The World of Piotr Demianovich Ouspensky

Once the conscious thought processes is perceived, the subjectivity of thought becomes objectivity; no more different from the perception of the external world. The noumenon becomes phenomenon!

6 P.D Ouspensky, like many of us, was not certain whether the perceptible thing represents the true and the real material world or not. Up to this day, I was not completely certain as to which is which. But my practical experience repeatedly tells me that I can rely on my personal perception or sensuous practical activities – in order not to die by assuming that a real bullet seen is unreal. To ignore Ouspenskism is a great lost. To be a hard-core materialist is one-sided and wrong unless consciousness is regarded as energy – conscious form a mode of existence of energy. Introversive property is the power and of infinite complexity of matter.

He wrote, “In the very beginning of this book ‘Psychic Life and the World’ was recognized as existing. The world is everything that exists. The function of psychic life may be defined as the realization of existence.”

7 P.D Ouspensky is more materialistic and scientific than any other “materialistic” scientists of the positivist school because the positivists have left the world of perception most of the time revolving round a subject matter without further observation and experimentation. They talk about them too often. Ouspensky observed carefully as he wrote. That is why he is closer to reality than the positivistic scientists. Anyone can always mechanically produce the words of science and yet remains mediocre in terms of deeper understanding of man, nature, society and the universe.

A scientist has to be criticized and Ouspensky has hit them hard. It is possible to have idealistic materialism. Why does the religious man suddenly take refuge in material sciences? Is it not idealism in science?

A scientist’s empty shell of materialistic terminology is just an example similar to an idealist wearing the cloak of materialistic terminology or a wolf in sheepskin.

8 The changing meaning of the word “matter.” The hard mass of earlier science, the molecules of matter, the atoms of matter, the electrons of matter, the elementary particles of matter the electromagnetic wave matter and therefore, matter is transformed into a form with content. Matter based on perception is the form of the complicated content, a transformation of matter’s level to conscious energy. In dialectical materialism, matter is the “absolute”, the all and everything of everything. Non-matter too is matter. And God is matter, an intelligent matter and ordinary matter is a stupid god. This is the enigma. The meaning of matter in dialectical materialism is not equivalent to that in science, positivism and old materialism. Vacuum is devoid of matter as with science is an existential form of matter in dialectical materialism. It is filled with vibration ‑ electromagnetic waves and psychic vibration.

Thus Ouspensky opposition to materialism is clear if materialism is defined as the old materialism.

9 Spatial time – this is the idea of time in the four dimensional world. According to Professor Oumoff (P.D Ouspensky, p.115), “… the first three dimensions we can represent by the divisions of a tape-measure upon which are marked feet, yards, or some other measures of length; the fourth dimension we will represent by the film of a cinematograph upon which each point corresponds to a new phase of the world’s phenomena. The distances between the points of this film are measured by a clock giving indifferently with this in that velocity. One observer will measure the distance between two points by a year – another by a hundred years. The transition from one point to another of this film corresponds to our concept of the flow of time. This fourth dimension we will call, therefore, time. The film of a cinematograph can replace the reel of any tape-measure, and contrariwise. The ingenious mathematician, Minkowsky, who died too young, proved that all these four dimensions are equivalent.”

Space + Motion ≥ Time

Hence time is fundamentally space in motion, i.e spatial time ‑ intermingles with the x, y, z axes and inseparable from them. It reflects like space as an existential form of matter. Tell me what is the time? Look at your watch and what did you perceive? Time? Or space traversed by a rotating arm in motion? Is this time? Is it not that time has been conceived in a peculiar manner (objective manner) in the previous science? What about psychological time or subjective time?

10 The crucial question in Tertium Organum is this: Is the objectively perceptible world around us a real material world, the noumenal world included? Is the water which I drink a real thing? Is the noumenal psyche also a real thing? Or should we ask, “Is my wife a real thing?”

If you say ‘yes’ to all these questions, Ouspensky could still challenge your reasoning ‑ the being psychic level that is perceiving this world around us. What is your objectively perceptible world around you if you were born a stone, a snail, a dog, a man or a superman?

In ‘Noumenon is the Psyche’, Ouspensky wrote,

“Noumenal means apprehended by the mind; and the characteristic property of the things of noumenal world is that they cannot be comprehended by the same method by which the things of the phenomenal world are comprehended. We may discover them by a process of reasoning, and means of analogy; we may feel them and enter into some sort of communion with them; but we can neither see, hear, touch, weigh, measure them; nor can we photograph them or decompose them into chemical elements or number their vibrations.” (PD Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.159)

Thus Ouspensky has grasped yet another introvertive aspect, reflectional aspect, or what you like, regarding our perception and conception of the world around us. He has propounded its properties so accurately that in the end it is possible to quantify it, to have algebra and mathematics of it. We should not merely use the five external sense organs to study the noumenal, we must watch our mind in function and report its nature, behavior, motion, etc. Thus there arises a science of the noumenal matter. It must be a science because its behaviors and properties are discovered also by a perceptive method by observation and even experimentation. It is also found that there is a big difference between their properties and that of the physical sciences.

11 Ouspensky raised the problem (without solution) by perceiving and reasoning and imaging, by the materialist’s method. Then he attacked the materialists, the energists and the positivists, who also use the perceiving and imaging materialistic method. There is therefore, a way of connecting the two; there is a solution. When we are young we can hardly use dimensions or know them ‑ hence Ouspensky is right. But we are material beings with awareness potential ‑ hence the positivist is right. Both are equally metaphysical ‑ there is a dilemma without a solution. Both approaches complement one another.

Ouspensky managed to contain the domination of everything by the positivists. The synthesis, the unity of the two, would mark the great age of unity of the noumenal and the phenomenal worlds. The integrating details have to be uncovered. He began from the noumenal to the phenomenal; the positivist began from the phenomenal to the noumenal. The resulting conclusion will be the antithetical dialectical leap of the two motions, higher to lower and lower to higher. There is a reciprocal and continuous transition of forces in the two worlds.

