Appendix Poems in Greek and in French Greek Epigram Lorsque rien n'existait Sur les grands sommets blancs Note on the Texts Index of Titles Index of First Lines

Poems Written in 1910

and Published in 1920 1921

The Rákshasas

(The Rákshasa, the violent kinetic Ego, establishes his claim to mastery of the world replacing the animal Soul, — to be followed by controlled and intellectualised but unregenerated Ego, the Asura. Each such type and level of consciousness sees the Divine in its own image and its level in Nature is sustained by a differing form of the World-Mother.)

"Glory and greatness and the joy of life,

Strength, pride, victorious force, whatever man

Desires, whatever the wild beast enjoys,

Bodies of women and the lives of men,

I claim to be my kingdom. I have force

My title to substantiate, and I seek

No crown unearned, no lordship undeserved.

Ask what austerity Thou wilt, Maker of man,

Expense of blood or labour or long years

Spent in tremendous meditations, lives

Upon Thy altar spent of brutes or men,

Or if with gold Thy favour purchasable

I may command, rich offerings to glut

Thy temples and Thy priests. I have a heart,

A hand for any mighty sacrifice,

A fiery patience in my vehement mood;

I will submit. But ask not this of me,

Meek silence and a pale imprisoned soul

Made colourless of its humanity;

Ask not the heart that quakes, the hand that spares.

What strength can give, not weakness, that demand.

O Rudra, O eternal Mahádev,

Thou too art fierce and mighty, wrathful, bold,

Snuffing Thy winds for blood of sacrifice,

And angrily Thou rul'st a prostrate world.

O Rákshasa Almighty, look on me,

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Rávan, the lord of all Thy Rákshasas,

Give me Thy high command to smite Thy foes;

But most I would afflict, chase and destroy

Thy devotees who traduce Thee, making Thee

A God of love, a God too sweet to rule.

I have the knowledge; what Thou art, I know,

And know myself, for Thou and I are one."

So prayed the Lord of Lunca, and in Heaven

Sri Krishna smiled, the Friend of all mankind,

A smile of sweetness and divine delight,

And asked, "O Masters of the knowledge, Seers

Who help me by your thoughts to help mankind,

Hearken what Rávan cries against the stars,

Demanding earth for heritage. Advise,

Shall he then have it?" And a cry arose,

"He would root out the Brahmin from the earth,

Impose his dreadful Yoga on mankind,

And make the violent heart, the iron hand

Sovereign of all." Sri Krishna made reply,

"From out Myself he went to do My will.

He has not lied, he has the knowledge. He

And I are one. How then shall I refuse?

Does it not say, the Veda that you know,

When one knows That, then whatso he desires,

It shall be his'?" And Atri sage replied,

"Let him then rule a season and be slain."

And He who reigns, "Something you know, O Seers,

Not all My purpose. It is long decreed,

The Rákshasa shall rule the peopled earth.

He takes the brute into himself for man,

Yielding it offerings, while with grandiose thoughts

And violent aspirations he controls;

He purifies the demon in the race,

Slaying in wrath, not cruelty. Awhile

He puts the Vánara out of the world,

Accustoming to grandeur all mankind;

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The Ifrit¹ he rejects. Were he denied

His period, man could not progress. But since

He sees himself as Me, not Me in him,

And takes the life and body for the whole,

He cannot last. Therefore is Atri's word

Accepted." And before the Rákshasa,

Out of the terror of the sacrifice,

Naked and dark, with a blood-dripping sword

And dreadful eyes that seemed to burn the world,

Kalí the Rákshas in flames arose.

"Demand a boon!" she cried, and all the gods

Trembled. "Give me the earth for my delight,

Her gods to be my slaves," the Giant cried,

"Of strength and passion let me have my fill,

Of violence and pride." "So let it be,"

She answered. "Shall it be eternal then?"

Rávan demanded and she thundered, "No!

For neither thou nor I are best nor last.

The Asurí shall rise to fill my place,

The Asura thy children shall dethrone.

An aeon thou hast taken to evolve,

An aeon thou shalt rule. But since thy wish

I have denied, ask yet another boon."

"Let this be mine, that when at last I sink,

Nor brute nor demon, man nor Titan's hand,

Nor any lesser creature shall o'erthrow,

But only God Himself compel my fall."

And Kalí answered, smiling terribly,

"It is decreed," and laughing loud she passed.

Then Rávan from his sacrifice arose.

1 The Ifrit, the Djinn, is the demoniac element in Nature.

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Kama

(According to one idea Desire is the creator and sustainer of things, — Desire and Ignorance. By losing desire one passes beyond the Ignorance, as by passing beyond Ignorance one loses desire; then the created world is surpassed and the soul enters into the Divine Reality. Kama here speaks as Desire the Creator, an outgoing power from the Bliss of the Divine Reality to which, abandoning desire, one returns, ānandam brahmano vidvān, possessing the bliss of the Brahman.)

O desolations vast, O seas of space

Unpeopled, realms of an unfertile light,

Grow multitudinous with living forms,

Enamoured of desire! I send My breath

Into the heart of being, and the storm

Of sweet attraction shall break up its calm

With quivering passionate intensity

And silence change to a melodious cry,

And all the world be rose. Out of My heart

Suns shall flame up into the listless void,

And the stars wheel in magic dances round

Weaving the web of mortal life. For I

Am love, am passion; I create the world.

I am the only Brahma. My desire

Takes many forms; I change and wheel and race,

And with Me runs creation. I preserve,

For I am Love. I weary of Myself,

And the world circles back into the Vast.

