Book Two. The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto I Canto II Canto III Canto IV
Canto V
Canto VI Canto VII Canto VIII
Canto IX
Canto X Canto XI Canto XII
Canto XIII Canto XIV
Canto XV
Book Two
The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
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Book Two: Canto VII The Descent into Night
Aswapathy sees emerging in a visible form a dark Power whose very breath is poison. A peril begins to haunt the air and menacing Energies gather. Tempting snares crowd around him. All there are misled by false appearances; only Aswapathy sees through by his inner discrimination. He is keen to discern the cause of this Evil and goes further along the dim track. He enters a no-man's-land where traffic is heavy but dwellings none. All here is one vast deception. Joy hides pain and good yields evil; love leads to hate, truth disappears into falsehood and life presages death. The ruling hostile Power cloaks itself in the garb of Light, quotes the scripture and slays the soul with self-righteous virtue. The path of heaven here leads to hell. Ruse and treachery are common. Selfishness is at a premium, each wars against the other, but all continue to put down any who dare to seek some higher good. Truth is exiled lest she disturb this state of affairs. The scene changes. There appears a city of ancient Ignorance, a centre without circumference, a place with none to rule over the warring groups. It is a city where Light is unknown, Ego and Falsehood are the arbiters. A deceptive code of ethics gives a look of nobility to the ruthless warrior. Power and utility are the Truth and Right. Religion oppresses, spirituality is exiled and truth is tabooed as a tie and lie is enthroned as the truth. Aswapathy passes through this dangerous passage warily with the Name of God on his lips, constantly aware of treachery from behind. None questions him; the heights of the Spirit above beckon to him, the abysses below desire him. He chooses to fathom the abysses of the Night and turns downwards. A greater darkness greets him. It looks as if God and Light have never been there or at any rate have no more any power there. His sight fails and he feels his way with the soul. Ugliness, perversion, lust, cruelty vie with one another in dominating the scene. Worship is offered to the Undivine. A new aesthesis valuing what the soul hates is cultivated. Beauty is banned, pure emotions are deadened. Evil is cherished, brute passions hold undeterred sway. Here is Hell in its naked glory. The inhabitants of these regions are a race possessed by the demoniac force that lurks in the depths of men, suppressed by the law of the human heart and controlled by the thought of the refined mind. This force is a monster of greed, aggrandisement and exploitation. The beings of this world look like men but are in truth viler than the vilest of creatures. There is no touch of pity or love anywhere; all is force, tyranny, cynicism. Light is despised by these creatures of Darkness, loud in their slogan of loyalty to their Lords of Falsehood. Aswapathy advances alone into these menacing realms, combats the powers that seek to deprive his mind of its light, smites away their clinging influences. Soon he emerges into vast blanks; all peopled tracts are left behind. It is a deathlike oppressive Void. He becomes aware of an active hostility in Life opposing light and truth, spreading despair and doom, and he strives to resist its onslaught. The Abyss from below rises to claim his soul which is now alone with the confronting Night; he is being sucked in, pressed down from all sides. Hope disappears and a nameless fear arises in him. His mind is struck dumb. However, he endures, stills the terror and bears the agony. Soon the peace returns and the gaze of his soul. The Godhead in him awakes and he faces the danger with Calm. He masters the waves of this formidable Nature with a look. He meets naked Hell with his bare spirit.
A
mind absolved from life, made calm to know, Aswapathy wants to find out the cause of this large-scale failure of the world to become what it was intended to be. He is properly equipped for that task: his mind is not enmeshed in the whorl of life. It is above it and free from its vitiating desire-movements and calm enough to perceive, unmixed and undistracted, the truth of things. Similarly his heart is not overcome by the blind sufferings of life, the badge of the ruling ignorance; it is detached from these obscurations and it is also free and reacts to the truth without deviation.
Away
he looked from Nature’s visible face Those parts of Nature visible to the normal eye do not hold the truths of her workings; in fact her surface movements veil the truths. Aswapathy, in his will to know the truth, shifts his gaze from the misleading surface and plunges it into the vaster indefinite Infinity that opens behind the front of the finite. It is the great unknown beyond the known, the latent upholding the patent, the unmanifest projecting the manifest. What is in movement as the universe is upheld by this vast stable Being. All movements that constitute our lives in the universe are but some pretty currents of that Immensity of Existence.
The
worlds are built by its unconscious Breath This vast Unknown is the real source of our universe. The latter is a product of its spontaneous vibratory stir. Matter and Mind which pose to be self-existent realities in the universe are in fact forms or formulations of this Infinity. What we take to be our own conscious thinkings are really a result of its formative movements.
The
veil was rent that covers Nature’s depths: The penetrating gaze of Aswapathy cuts through the veil of external Nature and reaches into the hidden depths. There he sees the origin of the Pain that afflicts the world, the dark source of the Ignorance that covers all, the poisonous growth of Evil that attacks Life at her very roots.
On
a dim bank where dies subjective Space, On a border where even subjective extension fails, Aswapathy becomes aware of a dark Nescience which comes to life as it were and stares at all that has come into being and assumed form in the unrolling of Time and at the depths of being from which all has arisen. The insentient Void regards the living Void—even the living appears to be but a void as nothing lasts, all dissolves.