The world revealed gradually depending on the level of development of our consciousness ‑ the stone can never know the world.

12 The thing which we perceived must be regarded as existing and independent of us ‑ they are real fundamentally, although we cannot say those which are as yet perceptible as not there. They are connected matter or matter in connection. Connected matter, a word used in my ‘Material Reflection’, is sufficient to relate the idea put forward by Ouspensky regarding the “feelers” of the world. The snail instinctively feels the world, so are we; but we may have a well-developed feeling organ which the snail did not possess. On the other hand, the reverse is also possible. When the snail speaks, it says, “That is all of the world! No man, so long as he did not contact me”.

One cannot really “think” without picturing what the materialists called phenomenal. In other words, one pictures phenomenal thing and at the same time is aware of the evolving nature of our perception and conscious development.

13 Forms pertain to all things. We say that everything consists of matter and form. Under the category of “matter”, as already stated, the cause of a lengthy series of mixed sensations is predicted, but matter without form is not comprehensible to us; we cannot even think of matter without form. But we can think and imagine form without matter.”

14 In one of the lectures contained in the book, A Pluralistic Universe, Prof. James calls attention to Prof. Bergson’s remark that science studies always only the ‘t’ of the universe, i.e. not the universe in its entirety, but the moment, the “temporal action” of the Universe.” (P.D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, The Linga-Sharira, p.46-47)

15 The perishing of old materialism which Ouspensky criticized in his Tertium Organum, at least, paved way for the advent of dialectical materialism and ultimately four-dimensional materialism to gain worldwide recognition. Dialectical materialism and four-dimensional materialism recognize the inexhaustibility of matter, existence beyond space dimension and the reflection in beings. They recognize existence of consciousness beyond that of the organic beings and recognize the materiality of functional conscious existence. Materiality, in this context, is by no means mere materiality in perception but also materiality in a world where human consciousness is not.

16 Insofar as one is deprived of physical productive labor but gifted with mental labor, the “liability” and “asset” in the belief in Gods and enhanced idealism is inevitable. Ouspensky had this experience when he ventured into the ‘Philosophy in India,’ ‘Eleatic Monism,’ ‘Vedanta Philosophy,’ ‘What is Mysticism? ‘Plotinus on Heaven,’ ‘Disciple and Master,’ ‘Christian Mysticism,’ ‘Mystic Testimonies,’ ‘Chinese Mysticism,’ ‘Modern Theosophy,’ ‘Unusual Mystical Experiences,’ ‘Sufism,’ ‘Anaesthetic Revelation’ and ‘Experience under Ether’. He became a four–dimensional materialist investigator of the human soul.

In the first few chapters he was very close to reality; in the end he shares some characteristics similar to Feuerbach. One can say up to Chapter XXI of Tertium Organum, he had been realistic and materialistic in essence, despite his criticism on the limitation of old materialism, but after that he was a deliberate idealist.

Even though matter is struck off from Ouspenskism by the sly of a statement, Ouspenskian oneness of the world is equivalent to the oneness of what we probably called psymattergy. Further, when we speak of God as a oneness, that God in fact does not create matter as such but is the soul, of the noumenal. We call this aspect of the power of matter its ability to create and control the coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be of God in specific organism such as man.

Ouspensky’s one direction from the noumenal to the phenomenal would be the equivalence of from god to matter. Hence Ouspensky is, as you shall see, closer to idealism. God as we know it today is one of the absolute of matter. God does not create matter but as such like our will disappear as labor into productive (or unproductive work). Ouspenskism in this sense is no difference from modern materialism of the Marxian epoch.

17 Ouspensky thought that old materialism could be ousted by mere theoretical attack. The success of his-attack is weak because philosophical systems could only be improved without total annihilation.

By conceiving all positive theories as false would be a sweeping statement. “Nevertheless the various positivistic social theories, “historical materialism,” and so forth, promise nothing better, and can promise nothing.” (P.D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.278)

An arrow can be perceived right! If this arrow goes into our head, we would die, perceptively, positively and materialistically. Historical materialism is a broad base scientific prediction by materialistic method of the general trend in social motion, already existing and perceptible like the arrows too. Up to a certain historical period, perceptible communistic tendency must come to our experience, an existence with respect to our social experience as a functioning social being. But Ouspensky had belittled positivism and old materialism and sought to address a dimension and a philosophy for Kant’s idealism and religion. He had over emphasized the importance of consciousness, although right in a great number of aspects but wrong in some others. The ‘third canon of thought’ still shares the certain errors, which he had not resolved. What happened will be this, that the stealing of the good in his work and the discarding of the bad (especially the “religion”) will be the final result. There is a gap in this system which would be filled with Gurdjieffism.

The positive philosophy does not want you to see matter or energy or conscious motion ‑ you can never hope to see them, but you can picture them as god-like, whichsoever you like. Materialism still holds good when matter is replaced by God.

Ouspensky thought that he had fell the old materialist by proving ‘matter and motion’ to be only logical concepts, like ‘good and evil’ and ‘God and the world’. In fact, every keyword of Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum, and every known keyword is a logical concept.

Matter signifies something but it is not perceptible; God signifies something that is also not perceptible. The theoretical system departing from God can never stand above materialism. Serious modern materialism, the sense organs arising out of matter’s evolution, is the only powerful weapon that is hereditary acquired (theory nature’s struggle) and it is this weapon that we use to carry out productive work. A man without seven organs can never carry out any productive work at all. We have to depend on them, even for seconds. And now Ouspensky is already with one leg into the pool of idealism ‑ the really “serious mistake” which he had “committed”. You can get nowhere if you proceed with God => feelings => soul => Brahman => consciousness => psyche => etc. etc. The golden key of his preoccupation would be his well-known Psychological Method.

Modern materialism is capable of carrying out verifiable sensuous experiment which no idealism can hope for.

