger yes, but if you do not identify with the negativeattitude then the emotion cannot come.MR. N. If man were less mechanical would influences from planetsaffect him in a different way? Not by making him make wars and thatkind of thing?MR. O. It is difficult to say. You take it as if it were known how one isaffected, but even in the ordinary state one can be affected in differentways, so what do you really want to compare? Speaking in general, Ithink one can only look at it from one side—that of identification. Ifone is less identified one takes other things without identification.MR. L. How does one learn to put emotions in the right place?MR. O. There is only one universal key to all this—remember yourself.There are many methods used in different schools especially for thisthing, but from the point of view of the system the strongest, surestand quickest method is become more conscious. When you are asleepemotions have the tendency to go to the wrong place. You can putthem right by being more conscious, because in one who is moreconscious of himself everything is different. One can be more consciousand less conscious, more asleep and less asleep and that is whatdetermines this really.MR. A . My question was put with the object of ascertaining whetherhigher states of consciousness can produce more thoroughly badpeople or more thoroughly good people equally.MR. O. No, that is wrong. Bad people can be produced only byincrease of mechanicalness. Self-remembering cannot produce wrongresults, though again it is necessary to keep the connection witheverything else. If one omits one thing and takes another thing fromthe system, if one seriously works on self-remembering without knowingthe idea of division of 'I's, takes oneself as one from the beginning,then it will give wrong results and can even produce wrong crystallizationand make development impossible, as it happens in wrong schools,for instance, or even without relation to schools. You see, there is thepossibility to work on this line or parallel lines (Yogi, religious) and,although it is not fully formulated by this, for work to be based onfalse personality and on struggle against conscience. Such work certainlywill produce wrong results. First it will create a kind of strength,