My Life and Quest by Arthur Osborne

Author:Arthur Osborne [Osborne, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Sri Ramanasramam
Published: 2018-05-04T04:00:00+00:00

I BECOME A WRITER—AND CEASE TO BE ONE

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

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