18 The greatest worship of idealism is the deepest feeling of God; the greatest sensuous feeling of materialism is the deepest feeling for matter’s inexhaustibility. The first feeling arises as a result of a living thing deprived of productive proximity; that of the second, the active productive proletariat (a political-economic approach). We see, therefore, how Ouspensky fluctuate between the two poles like many other thinkers alike. To venture higher than matter is just the same as becoming an idealist, because idealism is precisely what we called the venturing of materialism beyond itself into denying itself.

This view of Ouspensky is exceedingly lucid. He wrote, on What is time? :

First of all let us analyze our relation toward the past, present and future.

Usually we think that the past already does not exist. It has passed, disappeared, altered, transformed itself into something else. The future also does not exist ‑ it does not exist as yet. It has not arrived, has not formed. By the present we mean the moment of transition of the future into the past, i.e. the moment of transition of a phenomenon from one non-existence into another non-existence. For that moment only does the phenomenon exist for us in reality; before, it existed in potentiality, afterward it will exist in remembrance. But this short moment is after all only a fiction; it has no measurement. [Both the ruler and the object may be quasi-rigidly transformed.] We have full right to say that the present does not exist. We can never catch it. That which we did catch is always the past!

19 Materialism under Marx and Engels, is in “opposition” to old materialism ‑ hence Ouspensky’s criticism on old materialism does not include Marx and Engels but had extended dialectical materialism to four-dimensional materialism which with it psychological method is really to handle the spirit, the God and all psychic elements in the Great Universe.

Wherein the contradiction? And in fact there is no contradiction at all. Ouspensky wrote, “Or, that the three-dimensionality of the world is not its property, but a property of our receptivity of the world. In other words, the three-dimensionality of the world is a property of its reflection in our consciousness.” What difference has this with the statement that space is a distinct existential form of matter? Time is spatial time.

Is receptivity of the world not a material process? Is not the sense organ and the external world connected materially? Whether the coming-to-be of the space perception is in the head or in the world, the head is by no means unconnected to the world. And such we called material connections? Can the idea of one material world tell us the materiality or the spirituality of matter? To the idealist who departs from the religious incubation, ‘materiality’ of the spirits or consciousness is Ouspenskian.

Every move of matter has its cause in the previous situation irrespective of whether the previous situation is conscious or with levels of interactive-reflection.

Not all forms of matter are appearanciable to the senses, and as sense organs develop and take on different inner forms, the appearance of the world will be altered. To fail to regard the reliability of senses, the ones that we always depend on every second, is a mistake. Even Ouspensky, who use to criticize the materialistic positivists, must depend on his senses to roam about on the surface of the earth. But as such also to witness that perception is conditioned by laws of nature. What can I do? My eyes cannot see through walls.

The principal difference between the phenomenal and noumenal aspects of the world is contained in the fact that the first one is always limited, always finite ……” (P.D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.138)

This amounts to the finite nature of phenomena, not infinite, but inexhaustible. Phenomena which appear to us as complete and indestructible, may be in reality exceedingly complex. Many include within themselves different elements. Together they are one whole in a category quite incomprehensible to us.

“Nature exhibits a continual progress, starting from the mechanical and chemical activity of the inorganic world, proceeding to the vegetable, with its dull enjoyment of self, from that to the animal world, where intelligence and consciousness began at first very weak, and only after many intermediate stages attaining its basis great development in man, whose intellect in nature’s crowning point, the goal of all her efforts, the most perfect and difficult of all her works.”

So wrote Schopenhauer in his Counsels and Maxim, p.168, and indeed it was very effectively expressed, but we have no foundation whatsoever for regarding man as the summit of that which nature has created. This is only the highest that we know.

Does Ouspensky ever use his sense organs when he wrote Tertium Organum? A work which can never arise without a mind resting on the phenomenal world? What makes Ouspensky “notice” the noumenal world if the noumenal world is not phenomenal, i.e. perceptible in a certain way? If you deny the phenomenal, how should your theory be constructed? Resting on images, god and consciousness alone? The positivism that Ouspensky opposed, to wit, the one-sided materialism which does not notice the psyche, is really the one he attacks. Dialectical materialism too opposes this one-sidedness.

Motion at psychic level is the highest level and not identical to the lower motion. There is a qualitative leap like the leap from water to steam. One can always put water (matter) and steam (spirit) on two opposite sides since they are qualitatively distinct entities, and oppose the two without noticing the close connection between them.

In fact, Ouspensky’s exposition of the properties of the psyche will help the materialist-monists ‑ because they were providing the “paths” for themselves ‑ to further clarify their view. Physical motion, as Ouspensky understood, must be extended to conscious motion, motion of interior languages, motion of images and into motion of lower level. The higher the motion the shorter is the distance, and in conscious motion the distance is time-like.

The conscious potential for the individual and society, from single conscious labor to social conscious labor is equivalent to the energy that has universally transformed within the societal context. The energy is conserved and delivered from conscious motion as it degrades into the lower physical motion. Therefore, all the equation of lower motion of matter can be represented or are transformable to the equations of the highest motion. But how? For genetics, we are limited. For conscious motion, we know very little. This is the present situation.

How are we to relate the chemical motion with the simple mechanical motion of bodies, without the proposition of a leap of motion? The “spirit” is motion of matter at the highest level? It is difficult to see how physical motion of the higher nervous system could exhibit a sudden leap into conscious motion. This is the same with the case of water and steam. Ouspensky missed this point. But nevertheless, it is possible, as nervous electrical motion can qualitatively transform into conscious motion, which in turn lowers to the motion of idea-products, etc.

Ouspensky wrote, “But how to deal with the fact that the “reflection” possesses, in this case, an infinitely great potentiality than the “reality”? How can this be? From what does this reality reflects and in what does it refract. That in its reflected state, it possesses infinitely greater potentialities than its original state?”

Ouspensky told us this:

Physical motion à Consciousness à Physical motion. The very process sought by many. Conscious motion cannot be totally free from its concatenations with physical motion, like steam and water. We are in a period whereby the connection is not easily quantifiable, but the future is bright. There is bound to be quantification and the mathematics of conscious motion must arise.