Behind
appeared a grey carved mask of Night
A
hidden Puissance conscious of its force, Watching the birth of things in this creation stands Something behind an assumed mask of Night, of Darkness. The Darkness is only a cloak for a Light that burns concealed. And how does it all come to be? How does it appear to the watching spirit? A Power acts but from behind the veil; a Presence is felt but not embodied; things are made but are ever faced with extinction; Death which is not the end but becomes the beginning of another life seems to bring the world into being only to slay it thereafter.
Then
from the sombre mystery of the gulfs
A
fatal Influence upon creatures stole It is then, as the awakened Nescience regards the creation that .has come into existence, that a dark emanation issues from her and falls upon all that is created, tainting all, corrupting and destroying all. The immortal spirit, the soul in its venture, is pursued everywhere by this shapeless evil, this dangerous element that haunts it and besieges it by its agents of error, grief and pain which overwhelm its natural will to seek and manifest the truth and joy and the light in which they thrive, that are its own by right.
A
deformation coiled that claimed to be And this leads to a deformation in the creation, a deformation that seems so total and lasting that it claims to be the very nature of the being in embodiment, the characteristic movement of universal Nature. This deformation that has intervened wants to pass as the intrinsic nature of creation, as if creation is this and nothing more.
A
hostile and perverting Mind at work This contrary and perverting element works through the Mind which operates in the entire field of life and imposes its own formulas on the Truth that is trying to manifest. As the beings try to listen to truth-knowledge through its subtle hearing, this Mind interferes and casts its shadow of doubt on whatever Knowledge succeeds in reaching it. It stops the spontaneous workings—active and reactive—of the inner faculties from reaching the surface. It covers up with its own constructions the guiding turns provided by Nature for the March of life and on the foundations of the cosmic Law it erects its own glittering edifices of wrong standards and misconceived ordinances.
Even
Light and Love by that cloaked danger’s spell Even Light and Love that are by nature divine come to be so deformed by this perverting agency of Mind that they forfeit their bright and godly nature and assume baser forms. Instead of being the guiding and saving elements that they truly are, they become sources of danger and harmful attraction; their baser forms misguide and lead into suffering.
A
wind of sorrow breathed upon the world; As a result sorrow broods over the world. All thinking is enmeshed by falsehood, all action is rendered defective or tinged with hues of frustration. Great efforts end in failures or Pyrrhic successes. None are aware of the root cause of this degeneration which lies in the original Nescience and its issue, the perverting Mind.
The
grey Mask whispered and though no sound was heard, It is the breath and the subtle entry of the Nescience into the creative movement that is the seed-cause of all evil, suffering and death that have appeared in life.
Out
of the chill steppes of a bleak Unseen Along with the unheard whisper from the Mask of Night there is an unseen entry of agents of Evil from another world. These denizens of a world of perverted power are shadowy in form and strike terror wherever they go. They creep in under the mask of darkness from out of cheerless regions not visible to the eye. Even as there are ambassadors of Light and Good there are ambassadors of Darkness and Evil the Antagonists.
In
silence the inaudible voices spoke, These Agents of Evil do not act in the open. Their voices are not heard as they communicate; their hands are not seen as they work. All the same they do their evil deeds: they lay the foundations of an order of crookedness, sin and antagonistic fate.
Life
looked at him with changed and sombre eyes: As a result of this evil intervention, Life undergoes a change. Aswapathy notes that her look is different, less bright. Her beauty remains, but he finds that her seeking, her quest is not as insatiable and demanding as before; she is content with what little happiness she can snatch, responding quietly to what little truth or love comes her way.
He
saw her gold sunlight and her far blue sky, Aswapathy sees how full of beauty, charm and goodness life is, but he sees too that she is driven by fearful powers. He notes the consequent pain and suffering that have sprung up in her course, the hostile fate waiting to confront man in his journey forward, the evil, the sorrow and the culmination in death dominating the field of life.
A
breath of disillusion and decadence Even as Life develops and takes shape, frustration and decay act upon her and things begin to crumble from within. The very movement of progress brings with it elements of death.
A
world that clung to the law of a slain Light Aswapathy regards a whole world infected with the spirit of decadence and death: the Light that leads and saves is extinguished and dead truths are erected as high values; unnatural things are welcomed as true and natural; corruption is highly prized and even beauty partakes of the ugliness and evil that are rampant.
A
darkness settled on the heavy air; The lightness and the brightness in Nature fade away. Shadows gather and happiness is extinguished. Nature's inborn robust confidence of strength is slain and instead fear implanted in her. Fear gives an unnatural and hunted look to one whom it possesses. The candid gaze of the soul is eclipsed when it is overlaid by fear.
The
lust that warps the spirit’s natural good The spontaneous turn to what is right and good in the soul is twisted by an intruding lust into an artificial and imposed pattern of virtue and vice. A duality comes into play falsifying all operations, suppressing and thus giving an added unnatural force to the natural zest of life. The artificial good that does duty for what is naturally right and wholesome becomes irksome, and evil becomes attractive. Self-righteousness breeds in the votaries of this artificial good and ego flourishes in them in a false sense and enhanced awareness of their own virtues and the sins of others. All in all, everything leads to hell, whether it is virtue or vice, both become means to the rule of hell.
