P.D. Ouspensky

Publisher: Vintage (1971)

372

Q. I could see myself losing my temper the other day when I was talking to somebody, but I could not stop it. How can I control temper? A This is an example of mechanicalness. You cannot control your temper when it has already begun to appear—it is then too late Struggle must begin in your mind, you must find your way to think rightly about a definite difficulty. Suppose you have to meet a certain man who irritates you. Your temper shows itself, you do not like it. How can you stop it? You must begin with the study of your thinking. What do you think about this man—not what you feel when you are irritated, but what do you think about him at quiet moments? You may find that in your mind you argue with him, you prove to him that he is wrong, you tell him all his mistakes, you find that, generally, he behaves wrongly towards you. This is where you are wrong You must learn to think rightly Then, if you do, it will happen like this although emotion is much quicker than thought, emotion is a temporary thing, but thought can be made continuous, so whenever the emotion jumps out, it hits against this continuous thought and cannot go on and manifest itself So you can struggle with the expression of negative emotions, as in this example, only by creating continuous right thinking. To explain what right thinking is in a few words is impossible, it is necessary to study it. If you remember what I said about parts of centres you will come to that, because in most cases and most conditions in ordinary life people think only with the mechanical part of the intellectual centre, which is the formatory apparatus This is not sufficient It is necessary to use the intellectual part of the intellectual centre Identifying is the chief reason why we do not use it Trying to self-remember and trying not to identify is the best means of passing into higher parts of centres. But we always forget about identification and about self remembering