Arthur Osborne - Tribulation #1

[Guest guest]

TRIBULATION

 

In September 1942 our long and beautiful Kashmir holiday

came to an end. But where next? The Japanese had already

occupied French Indo-China (as it then was) and were adopting

a belligerent tone. Thailand might well be the next on their list.

The Consulate had asked British civilians in Thailand to stay at

their posts as a means of maintaining some influence there, and

in fact had let it be known that they would be turned down if

they enlisted. And in any case the life I was leading there seemed

more in accordance with my nature, and therefore more conducive

to the quest, than campaigning. It was decided that I should go

back while my wife stayed on in India with the three children.

But where? She was between two worlds. She had also

received initiation, but she was certainly not quite convinced

about the path we adopted; and followed it more for my sake

than her own.

 

Once in Bangkok we had seen an exquisite little stone

figure of the Buddha sitting cross-legged with the naga, the seven-

headed serpent, reared over him to give him shade; a figure of

rare serenity. The price was very high or so it seemed to us, so

my wife persuaded the shopkeeper to lend us it for a week so

that she could obtain some clay through our neighbour, an

Italian professor of sculpture, and set to work. What she

produced was far from the original, but it was nevertheless an

impressive piece of work. Being caught by the love of sculpture,

she made next a bust of me. This was really excellent, so we had

a bronze cast of it made. Shortly before she was due to leave

Thailand we received some photographs of the Maharshi and

(here is the point of this digression) my wife immediately felt

the impulse to make a sculpture of him. Perhaps this was the

deciding consideration, because she was still far from certain

how far the quest was genuine and how far it was all play-acting.

One of our original Guenon group had a house at

Tiruvannamalai and when he invited her to spend the time of

our separation there, she immediately thought of the sculpture

and it seemed the perfect solution. Even socially it seemed ideal,

the people there being neither modern in the sense of superficial

nor traditional in the sense of obscurantist.

 

We parted at Lahore railway station, my wife and children

going on to Bombay and the south, I to Calcutta and Thailand.

I spent my 35th birthday in Calcutta on my outward journey; I

was to spend my 39th birthday there on the way back before I

saw my wife or children again.

 

Catherine was the first to see Bhagavan. She stepped into

the hall where he used to sit, a small, beautiful child with curly

gold hair, bearing a tray of fruit in her hands, the customary

offering. Bhagavan pointed to the low table beside his couch

where such offerings were placed, and she, misunderstanding,

sat down on it herself, holding the tray in her lap. There was a

burst of laughter. “She has given herself as an offering to

Bhagavan,” someone said.

 

A day or two later my wife entered the hall and sat down.

Immediately Bhagavan turned his luminous eyes on her in a

gaze so concentrated that there was a vibration she could actually

hear. She returned the gaze, losing all sense of time, the mind

stilled, feeling like a bird caught by a snake, yet glad to be caught.

An older devotee who watched told her that this was the silent

initiation and that it had lasted about fifteen minutes. Usually

it was quite short, a minute or two. She wrote to me that all her

doubts had vanished; her objections no longer mattered. The

idea of making a sculpture had been put aside; it seemed

presumptuous. She had complete faith. She knew now that the

teaching was true and that nothing else mattered. The most

beautiful face, she told me, looked commonplace beside him,

even though his features were not good. His eyes had the

innocence of a small child, together with unfathomable wisdom

and immense love.

 

....................

 

taken from Arthur Osborne's MY LIFE & QUEST