In search of the miraculous

P. D. OUSPENSKY

IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS

FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN TEACHING

Chapter One

I RETURNED to Russia in November, 1914, that is, at the beginning of the first world war, after a rather long journey through Egypt, Ceylon, and India. The war had found me in Colombo and from there I went back through England.

When leaving Petersburg at the start of my journey I had said that I was going to 'seek the miraculous.' The 'miraculous' is very difficult to define. But for me this word had a quite definite meaning. I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that there was no escape from the labyrinth of contradictions in which we live except by an entirely new road, unlike anything hitherto known or used by us. But where this new or forgotten road began I was unable to say. I already knew then as an undoubted fact that beyond the thin film of false reality there existed another reality from which, for some reason, something separated us. The 'miraculous' was a penetration into this unknown reality. And it seemed to me that the way to the unknown could be found in the East. Why in the East? It was difficult to answer this. In this idea there was, perhaps, something of romance, but it may have been the absolutely real conviction that, in any case, nothing could be found in Europe.

On the return journey, and during the several weeks I spent in London, everything I had thought about the results of my search was thrown into confusion by the wild absurdity of the war and by all the emotions which filled the air, conversation, and newspapers, and which, against my will, often affected me.

But when I returned to Russia, and again experienced all those thoughts with which I had gone away, I felt that my search, and everything connected with it, was more important than anything that was happening or could happen in a world of 'obvious absurdities.'¹ I said to myself

¹That refers to a little book I had as a child. The hook was called Obvious Absurdities, it belonged to Stupin's 'Little Library' and consisted of such pictures as, for instance, a man carrying a house on his back, a carriage with square wheels, and similar things. This book impressed me very much at that time, because there were many pictures in it about which I could not understand what was absurd in them. They looked exactly like ordinary things in life. And later I began to think that the book really gave pictures of real life, because when I continued to grow I became more and more convinced that all life consisted of 'obvious absurdities.' Later experiences only strengthened this conviction.

then that the war must be looked upon as one of those generally catastrophic conditions of life in the midst of which we have to live and work, and seek answers to our questions and doubts. The war, the great European war, in the possibility of which I had not wanted to believe and the reality of which I did not for a long time wish to acknowledge, had become a fact. We were in it and I saw that it must be taken as a great memento mori showing that hurry was necessary and that it was impossible to believe in 'life' which led nowhere.

The war could not touch me personally, at any rate not until the final catastrophe which seemed to me inevitable for Russia, and perhaps for the whole of Europe, but not yet imminent. Though then, of course, the approaching catastrophe looked only temporary and no one had as yet conceived all the disintegration and destruction, both inner and outer, in which we should have to live in the future.

Summing up the total of my impressions of the East and particularly of India, I had to admit that, on my return, my problem seemed even more difficult and complicated than on my departure. India and the East had not only not lost their glamour of the miraculous; on the contrary, this glamour had acquired new shades that were absent from it before. I saw clearly that something could be found there which had long since ceased to exist in Europe and I considered that the direction I had taken was the right one. But, at the same time, I was convinced that the secret was better and more deeply hidden than I could previously have supposed.

When I went away I already knew I was going to look for a school or schools. I had arrived at this long ago. I realized that personal, individual efforts were insufficient and that it was necessary to come into touch with the real and living thought which must be in existence somewhere but with which we had lost contact.

This I understood; but the idea of schools itself changed very much during my travels and in one way became simpler and more concrete and in another way became more cold and distant. I want to say that schools lost much of their fairy-tale character.

On my departure I still admitted much that was fantastic in relation to schools. 'Admitted' is perhaps too strong a word. I should say better that I dreamed about the possibility of a non-physical contact with schools, a contact, so to speak, 'on another plane.' I could not explain it clearly, but it seemed to me that even the beginning of contact with a school may have a miraculous nature. 1 imagined, for example, the possibility of making contact with schools of the distant past, with schools of Pythagoras, with schools of Egypt, with the schools of those who built Notre-Dame, and so on. It seemed to me that the barriers of time and space should disappear on making such contact. The idea of schools in itself was fantastic and nothing seemed to me too fantastic in relation to this idea. And I saw no contradiction between these ideas and my attempts to find schools in India. It seemed to me that it was precisely in India that it would be possible to establish some kind of contact which would afterwards become permanent and independent of any outside interferences.

On the return voyage, after a whole series of meetings and impressions, the idea of schools became much more real and tangible and lost its fantastic character. This probably took place chiefly because, as I then realized, 'school' required not only a search but 'selection,' or choice— I mean on our side.

That schools existed I did not doubt. But at the same time I became convinced that the schools I heard about and with which I could have come into contact were not for me. They were schools of either a frankly religious nature or of a half-religious character, but definitely devotional in tone. These schools did not attract me, chiefly because if I had been seeking a religious way I could have found it in Russia. Other schools were of a slightly sentimental moral-philosophical type with a shade of asceticism, like the schools of the disciples or followers of Ramakrishna; there were nice people connected with these schools, but I did not feel they had real knowledge. Others which are usually described as 'yogi schools' and which are based on the creation of trance states had, in my eyes, something of the nature of 'spiritualism.' I could not trust them; all their achievements were either self- deception or what the Orthodox mystics (I mean in Russian monastic literature) called 'beauty,' or allure­ ment.

There was another type of school, with which I was unable to make contact and of which I only heard. These schools promised very much but they also demanded very much. They demanded everything at once. It would have been necessary to stay in India and give up thoughts of returning to Europe, to renounce all my own ideas, aims, and plans, and proceed along a road of which I could know nothing beforehand.

These schools interested me very much and the people who had been in touch with them, and who told me about them, stood out distinctly from the common type. But still, it seemed to me that there ought to be schools of a more rational kind and that a man had the right, up to a certain point, to know where he was going.

Simultaneously with this I came to the conclusion that whatever the name of the school: occult, esoteric, or yogi, they should exist on the ordinary earthly plane like any other kind of school: a school of painting, a school of dancing, a school of medicine. I realized that thought of schools 'on another plane' was simply a sign of weakness, of dreams taking the place of real search. And I understood then that these dreams were one of the principal obstacles on our possible way to the miraculous.

On the way to India I made plans for further travels. This time I

wanted to begin with the Mohammedan East: chiefly Russian Central Asia and Persia. But nothing of this was destined to materialize.

From London, through Norway, Sweden, and Finland, I arrived in Petersburg, already renamed 'Petrograd' and full of speculation and pa­triotism. Soon afterwards I went to Moscow and began editorial work for the newspaper to which I had written from India. I stayed there about six weeks, but during that time a little episode occurred which was connected with many things that happened later.