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

MR. O. As good as anything else, if it gives results. How can oneprepare? There are many ways, we speak about it a little from manysides.Q. It seems to me that in order to realize where we had missed anopportunity in a past life, we would first have to reach a moment ofawakening in this life.MR. O. Very good. Only do that first.Q. When I look back at the opportunities missed in this life, I have thefeeling that only by being a different kind of person could I have acteddifferently. From this it seems to me that the only way to affectrecurrence is to change one's essence.MR. O. Again very useful. But how to do it?Many of the questions last time and some of these refer to mostimportant things. We can understand something by thinking. Forexample: Question whether all people are affected in the same way byrecurrence. Impossible to say simple yes or no. But what can beapplied to one man cannot be applied to another. For one man—sameway, same house, same cats. But for other people it may be different.Great poets, great writers—they may not need to walk by the samestreets. They may walk by different streets and do same thing.Q . To what is the difference due—to efforts?MR. O. No, I think to capacities, to achievement, to scope of thinking,feeling.Q. Would the type of recurrence depend on the role one played in life?MR. O. Very dangerous to answer 'yes', though it is very near to 'yes'.I must answer 'no', though it is nearer to 'yes'.Q . You spoke about a great poet or writer and said he didn't need towalk the same streets.MR. O. Or write same verses.Q . Do you mean he extracted all he could or produced all he couldwith his environment?MR. O. Maybe not all, but sufficient. He may try something else that hedidn't try last time.Q . Were the capacities and scope given at birth or did they increasewith effort?MR. O. We don't know. How can you be sure? It is there. We spoke ofsix triads. In one triad you can do one thing; in another, anotherthing.