Arthur Osborne - Tribulation #4

[Guest guest]

 

TRIBULATION

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

 

 

Many people dismiss astrology in the same doctrinaire

attitude of mind in which Guenon dismissed Buddhism. If they

were to read through a study in several pages of some person

the astrologer did not know, giving his characteristics and

aptitudes and the main lines of his destiny, they would see that

it could not be lucky guesswork, just as Guenon would have

seen, if he had studied Buddhist texts, that they could not be

giving the true teaching by accident; but they are unwilling

even to consider the evidence, so convinced are they a priori

that the movements of planets in the heavens cannot influence

the lives of men on earth. Actually, it would be rather a crude

definition of astrology which said that they could; the real

interpretation is more vast and more profound: that the entire

universe is one tremendous harmony, that the same forces are

at work in the macrocosm and the microcosm, the cosmos and

the individual, that the tendencies in a man and the events in

his life flow to the same rhythm as the planetary movements in

the skies; that, although the intricacy of the arrangement would

make a mathematician’s mind reel, no individual can be born

except at the moment when the position of the heavens is such

as to mirror his nature and destiny.

 

It is a typical misunderstanding which led some people in

camp to argue that a man’s character is not formed by the

positions of the stars at his birth but by heredity. Actually, it is

never said that the positions of the stars form a man’s character

but that they indicate it; and heredity is one of the influences

which they indicate. It often happens that several members of a

family are born at about the same time of day or have birthdays

at about the same date, and both of these are varieties of family

likeness which would show in a horoscope, though, of course,

by no means the only ones.

 

Leslie and I had an interesting case of family likeness

showing in horoscopes. There were two brothers in camp,

middle-aged, whose families were outside — evacuated while

there was still time. One of them asked me to do his horoscope

and the other Leslie. Satisfied with his own, the one who had

asked me then asked me to do that of his ten-year-old son,

whom I had never seen. I was struck by the fact (although I did

not tell him so) that the boy’s horoscope showed no likeness to

his own. Some days later I saw Leslie working on a horoscope

which at once struck me as showing a distinct family likeness to

that of the boy. Intrigued, I asked him whose it was, and he told

me that it was that of the daughter of the other brother and that

it showed no similarity to her father’s. I may say that the two

brothers themselves were noticeably alike. I then went to them

and told them that their two children seemed to have a strong

family likeness but not to take after them. “Yes,” they said, “both

of them take after our mother, but we don’t.”

 

When I said that Leslie had previously confined himself

mainly to theory, I meant the theory of applied astrology, but

there is also a more profound type of theory, the divine or

spiritual cosmology writ in the symbols of the stars. Jupiter and

Saturn, for example, are the twin forces of expansion and

contraction — creation and dissolution of the universe, the day

and night of God, the breathing out and in of Brahma. In

human life they may show as prosperity and adversity, indulgence

and discipline, in caricature as Sir Toby Belch and Malvolio;

and on the quest they are the complementary process of

expansion and contraction to which I referred in an earlier

chapter. I worked out this more essential theory partly from

study and partly from my previous knowledge of spiritual

cosmology and wrote a book on it which I called The Cosmology

of the Stars.

 

After leaving camp and coming to Bhagavan I gave up

astrology. I was not sorry to have learned it, but cosmological

theory is unnecessary on the direct path, which I was now

following, and there was no point in occupying my mind with

it. It can, of course, be not merely unnecessary but harmful if

one gets too engrossed in it. I have known more than one Hindu

(and Hindu astrology concerns itself more with predictions than

Western astrology does nowadays) who has dropped it because

it was too accurate. Foreknowledge of misfortunes awaiting

persons who consulted them caused them so much distress as to

destroy their peace of mind.

 

To return to the level of applied astrology: I have nothing

against Uranus; indeed he can be a very useful ingredient in a

horoscope; but they do say that when in conjunction with the

Moon he is liable to push even an intelligent person into

occasional acts of unpredictable folly. I have recorded two such

already. The first, my throwing away the chance of an Oxford

career, concealed an underlying wisdom; it was not foolish in

itself but only in the way it was carried out. The second, my

profession of Islam, was foolish both in itself and in the way it

was done; nevertheless even here there was some underlying

grace in it and, if unnecessary at the time, it was soon to become

necessary according to the code by which I was living. At the

time of my arrest Uranus scored a third victory, this time with

an act of pure unmitigated folly with no grace or wisdom in it

at all. I came into camp wearing a turban and long gown and

with a string of prayer beads round my neck.

 

It was not exhibitionism. Indeed I simply estimated that

the internment would not last for more than about three months

and decided to devote the time entirely to prayer, meditation,

incantations and reading the Arabic Quran and to hold

completely aloof from the profane crowd in the camp; and I

dressed to symbolise my decision. Also I am of a retiring

disposition and prefer to remain inconspicuous. Actually the

internment lasted for three and half years and I soon changed

into normal clothing and, for the first time in my life, did mix

with a crowd of ordinary, unpretentious people, and found that

I liked them. This was a necessary phase in my development,

making good what I had failed to do at Oxford, for my refusing

to mix there had been due only in part to disappointed idealism;

partly also it was a mixture of timidity and conceit.

 

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

 

 

taken from Arthur Osborne's MY LIFE & QUEST