Arthur Osborne - Adventures on the Path #8

[Guest guest]

 

......

Some time during my stay at Bangkok I stopped reading.

I had read voraciously ever since first discovering Guenon; but

the time came when I felt: “I know the theory now; it is practice

that is needed.” It was not just an option but also something

deeper. I felt an actual aversion to the books which had so

attracted me. This was a sound intuition. In almost all cases

some doctrinal understanding is necessary at the beginning,

and this needs to be more or less elaborate according to the

temperament of the seeker and the nature of the path followed.

 

From the beginning I was drawn to the direct path, which I will

describe in a later chapter. Because this is known as Jnana Marga

or Path of Knowledge, some have supposed it to be more

theoretical than other paths, but the opposite is true. What is

meant by ‘Knowledge’ is not learning but direct intuitional

understanding. In fact, the more direct a path is the less theory

it requires; it is the indirect paths, such as hermeticism and

tantrism, that are based on elaborate theory.

 

In any case, whatever the path followed, there is no benefit

from learning and re-learning once the mind is convinced. Not

only does it not help, but also it is one of the ways in which the

aspirant can be sidetracked, turning away from spiritual effort

to the easier alternative of mental exertion. Not only individual

seekers but communities also deteriorate in this way. Often the

followers of unscholarly ecstatics become scholars, but it marks

a spiritual decline. This is a mode of decline that is apt to be

found in all religions — from the saint to the scholar.

 

Apart from providing an easy alternative to spiritual

effort, excessive study can actually do positive harm by

breeding pride in one’s learning. I have even seen people

reading to enjoy the self-satisfaction of feeling that they

understood better than the writer.

 

The Maharshi was immensely learned but he became so

unintentionally and without valuing learning. Devotees brought

him books to read so that he could expound them, and his

memory was such that he retained whatever he read. But he

warned against barren erudition.

 

“What use is the learning of those who do not seek to

wipe out the letters of destiny (from their brow) by enquiry

‘Whence is the birth of us who know the letters?’ They

have sunk to the level of a gramophone. What else are

they, O’ Arunachala?

 

“It is those who are not learned who are saved rather

than those whose ego has not yet subsided in spite of their

learning. The unlearned are saved from the relentless grip

of self-infatuation; they are saved from the malady of a

myriad whirling thoughts and words; they are saved from

running after (mental) wealth. It is from more than one

evil that they are saved.”

 

— The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi

 

By the ‘unlearned’ he means, of course, the simple-minded,

not merely the ignorant, and by ‘the learned’ those who value

and accumulate learning, not all who possess it.

For some years after this I scarcely read a book. To read books

of no spiritual value — travel, fiction, politics and so forth —

would have been even more a turning aside from the quest,

degrading it to the level of a hobby or a part-time activity or an

activity among others, one aspect of life, instead of the goal and the

purpose of life. Therefore I did not read at all. Does this mean that

I was a fanatic? No more than a man climbing Everest is a fanatic

for not indulging in violin practice at the same time. I was onepointed,

not fanatical — and not one-pointed enough or the

progress would have been greater. I never objected to reading in

principle or tried to persuade others not to read; but I had an

objective in life and did not want to distract my mind from it. The

question has often been asked why men want to climb Everest,

reach the North Pole, descend to the ocean’s depths, tread the face

of the moon, or in general attain the almost unattainable, and why

they undergo all manner of hardships and face death in the attempt.

The true answer is that all such cravings are blind physical reflections

of man’s innate urge to undertake the supreme quest for his lost

homeland, for the utter freedom and perfect bliss of his true state.

That is the real adventure, the well-neigh impassable road to the

unattainable goal. The least the adventurer who dares attempt it

can do is to be one-pointed in his enterprise. It is no idle ramble.

When I started reading again it was a different way and

for a different reason, as I shall explain later.

 

Early in 1941 my original contract with the Siamese (by

now renamed ‘Thai’) government lapsed and was replaced by

a permanent one. Between the two I became eligible for six

months home leave. If it had not been for the war we should

probably have gone far enough West to seek initiation from

Martin’s guru, but under the circumstances this was impossible.

It also proved unnecessary, because Martin wrote that his guru

now had a delegate in India who was authorized to give

initiation in his name.

 

We had heard of the Maharshi by this time and had received

some of his writings and some photographs of him, which made

a tremendous impression on us. However, one of our original

Guenon group had been to Tiruvannamalai to investigate and

had reported that the Maharshi was not a guru and did not give

initiation or spiritual guidance. This report had been relayed to

us and it made it seem not worthwhile going there. Of this

more later.

 

We were traveling now as a family of five. We spent some

time in Rawalpindi where we enjoyed the keen, invigorating

air and the scent of pine-trees, then up to Murree, a beautiful

hill station, then on to Kashmir to meet the delegate. I was

afraid to take a houseboat, as most visitors to Srinagar do, because

the children were small and the two eldest like quicksilver, and

we should have been constantly anxious that they would fall

into the water. However, we were fortunate enough to get a

rambling old house with a large garden stretching right down

to the shore of one of the lakes. It was a delightful holiday.

 

When we arrived there were wild irises by the roadside and

luscious red cherries in the shops. One kind of fruit and flowers

succeeded another through the summer. The two eldest children

were at a delightful age — Catherine five and Adam two —

only Frania was still too young to be very interesting. Catherine

was as intelligent as she was lovely. Strangers would stop to ask

who she was. When I tried to put her off by telling her that I

would explain something when she was older, she would say:

“All right, Daddy, but try now, and if I don’t understand I’ll tell

you”. She usually did understand. Adam was still enjoying the

adventure of walking and talking.

 

There was no question this time of recognizing a spiritual

master because the delegate was not even supposed to be such.

Some spiritual force seemed to be transmitted. There seemed

to be an increase of vigour and power, as with the previous

initiation there had been of subtlety.