Out of a still Immensity all came!
These million universes were to it
The poor light-bubbles of a trivial game,
A fragile glimmer in the Infinite.
It could not find its soul in all that vast:
It drew itself into a little speck
Infinitesimal, ignobly cast
Out of earth's mud and slime strangely awake,-
A tiny plasm on a little globe,
In the small system of a dwarflike sun,
A little life wearing the flesh for robe,
A little mind winged through wide space to run!
It lived, it knew, it saw its self sublime,
Deathless, outmeasuring Space, outlasting Time.
Article Source : http://www.shortpoems.org/poets/sri_aurobindo/infinite.html
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Ascent
by: Sri Aurobindo
1 - The Silence
Into the Silence, into the Silence,
Arise, O Spirit immortal,
Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle.
Ascend, single and deathless:
Care no more for the whispers and the shoutings in the darkness,
Pass from the sphere of the grey and the little,
Leaving the cry and the struggle,
Into the Silence for ever.
Vast and immobile, formless and marvellous,
Higher than Heaven, wider than the universe,
In a pure glory of being,
In a bright stillness of self-seeing,
Communing with a boundlessness voiceless and intimate,
Make thy knowledge too high for thought, thy joy too deep for emotion;
At rest in the unchanging Light, mute with the wordless self-vision,
Spirit, pass out of thyself; Soul, escape from the clutch of Nature.
All thou hast seen cast from thee, O Witness.
Turn to the Alone and the Absolute, turn to the Eternal:
Be only eternity, peace and silence,
world-transcending nameless Oneness,
Spirit immortal.
2 - Beyond the Silence
Out from the Silence, out from the Silence,
Carrying with thee the ineffable Substance,
Carrying with thee the splendour and wideness,
Ascend, O Spirit immortal.
Assigning to Time its endless meaning,
Blissful enter into the clasp of the Timeless.
Awake in the living Eternal, taken to the bosom of love of the Infinite,
Live self-found in his endless completeness,
Thy heart close to the heart of the Godhead for ever.
Vast, God-possesseing, embraced by the Wonderful,
Lifted by the All-Beautiful into his infinite beauty,
Love shall envelop thee endless and fathomless,
Joy unimaginable, Ecstasy illimitable,
Knowledge omnipotent, Might omniscient,
Light without darkness, Truth that is dateless.
One with the Transcendent, calm, universal,
Single and free, yet innumerably living,
All in thyself and thyself in all dwelling,
Act in the world with thy being beyond it.
Soul, exceed life's boundaries; Spirit, surpass the universe.
Outclimbing the summits of Nature,
Transcending and uplifting the soul of the finite,
Rise with the world in thy bosom,
O Word gathered into the heart of the Ineffable.
One with the Eternal, live in his infinity,
Drowned in the Absolute, found in the Godhead,
Swan of the supreme and spaceless ether wandering winged through the universe,
Spirit immortal.
1930, revised 1942
By: Sri Aurobindo
Reference: # 154 in "Les poèmes de Sri Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "Collected Poems and Plays, volume 2" - 372
and "Collected Poems" - 567
all published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
Article Source : http://www.shortpoems.org/poets/sri_aurobindo/ascent.html
1 - The Silence
Into the Silence, into the Silence,
Arise, O Spirit immortal,
Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle.
Ascend, single and deathless:
Care no more for the whispers and the shoutings in the darkness,
Pass from the sphere of the grey and the little,
Leaving the cry and the struggle,
Into the Silence for ever.
Vast and immobile, formless and marvellous,
Higher than Heaven, wider than the universe,
In a pure glory of being,
In a bright stillness of self-seeing,
Communing with a boundlessness voiceless and intimate,
Make thy knowledge too high for thought, thy joy too deep for emotion;
At rest in the unchanging Light, mute with the wordless self-vision,
Spirit, pass out of thyself; Soul, escape from the clutch of Nature.
All thou hast seen cast from thee, O Witness.
Turn to the Alone and the Absolute, turn to the Eternal:
Be only eternity, peace and silence,
world-transcending nameless Oneness,
Spirit immortal.
2 - Beyond the Silence
Out from the Silence, out from the Silence,
Carrying with thee the ineffable Substance,
Carrying with thee the splendour and wideness,
Ascend, O Spirit immortal.
Assigning to Time its endless meaning,
Blissful enter into the clasp of the Timeless.
