Oshołs Library grows



Oshołs Library grows

My father used to send me money, and that money helped me to purchase as many books as possible.
Now, the library you see--it has one hundred and fifty thousand books. Most of them were purchased with his money. All the money he gave me went into purchasing books, and soon I was receiving scholarships--and all that money went into books. christ08

I must have seen thousands of books, and perhaps no other man in the whole world can claim to know more about books than I know. But in this whole experience of thousands of books I have never come across another book which can be compared in any way with P.D.Ouspensky's Tertium Organum.
Tertium Organum means the third canon of thought. He gave this name to this great and incomparably unique book because there have been two other books in the past: the first was written by Aristotle, and he called it the first Organum, the first principle of thought; and the second was written by Bacon, and he called it Novum Organum, a new canon of thought.
Then Ouspensky wrote Tertium Organum, the third canon of thought, and he declared just in the beginning of the book that "although I am calling it the third canon of thought, it existed before the first canon of thought ever existed."
This book contains so many mysteries that each page, almost each paragraph, each sentence seems to be so pregnant with meaning...This is the only book...
I used to love underlining my books, that's why I have never been interested in reading books from any library. I cannot underline a book that has been borrowed from a library, I cannot put my stamp on it. And I hate to read a book which has been underlined by somebody else, because those lines which have been underlined stand out and they unnecessarily interfere in my own conception, my own flow.
This is the only book which I started underlining and I recognized after a few pages that every line has to be underlined. But I could not be unjust to the book. All my books in the library are underlined. Knowing perfectly well after a few pages that this book can be left not underlined, but that will be unjustified...so I had to underline the whole book. satyam09

In Jabalpur there was one beautiful place where I was an everyday visitor; I would go for at least one or two hours. It was called the Thieves' Market. Stolen things were sold there, and I was after stolen books because so many people were stealing books and selling them and I was getting such beautiful books. I got Gurdjieff's first book from that Thieves' Market, and Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous from that Thieves' Market.
The book was fifty rupees; from there I got it for half a rupee, because in the Thieves' Market, books are sold by weight. Those people, they don't bother about whether it is Ouspensky, Plato, or Russell. Everything is all rubbish; whether you purchase old newspapers or you purchase Socrates, it is the same price. I had collected in my library thousands of books from the Thieves' Market. Everybody used to ask me, "Are you mad or something? Why do you go continually to the Thieves' Market?--because people don't go there. To be associated with the Thieves' Market is not good."
I would say, "I don't care. Even if they think that I am a thief, it is okay."
To me the Thieves' Market has been the best source--even books which were not in the university library I have found in the Thieves' Market. And all those shopkeepers were selling stolen books, and every kind of stolen thing. In India, in every big city there is a Thieves' Market. In Bombay there is a Thieves' Market where you can find everything at just throw-away prices. But it is risky because it is stolen property.
I once got into trouble because I purchased three hundred books from one shop, simultaneously, in one day, because a whole library of somebody's had been stolen. Just for one hundred and fifty rupees, three hundred books! I could not leave a single one. I had to borrow money and immediately rush there, and I told that man, "No book should go from here."
Those books had seals with a certain man's name and address, and finally the police came. I said, "Yes, these are the books, and I have purchased them from the Thieves' Market. In the first place this man is almost ninety years old--he will be dying soon."
The police inspector said to me, "What are you arguing about?"
I said, "I am simply making things clear to you. This man is going to die sooner or later; these books will be rotten. I can give you these books, but you have to give one hundred and fifty rupees to somebody, because I have borrowed the money. And in fact you cannot catch me because that shopkeeper is there; he will be a witness for me that the books were sold to him. Now, he cannot go on remembering who is selling him old newspapers, and old books; he does not know who has brought them.
So first you have to go to that man and find the thief If you find the thief get one hundred and fifty rupees from him or from anywhere you want. These books are here, and they cannot be in a better situation anywhere else. And that ninety-year-old man won't be able to read them again, so what is the fuss?"
The inspector said, "You sound sane, logical, but these are stolen books...and I cannot go against the law."
I said, "You go according to the law. Go to the place from where I have purchased them--and I have purchased them, I have not stolen them. That shopkeeper has also purchased them, he has not stolen them. So find the thief."
He said, "But on the book there is a seal and the name."
I said, "Don't be worried--next time you come there will be no seal and no name. First you find the thief, then I am always here, at your service."
And as he went away I tore one page from each, the first empty page which means nothing, and I just signed the books. From that day I started signing my books, because it might have come in handy someday if my books were stolen--at least they had my signature and the date. And because I had taken out the first page, I would sign on two or three pages inside also, in case my books were stolen, but they never were.
My professors used to ask me, "You are reading day and night, but why are you so averse to the textbooks?"
I said, "For the simple reason that I don't want the examiner to see that I am a parrot." And fortunately that helped me. person04

Soon I had friends all over India, and I was purchasing books everywhere--in Poona, in Bombay, in New Delhi, in Amritsar, in Ludhiana, in Calcutta, in Allahabad, in Varanasi, in Madras. All over the country I was purchasing as many books as possible--as many as the friend with whom I was staying could manage. christ08

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