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Quotes of Ouspensky

P D Ouspensky Quotes and Sayings

Lying must stop. You must remember the principle: lies can only produce lies.
A religion contradicting science and a science contradicting religion are equally false.
Development of being means awakening, since the chief feature of our being is that we are asleep. By trying to awake we change our being; this is the first point. Then there are many other things: creating unity, not expressing negative emotions, observation, study of negative emotions, trying not to identify, trying to avoid useless talk—all this is work on being.
We think we can take a certain decision and act accordingly. In reality we are controlled not by internal decisions but by external influences. If the internal decision corresponds to the external influence, we will do it, otherwise we will not. But we can create in ourselves powers to 'do'. Nature has made us machines acting under external influences, but with a possibility to develop our own motor. If there is no inner motor, we will always turn round in the same place.
Usually people are below normal. Only from the level of ordinary man does the possibility of development begin. But there are many states below that of the ordinary man. People who are too identified, or hypnotized by formatory ideas, or who lie too much are more machines than an ordinary man. To be an ordinary man is already a relatively high state, because from this state it is possible to move.
By self-remembering. It is necessary to develop consciousness, and this will bring with it the possibility of using better organs of perception and cognition. Without higher centres we cannot do much, and this is why a philosophical approach is not much use. It can invent certain theories and then it stops. It does not develop the higher centres which alone can understand the ideas fully. Philosophy does not touch them.
Effort is our money. If we want something, we must pay with effort. According to the strength of effort and the time of effort—in the sense of whether it is the right time for effort or not—we obtain results. Effort needs knowledge, knowledge of the moments when effort is useful. It is necessary to learn by long practice how to produce and apply effort. The efforts we can make are efforts of self-observation and selfremembering. When people ask about effort, they think about an effort of 'doing'. That would be lost effort or wrong effort, but effort of self-observation and selfremembering is right effort because it can give right results.
One can be identified with the school in many ways—by liking it too much, or criticizing it too much, or believing in it too much.
You must realize that identification can never help you; it only makes things more confused and more difficult.
Desire to be conscious comes when you are afraid of mechanicalness. First one must realize that one is a machine, and then be afraid of it. Then desire will appear.
It is necessary to remember yourself not at a quiet moment when nothing happens but when you know that you are doing something wrong—and not do it. For instance, when you are identified, you must be able to feel it and then stop it and at the same time remember yourself, be aware that you are doing it, that mechanicalness causes you to be identified and that you are stopping it. That will be self-remembering.
We cannot make the first step towards higher states because there are many things we do not want to give up. Each of us knows perfectly well what he has to give up, but no one wants to do it. But in relation to self-remembering it is much more simple; if one really tries all possible means one will notice a difference between one's state and the state of a man who does not try to remember himself.

Ouspensky Quotes1 - OuspenskyQuotes2