Awake in the living Eternal, taken to the bosom of love of the Infinite,
Live self-found in his endless completeness,
Thy heart close to the heart of the Godhead for ever.
Vast, God-possesseing, embraced by the Wonderful,
Lifted by the All-Beautiful into his infinite beauty,
Love shall envelop thee endless and fathomless,
Joy unimaginable, Ecstasy illimitable,
Knowledge omnipotent, Might omniscient,
Light without darkness, Truth that is dateless.
One with the Transcendent, calm, universal,
Single and free, yet innumerably living,
All in thyself and thyself in all dwelling,
Act in the world with thy being beyond it.
Soul, exceed life's boundaries; Spirit, surpass the universe.
Outclimbing the summits of Nature,
Transcending and uplifting the soul of the finite,
Rise with the world in thy bosom,
O Word gathered into the heart of the Ineffable.
One with the Eternal, live in his infinity,
Drowned in the Absolute, found in the Godhead,
Swan of the supreme and spaceless ether wandering winged through the universe,
Spirit immortal.
1930, revised 1942
By: Sri Aurobindo
Reference: # 154 in "Les poèmes de Sri Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "Collected Poems and Plays, volume 2" - 372
and "Collected Poems" - 567
all published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
Article Source : http://www.shortpoems.org/poets/sri_aurobindo/ascent.html
Aurobindo is like an ocean
Joe Perez said... hi alan - i'm looking forward to reading more aurobindo next year. i feel a kinship with your thoughts on aurobindo, wilber, etc, but hesitate to comment more because my knowledge of aurobindo is superficial. but I have studied Hegel in some degree of depth, and I find Aurobindo's prose to be more or less of the same difficulty. That is to say, extremely "abstract." And yet it is beautiful, more so than ... well, very much so. I hope you can find a way to communicate Aurobindo's genius in more plain language. joe 12:05 AM
m alan kazlev said... Hi Joe, I have to say I have found ideas in your blog very helpful in further developing and widening my understanding of Integral and the Integral movement.
Yes much of Sri Aurobindo's writings are heavy in style, perhaps because of his English private school upbring. Interestingly his Letters on Yoga (it's since been published under another title, On Yoga or some such) are very easy to read; they're just extracts from letters to disciples, replying to their questions (unfortunately the disciples letters are not included, so the complete context is at times hard to follow).
It took me a long time to learn how to read S.A.'s heavier books like The Life Divine and Synthesis on Yoga. I eventually realised you have to read just small parts here and there, whatever line or paragraph grabs your inspiration, and allow your inner being to be receptive to and uplifted by the Meaning behind the words. It's the same with reading Ramana Maharshi, or any great sage. Approached on that level, Sri Aurobindo isn't abstract at all!
I could never read his books from cover to cover, but Tusar seems to approach them in a more scholarly way, and that's fine too. If you would like a good idea of what he is on about, but don't want to have to plough through hundreds of pages of philosophy, I would recomend just read the last four chapters of The Life Divine. That way you go straight to his message of spiritual evolution pure and simple!For a while now I have felt more of an affilation with Synthesis of Yoga, which is more practical and mystical than philosophical in approach.
Then I discovered Sri Ramana, who is even more important to me now, as he teaches the realisation of the non-dual Self, which is necessary if one is to then progress to the stages beyond that, which is what Sri Aurobindo teaches (these stages, culminating in the Supreme individual and collective Realisation of the Supramental Godhead, are all described in those last four chapters of The Life Divine). Of course, for us ordinary mortals, even Self-Realisation (basic Enlightenment) is a huge task!
For me philosophy is mostly of little interest, perhaps because of that abstract quality that you refer to, although I appreciate for some it is a genuine sadhana (spiritual path). The way I tend to communicate what Sri Aurobindo taught is to focus on the practical and mystical side of the teachings, and their implications for the integral paradigm and the Earth as a whole. Of course that leaves out all the more purely philosophical and intellectual stuff, as well as all the poems and the political and social commentary.
But Sri Aurobindo is like an ocean, and it isn't possible to encompass the whole ocean. One can only splash in the shallows. It's like that when approiaching the teachings of every truly great sage. 3:09 AM
Posted by Tusar N Mohapatra at 10:48 PM 0 comments Links
Article Source : http://seof.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
m alan kazlev said... Hi Joe, I have to say I have found ideas in your blog very helpful in further developing and widening my understanding of Integral and the Integral movement.
