Book One. The Book of Beginnings
Canto I Canto II Canto III Canto IV Canto V
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Book One: Canto 5 The Yoga of the King: the Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness
Admitted to this secret of the riddle of existence, Aswapathy casts his look upward to heights unseen hitherto. He is no more satisfied with things that served him ere now; he has seen that what obtains in terrestrial life is only a caricature of the pattern in the domain of the Spirit and he seeks to win that world for his home. He withdraws his consciousness from the din of the old life-movements on earth and dwells in a Silence that opens into the vasts beyond earthly Time and Space. An immunity of Power, Knowledge and Bliss invades his being and sucks him up into the infinitudes above. There, shorn of his humanity, he is bathed in the waters of a divine Omniscience, Omnipotence and Ecstasy. His limits are erased, his faculties undergo a transforming change, his soul widens to cosmic dimensions. Nature reveals herself to his veil-free sight as a conscious Power, with a force that is omnipotent, executing a marvellous design of the Soul. She lays open to his illumined Will her whole field of workings, from the rigidities of the material base and form of her making to the sovereign plasticities of her Mind and potencies of her Will which link the finite to the Infinite. On the threshold of these occult worlds beyond the earth-scene Aswapathy regards a guarding Power behind whom stands an ineffable Divine Presence. Here begin the domains of the Infinite, the Eternal, realms leading from Light to greater Light. Here also comes to his sight the giant order that underlines the system of worlds that constitute this Creation. He perceives the stair of the descending and the ascending planes of consciousness formed in the course of the devolution and the evolution of the Divine Spirit and up which the Soul in the universe travels forging its growth to its full stature in the Divine Glory. He further sees the world of Light, the Mahas, the world of plenary Truth-Consciousness, the Truth, the Right, the Vast, which in its lower ranges is the source all the worlds below and in its upper reaches opens into the infinities of Sat-Chit-Ananda. Here is the Wisdom that reconciles all the warring truths in the domain of Ignorance and is the source of all Revelation, Inspiration and Illumination; here is where the Eternal casts itself into Time, where the One organises itself into the Many. Beyond is the One in its infinitude. Into these Countries of the Unknown adventures Aswapathy.
This knowledge first he had of time-born men. There is knowledge and knowledge: sense-knowledge, ratiocinative knowledge, ideational knowledge and others depending upon the source and the means used to arrive at them. Men have knowledge of one kind or the other according to their state of evolutionary development. But in each case the knowledge is of a partial nature and therefore inadequate. The knowledge that Aswapathy received, however, was of a different kind: it was a whole knowledge of the origin, the process and the purpose of this world-movement which, till then, no mortal had known. Aswapathy was admitted into the arcana of the manifestation of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Eternal in Time.
Admitted
through a curtain of bright mind Thought is neither the sole nor the direct means of knowledge. Thinking can build up, through a long process of reasoning, trial and error, a kind of knowledge that answers in its nature to the type of thought-activity that has led to it. It is more a product of the working of the mind than a revelation of the object of knowledge. All thought obscures the object of which knowledge is sought. Even the most brilliant action of the thought-mind acts as a veil and bars the direct, entire vision of the object as it is. This curtain of outer mental thought has to be parted to gain access to the inner seat of revelation. Aswapathy crossed that barrier.
He
found the occult cave, the mystic door The thinking mind is the threshold, as it were, of a larger consciousness which occupies the inner regions of the being behind the surface physical. The range and intensity of this awareness increases as one goes deeper and deeper still through a subtle passage that resembles a cavern,-the heart-cave, h?dguh?, as it is appropriately described till one arrives at the centre of the consciousness in the core of the being, the soul. Here lie the source-depths of all powers of consciousness; the fount of direct, unerring vision is here.
And
entered where the Wings of Glory brood There, where Aswapathy entered, following the slender passage across the subtle-physical and the still subtler ranges of his being, lay the Lotus-City of the soul. Here were no shadows of Ignorance obscuring the rays of perception; all was lit by the direct light of the soul and everything was held in the secure grasp of timeless Knowledge. Here were held in creative concentration the truths preparing to manifest.
Indifferent
to doubt and to belief, It is the mind that binds. The mind believes in the supremacy of matter in which its own roots are sunk, and all its movements are governed by this basic faith in its subconscious layers even when its more conscious and higher workings question it. The being of man is centrally tied to the physical bases of the earth-principle by the knots, h?dayagranthi, forged by the ego. Aswapathy grew conscious of these bonds tying him down and, without caring for whatever justifications there were for the mind's beliefs in the lower laws or whatever bases there were for its apprehensions regarding the higher laws, he sundered them clean in his zeal for the thrill of an uninhibited contact with the Reality.
The
body's rules bound not the spirit's powers: As a direct result of this release of the physical body from subjection to the clamps of Matter, the other powers of the Spirit-life and mind-were freed from the limitations imposed by their material encasement on their characteristic operations. They could function in their own native way. Even when the life-force suspended the physical part of its workings-like breathing-it did not have to cease to exist as before. Similarly even when he held the mind free from thought-activity, his living was not affected. Only the usual habits of physical life and physical mind were eliminated.
Thus
could he step into that magic place Men are normally engrossed in the mechanical workings of the physical and sense mind; their vision is severely limited by the range of its physical instrumentation. That is why they are hardly aware of the larger and subtler regions of being which exist beyond their accustomed dimensions. They may get, at best, some fleeting glimpses of these regions in moments of rare displacements of consciousness, but these experiences are few and out of the way. Aswapathy, however, freed as he was from these limitations, could enter these realms with ease.
All that the Gods have learned is there self-known. There, in the realms of gestation, can be found the Truth that is to manifest, the lines on which the movement is to proceed,-the whole scheme in seed-form is evident. That is the Truth-Knowledge which the Gods, the functionaries of the Cosmos, imbibe and express. That Truth-Consciousness is anterior to the birth of the Gods from the Supreme Creative Being.
There
in a hidden chamber closed and mute There is a layer in the Cosmic Consciousness, a special extension of subtle ether called the cid?k??a, where are recorded the minutest happenings in the cosmic spheres. All that takes place there leaves a subtle impression and it is these impressions that go to form the cosmic memory. This hidden realm contains not only the script of what has passed but also of what is to be,-possibilities, as they move towards actualisation, create their own vibrations which are received and recorded in this layer of consciousness.
And
there the tables of the sacred Law, In those subtler levels of consciousness are also found the scheme of the manifestation that is proceeding. The essential Truth basing all, satyam, the Law of this Truth in action, ?tam, the ordained lines of movement, the chart of the possibilities inherent in the situation all these are revealed in this realm.
...
the rhythms and metres of the stars There also are seen the movements of the stars and planets in the universe, movements which-though they do not determine-indicate the lines along which events on earth are proceeding and likely to develop. The positions of these stellar bodies influence to a certain extent the course of events here, though their action is not absolute. The operations of these stars and planets have the effect of urging the cosmic forces to move and act in a particular direction. In the case of the individual, these operations are subject to the working of the individual will in action.
The
symbol powers of number and of form, There in the secret cavern of the Being are forecast the values in number and form that each truth is to carry in manifestation; every form is a special configuration of the truth it embodies, every number is charged with the occult power of the truth or system of truths that it signifies. All that has passed in the course of the development of the world-movement, all that is passing and, in a sense, even what is going to pass is held here in seed-script, as it were. For the Real-Idea behind all stands poised here for manifestation. All movement in the Cosmos is a transaction between Nature and Soul, Prakriti and Purusha. Nature acts for the fulfilment of the will of the Soul; the Soul sanctions, witnesses, or participates in the activity of Nature as he chooses. This course of their interaction is also registered in the recording consciousness of the Being.
In
the glow of the Spirit's room of memories Aswapathy could read this obscure scroll, which is completely illegible to the human eye, because he was in a state of illumination. The light of the Spirit-memory which shone around him lit up not only the contents of the main page but also the helpful hints that had been recorded alongside to help decipher the writing. The memory of the Spirit holds the past, the present and the future as a whole without break and when it is active all comes to life.
Rescue
the preamble and the saving clause All proceeds according to the Will of the Supreme which works as the sempiternal Law of things. This Law is served by innumerable processes that are governed by an implicit harmony of purpose. This was perceived by Aswapathy: he saw how all that emerges in the Universe out of the swoon of material Nature is first subject to the rigid rule of dark Inconscience and Ignorance in execution of the Plan to manifest the One Eternal in the Many.
He
could re-read now and interpret new If there is a pattern and a law underlying this world-movement,-and Aswapathy saw that there is one-it does not lend itself to be interpreted and understood on the face of it. It is full of unfamiliar terms, insoluble constructions, apparent contradictions and bewildering simulations. In the new light that dawned on him, Aswapathy could enter into the true meaning of it all; all became clear.
And
recognise as a just necessity The conditions under which the manifestation is developing are deliberately exacting so as to ensure stability in a world of flux and change. Nothing is allowed to move on unless what is attempted is completed without danger of reversal or dissolution; the line taken by Nature is one of hard resistance. The emerging evolution is safeguarded and promoted by Nature with an incredible number of checks and counterchecks, purposive experiments and tentative creations. All is planned and worked out by the Intelligence in Nature under self-imposed conditions that are meaningfully severe.
Its law of opposition of the Gods, The Gods are there to help in the cosmic evolution towards Divinity. They promote growth by increasing their characteristic powers and pressures in the individual and on the earth. They take birth in man-their positive role. They also assist by a negative role: they oppose the advance of man beyond their own empire. No one is allowed to surpass a God unless he has completed all the development possible in the sphere of that God. The password is given only when man has fulfilled the conditions and acquired the right to go further on his journey to the Supreme. The conditions are exacting and the Gods in their stations watch with winkless gaze.
Its list of inseparable contraries. Life is full of oppositions. Wherever there is light, there is shade: joy is followed by grief, knowledge by ignorance, power by limitation, life by death. It is a field of dualities. But it is so on purpose. Growth is possible only by the friction and combat of these contraries-the positive and the negative elements in the Creation. Otherwise things stagnate, there would be no progress. The consciousness in. evolution exerts itself to increase the positive factors against the resistance of the negative and in the process grows in stature.
The
dumb great Mother in her cosmic trance It is the divine Shakti, the Mother of All that is at work here in the cosmos as Nature with her Consciousness wrapt in her labour. She executes the Will of the Supreme through every circumstance and every event; all is harnessed by her to her one aim of manifesting the Divine here on earth. The birth of Form out of the Formless, the emergence of the finite from the Infinite is a significant part of the Process and Nature is not slow in utilising this phenomenon to awake between form and form, embodiment and embodiment, the dualities of like and dislike, attraction and repulsion, pleasure and pain, in order to set the evolving consciousness and energies into their upward motion. For joy always seeks to gain over pain, attraction claims precedence over rejection, and the forward movement gains momentum.
Accepts
indomitably to execute The conditions under which Mother-Nature has to work are the very opposite of the truths that seek to manifest through her. In a world originally pervaded by inconscience and unconsciousness, consciousness and knowledge urge for growth; in the midst of the incessant operation of decay and death, life endeavours to last; in a physical body that is subject to limitation and pain, there is a continuous seeking for joy, for bliss. This mighty and difficult task, Nature undertakes and works out slowly but persistently without tiring.
And
works out through the appearance of a soul This is the Intention that is to be fulfilled in the inter-action of Superconscience and Nescience, Light and obscurity: to manifest the Divine Glory of the Spirit Infinite in a finite material existence weighed down with Inconscience. Nature is able to execute this purpose because of the crucial birth of the divine element in each of her forms of matter. This core of Divinity in each form acts as a lever for all the upward operations of Nature in the evolutionary effort.
