In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching

by P.D. Ouspensky

I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that there was no escape from the labyrinth of contradictions in which we live except by an entirely new road,

The "miraculous" was a penetration into this unknown reality.

Our starting point is that man does not know himself, that he is not"

"that is, he is not what he can and what he should be.

Of course he can promise to do so, but can he keep his promise? For he is not one, there are many different people in him.

To be able to keep a secret a man must know himself and he must be. And

Of course there is a certain meaning hidden beneath the outward form, but I have not pursued the aim of exposing and emphasizing this meaning.

"But there is a possibility of ceasing to be a machine.

It is possible to stop being a machine, but for that it is necessary first of all to know the machine.

When a machine knows itself it is then no longer a machine, at least, not such a machine as it was before. It already begins to be responsible for its actions."

He has thousands of false ideas and false conceptions, chiefly about himself, and he must get rid of some of them before beginning to acquire anything new.

Within the limits of given perceptions man can err more or err less.

But actually nobody does anything and nobody can do anything. This is the first thing that must be understood.

Everything happens. All that befalls a man, all that is done by him, all that comes from him—all this happens.

"Man is a machine. All his deeds, actions, words, thoughts, feelings, convictions, opinions, and habits are the results of external influences, external impressions.

Everything he says, does, thinks, feels—all this happens.

Man cannot discover anything, invent anything....

Man is born, lives, dies, builds houses, writes books, not as he wants to, but as it happens.

Man does not love, hate, desire—all this happens.

It is particularly unpleasant and offensive because it is the truth, and nobody wants to know the truth.

But it is one thing to understand with the mind and another thing to feel it with one's "whole mass,' to be really convinced that it is so and never forget it.

They do not understand, and do not want to understand, that what is being done, and particularly what has already been done in one way, cannot be, and could not have been, done in another way.

Actually everything is being done in the only way it can be done.

everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate.

In order to do it is necessary to be. And it is necessary first to understand what to be means.

And yet they lie all the time, both when they wish to lie and when they wish to speak the truth.

To speak the truth is the most difficult thing in the world; and one must study a great deal and for a long time in order to be able to speak the truth.

To speak the truth one must know what the truth is and what a lie is, and first of all in oneself. And this nobody wants to know."

G. called "considering" that attitude which creates inner slavery, inner dependence.

G. drew a small diagram and tried to explain what he called the "correlation of forces in different worlds."

humanity, or more correctly, organic life on earth, is acted upon simultaneously by influences proceeding from various sources and different worlds: influences from the planets, influences from the moon, influences from the sun, influences from the stars.

And for man there is a certain possibility of making a choice of influences; in other words, of passing from one influence to another.

it is impossible to become free from one influence without becoming subject to another. The whole thing, all work on oneself, consists in choosing the influence to which you wish to subject yourself, and actually falling under this influence. And for this it is necessary to know beforehand which influence is the more profitable."

If, by a certain time, what ought to be done has not been done, the earth may perish without having attained what it could have attained."

was most of all interested in the connectedness of everything he said.

"You do not realize your own situation. You are in prison. All you can wish for, if you are a sensible man, is to escape.

"Furthermore, no one can escape from prison without the help of those who have escaped before.

So long as he fails to realize this, so long as he thinks he is free, he has no chance whatever.

If liberation is possible, it is possible only as a result of great labor and great efforts, and, above all, of conscious efforts, towards a definite aim.

"People do not value what is easily come by,"

"Many things are possible," said G. "But it is necessary to understand that man's being, both in life and after death, if it does exist after death, may be very different in quality.

The 'man-machine' with whom everything depends upon external influences, with whom everything happens, who is now one, the next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no future of any kind;

In both cases it is the continuation of life in the 'astral body,' or with the help of the 'astral body.'

the 'astral body' is obtained by means of fusion, that is, by means of terribly hard inner work and struggle.

If it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body, and it may be born again in another physical body.

"Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of 'friction,' by the struggle between 'yes' and 'no' in man.

"Sacrifice is necessary," said G. "If nothing is sacrificed nothing is obtained.

And it is necessary to sacrifice something precious at the moment, to sacrifice for a long time and to sacrifice a great deal.

Sacrifice is necessary only while the process of crystallization is going on. When crystallization is achieved, renunciations, privations, ...

"There are two answers to that," said G. "In the first place, this knowledge is not concealed; and in the second place, it cannot, from its very nature, become common property. We will consider the second of these statements first.