In
rejected heaps by a monotonous road
All
glory of life dimmed tarnished into a doubt, On this dull route of life's decline into darkness and obscurity the old natural joys of life are discarded. Life's original glory of confidence is afflicted by doubt and reduced in its glow. Beauty is overtaken by care and decay.
All
power was dubbed a tyranny cursed by God Power has no more its free and uninhibited play; it comes to be looked upon as an unjust force to be condemned and checked. Truth ceases to be a self-evident fact; it is regarded as a fictitious prop erected by the mind for its own purpose. Joy is no more an invigorating pursuit in the play of life, but an exhausting search. Knowledge ceases to fulfil; it dwindles into an imperfect, incomplete and unsatisfied Ignorance.
As
from a womb obscure he saw emerge Its dangerous commerce is our suffering’s cause.
Its
breath is a subtle poison in men’s hearts; As Aswapathy watches he sees a dark Form emerging from behind the fair front of life. This dark Entity hitherto unseen is the real cause of all suffering that befalls man; for it is not something that lies beneath, inactive, it is constantly putting itself out into the movements of life and vitiating them, bringing on pain and suffering. Its very breath deposits poison in the hearts of men, unknown to them. This dark Element of uncertain appearance is the parent of all evil in the world.
A
peril haunted now the common air; Aswapathy becomes aware of a perilous atmosphere around him. He sees forces and energies aflow in a threatening surge. He turns here and there looking for help, for some brighter issue; but everywhere he encounters only hostile and unnerving presences in concrete forms prowling about stealthily.
A
march of goddess figures dark and nude Powerful beings, dark and unveiled, spread alarm as they stride the scene. Footsteps approach unseen and cause fear. Forms gather breathing threats. Beings portending evil, carrying disaster in their very looks, pass him by.
A
charm and sweetness sudden and formidable, Danger threatens not openly alone. Apart from the terror-spreading fearful elements at work undisguised, there are also attractive appearances that hide harm behind their compelling beauty and appeal. They too approach Aswapathy with all their danger-loaded charm.
But he alone discerned that screened attack.
A
veil upon the inner vision lay, Nobody there can see things as they are; the vision is overlaid by a veil. Danger comes unexpectedly as the menace advances unseen. Truth is nowhere to be found; what passes for it is pseudo-truth which, however, believes itself to be the Truth. And this hold of perversion is so complete that the attacked victims are unaware that they are besieged. No one can see the cause of this state except Aswapathy, who has the light and the sight to see and discern the developments behind the veil.
Aware
of some dark wisdom still withheld
A
tract he reached unbuilt and owned by none: Aswapathy sees all and feels convinced that there must be some justification, some necessity somewhere for this strong and formidable formation. And he pursues his way across dim spaces and reaches at last a dark starting tract, a kind of no-man's-land, built by none, owned by none, where the passage is open but no settlement is possible.
It
was a no-man’s-land of evil air,
There
unreality was Nature’s lord: The air here is full of evil. This passage to hell is crowded with people but there is not a single shelter for them. All is in transit. Unreality rules everywhere. It is an order of existence where the real withholds itself and everything is spurious. There is an imposing façade with nothing at all behind it.
Yet
nothing would confess its own pretence This false pretension is so pervading and so complete that nothing will admit even to itself—let alone to others—that it is not what it wants to pass for. Here even the heart which is a natural seat of conviction and unveiled truth, is uncertain and doubtful. Deception is the very law of this domain and all lives and survives by conforming to this pattern.
An
unsubstantial Nihil guaranteed
A
borrowed magic drew them from the Void; The falsehood of the forms that Nature takes on here is upheld by a mighty Nothing which by its very presence—or seeming presence—makes them appear for a while as if they are real. They assume shapes and substances not their own and their colours keep on changing. They do not exist by their own right, they are, as it were, conjured up from a nowhere. The whole configuration is like a mirrored reflection of a fantasy thrown up by some reality.
Each
rainbow brilliance was a splendid lie; Even beautiful forms are a cheat. The beauty that adorns an enchanting face is found to be not real at all. Each striking brightness is a spectacular falsehood. Beauty here is no guarantee of Truth; it is, on the other hand, a decoy, a snare, a trap.
Nothing
could be relied on to remain: One can never be sure that what one sees here will remain as it is seen. Everything reveals itself to be its contrary. Joy becomes a source of tears and pain. What appears good proves to be evil— though the opposite never happens viz. no evil ever results in any good! Love culminates in hate and delight in suffering. Apparent Truth unrolls itself as falsehood and life is overshadowed by death.
A
Power that laughed at the mischief of the world, There is an unmistakable merriment in the air from this pervading spirit of mischief that corrupts everything. It exults in throwing together into ceaseless combat the contraries of joy and pain, good and evil, love and hate, delight and suffering, truth and falsehood, life and death. However, the creative Spirit is not cast down at these developments. There is a significant gesture of scorn on his visage; for even these he makes to serve his purpose. The rise and struggle of contraries is turned into a process towards the realisation of a transcendent Verity.
Aloof,
its influence entered everywhere Though this Dark Power is apart and uninvolved, its influence enters everywhere and vitiates all forms and movements. It leaves its stamp on all. Perverse and twisted, it enjoys the prospect of tragedy inevitably overtaking the little joys of life.
