"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 roseflower – 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."