Book Two. The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto I Canto II Canto III Canto IV
Canto V
Canto VI Canto VII Canto VIII
Canto IX
Canto X Canto XI Canto XII
Canto XIII Canto XIV
Canto XV
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Book Two: Canto 1 The World-Stair
Aswapathy enters into identity with the immensity that he sees and feels around. Every form, every movement, reveals to him some aspect, some state of the Ineffable. All the worlds of heaven and hell imagined by the human mind are found here in their true setting providing a full forum for the extremes of pleasure and pain. A vast occult domain opens before him. Knowledge in new contents, Power in flaming intensities, Bliss in endless waves offer themselves to his experience. But in all this varied opulence of the Infinite Aswapathy misses the secret that holds all in a whole, the truth that welds the All to the One. Looking still inward, Aswapathy comes to see an immense world pile, a huge column of worlds upon worlds rising from the plinth of Matter and ascending into the unknowable summits of the Spirit. He perceives in it the great stair down which the Spirit has descended and up which the Soul has to ascend. This stair of gradations of being, of consciousness is reproduced in each individual. It links up the lowest levels of inconscience with the highest levels of superconscience and makes possible man's journey from one end to the other. This graded consciousness—each graded formulation exerting pressure upon others—presses all into an upward movement. The steps of this stair of consciousness are the paces of the Soul in its return. These are the grades that were formed in the downward plunge of the Divine Consciousness when it originally descended to save and redeem the spirit that had issued forth in the creative adventure and got lost in a total Nescience. All these gradations of consciousness, and the worlds based upon them, are powerful factors in the evolutionary progression of the Earth. She is urged from below, guided from within, pulled up from above. There is a Master-Intelligence working out the process of a Mystery the full meaning of which will be evident only when all is done. Impelled by this inner Seer who knows the entire Plan and embodying the aspiration of the Earth-World, Aswapathy journeys, climbing step upon step upon the giant world-stair, detained by no glittering station of world or heaven, across the eternal Silences around and a great undiminishing Light above, towards a goal that he sees not but to which he is irresistibly drawn.
In a
profound existence beyond earth’s Beyond the ranges of this material universe there lies an entirely different order of creation. But though it is constituted differently from ours, based upon different principles, it is not totally strange; for it resembles in many ways what the human mind has always imagined and dreamt, especially in its features of plasticity, beauty and freedom. In fact it is because of the existence of these truths above and their pressure to manifest here below that the human mind is moved to conceive or dream in their images. There, Space is not a fixed material extension as here, but a free, variable self-projection of the soul. Again, there it is not the many, the multiplicity of creation that is predominant as here, but a profound Oneness that is pervading, a Unity that upholds all.
A
self-creation without end or pause It is a continuous movement of becoming of the Infinite Being; not a construction limited in space and time, but an endless, unbounded manifestation of itself by the Glory. The Creative Being pours out of itself a multitude of its states of Consciousness, a multitude of its jets of Force. Each form is based upon some Idea in the underlying Truth, each creation represents a formulation of the free workings of the Power of that Truth.
It
poured into the Ever-stable’s flux The movement of manifestation proceeds on the bosom of the unmoving Permanent, sthānu. The manifestation is the ecstatic dance of Shiva, rapturously throwing into figures the innumerable truths pressing for expression. The Eternal pours itself into movement, zestfully and meaningfully.
There
rose unborn into the Unchanging’s surge Into this multitudinous Becoming, which, however, leaves the Being pure in its sheer existence, arise Thoughts and Ideas that are no product of any mind-activity but exist as natural conceptual self-castings of the Eternal with their own unceasing effects in the unrolling of the universe, words that are the inevitable sound-bodies of these Thoughts ever-living whether in movement or not, actions that project the burthen of the looming Silence, configurations that suggest the Truth that is beyond expression.
The
Eternal’s stillness saw in unmoved joy All movement of manifestation goes on on a base that is stable, uninvolved in the movement. The Eternal Brahman stays still, in position and in mood. His self-existent Bliss is neither increased nor decreased by the movement; it is the same for ever. He regards from his status. It is his Conscious Power, Shakti, that moves into action and brings out the numberless universes that constitute her creation. Her will works out the manifestation marvellously through myriad movements of self-effectuation of which apparent pleasure and pain are the positive and negative strains.