Announcing
the advent of a perilous Form Danger approaches. It comes stealthily on purpose as it aims to strike unawares. It takes care to see that none knows of its coming until it is too late to escape its fearful hold.
Or
else all augured a divine approach,
The
Fiend was visible, but cloaked in light; Or, it is a brightness everywhere, an air of coming fulfilment, an expectation of an advent of something new—a new truth, a new light. The Dark Adversary puts on a mantle of light and appears in a misleading form, acting as a helpful angel, manoeuvring to give falsehood the appearance of truth by twisting the Scripture and the Law in its favour. His pseudo-wisdom is deceitful and the Virtue patronised by him kills the soul by smothering it with self-righteousness. The path he leads on is ostensibly towards heaven but in reality it moves to perdition.
A
lavish sense he gave of power and joy, He fills men with a false sense of exultation, a feeling of power and joy. When the inner being warns against this falsity, he neutralises the prompting by sweet suggestions to the contrary and lulls into false security. Or he disables the mind from discovering the truth by involving it in its own gossamer constructions. He uses its logic that deadly weapon which can be made to serve truth or falsehood with equal ease to pass off untruth as truth.
Amazing
the elect with holy lore
The
air was full of treachery and ruse; He cites from the scripture with facility, successfully imitates the voice of God and misleads. The place reeks with cunning and deceit. Even if truth is spoken at any time anywhere, it is more as part of a plan to create confidence and then betray. Even a smile is full of hazard as behind it there is a trap. What looks like safety is only a decoy to land one into peril and a feeling of trust becomes an open door for danger to enter.
Falsehood
came laughing with the eyes of truth; The whole environment is treacherous in the extreme. Falsehood is inviting in an appealing garb of truth. No one can be trusted as a friend; he may turn out to be an enemy in disguise or the agent of an enemy. Even a handshake may be a prelude to a dagger-thrust, an embrace turn into a grip by the hosts of Death.
Agony
and danger stalked their trembling prey Agony and danger attack everywhere; they enter into the atmosphere under false and alluring colours and pounce all of a sudden with dire force. The heart is filled with an agony of fear at every turn and men in their fear cry out piteously for help, but of help there is none.
All
warily walked, for death was ever close; With all this danger around and death threatening to overtake, all tread their path watchfully. But this caution is a waste of vigilance. For whatever one uses to guard oneself with turns out to be a fatal and deadly snare. Even when, ultimately, some welcome relief arrives and slackens the tension, it soon reveals itself as a treacherous passage to a greater doom.
There
was no truce and no safe place to rest; It is a place where none can afford to relax his vigilance. Nothing is safe, there is nowhere to stay in peace. All around is strife and treachery. There is a perpetual tension.
All
who were there lived for themselves alone; The denizens of this world are all exclusively self-centred. Each one ranges himself against the rest and yet if anyone seeks some nobler end, all the rest make common cause and attack him. Truth stands banished from this realm lest she expose the falsehood that is regnant, dissolve the darkness with her light, and upset the existing order or disorder of things with her superior and disturbing knowledge. Ignorance guards itself furiously against the intrusions of Knowledge as they strike at the very roots of its reign.
Then
the scene changed, but kept its dreadful core:
A
capital was there without a State:
He
saw a city of ancient Ignorance The scene changes, there is a different formation but the main features remain. It is a highly unnatural state of affairs; there is a centre but it extends nowhere. There is no order and nobody to enforce it; everywhere there is strife—between individuals, between groups. It is an organised realm of ancient Ignorance built on a foundation that has not known Light. If it had been exposed to Light in any manner, it could not have survived.
There
each in his own darkness walked alone: In this realm all are severely self-centred. Each one hugs his own ignorance and insists on forging his own way irrespective of the interests of others. The only point on which all agree is that there are many ways of pursuing the Evil and each one must have freedom to indulge in his way. Where they unite it is to pool their common strength to give added force to the prevailing falsehood.
There
Ego was lord upon his peacock seat The master whom all serve here is the Ego seated on the throne of pride. Ego is supported and seconded by his spouse, Falsehood. Without Falsehood to support and buttress, Ego cannot thrive and without Ego, Falsehood has no monitor. This dark world turns naturally to this biune and sinister formation of Ego-Falsehood even as the world of light turns spontaneously to Truth and God.
Injustice
justified by firm decrees Injustice instead of justice holds the scales with weights that are all false. Error is legalised. Any word of truth, any ray of light that would expose this established rule of falsehood is vigilantly kept out.
In
high professions wrapped self-will walked wide Each asserts his self-will and prating high-sounding principles, does what he wants; under the cover of order and justice, rank licence prevails. There is not even a recognition of the Ideal of Liberty; if any elements of freedom are seen or suspected anywhere, they are hated and hounded out. None tolerates another. Harmony is conspicuous by its absence. Each group holds to its own interests in the name of a law and seeks to impose it on others at the point of the sword.
A
frame of ethics knobbed with scriptural rules
A
formal practice mailed and iron-shod Injunctions of scripture key-set in a framework of ethics or some theory which derives its strength not from any higher truth but from the vehement beliefit commands in the laity, pass for the Law of God. An outer imposing adherence to such a code gives to the ruthless barbarians who wield sword and fire a stamp of nobility and a halo of uncompromising strength and right.