Yes much of Sri Aurobindo's writings are heavy in style, perhaps because of his English private school upbring. Interestingly his Letters on Yoga (it's since been published under another title, On Yoga or some such) are very easy to read; they're just extracts from letters to disciples, replying to their questions (unfortunately the disciples letters are not included, so the complete context is at times hard to follow).
It took me a long time to learn how to read S.A.'s heavier books like The Life Divine and Synthesis on Yoga. I eventually realised you have to read just small parts here and there, whatever line or paragraph grabs your inspiration, and allow your inner being to be receptive to and uplifted by the Meaning behind the words. It's the same with reading Ramana Maharshi, or any great sage. Approached on that level, Sri Aurobindo isn't abstract at all!
I could never read his books from cover to cover, but Tusar seems to approach them in a more scholarly way, and that's fine too. If you would like a good idea of what he is on about, but don't want to have to plough through hundreds of pages of philosophy, I would recomend just read the last four chapters of The Life Divine. That way you go straight to his message of spiritual evolution pure and simple!For a while now I have felt more of an affilation with Synthesis of Yoga, which is more practical and mystical than philosophical in approach.
Then I discovered Sri Ramana, who is even more important to me now, as he teaches the realisation of the non-dual Self, which is necessary if one is to then progress to the stages beyond that, which is what Sri Aurobindo teaches (these stages, culminating in the Supreme individual and collective Realisation of the Supramental Godhead, are all described in those last four chapters of The Life Divine). Of course, for us ordinary mortals, even Self-Realisation (basic Enlightenment) is a huge task!
For me philosophy is mostly of little interest, perhaps because of that abstract quality that you refer to, although I appreciate for some it is a genuine sadhana (spiritual path). The way I tend to communicate what Sri Aurobindo taught is to focus on the practical and mystical side of the teachings, and their implications for the integral paradigm and the Earth as a whole. Of course that leaves out all the more purely philosophical and intellectual stuff, as well as all the poems and the political and social commentary.
But Sri Aurobindo is like an ocean, and it isn't possible to encompass the whole ocean. One can only splash in the shallows. It's like that when approiaching the teachings of every truly great sage. 3:09 AM
Posted by Tusar N Mohapatra at 10:48 PM 0 comments Links
Article Source : http://seof.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
The sun before abysmal Night
He who would save the world must be one with the world…
His soul must be wider than the universe
And feel eternity as its very stuff,
Rejecting the moment's personality,
Know itself older than the birth of Time,
Creation an incident in its consciousness,
Arcturus and Belphegor grains of fire
Circling in a corner of its boundless self,
The world's destruction a small transient storm
In the calm infinity it has become…
Consent to be nothing and none, dissolve Time's work,
Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name.
Annul thyself that only God may be
60: The sun before abysmal Night
A Spiritual Biography of Savitri
A calm slow sun looked down from tranquil heavens…
The night's gold treasure of autumnal moons
Came floating shipped through ripples of fairy air.
And Savitri's life was glad, fulfilled like earth's;
She had found herself, she knew her being's aim.
Although her kingdom of marvellous change within
Remained unspoken in her secret breast,
All that lived round her felt its magic's charm…
Absorbed in wide communion with the Unseen
The mild ascetics of the wood received
A sudden greatening of their lonely muse.
This bright perfection of her inner state
Poured overflowing into her outward scene,
Made beautiful dull common natural things
And action wonderful and time divine…
A light invaded all from her being's light;
Her heart-beats' dance communicated bliss:
Happiness grew happier, shared with her, by her touch
And grief some solace found when she drew near.
Above the cherished head of Satyavan
She saw not now Fate's dark and lethal orb;
A golden circle round a mystic sun
Disclosed to her new-born predicting sight
The cyclic rondure of a sovereign life…
He lay not by a dolorous decree
A victim in the dismal antre of death…
Always he was with her, a living soul
That met her eyes with close enamoured eyes,
A living body near to her body's joy.
But now no longer in these great wild woods…
But mid the thinking high-built lives of men…
Body to body near, soul near to soul,
Moving as if by a common breath and will,
They were tied in the single circling of their days
Together by love's unseen atmosphere,
Inseparable like the earth and sky.
Thus for a while she trod the Golden Path;
This was the sun before abysmal Night.
