It is no surprise that Arthur Osborne's thoughts and perspectives are more relevant today than ever before. The architect of the 'Mountain Path' leading to the sublime and soothing universe of Ramana Maharshi, Osborne detested the populairty that is dished out by default to any Ramana devotee of Western origins. Instead, he cherished the cocoon of splendid isolation fixated on Ramana and his 'Who Am I' teachings.
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Thanks to Osborne's daugther Katya Douglas for digging out his priceless autobiographical Account from a prized suitcase of metaphorical significance, following which it sprung to life as an Ashram Publication.
An unassuming polymath, natural polyglot, and compulsive gardener, Osborne had a very matter of fact approach to life, preciely why his tribute to Maharshi stands out, just like the flowing accounts of B V Narasimha Swami, Kavyakantha Gamapati Muni, and Major A W Chadwick.
Osborne's account is full of gems and merits an end to end read.
Here are a few that strike immediate resonace:
Extrovert or introvert? I do not believe the definitions are anywhere near so widely applicable as commonly supposed: a person of high vitality is often both, a person of low vitality neither. Certainly I was both to a high degree.
The only real measure of success in life is the state of mind and character one has attained when the time comes to leave it.
Here were young men receiving the best education their country had to offer, some of them studying its language and literature, others its history, and all in utter ignorance of its majestic traditions, of the intrepid strivings of its mystics, the paths to Beatitude that they had trod and the final supreme achievement, the Mystic Union.
Most Indians abroad either reject their spiritual heritage or are reticent about it, fearful of not being considered modern. (In fact, this is true of many Indians back home too!)
Truth is simple, only men’s minds are complicated and seek complexity.
There is one flank of the mountain where the ascent is sheer, with no pleasant groves to rest in on the way, where, to compensate for this, the path is direct and the crest already visible from the plains below and throughout the ascent. This is the direct path taught by Bhagavan.
Bhagavan was the most simple, natural, unassuming of men; he was what a man should be, quite without affectation, like a child; and at the same time with an indescribable beauty and wisdom and with such power that many trembled in his presence and feared to speak to him.
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.
Why fumble about blindfold In the box of things The future may hold? They will take to their wings In whatever form time brings, Never as told.