But
all their private acts belied the pose:
In
their sweet secrecy of pleasant sins Practice belies professions everywhere. Not Truth, not Right, but Utility and Power are the guiding criteria. The strong prey upon the weak; capacity, not legitimacy, is at a premium. Sin is enjoyed and cherished without any feeling of guilt. Amoral Nature and not a moralist God sets the norm. Self-assertion, self-aggrandisement are the rule irrespective of their moral or immoral bearings.
Inconscient
traders in bundles of contraries, In a general state of unconsciousness contradictions and oppositions are heaped together pell-mell and passed off under false labels. Each one is blind to his own defects but would condemn the same failings in others. Insincerity is at a premium. Perverse cruelty delights in oppression of others. It is the rule of the Pharisee.
A
pragmatist judge within passed false decrees, Thus was a balance kept, the world could live. Judgement is based not upon the truth of things but upon their utility to oneself. In the name of equity unpardonable inequities are perpetrated. Wrong is adjusted to be right by skilful reasoning. Values are appraised not on inherent Verity but with an eye to their worth to ego and desire; they are heavily tainted. Such is the false scale of norms and laws by which this world lives.
A
zealot fervour pushed their ruthless cults,
Amid
her clashing creeds and warring sects
A
hundred tyrannies oppressed and slew There is an extreme religious fanaticism. Those of alien faith are hounded out. Not truth but agreement with one's own belief is the criterion. Those who hold to their faith, to truth, are forced to forswear their conviction or be put to death. Intolerance is the order of the day, leading to incessant strife, clash and bloodshed. Over it all presides Religion severe and exacting, allowing no quarter to dissent. There is a pervading repression, suppression of free thought. By force or by organised cheating, a semblance of unity is flaunted.
Only
what seemed was prized as real there: What is apparent, actual at the moment is taken to be real, not what is true. Ideals are ridiculed and cynically brushed aside. Spirituality, seeking for the truth of the Spirit, is laughed at both by the laity and the lettered gentry and dismissed as an impractical undertaking, a delusion of speculative mind, a fantasy or a deliberate concoction of the hypocrite to deceive. The intensities of the Quest pass dulled through the corridors of the obscure mind and are lost to sight in the endless rounds of the reigning Ignorance.
A lie was there the truth and truth a lie. This is the result of the unmitigated reign of falsehood in every sphere in this realm. What is regarded and revered as truth is in reality the reverse of it, a deliberate perversion into its opposite, a lie. And that is not all. If there be any element of truth anywhere, it is dubbed a lie and condemned. Things are topsy-turvy and yet they are accepted as the right and natural order.
Here
must the traveller of the upward way— The road to Light lies through tracts of darkness. One who aims to reach the goal of Truth and Immortality has to pass through the intervening inhospitable and dangerous realms of Falsehood and Death. The pilgrim of Light either pauses in these treacherous regions unable to make headway or passes warily praying all the while for safety, repeating the Name of his Saviour. The prayer in his heart links him with the Strength of the chosen Divinity and the Name on his lips infuses the Power of the adored and assures protection along the dangerous paths.
If
probed not all discernment’s keen spear-point,
Over
his shoulder often he must look back The pilgrim has got to be vigilant on all sides. He has to use his developed discriminative faculties to the full lest he might be lured into waiting traps of falsehood which are indeed endless. He needs often to look backwards and sideways lest a treacherous blow fall upon him unawares and cast him down helpless. Evil is ready to strike at any moment from any direction.
So
might one fall on the Eternal’s road This is where and how spiritual casualties take place. The unfortunate victim loses the chances offered to him to reach the Kingdom of the Spirit and his awaited arrival there never ensues. He is written off as a failure and his name remembered at best as one who had tried to soar but failed on the way.
The
hand ready to smite, the eye to scout, To walk safely through this perilous passage, one must invoke the presence of God and remain conscious of it in the heart, cover oneself with unfailing courage, wield the sword of faith with hands that are ready to strike at the enemy as soon as he is perceived by the watchful eye which goes on scrutinising piercingly the path ahead. Only such ones constitute the warriors of the army of Light that is out to conquer the worlds from the hosts of Falsehood and Darkness who hold them in their dominion.
Hardly
even so, the grisly danger past, Once more they moved beneath a real sun. Even when the danger zone is crossed with all these precautions, vigilance and prayer, and a freer and purer realm is entered, the pilgrims are still unable to relax. For the memory and the strain of the immediate experience is still fresh, the shadows of the danger left behind still seem to cast their dire influence on them. However, they have stepped into a realm where the bright sun shines untainted by the deceitful hues of the world of Falsehood.
Though Hell claimed rule, the spirit still had power.
This
No-man’s-land he passed without debate; This is the land Aswapathy has surveyed; hell claims to be the sole ruler, but the power of the Spirit has still a say. It is a no-man's-land where he moves unquestioned, unchecked. The heights above beckon, but the abyss below casts a longing look at him. He is free to choose, there is none standing in his way.
For
swift and easy is the downward path, And Aswapathy chooses to fathom the inviting abyss of darkness below. Indeed, the path downward is always easy and rapid; it is the path upward that is difficult and steep. The downward pull of the established forces of Ignorance, Inertia and Darkness is incessant and any inclination towards them is swiftly turned by them into a precipitous plunge.
