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| Arthur Osborne |
(from "Where Charity Begins" by Arthur Osborne):
As long as there is the concept of an “I,” there is a concept of others. As long as there are others to help, there is an “I” to help them and therefore no Self-realization. The two go together; they cannot be separated. Of course, one has to play the game of “I and others,” acting as though they existed. It is as if (as can sometimes happen) one had a dream and took part in its events while at the same time being awake enough to know that it was a dream.
What, then, is this vow to help others before seeking one's own Realization? Nothing but a resolve to remain in a state of ignorance (avidya). And how will that help others? It means clinging to the ego one has sworn to dissolve, regarding it as supremely wise and beneficent! In the language of theism it is revealed as overwhelming arrogance, the decision to show God how to turn His world or to run it for Him.
Whatever may have been the traditional Mahayana discipline (and a significant injunction by Milrepa, one of the great Mahayana saints, is quoted in a book of his life, "One should not be over-hasty in setting out to help others before one has realized the Truth; if one does it is a case of the blind leading to the blind." (The Life of Milrepa, Tibet's Great Yogi. Lobzang Jivaka, John Murray.)
This urge to help others by being a Guru before one's time is one of the greatest pitfalls for the aspirant today. There may be some compassion in it, but there is likely to be far more vanity and egoism. Few things so flatter the ego as the dream of being a Guru surrounded by the adulation of disciples. Few things so impede an aspirant as turning his energy outwards to guide others when it should still be turned inwards to his own purification. In spiritual things, it is true, as the 19th Century economists falsely asserted about material things, that you help others most by helping yourself. The Maharshi never indulged such people. He told them, "Help yourself first before you think of helping others."
In any case, there is no need for any vow of compassion. The nearer a man comes to the truth of the Universal Self, the more his phenomenal, individual self will take its form and, without any vows, without arrogating to himself the control of his own destiny, he will find himself acting as it is his nature to act, doing what it is his true function to do. It may not be his function to be a Guru at all; if it is, it will come about naturally and healthily when the time is ripe, without his trying to force it.
A few examples will illustrate this. Buddha was the only son of his father, and the heir apparent to his father's throne. In what the unctuous do-gooders would call selfish preoccupation with his own spiritual welfare, he abandoned wife and child, father and throne, and set forth alone as a sadhu to seek Enlightenment. And how many millions have since drawn sustenance from his renunciation! St. Francis of Assisi forsook the family business and alienated his father in order to embrace 'Lady Poverty.' And what spiritual wealth has flowed forth from his material destitution! Sri Ramakrishna was consumed with an ecstatic craving for the Grace of the Divine Mother. Nothing else concerned him, neither helping himself nor others. It seemed he would go mad with longing and despair. Then, when he did at last attain, such power flowed through as to launch the spiritual regeneration of Hinduism and its attraction for Western seekers. Realization descended unsought on Ramana Maharshi when he was a schoolboy of 16. He left home, seeking only solitude, and remained immersed in the Bliss of Being. Yet disciples gathered round and he became the Jagad Guru, the World Guru, of His time through whom a new path adapted to the conditions of our age was made accessible to those who seek.
All of which goes to show that the Universal Harmony does not require any man's planning to give it shape, or in theistic language, that God can do His job without our advice.
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