Once
more was heard in the still cosmic Mind When the Divine Being is moved to manifest, it is his Self-Power, Shakti, that goes into operation and proceeds to effectuate his Will. The Eternal Purusha not only impels the movement but bases the action of the Force on his own breast, as it were, with an assurance of constant support and overseeing. It is so that the world-movement starts and develops through all its vicissitudes of life and death. In the silences of the realms where he found himself, Aswapathy grew aware of this pre-creation communion between the Divine Purusha and his Shakti.
The
cry of birth into mortality He also became aware of the first birth-pangs of this Creation when the Immortal moved out of his supreme status and came forth to dwell in conditions of decay and death, when the Eternal first streamed out in beats of fleeting Time. The scene was indeed an arena of tragedy: the Immortal losing himself in the mortal and the Eternal in the duration of Time.
Out
of the depths the world's buried secret rose; Aswapathy perceived behind all the processes of World-Nature the secret truth of a Consciousness-Prajn?-overseeing and actively directing the operations of the Power at work. This Power seems, to all appearances, a mechanical Force, obscure, without intelligence. But to the eye of the seer Aswapathy, the true character of the Force, the fact of an indwelling Consciousness, stood revealed. It is because of this guiding Intelligence that the Power in Nature is able to lay and forge a path, through all the maze and darkness of Ignorance, for the Light to grow.
A
sleeping deity opened deathless eyes: The whole sequence that followed the advent of the Divine Soul in the material universe was revealed to Aswapathy: the Idea everywhere organising itself in form; the Spirit descending and formulating itself in the womb of Matter; Life marking the growing stage of the future Child of Light; the Mind rising and throwing itself in pursuit of the One who ever escapes being known.
In
the light flooding thought's blank vacancy, Life is an enigma and the world a riddle because the mind that tries to unravel the mystery is too limited in its capacities and range. The reasoning and thinking faculty with which it functions works either in the narrow sense-bound realm or in its own conceptual vaccum. In either case deeper realities escape its grasp. It reads what appears on the surface and what it understands is only partially true, mostly wrong. To Aswapathy, however, a new mode of understanding came naturally: a higher light illumined his thought-mind and instead of looking at things from the outside, he was led to see them from within; instead of basing itself on sense-reports, his mind proceeded on signs from the soul within. The inner gave the clue to the outer. For as the Upanishad puts it, the inner is the measure of the outer. All became clear, life ceased to be a paradox; its full significance revealed itself.
A larger lustre lit the mighty page. A purpose mingled with the whims of Time, As a light brighter and larger than that of the thought-mind dawned within Aswapathy, he could see more clearly; the picture of the universe revealed lines, outlines, shapes, frames within frames which he had not seen before. He now came to perceive that behind all the apparently unregulated movements of the flow of Time that carries everything in its mighty current regardless of human calculations and expectations, there is a governing Purpose that works through its instrumentation.
A meaning met the stumbling pace of Chance On the surface of life all appears to be a game of Chance. There is no certainty about any movement; ups and downs, vicissitudes, cataclysms, actions, passions and thoughts crowd in medley and it is impossible to anticipate or regulate them with any definiteness. But a deeper scrutiny reveals a pattern behind all the apparent workings of Chance. What looks like Chance is itself a part of the process; it is called Chance because the particular operation does not take place within the framework of the laws erected by the limited empirical mind; there is really no Chance in the working out of the divine Intention that is this Universe.
And Fate revealed a chain of seeing will; A fixed law of action and reaction, a determinism in Nature that is ineluctable governs this universe. The operations may be swift or delayed but they are certain. Whether on an individual or a collective level, Fate seems to exercise an inflexible control. But that is not the whole truth of the matter. The rigidity of Determinism, of Fate, is not absolute; it varies from level to level of existence, its hardness softening as the consciousness involved gets subtler and subtler. And this is so because what is called Fate is really a part of the mechanism of nature through which a higher Will fulfils itself. This is not a blind will but a will of the Soul that is conscious of the purpose to be effectuated and chooses the conditions most fitted therefore. Fate is a graded instrument of this conscious Will.
A conscious wideness filled the old dumb Space. All exists here in. Space. All moves and ceases in Space. Space is a mute witness and stage on which countless lives come into existence and pass away. It strikes one as something inanimate that has been there from one knows not when. To the illumined vision of Aswapathy, however, the true character of this Space became patent. He saw that Space is not an inanimate frame of the universe, but a self-extension of the Conscious Being that is in manifestation.
In the Void he saw throned the Omniscience supreme. And what does this immense Space contain? Millions of forms appear and disappear leaving the scene the same as before, a huge Void. Is this Void, then, the ultimate reality here? Aswapathy looked into this great Void and saw there an All-Knowing Intelligence, a supreme Consciousness reigning. What appears as a lifeless Void is really a deeply vibrant self-extension, prasara, of the Supreme Consciousness, All-aware.
A
Will, a hope immense now seized his heart, What he saw inspired Aswapathy with great hope; a Will took possession of him to try and actualise on earth the higher realities glimpsed in the region of Light. And in order to study that pattern at a closer range he concentrated his consciousness and directed his inner sight to those spiritual altitudes beyond the normal physical grasp.
The glory he had glimpsed must be his home. Aswapathy dared to hope to bring down what he had seen on the heights because he did not feel that order foreign and distant to him. He experienced a close intimacy with the creation that was revealed; something radical in his being belonged to it and therefore he felt at home with it. No wonder he aspired to establish it on earth, his physical dwelling.
A
brighter heavenlier sun must soon illume This creation is at present covered with the thick shadow of Ignorance. The subterranean passages and chambers along the graded levels of its existence are steeped in the darkness of a primeval Nescience and Subconscience. All needs to be lit up. But the earthy sun, the feeble light of the human mind, is not able to dispel all the shades and shadows of darkness. Only the rays of the Sun of the heavens of Truth, the Light of the unveiled Spirit, can effectively dispel and eliminate this clogging darkness.
The
infant soul in its small nursery school The soul that is here on earth for experience and growth evolves in stages. At first its range of experience and development is limited to physical objects of senses, only a few souls outgrow this narrow field quickly. The mind learns to think and construct in terms of the intellect; but once the intellect is sufficiently organised, the mind must move on to develop its other faculties of intuition, revelation, etc. Similarly in the sphere of aesthestics one must go beyond the pattern of harmony and beauty in physical Nature. Everywhere there are higher and larger orders in the universe waiting to be discovered and formulated by man. What the soul now experiences and reactively expresses is tentative, ill-formed; it has to develop and express itself in the firm and full accents of the perfect Gods.
In
living symbols study Reality At present man attempts to grasp the Reality through artificial representations erected by the mind. The intellect goes on weaving its web of concepts and thought-figures and man is lost in them without getting any hold on the real object of his pursuit. This has to change and the Reality must be approached through its direct avenues accessible to the faculties of perception, intuition, etc. Similarly the mind is always trying-vainly enough-to capture the Infinite within the framework of its logic that is applicable only to the finite. What applies to the finite cannot apply to the Infinite. The mind has to develop another mode of understanding which is in keeping with the nature of the Infinite it seeks to know.
The Ideal must be Nature's common truth, What is not yet achieved on earth but what must be achieved because it presses for expression from above is cherished in the aspiration and thought of man as an Ideal. It is a truth from the higher regions of existence that seeks to formulate itself in this world. It clothes itself in the form of an Idea, organises itself in the human mind through a series of perceptions and leaps of thought as an Ideal to be realised and goes on exerting pressure on the evolving spirit of man to actualise it in life as a working factor. Progress is effected by these translations of the ideal into the actual.
The body illumined with the indwelling God, The physical body is not an imprisoning cage to be broken through nor a construct of impurities to be demolished. It is a tabernacle of the Spirit that dwells within as the soul. The body derives its full significance from the soul that activises it. Veils of ignorance and obscurities intervene between the inmost soul which is a portion of God and the material body which is its outermost form. These veils must be torn asunder and the rays of the light of the Indweller allowed to directly touch and illumine the physical form. It is only then that the body can fulfil its destined role as the robe of God on earth.
The heart and mind feel one with all that is, Division is the rule of life in the present-day world. Due to ignorance, each one lives separated from his source in the One and consequently from all others in the world. Movements in the heart, thoughts in the mind revolve around one's own self as distinct from others and the separativity in consciousness is sharpened by this self-centred build-up. This division in consciousness has to yield to a feeling of commonalty and realisation of oneness of all in the One Divine Self.
A conscious soul live in a conscious world. As things are in the present state of the universe, consciousness is more an exception than the rule. Most of Nature is not conscious, at any rate, not overtly. All move mechanically as if driven by some force. Even living beings like men, live and act, for the most part, with very little of consciousness; they react mechanically, are made to move this way and that by outer factors. They have yet to reach the stage when they will live as conscious beings, moving, thinking and acting in a conscious manner. But the time has to come when the emerging Consciousness in the Manifestation shall suffuse all the forms in the world and man become a fully conscious individual.
As
through a mist a sovereign peak is seen, In this universe where everything is fragmented, tucchyena, spread out in infinitesimal separativities and all forms are only simulacrums of their divine archetypes, Aswapathy perceived the grandeur of the One Divine-hope-inspiring, calling to adventure. The Greatness of the One, the Truth, mahat, had moved from its own station, dh?ma, in the supernal regions and entered into a domain totally foreign in its conditions of division and falsehood.
These
now could serve no more his regal turn: Aswapathy, in his newly attained consciousness of immortality, rejected what is taken to be natural by the ordinary human state. The work-a-day compromise between the little human nature's petty desires and vanities on the one side and the deeper aspirations of man with the answering Greatnesses from above on the other, could no more satisfy and serve as the basis of his life. His inner spirit pressed for a different order.
His
height repelled the lowness of earth's state: As he grew in his spiritual stature, Aswapathy could not be contained within the framework of Nature's laws designed and suited for the infant stage of the Earth's evolution. The safe limits set for the workings of ignorant energies were cast aside as they were found to be cribbing and out of tune in the new setting of the expanding Vastness in his Consciousness. Similarly the higher felicities and powers that manifested in his being automatically displaced the poorer primitive formations characteristic of the predominantly physical life on earth. The old balance between Soul and Nature was discarded.
Only beginnings are accomplished here; In spite of all the vaunted achievements and progress made by man under the stress of the evolving Spirit on earth, the fact remains that it is only the first stages of the edifice of manifestation that are so far completed. Much yet remains to be done before the stage of conscious development comes into its own. The bases have been laid; the powers that build have been made articulate, but man, the instrument of Nature to shape and direct, is only just awakened and yet to get into a fuller self-effective awareness that is necessary for the task allotted to him.
Our
base's Matter seems alone complete, If anything has been at all completed it is only the organisation of Matter that serves as a stable base for the evolutionary manifestation to follow. Nature has taken ages to forge this hard, dense and indestructible mould in which the ensuing formulations of the Spirit are to take shape. But this elaborately designed form and framework of Matter is inert and mechanical in its operation; it is not yet infused with a living and active Intelligence.
Or all seems a misfit of half ideas, Though man is a mental being and the claim of Mind to rule has been established, there is still a long way to go before all the spheres of life are brought under the effective dominion of the Mind. Besides, the Mind itself is not yet fully developed so as to assert its power. The mind's functionings, its thoughts and the ideas that clothe themselves in them are mostly incomplete, partial graspings of truths that seek to manifest; also they are ill-combined. They are often at variance with each other and hence ineffective in their total incongruity.