All,
even pain, was the soul’s pleasure here; Unlike as in the material world of Ignorance where pain and pleasure are jarring opposites and where pain holds happiness at ransom, in the higher realms of Light, pain reveals itself to be not a contrary but a complement, a reverse side of pleasure. The being takes all experience in delight; even what is called pain evokes the sap of delight. All that is experienced here is governed by a Unity of Consciousness; all movements are so many jets of the same ocean of Conscious Existence. The forms may be different, but the substance is the same everywhere.
All
came at once into his single view; If one breaks out of the shell of the separative ego and allows one's consciousness to expand in its natural movement of progressive enlargement, there comes a decisive stage when there is a full identification with the One Infinite that is self-extended in the Universe. When one is thus in identity with the infinite Consciousness, everything is experienced as one with oneself. All is comprehended as a whole in a direct vision that is commensurate with the vastness of the consciousness attained—unlike the way the sense-bound sight of the mortal seizes things successively piece by piece.
Images
in a supernal consciousness Brahman, the supreme Reality, is neither born nor dies. It is eternal, ineffable in its existence. When it is self-moved to manifest, the truths within its being that press to manifest cast themselves into a pre-vision of what is to be, take shape in the Real-Idea that is the seed of all creation. What is timeless and formless moves into a state that prefigures the birth of form into time. One can perceive the creative Reality in this self-gathered condition when one develops the necessary consciousness that can enter into that state.
Aspects of being donned world-outline; forms The Being that manifests is multitudinous. It is not confined to one state of existence, it is infinite in its content. When it stirs into movement for manifestation, it presents only those truths of its being that are to be released; it formulates itself in those of its aspects that seek to affirm themselves in and as the contemplated creation. It is these truth-aspects that form the bases and also the frame of the world-creation to be.
That
open moving doors on things divine, A form is significant for what it embodies. Each form is a figure of the truth that ensouls it, the configuration corresponding to the particular concentration of consciousness within. On the material plane this character of form is not readily perceivable. In the subtler worlds the forms are supple, changing with the changing charges of the embodied forces; they constantly reveal what they signify. There the complex of forces is in ceaseless flux and forms are seen changing accordingly.
The
symbols of the Spirit’s reality, All forms are symbols, symbols of the Spirit that is formless in itself. But they are not mere figurations that signify a reality that exists elsewhere. They are living bodies, conscious self-castings of the spiritual Reality that organises itself in those formulations for its manifestation. Each form has relevance to the particular concentration of the Spirit that ensouls it. The Reality is indeed formless in its absoluteness, but it is not bound to its formlessness. It assumes forms, changes forms, discards forms, in the process of its manifestation.
The
exhaustless seeings of the unsleeping Mind, There is a state of consciousness in which the mind is fully awake, not dormant in any part or parts under the pull of physical inertia or exhaustion. It is wide awake on all its levels, perceives everything that comes within its range on the material as well as the subtler planes of existence. But these perceptions render themselves differently on different planes. When its consciousness touches the invisible Reality, the contacts may be visually translated in terms of symbol signs, not necessarily in the form of ideas or thoughts. These signs take various forms—letters, diagrams, numbers etc.
The
voices of a thousand realms of Life Life is not a mechanical energy, nor is the material universe its sole field of operation. In the physical world the life-force is severely restricted in its action by the limiting factors of the physical world's nature and has the appearance of a subconscious energy. But life has its own habitat in the life-plane proper where it is fully conscious in its own nature, with an unrestricted field extending over many worlds of various constitution. Life is the characteristic rendering of the cit-śakti, the supreme Consciousness-Force, in this manifestation and has its appointed tasks to fulfil.
The
heaven-hints that invade our earthly lives, Human imagination conceives of absolutes of its profound joys and pleasures and calls them heaven. It conceives of absolutes of its dreaded sufferings and pains and calls them hell. It longs for one and fears the other. But if these imaginations were to be actualised in earth-experience, much of their glow or terror would either soon wear out or they would crush the weak mortal faculties by their intensities. These intensities, however, are not all baseless. They are verily found on the subtler planes of creation, existing in their own licence and it is this fact of their existence that casts its influence on man and shapes his imaginations.
There
lived out in their self-born atmosphere, In these realms of being there are no limits—material or other—to the intensities of thoughts, feelings, passions and the like, things move at their chosen pitch and pace. The worlds are their own, meant to provide fields for their full expression; they do not have to subordinate themselves to suit the conditions of a world like the physical and get diminished in their charge.
