Arthur Osborne - Adventures on the Path #4

[Guest guest]

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Driven by impatience, I followed Martin’s example in

becoming a Muslim. In my case, however, this ran rather counter

to Guenon’s injunction that one should first find a valid guru

before making a change of religion. It might be said that I had

indirectly found the one followed by Martin of whom I was

told that Guenon approved; however, especially in view of the

war, there was no knowing how long it would be before I was

able to approach him directly; and if I had meanwhile discovered

a Buddhist or Hindu or Taoist guru it might have put me in an

awkward position of having to change my religion a second

time. Theoretically, if I required any emotional support before

finding a valid guru, I should have sought it in the religion in

which I had been brought up. In actual fact, however, it would

have been hard to revive a jaded piety, whereas I did find

immense support in Islam.

 

In Bangkok, I appreciated the occasional evenings of

Arabic song and incantation that my South Indian Muslim

friends held in a large hall above a cloth merchant’s offices.

There is one of these that still rings in my head at times. In

translation it would be: “I ask pardon of God for what (in me)

is not God; and all things say ‘God’!” The first phrase is an

enunciation of pure non-duality, of the Supreme Identity,

regarding all ‘otherness’, all separate individuality (or illusion

of it) in oneself as a sin for which to ask forgiveness. This is, in

its deepest sense, the sin of shirk, of associating any ‘other’ with

God, which is described in Islam as the one unforgivable sin—

naturally, because when this is finally overcome there remains

no other-than-God and therefore no sin or sinner to forgive.

The second phrase describes the entire utterance of the name of

God. And the men who spent their evenings in this manner

were neither scholars nor men dedicated to the spiritual quest

but simple merchants. It was amazing and very refreshing to

feel the warmth and depth of their faith and to see the naturalness

with which they regarded their religion as an absorbing reality

and a constant topic of conversation, so unlike either the normal

Western indifference or the truculent assertiveness often found

in those who are religious. Here at last I was coming in contact

with the traditional East, even though their standards may have

fallen far short of what tradition demanded. Theoretically at

least they recognized the supreme goal, as the incantation

translated above testifies. In practice they received initiation and

followed a discipline though without full understanding or

complete dedication. Even among them some of the younger

generation were becoming lax both in life and worship.

 

I began harmonising my breathing with my pulse beat.

With a little practice it is easy to feel one’s pulse internally without

putting one’s finger on any spot; and harmonizing it with the

breathing helps to rhythmetise one. When walking I kept my

footsteps also to the same rhythm. To enhance the vibration it

is very helpful to repeat silently a mantra, a ceaseless inner prayer

attuned to the breathing and heartbeat like ‘Arunachala Siva’ or

simply ‘Om’. In Islam one would repeat the shahada, the Islamic

confession of faith, silently — ‘there is no god’ while breathing

out and ‘except God’ while breathing in — so that every

exhalation becomes a denial of the ego and every inhalation an

assertion of the One Self.

 

Years later I discovered from reading that this was a form

of the ceaseless inner prayer, which in one form or another, is

practiced in all religions. Perhaps the best-known illustration of

it is the constant prayer ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’,

also attuned to the breathing and heartbeat, used by an

anonymous Russian pilgrim, as described in The Way of the

Pilgrim (English translation by R.M. French, SPCK). It may not

suit all wayfarers or every path. At that stage of the path it was

most useful to me. It maintained a living spiritual rhythm and

also helped to guard against sins of forgetfulness.

 

There is no rigid barrier between the physical and spiritual.

The spiritual current can be kept up during our daily activities

as a sort of substratum and then the work performed will not

only not suffer but will go on more effectively because it will be

more spontaneous. Rhythmic movements during prayers,

prostrations and rituals emphasize this and one may feel

intuitively the need to extend the rhythmetisation to the body

also. Indeed, mental, moral and physical harmonization is the

threefold basis of spiritual development. It is true that physical

harmonization alone does not lead to spiritual growth, but

neither does mental understanding alone nor moral rectitude

alone; it is the combination of the three that is needed. On the

direct path, total harmonization is produced spontaneously and

such disciplines leading to it can be ignored; but that was a path

to which I had not yet been led.

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from Arthur Osborne's MY LIFE & QUEST