Arthur Osborne - The Quest Begins #5

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THE QUEST BEGINS

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When Christ was accused of associating with riff-raff his

reply was that it is those who are sick that need a doctor, not

those who are well. There was probably a good deal of sarcasm in

this reply (for Christ also was an extremely militant teacher and

verbally he hit back hard when attacked); it can hardly be taken

at its face value, because only those who have attained the goal

are really well, certainly not the smugly self-satisfied who could

ask such a question. However, it does indicate that it is often the

misfits, those who have failed to adapt themselves to life, who

recognize that they are sick and seek treatment.

 

 

When the Maharshi was asked why we should seek Self-realization

he would sometimes answer: “Who asks you if you are satisfied with life as

it is?” When asked what use it is, he replied: “Why do you seek

Self-realization? Why don’t you rest content with your present

state? It is evident that you are discontented and your discontent

will come to an end if you realize your Self.” (ibid, Ch.7). This

explains why it is the discontented who seek, but not why so

many of them are unpleasant persons.

 

 

It may be because the quest offers much for the ego to

grasp at. This may seem a surprising statement when its whole

purpose is the liquidation of the ego, and yet it is true. Man in

his present state possesses only a small part of his potential powers

and perceptions. The process which goes on, often

unconsciously, during the quest is a twofold process of expansion

and contraction, symbolized by Jupiter and Saturn, expanding

a man’s faculties while at the same time crushing him to the

point of ‘self-naughting’, as the mediaeval Christian mystics put

it. Christ said that a man must lose his life in order to gain it

and that when a man attains the kingdom of heaven all else

shall be added to him. This represents two successive stages: first

contraction of the ego to nothingness and then infinite

expansion. But in actual practise the two processes are seldom

so clearly divided. The adding and subtraction or expansion

and squeezing go on side-by-side; and that is the trouble. An

aspirant may go through alternate phases of expansion, when

grace floods his heart and the quest is a lilt of beauty, and

contraction when he seems to have lost everything and be

squeezed to the bones, when all is dryness and he is tempted to

despond and can do nothing but grit his teeth and hold on

with grim perseverance. But there is also the danger that the

process of expansion may take the form of new powers and

perceptions on the subtle plane which is likely to seduce him

from his path, as Circe or the lotus-eaters did the comrades of

Odysseus. Like Circe, they may also turn their victims into swine.

 

 

A true guru will encourage no such things. Let them come after

the kingdom of heaven has been attained, as Christ said. The

Maharshi cautioned that even when powers come unsought they

should not be accepted. They are like a rope to tether a horse.

Indeed, reference to them as a goal or reward of the quest is

always a suspicious sign in a guru. Even without full knowledge,

the ego has a premonition of the delicious fruits dangling on

the trees ahead.

It is also a premonition of its own impending sacrifice.

The premonition of expansion explains the many who are called

and the queer company they are; the need for contraction

explains the few that are chosen. The combination of the two

processes explains the nervous tension that is often set up when,

instead of complementary, they become opposing forces. It is

no play-acting and no easy task. There will be no success until

the ego is prepared to surrender and go to its own sacrifice, but

on the way it may pass the trees I referred to, dangling with

tempting but unearned fruits. The conflict between the two

tendencies may be enough to overbalance the mind. I have

seen such cases and at the least this kind of madness is always

egoism pushed beyond the limits.

 

 

The question who can understand the supreme Goal and

dedicate his life to its quest is, of course, not the same as the

question who can read Guenon. At first I thought it was. In

fact, I divided mankind quite simply into those who had read

and understood Guenon and those who had not. Actually, of

course, there are people who can approach the Truth but not

through that gateway. I was driven to recognize this because

my wife was one such. I never for a moment doubted her

ability to understand, and I was therefore dismayed when she

would not read Guenon. She simply said that she could not

read a whole chapter about what could be said in a few

sentences. Although I did not appreciate it, she was of a more

intuitive type, more the artist and less the scholar. Perhaps

women in general tend to be; but one cannot generalize too

far in this matter; I have known women who come to the

path through Guenon and men who have needed a more direct

or intuitive approach. In any case, my wife followed mainly

through my explanations but without full conviction or

wholehearted dedication. Only later, when she came to the

Maharshi, the sheer power of his presence, the grace and beauty

that shone in him, a single prolonged gaze from his resplendent

eyes, was enough to remove all doubt, with no word spoken.

Thenceforth she was as devoted as any. There also she found

books which really did say things in a sentence, books such as

the Avadhuta Gita and the poems of Thayumanavar, and

became proficient in theory also until she could distinguish

true teaching from false as clearly as any follower of Guenon.

 

 

As for me, I flung myself ravenously on Guenon’s books,

I d to the French monthly in which he wrote and also

obtained all the back numbers that were available. I devoured

whatever books I could lay hands on, either in English or French,

dealing with mysticism, esoterism, symbolism, no matter of what

religion. Not only did I read but study. I kept an alphabetical

card index on my writing desk, as my tutors had done at Oxford,

with a card for each name, theme or subject, noting down

allusions, references and information as I read.

 

 

According to strict Guenon theory, I am not right in saying

that the quest began for me at this time, because he taught that

it begins with initiation; and he himself was not a guru and did

not give initiation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that some

spiritual influence flowed from him to those who read his books

and re-directed their lives accordingly. In any case the mere fact

of changing from an aimless, dissatisfied life to one directed

consciously towards the supreme goal was bound to make an

enormous difference.

 

 

Egoistical thoughts and actions might continue, but they

were disapproved of; there was a constant struggle against them.

A series of symbolical dreams bore witness to the inner change

that was taking place. First there was a rectification of what the

psychologists call the ‘flight from fear’, although I had not yet

heard of it. The recollection came to me that in boyhood I had

sometimes had dreams (not the same recurrent dream), which

had threatened to turn into nightmare, but had avoided the

frightening part by waking up. I felt that this had been the

beginning of my loss of integrity and that I must go back into

them and see them through to the end. When I determined to

do so I found, to my surprise, that there was in fact nothing

very terrible. It was only the determination that was needed.

After that there were other symbolical dreams, such as a person

gets at an important turning point in his life. Some of them

brought before me the realization that the first stage of my

route was a return to the comparative integrity of Oxford.

 

 

A person’s whole life is a path he treads, leading to the

ordained end. If at some point it becomes consciously so, that

is the great blessing which makes achievement at least an

envisaged goal. In my case, before that could happen, I had to

come down to the nadir, to an inner destitution where all hope

seemed to have failed and all values become hollow; not a state

of spiritual poverty, because there was no humility in it, nor of

financial poverty, but of what might be called enforced poverty

of life. The moment I reached the nadir Grace was manifested

in a form making re-ascent possible, but this happened in two

stages. To prevent my rushing onward to disintegration came

my marriage, a foreshadowing of Divine Grace, with its recall

to happiness, integrity and aspiration and a return to professional

work. However, even such an influence was too weak to arrest

the trend, with the result that the current was flowing both

ways, re-ascent and continued descent, a new purpose in life

and an inner bankruptcy and lack of purpose, until Grace was

manifested anew with my discovery of Guenon. If that was the

first act in the drama of the quest, my marriage was the prologue

to it.

 

 

taken from Arthur Osborne's MY LIFE & QUEST