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

thinking. Considering is a useless kind of emotion, you know. Itdoesn't bring any useful result.MISS F. But if you feel foolish, it must be considering.MR. O. No, it isn't considering, it is just, you feel foolish Why shouldit be considering?MR. M. Can we learn anything useful from the study of what you callhalf-dream states?MR. O. I don't think so. It was a long time before I discovered that,and then I found that they cannot be useful.MISS W. Are some of the things that happen to us and that we cannotremember, completely absent from our rolls of memory?MR O. You mean things which happened but which we forgot? Thereare different theories about it. I don't know. Probably, there aredifferent kinds, again, some that can be reconstructed and some thatcannot—like from the ordinary point of view.MISS W. I think I can remember back a very long way, when I wasvery small. Is that quite common?MR. O. Not quite, but it happens. It makes no difference. Some peoplerecollect themselves earlier, some later.MRS. H. Is magic the same sort of action . . .MR. O. What does magic mean?MRS. H. I don't know.MR. O. Well, if you cannot explain it, don't use it. That is one of theprinciples of the work.MRS. H. Will you tell me what you mean by magic?MR. O. No. I didn't say anything. I didn't mention magic. If I did, thenyou have a right to ask, you see. No. That is a wrong start, you know.If you start from the other end, then some time we can speak about it.MRS. S. When one is in a bad state and against the work, should onetry to shock oneself into better effort or just observe?MR. O. Yes, if you can. Why not? Self-remembering is the only onereal shock—but that doesn't refer to five minutes. If you try toremember yourself for a day or two, it will pass probablyMRS. L. Can an imagination be thought of as an incomplete action,lacking one of the forces of the triad?MR. O. Why such a complicated explanation? Such a thing as imaginationwe can study psychologically. We can understand it just turnsround and round and we cannot control it, so very soon we see it is