Their
fortifying stress upon the soul Like all else in Creation, the scope provided for the full unobstructed sway of feelings and experiences of the kind that obtain in the states of heaven and hell has a meaning and purpose in the growth of the evolving soul. The best and the worst, the beautiful and the ugly, both contribute differently to the enrichment of the soul's growing stature. At bottom, both the pleasurable and the painful are two forms of the one stream of Delight that runs through all life as its sap. The soul experiences this sap of delight in various forms, in modifications as well as in the utter purity and nakedness of its presentation. The soul may choose to taste all possible formulations of this Delight in their extremes and heaven and hell provide the field therefore.
All
thought can know or widest sight perceive Human knowledge proceeds by conception and perception. But there is much in the universe that is beyond these two faculties of man; it is not patent to the eye, not seizable by the mental intelligence, but nevertheless real and effective in life. All this, however, is not un-knowable. It may not be knowable by the reasoning mind, but it lends itself to be felt, experienced and lived by the heart-being, by the consciousness that is centred in the heart and which functions through its own subtle sense. As one grows into a consciousness larger than the mind's, this subtler faculty comes into action and the range of knowledge and experience gets immeasurably widened.
Asking
for entry at his nature’s gates What man is normally aware of is not the whole of his existence. There are regions in his own being, not to speak of the vast domains in outer Nature, which are closed to his limited, outward, surface-bound sight. When, however, he makes an effort to know himself, delves into the depths of his own self, realms open of whose existence he was not aware before. New sights, bright experiences, striking movements flood his widening consciousness, testifying to the glorious kingdoms that await discovery and possession by him.
These
now became new portions of himself, All that is unfamiliar, strange and occult in the normal life of man bounded in his physical nature becomes familiar, common and patent in the higher orders of existence. To the expanded consciousness larger domains of being come into view and form part of its possessions. The mind casts its net wider, thoughts move into new realms and seize their contents. The subtler senses awake and grasp in their embrace new objects of experience. The entire horizon is extended on all the levels of the being, the spiritual, the mental, the emotional, the vital, the sensuous.
Tireless
the heart’s adventure of delight, The real nature of creation as a Play of Delight begins to reveal itself. Each experience yields a fresh flow of joy. Unlike the reaction of fatigue that sets in after a time in the life of ignorance, here, in the states of greater knowledge, there are only endless vistas of Bliss; there is no falling back in exhaustion. But there is no monotony of experience. Every time it is a unique experience of bliss though all the experiences are but several waves of the one ocean of Bliss.
Each
to its wide-winged universal poise, Each experience, while being special in itself, forms in such a state of consciousness an integral part of a whole. Each is an element that builds up a total growing perfection. Each gives a glimpse into the profounds of the Bliss ineffable. Each reveals some auspicious aspect of the Infinite.
All
was found there the Unique had dreamed and made As one rises into a clearer and fuller vision, in the course of the supreme Quest, one sees that all that is an actualisation of what the creative Divine has perceived in his mood to manifest. There is no end to the marvels that come out of the bosom of the Wonderful, adbhuta, in the sheer delight of his becoming. Out of the One manifest the myriad Many, each of which carries a special stress of the Truth that gives it its inherent individuality which persists always in some way or other. The Eternal pours himself in duration, marking each step of his movement in the moment of Time. Aswapathy saw and experienced all this universe of the Unknown, all the multitudinous lines of creation in their plenary splendour. But the ultimate perspective and the key to the whole Movement was still to be found.
Only
was missing the sole timeless Word When the Sole and One was self-moved to manifest, the ancient text recalls, there was a stir, a spanda, a vibration which took the form of a primordial Sound—nāda. This is the sound-form of Brahman, the Eternal, the Word out of which the world has come to be, the mystic Word which is represented in human speech as OM. And OM is the sacred word that invokes the Eternal and links one with it.
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas, As the Creative Reality of Sat-Chit-Ananda gathers itself to manifest, the truths that seek manifestation project themselves in its Vision and are cast in their seed-form in the Real-Idea. This poise of the Real as the Seed-Idea which holds all the subsequent developments in its womb in their essence, is a movement of its Knowledge-Will. From it proceed the various formulations that constitute the universe. Each form, each movement in the universe, has its own source-Idea in this realm above. This Idea is the real parent of all the million ideas that sail into human thought,—formations, half-formations, malformations, all are ultimately to be traced to this original Idea.