Once as she sat in deep felicitous muse,
Still quivering from her lover's strong embrace,
And made her joy a bridge twixt earth and heaven,
An abyss yawned suddenly beneath her heart.
A vast and nameless fear dragged at her nerves
As drags a wild beast its half-slaughtered prey;
It seemed to have no den from which it sprang:
It was not hers, but hid its unseen cause.
Then rushing came its vast and fearful Fount.
A formless Dread with shapeless endless wings
Filling the universe with its dangerous breath,
A denser darkness than the Night could bear,
Enveloped the heavens and possessed the earth.
A rolling surge of silent death, it came
Curving round the far edge of the quaking globe;
Effacing heaven with its enormous stride
It willed to expunge the choked and anguished air
And end the fable of the joy of life.
It seemed her very being to forbid,
Abolishing all by which her nature lived,
And laboured to blot out her body and soul,
A clutch of some half-seen Invisible,
An ocean of terror and of sovereign might,
A person and a black Infinity.
It seemed to cry to her without thought or word
The message of its dark eternity
And the awful meaning of its silences…
A voice to the dumb anguish of the heart
Conveyed a stark sense of unspoken words;
In her own depths she heard the unuttered thought
That made unreal the world and all life meant.
“Who art thou who claim’st thy crown of separate birth,
The illusion of thy soul's reality
And personal godhead on an ignorant globe
In the animal body of imperfect man?
Hope not to be happy in a world of pain
And dream not, listening to the unspoken Word
And dazzled by the inexpressible Ray,
Transcending the mute Superconscient's realm
To give a body to the Unknowable…
Or call into thy chamber the Divine
And sit with God tasting a human joy.
I have created all, all I devour;
I am Death and the dark terrible Mother of life,
I am Kali black and naked in the world,
I am Maya and the universe is my cheat.
I lay waste human happiness with my breath
And slay the will to live, the joy to be
That all may pass back into nothingness
And only abide the eternal and absolute…
For only the blank Eternal can be true…
O soul, inventor of man's thoughts and hopes…
At last know thyself, from vain existence cease.”
A shadow of the negating Absolute,
The intolerant Darkness travelled surging past
And ebbed in her the formidable Voice…
Then from the heights a greater Voice came down…
The cry of the Abyss drew Heaven's reply,
A might of storm chased by the might of the Sun:
“O Soul, bare not thy kingdom to the foe;
Consent to hide thy royalty of bliss
Lest Time and Fate find out its avenues
And beat with thunderous knock upon thy gates.
Hide whilst thou canst thy treasure of separate self
Behind the luminous rampart of thy depths
Till of a vaster empire it grows part.
But not for self alone the self is won:
Content abide not with one conquered realm;
Adventure all to make the whole world thine,
To break into greater kingdoms turn thy force.
Fear not to be nothing that thou mayst be all;
Assent to the emptiness of the Supreme
That all in thee may reach its absolute…
If for thy own sake only thou hast come,
An immortal spirit into the mortal's world…
Why hadst thou any need to come at all?
Thou hast come down into a struggling world…
To make thy life a bridge twixt earth and heaven…
God must be born on earth and be as man
That man being human may grow even as God.
He who would save the world must be one with the world…
His soul must be wider than the universe
And feel eternity as its very stuff,
Rejecting the moment's personality,
Know itself older than the birth of Time,
Creation an incident in its consciousness,
Arcturus and Belphegor grains of fire
Circling in a corner of its boundless self,
The world's destruction a small transient storm
In the calm infinity it has become.
If thou wouldst a little loosen the vast chain,
Draw back from the world that the Idea has made…
Then shalt thou know how the great bondage came.
Banish all thought from thee and be God's void.
Then shalt thou uncover the Unknowable
And the Superconscient conscious grow on thy tops;
Infinity's vision through thy gaze shall pierce,
Thou shalt look into the eyes of the Unknown;
Find the hid Truth in things seen null and false,
Behind things known discover Mystery's rear.
Thou shalt be one with God's bare reality
And the miraculous world he has become
And the diviner miracle still to be
When Nature who is now unconscious God
Translucent grows to the Eternal's light,
Her seeing his sight, her walk his steps of power
And life is filled with a spiritual joy
And Matter is the Spirit's willing bride.
Consent to be nothing and none, dissolve Time's work,
Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name.
Annul thyself that only God may be.”
