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

self-remembering, everybody has something, some kind of unpleasantthoughts come, or recurring unpleasant feelings—that is all help forself-remembering. Every kind of negativeness can be made help forself-remembering.MR. T . I have a very strong habit of classifying something underheadings. For example, I divided my negative emotions into threetypes; crying over spilt milk, offended self-importance, and depressions.Is this formatory?MR. O. No, it may be quite right. I cannot verify your observations atthe present moment, but this is the right way to do it.MR. T . The other day I was very much identified with an experiment Ihad been doing for three hours, and every thought led to this subject.Then I tried stopping thoughts, and found that I kept off this subjectbut still had difficulty with other thoughts associated with impressions.How can I become able to keep my mind off a subject inwhich I am intensely interested, when it is the wrong time to thinkabout it?MR. O. Self-remembering generally speaking, but at the same time itmay not be necessary, it must not be taken too literally. It depends—something happens somewhere sometimes, and turns and turns onethought without any result, and sometimes it may be useful thinking;you may get some results from that.MR. T . I find that the obstacle that prevents me from self-rememberingis the persistent chain of thoughts arising from physical impressions—how can thinking about system ideas prevent this form of identification?MR O. It is difficult to say, you cannot bring one. there are manydifferent causes, that is the first weak spot in thatMR. E Self-remembering is much more difficult in some life circumstancesthan in others, in fact it is sometimes impossible even toremember to try and self-remember.MR O You see before you go further I must say that mistake is inthinking that life circumstances, that means external circumstances, canchange anything or affect it—this is an illusion.MR E Should I try to avoid circumstances in which I become veryidentified, or should I simply accept this condition as part of mypresent state?MR. O Try to avoid, or try to take it as part. If you can avoid it try to