He wrote, “The consistent “materialist-monist” will be forced to say that “reality” reflects from itself, i.e. “one motion” reflects from another motion. But this is merely dialectics, and fails to make clear the nature of psychic life, for it is something other than motion.”

Thus Ouspensky thought that the psyche life has no motion. But we recognize that there is no true three-dimensional spatial motion, the only spatial motion is in time, i.e. spatial time.

He wrote further, “no matter how hard we may try to define thought in terms of motion, we nevertheless know that they are two different things (like steam and water ‑ I have added), different as regards our receptivity of them, belonging to different worlds, incommensurable, capable of existing simultaneously. Moreover, thought can exist without motion (He means three-dimensional spatial motion of physical sciences or lower motions), but motion cannot exist without thought (True, because if there is no brain we can have no knowledge of motion of reality. But the cars do not perish as my brain decays off ‑ something is wrong here!), because out of the psyche comes the necessary condition of motion (but out of the motion also comes the psyche ‑ dialectical leaps in the two cases ‑ added by me) ‑ time; no psychic life ‑ no time. (But the world does not perish when Ouspensky vanishes ‑ added by me). Thus there is an inversion of noumenal and phenomenal). No time ‑ no motion. (That is, no motion with respect to that thinking brain.)”

Ouspensky did not annihilate the materialist. In the most correct sense of the term, he had warned us of the need to “see” further.

He wrote, “As a matter of principle it is not important which one we regard as first cause, spirit or matter. It is essential to recognize their unity.” (P D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.170)

But here it must be stressed that Ouspensky’s “spirit” will be very different from what the grand religious men who talk great of the “spirit” ‑ who are mediocre.

In the final analysis, Ouspensky had return to monism again. He wrote, “for the present it is only important to established one thing ‑ THE NECESSITY FOR UNIFORMITY: the monism of the universe.”

In other words, matter from materialist-monist is equivalent to spirit from Ouspenskism. Both are the unknown x = y and y = x, like energy. Can we “see” spirit? Watch our mind in function. We perceive the noumenal (or phenomenal) form of the spirit but not the spirit itself. We perceive our own picturing and our feelings ‑ all these are perceptible by us, and not necessarily using the five external sense organs. We do not perceive the unknown spirit.

But does this spirit resemble the spirit of religion. By no means!

In other words, Ouspensky is a materialist using spirit and consciousness as having equivalent status as matter. One can always say that matter is the next leap of spirit and spirit the next leap of matter. Religious spirit of human prophesies is visions.

“I see it; therefore it exists.”

This affirmation is the principal source of all illusion. To be true, it is necessary to say I see it; therefore this does not exist ‑ or at least, I see it; therefore this is not so.”

Perception has never “deceived” mankind or lower animals. Sensuous perception, in the most “distorted” form, gives a real copy or an existential distortion but our reflection must regard it as REAL in its own way. Our thought, which tries to deny the realness of this distortion, only gives rise to contradiction. If everything appears two-dimensional to me it is “real” to me in the strictest sense of term that it is two-dimensional although it is six dimensional it reality. It is also the reason behind the explanation of such “two-dimensional” phenomenon. Once the cause is found to be the earthly sense organs, thanks to them, the distortion becomes even more real ‑ it becomes a real distortion.

I see Ouspensky; therefore he must be real; he must be existing; I imagine Ouspensky; he must also be real; he must exist as image in my thought. In both cases, the natural laws that lead to these two phenomena are different – and have different sources.

Finally, perception and thought must be differentiated.

In so far as the sense organs, the nervous system and thought are not regarded as physically connected to nature, the spiritual treatise would never be satisfactory.

He wrote, “As a matter of principle it is not important which one we regard as first cause, spirit or matter. It is essential to recognize their unity.” (P D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.170)

But here it must be stressed that Ouspensky’s “spirit” will be very different from what the grand religious men who talk great of the “spirit” ‑ who are mediocre.

But does this spirit resemble the spirit of religion. By no means!

“I see it; therefore it exists.”

This affirmation is the principal source of all illusion. To be true, it is necessary to say I see it; therefore this does not exist ‑ or at least, I see it; therefore this is not so.”

Finally, perception and thought must be differentiated.

In so far as the sense organs, the nervous system and thought are not regarded as physically connected to nature, the spiritual treatise would never be satisfactory.

20 We know nothing about things separated from us (most probably, the things-in-themselves added by me); and we have no other means of verifying the correctness of our knowledge of the objective world than by sensations.” (P.D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.10)

Dialectical materialism is closely associated with the productive classes which now and then are entangled in a material “harassment” from nature. The transformation of materialism by Ouspensky, will gain a rousing welcome for it will seize the minds of the unproductive mediators, who write and think in a situation where they are not tied to a productive workstation ‑ not a practical worker thinker. This explains the inversion by thinkers who are already in a very pleasant, nice and happy condition. Under such conditions, vulgar materialism can be easily refuted.

So long as materialism could not relate consciousness motion, Ouspenskism will provide some glue to its troubled mind. Materialism is not destroyed under Ouspenskism.

21 Nevertheless the various positivistic theories, “historical materialism” and so forth, promise nothing better, and can promise nothing.” (PD Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.279)

In the world’s literature, there exist books, usually little known, which accidentally or by design may happen to be assembled on the shelf in one’s library. These, taken together, will give so clear and complete a picture of human existence, its path and its goal, that there will be no further doubts about the destiny of humanity (though only its minor part), but a destiny of quite a different sort from those hard labors of digging through the globe which positive philosophy, historical materialism and “socialism” have in store for humankind.

The general way of looking at problems, a hidden method of Ouspensky, is the dialectical method. He did not mention it directly but he called it the psychological method. He opposed the positivistic scientists – whom we must agree study scientifically without knowing the direction, purpose, scheme or design of nature. They consider themselves materialists, but as such know no materialism and only possess shallow knowledge of old materialism. Ouspensky was amongst the most realistic materialist thinkers of the time, even beyond Marx and Engels.

His attack on historical materialism and “socialism” is not fully justified for the reality of world situation in many countries indicates “socialist” trends as pointed out in historical materialism.

