Arthur Osborne - I become a writer...(1)

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I BECOME A WRITER — AND CEASE TO BE ONE

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* Arthur Osborne: My Life & Quest *

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In my youth I was tormented by the desire to be a writer.

When I actually became one, some twenty years later, it

happened almost by accident — so far as anything can be an

accident; that is to say, without planning on my part.

After two to three years at Tiruvannamalai it became

necessary to earn an income again and I took a job as an assistant

editor of a newspaper in Madras, the nearest large town. Thus

my destiny took the shape that Bhagavan approved for his

followers — a period of intensive training followed by the

practise of Self-enquiry in the life of the world.

 

I took with me a life-sized reproduction of the photograph

painted over in oils, a gift from a devotee who had, over the

years amassed a fine collection of pictures of Bhagavan. Before

leaving I showed it to Bhagavan who took it in his hands and

then gave it back to me, saying: “He is taking Swami with him.”

Such was the impersonal way in which he would speak of himself.

After that it had a peculiar significance for me. It is one of the

most inward and profound of the portraits, though less obviously

gracious and immediately accessible than some of the others.

 

I took to journalism immediately. I should never have had

the effrontery to make a good reporter, but fortunately that

was not necessary; and editorial work came naturally to me as

teaching never had. I doubt whether, before this, I should have

been capable of writing either a book or an article successfully;

my style was too subjective and abstract; but under the impulse

of professional need I straight away began to write professionally.

The editing of contributed articles, deciding which were written

in a practical way and what changes were needed, taught me

also to write in a practical way, and almost without effort.

 

Perhaps this was a training in the technique of writing to enable

me to write later about Bhagavan and his teaching.

I scanned the papers and wrote leaders, but in particular I

took over and developed the Sunday magazine section,

including a book review page. It was in this way, not as a student

but as a critic, that I broke my long abstention from reading.

 

Even after giving up journalism as a profession I continued to

review books for various papers and therefore still read widely,

but in a haphazard way, never buying books or borrowing them

from libraries, only reading what came my way for review.

Primarily these were books of spiritual interest, and indeed for

a number of years most new publications of this type came to

me, but I received many other books also — history, politics,

current affairs, various branches of philosophy, even books of

travel and fiction — and thus I became well read again. I read

aloofly, scanning as a critic, not letting myself get engrossed, so

that there could be no distraction from the quest, and therefore

the type of writing for which I was suited was critical and

analytical, not creative. It would have saved a lot of heartache if

I had known myself well enough to realize this earlier in life.

 

How many people bring frustration on themselves by trying to

be what they are not, instead of developing what they are!

“Better one’s own dharma, though done badly, than the dharma of

another, though done well.” (Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 12, v. 47). It

is seldom done well.

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