Excerpt from In Search Of The Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky p241-242:
The next meeting after this was very interesting. Everyone was full of impressions of talks with friends; everyone had a great many questions; everyone was somewhat discouraged and disappointed.
It proved that friends and acquaintances asked very shrewd questions to which most of our people had no answers. They asked for instance what we had got from the work and openly expressed doubts as to our "remembering ourselves." On the other hand others had themselves no doubt whatever that they "remembered themselves." Others found the "ray of creation" and the "seven cosmoses" ridiculous and useless; ... others asked who had seen the centers and how they could be seen; others found absurd the idea that we could not "do." ...
G. laughed when we recounted to him our conversations with our friends.
"This is nothing," he said. "If you were to put together everything that people are able to say about this system, you would not believe in it yourselves. This system has a wonderful property: even a mere contact with it calls forth either the best or the worst in people. You may know a man all your life and think that he is not a bad fellow, that he is even rather intelligent. Try speaking to him about these ideas and you will see at once that he is an utter fool. Another man, on the other hand, might appear to have nothing in him, but speak to him on these subjects and you find that he thinks, and thinks very seriously."
"How can we recognize people who are able to come to the work?" asked on of those present.
"How to recognize them is another question," said G. "To do this it is necessary to a certain extent 'to be.' But before speaking of this we must establish what kind of people are able to come to the work and what kind are not able.
"You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain luggage. He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channels about the ideas of esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner evolution of man, and so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to him as something entirely new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful also if he has at least some scientific or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and has no understanding of their essence, he will find it very difficult. In general, if a man knows but little, has read but little, has thought but little, it is difficult to talk to him. If he has a good essence there is another way for him without any talks at all, but in this case he has to be obedient, he has to give up his will. And he has to come to this also in some way or other. It can be said that there is one general rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all the old ways. A man cannot feel what is most valuable in the system unless he is disappointed in what he has been doing, disappointed in what he has been searching for. If he is a scientist he should be disappointed in his science. If he is a religious man he should be disappointed in his religion. If he is a politician he should be disappointed in politics. If he is a philosopher he should be disappointed in philosophy. If he is a theosophist he should be disappointed in theosophy. If he is an occultist he should be disappointed in occultism. And so on. But you must understand what this means. I say for instance that a religious man should be disappointed in religion. This does not mean that he should lose his faith. On the contrary, it means being 'disappointed' in the teaching and the methods only, realizing that the religious teaching he knows is not enough for him, can lead him nowhere. All religious teachings, excepting of course the completely degenerated religions of savages and the invented religions and sects of modern times, consist of two parts, the visible and the hidden. To be disappointed in religion means being disappointed in the visible, and to feel the necessity for finding the hidden and unknown part of religion. To be disappointed in science does not mean losing interest in knowledge. It means being convinced that the usual scientific methods are not only useless but lead to the construction of absurd and self-contradictory theories, and, having become convinced of this, to begin to search for others. To be disappointed in philosophy means being convinced that ordinary philosophy is merely--as it is said in the Russian proverb--pouring from one empty vessel into another, and that people do not even know what philosophy means although true philosophy also can and should exist. To be disappointed in occultism does not mean losing faith in the miraculous, it is merely being convinced that ordinary, accessible, and even advertised occultism, under whatever name it may pass, is simply charlatanism and self-deception and that, although somewhere something does exist, everything that man knows or is able to learn in the ordinary way is not what he needs.
"So that, no matter what he used to do before, no matter what used to interest him, if a man has arrived at this state of disappointment in ways that are possible and accessible, it is worth while speaking to him about our system and then he may come to the work. But if he continues to think that he is able to find anything on his former way, or that he has not as yet tried all the ways, or that he can, by himself, find anything or do anything, it means that he is not ready. I do not mean that he must throw up everything he used to do before. This is entirely unnecessary. On the contrary, it is often even better if he continues to do what he used to do. But he must realize that it is only a profession, or a habit, or a necessity. In this case it is another matter; he will then be able not to 'identify.' [...]
"[...] In the meantime remember one thing only: A man must be sufficiently disappointed in ordinary ways and he must at the same time think or be able to accept the idea that there may be something--somewhere. If you should speak to such a man, he might discern the flavor of truth in what you say no matter how clumsily you might speak. But if you should speak to a man who is convinced about something else, everything you say will sound absurd to him and he will never even listen to you seriously. It is not worth while wasting time on him. This system is for those who have already sought and have burned themselves. Those who have not sought and who are not seeking do not need it. And those who have not yet burned themselves do not need it either."
"But this is not what people begin with," said one of our company. "They ask: Do we admit the existence of the ether? Or how do we look on evolution? Or why do we not believe in progress? Or why do we not think that people can and should organize life on the basis of justice and the common good? And things of this sort."
"All questions are good," said G., "and you can begin from any question if only it is sincere. You understand that what I mean is that this very question about either or about progress or about the common good could be asked by a man simply in order to say something, or to repeat what someone else has said or what he has read in some book, and on the other hand he could ask it because this is the question with which he aches. If it is an aching question for him you can give him an answer and you can bring him to the system through any question whatever. But it is necessary for the question to be an aching one."
