Read Online The Strange Life of P. D. Ouspensky by Colin Wilson - Free Book Online
Authors: Colin Wilson
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experienced was a brief glimpse of what 'normality' should be like ('far more complete than the fullest degree of ordinary consciousness') and that our present 'normality' is quite abnormal - or rather, sub-normal.
So, in effect, Ouspensky was in a state of intense excitement , in which consciousness seemed to be flowing faster. Normally, it is as slow and as solid as a glacier; in mystical states, the ice melts and it flows like a river.
This also becomes clear from Ouspensky's remark that he found it impossible to complete a sentence, because between every word, so many ideas occurred to him that he was unable to catch up. He began a sentence: 'I said yesterday . . .'
No sooner had I pronounced the word 'I' than a number of ideas began to turn in my head about the meaning of the word, in a philosophical, in a psychological and in every other sense. This was all so important, so new and profound, that when I pronounced the word 'said', I could not understand in the least what I meant by it. Tearing myself away with difficulty from the first cycle of thoughts about 'I', I passed to the idea 'said', and immediately found in it an infinite content. The idea of speech, the possibility of expressing thoughts in words, the past tense of the verb, each of these ideas produced an explosion of thoughts, conjectures, comparisons and associations. Thus, when I pronounced the word 'yesterday' I was already quite unable to understand why I had said it. But it in its turn immediately dragged me into the depths of the problems of time, of past, present and future, and before me such possibilities of approach to these problems began to open up that my breath was taken away.
Again, this is all quite logical. When consciousness is 'unfrozen' it ceases to be 'serial', like the words in a sentence, and becomes 'simultaneous' - that is, turns into a bird's eye view. It is obviously very similar to the state called 'inspiration', in which an author or musician has to write at top speed to keep up with his insights.
This image makes us aware that human beings are trapped in time, carried along by it as if on a river. Meanings flash past, like advertisement billboards on the bank, but it is hard to read them. Yet every time we become 'absorbed', every time we pay total attention to some meaning, we cause time to slow down . This is one of the most interesting things about the human condition: that we possess this power to 'slow time down'. It implies that, if we wanted to, we could somehow bring time to a halt and be in the presence of meaning. Ordinary men take it for granted that they are the slaves of time, and that, like an ever-rolling stream, it will carry them into oblivion. Philosophers and mystics glimpse this possibility that time is not an absolute; if we could learn to use our powers correctly, we could control it.
Ouspensky had practical experience of the 'non-absoluteness' of space and time. He describes how, after half an hour of intense discipline, 'I could quite clearly see the faces of people at a distance at which normally one would have difficulty in distinguishing one figure from another.' Space had 'telescoped'. On another occasion, he recalled his intention of making a trip to Moscow when he was in the midst of his 'experiments':
Suddenly, without any warning, I received the comment that I should not go to Moscow at Easter. Why? In answer to this I saw how, starting from the day of the experiment. . . events began to develop in a definite order and sequence. Nothing new happened. But the causes, which I could see quite well and which were there on the day of my experiment, were evolving, and having come to the results which unavoidably followed from them, they formed just before Easter a whole series of difficulties which in the end prevented me from going to Moscow. The fact in itself . . . had a merely curious character, but the interesting side of it was that I saw what looked like a possibility of calculating the
So, in effect, Ouspensky was in a state of intense excitement , in which consciousness seemed to be flowing faster. Normally, it is as slow and as solid as a glacier; in mystical states, the ice melts and it flows like a river.
This also becomes clear from Ouspensky's remark that he found it impossible to complete a sentence, because between every word, so many ideas occurred to him that he was unable to catch up. He began a sentence: 'I said yesterday . . .'
No sooner had I pronounced the word 'I' than a number of ideas began to turn in my head about the meaning of the word, in a philosophical, in a psychological and in every other sense. This was all so important, so new and profound, that when I pronounced the word 'said', I could not understand in the least what I meant by it. Tearing myself away with difficulty from the first cycle of thoughts about 'I', I passed to the idea 'said', and immediately found in it an infinite content. The idea of speech, the possibility of expressing thoughts in words, the past tense of the verb, each of these ideas produced an explosion of thoughts, conjectures, comparisons and associations. Thus, when I pronounced the word 'yesterday' I was already quite unable to understand why I had said it. But it in its turn immediately dragged me into the depths of the problems of time, of past, present and future, and before me such possibilities of approach to these problems began to open up that my breath was taken away.
Again, this is all quite logical. When consciousness is 'unfrozen' it ceases to be 'serial', like the words in a sentence, and becomes 'simultaneous' - that is, turns into a bird's eye view. It is obviously very similar to the state called 'inspiration', in which an author or musician has to write at top speed to keep up with his insights.
This image makes us aware that human beings are trapped in time, carried along by it as if on a river. Meanings flash past, like advertisement billboards on the bank, but it is hard to read them. Yet every time we become 'absorbed', every time we pay total attention to some meaning, we cause time to slow down . This is one of the most interesting things about the human condition: that we possess this power to 'slow time down'. It implies that, if we wanted to, we could somehow bring time to a halt and be in the presence of meaning. Ordinary men take it for granted that they are the slaves of time, and that, like an ever-rolling stream, it will carry them into oblivion. Philosophers and mystics glimpse this possibility that time is not an absolute; if we could learn to use our powers correctly, we could control it.
Ouspensky had practical experience of the 'non-absoluteness' of space and time. He describes how, after half an hour of intense discipline, 'I could quite clearly see the faces of people at a distance at which normally one would have difficulty in distinguishing one figure from another.' Space had 'telescoped'. On another occasion, he recalled his intention of making a trip to Moscow when he was in the midst of his 'experiments':
Suddenly, without any warning, I received the comment that I should not go to Moscow at Easter. Why? In answer to this I saw how, starting from the day of the experiment. . . events began to develop in a definite order and sequence. Nothing new happened. But the causes, which I could see quite well and which were there on the day of my experiment, were evolving, and having come to the results which unavoidably followed from them, they formed just before Easter a whole series of difficulties which in the end prevented me from going to Moscow. The fact in itself . . . had a merely curious character, but the interesting side of it was that I saw what looked like a possibility of calculating the
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