Delight and laughter walking hand in hand

Go with Me, and I play with grief and pain.

I am the dance of Krishna, I the dance

Of Kalí . Might and majesty are Mine,

And yet I make the heart a child at play,

The soul of things a woman full of bliss.

Hunger and Thirst, arise and make the world!

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Delight, go down and give it strength to live!

O Ether, change! O Breath of things, grow full

Of the perpetual whirl! Break out, O Fire,

In seas of magic colour, infinite waves

Of rainbow light! Thou, liquid element,

Be sap, be taste in all created things

To please the senses. Thou, O solid earth,

Enter into all life, support the worlds.

I send forth Joy to lure the hearts of men,

I send forth Law to harmonise and rule.

And when these things are done, when men have learned

My beauty, My desirability, My bliss,

I will conceal Myself from their desire

And make this rule of the eternal chase,

"They who abandon Me, shall to all time

Clasp and possess; they who pursue, shall lose."

The Mahatmas

Kuthumi

(This poem is purely a play of the imagination, a poetic reconstruction of the central idea only of Mahatmahood.)

The seven mountains and the seven seas

Surround me. Over me the eightfold sun

Blazing with various colours — green and blue,

Scarlet and rose, violet and gold and white,

And the dark disk that rides in the mortal cave —

Looks down on me in flame. Below spread wide

The worlds of the immortals, tier on tier,

Like a great mountain climbing to the skies,

And on their summit Shiva dwells. Of old

My goings were familiar with the earth,

The mortals over whom I hold control

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Were then my fellows. But I followed not

The usual path, the common thoughts of men.

A thirst of knowledge and a sense of power,

A passion of divine beneficence

Pursued me through a hundred lives. I rose

From birth to birth, until I reached the peak

Of human knowledge. Then in Bharat born

I, Kuthumi, the Kshatriya, the adept,

The mighty Yogin of Dwaipayan's school,

To Vyása came, the great original sage.

He looked upon me with the eye that sees

And smiled, august and awful. "Kuthumi,"

He cried, "now gather back what thou hast learned

In many lives, remember all thy past,

Cease from thy round of human births, resume

The eightfold power that makes a man as God,

Then come again and learn thy grandiose work,

For thou art of the souls to death denied."

I went into the mountains by the sea

That thunders pitilessly from night to morn,

And sung to by that rude relentless sound,

Amid the cries of beasts, the howl of winds,

Surrounded by the gnashing demon hordes,

I did the Hathayoga in three days,

Which men with anguish through ten lives effect, —

Not that now practised by earth's feebler race,

But that which Rávan knew in Lunca, Dhruv

Fulfilled, Hiranyakashipu performed,

The Yoga of the old Lemurian Kings.

I felt the strength of Titans in my veins,

The joy of gods, the pride of Siddhas. Tall

And mighty like a striding God I came

To Vyása; but he shook his dense piled locks,

Denying me. "Thou art not pure," he cried.

I went in anger to Himâloy 's peaks,

And on the highest in the breathless snows

Sat dumb for many years. Then knowledge came

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Streaming upon me and the hills around

Shook with the feet of the descending power.

I did the Rájayoga in three days,

Which men with care and accuracy minute

Ceaselessly follow for an age in vain —

Not Kali's Rájayoga, but the means

Of perfect knowledge, purity and force

Bali the Titan learned and gave to men,

The Yoga of the old Atlantic Kings.

I came to Vyása, shining like a sun.

He smiled and said, "Now seek the world's great Lord,

Sri Krishna, where he lives on earth concealed;

Give up to him all that thou knowst and art.

For thou art he, elect from mortal men

To guard the Knowledge, — yet an easy task

While the third Age preserves man's godlike force, —

But when thou seest the iron Kali come,

And he from Dwarca leaves the earth, know then

The time of trial, help endangered Man,

Preserve the knowledge that preserves the world,

Until Sri Krishna utterly returns.

Then art thou from thy mighty work released

Into the worlds of bliss for endless years

To rest, until another aeon comes,

When of the seven Rishis thou art one."

I sent my knowledge forth across the land;

It found him not in Bharat's princely halls,

In quiet asrams, nor in temples pure,

Nor where the wealthy traffickers resort;

Brahmin nor Kshatriya body housed the Lord,

Vaishya nor Sudra nor outcaste. At length

To a bare hut on a wild mountain's verge

Led by the star I came. A hermit mad

Of the wild Abhirs, who sat dumb or laughed,

And ran and leaped and danced upon the hills,

But told the reason of his joy to none, —

In him I saw the Lord, behind that mask

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Perceived the Spirit that contains the worlds.

I fell before him, but he leaped and ran

And smote me with his foot, and out of me

All knowledge, all desire, all strength was gone

Into its Source. I sat, an infant child.

He laughed aloud and said, "Take back thy gifts,

O beggar!" and went leaping down the slope.

Then full of light and strength and bliss I soared

Beyond the spheres, above the mighty gods,

And left my human body on the snows;

And others gathered to me, more or less

In puissance, to assist, but mine the charge

By Vishnu given. I gather knowledge here,

Then to my human frame awhile descend

And walk mid men, choosing my instruments,

Testing, rejecting and confirming souls,

Vessels of the Spirit; for the golden age

In Kali comes, the iron lined with gold.

The Yoga shall be given back to men,

The sects shall cease, the grim debates die out,

And Atheism perish from the earth

Blasted with knowledge, love and brotherhood

And wisdom repossess Sri Krishna's world.

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