P. D. Ouspensky: Use

P. D. Ouspensky was Russian esotericist. Explore interesting quotes on use.
P. D. Ouspensky: 82   quotes 5   likes

“The fool always carries them, although he has long since forgotten what they mean. Nevertheless they belong to him, even though he does not know their use.”

P. D. Ouspensky

Card 0 : The Fool
The Symbolism of the Tarot (1913)
Context: "What has he in the bag?" I inquired, not knowing why I asked. And after a long silence the voice replied: "The four magic symbols, the sceptre, the cup, the sword and the pentacle. The fool always carries them, although he has long since forgotten what they mean. Nevertheless they belong to him, even though he does not know their use. The symbols have not lost their power, they retain it in themselves.

Fools

“The problem of Eternity, of which the face of the Sphinx speaks, takes us into the realm of the impossible. Even the problem of Time is simple in comparison with the problem of Eternity.”

P. D. Ouspensky

A New Model of the Universe (1932)

Problem , Time

“It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning.”

P. D. Ouspensky

As quoted in Zen and the Art of Making a Living : A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design (1999) by Laurence G. Boldt, p. 118

Life

“The most precise and complete formulation of the law of higher logic I find in the writing of Plotinus, in his On Intelligible Beauty. I shall quote this passage in the succeeding chapter.
I have called this system of higher logic Tertium Organum because for us it is the third canon — third instrument — of thought after those of Aristotle and Bacon. The first was Organon, the second, Novum Organum. But the third existed earlier than the first.
Man, master of this instrument, of this key, may open the door of the world of causes without fear.”

P. D. Ouspensky book Tertium Organum

Ch. XXI http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/to/to24.htm#page_262
Tertium Organum (1912; 1922)

World , Fear , Law , Beauty

“Under the conditions of modern life we have more control over our thoughts, and in connection with this there is a special method by which we may work on the development of our consciousness using that instrument which is most obedient to our will; that is, our mind, or the intellectual centre. In order to understand more clearly what I am going to say, you must try to remember that we have no control over our consciousness. When I said that we can become more conscious, or that a man can be made conscious for a moment simply by asking him if he is conscious or not, I used the words "conscious" or "consciousness" in a relative sense. There are so many degrees of consciousness and every higher degree means "consciousness" in relation to a lower degree. But, if we have no control over consciousness itself, we have a certain control over our thinking about consciousness, and we can construct our thinking in such a way as to bring consciousness. What I mean is that by giving to our thoughts the direction which they would have in a moment of consciousness, we can, in this way, induce consciousness.”

P. D. Ouspensky

Fourth Lecture, p. 74.
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)

Life , Way , Understanding , Thinking

“Our ancestors were very rich and eminent people, and they left us an enormous inheritance, which we have completely forgotten, especially since the time when we began to consider ourselves the descendants of a monkey.”

P. D. Ouspensky

A New Model of the Universe (1932)

People , Time