Or we
saddle with the vice of earthly form Even if glimpses of realities as they are in their own domains of subtler existence are vouchsafed to man at rare moments of openings in his consciousness, they are not grasped as they are. The vision is not sufficient in duration, nor is it received without interference: states of receptivity to higher experiences are too brief in the normally extrovert consciousness of man; the habits of the physical and the logical mind impose themselves too soon and present the truths revealed in forms that are accustomed to them. What results is a grotesque representation, in terms of human conceptions and imaginations, of the realities of a higher order.
Here
chaos sorts itself into a world, Whatever may be the orders of harmony and the undeflected operations of the laws of Truth in the realms above, here on earth what is reigning is a strange disorder: there is a constant pell-mell activity of forces and beings, friction and clashes of desires, passions, thoughts, ideas, a chaotic confusion on a stupendous scale. Only its repetitious habit gives it the appearance of stability. In truth nothing is lasting; all is in flux in a setting that is utterly unsubstantial.
Apings
of knowledge, unfinished arcs of power, In the present imperfect and ignorant state of his evolving being, man can only possess such simulations of knowledge as his limited mental faculties can erect, not the real knowledge. So too his power is as limited as his consciousness is, for effective power corresponds to the consciousness that wields it. His aesthetic sensibilities also are confined to the dimensions of his earthly world and his perceptions of God's Beauty in the universe are fitted into frames that are predominantly physical.
Love's
broken reflexes of unity All is divided. Each is a separate unit and stands apart from the countless other units. That is because the base of unity is missing. Love which is the root of all union is found here in broken forms, twisted expressions. Whatever attempts at unity are found in this world due to its force are imperfect and vitiated in their workings. There is a Divine Love enveloping the whole universe and holding it together, but in the prevailing Ignorance, its action is weakened and rendered ineffective.
A
packed assemblage of crude tentative lives Each form, each unit on this earth is struggling to live, to hold itself against the others; each lives a precarious existence. Nature puts all of them together despite their mutual shrinkings-and forms some sort of pattern that is variegated. There is no real congruity, no mutual adaptation and reinforcement. All are held together by force of Nature acting through circumstances, not by the attraction of the oneness of their origin.
There
is no perfect answer to our hopes; In spite of all the difficult conditions that surround him, man hopes for a better future and thinks and plans as best as he can in that direction. But his plannings and calculations go away, his expectations are belied as new factors keep on coming into the situation. and bewilder his mental faculties that are in themselves so limited. Problems abound and defy solution. If solutions appear to be in sight, men lack the means to work them out. The hold of the Inconscience and the densities of Ignorance prevent a natural dissolution of the difficulties.
Thought
climbs in vain and brings a borrowed light, Man's thinking mind finding itself inadequate soars above to catch glimpses of a Knowledge that is not within its normal grasp. But as long as it is active and straining, it cannot reflect or receive this Knowledge of the Higher Mind or the Illumined Mind or the still higher Intuitive Mind. It catches the distant glows-glows that are often mixed with the deceptive colours of its own or the vital imaginations that abound in the subtler regions and satisfies itself that it has won the true light of Knowledge. In fact the mind deceives itself.
Our hearts clutch at a forfeited heavenly bliss. The heart and the emotions of man are ever in search of the delight of life which is their destined object. But due to the vitiating elements A the Inconscience at their roots and the Ignorance pervading their nature, they miss that delight. Where the delight of union should be they experience the pain of division. They stretch put to catch whatever bits of happiness they can get in life, in whatever form, but the divine Bliss evades them. The Bliss of the Divine is indeed spread everywhere in the universe like ether, but he blinded emotions fail to see it. Due to Ignorance they have lost the contact and they struggle to recover it.
There
is provender for the mind's satiety, Here in this world there is plenty for the ignorant mind of man to be busy with. The physical mind, the sensational mind, the reasoning mind are ever engaged in their respective fields, drawing experience, assimilating it and never feeling the need to exceed themselves. The physical body and the vital force also draw their own satisfactions and enjoyments from life-experience. But the claims of the soul are not heard. They are smothered in the loud noise of the other members. The soul's aspirations lie unfulfilled.
Here
even the highest rapture Time can give Compared to the Delight of Brahman that is not caused by any earthly factors, the highest joys and the intensest pleasures that life in this world of Ignorance can yield are pale imitations, brief in duration and maimed in their formations. They are a part of life and, like their opposites of pain and suffering, they often come upon man unsought and give a deceptive glow to his existence.
For
all we have acquired soon loses worth, Even what is won in the battle of life does not give satisfaction and happiness for long. It becomes stale, fails to hold the continued interest of the mind. The inherent defects due to the gravitational pulls of the inconscient in the physical bases of things, the insatiable hunger for the new in the human vital and the constant changes undergone by the mind in the processes of Time, leading to different and larger requirements-all contribute to quick disappointments with the hard won satisfactions.
An
inconsequence dogs every effort made, In this world of imperfection dogged by inertia and obscurity, human effort fails to produce the desired result. What ensues is either inadequate or different from what was anticipated. All attempts by the mind to erect an order and system are foredoomed to failure. And even what appears to be a success contains in itself elements that serve to defeat it. The very complacency induced by the success prepares for its ruin.
He
saw the doubtfulness of all things here, Nothing is found to last; all changes; what is built breaks down. Man is proud of the thinking faculty which gives him supremacy among the creatures on the earth; but even this power suffers in its workings from the same disability. What his thought confidently conceives and erects today needs to be modified, changed or replaced tomorrow by another system. Ultimately the thinking mind is found to lack finality in its operations. Similarly it is with the workings of the force that man wields in life. They too are seen to be subject to the impact of time and circumstance they soon lose their utility and fresh efforts are called for. This fleeting character of things raises a doubt about their reality.
A
thinking being in an unthinking world, This evolving earth is still ruled by a Nature that is not overtly conscious in its operations. It is only man that has got the power of conscious thinking. But that power is still puny in its stature and limited in its range. In the much that is unconscious, the vast that is yet to be plumbed and known, the intellect of man has a precarious existence. Both its hold and its workings are ever threatened by the invasion of the surrounding forces sub-mental or non-mental in character.
He is
a smallness trying to be great, Man is still weighed down by the weight of his animal past. His body and vital force are strongly embedded, at the roots, in their sub-human origins. The ancient limitation to fragmented form continues in a good measure. And yet he strives to break out of his moorings and limitations. That is so because within him there is the seed of perfection, freedom, divinity with an incessant urge to sprout. Man may be an animal in some parts, but he is also a god in the making in other parts.
His
life a story too common to be told, There is little that is worth preserving in the life of man which follows the common curve of birth, living and death. He acts perforce to maintain himself, to express however inadequately his longings and his ideas, but ultimately his doings come to practically nothing. He comes to birth with a modicum of awareness that develops into articulate consciousness as he grows, but that too is extinguished with the end of his body. He is always led by a hope which urges him to exert himself to realise it. But from the beginning to the close of his life, the hope remains unfulfilled, a distant star that for ever keeps out of his reach.
And
yet a greater destiny may be his, Yet this is not the whole truth of the matter. Man is not foredoomed to failure and extinction whatever his imperfections and inadequacies. the limitations under which he labours are not a permanent feature of his existence. Materiality and mortality do not constitute the whole of man. There is in him a greater and a lasting truth, a divine essence that is infinite and immortal, and if he takes steps to realise this inner reality in himself and live in its force and law, his destiny will be completely different. Man can become more than the human creature that he is at present.
He
can re-create himself and all around With the light and conscious-force from the soul, the eternal Spirit within himself, man can regulate and recast his nature. He can also exert pressure, from his new station in the inner Consciousness, upon his environment, cast his luminous energy on the world and force a change in its texture, first subtle and subsequently, even physical. The processes of Nature can be brought to obey the higher laws of the Spirit and the world-movement set in a different order.
He,
ignorant, is the Knower beyond Time, This man can do because his present way of ignorance is not the sole mode of which he is capable. Ignorance is only a temporary phenomenon in his evolutionary growth. Within him is the soul that is instinct with direct knowledge, knowledge that is not confined to objects in the bounds of Time and Space but embraces also the Reality that transcends this Creation. This Knowledge comes into action when the veil of Ignorance is removed. Similarly he is not always destined to remain a creature of Nature, subject to the determinism of Fate. Within him is the self that can change its poise of passive acceptance of the workings of Nature and gain freedom from the compulsions of Fate. The soul rises above Nature and its determinism.
His soul retired from all that he had done.
Hushed
was the futile din of human toil, The Silence was his sole companion left. With the realisation of this greater Knowledge and perception of the change to be effected in the life of man, Aswapathy's interest shifted from the normal preoccupations of human life. Nature indeed pursued her mechanical rounds of the daily humdrum activities, but his being ceased to participate actively in her movements. It stood aloof and with this standing apart from the stream of life, the Silence of the Spirit that is ever at the back of things but is prevented from being experienced because of the furious bustle of outer nature, took possession of him. He lived in that great Silence.
Impassive
he lived immune from earthly hopes, The hopes and disappointments that are common to the normal life on earth could not touch him. He neither participated in those joys nor suffered those pains. He was stationed in the poise of the witness self that regards everything but is involved in nothing, His thoughts were no more confined to earthly interests; they ranged immensely wider and higher, purer and more concentrated in their aspirations for the summits of the Spirit.
A
call was on him from intangible heights; There was a constant pressure on him from the higher altitudes of his being to rise higher than the levels of mind on which man normally lives and thinks. He experienced that the mind was after all a small projection of a vaster realm that opened beyond the mental outskirts. In that region he lived, unconcerned with the routine movements of the mind, breathing the air of infinity and eternity.
His
being now exceeded thinkable Space, The mind of Aswapathy reached the utmost limits of the intellect. He broke through the walls of the human thought-mind and entered the higher ranges where greater faculties of mind came into play, unlimited in their range. Along with the powers of that larger and higher Mind, there began to manifest in him the power of universal vision in place of the narrow human perspect. Thought and Vision were uplifted into a new cosmic dimension.
A
universal light was in his eyes, In place of the clouded imperfect human knowledge limited to oneself and one's immediate interests, a radiance of supernal Knowledge that embraced the whole universe shone in his eyes. The substance of Higher Truth descended into his brain and his heart; the activities of his mind and the movements of his emotions underwent a change as a result of this ingression from above. The range and quality of his consciousness became different.
A
force came down into his mortal limbs, There was also an uplifting augmentation of power. A force, hitherto unknown to his human body, flowed into him. It did not spend itself out leaving him exhausted; streaming in it was a delight that was unceasing. Aswapathy felt overpowered by this downpour of an ineffable joy.
Aware
of his occult omnipotent Source, Aswapathy clearly realised that his origin was not from this bounded Earth as it seemed, but from an Infinite which though unseen is All-Power. He was attracted by the Bliss of that Infinite full of Consciousness. He had ceased to be a mere material creature and had become one in his depths with the unbounded Infinite, a radiating Centre of the Reality in his being and in his enlarged Consciousness embracing the whole world. Impelled by all these factors, he turned from his lesser earthly responsibilities to the call of his vast spiritual Destiny.
Abandoned
on a canvas of torn air, The claims of earth ceased to hold his being. Aswapathy found that the boundaries of material nature which had confined him so far to their limited sphere fast faded away; he was no more held down. He rose to ascend the peaks of the boundless Spirit, the greater Infinite, b?hat, that opened before him.
The
Immobile's ocean-silence saw him pass, On a sustained withdrawal from involvement in the world-movement, the being is greeted by a tremendous Silence of the static Self. If it seeks to attain to the heights of the dynamic Divine, the being has to cross through this belt of silent infinity. Aswapathy passed through this region with the swiftness of an arrow. From the hold of Time he leapt into Eternity. He was a ray of God streaking back to its Source.
