Arthur Osborne - Brief Eternity (1)

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Brief Eternity

 

It was about 6 o’clock one June morning in 1956 that

the first awakening to Reality occurred. I was alone in the room

when I awoke and sat up in bed. My wife and Frania were

sleeping in the next room, and Catherine had already married

and left us. I just was — my Self, the beginningless, immutable

Self. I had thought ‘nothing is changed’. In theory I already

understood that it is not anything new; what is eternal cannot

be new, what is new cannot be eternal. The only description is

what Bhagavan has given: “It is as it is.” Only now I experienced

it. There was no excitement, no joy or ecstasy, just an

immeasurable contentment, the natural state, the wholeness of

simple being. There was the thought: “It is impossible ever to

be bored”. The mind seemed like a dark screen that had shut

out true consciousness and was now rolled up and pushed away.

Of course, it is a paradox to speak of the mind being rolled

up and at the same time of thoughts coming. Similarly, the

mind of the realized man, such as Bhagavan, is said to be dead,

but he has thoughts. It seems quite natural when it happens.

Perhaps the best explanation would be that the mind as an active

centre originating ideas, imagination, plans, worries, hopes and

fears ceases to function, but the mind as a mirror condensing

pure awareness into thoughts still works.

 

The thought or feeling that it is impossible ever to be bored

may seem banal at such a time, but actually it was fundamental.

It is the mind that craves activity and feels bored when it does

not get it; the Self is untouched by activity and abides in its

pristine state of simple happiness.

 

From my window at the corner of Park Street I saw the

roofs of houses with crows wheeling between them. Again there

was a paradox, the feeling that all this was at the same time both

real and unreal. This is a paradox that has been much commented

on, because it is stressed in Zen teachings. It is what Tennyson

was trying to express in a line of ‘The Princess’ where he says:

“And all things were and were not.”

 

I do not know how long the experience lasted. In any case,

while it lasted it was timeless and therefore eternal. Imperceptibly

the mind closed over again, but less opaque, for a radiant happiness

continued. I had my bath and shaved and dressed and then went

into the sitting room, where I sat down and held the newspaper

up in front of me as though I was reading it, so that no one

would see the radiance. I was too vibrant with happiness really to

read. The afterglow continued for several weeks, only gradually

fading out. Why did I want to hide the radiance? Why did I not

shout and dance with joy? I suppose because I have a dour

Capricornian temperament beneath the surface exuberance of

Sagittarius and am shy of exhibiting any feeling.

 

 

At about the same time my wife also had a glimpse of

Realization. It was a great help and support to be together on

the path and often our experiences tallied. Frania also had such

a glimpse some eighteen months later. The birth anniversary of

Bhagavan falls in late December or early January, varying with

the phase of the moon. On this occasion a Tamil devotee living

in Calcutta invited us to a celebration on the terraced roof of

his house. There must have been about a hundred people

gathered there. The previous day there had been a meeting in a

public building and speeches had been made, but this evening

there was only the singing of religious songs. I could see from

the beauty and serenity of Frania’s face that she was enjoying

exceptionally good meditation; later I learned that it was even

more than that. What she described was transparently genuine;

and indeed, so little theory did she know that she would have

been incapable of expressing it had it not happened.

 

Afterwards she wrote it down. “I am not the mind nor the

body — found myself in the heart; the me that lives after death.

There was breath-taking joy in the feeling ‘I am’, the greatest

possible joy, the full enjoyment of existence. No way to describe

it — the difference between this joy and complete happiness of

the mind is greater than between the blackest misery and the

fullest elation of the mind. Gradually — rapidly — my body

seemed to be expanding from the heart. It engulfed the whole

universe. It didn’t feel any more. The only real thing was God

(Bhagavan, Arunachala). I couldn’t identify myself as any speck

in that vastness — nor other people — there was only God,

nothing but God. The word ‘I’ had no meaning any more; it

meant the whole universe — everything is God, the only reality.”

 

 

 

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* Arthur Osborne: My Life & Quest