Arthur Osborne - Brief Eternity (2), last

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Brief Eternity

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As this revelation of truth to one so young both in years

and in meditation illustrates, a glimpse of Self-realization is not

necessarily a token of progress made on the path, at any rate in

this lifetime. If it seems bathos to assert that glimpses of the

supreme state can occur to people who have no understanding

of it and have never sought for it, the answer is that the supreme

state is also the natural state, the true state of every man and

woman born, if only they knew it; and therefore the wonder is

not that it should be occasionally glimpsed but that it should be

so widely ignored, that most people should be content, or only

vaguely discontent, to go through life circumscribed by the

evidence of the physical senses and the rational mind, believing

that to be all there is, blind to Reality, blind to their own Self.

 

There are three possibilities. The first is the occurrence of

glimpses of Self-realization to people who have no theoretical

knowledge of what it means, that is of the Supreme Identity,

who follow no spiritual path, and indeed do not even know

that any path or goal exists. Tennyson, to whom I have already

referred, was an example of this. He has described it vividly in a

private letter: “… a kind of waking trance I have frequently

had, right up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This

has generally come upon me through repeating my own name

two or three times to myself, silently, till all at once, as it were

out of the intensity of consciousness of individuality, the

individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into

boundless being: and this is not a confused state, but the clearest

of the clear, the surest of the sure, the weirdest of the weird,

utterly beyond words, where death was an almost laughable

impossibility, the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no

extinction, but the only true life… I am ashamed of my feeble

description. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words?”

Actually, the term ‘waking trance’ is unfortunate because

there is nothing trance-like about it. On the contrary it is “the

clearest of the clear, the surest of the sure”, a realization of pure,

indubitable Reality, of one’s own true state.

 

 

Anthologies of such experiences have been published, and

those who wish to can refer to them. It will seem, however, on

studying them, that by no means all are glimpses of actual Self-realization.

More common are experiences that may be termed

intermediate, that is, of Divine Grace or of the supernal wonder

of God’s creation when seen aright. There is a vast range of

such experiences accessible to mystics and to wayfarers on the

various paths. However, the traveler on the direct path does

not seek them; he seeks only the Self that has the experiences.

 

The second possibility that I have in mind is the

occurrence of a glimpse of Self-realization as an introduction

to the path or an encouragement to set forth upon it, as

happened with Frania. This also may occur to some one with

no previous knowledge, so that the difference from the first

possibility mentioned is rather dynamic or functional than

static, rather in the effect of the experience than in the

experience itself. The Following Feet by Ancilla (Longmans) is

an account of a life shaped henceforth by such an experience.

 

The experience itself is admirably described:

“It was as if I had moved, in my mind, away from the

central place, as if I had always sat on a throne in midconsciousness,

administrating my affairs, and had stepped down.

It was positive, and I cannot, by taking thought, repeat. It had

the stillness of humility shining with surprised joy. . .

“Then, precisely as if that moving off the centre of my

own consciousness had set some machinery going, it happened.

How can I explain? I can only use negatives.

“I saw nothing, not even light.

“I heard nothing, no voice, no music, nothing.

“Nothing touched me. Nor was I conscious of any Being,

visible or invisible.

“But suddenly, simply, silently, I was not there. And I was

there. It lasted for a moment, yet it was eternal, since there was

no time.

“And I knew, as certainly as I know I am trying to write it

down, as certainly as I know that I live and eat and walk and

sleep, that this world, this universe, is precisely as we see it, hear

it, know it, and is at the same time completely different. It is as

we see it because we are of it; it is also and at the same time

wholly other. . .

 

“But it was not an inkling, it was complete. Yet I do not

know in what ways the earth appeared different. It was not

different materially. It still had form, and colour, even good

and evil, and animals and people, but it was conceived

differently, as a whole, perhaps, as a spiritual entity. And it filled

me with awe and grave joy and certainty, since I knew for always

that it was and no other and that all was well; that it was the

answer to all questions. I had no vision of God, or of any person,

no vision of Christ, or of any spiritual being. Yet it was all that

is, and there was no God, and equally no not-God. It was whole

and of the spirit. No words can make it clear. All I can say is

that the wholeness seemed akin to that part of me that I should

call spirit, as if my spirit were part of it and could not be separated

from it.

 

“How long the experience lasted I have no idea, but I

think it was momentary. When it ceased I felt as though I had

expended a great deal of time, and that, equally, there was no

time in that moment. That timelessness was the clearest

impression.” (pp. 20-21).

 

It is noteworthy that, as an after-effect of this experience,

she felt precisely as I had when first reading Guenon: “So now I

know, and it is all true, and I have always known it.” This feeling

attained in this lifetime or a previous one. When the sun rises,

not all buds burst into flower but only those who are ready

for flowering. It is no use accusing the sun of injustice. All

that one has to concern oneself with is becoming fit and ready.

In this, no less than in worldly matters, the injunction of the

Gita is to be observed: to concern oneself with performing

the right action, not with grasping at the reward of the action.

Irrespective of visible results, this lifetime should be used for

spiritual development, for ripening towards realization of that

Ultimate Identity which eternally is, whether realized or not.

Indeed, the only real tragedy is a lifetime wasted on

meaningless living, not turned to spiritual effort.

 

 

 

A glimpse of Self-realization can be regarded as a breach

in the prison-walls of the ego. Its occurrence does not rest with

the aspirant; what rests with him is the steady work of erosion,

wearing the walls away, until at last they become paper-thin

and ready to collapse.

 

The mind must be completely saturated by understanding

of non-duality — that there is only the One Self. It is not

enough to hold this as a theory.

 

Even this mental permeation, however, is only a

preliminary, preparing one for the constant practice of Self enquiry,

which will gradually set up the current of awareness.

 

Even though the Sun of Truth has not yet risen, the state of

such a man is very different from one who stumbles blindly

through the dream of life, taking its appearances for reality,

different even from one who awakens occasionally to glimpses

of a Reality he does not understand; it is a fuller, more vital,

more blessed state, where life, the whole of life, has beauty and

significance, and yet, paradoxically, the deprivation of life would

be no tragedy, since it is spiritual awareness, not physical life

that is the reality. Indeed, that is why the question that any

religion teaches about the after-life is relatively unimportant

and can interest only philosophers and theologians.

 

Judaism and the original Taoism say nothing on the subject, while Buddha

refused to answer questions about it; and therefore scholars

gravely argue whether they believed in survival or not. From a

spiritual viewpoint, death is not important. “There is no

existence of the unreal and no non-existence of the Real”, either

before death or after. If the ego does not exist now, it does not

exist after death either; if an illusory ego seems to exist now it

will seem to exist after death also. The thing to do is to strive to

awaken to reality now, in this lifetime, and then, as Bhagavan

said, death can make no difference; no further change is possible.

 

* Arthur Osborne: My Life & Quest