Opponent
of that glory of escape, But Aswapathy had an opponent as all who seek to free themselves from the holds of Matter have. The Inconscience, in which are embedded the roots of the material being, has its own Law which none embodied in material form can escape. From its belt of inertia and obscurity it exerts a strong pull and places a limit beyond which the consciousness housed in that form cannot pass unless it separates itself from it. Aswapathy was subjected to this attack by the nether Nescience during his upward flight. In the less lit regions of his being he felt the force of the Inconscient trying to arrest his advance.
Death lay beneath him like a gate of sleep. From his heights Aswapathy saw the phenomenon of death not in its usual terrifying form of cessation of life but as an entrance to a state of rest and assimilation. And that is its true function. For the life of the soul is not extinguished by the death of the body. The soul only takes a needed respite from its labours on earth the field of action and experience-for the absorption of the experience gained, before it launches upon another term of effort and growth with a fresh equipment.
One-pointed
to the immaculate Delight, A flaming aspiration for the Divine was lit in the whole being of Aswapathy and he turned exclusively to his Quest. The senses were no more turned towards outer objects and their vitiating pleasures; what he now sought was the pure self-delight of the Divine. With ardour, intensity of will and concentration he soared high to win the coveted prize-the Divine.
To a few is given that godlike rare release. Though many might seek for the higher Consciousness, for union with the Divine, it is only a few that are blessed with the necessary facility to translate that aspiration into reality. For innumerable are the meshes in which the faculties of man are caught up, those ingrained and gathered habits and associations, samsk?ras, that obstruct and prevent a free flight to the Spirit. The heavy weight and downward pull of the physical and the inconscient base hold him to the ground clamplike. By his own effort man cannot wrest himself free from these disabilities. It is only a higher Power, a Grace of God that can give him this freedom which is natural only to the gods. And those that are so elected for the favour are always few.
One
among many thousands never touched, As a rule, the vast majority of men are preoccupied with their life in the outer physical world. They are outward-oriented and rarely look into the inner world behind the external surface. They are left to continue in the groove till they ripen. It is only a few prepared by the long evolution of their souls who think of things spiritual. From among these, the watchful Providence chooses those most ready for the journey to the Spirit and guides them step by step to their goal across the expanding unknown regions of Consciousness. The Grace of God is ever on the look out for the likely recipient and once its choice falls upon one, it pushes him to his soul's destination through all circumstances, all happenings.
A
pilgrim of the everlasting Truth, The chosen one launched upon the voyage to the Eternal is no more subject to the laws and the workings of the little mortal life he has left behind. The interests of that narrow existence no longer hold him. The standards of the lower world in Ignorance cannot apply to one treading the higher Way of Knowledge. He has his own vaster and freer lines of the Truth, the Right, to follow. He has passed in his consciousness from the realm of the finite to the Infinite.
In
the hushed precincts of a vaster plan As he advances, the pilgrim of the Spirit steps into a zone of profound Silence which is the threshold of the Reality that is unseeable by the physical eye. It is that from which the mind falls back without knowing. Or, if that be the way he is led by the unfailing Guide, he hears in that infinite void the sole note of the primordial Sound that vibrates there for ever.
All
the deep cosmic murmur falling still, In that realm of Consciousness even indirect reports of the life-movement in the universe are not heard. The Silence that envelops the being is akin to the state of the pregnant stillness that prevailed before the terrestrial manifestation took place. Shorn of all human trappings, the being stands alone exposed to the eternal One-the One transcendent.
Far
from compulsion of created things The ineffable Wideness knows him for its own. The Laws that govern movements in the universe cease to operate on these altitudes of the Spirit. The thinking activity of the mind and the vague images formed by it lapse by themselves. The frames and bounds of form and personality so indispensable and inescapable in the terrestrial scheme are dissolved. An impersonality, a vastness that cannot be described comes over the being and claims it as its own.
A lone forerunner of the Godward earth, The pilgrim is not just an individual seeking for his personal salvation in the Divine Being. He represents those from whom he is chosen by the Grace. He embodies the aspiration for the Divine in the breast of the Earth whose foremost son he is. The Earth aspires incessantly for the Spirit, she is ever on the march in the ascent of her Consciousness towards the summits of the unveiled Spirit. The elect human who arrives at the threshold of the destination, though alone, represents more than himself: he is an advance scout, a precursor of Earth-life on the move.
Among
the symbols of yet unshaped things He passes through the domains of the Hiranyagarbha where things are in the process of taking their subtle forms in the creatively perceptive regard of the Dream-Self. It is a world of symbols where the formless and the nameless are being precipitated into typal form and name.
He
journeys to meet the Incommunicable, The way to the Truth absolute, which is beyond the reach of the human faculties of audition and vision, lies through vasts of vacancy in the country of breakless Silence. The pilgrim who treads these routes finds himself severely alone, hearing only the sound of his own steps echoed back from the vaults of the mysterious.
A nameless Marvel fills the motionless hours.
His
spirit mingles with Eternity's heart A wonder, adbhuta, for which there is no parallel, reigns everywhere around the pilgrim. Time has come to a standstill. He feels his consciousness entering into the bosom of the Eternal. He receives and holds in himself the boundless Silence that flows to him from all sides.
In a
divine retreat from mortal thought, Aswapathy shed his human trappings. He withdrew his consciousness from the thinking activity of the mind and centred it in the direct and ample vision of the soul. And in so doing he rose above the familiar terrain mapped out by the human intelligence and soared into the virgin altitudes of the Spirit. It is not possible to cross consciously into the supernal ranges of the being unless one silences and puts behind the thought-mind and opens to the perceptive faculties of the soul.
As
thus it rose, to meet him bare and pure Spiritual evolution is a movement of two ends-ascent and descent. The lower seeks and struggles for the higher; the higher stoops to lift up and assume the lower. Man aspires for the Divine, the Divine responds and fulfils his aspiration by a deliberate moving out towards him. But for this operation to take place successfully, it is necessary that before he is ready to receive the higher influx of the Divine Consciousness, man should dispossess himself of the dead weight of his lower nature-the various kinds of obscurity, impurity and ignorance that prevent the right disposition for the reception and assimilation of the divine downflow. The descent from above swiftly follows the building up of such a favourable ground below. The being of Aswapathy was ready for such a descent as it had already divested itself of all clogging elements and was a pure flame of aspiration rising to meet the Divine. In response a powerful charge of Divinity flooded him.
... A
Might, a Flame, The Descent was a downpour of the many-powered Dynamic Divinity.* A strength, an intensity, a luminous indefinable beauty, a thrilling bliss, a dangerous sweetness overwhelmed him from all sides and flooded into his head, his heart and his nerves. Aswapathy could not bear the thrill of this inrush from above and, for a moment, he lost his bearings, his whole being was in tremor as it lay in the hold of the Divinity that is beyond the grasp of the human mind.
In a
moment shorter than Death, longer than Time, The sense of human time was lost. In a moment that appeared at once briefer than the instant of death and yet seemed to stretch into infinity-due to its unbearable intensity-, Aswapathy was lifted up by the masterful and ever-stretched arms of a divine Power. This Power would brook no obstruction and was more determined to reach its objective than Love which ruthlessly sweeps away all obstacles that prevent its fulfilment. It was full with a happiness that surpassed the very heaven of felicity.
Haled
and coerced by a stark absolute bliss, Aswapathy was sucked into overpowering currents of unalloyed Bliss. He was seized by the intensities of that Bliss and turned helplessly in their whirl; he was pushed down into bottomless depths; he was tossed up into endless summits of existence. Wherever he was thrown it was a sea of Delight.
It
was torn out from its mortality As a result of this downpour and its masterful action, the nature of Aswapathy underwent a rapid change. It was lifted out of its mortal limits, old rounds of constricted life, and released into a state of freedom that gave it an altogether new dimension. When the higher Consciousness and Power act thus on the being, the effect is always one of assumption of the lower into the nature of the higher.
An
Omniscient knowing without sight or thought, In his seeking for the Divine, Aswapathy had put away all else and was severely alone. The Divine advanced towards him in His amplitude and took him in His completing embrace. Unlike man who needs the instrumentation of physical sight or mental thinking in order to know, the Divine that appeared was in full possession of Knowledge that was direct and not the result of the workings of the eye or the mind; He was all-powerful without the need of special stresses to make Himself felt; His was a unique Form that could extend itself and hold the whole universe; though thus universal in Form, he could at the same time take his station in the Individual for a special purpose. Thus the Divine that drew Aswapathy close to Himself was at once Individual, Universal and Transcendent in His sway.
As
when a timeless Eye annuls the hours Aswapathy lost his separate sense of individuality in action. Even as in the gaze of the Eternal, the sense of Time disappears, the distinction between the doer, the doing and the done fades away, with the advent of the divine Invasion the whole of his instrumental personality fell silent. His inner spirit shone clear, free, void of contents. His mind ceased to be active in its usual state of ignorance and turned into a blank page on which the Divine-the One and the All-could write what he chose; it became a faultless instrument for the Divine to work with.
All
that represses our fallen consciousness Man's consciousness has separated from its source in the Divine Consciousness and represents, as it is, a fragmentation, a consciousness severely limited by the bounds of ego and division. Apart from these restricting factors of ego and division, the consciousness identifies itself with the triple form of mind, life and body in which it works. The inertia and inconscience in its material base hold it down, the limited nature of the life-force operating in the physical body and the ignorance of the half-evolved mind circumscribe it. All these elements in Aswapathy were eliminated in a trice by the impact and action of the descending Power and Light of the Divine Consciousness-Force; the consciousness widened vastly in keeping with the enlargement in stature that his being had undergone in the yoga.
Eternity's contact broke the moulds of sense. The consciousness of man functions through the senses; it receives contacts and reacts to them through the five-fold operation of the sense-instrumentation. And these senses are very limited in their range, habitual in their modes. The consciousness flows according to their moulds which are very imperfect and limiting. As one grows into a high state of divine Consciousness and partakes of its nature that transcends time and space, the old narrow moulds of the senses break down and new and more adequate channels for its functioning are formed.
A
greater force than the earthly held his limbs, In place of the force limited to the bounds of his physical, vital and mental beings, there now supervened a mightier force coursing through him, acting in a larger way, separating and articulating the several subtler bodies within his being-the sheaths of bliss, spirit-knowledge, mind, vitality, subtle-physical etc. that lie concealed behind the external physical body. This force worked through several energies of its own; behind them were the hands of the unseen Power which worked to untie the threefold knot that bound the mind to its sensational, thinking and ideative functionings. As a result the inner soul-vision of Aswapathy came into its own and its felicitous wideness replaced the limited human look.
As
through a dress the wearer's shape is seen, Aswapathy's sight was no more limited to forms. Nor was his consciousness confined to his individual embodiment separate from all the rest. His eyes looked beyond forms, his feeling embraced the universal extension and he came upon the One Divine concealed in innumerable forms. Each form is a self-figuration of a truth that ensouls it and all truths are so many self-placements of the one manifesting Truth.
Increased and heightened were the instruments. The soul is always handicapped by the limitations of the instruments through which it has to gain experience in the world. The physical body, the life-force, the emotive faculties, the mental energies, are all severely limited by their natural constitution in their capacities and their range. It is only when a higher or a deeper Power acts on them from beyond their natural formation, infuses fresh and greater energies into them and increases their capacities, that they get enlarged and serve the soul in an ampler and more satisfying way. The instrumentation is not a rigidly fixed apparatus. It is a live organism capable of being expanded and heightened in its effectivity by the pressure of the higher Consciousness.