The
integer of the Spirit’s perfect sum The Infinite has an arithmetic of its own. In the wholeness of its existence, the Oneness of its being is squared with the multitude of its becomings. The One is the same everywhere, but the many are variously constituted and variously functioning. Both, however, find their just place in the integrality of the Supreme. This is the divine Fullness which is described in an ancient text as a perfect Full that remains the Full even after the Full is taken out of it.
The
single sign interpreting every sign, To all the clues and their mysteries in the Creation there is, at the origin of things, a master-clue. That explains all riddles, unravels all mysteries. Similarly to the Absolute that transcends all definitions and expression there is a guiding pointer of its own kind. To know the full significance of all that is in the Universe and even of all that is above it, one has to obtain the key-clue that turns on all locked mysteries and this is found in the heart of the Truth-Consciousness, the Gnosis.
... a lone immense high-curved world-pile The material world which the physical senses perceive and readily render to our experience is not the whole of Creation. A subtler sight perceives a number of worlds on serried planes of an infinite Existence. The worlds are many but they are formed and set in a graded order, one above the other, the giant whole rising like a column high into the heights of the Ineffable.
As if
from Matter’s plinth and viewless base This ascending series of worlds spans the entire creation. Its foundation is lost to view in the obscurities of the material inconscient below, even as its summits are beyond sight in the spiritual superconscient above. From the known towards the unknown, from the finite into the infinite, this gradation of worlds rises across the stairs of several planes of the manifest existence. Starting with Earth " that is the footing ", this system of worlds rises from plane to plane—seven of them in all *—and leads up to the infinitudes of Existence whose farthest ranges are lost in an Ineffable Absolute.
As
climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven The rising temple-tower is not merely an architectural design. It has a special significance symbolising as it does the soaring aspiration of man to reach the heights of the Infinite. The temple is an external representation of the human body which is conceived as a living abode of Divinity. The upward urge of the soul to join the Oversoul, of the finite to reach the Infinite, is concretely embodied in the sky-pointing tower of the edifice.
Infinity
calls to it as it dreams and climbs; The human spirit in its upward movement, represented by the temple-tower, is not alone in its effort. The Infinite from above bends down and lifts it towards itself; it exerts a ceaseless pressure on the climbing spirit to rise up. This tower of aspiration soars to the summits of its earth-based world, reaches the ineffable Silence beyond and links up what is manifest below with what is above and behind the veil, joins Earth and Heaven.
Amid
the many systems of the One The One manifests into the Many out of the sheer joy of creation and the significance of each form or movement in it is measured by the part it plays in the joyous self-discovery of the Many as the One. The temple-tower is unique in this respect. The manifesting Spirit plunges and loses itself as it were in the densities and obscurities of material Nature. The way back to its home is pointed by the symbolic edifice of the rising Temple which reproduces in epitome the entire system of Creation, beginning with the foundation below on material earth and passing into the eternities of the Spirit above.
... single stair to being’s goal.
A
summary of the stages of the spirit, It is within, below, without, above. What is in the macrocosm is repeated in principle in the microcosm. Corresponding to the gradations of the worlds in the cosmos, there are in the individual gradations of consciousness, representing and forming successive stages or steps in the unfoldment of the Spirit. These levels of consciousness, though not perceived in the surface being, can be experienced in the subtler regions organised around the soul within. They form the stair for the ascension of the soul to its goal in the supreme Spirit. This graded consciousness is spread throughout the being and can be experienced and acted upon at any level by appropriate concentration.
Acting
upon this visible Nature’s scheme It is because of this graded consciousness within that man is able to live, feel and take joy. Through its various faculties, this consciousness acts upon and reacts to things—at their various levels—in the outer world and in the process sets the dense physical nature into movement out of its habitual torpor and lassitude. The mind begins to think, the emotive parts to feel and the senses to respond to the delight in things.
It
models in us our diviner parts, This labouring consciousness works to give shape to greater potentialities awaiting activisation in man; capacities and functionings of a range greater than the human are forged by it. It urges the mind—by incessant pressure to exceed its first limitations of process and vision; it pressurises the life-force into breaking out of its first narrow rounds of satisfaction and to seek for larger fulfilments; it makes of the death of the physical body a necessary step towards an eventual immortal state by itself providing the connecting link from life to life. In every way this self-organising consciousness strives and builds a highway for the soul to grow and journey from its sleep in the obscurity of inconscient Nature to its full awaking in the splendour of a super-conscience.
