Arthur Osborne - I become a writer...(3)

[Guest guest]

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

 

Another effect of the quest is that the repercussion of one’s

actions, favourable or unfavourable, recompense or retribution,

becomes more swift and recognizable. Every action brings its

repercussions (“As a man sows so shall he reap”), that is the law

of karma, but in the spiritually ignorant and the worldly it may

be so long delayed and heavily masked as not to be recognized

by the person himself. As one becomes more deliberately

equipoised, much less impurity is sufficient to cause

disequilibrium, just as a delicate machine can be thrown out of

gear by an impediment too minute to affect a heavier, clumsier

machine. Also the repercussions follow more swiftly in a more

recognized form.

 

My Tuesday lunches in town soon ceased to be necessary

in any case, because I gave up smoking. Ever since Oxford I

had been a heavy pipe-smoker. Even in the internment camp

in Thailand, I was able to get pipe tobacco most of the time,

and when it was not available I smoked Burmese cheroots or

fat Thai cigarettes wrapped in banana-leaf.

 

After some practise the meditation sets up a sort of current

of awareness which can actually be felt physically as a vibration.

At first it is felt only during meditation and only in the heart and

head and between them, but gradually it becomes more pervasive

and more constant, forming a sort of undercurrent to one’s life

and actions. Smoking also is a sort of undercurrent, so I felt that

it was a spurious imitation, an actual impurity, once the

meditational vibration was awakened. I had twice before in my

life given up smoking. Both times I started again about six months

later. This time, however, it was final. I did not even wait to

finish the tobacco in my pouch. I gave it away with the remaining

tobacco in it and all my pipes to a young journalist, who fancied

himself as a pipe-smoker — perhaps because it made him look

English — and never smoked again, or even wanted to.

This current of awareness of which I speak could not be

called exactly a pleasure, and yet one would not barter it for

any pleasure imaginable. Thus faded out the question that had

confronted me when I first undertook the quest: whether I was

prepared to sacrifice pleasures I knew to be real for pleasures

that might be real.

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

 

****************************************

* Arthur Osborne: My Life & Quest *

****************************************