Illusion
lost her aggrandising lens; Man's outlook on the world, his perspective of life, do not normally correspond to realities, to things as they are. His self-regard, desire and ego vitiate his judgement and he perceives all from the viewpoint of the satisfaction and aggrandisement of his own self. Some things seem to matter more than others; they assume an importance quite out of proportion to their real worth. There is a false premium on those that cater to his ego and vital interests. They are given exaggerated value. When the higher Consciousness dawns upon man, this illusion, fostered by ignorance and ego, breaks down and what looked huge before appears in its true proportion of insignificance.
The little ego's ring could join no more; As long as man lives in ignorance it is his ego that rules his life-movements. All is determined in terms of the satisfaction of this little ego and things are welcomed or rejected as they serve or disserve its claims. The ego thus puts a ring, as it were, an enclosing fence round man so that all the movements of his life may revolve within it alone. With the advent of a higher or the outbreak of a deeper Consciousness, however, this wall of the ego is broken and man emerges into wider spaces. The ego thins and snaps.
In
the enormous spaces of the self With the loosening of the constrictions of the ego, the consciousness begins to expand, spread out on all sides and, as it touches the inner deeps, it arrives at the vaster ranges of the self which is one with the Universal Self. When one breathes and lives in this consciousness of the self, the body loses its obsessive hold; one realises that the body is merely a garment used by the self to clothe itself. Bodies change but the soul always is. The position is reversed: in ignorance, it is the body that seems to carry the soul; in the state of knowledge, the soul is found to hold the body. Similarly the mind loses its habitual importance. It is no more taken to be the most developed and the highest part of man; it is realised to be only a decorated vestibule to the chamber of the eternal Indweller-the divine Self. In spite of its varied lights, the mind is still not the sanctum; it is only the brilliant outskirts. With all these changes rapidly coming over him, Aswapathy emerged out of the human belt into the superhuman; his spirit rose into a new dimension.
The
imprisoned deity rent its magic fence The spirit embodied in Aswapathy, so long cabined and suppressed by the various elements of physical, vital and mental nature that ever wall in the consciousness within their narrow limits, broke out of its confines. In the sudden expansion and soaring of his being, all the obstinate obstructions fell asunder with loud reports. It is a fact of yogic experience that when certain long-standing barriers in nature are broken, there is heard by the subtle ear at times even by the physical-distinct sounds of explosions or snappings.
Immutably
coeval with the world, In this material universe there are inevitable boundaries beyond which human thoughts and hopes, efforts and acts cannot go. The states of the basic Inconscience and the pervading Ignorance of this world impose such limitations that after a certain point is reached things can only circle around themselves; they cannot expand further. These boundaries disappeared as the being of Aswapathy, seized by the divine influx, advanced on its onward journey.
The
dire velamen and the bottomless crypt Both above and below, the ranges of life-movements and thought-activities are circumscribed. Below, are the unfathomable depths of Inconscience and Nescience in which the consciousness loses its hold should it plumb beyond safe limits. Above are the termini of the dividing and analytical intellect above which the mind cannot soar without losing its bearings,
The
guardian darknesses mute and formidable, There are two darknesses that confine the soul which has not yet acquired the individuality and conscious-power to break out of its bounds. One is the nether belt of unconsciousness and inconscience where all awareness is lost in a swoon, as it were, if man tries to go deeper than the levels to which his being is accustomed. The other is the blankness that befalls the mind if it tries to shoot beyond the summits of its thought-skies. They form, so to say, wholesome checks on the movements of the evolving being, preventing it from entering into regions for which its consciousness is not developed enough. As a result they keep Matter and Spirit apart, Nature and Soul apart, till a strong bridge between them is built by evolutionary labour. These purposive belts of darknesses dissolved by themselves as Aswapathy grew in his stature.
Once
figure of creation's vain ellipse, Enclosed between the two darknesses-upper and lower-this creation appears to go on revolving round and round, repeating the same movements in the cycle of Time, a purposeless whirl sinking ultimately into a big zero. But that is only an appearance. The curve is always an ascending curve and as in the case of Aswapathy, before an expanding consciousness the boundaries finally fade away into an infinite expanse.
The
old adamantine vetoes stood no more: The rigid laws of terrestrial Nature apply only as long as one lives in their domain. Once the consciousness grows beyond its formula, it ceases to be governed by the laws of the surpassed Nature. Newer workings take their place. What was not possible before becomes possible now. The downward pull of the inconscient base, the limiting factors acting on life operating in the physical embodiment, the constitutional disabilities of the mind hedged in by the physical and life elements, no more hold back the winging spirit. The being of Aswapathy emerging into its heights of godhood passed beyond the workings of earthly Nature.
Abolished were the scripts of destiny. Destiny is not ineluctable. Each plane of existence has its own workings of destiny; there are layers of destiny. Each person is governed by the destiny of the plane on which he lives predominantly. As he moves in his consciousness to another, higher level of being, the destiny of the lower one ceases to apply to him. Thus as one grows into the spiritual consciousness and shifts his centre of life to the higher domains of the Spirit, the destiny of the lower physical-vital-mental planes is no more valid for him; he has left it behind.
There
was no small death-hunted creature more, Aswapathy's was no more the precarious existence of the human creature who is ever pursued by the spectre of death. He was no more a tiny dot of life in a world of hunger and death, a?an?y? m?tyutz. Nor did his delicately constituted individual form need to be guarded and saved every moment from the invasion of the universal forces which are constantly striking at each formation that seeks to preserve itself as a separate entity.
The
great hammer-beats of a pent-up world-heart The soul and cosmos faced as equal powers. The conflict and struggle between the universal Force and the individually embodied life-force continues only as long as the latter strives to maintain itself as an independent, separate, existence. It erects around itself walls of division, of ego and desire, and feels secure in its self-limitation. But once the walls are breached by the rushing Waters of the larger sea of the universal Being, the division is no more. The individual consciousness and the universal become one and in consequence the individual form feels no longer threatened by the other it meets the other on equal terms.
A
boundless being in a measureless Time Aswapathy's mortal nature subject to the limitations of Time and Space was overcome by a mighty influx; eternity and infinity took possession of him. His range was suddenly and vastly expanded and unobstructed virgin vistas stood revealed to his vision.
All was uncovered to his sealless eye.
A
secret Nature stripped of her defence, The sight of Aswapathy was no more confined to the physical plane. The barrier between the physical sight and the subtle sight had been removed and his vision opened on all that was hitherto beyond and unseen to him. The secret workings of Nature that were so long concealed and untraceable in their occult depths-occult to the human sight because of its limited range and the imperfect character of the mental intelligence presiding over it-were now exposed to him; they could be seized and turned upon by his heightened, illumined will. It is the ignorant limitation of his faculties to their physical range that puts the processes of Nature beyond man's grasp and invests them with an air of mystery.
In
shadowy chambers lit by a strange sun The secrecies of Nature are revealed only in a light other than the physical; only an occult sight can perceive them. Aswapathy's consciousness had undergone a fast change and before its powerful compulsive look, the hidden realms of Nature, which are dangerous for the ignorant human tread, and her various energies normally concealed from the physical sight stood helplessly exposed.
Incalculable
in their wizard modes, In a sense the powers of physical Nature and their workings are determinable; they are governed by certain laws that rule the physical universe. They are limited in their scope and effectivity in keeping with the limiting conditions of Inconscience, Inertia and Ignorance that beset the material universe. But the physical is not all; Nature is many-tiered, each domain subtler than the other and the powers that function in these higher, wider and subtler realms have a freer, larger and surer action. They cannot be measured or determined in human terms. These powers appear miraculous when their workings-for any reason-touch the physical plane, but they are natural in their own worlds which are beyond the convictions of the material formulae.
The
occult privilege of demigods All the hidden potencies of the secret Nature invited Aswapathy, as it were, to harness them to his purpose. Hitherto the exclusive preserve of the higher beings of the supraphysical worlds, these powers with their significant configurations, their self-multiplying groupings, potent with amazing possibilities, now beckoned the earth-based Strength of Aswapathy to husband them.
A
conscious Nature's quick machinery In the present constitution of the universe based upon Inconscience and dominated by Ignorance, Nature is slow to move; it is not overtly conscious; its movements are mechanical and determined. The Mind is unable to see beyond its logical nose. The soul is enslaved to Nature, covered with the veils of desire and ego. But all this underwent a tremendous change for Aswapathy when he passed into the new consciousness. Nature grew conscious and quick in her movements, her course appeared miraculous because of the concealed powers manifesting; the Mind found its scope vastly enlarged and its vision, thought and power shared in this increase; the soul recovered its freedom from Nature and could act swiftly with its own force. Then what had appeared impossible before became possible. With the advent of a new consciousness, new powers became manifest and what was super-natural hitherto became natural and normal.
An
almighty occultist erects in space This universe is not the product of a movement of mechanical Energy, or of a gigantic Chance. It is a willed, deliberate creation of a supreme, transcendent, omnipotent Being wielding a marvellous wizardry. The world that we see is changing incessantly; it is not now what it was a moment before. Our senses which seize the objects of this world and report to the mind are invariably misled by appearances which conceal more than what they reveal. The external is a deceptive mask cast on the reality that thus escapes the scrutiny of the senses.
He
weaves his hidden threads of consciousness, The Creator is one and his Consciousness is one. But for purposes of creation this primal, pure Consciousness casts itself into several secondary, tertiary and other forms. The ?di ?akti formulates itself into jn?na ?akti, icch? ?akti, kriy? ?akti; they in turn take other forms and all together constitute the various strands of the Universal Consciousness that are not always patent to the eye that looks at surfaces. The Power of his Consciousness is infinite even as the Consciousness is infinite. It has no intrinsic binding finite form. This Power in its varied action embodies itself in appropriate forms for effectuating its ensouling truth in the creation. Form is essential for manifestation in formal existence.
Out
of the unformed and vacant Vast he has made Out of his own infinite, b?hat, self-extension, formless and nameless, the Creator fashions this world of forms and names; out of the stuff of the intangible Spirit he builds solid material structures according to his own plan that unfolds itself through its creative patterns and disposition of quantity. This divine creation proceeds according to a scheme pre-visioned and worked out in terms of significant truth-values of form and quantity.
The
fixed irrational links none can annul, The creation is not left to develop by itself. There is a guiding Intelligence that works through a series of truth-laws and their innumerable processes which are all interlinked. They form a structural frame as it were in which cosmic movement as a whole is set. These interdependent operations proceed upon certain fundamental self-castings of the Spirit, immutable in their structure, unchangeable by any agency and perplexing to the scrutiny of the human mind.
His
infallible rules, his covered processes, Man stumbles at every step guided as he is by the misleading half-light of his mind in ignorance. He mistakes and commits errors, deflects and wanders. What he calls knowledge is a lifeless edifice erected by his limited logical reason and the occupant of this structure is none other than an active ignorance. Ignorance parades as knowledge. And yet the creation moves unfailingly towards its objectives immediate and ultimate. That is so because underlying it, guiding and leading it from within is the Divine Wisdom whose truth-laws, vrat?ni, though concealed in their operation to the human eye, act and fulfil themselves without fail. The Master-Intelligence of the creative Spirit leads the world unerringly despite the blindness and blunders of the human mind.
In
her mystery's moods divorced from the Maker's laws The agency that works out this manifestation is Nature, the Self-Power of the Divine Maker. This supreme Power, lost in the modes of her working * pursues her own large lines of effectuation-not always corresponding to the scheme in the original impelling Idea-and builds an empire, determining certain possibilities out of the endless possible ones, according to her Will. Out of the Infinite she fashions this finite universe as a field and frame for the manifestation.