A
greater darkness waited, a worse reign, A still greater darkness awaits Aswapathy. What he has seen is dark enough, but what he is to see further is yet worse. Can there be anything worse than the formation of Evil that he has just seen? Yes, what passed before was evil under veil; things existed and moved under false labels and colours. What he is to see now is naked, unveiled Evil.
There
God and Truth and the supernal Light God, Truth and Light do not appear to have ever existed here in this region of Evil. At any rate they are not effective here any more. Even if they had been so at any time before, they have now been completely displaced by the Lords of Falsehood and Darkness.
As
when one slips in a deep moment’s trance Like one who in a state of deep meditative trance slides over the edges of the mind into a totally different realm of Consciousness, without effort or design, Aswapathy finds himself across a boundary which is so subtle that his eyes cannot see, only his soul can feel. The soul feels the transition.
Into
an armoured fierce domain he came
Around
him crowded grey and squalid huts The fierce domain he has stepped into is fully armoured against foes. Here he finds himself totally a stranger, with none to befriend him, walking without direction in surroundings that are dirty, dark and primitive. There are flamboyant edifices to the glory of tyrant Power but alongside there are poor, pitiful, ugly dwellings; also spread out are quarters full of inhuman and demoniac creatures, cruel and evil.
A
pride in evil hugged its wretchedness; Evil is always accompanied by art insolent self-pride and this pride hugs the wretchedness of the evil defiantly. That is why the mean state continues. There is in this realm an overall misery—looming over the peculiar splendour of the place—stamping itself on the dim-lit purlieus of the crowded cities of this dream-like existence.
There
Life displayed to the spectator soul
A
strong and fallen goddess without hope, Here Life shows to the onlooker the depraved and deformed state to which she has been reduced and the way in which the fatal charm of her deceptive visage entices the spirit to plunge to its fall.
Across
the field of sight she multiplied
On
the dark background of a soulless world As if on a cinematographic screen, Life throws up a number of scenes imaging her nether glories in their engulfing terror. On a soulless stage she enacts, in a fearful play of light and shade, her dramas depicting the sorrow of her fallen states borne and suffered by the strained nerves of the living.
Epics
of horror and grim majesty, The characters in these dramas are embodiments of terror, cold and pitiless, dry and stiff in the muddy terrains of Life. There is a plethora of ugly forms and ugly movements leaving no quarter for pity anywhere.
In
booths of sin and night-repairs of vice Things are changed out of form. Lust of flesh is passed off as movements of art. Life misuses God-given skills, prolongs the career of all pernicious elements, fills the meanest receptacle with heady intoxication and gives to the animal-human the emblem of a god.
Impure,
sadistic, with grimacing mouths,
Her
craft ingenious in monstrosity, From the dark gulfs emerge devilish forms reeking with filth, cruel and mocking in their appearance. An ingenious art of perverted Life sets aside all norms of Nature and concocts monstrous exaggerations that caricature reality. Flaunting parades of these grotesque, obscene and frightful forms outrage the witness senses to the point of collapse.
An
inexorable evil’s worshipper, Life turns into a worshipper at the shrine of imperious Evil; what is vile is cherished as great and dirt is raised up in value. The scene is crowded with reptile-form energies of a dragon power. Novel formations of earth-sticking Force, imposing serpent-visaged energies waiting in ambush, inspire fearful homage to the lowly godlings.
All
Nature pulled out of her frame and base Nature herself is forced here to forsake the basic pattern of her movements and dragged into an unnatural state of functioning. Consequently her actions and reactions are all topsy-turvy. What repels, instead of deadening desire, stimulates it; agony does not bring about pain but augments bliss; not attraction but hatred promotes lust; torture does not create revulsion but effects union; anguish does not make death fearful and unwelcome but actually gives it a holy respectability; and worship is offered not to the Divine but to all that is undivine.
A
new aesthesis of Inferno’s art Even Art, in this veritable hell, has its different standards of approach and appreciation. The mind is educated to cherish not what the soul chooses but what the soul hates—the reverse of what should be. The nerves that are agitated at this unnatural requirement of the mind are pressurised to accommodate themselves. Even the body that protests against this contrariety is forced to yield and participate in this strange aesthesis.
Too
sweet and too harmonious to excite Beauty—real Beauty—which is inherently so sweet and so full of harmony, refuses to be stimulated by this vitiating turn of aesthesis and therefore it is exiled altogether. Feelings of sympathy, love, purity etc. which arise naturally in the heart are deadened and cheap sensations are promoted for their thrills. Everywhere there is a search for intensities of sense-attraction and sense-experience.
Here
cold material intellect was the judge The judge here is not the truth-perception in the awakened heart or the purified mind, but the cold intellect tied to its physical base. It is dry and unfeeling and needs the stab of pain and an intensity of sensations to awaken it so that it may know something of the power, passion and sharp savour of life.
A
new philosophy theorised evil’s rights, A philosophy is erected justifying the right of Evil to exist and rule, exulting in the glitter of the general onset of decline and decay, giving enticing appeal to a dangerous, encircling lowly force, equipping the primitive brute in life with Knowledge that makes it formidable and wildly extends its range and capacity for harm.
Over
life and Matter only brooding bowed, Mind changes its direction. It no more looks and soars upward. It gazes downward, pores over life and matter below and like a restless animal digging into the ground, it enters into the nether regions hoping to find the truth there, lighting up its search with the raw flares of the subconscient domain. Its lights are not the purer Light from above but the lurid flashes from the mixed and muddy depths below.