Why did Ouspensky place himself in an opposed relationship to old materialism (including dialectical materialism)? Because Ouspensky’s later works have revealed a new dimension of thought that has greatly enlightened and extended the field of thought in materialism.

22 “The world is one,” only the ways of knowing it are different, and with imperfect methods of knowledge it is impossible to penetrate into that which is accessible to perfect methods only.” (PD Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.232) Good! A superior mind is active.

23 It is an error to assume the essence of old mathematics to be equal that of the new mathematics! To Ouspensky’s new mathematics consists of absurd logic such as:

• a magnitude can be not equal to itself

• a part can be equal to the whole, or I can be greater than the whole

• of two magnitude can be infinitely greater than the other

• all DIFFERENT magnitudes are equal among themselves

(PD Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.226)

Thus both here, as in logic, the axioms of the new mathematics appear as absurdities. These concepts are subtler than dialectics.

My friend is not equal to himself, yesterday, today and tomorrow!

24 Ouspensky then described how the higher bodies were formed in man. He began by explaining that in a state of waking-sleep ‑ the state in which we lived ‑ we expended so much of the finer hydrogen we produced on wrong activities, such as our various identifications, that insufficient were left over for the purpose even of right living, let alone for such non-essential work as the forming of higher bodies. But if a man worked on himself for a very long period of time, he might eventually accumulate sufficient of these higher material, first to permit of his awakening himself from sleep, and then to lay down within his ordinary tissues the first of these finer bodies. If he continued to work in this way, the same process might be repeated. By saving and creating more and more of the finer hydrogens or energies in himself, he might store enough of them to allow of the formation within the second body of the third body, and eventually of the formation within that third body of the fourth body.” (Kenneth Walker, A Study of Gurdjieff’s Teaching, p.157)

Consciousness is material, just as knowledge is material, except the order of materiality is different. Conscious suffering is to pave way for the leap in the levels of consciousness from the lower to the higher. Consciousness has a qualitative boundary; therefore Ouspensky spoke of it as bodies of a higher and higher nature. Leap in inevitable in the motion of consciousness. Our task is to welcome crisis in the consciousness by suffering so as to ensure a successful leap of consciousness to a higher level. It must be bear in mind that in this crisis, there corresponds also a physiological and anatomical transformation of the lower level into the higher level. When Mao Zedong said, “… much thinking yield wisdom,” we should be aware also that conscious suffering and leaps of consciousness is worth an incommensurable amount.

25 During the later years of his teaching, Ouspensky returned repeatedly to the question which interested him so greatly, the existence somewhere of genuine esoteric schools. He pointed out, what is undoubtedly true, that a man is able to do very little by himself, since everything in life is so arranged as to make him forget his aim. But in a school he found himself living with people not of his own choosing, people with whom it might be very difficult for him to live and work. Tension was thereby created between himself and these others, so that he was continually being reminded of the need for him to struggle against his identifications and his negative emotions. Moreover, in a school he had the immense advantage of being under the constant supervision of a teacher who was him more clearly than he was himself.” (Kenneth Walker, A Study of Gurdjieff Teaching, p.191)

26 Ouspensky wrote, “The noted mathematician Riemann understood that when higher dimensions of space are in question, time, by some means, translates itself into space, and he regarded the MATERIAL ATOM as the entrance of the fourth dimension into three dimensional space.”

The Structure of Dimensions

(x, y, z plus t₁, t₂, t₃ plus E)

The diagram is a reconstruction by Tan Man Ho based on Ouspensky and Riemann but further developed in the Octave Theory of Dimensions. The Octave Theory of Dimensions was introduced by Tan Man Ho.

27 The whole structure of “legalized” science may rest on a false belief about the real world as it is. The positive scientists know only the phenomenal method and “reject” the noumenal method. For his reason, they remain mediocre.

28 With Ouspensky-Gurdjieff, the extension of psyche phenomenon to the universe as self-creating organism is accomplished. If otherwise, I would have performed an analytical dissection of the Malaysian economy, immediately after material-reflection, which I did not. The first world begins to appear in correspondence with the expansion of the consciousness in the second world.

29 My impression of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky’s system is that it is great and profound, something all serious thinkers and seekers sought for. The writings of All and Everything is truly profound and you can hardly see one such work in this century.

30 “I” is a complicated quantity, and within it goes on a continuous motion. About the nature of this motion we shall speak later, but this very motion inside us creates the illusion of motion around us, motion in the material world.” (P.D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.42)

As ‘I’ moves or changes from one place or kind into another, the material world appears to move or change from one into another. The faster the ‘I’ moves or changes, the faster the material world will appear to move or change. When you have acquired a permanent ‘I’, the material does not appear to move or change in the way it has been for you before, but any movement or change in the material world will be the real objective ones.

31 The strong forces of the ‘I’s with their associative vibration, resulting from the action of highly fine microcosmic psychic particles, is capable of tearing asunder the coarser psymattergic system existing in the human body.

32 The notable researchers of the phenoumenon of dimensions worthy of respect are Ouspensky, Einstein, Minkowski, Rieman, Lorentz, Hinton, Lobachesky and Gauss (there are others unknown to me).

What I have introduced, I do not know if others have done it, is that I have applied the laws of seven or the octave theory to the whole phenoumenon of dimensions that occurs in nature, in the objective trialectics of the actual world showing them to be integrated as one but has grown into a complete octave of dimensions in the process creation (of the universe) based on the being that is reflecting it, and that is, myself. The only eternity dimension is Matter or Energy or Tao or God or Allah, which have the same ETERNITY DIMENSION. Since ETERNITY (E or H1) is ‘Do’ in the beginning of an octave and ‘Do’ again at the end of the same octave, it is the alpha and omega of everything. Starting from the descending octave, the smaller “eternity” (e or H3) beings such as very fine cosmic psyche, cosmic consciousness, gods, deities, devils, various equinox beings or in short, the “immortals”. From these “eternities” are created beings that have three-dimensions of time (t₁.t₂.t₃), which are the beings with life forces, thoughts, feelings, instincts, sexual desires, moving powers and functions ‑ the range of psyche hydrogens (H6 through H12288). From these time-dimensional beings, the wave-elementary particles or psymattergy beings are created and they all coat the body of our EverGreat Cosmic Creature.