She
too can make an order of her caprice, When she launches upon her precipitous career, this Power is perceived to move according to some harmonies of her own. She may appear to follow no fixed laws in her apparently erratic movements, but in truth, an order is being built up through all her activities, veiled or unveiled. For like the Creator, his Power also has her field of subtler workings which prepare behind the veil the results that emerge into the open at the right time.
The
rapid footsteps of her phantasy, The course of this Nature is indeed bewildering. Her movements are not governed by the logical steps of mental reasoning. And yet her steps seem to be inspired; even when there are stumblings or set-backs, the results are unexpectedly fruitful. Her very impetuosity proves more certain of its aim than the plodding intellect of the reasoning mind; she achieves her aim with a cunning that surpasses human cleverness and with a speed that puts behind it the wildest flights of man's imagination.
All
she new-fashions by the thought and word Her force acts in several ways. She exerts her formulations of subtle mental energies effectively on the various grades of the substance of Being, uses her conceptive and her expressive energies to create and re-create forms and movements as she chooses.
Mind
is a mediator divinity: Below is the reign of Matter and above, the domain of the Spirit. In between, linking both, is Mind which has the essential ingredients of both Matter and Spirit in itself. It is subtler than Matter in its organisation and, belonging as it does to a higher grade in the cosmic formulation, it can and does effectuate to a considerable extent, its own will-or a higher will acting through it-in the lower, the material Nature. The laws and movements of physical Nature are constantly under the pressure of the mental workings for modification or change. The subtler compels the grosser to yield.
Affranchised
from earth-habit's drowsy seal The laws of the inconscient, the dense inertia and obscurity that characterise the material formulation in the universe, govern all activity, handicap all movement in this world based upon the material formulae. All that is born or derived from Matter carries on it this stamp of unconsciousness and mechanical movement. But mind, the mind proper, which is a higher power of existence, is free from these deadweights; it has outgrown them in the course of its emergence from evolutive Matter. It can act to loosen or break the hold of Matter.
Indifferent
to the angry stare of Death, The realm of Ideas which is the characteristic field of the thinking mind is above the reign of death that claims all physical formations in the universe. Where particular germinal Ideas take shape in the Mind and are put out-through the individual mind of a seer, a poet or a prophet-they stay for good, influencing and directing the course of the general development of the race along the lines of their truths. Once they are released into expression at the psychological moment, they become inspiring and immortal possessions of humanity.
A
simple fiat of its thinking force, The mind is a many-chambered organism. There is the sense-mind, the reasoning mind, the ideative mind, the silent mind and so on. Normally only a part of these mental faculties is active, the rest lying as unused potential. In the deeper or the higher ranges of the mind there are stored up powerful mental energies which are either not tapped effectively or cannot effectuate themselves for want of adequate instrumentation. By exerting a conscious will in thought it is possible to call these subtle and varied energies into action.
It
makes the body's sleep a puissant arm, The activities of the body, the movements of the physical consciousness, normally interfere with the action of the consciousness in the mind, reducing its effectivity. The mind comes into its own when the body is withdrawn from activity into sleep or immobility of any kind and it exercises greater power over a larger range. Similarly, the restless activity of the life-force by itself or in association with the physical body veils the mental operation and throws the mind into unrest. But when the mind is intent upon a pursuit viz. the search for the Divine within, or is engrossed in any other pursuit, it stills the movements of the life-energies to a minimum and achieves its purpose. Speech is the usual means used by the mind to express its thought. But that is so only as long as the mind is not enveloped in its own conscious power. When it frees itself from its customary lower action, it is able to direct its thought-force where it chooses and communicate its thought directly without the medium of speech.
It
moves events by its bare silent will, The consciousness that is active in the upper region of the mind, the buddhi, intelligent will, can exert its pressure in the atmosphere for the effectuation of its purpose. And its actions can be far-reaching especially if it is detached from the movements of Prakriti, the lower nature, and is in tune with the will of the Spirit above. Physical space is no barrier. The insistent silent pressure of this will in the mind first produces changes in the subtler domains of existence and then precipitates corresponding movements on the physical plane.
This
giant Ignorance, this dwarfish Life This material universe is englobed as it were in a mighty Ignorance. Its vision is darkened by the shades of this Ignorance and the Inconscience which dogs its footsteps. The life-force that activates it, is severely limited in its movements by the inelasticities of Matter. The Mind brightens both with its emergent light. Unlike both the physical consciousness and the life-energy whose awareness is confined to the immediate moment, the mind sees ahead and gives a lead to the other members. It can whip up the life-force into a frenzy of delight by its drive of willed desire or urge it into an uncontrollable course of violence and destruction.
In our body arouse the demon or the god, There are in man propensities for both good and evil, the good deriving from the parts turned to Light and the bad from those that are still steeped in ignorance and clinging to falsehood. These are the gods powers of the soul, growing in the higher nature and the demons agents of the nether darknesses of Inconscience, dominating the lower nature. The mind has it in its power to promote either of these ancient combatants in the being of man. By dwelling upon the good or the bad, by calling up either by its will, the mind activises and helps to form and grow the elements of its preference. Man is essentially a mental being and it is his mind that effectively decides the course of his evolution godward or demon-ward.
Call
in the Omniscient and Omnipotent, At the core of the being of man there is an Entity that is divine. It is a direct portion, am?a, of the supreme Divine Being, individualised for the purpose of the evolutionary manifestation in that form. This element of the Divine Consciousness embedded within is veiled from the outer awareness by Ignorance and almost forgotten by man. But it is there always, potent, self-aware, alive with its divinity-its inalienable Knowledge and Power waiting for its hour of self-revelation. The mind-once it awakes to the Presence can call this Divinity into overt action by its aspiration, will and thought-power.
In
its own plane a shining emperor, The mind is a subtle power with a greater range than either life or matter. It is bright with the gleams of Knowledge-and Knowledge gives power-and on its levels of thought, it is supreme, unobstructed. Even on the physical plane where its operations are perforce restricted by the rigidities of the material formulae, the mind can and does assert its rule over both the domain of matter and of the life-force that activises matter. It can impose its will and, to a considerable extent, compel them to follow its lead, manomayah pr?n?sar?ranet?.
The
logic of its demigod Idea, The operations of material Nature are often surprising for the sureness with which they effect results and they bespeak the pressure of an intelligence which, even if it is not overtly conscious in the manner of the human mind, is unfailing in its purpose. The action of the Mind, however, particularly the swift movement that engenders the Idea-a high point in the workings of the Mind is still more spectacular. All of a sudden it releases new forces, flashes a new understanding which often makes, a world of difference in a situation. The force of the new Idea brings a new turn in its train.
All's miracle here and can by miracle change. If the universe is regarded objectively without excessive concern for one's own interests, life presents a picture of perpetual miracle.Amidst an all-consuming Hunger that is Death, life still survives. Amidst all the oppressive factors of limitation, pain, grief, suffering that beset mortal existence, the will to be is indefatigable. Amidst an enveloping darkness of Ignorance and Inconscience, gleams of Light enter and expand their range. All this is possible because Nature always tries and succeeds in some measure in making the laws and forces of the higher planes active and effective on the lower ones. That is how continuous changes are produced and evolution proceeds through a series of miraculous transmutations. To make the higher assume the lower into itself is the way of secret Nature.
This is that secret Nature's edge of might.
On
the margin of great immaterial planes, What we see of material Nature is not the all; it is only an external aspect, a segment of the greater Nature whose workings are hidden in folds of mystery. Overtopping and enclosing this limited physical existence, there are planes and worlds of the subtle-physical, the vital, the mental and the spiritual Consciousness where Life reigns supreme in its own domain without the bridle of mind and the constriction of matter. Mind governs all that comes under its sway-dominates life and form without being led or limited by them-while the soul expresses and effectuates itself directly without the necessity of the aid of instruments like the mind or the life-energies or the senses etc. Nature is conscious of all these regions of existence, their several and total powers, their interaction and brings to bear their potencies in her universal workings whenever necessary.
Thence
to the initiate who observes her laws This secret Nature draws upon these reserves in her workings on earth. She also admits to her secrecies the man who puts himself in tune with her. He who refuses to be a slave of her external mechanical laws but develops an awareness of her greater workings behind the outer veils and casts himself into their mould is chosen by her to be a recipient of her luminous gifts and an instrument of her mighty powers.
Here
where he stands, his feet on a prostrate world, To such a man who has freed himself from the fetters of Matter and stands erect with a mind looking upwards freed from imprisonment in its material instrument-in tune with her harmonies, the greater Nature yields the secret of her dynamisms, the high modes of her expression that are native to her larger realms of being. And in so doing, she converts all the joys and pains of life into feeders of the Earth's growth and builds up man as the king of the universe.
A
mediatrix with veiled and nameless gods This Nature is the mediating Agency between the Supreme Creator and the universe that has been created. She functions with the aid of many powers and personalities emanated from the creative Being. Those are the gods and goddesses that work behind the veil of physical nature-some of them perceived and lauded under significant names, some unnamed but nevertheless active-and impose on its movements a greater Divine Will from above. This creative Power is indeed free in the movements she chooses for the effectuation of the Supreme's Purpose, but she forms her own lines and processes of manifestation and this feature gives the appearance of a determining law. In reality, however, she is as free as the Supreme Creator, of whom she is the Self-Power, in the choice of her will.
All
worlds she makes the partners of her deeds, In her creative effort, this Power draws upon all that she has manifested from out of the Being of the Supreme. She summons and utilises the potentialities and possibilities of the various planes of existence in her work on Earth. She releases those supra-terrestrial forces into action in this field. of growth and evolution and accomplishes results that would be impossible of attainment with the earthly elements alone. Obstinate resistances are shattered and far-off goals are reached with incredible speed.
From
every source she has taken her cunning means, The various planes of Existence with their respective worlds are not so many water-tight compartments. They are grades of one Existence-each based on its special principle, tattva,-and they freely act upon one another. They interpenetrate, influence and exert their pressure on each other generally. From all this mixed action of the whole, the creative Power fashions her remarkable modes and forms the material for her notable achievements.
A
wonder-weft of knowledge incalculable, In this material world based on inconscience and obscurity, consciousness and light would appear to be foreign, not native to the soil where mechanical energy and the darkness of Ignorance alone are true. In making consciousness and the growing light of knowledge permanent and effective elements on earth, in releasing this truth of the spirit from its involution in the bases of Matter, Nature has drawn upon her varied sources of Truth-Knowledge and her unsurpassed skill in creative processes.
In
her unhedged Circean wonderland The field in which this Nature works is not bounded in spite of appearances to the contrary. Materially it may be limited, but the physical is only one of its dimensions. Her subtler extensions flow out into infinities of Existence and in her vast domain she marshalls her Powers, not all of which are patent to the eye. In keeping these puissances of varied origins ready for her summons, she follows her own mode of free assemblage which may appear confused and bizarre to the human sense of order.
Her
mnemonics of the craft of the Infinite, Nature draws upon innumerable sources in the execution of her purpose: her memory of the process of the Infinite in forming the finite out of itself; the unexpected but sharply effective action of the vaster subliminal being which is veiled from the surface exterior and normally acts only indirectly through the outer limited nature; the sub-mental action of the inconscient Energy which is sure in fulfilling its objectives.
Freedom
of a sovereign Truth without a law, There is a Divine Truth that governs all this universal movement and shapes it in the figure of its own Idea, in a free action untrammelled by any lower determinism. This free action is a capital feature of the workings of secret Nature in its concealed depths or unseen heights. Thought-products of the limited human intelligence may appear to give a direction to the course of Nature, but in truth the thoughts that really play a part in the development of the movements of Nature are the conceptual moulds of Truth, those that arise in regions far above the human mind on the planes of the Gods where the Truth-Powers are manifest in undeflected formation.
