Arthur Osborne - I become a writer...(2)

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I BECOME A WRITER — AND CEASE TO BE ONE

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It was only now, in my Madras period, that I became a

complete vegetarian. Physical disciplines are, of course, much

less important on the direct path of Self-enquiry than on any

other, but one which Bhagavan did lay stress on was

vegetarianism. The most obvious motive for it is compassion

— not merely personal compassion for the beasts slaughtered;

that also, of course, but beneath it is the more intellectual

compassion of equal-mindedness, seeing the same sanctity in

all life and not consenting that other creatures should be deprived

of theirs in order to sustain mine own. Even apart from that,

however, vegetarianism is in one’s mind as well as body. Animal

food is deleterious for spiritual development; it sets up an

undesirable vibration or magnetism and the mind imbibes the

wrong qualities. Whenever any one asked Bhagavan about it,

he always and quite definitely recommended vegetarianism. It

is also characteristic of his wisdom and patience that if any one

did not ask, he did not enjoin it. It is the tree that produces the

fruit, not the fruit the tree. To impose vegetarianism from above

might lead to suppressed resentment which would smoulder

and increase; it was better to wait till the inner development

demanded it.

 

I had been a great meat-eater all my life, taking meat daily,

often, in one form or another, three times a day, morning, noon

and night, except for a short period at Oxford when I had been a

vegetarian as a result of reading Leonardo da Vinci’s saying that

we are all cemeteries of dead animals. At Tiruvannamalai we ate

less meat than ever before but did not completely renounce it.

By the time we moved to Madras we had given up cooking meat

at home, but every Tuesday I used to go into town at lunchtime

to lay my weekly stock of tobacco, and I would eat a meat lunch

at a restaurant. One Tuesday I ordered a chicken pilau but when

it arrived I felt that I just could not face the thought of eating it.

It was not any theoretical objection or even any feeling of

compassion for this chicken, just an inner revulsion. So I sent it

back and ordered fried fish instead. Next Tuesday I repeated this

order, but I had the same feeling about that also and sent it back.

I never ate meat or fish again. The meditation sets up a finer

vibration and in some ways makes one more sensitive to food

and environment. The point had been reached when

vegetarianism had become a necessity....................................

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* Arthur Osborne: My Life & Quest *

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