However, this Being is further “harden” by the trioctavizing of these elementary particles into the system of Material Atoms, the internalization and externalization processes lead to separation or stopindering by periodicity based on the law of seven while the process acquires it force from the law of three. The 5-dimensional being moves further down the descending octave to coat itself, from a point, with a space dimension (x) into a line. Then the 6-dimensional being proceed itself to create a surface by creating another space dimension (y), and finally the 7-dimensional being creates a solid for itself by creating the last space dimension (z). The complete being is eight-dimensional inclusive of the alpha and omega dimensions.

33 Although the seemingly three-dimensional spatial body appears to be stationary, it still moves in time, which is its fourth dimension. It moves in time not to expressed the four dimensional body but because it has always been at least a four-dimensional body. However, long long ago, it has been a one-dimensional point of eternity, which soon coats itself with two more dimensions of time for itself to transform itself into a three-dimensional being psyche hydrogen time being. This posits the new being into its twilight Hintonian surface consisting of the numerous wave-elementary particles, which easily become the MATERIAL ATOM in its process of coating three more space dimensions. The material atoms soon stopinder into the spatial-temporal material dimension, which later further stopinder into the various states of matter. By now the Great Cosmic Being (or the Great Universe Being) has all the complete octave of dimensions mandatorily constructed for the Will of the Absolute to realize its hierarchy principle.

Now it is a fact that only poly-dimensional bodies are real.

34 There is no formula for a point. It is x or y or z or t

The formula for a line is represented by

P = f(x) or P = f(y) or P = f(t)

That of a surface,

P = f(x.y)

That of a cube,

P = f(x.y.z)

That of a four-dimensional cube,

P = f(x.y.z.t) but for Minkowski, P = f(x.y.z.ict) where

i = imaginary number

c = the speed of light

That of a higher dimensional real world body,

P = f(x.y.z.t₁.t₂.t₃.e) where e = eternity

35 Dimensions are unique properties of the Universe created in accordance to the law of seven, and they enter into all and everything and inseparable from it at every step of its creation. The source of its arising is unknown. The Laws of Octave as applied to dimensions as occurring in the Real World has never been stressed in earlier writing.

36 According to Ouspensky, thought moves in the fourth dimension in time and therefore cannot be trapped by three-dimensional space. Thought is in the fourth dimension of space.

37 Everything is alive and they move by themselves if not moved by others if they are dead. But some deads that have been moved by the living means living as a whole when view from the next higher phase of reference.

38 Nature does not give complete independence to its life energy although it seals (store) them in the bulbs of the organic beings, the material beings and other cosmic concentrations such as planets. He is prepared to draw life energy from these bulbs and send them elsewhere along proper channels in accordance to the laws developed for Himself. A seed or an egg is created to assist this withdrawing of life energy and transmit it into the new bulb, which will then grow into a new organic being or a new cosmic concentration.

“Dying” probably so-called, is a three-dimensional ceasing-to-be of the physical body in space, a withdrawal of the life energy for storage elsewhere and the apparent complete life fund write-off for the being. The life elements would move off along a path determined by the fourth, fifth and sixth axes into the relevant bulbs of the Universe by a reciprocal feeding function that occurs everywhere.

39 Unless one develops one’s inner being one cannot suspect a seven-dimensional real world. Certain higher beings are able to “see” more dimensions than others. We can call them the one-dimensional being, the two-dimensional being, the three-dimensional being, etc. A simple one-storey organic being, such as a worm, a snail, a coral, etc. can be just a one-dimensional being.

40 There will be a point in your inner development where there is a “tick” and everything will adjust itself to a state of balance henceforth in your body.

41 The use of drugs to create higher psychic states and “dimensions” is not uncommon. Although such drugs are externally manufactured in the factory, there are also produced in small amounts in our body, and they create the same experience as these drugs. Some common examples are opium, heroin, marijuana, ganja and LSD.

42 You cannot speak multi-dimensionally with a being of lower dimensions. They may catch the wrong end of a stick! There is incommunicado.

43 According to Ouspensky, instinct is driven by the pleasure-pain principle, like electricity which is driven by the positive-negative principle.

He wrote, “We may declare with entire assurance that instinct is pleasure- pain which, like the positive and negative poles of an electromagnet, repels and attracts the animals in this or that direction, compelling it to perform whole series of complex actions, sometimes expedient to such a degree that they appear to be sensible, and not only sensible, but founded upon foresight of the future, and almost upon some clairvoyance, like the migration of the birds, the building of nests for the young which has not as yet appeared, the finding of the way south in autumn, and north in spring, etc.” (P.D Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.77)

44 The cells, the tissues and the organs use this same pleasure-pain principle to create, grow, function, maintain and repair themselves within the organism. For an electrical or a computing machine, this same principle of the positive-negative poles has done miracles for them. The human sex energy is driven by male and female principles.

45 There is a method of approach in Ouspensky’s handling of problems. He has a dialectical materialists’ intonation, with a furious ‘let us have no nonsense’ type of thinking, and a “controversial” mathematical poem to offer you. Whether you like it or not, such a mind has the audacity of a truly modern mind that can be regarded as an outcome of a fast awakening society.

Now coming to this question of the study of books written by higher minds properly so-called, the man in a lower level of consciousness may exhibit a desire to comprehend and possess them for vanity. First, he is not at all in a position to understand it. There is no comprehension, and if there is one, it is likely to be false. The foundation is badly built and sooner or later it will crumble. Only blind faith remains. (Reflection on A New Model of the Universe, P.D. Ouspensky)

46 The idea that the brain-cells form a permanent stock which diminishes and diminishes is fundamentally one-sided. From where come the brain cells if there is no cell reproduction. The increase in the size of the brain must increase the number of cells. The “fact” that brain cell does not multiply, i.e. not reproductive by itself and cannot carries mitosis is doubtful – “then we must presume that they evolve from some other cells”. (P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, p.21) Only neurons of the adult brain do not generally undergo cell division, and usually cannot be replaced after being lost, although there are a few known exceptions. Neurons of a growing brain should undergo mitosis to create its mass. In most cases neurons are generated by special types of stem cells.