Oracles
that break out from behind the shrine, There are unexpected intimations from the subtler levels of existence to the agents at work on the surface levels, physical or mental. The inner being, the soul, sends out its warnings, its directions in many forms: strong feeling, insistent thought, a small but unmistakable command etc. There are also quick perceptions of coming events, sudden revelations of the preparings in Time; guiding voices or words that come vibrating from the universal to impinge upon the subtle hearing.
Abrupt
interventions stark and absolute There are constant interventions in the workings of physical Nature on earth by forces and beings from the higher planes who precipitate results that break across the common rule; the realms of Truth that are above the domain of human consciousness impose their own influences and project their own higher workings in the earth-atmosphere and produce consequences that are, naturally, inexplicable in terms of the factors that prevail here below.
Have
woven her balanced web of miracles All these elements have gone into the pattern under fashioning by creative Nature. It is a creation that is a happy combination of regulating laws and intervening miracles and presents an overall picture of some superhuman Art produced by an interplay of strange processes.
This bizarre kingdom passed into his charge.
As
one resisting more the more she loves, The secrets of Nature stood unveiled to Aswapathy. Under the compulsions of the new Consciousness attained by him, Nature yielded the truths of her processes, her strengths and her empire. And in the joy of giving, she gave herself too into his hands for whatever use he might make of her as Power. Nature appears to rule, to dominate the Soul, but it is so only as long as the Soul is content to remain under the reign of Ignorance and consents to the rule of Nature. If, however, the Soul awakes to its true status of freedom and develops its innate consciousness of identity with the Divine Lord, Ishwara, there is an automatic assertion of its mastery over Nature who yields herself joyously to its dominion.
Absolved
from aberrations in deep ways, In placing herself and all her resources at the disposal of the mastering Soul that was Aswapathy, Nature freed herself from the blinding entanglements-and the unexpected modes of action that had sprung therefrom which had overtaken her in the depths of her involution in the Inconscient, and recovered the sight of the object for which she had been set to work i.e. to fulfil the purpose of the manifesting Godhead.
She
turned against the evil she had helped In the new situation Nature turned round and directed her effective powers-material and immaterial-against the evil that had sprung up in the course of her workings down the planes of the Creation, evil that rose from the churning of the forces at struggle in the field of evolution and was maintained by her for its temporary utility. Evil, like its begetter Ignorance, is a phase in the evolution of the Spirit and it has to pass yielding place to the higher evolutes of Good and Knowledge with the growth of Consciousness.
Her
dangerous moods and arbitrary force There came about a radical change in the mode and poise of Nature. Her own will, her caprice and her uncontrolled force were submitted to a higher Will of the Spirit; all her means were turned to serve the purpose of the Soul directly and effectively. Hitherto Nature served the Soul only indirectly, working in her own way, for her own immediate ends. Now she came directly under the rule of the Soul.
A greater despot tamed her despotism.
Assailed,
surprised in the fortress of her self, In her field of operations Nature is omnipotent and appears to be self-sufficient. But in fact she is only a Power, an executive Power of the Lord: Prakriti is a power of the Purusha, Nature is the executrix of the Will of the Soul. In the dynamics of the manifestation, the balance may have got topsy-turvy with Nature dominating and ruling the Soul who hidden behind the many layers of Ignorance and unconsciousness is rendered ineffective. But as the evolution of consciousness proceeds and the Soul becomes self-aware and emerges into the open, Nature is forced to subserve her real Lord, the Soul who assumes mastery over her operations. Thus it was that when Aswapathy rose to the full height of his awakened soul, Nature yielded herself, her secrets of power-which were really all derived from the concealed omnipotence of the Soul, Purusha-to the Soul and in resuming her natural relation she stood fulfilled, joyous under the command of her Master.
A border sovereign is the occult Force.
A
threshold guardian of the earth-scene's Beyond, Between the material universe below and the supraphysical realms above there stands a mighty Shakti holding her sovereign sway. She is not seizable by the physical sense but her presence and workings have made possible this universal movement according to the will and on the lines determined by the creative Divinity at the head of this system of worlds. It is this Shakti that has borne the manifesting godheads from above and rendered them active in this universe. It is She who has built channels of communication between the physical world here and the vaster worlds above; She has opened the bright and ever new path that leads through the altitudes of Intuition-the direct vision of the soul-to the Infinite Beyond.
The
worlds of a marvellous Unknown were near, This Puissance is not alone. Looming behind her is a great Divine Presence which cannot be described in human speech. Worlds after worlds stretch beyond the known domains and the empire of the Shakti is constantly acted upon by their occult and spiritual influences. Below the feet of this Deity of Durga-Prowess lie the forces of strength from these worlds ready to strike at her command. Unknown though these realms be, it is here that events that are to take place in our own universe prepare themselves and wait for their hour. The future of this world below is shaped in the secrecies of these worlds above.
Abysms
infernal gaped round the soul's steps The terrain here is unknown and new to the pilgrim-soul. If there are yawning hollows caving into the nether depths of Falsehood and Nescience and hence dangerous to its tread, there appear also summits of Being that are divine, beckoning the ascending soul to their heights. There opens an immense rising vista, peak upon peak ", before the mind ever seeking for fresh objectives of Knowledge; and its power of Idea is incessantly attracted by the adventure in prospect. The mind enlarges itself through the questing operations of its idea-power and wherever appears a new horizon, there the idea rushes to explore it.
And
countless voices visited the charmed ear; All the faculties of Aswapathy are attracted by the novel phenomena that he comes across. His Idea-mind is tempted by the endless vistas of the Infinite that open before it. His hearing, s'ruti, is enchanted by the innumerable voices of the subtler worlds that crowd around it. His sight, drsti, is held by the plethora of forms that comes before it and passes. The forces and entities of the supraphysical worlds communicate in many ways-some through voices, some through forms assumed for the purpose.
This
was a forefront of God's thousandfold house, God's creation is not limited to the form-fixed material universe that we see before us. Behind and above it there are planes of existence and worlds in them which are not visible to the physical eye, not confined to one order like the physical but of many types, supple and varied in their movements. Something of this veiled creation can be glimpsed when the vision opens into a subtler range. Aswapathy finds himself in the vestibule of this immense, multi-formed Edifice of God.
A
magic porch of entry glimmering At the entrance to these subtler worlds, the workings of the forces are observed to undergo a change; they are no more governed by the rigid laws that operate in the physical universe. They move according to another Plan and strike the observer as miraculous, as magical. The full blaze of the luminous Consciousness is not yet; what is seen is a subdued and modified light in keeping with the state of being which is still not come into its own absolute freedom. Here is the meeting place of the physical and the supra-physical worlds, the realm from where higher workings are precipitated into the material universe. Even the forces of still higher worlds organise themselves here for effective action on earth. So too influences from the earth are projected here.
Above
her lightened high immensities; Behind and above the embodied Puissance looms the vast, the unknown luminous Infinite looking at the Finite-that projection of itself which it has suffered to be known-the Eternal poised on a Moment at once significant and unending, looking at its own movement in the flow of Time.
Its
shadows gleaming with the birth of gods, Here is the Transcendent Divinity putting out its powers and personalities into manifestation; the Formless casting itself into forms that constantly bespeak their origin; the Omniscient gathering itself in concentrated vision; the Unknowable lending itself to be partly known in its self-chosen embodiments; the Ineffable shining through dream-filled eyes, the Eternal beheld by the innumerable fronts of the Unknown.
Life
in him learned its huge subconscient rear; In this experience Aswapathy awakes to the vast extent of his own life-being; he becomes conscious of large tracts behind the surface levels of which alone he was hitherto aware; he realises that the parts which were overtly active in his life-nature are only doors opening on areas which were unseen and unimagined. The depths of his life are exposed to his gaze; so too revealed are the heights which are illuminated in the massed radiances of the superconscient regions of his being.
A
giant order was discovered here Our physical world is not the whole of the universe. In fact it is only a small-though significant-segment of the multi-tiered Order that constitutes the Creation. The physical world is enveloped by the subtle-physical realm which in turn is enclosed in the vital. Higher and wider are the planes and worlds of the mental and the still greater domains of Existence reaching up to those of Sat-Chit-Ananda. The material world is but a small projection of this vaster and greater system of subtler worlds above.
This
overt universe whose figures hide The truths of all the movements in this Universe are not always patent to the eye. Forms do not reveal the significances that are figured in them. These are held behind the surfaces. They do not come under the scrutiny of the thinking mind but lie concealed in planes of superconscience. The clues to these secrets of the cosmos are to be found in the deepest chambers of the mind.
Illumining
the world's concrete images It is only an intuitive mind that can grasp the meaning of the clues offered on this plane beyond Thought and perceive in that light the full significance of things in the physical universe, unravel what is always a mystery to the logical intelligence of man.
Ascending
and descending twixt life's poles Across the entire gamut of this Existence is a Cosmos of graded planes of Being, each plane with its own organisation of worlds. The planes are all interconnected and constitute a series of levels of Existence descending from the summits of the Eternal down to the domains of Time; this descending gradation is paralleled by an ascending series from below to the heights of the Spirit. Each plane is a self-formulation of a Principle, a Power of the Divine Consciousness, and is governed by the Law of its constituent Truth. Thus each system of worlds has its own Law. A graded Existence corresponding to the graded Being in manifestation, ruled by a graded Truth seeking several expression on several levels.
Then
glad of a glory of multitudinous mind The Spirit, the Divine Consciousness that issues out of the Eternal Divine Being for the adventure of manifestation into Time gets enriched with the various experience it gathers in the field of its deployment. The One Idea becomes the Many and takes the joy of a multitudinous assimilation; the Conscious-Force throws itself in the form of life-energy and takes the delight of struggle and achievement; the absolute Existence formulated in Matter adds to itself the value and joy of Beauty of Form and Colour. Rich with this glory of manifestation the Spirit climbs back, by the ladder perfected in evolution, from the field of Time to the Eternal Self whence it had devolved.
Up a
golden ladder carrying the Soul, The means of this return of the adventuring Soul, the Divine Spirit in various self-formulations is the ladder of ascent it builds for itself through its evolutionary labour of emergence from the plane of the material Inconscient below up to the heights of Sat-Chit-Ananda. As it emerges, it forms the steps of its ascent to the next plane-from Matter to Life, from Life to Mind, from Mind to the still higher ranges of Consciousness and thus erects a permanent ladder of increasingly luminous Consciousness that connects the lower end of the manifesting Spirit in inconscient Matter with the upper terminus of the absolute Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
In
this drop from consciousness to consciousness As the descending Consciousness modified itself, grade by grade, getting less and less subtle, becoming more and more gross, its various formulations,-the mental, the vital, the physical,-leaned for their stability on the Inconscient base that was the nadir of the plunge. This Inconscient is the solid material ground whose pull exerts itself all over this triple universe in some form or other and limits the workings of the powers based upon it e.g. the physical consciousness, the life-force, the mind. This limitation on the powers is wholesome, even indispensable, in the conditions of Ignorance in which the consciousness acts in the lower universal formations. It is again from this Inconscience that Ignorance comes to be. Ignorance is a transitional stage between the utter sleep of consciousness in the tranced condition of inconscience and the fully awakened state of self-knowledge towards which the emergent consciousness is moving. It is a temporary but an inevitable and necessary stage in the formation and establishment of a fully awakened and freely active consciousness.