If
earth were all and this were not in her, But for this consciousness in ferment within material nature, there would be no meaningful upward movement at all. There would be no sensational delight, no drive for enjoyment of life, no activity of thinking which enlarges the horizon of man. There would only be a meaningless motion of material forms driven by a dumb mechanical Energy. Matter would be the base and Matter the limit.
Earth
by this golden superfluity This element of awaking and awakening consciousness may seem to be redundant in a self-sufficing scheme of Matter. But it is due to the pressure of this consciousness that the thinking creature that is man becomes at all possible, man who has taken up the course of the earth's evolution in himself and gives a meaningful direction to it. And that is not the end of the matter. Under the push of this developing consciousness man is slowly developing into a conscient power greater than the human and is well on his way to becoming a God.
This
higher scheme of being is our cause It is the existence and the operation of this organisation of the planes of inner consciousness in man that gives a meaning to his life. In fact his very existence is made possible because of this " foundation above ". The movement of human life is upwards and its significance can be understood only in the light of the workings of this consciousness. It is the pressure from these higher ranges of consciousness that urges the soul, the element of divine consciousness embedded in Matter, to emerge out of its inconscience and steadily grow into its full stature.
The
living symbol of these conscious planes, This inner stair of the being of man embodies the presence and the workings of the many Powers and Personalities that are active in the Cosmos. The sequence and the purpose of all that takes place in this multi-dimensional creation, the cause of everything which lies in the ensouling truth, are known there spontaneously. All these features determine the pace and the direction of the inner evolution of the soul.
Its
steps are paces of the soul’s return The soul is a self-projection of the Divine Being into manifestation, into a venture that involves a plunge into the densities of Matter and a slow return to its Source in the luminous Spirit building up in the process a field for its various experience and means for growth into a divine personality embodying the rich results of its toil. The stair of gradations of consciousness in the inner being forms the pathway for this ascending evolution in Nature by which Matter discovers itself in the Spirit.
Once
in the vigil of a deathless gaze These series of consciousness, constituting the ladder of ascent, originally formed the steps along which the Divine Soul descended into evolution. This was the course taken by the Divinity, the supreme Nature, parā prakŗti, when the self-manifestation was projected in the regard of the Conscious Being and the creative Movement starting from the pure Spirit above culminated in the involution in Inconscience below. This was the way in which by a farther and farther descent from its original station in the infinite Consciousness the Soul fell into a swoon of self-forgetfulness in the obscurity of the infinitesimal.
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The
great World-Mother by her sacrifice Man is not left to his own fate. The Creator has also entered this field of strife and labour and is suffering with his creature in order that he may rise to his full manhood in the Divine Consciousness. The Supreme lives here in the cosmos as the Universal Inhabitant and in the individual as the indwelling Spirit, the individual divine. The Supreme Nature, the Shakti that has manifested the universe has embodied herself in her Creation; her being forms the stuff of this variegated life-movement. Leaving her natural states of full Consciousness and unbounded Bliss, the Divine Shakti has taken upon herself all the darkness and obscurity of Ignorance, and the resultant suffering prevailing in the world, in order to work them out in her all-seeing Wisdom and ensure for man his high destiny.
An idol of self is our mortality. Limitation, struggle, disease and death characterise the normal existence of man. But that is not the whole truth of him; it is only a temporary state. Behind his mortal nature is another and greater truth, the truth of immortal Divinity. The outer nature of humanity is only a frame, a seizable form of the Divine who dwells within as the self indestructible. The mortal is a figure assumed by the Immortal.
Our earth is a fragment and a residue; This earth is obviously not the whole of the Universe. There are many " earths " in the language of the Vedic Mystic and all together constitute a multi-tiered gigantic Creation. The earth that is inhabited by man is only a small part of this Whole. It is also—in the descending order of the devolution of the creative Spirit—the last formation, the ejection into material inconscience of a supreme self-deploying Consciousness. It contains the essence of all that has preceded its formation.
Her
power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds The earth-nature is instinct with the potentials of the worlds and planes that are behind and above it. For it represents a concretisation of the principles and powers that base and form those worlds. The Sat-Chit-Ananda, the world of Mahas—the Supramental, the Mind and the Life Planes of Creation are all enwombed in their principles of existence in the body of Earth which represents material Nature. Their characteristic powers, however, are latent, obscured in the trance of her inconscience. By the process of evolution and the emergence of the concealed consciousness, these powers come to reveal themselves. The earth-potency is lit in its depths with this greater charge.