Thence
bubbling rose sullying the upper air, This now composed the fetid atmosphere. From these concealed depths of the subconscient rise elements that form the scum of life and they contaminate the air even of the regions above the subconscious and the semi-conscious. The result of this contaminated admixture, which poisons the whole atmosphere of the region, is looked upon in this nefarious regime as the real truth of life.
A
wild-beast passion crept from secret Night From the nether regions there comes up bestial passion with eager look, hungry for its prey. All around Aswapa thy there is a wild abandon of an animal ecstasy. The atmosphere is one of uninhibited passion and fierce enjoyment of pleasures of the lowest kind.
The
air was packed with longings brute and fierce; All that was there was on this pattern made. Passionate and animal desires throng the place. Disturbing and corroding thoughts hover round Aswapathy incessantly and press on the doors of his mind for entry; they are a veritable poison. Movements and activities revealing the worst features of Hell impinge upon his reluctant eyes and force them to see. Such is the world that Aswapathy beholds.
A race possessed inhabited those parts.
A
force demoniac lurking in man’s depths The inhabitants of these regions are possessed by a fearful nether force. In the concealed depths of man's being there is a demon-like force which normally is kept under control by the refined law of the heart and obliged to shrink back into itself under the masterful gaze of the calm mind. However, in a moment of upset or crisis of the being, this nether force can rush up with all its dark power, overthrow the sovereign reason of the mind, dominate life and put its impress on the agitated nature. Such a condition is the natural state for the denizens of this world, it is, indeed, their strong point, the centre of their dynamism.
A
mighty energy, a monster god, Pity is banished from this world the creator of which is a monstrous god, a mighty energy that allows no quarter to the weak and is unyielding to the strong. It has shaped this creation in the mould of one unchanging idea and it is vigilant to keep it along this fixed course.
Its
heart was drunk with a dire hunger’s wine, This demon-Power is consumed with an unmitigable hunger and leaves nothing unappropriated. It enjoys with great relish the suffering of others. Ruin and death are celestial music to its ears.
To
have power, to be master, was sole virtue and good:
All
on one plan was shaped and standardised Power is Virtue and to dominate is the sole good. The demon-Power seeks to reserve the whole world for Evil and her hosts who are the sole ruling hierarchy. The way of Evil is the only law to which all are compelled to submit. The whole of life is cast and governed in strict conformity to the oppressive and dark spirit of Evil.
In
street and house, in councils and in courts Aswapathy moves in varied quarters and encounters the beings living there. They resemble the humans; like humans they talk high, think high. But in reality they embody in themselves the basest of infra-human elements and are meaner in their nature than the meanest reptile.
The
reason meant for nearness to the gods Reason, which is meant to uplift nature nearer to the level of the Gods by its action of enlightenment through the mind, finds itself put to pervert use in this world. It is used to justify and put a premium on the naturally distorted, evil doings of these beings. It glorifies their downward state.
Often
a familiar visage studying Appearances are very deceptive here. Aswapathy pauses at times on seeing what appears to be a familiar face with a look of light on it. He tries to recognise it, but as he observes, his inner perception warns him and he suddenly finds that it is a creature of darkness masquerading under that misleading form. Thus he sees many a form that looks fair or manly, but his unerring inner sense points out to him that the fair form clothes some ugly and lowly creature like a goblin or a ghoul or a demon.
An
insolence reigned of cold stone-hearted strength A powerful insolence commands everywhere under the aegis of the Titan's will. There is an overwhelming cruelty that fills the spaces with its deafening laughter. Deeds of fierce violence are enjoyed by their ogre perpetrators.
In
that wide cynic den of thinking beasts The beings here think, no doubt, but they are only thinking beasts. They believe little in love or pity. They are cynical to the core. Sweetness, love, compassion are all foreign to them. They believe only in force and its helpmates of greed and hatred. None offer to help or to save others. Under these conditions of open hostility, none have the courage to oppose the wrong or to defend the truth or to express a sentiment of a noble kind.
Armed
with the aegis of tyrannic Power, Darkness trumpets its catchwords with the sanction of the tyrant Power. She brings into force the dread Will of the ruling Power, ensuring its execution by violence and compulsion.
A
servile blinkered silence hushed the mind The mind is browbeaten and reduced to a state of abject silence; or it is turned into a mechanical instrument repeating what it is told, instead of thinking its way to truth. Falsehood reigns supreme. Propagatory cults and creeds stifle the breath of life, crush all independent action and make the lie so pervasive and oppressive that the soul dies suffocated.
All
were deceived or served their own deceit; The falsehood is so powerful and enveloping that all subscribe to it believing it to be the truth; whatever they do in this atmosphere only serves to plunge them deeper into this deceitful falsehood. The inhospitable air is too oppressive and stifling for truth to breathe and survive.
There
wretchedness believed in its own joy Wretchedness takes here a perverse delight in itself and thrives. Fear and weakness cling passionately to life. Lowliness, meanness, dryness, indifference, misery, all that impoverishes, constricts and arrests the proper growth of life—flourish in an atmosphere that is natural to this growth. There is no wish anywhere, no seeking to break out of this self-confinement into a higher state of freedom.
