Osho on Tertium Organum
P.D. Ouspensky has written a tremendously significant book, Tertium Organum. The fundamental of Tertium Organum is based and rooted in this sutra:
From the whole comes the whole, yet the whole remains behind, intact. From that comes this. That is whole, this is whole, but even though it has come from the whole, the whole is not reduced in any way. It remains the same, as if nothing has been taken out of it.
This is a strange mantra, one of the most strange ones, because it goes against
the very idea of arithmetic. It belongs to meta-mathematics. The ordinary
mathematics will not agree with this. If you take something from anything, then
that much is reduced in the original, and if you take the whole then nothing is
left behind.
Ouspensky has done a great service to humanity by proposing a higher
mathematics, a mathematics of the beyond. That's what the Upanishads are.
First
The whole is not a finite entity. If it is finite, then of course if you
take something out of it it will be reduced, it will not be the same any more.
The whole is infinite, so whatsoever you take from it, it remains still the
infinite.
And where you can take? The whole pervades all, so the very idea of taking is
just an idea. As far as reality is concerned nothing is taken out of it and
nothing is added unto it; it is always as it has always been.
Secondly
In the ordinary mathematics the whole is the sum total of its parts;
in the higher mathematics that is not so. The whole is not the sum total of its
parts, it is more than that. That "more" is very significant. If you cannot
understand that more, you will remain absolutely unaware of the religious
dimension of things.
For example, the beauty of a rose flower - is it just a sum total of its parts?
It should be, according to the ordinary mathematics - it is not. The beauty is
something more. Just by putting all the chemicals, the water, the earth, the
air, and everything that constitutes the flower - even if you put all that
together the beauty will not arise. The beauty is something more, hence in
analysis it disappears.
If you go to the chemist, the scientist, to inquire about the beauty of a rose,
he will analyze it. Analysis is the method of science. Analysis means breaking
it into its parts so that you can know of what it constitutes. But the moment
you break it into parts, the invisible "more" disappears. The invisible more
exists in the organic unity; you cannot analyze it. It is synthesis, it is
totality.
The same is true about all the higher values. A beautiful poem is not just the
words that compose it; it is something more. Otherwise anybody who can put words
together in a rhythmical form will become a Shakespeare, a Kalidas, a Milton, a
Shelley. Then any linguist, grammarian will become a great poet. That does not
happen. You may know the whole grammar of the language, you may be acquainted
with all the words of the language, still to be a poet is a totally different
phenomenon. Poetry comes first, then come the words, not vice versa - it is not
that you arrange the words and the poetry arises.