The number of brain cells will increase as the brains grow, and the colonies of thinking-agents in the brain cells become more complicatedly structured, if thinking is continuously progressing.

47 They do not and cannot attempt to conceive life after death in new form or new categories.

……. in the course of production and reproduction of life. The ‘I’ cannot be the same ‘I’ in the course of this movement of production and reproduction of life. Even before reproduction the same ‘I’ is constantly changing in essence (added by me). The progress of material-reflection in the course of evolution also affects the relation of the visible and the invisible world. As a general rule the visible world is “extended” when material-reflection “progresses” from the lower organism to man. Snails and trees do not “see” more than men. (P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, p.71)

48 Ouspensky had studied the phenomenon of appearancial-perception for various material beings, especially the organic beings, and has provided us a lot of information. It is here worthy of consideration that even the embryonic process, from the zygote to the adulthood, undergoes changes in sensation and perception. There is a transformation of reflection from the cell-cell level, cell-tissue level, tissue-tissue level, tissue-organ level, organ-organ level and organ-organism level.

Ouspensky analyzed reflection as cause of material-reflection, that is, he spoke of “things” perceived and the projected in the alteration of the “things” perceived.

49 The question arises: is it not possible to suppose that the physical is separated from the psychic by four-dimensional space, i.e. that a physiological process, passing into the domain of the fourth dimension, produces there effects which we call feeling or thought? ………………………

The psychic, as opposed to the physical or the three-dimensional, is very similar to what should exist in the fourth dimension, and we have every right to say that thought moves along the fourth dimension.” (P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, p.94-95)

50 When things move in the fourth dimension you cannot perceive it from an extroversive standpoint. Look at the head. Can you see thoughts? Look at the chest. Can you see feelings? This introversive property of psyche renders possible a referencing fourth dimension. The invisible conscious motion, idea-products and emotion-products belong to the realm of the fourth axis. Idea-products and imaging can only be perceived by the producer by not by a foreigner. That is why its motion is invisible. However, they can be seen only by those who truly work to see. With respect to the producer, the interior forms are three-dimensional in time.

Since thought is always in the fourth dimension (here emotions are included), it can never travel any distance (d = 0) in the three-dimensional space. By translating into languages, into agitated layers of air, which moves in the x, y and z axes, distance soon becomes significant. A mind spark that moves from the head to the toe signifies distance. Even in the act of ideating and imaging, we have therefore a form, a transitional form, which is fourth dimension to a foreigner but by no means genuinely a fourth dimension to the producer.

51 No obstacles or distances exist for it (psyche). It penetrates impenetrable objects, visualizes the structure of atoms, calculates the chemical composition of stars, studies life on the bottom of the ocean, the customs and institutions of a race that disappeared tens of thousands of year ago …….

No walls, no physical conditions, restrain our fantasy, our imagination. We may have very good reason for saying that we are ourselves beings of four dimensions and are turned towards the third dimension with only one of our sides, i.e. with only a small part of our being. Only this part is our body. The greater part of our being lives in the fourth dimension but we are unconscious of this greater part of ourselves. Or it would be still more true to say that we live in a four dimensional world, but are conscious of ourselves only in a three-dimensional world. This means that we live in one kind of conditions, but imagine ourselves to be in another.” (P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, p.95-96)

52 Ouspensky’s reaffirmed a fundamental law of the dialectics known as the Law of Negation of Negation. This is expressed in his writings:

“Moreover, we must remember that the development of a new type is accomplished at the expense of the old type, which is made to disappear by the same process. This new type being created out of an old one overcomes it, so to speak, conquers it, occupies its place.” (P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, Superman, p.116)

For a dialectical materialist, by superman is meant the next higher qualitative level of an ordinary man, i.e. higher man.

Let us see this statement of Nietzche’s Zarathustra: p. 116

“I teach you the superman. Man is something that has to be surmounted. What have you done to surmount man?

What is the ape to man? A laughing stock or a sore disgrace! And just the same shall man be to be the Superman – a laughing stock or a sore disgrace.”

53 The cow, looking from a far is a very simple animal, but on closer observation is infinitely complicated. So is what we called nature.

54 The phenomenon below did indeed happen to me before and during the time I wrote: The Philosophy of Material-Reflection. It is the same experience I have had, and here you can read it in Ouspensky’s words. It is how I have experienced during the years when I was a Form Six student, and even a few years after that. That is why I never did well in my Form Six examinations in this mystical experience.

Ouspensky wrote, “I remember how much I was struck by this sensation the first time I had it. My companion was saying something. Between each sound of his voice, between each movement of his lips. Long period of time passed. When he had finished a short sentence, the meaning of which did not reach me at all, I felt I have lived through so much during that time that we should never be able to understand one another again, that I had gone too far from him. It seemed to me that we were still able to speak and to a certain extent understand one another at the beginning of this sentence, but by the end it had become quite impossible, because there were no means of conveying to him all that I had lived through in between. Attempts at writing also gave no results, except on formulations of my thoughts written down during the experiment, enabled me afterwards to understand and decipher something out of a series of confused and indefinite recollections. But generally everything ended with the first word. It was very rarely that I went further. Sometimes I succeeded in writing down a sentence, but usually as I was finishing it I did not remember and did not understand what it meant or why I had written it, nor could I remember this afterwards.” (P.D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, p.316)

This is Ouspenskian mystical experience when he fell into the state of “accidental” mediation.

55 Firstly, that Ouspensky, the scholar gifted with all the necessary knowledge, has given us the essential Gurdjieff doctrine in his two books – “In Search of the Miraculous” and “The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution.” Secondly, that my attention has been to convey, not what we should feel had we already attained higher consciousness, but what goes on in the head, heart and body of those who go in search of this consciousness, step by step with Gurdjieff.

