Third Element

From Ouspensky's A New Model of the Universe, p294

"In this incident I undoubtedly came into contact with the possibility of a different vision in the world of things and events. But, speaking generally, all the questions which I asked myself referring to real life or to concrete knowledge led to nothing.

I think that this is connected with a principle which became clear to me during my experiments.

"In ordinary life we think by thesis and antithesis; always and everywhere there is "yes" or "no," "no" or "yes." In thinking differently, in thinking in a new way, in thinking by means of signs of things, I came to understand the fundamental errors of our mental process.

In reality, everywhere and in every case there were not two but three elements. There were not only "yes" and "no," but "yes," "no" and something else besides. And it was precisely the nature of this "third" element, in accessible to the understanding, which made all ordinary reasonings unsuitable and demanded a change in the basic method. I saw that the solution of all problems always came from a third, unknown, element, that is to say, it came from a third and unknown side, and that without this third element it was impossible to arrive at a right solution.

Further, when I asked a question I very often began to see that the question itself was wrongly put. Instead of giving an immediate answer to my question, the "consciousness" to which I was speaking began to move my question round and turn it about, showing me that it was wrong. Gradually I began to see what was wrong. As soon as I understood clearly what was wrong in my question, I saw the answer. But the answer always included a third element which I could not see before, because my question was always built upon two elements only, thesis and antithesis. I formulated this for myself in the following way: that the whole difficulty lay in the putting of the question. If we could put questions rightly, we should know the answers. A question rightly put contains the answer in itself. But the answer will be quite unlike what we expect, it will always be on another plane, on a plane not included in the ordinary question."