An
atavism of higher births is hers, The forces, the beings that are inhabiting the earth are precipitated from above into the devolutionary movement. All on earth is derived from the planes and worlds above in the cosmic hierarchy. All is instinct with the memories of those higher states of existence and there is a constant pull upwards to go back to those native realms. These memories, though not active, are always there latent in the depths and keep up the urge for return to the domains to which they relate.
Unsatisfied
forces in her bosom move; The earth is, as it were, a cauldron of forces and movements, ever in action, ever at strife. It is the centre and field for a mighty evolution by which mortal life seeks to arrive at Immortality—a state supreme from which the whole movement of manifestation starts. There are forces at work in this field building the way upwards to Immortality overcoming the opposition of the elements that seek to hold things down to the states of limitation, obscurity and death. These battling forces,—vital, mental, spiritual etc.—refusing to accept the nether conditions as final, help to shape the destiny of the earth in the course of their travail.
They
consent to share her doom of birth and death; These elements and forces from the higher realms are at work in the terrestrial field and they share in carrying the earth's load, taking up in the process the yoke of mortality. But they keep the consciousness of their one origin and throw up radiations, severally, of the One manifesting Spirit. They go on putting pressure upon the striving mechanical earth-nature, prakŗti, to build some figure—however inadequate—of this cosmic Unity. What this blind nature, working in the belt of Ignorance, can erect is only a fitful shadow of the great living Unity that exists behind the veil.
The
calm and luminous Intimacy within Behind the strivings of the earth-nature labouring in a pervading Ignorance and obscurity there is the Soul, deeply conscient, puissant. It is this Soul closely identified with the inner nature that sanctions the movement as the Master and guides the operating Force as the Intelligence within, prajnā. Behind mechanical Prakriti there is the conscious Purusha who gives a direction and a meaning to her apparently meandering movements.
His vast design accepts a puny start. This creation has come into being on some purpose. The course of this manifestation follows a pattern that has been pre-visioned in the Real-Idea of the creative Infinite. The whole Movement is cast in an infinite perspective, but it follows a process of becoming that starts from the fragmented infinitesimal, tucchyena, from the obscurity of the Inconscient. Life springs in small bubbles, consciousness awakes in precarious vibrations. From these inchoate movements grows the mighty manifestation of the Universe.
An
attempt, a drawing half-done is the world’s life; The present state of world-existence is evidently not the final picture of what is intended. It is really an incomplete drawing with many elements still to be brought in, many ends still to be picked up and joined; what has been achieved so far is no index to the nature of the truths that are pressing for manifestation but have not yet found adequate expression. This present appearance of the world may even give room to the doubt if there is any meaning at all in the world-movement. But in fact it is only the skeletal frame that is in formation. Much is still to be done before the full figure of the intended fulfilment emerges.
Yet some first image of greatness trembles there, Maybe all in life appears as a medley of opposites, a disorder bewildering in its complexity, moving towards none knows for certain where. But a careful eye cannot fail to perceive some faint outline of the marvellous edifice that is in the making. The beginnings of an eventual efflorescence of Light, Bliss, Immortality are glimpsed, however fleetingly,
And
when the ambiguous crowded parts have met The innumerable elements that are strewn about in their plethora in this world appear to be utterly different from each other, with no clear relations where they are not jarring. The human mind with its logical reason can only see and envisage a growing division, a disparate multitude. But nevertheless there is a concealed Intelligence behind the outward processes of Nature which steadily moves them towards a graded Unity in which all find their just and inevitable place. And when this impelled action reaches its destined result in the emergence of a living Unity of the Whole, creative Delight will have scored over the gloomy prognostications of human Reason.
The
divine intention suddenly shall be seen, It is at the culminating stages that the Purpose of the Creation will come to be fully demonstrated. All the long travail of Nature, so meandering in its course, so wasteful in its processes to the little mind of reason, will prove to have been after all a guided movement led by the spontaneous operation of a Truth-Knowledge in its depths. The movements of external Nature conceal behind their uncertain and tentative workings the sure steps of a Conscious Power that builds the Creation.
A
graph shall be of many meeting worlds, The pattern that shall emerge will be of a Oneness deployed manifold. The Many will recover themselves in the One. The origin, the course and the goal will stand self-revealed to the Wise. Where now there is no overt operation of the thinking mind, there will commence the action of a faultless Mind; where now there is no evidence of the existence of consciousness in large belts of material Nature, there will pulsate everywhere a consciousness that is infinite.