Arrogant,
gibing at more luminous states
A
barriered autarchy excluded light; The denizens of this lowly world glory in their state of mean obscurity and despise all states of more light. As a body they guard themselves against Light and are resolved to continue for ever their way of living; they proclaim their own laws and standards as the ideal ones, gratify their hunger with pitiless exploitation, are proud of their slavery in their abjectness and cling fanatically to their depressing and severely organised existence.
A
bull-throat bellowed with its brazen tongue; Falsehood raises its trumpet voice and fills the spaces with its claims for the monopoly of being right, threatening at the same time those who dare to turn to its opposite, the truth, with frightful consequences. Victims of this propaganda yield to its clamour; the soul forgets its innate divinity and a misplaced pride in the abysmal state is buttressed by the proud braggings of falsehood.
A
lone discoverer in these menacing realms Pushing forward his journey in this hostile land cut off from the saving Light, passing through the crowded, noisy and oppressive thoroughfares, Aswapathy crosses from dim regions into regions still more dim. He has to combat the powers that seek to deprive him of the guiding light in his mind and ceaselessly throw away the unwelcome clinging influences cast by these hostile elements.
Soon he emerged in a dim wall-less space.
For
now the peopled tracts were left behind; Very soon, however, Aswapathy emerges into an open space; the crowded and cramped tracts are passed. It is still dim all over and the darkness is gathering on both sides of his path.
Around
him grew a gaunt spiritual blank, The spaces around Aswapathy are increasingly empty of the Spirit; there yawns instead an aggressive waste, an unholy solitariness that bares the mind and leaves it defenceless against any unseen attack; it weakens the mind to such an extent that anything can stamp itself on it without resistance.
A
travelling dot on downward roads of Dusk
But
still a hostile Life unseen was there In that desert land, travelling alone on the slopes of gathering Darkness across occasional hutments and sparse trees, twisted and misshapen, Aswapathy senses the spirit of Death everywhere, an oppressive emptiness. And yet all is not a nil. There is a positive element and that is the presence of a hostile Life setting itself against the entry of any light and truth into that realm.
He
heard the grisly voices that deny; Aswapathy is rapidly engulfed by horrid voices dinning negations of everything, invaded by dark thoughts in masses and subjected helplessly to visions of gloom and terror. He is pulled down and further down the slopes; above him stretches the sky of doom. He fights to guard his spirit from this onslaught of despair but the horror of the Darkness creeps over him and he feels as if the Abyss below is rising up to swallow his soul.
Then
ceased the abodes of creatures and their forms
All
vanished suddenly like a thought expunged; Aswapathy then enters a zone where forms and dwellings are no more. There is only a smothering solitude; all else has vanished. He feels himself to be just a vacant chasm. The malevolent forms, evil and ugly, that he has been encountering till now have all disappeared like an illusion that never existed. He is severely alone with the dark endless Night coiling before him.
A
dense and nameless Nothing conscious, mute, There is a dense, featureless, soundless Nothing. Though without body or mind, it is yet something conscious, alive, out to swallow up everything that may exist so that it alone could exist, bare and solitary.
As
in a shapeless beast’s intangible jaws, Aswapathy finds himself sucked into the bowels of the hungry Abyss of Night and feels his own being disappearing from his vision.
A
formless void suppressed his struggling brain, As he is losing his identity, Aswapathy struggles, his brain suppressed by the enveloping void, his flesh oppressed by a cold and grim darkness. Unnerving suggestions cast a chill over his heart and a powerful force from its seething depths drags his life towards an extinction which with difficulty he manages to escape. His body is exposed to the hungry lickings of an obscure devourer.
Existence
smothered travailed to survive; Through all the smothering his struggling being strives to survive. But hope dies in his denuded soul, belief and memory of existence are no more; and all else that helps the soul in its journey Godward is also extinct.
There
crawled through every tense and aching nerve
As
a sea nears a victim bound and still, Aswapathy's nerves are all tense and aching; they tremble with a fear, indescribable and vague but intense. His benumbed mind senses with alarm the approach of Something perpetual, inexorable, some unbearable and inhuman pain.
This
he must bear, his hope of heaven estranged; But there is no help. Aswapathy has to bear this condition, with all hopes of bright realms gone, without any possibility of the peace of Nirvana; he sees that he has to live in constant pain and suffering in a state of anguished nullity.
A
lifeless vacancy was now his breast, His heart is now a dead emptiness. His mind once used to luminous thought has now lost even the capacity to have the faith to be; he is seized with the conviction of defeat. No doubt his being is still immortal in its essence, but it has lost its poise in God-state, lost its selfhood and its contact with God and Heaven.
But
he endured, stilled the vain terror, bore Aswapathy endures the ordeal, calms down the causeless terror, bears the oppressions of agony and fear without going under. Then a change comes over him. His normal peace returns and the sight of the soul is restored.
To
the blank horror a calm Light replied: The staring horror of the scene is countered by a calm Light from within him. The immortal, unshakable, mighty and silent Godhead in him arises to face the danger and the pain of that world.
He
mastered the tides of Nature with a look: With a mere look of the surging Godhead the threatening waves of the turbulent Nature are mastered. Aswapathy meets Hell at its worst with his bare and unaided spirit.
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