In
this soar from consciousness to consciousness In the ascending evolution of this universe, each successive power and the organisation built by it moves upward to the Spirit, the Divine Being from which it has ultimately derived. Matter, Life, Mind, Psychic Soul-all of these push upwards arising to re-join their origins in the Being of Sat-Chit-Ananda: Matter to Sat, the Existence sole and absolute; Life to the Chit-Shakti, Force of Consciousness; Mind to Chit, self-aware and all-aware Consciousness; Psychic Soul to Ananda, the Bliss eternal. The Spirit is the origin of all that has come to be. But this process of becoming is not at an end; it is a continual manifestation and holds in its womb still more truths to be released into expression.
An
organ scale of the Eternal's acts, The manifesting Power is in action multitudinously. All its workings are the innumerable notes of some orchestral whole in the making, leading to an eventual harmony. Based upon a solid, unbreakable Calm, they are steadily moving towards their objective. Human activities proceed from desire, ego and restlessness and are not sure of their end. Those of the Divine Spirit, or of one linked with the Divine Consciousness, arise from a base of Calm and Peace and move undeflected towards their goal in constantly increasing power.
Paces
of the many-visaged Wonderful, The Cosmic Movement proceeds in certain large rhythms which are truly the steps of the ViratPurusha, the multiple Universal Person. He advances on the previsioned lines that figure the evolutive manifestation of the Spirit. These steps are in keeping with the growth of the embodied soul in creation-individual and universal and they give the meaning of the whole movement in what direction it is proceeding, to what end and through which stages. Existence is there on purpose. The soul is its centre and the growth of the soul its meaning and significance. The soul follows the curve of evolution which is prefigured in the divine Real-Idea and drawn by the Cosmic Purusha on the move.
And,
mediating twixt the heights and deeps, It is these steps of the Cosmic Purusha, the Way laid down and followed by the evolving Soul in manifestation, that joins together Heaven and Earth, the Spirit above and Matter below, the two who are apparently disparate, far removed from each other, but in reality at a deeper level found to be but two ends of the same Being. This creation is not left to itself. The embodied Soul in its growth forges automatically a way that links it with the Divine Being above.
A
last high world was seen where all worlds meet; Above this triple world of Matter, Life and Mind, above this lower hemisphere, apar?rdha, there is a greater and vaster world, b?hat, of Light, mahas, of the plenary Law of Truth, satyam ?tam, which links it to the higher hemisphere, par?rdha, constituted of the vasts of Sat, Chit and Ananda. It is a realm of _Light of Truth without shade of Ignorance, of full Consciousness without lapse into unconsciousness. The beginnings of the direct reign of the Divine Being of Saccidananda are here. Here in the world of mahas, the supramental Gnosis, all the lower worlds find their harmony.
All there discovered what it seeks for here.
It
freed the finite into boundlessness This is the world where the Ideals vainly pursued on earth are realised in actuality. In fact it is because of the existence of these truths in this world of Truth that influences are cast in the earth-world and men begin to seek for these truths in the form of Ideals. The finite in this physical universe seeks constantly to enlarge itself in order to attain to some infinite term which in some way it feels to be its ultimate. This consummation into infinity is arrived at in this vast world which is not only infinite but in its heights arises into Eternity.
The
Inconscient found its heart of consciousness, Similarly, what is inconscient here on earth and slowly disentangles itself from its swoon of utter unconsciousness in Matter in the course of evolutionary progression, emerges there into full, plenary Consciousness. Ignorance, the state of partial knowledge of truth, which envelops this earth-existence, ceases to be. Thought, idea, feeling, struggling in the domain of Ignorance to find the truth, at last come into the full blaze of Knowledge where they attain identity with the Truth of their seeking.
The
music born in Matter's silences From the dumb indeterminacies of original Matter there emerges an incessant movement of formation, of articulation. Urged by some Purpose within, it shapes itself into unmistakable rhythms of action, set harmonies of growth, which, however, cannot yet give expression to, nor yet manifest the truth that ensouls them. This truth and the Purpose that has activated them, is discovered by these movements in the profounds of the Consciousness of the Greater World and fully brought into expression there. The gathering harmonies of the worlds below are drawn into this high world into a pattern that reveals their innate significance.
The
perfect rhythm now only sometimes dreamed The earth is ever in search of the right rhythm in all her movements,-the rhythms glimpsed by a few of her seer-vanguards, but is unable to find it due to several vitiating factors arising from the basic material Inconscience and the ubiquitous Ignorance casting its shadow universally. The perfect note is to be found only in the World of Truth. If the human spirit representing the striving quest of the Earth-Nature develops into the consciousness of this world of Light, it gains this rhythm of Truth for the Earth and in the process the densities of Inconscience and Subconscience obscuring the Reality are broken through and the Earth recovers her soul: the Truth-Consciousness hitherto submerged in the depths and therefore inaccessible on the active levels of her being.
A
grand solution closed the long impasse Within the closed circle of this triple world of Ignorance, human effort to solve the problems of existence and reach perfection can succeed only to a limited extent. However much man may strive, in whichever way, ultimately he comes to a dead end and all his upward endeavour is undermined by the gravitational pulls of Inconscience and Ignorance that never cease to act. It is only in a world above this lower triple existence, trailokyam, in the world of plenary Knowledge and Will that the real and full solution is found and a perfect norm is attained.
A
reconciling Wisdom looked on life; The normal human mind is a field where various ideas and notions battle for supremacy; no one idea can claim the allegiance of the mind for long; fresh ones appear and displace the old. Each one embodies a fresh kind of hope and all together produce a warring medley. A Wisdom that is not involved in these movements of the passionate mind takes an impartial, large view of the whole and forms a synthesis that reconciles the claims of each in the harmony of its working, producing out of them all a glad upward movement. Similarly there is always an inexpressible but insistent sense of dissatisfaction, bordering on dull pain, recurring through our human lives. The higher Wisdom lifts up life from its suppressed state and reads its full meaning in the context of the evolutionary nisus constantly pushing one forward from station to station, never permitting a respite.
A
mighty oneness its perpetual theme, The central note of the many-sided movement of such delivering Wisdom is oneness. It gathers up all and forges them into a powerful, living unity. The mind thinks on the rigorous lines of its logic and amidst the sharp systematisations of its intellect, one misses the few, occasional, genuine calls of the soul which are smothered under the dead weight of its dry thought. In fact the aspirations of the soul hardly reach the surface awareness through the many levels of unconsciousness and sub-consciousness of the material being; what little comes up is heard like incoherent and inconsequent mutterings in sleep. All these are perceived in their true value by the high wisdom.
It
grouped the golden links that they had lost These calls of the soul, aspirations for the Divine, take different forms, point in different directions and often produce friction and antagonism among those who follow these various calls. The higher Wisdom looks at these conflicting appearances, recovers their common ground in the one natural urge for the One Divinity that beckons through All. This oneness of inspiration and oneness of objective is obscured by the sense of division caused by the ego. Each feels itself to be different from the others and claims to be alone right. If this separative consciousness rooted in the ego is overpassed, it is seen how all aspiration, all longing for the higher Truth, is the same in all soul movements.
All
the great Words that toiled to express the One In the realm of Truth, the world of the supra mental Consciousness, all the great utterances, mah?v?kya, that try to communicate the One Reality in human language are taken up into their highest levels of Illumination, their flaming glow of Revelation, their undying fount of Inspiration, and their real significance is realised at its utmost. There is found of each the truth-soul revealed, the sense entirely illumined, the sound-body of just expression at its inspired height.
There
was no quarrel more of truth with truth; Each human ideal, creed, faith embodies a verity of existence, but when it claims monopoly of Truth it comes into clash with other verities in their own forms. For though the Truth is one, its formulations are several, each being an expression of a particular power or aspect of the Truth. The truth of one does not negative the truth of another. In their several workings, these truths move towards an orchestral whole of which ultimately they reveal themselves to be so many component notes. In the light of the Truth-Knowledge of the world supramental this underlying and reconciling unity of all the various truth-formulations stands self-revealed.
Mind's
winding search lost every tinge of doubt The human mind is ever in search of reality, but each time it perceives something of the reality, it is haunted by a doubt whether that perception is true. It discards one and follows after another in its uncertain way. This meandering course ceases in the realm of the supramental Consciousness where is found the Real-Idea the origin of all Thought, of all Creation-in its self-revealing, all-comprehending, absolute expression.
United
were Time's creative mood and tense The world of Truth is the link, the meeting ground of the worlds below, the apar?rdha and the triple Creation above, the par?rdha. It is here that the Creative Eternal Saccid?nanda in its infinity organises itself for its manifestation in terms of Time. Time and Eternity, the Finite and the Infinite meet in union on the grounds of the Supramental Consciousness.
A
paean swelled from the lost musing deeps; Here in the ranges of the supramental Consciousness the being heaves to the invasion of the Bliss of the Infinite. The world of utter Delight, Ananda, is above this Gnosis, but it pulls up all towards itself. The highest summits of the gathered mind thrill to the impact of this undying Bliss of the triple Existence of Sat-Chit-Ananda above. Time turns to the Bliss of the Eternal.
As if
the strophes of a cosmic ode, From the nether depths of Matter to the summits of the Spirit there is a hierarchy of planes and worlds, a rising order of forces and beings-the order of evolving Consciousness. The Cosmic Movement rises upwards on the wings of the aspiration of the Earth-Soul, the urge in the consciousness involved in material inconscience to emerge out of its state of nescience and arrive at its highest state of Knowledge and Power in the realm of the unveiled Spirit. All the elements in the universal movement participate in this progression-the sub-human, the human, the super-human beings, all joining and furthering from their respective levels. Each has a part to play in this scheme whose significance is revealed to the eye that pierces behind the surfaces of things.
Above
were the Immortal's changeless seats,
Across
the unfolding of the seas of self This manifestation of the Many that is the Universe, the various worlds and formulations of Consciousness and Power are not all. Above them, holding them in their foundation above, upari budhne, is the One of whom they are the becomings, All sense, all movement stands still as one approaches the vestibule of the One: one experiences it as a massive Non-existence. Across this belt stands the Sole in its vast Being, above Time, above change, above movement: the Immortal, the Eternal, the Siva on the white peaks of Existence.
A
many-miracled consciousness unrolled The material insentient nature that we normally see and experience is not the whole. It is only an outer, a lower part of a Nature which to the subtle eye reveals itself in its higher ranges as a conscious, unlimited and luminous Power. This Nature has its own vaster ways of execution and advance, its varying processes and pliable standards. They are perceived and experienced as the consciousness grows throwing up new and newer formulations of its power as it develops each grade of itself-in the rapid course of its evolution upward.
Affranchised
from the net of earthly sense There he could enter, there awhile abide. As Aswapathy thus transcended the physical range of the universe in his consciousness, he came face to face with new expanses, new worlds of textures different from that of the earthly world. There were worlds of Power pervaded by calm, free from the limitations and the agitations of the terrestrial sphere. There were worlds of happy Beauty beyond the human range which gradually took shape before his wondering eyes. Bright expanses glowing with masses of Knowledge, enchanting Vastnesses of flowing Bliss appeared before him beyond the boundaries of the small physical stretch he had left behind. Aswapathy felt attracted to enter and stay in these realms for a while.
A
voyager upon uncharted routes Once he had crossed the bounds of the terrestrial world he had known, Aswapathy entered into realms which were totally new to him and he had to find his way across domains which had not been mapped out before and which posed all the dangers and the challenges of the Unknown. The king launched upon the adventure and entered into spheres cast into moulds of Space and Time other than those of the material universe. For each plane of existence has its own Space and Time-the special modes of self-extension and of duration of the manifesting Spirit.
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