56 You will be asking yourself if it is possible to get beyond this first stage – I wonder too. Is there really a way to become a TRUE MAN, an AWAKENED MAN, as Gurdjieff says; is there hope of reaching this state, in the interests of which these great efforts and sacrifices are made?” (Louis Pauwels, Gurdjieff, p.15)

I remember, Dr. S.S. told me once that such people like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Mao Zedong, Buddha, Mohammed, Lao Tzu and other great minds had experienced such stages before they became enlightened.

Unless the consolidation of higher consciousness is attained, we cannot consider ourselves as a developed man, as a good spiritual revolutionary, for at any moment the other hidden aspect of ourselves will come to the fore and it will become our master instead of us becoming his master.

57 “The thought sometimes occurs to me that the Caucasus has produced two great men who, with full knowledge of what they were doing, both choose to present the world with a caricature of the power which they were invested – I mean Stalin and Gurdjieff. (They were at school together).” (Louis Pauwels, Gurdjieff, p.129)

58 The immediate future of our race [the write thinks] is indescribably hopeful. There are at the present moment impending over us three revolutions, the least of which would dwarf the ordinary historic upheaval called by that name into absolute insignificance. They are: (1) the material, economic and social revolution which will depend upon and result from the establishment of social navigation. (2) the economic and social revolution which will abolish individual ownership and rid the earth at once of two immense evils – riches and poverty. And (3) the psychical revolution of which there is here question.

Either of the first two would (and will) radically change the conditions of, and greatly up lift, human life; but the third will do more for humanity than both of the former, were their importance multiplied by hundreds or over thousands.

The three operating (as they will) together will literally create a new heaven and a newer earth. Old things will be done away and all will become new.

Before aerial navigation national boundaries, tariffs and perhaps distinctions of language will fade out. Great cities will no longer have reason for being and will melt away. The men who now dwell in cities will inhabit in summer the mountains and the seashores; building often in airy and beautiful spots, now almost or quite inaccessible, commanding the most extensive and magnificent views. As herding together, as now, in great cities, so the isolation of the worker of the soil will became a thing of the past. Space will be practically annihilated; there will be no crowding together and no enforced solitude.

Before socialism crushing toil, cruel anxiety, insulting and demoralizing riches, poverty and its wills becomes subjects for historical novels.

In contact with the flux of cosmic consciousness all religions known and named today will be melted down. The human soul will be revolutionized. Religion will absolutely dominate the traditions. It will not be believed and disbelieved. It will be part of life, not belonging to certain hours, times, occasions. It will not be in sacred books or in the mouths of priests. It will not dwell in churches and meetings and forms and days. Its life will not be in prayers, hymns or discourses. It will not depend on special revelations, in the words of gods who came down to teach, nor on any bible or bibles. It will have no mission to save men from their sins or to secure their entrance to heaven. It will not teach a future immortality nor will future glory, for immortality and all glory exist in the here and now. The evidence of immortality will live in every heart as sight in every eye. Doubt of God and eternal life will be as impossible as is now doubt of existence; the evidence of each will be the same. Religion will govern every minute of every day of all life. Churches, priests, forms, creeds, prayers, all agents, all intermediaries between the individual man and God will be permanently replaced by direct unmistakable intercourse. Sin will no longer exist nor will salvation be desired. Men will not worry about death or a future, about the kingdom of heaven, about what may come with and after the cessation of life of the present body.” (P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, p.284)

59 Once I was reflecting the Malay Language for a purported purpose of translating the Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum into this language and was disappointed to find that it is not developed to have enough words for expressing the new dimensions of this thought. So I have decided to shelf the project.

60 Life force flows in the fourth dimension and one experiences that it is continuously slipping away. Appearance and disappearance such as birth and death are visible changes in the first three dimensions. A life force is always in search of lower (‘dead’) matters to coat itself into appearance. You start from a point and remains as the only point. You are naught before and after. You are a natural processor between these two points. Through digestion and alchemistry, you have separated the fine from the coarse and accumulated a substantial amount of life psyche hydrogens to keep you going. You will find that the psyche force is more powerful than the force of matter in the lower orders.

61 Learning is hidden hypnotism. All sciences, arts, theories and teachings of whatever species possess hypnotic property in various degrees. Owing to this deceitful credulous property of human psychic exchanges and for this reason, based on the reality of the world, I too acquire the faculty to speak strangely at times with all planetary beings similar and dissimilar to myself.

62 On relativity, it is absolutely impossible to know whether a thing in space is in absolute motion or not. But we are certain that there is a time associated with it even without motion, both relativistic and/or absolute. However, without time is felt by the observer if there is an observer, otherwise do we still have time? We do not know! If we know there is time because knowing functions in time.

63 When a mind is out of step with the real situation, the real situation will remain its stumbling block to future progress. According to Ouspensky, science should be the investigation of the unknown, and should not keep on repeating the old, contradictory affirmations pretending not to know or not to notice an entire series of theories and hypotheses advanced. Our scientists do not know or they are afraid to know or go against recognized, ‘legalized’ and institutionalized works of third rate representatives of science.

64 “THE UNIVERSE THINKS, FEELS, MOVES AND REPRODUCES ITSELF”

The universe thinks, feels, moves and reproduces by itself, instinctive-ing, repairing and maintaining itself in its life. This is the cosmic seed that is growing creating and holding everything within itself without an outside. It is internally bisexual and uses its own law of unity of opposites for its sexual reproduction.

All that arrest the motion of thought, feelings, movements, instinct and sex mean DEATH!

THE WORLD OF PIOTR DEMIANOVICH OUSPENSKY BEFORE MEETING GURDJIEFF

4 Ouspensky opposes dogmatic subjective idealism, and objective idealism opposes old materialism and mechanical materialism. His own position is not certain but he is certain on one fact:

The world is certain in consciousness.

5 Tertium Organum is rediscovered by The Philosophy of Material Reflection. There may be contradiction but as such the essence and subject matter is fairly the same.