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

from this point begins possibility of change of being and so on, but itis necessary to distinguish between having something and having thepossibility to have something; this is the difference.Q . Did you mean when you said that everything in life can be apossibility to work....MR. O. I meant (talking without extremes) ordinary occupation—everyordinary occupation in life can become work. If one tries not toidentify, and remember oneself, little by little, it does not mean thatone can do it at once—and observe oneself—whatever one docs itbecomes work.Q . Can one supplement one's knowledge through reading contempo­rary psychology—Freudism for instance?MR. O. I don't think so, it is not psychology, it is study of abnormalsex which is applied to everybody w hich might be quite unnecessary. Itold you once how I regard modem psychology. If you take thenineties of last century, psychology of that time was an interestingscience in a sense, but rather dull because it has no practical application,but there were some interesting theories and facts, I mean up to thenineties, and then after that this psychology was really finished, it istransformed into what is called different schools, different kinds ofpsychoanalysis, behaviourism, and one is called [?] God knowswhy, and different kinds of statistics all based on wrong assumptions;and the other side of psychology, which was more philosophical, wentin other directions and began to study psychology of religions. Easternthought and so on, and again in some cases produced good results andin some cases identified with weak lines of thought, so I don't knowreally what could be called scientific psychology, they all contradictone another, one denies consciousness and says it is not necessary, andanother recognizes consciousness and speaks about it without knowing .what it means, and so on.Q . When you use the word being do you mean conscience?MR. O. No, I mean everything—this table has a being. It is combinationof all features or qualities of my being or table's being; it is simplycertain level—if you remember man in the Table of Hydrogens, if wefind mean hydrogen of this table and mean hydrogen of man, then wecan say, for instance, which place in the Table of Hydrogens manoccupies and which place table occupies; that will be level of being ona large scale, but as man we are all on the same level from that point of