In Search of the Miraculous

An excerpt of P.D. Ouspensky's book, 'In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching':

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. But how to escape? It is necessary to tunnel under a wall. One man can do nothing. But let us suppose there are ten or twenty men — if they work in turn and if one covers another they can complete the tunnel and escape.

Furthermore, no one can escape from prison without the help of those who have escaped before. Only they can say in what way escape is possible or can send tools, files, or whatever may be necessary. But one prisoner alone cannot find these people or get into touch with them.

…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, then next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no future of any kind; he is buried and that is all. Dust returns to dust. This applies to him. In order to be able to speak of any kind of future life there must be a certain crystallization, a certain fusion of man’s inner qualities, and a certain independence of external influences. If there is anything in a man able to resist external influences, then this very thing itself may also be able to resist the death of the physical body…

Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of “friction”, by the struggle between “yes” and “no” in man. If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is.

But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to “crystallize”.

But crystallization is possible on a right foundation and it is possible on a wrong foundation. “Friction”, the struggle between “yes” and “no”, can easily take place on a wrong foundation.

For instance, a fanatical belief in some or other idea, or the “fear of sin”, can evoke a terribly intense struggle between “yes” and “no”, and a man may crystallize on these foundations. But this would be a wrong, incomplete crystallization. Such a man will not possess the possibility of further development. In order to make further development possible he must be melted down again, and this can be accomplished only through terrible suffering.

Crystallization is possible on any foundation. Take for example a brigand, a really good, genuine brigand. I knew such brigands in the Caucasus. He will stand with a rifle behind a stone by the roadside for eight hours without stirring. Could you do this? All the time, mind you, a struggle is going on in him. He is thirsty and hot, and the flies are biting him; but he stands still.

Another is a monk; he is afraid of the devil; all night long he beats his head on the floor and prays. Thus crystallization is achieved.

In such ways people can generate in themselves an enormous inner strength; they can endure torture; they can get what they want. This means that there is now in them something solid, something permanent.

Such people can become immortal. But what is the good of it? A man of this kind becomes an “immortal thing”, although a certain amount of consciousness is sometimes preserved in him. But even this, it must be remembered, occurs very rarely.

In what way can one evoke the struggle between “yes” and “no” in oneself?

Sacrifice is necessary. 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. But still, not forever. This must be understood because often it is not understood. Sacrifice is necessary only while the process of crystallization is going on. When crystallization is achieved, renunciation, privations, and sacrifices are no longer necessary.