This
faint and fluid sketch of soul called man Man is neither the body nor the life that activates it, nor even the mind that is encased in the living body. He is truly the soul which holds together all these instruments of experience and presides over them. The soul has not yet developed, not yet taken proper shape; it is still in a formative stage. When by experience over lives it grows sufficiently in stature and emerges into its true and full form, it will reveal itself in its real nature: a concentrated projection of the Eternal in the field of Time, a formation of the Infinite. The soul is an emanation of the Divine, eternal and infinite, in a manifestation in terms of TimeSoul and Form. It may appear to be bound by these terms, but once it comes into its own, it reveals itself as timeless and infinite in character.
A Mystery’s process is the universe. The Universe is not a creation that has been constructed once for all by some super-human Agency and governed by a Law or laws determinable by human Reason. It is a Movement, a changing process that cannot be truly fathomed by the mind. Every moment new factors, new elements come into play and no law is absolute. Further, the Universe is not of one substance say of Matter. There are other strands in its texture—the vital, the mental and still other subtler ones—making it a complex Whole which defies in its workings the rules of logic and reason. It is a Mystery that slowly unfolds itself.
At
first was laid a strange anomalous base, The beginnings of this universe are from a state in which life is not, sensation is not, consciousness is not. It is a huge Negation of everything and yet out of it all has come to be. It is a zero, but not an empty zero. In its bosom lie all the conceivable potentialities. Out of this womb of Nothing issues everything, out of non-existence comes existence. Thus there is a contradiction at the very base of this material Creation: a pervading Nil holding the All in its secrecies.
Into
its forms the Child is ever born From out of this matrix of Nought, forms come into existence. But they are not mere shapes of some Fancy which appear and disappear. Each form is a significant figuration of the soul, a birth of the divine Consciousness that dwells within it. This entity that ensouls every form is an emanation of the Eternal and it lives and grows in this manifestation of the Infinite.
A
slow reversal’s movement then took place: The downward movement of the descent of the creative Spirit culminates with the plunge into utter Nescience. The progressive densification of consciousness reaches its acme in Inconscience. Thereafter starts the return movement; Involution turns into Evolution. The concealed concentration of consciousness presses upward and outward and the first formation of Matter takes place providing a stable base for the evolutionary movement in its working.
Upon earth’s new-born soil God’s tread was heard. And once this stable base of Matter is organised and firm moulds for the emerging Spirit to house itself are ashaping, there is the first stir of consciousness all over the Earth. These vibrations of the manifesting Spirit take the form of life-sensations which develop its sustained purposeful movements in the progression of life.
Across
the thick smoke of earth’s ignorance And groped for knowledge in the nescient Night: In the first conditions of Inconscience when consciousness is still asleep, as it were, and even in the subsequent states of its gradual awakenings, the earth is enveloped by obscurity; there is a struggle for self-awareness and all-awareness amidst the dark shades of Ignorance which is a state of partial awareness seeking to be fully aware. In the pervading Night of absence of consciousness, awareness slowly awakes, strives to come into its own and develop into a mind which begins to cognise and extend its field of knowing.
Caught
in a blind stone-grip Force worked its plan The Consciousness that is at first concealed and gradually awakens is not simply an awareness. It has and is itself a Power. It has an inalienable Force which effectuates what it is charged with by the perceiving element. Such a Force is embedded in the material Creation and it works under the cover of the inconscience of Matter to build and shape the world in the image of the Idea impelling it from behind. Only this Force is not able to function in freedom; for it is constricted in the hard and dense obscurity of Matter which is its first field.
That
Matter might grow conscious of its soul And this is the objective of the whole working. The Force—the evolutionary Force—labours incessantly, from every point, in order that Matter which is at first inconscient, utterly unaware, may slowly awake to awareness, gradually become conscious of the divine Spirit that ensouls it. And in this labour, the Life-power—the Nature-Force formulated as the Energy of Life—takes a leading part: it vivifies all the forms of Matter and as it builds itself in them, it exerts a pressure on the concealed elements to emerge into manifestation. Nescient Matter is acted upon by the Life-force to deliver the truths enwombed in it: the inlaid consciousness evolves in multiple forms and the material gradually becomes aware of the divine Spirit at its core. So is the All that is the multitudinous Universe manifested from the potent Zero that is the material Inconscient.
