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

MR. O. I don't know. Many things cannot be defined from the point ofview of principles. One or another answer depends on the conversation.MR. W. There are certain ideas about which you have not talked for along time, for instance about barriers.MR. O. That refers to group work. We can talk about them in smallgroups when a definite example can be given, otherwise it becomestheoretical. What do you wish to know about them?MR. W. I understood it so little at the time that even the idea of themhas almost gone. Are they certain definite steps?MR. O. No. First this idea must be divided into two. Barriers may ariseeven out of general rules and tasks. But they arise more often out ofindividual tasks. Many people made barriers for themselves out ofgeneral tasks and could not pass over them by refusing to applysomething in practice.MR. W. The idea is that one gets stuck between two barriers?MR. O. This is said simply to accentuate certain kinds of danger ifpeople don't want to go .over a barrier. But I don't remember a singlecase of that. Evidently this refers to harder conditions and quickerdevelopment, a quicker movement.MRS. N. Is it characteristic of the Fourth Way that will is developedfrom self-will and wilfulness?MR. O. Words, words. . . .MR. W. Another term you used to use for which I am not sure whetherI have invented a meaning. You used to speak about right and lefthand. To me it means not to let W. pat himself on the back.MR. O. It has many meanings and it may be applied to many things.Only in your example there is no secrecy about that, and this refers tosecrecy, to the necessity of a certain concealment even from oneself.Many things are forgotten because we forget the starting point.Things become dull, you have no questions. But the moment weconnect with the beginning, we see why and where we are going, whatwe want to get. Then we realize what we got from the system and thatwe cannot expect more because of our own fault. We must alwaysremember the starting point, remember that it is connected not simplywith words, but with search for the miraculous. All this system wouldhave no meaning if there is no search for the miraculous.I will tell you a funny thing. Mrs. R. said at last meeting that shewas interested in the first line, but not in the second and the third. As