Friedrich Nietzsche kept his best book to be published only after his death. I have already counted one of his books, Thus Spake Zarathustra, but even that pales before Will to Power. It is not a philosophical treatise, written systematically, it is just maxims, paragraphs. You have to find the connection. It is not there written for you to read. Hence, even though it is published it is not read much. Who bothers! Who wants to make any effort? – and Will to Power needs tremendous effort to understand it. It is the very essence of Friedrich Nietzsche’s soul. And he was a madman! To understand it is to transcend it too.

This is the first book I would like to mention today.

Second: Again I am going to mention P.D.Ouspensky. I have already mentioned two of his books: one, Tertium Organum, which he wrote before he met his master, Gurdjieff. Tertium Organum is well known particularly among mathematicians because Ouspensky was a mathematician when he wrote it. The second book, In Search of the Miraculous, he wrote after he had lived with Gurdjieff for many years.

But there is a third book by him which was written in between – after Tertium Organum and before he met George Gurdjieff. This book is very little known, and its name is A New Model of the Universe. It is a strange book, very strange.

Ouspensky searched for a master all over the world, particularly in India, because people in their foolishness think that masters are only found in India. Ouspensky searched in India and searched for years. Even in Bombay he searched for a master. In those days he wrote this tremendously beautiful book, A New Model of the Universe. This is a poet’s vision, because he knows not what he is talking about. But what he is talking about comes very, very, very close to the truth…but only close, remember, and even a hair’s breadth is enough to keep you away. He remained away. He searched and searched….

In this book he describes his search. The book ends strangely, in a cafeteria in Moscow, where he meets Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff was certainly the strangest master who ever lived. He used to write in cafeterias. What a place to write! He would sit in a cafeteria – people eating, talking, children running hither and thither, the noise from the street, the honking of horns, and Gurdjieff sitting by the window surrounded by all this nonsense, writing his book All and Everything.

Ouspensky saw this man and fell in love. Who could resist it? It is utterly impossible to see a master and not fall in love, unless you are utterly dead, made of stone, or made of synthetic material – a pre-fab man! The moment he looked at Gurdjieff…strange: he saw that these were the eyes that he had been looking for all over the earth, on the dusty, dirty roads of India, and this cafeteria was just beside his house in Moscow! Sometimes you may find what you are seeking just nearby.

A New Model of the Universe is poetic, but comes very close to my vision; that is why I include it.