Because
eternal eyes turned on earth’s gulfs There was a stage in the course of the devolution of the Spirit when the creative Consciousness completely lost itself in the trance of Involution. All was utter Nescience, a total Night. It was then that the Supreme Divinity directed its gaze at the bottomless pit in which the entire Movement had fallen and sent a Ray of its Light, its saviour Grace to reclaim the lost spirit. And it is due to the presence and action of this Grace that things revived, awareness broke out in the stirrings of consciousness and the return journey commenced. The quest of things for their self started.
A
spirit dreamed in the crude cosmic whirl, With this awakening to its own existence, the soul's memories began to appear. Amidst the spinning movements of the Universe, the soul went on dwelling upon its memories and their sequences; its element of perceiving and conceiving consciousness gradually suffused the life-movement that was glow. Thus did the essence of the Real-Idea at the origin of things stream into the stuff of the material Universe.
A
miracle of the Absolute was born, And the miracle happened. The Absolute Reality manifested itself in the realm of the relative and the determinate. What is infinite, boundless by nature, took a finite form. But the finite was unique in that it contained in itself the full Infinite; the finite was only a point of concentration of the Infinite. So too the Eternal without bounds came to dwell in a form subject to the bounds of Time, governed by the processes of birth and death. What was beyond the limitations of Space and Time took shape in their dominion.
To live this Mystery out our souls came here. To make it possible for the Infinite, the boundless, to limit itself without forfeiting its nature of infinity; to make possible for the Eternal, the Timeless, to pour itself in the moments of Time without ceasing ever to be the reality eternal; this is the objective set for the embodied souls by the Divinity that has released them into this manifestation. Each soul has to realise and manifest the Infinite in its finite form, the timeless Immortal in conditions of time-governed mortality.
A
Seer within who knows the ordered plan Man as he is, living on the superficies of life, journeying from moment to moment in a pervading universal Ignorance, does not know the direction of his life-movement; he is not even sure if there is a direction. But deep within him there is a seeing Intelligence that knows the purpose, the destination of the life-journey, and that impels man to move forward, climb upward in the evolutionary scheme of the Universe. This is the same Wisdom, the Knowledge-Idea that originally precipitates the descent of the Spirit into the abyss of Inconscience in order to work out the Divine Plan that bases this Creation. The Consciousness that has impelled the Cosmic movement at its origin also guides it from within to the goal previsioned in its regard.
His call had reached the Traveller in Time.
Apart
in an unfathomed loneliness, Aswapathy had awakened to this impelling Knowledge within and was forging his way up the heights of the Spirit. He was not involved in the Nature-movements of the terrestrial universe, though he embodied the keen aspiration of the Earth for deliverance from the yoke of Ignorance, limitation and mortality into the freedom of Light, Infinity and Immortality. He lived in the profounds of his soul, and unaided, worked his way up drawing upon its innate self-gathered power.
A formless Stillness called, a nameless Light.
Above
him was the white immobile Ray, As Aswapathy freed himself from the movements of this world of Names and Forms in Ignorance and entered the purer realms of the Spirit, a vast, tremendous Silence greeted him. Above the mobile is the immobile, looking over the kșara is the akșara. All was still; there was no form, no movement. But it was not a stillness of Nescience, darkness of cessation. There gleamed a great Light, scintillating in its purity, unmoving, unnameable. He had entered the silent, luminous vasts of the Eternal.
No term was fixed to the high-pitched attempt; In the very nature of things there is no limit to the ascension of the Soul. The Reality is Infinite and each horizon yields to another; from 'peak to peak' one ascends and perceives the still " much to be done "—observes the ancient Seer in the Veda. However vast a world that is reached and explored, there is another above it drawing the adventurous Soul to its heights. It is an endless progression.
World
after world disclosed its guarded powers, The various Planes of Existence and the worlds on each Plane revealed themselves with the characteristic Powers and Principles of their organisation. He experienced the various Bliss of the ascending series of the worlds, each world yielding its particular formulation of the essential Delight in Creation. But he did not and could not rest in any of these realms. For his being was irresistably drawn to Something which was not yet visible to his eye but was exercising palpably its spell on him. He climbed on and on.
A
figure sole on Nature’s giant stair, Aswapathy ascended along the stair of the Cosmos, the graded levels of the Spirit in manifestation, towards a goal that drew him upward, but itself remained indefinite. He moved towards an Absolute transcending all creation.
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