Article Source : http://www.sciy.org/blog/INTEGRALYOGA/SRIAUROBINDO/_archives/2008/2/2/3502180.html
His soul must be wider than the universe
And feel eternity as its very stuff,
Rejecting the moment's personality,
Know itself older than the birth of Time,
Creation an incident in its consciousness,
Arcturus and Belphegor grains of fire
Circling in a corner of its boundless self,
The world's destruction a small transient storm
In the calm infinity it has become…
Consent to be nothing and none, dissolve Time's work,
Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name.
Annul thyself that only God may be
60: The sun before abysmal Night
A Spiritual Biography of Savitri
A calm slow sun looked down from tranquil heavens…
The night's gold treasure of autumnal moons
Came floating shipped through ripples of fairy air.
And Savitri's life was glad, fulfilled like earth's;
She had found herself, she knew her being's aim.
Although her kingdom of marvellous change within
Remained unspoken in her secret breast,
All that lived round her felt its magic's charm…
Absorbed in wide communion with the Unseen
The mild ascetics of the wood received
A sudden greatening of their lonely muse.
This bright perfection of her inner state
Poured overflowing into her outward scene,
Made beautiful dull common natural things
And action wonderful and time divine…
A light invaded all from her being's light;
Her heart-beats' dance communicated bliss:
Happiness grew happier, shared with her, by her touch
And grief some solace found when she drew near.
Above the cherished head of Satyavan
She saw not now Fate's dark and lethal orb;
A golden circle round a mystic sun
Disclosed to her new-born predicting sight
The cyclic rondure of a sovereign life…
He lay not by a dolorous decree
A victim in the dismal antre of death…
Always he was with her, a living soul
That met her eyes with close enamoured eyes,
A living body near to her body's joy.
But now no longer in these great wild woods…
But mid the thinking high-built lives of men…
Body to body near, soul near to soul,
Moving as if by a common breath and will,
They were tied in the single circling of their days
Together by love's unseen atmosphere,
Inseparable like the earth and sky.
Thus for a while she trod the Golden Path;
This was the sun before abysmal Night.
Once as she sat in deep felicitous muse,
Still quivering from her lover's strong embrace,
And made her joy a bridge twixt earth and heaven,
An abyss yawned suddenly beneath her heart.
A vast and nameless fear dragged at her nerves
As drags a wild beast its half-slaughtered prey;
It seemed to have no den from which it sprang:
It was not hers, but hid its unseen cause.
Then rushing came its vast and fearful Fount.
A formless Dread with shapeless endless wings
Filling the universe with its dangerous breath,
A denser darkness than the Night could bear,
Enveloped the heavens and possessed the earth.
A rolling surge of silent death, it came
Curving round the far edge of the quaking globe;
Effacing heaven with its enormous stride
It willed to expunge the choked and anguished air
And end the fable of the joy of life.
It seemed her very being to forbid,
Abolishing all by which her nature lived,
And laboured to blot out her body and soul,
A clutch of some half-seen Invisible,
An ocean of terror and of sovereign might,
A person and a black Infinity.
It seemed to cry to her without thought or word
The message of its dark eternity
And the awful meaning of its silences…
A voice to the dumb anguish of the heart
Conveyed a stark sense of unspoken words;
In her own depths she heard the unuttered thought
That made unreal the world and all life meant.
“Who art thou who claim’st thy crown of separate birth,
The illusion of thy soul's reality
And personal godhead on an ignorant globe
In the animal body of imperfect man?
Hope not to be happy in a world of pain
And dream not, listening to the unspoken Word
And dazzled by the inexpressible Ray,
Transcending the mute Superconscient's realm
To give a body to the Unknowable…
Or call into thy chamber the Divine
And sit with God tasting a human joy.
I have created all, all I devour;
I am Death and the dark terrible Mother of life,
I am Kali black and naked in the world,
I am Maya and the universe is my cheat.
I lay waste human happiness with my breath
And slay the will to live, the joy to be
That all may pass back into nothingness
And only abide the eternal and absolute…
For only the blank Eternal can be true…
O soul, inventor of man's thoughts and hopes…
At last know thyself, from vain existence cease.”
A shadow of the negating Absolute,
The intolerant Darkness travelled surging past
And ebbed in her the formidable Voice…
Then from the heights a greater Voice came down…
The cry of the Abyss drew Heaven's reply,
A might of storm chased by the might of the Sun:
“O Soul, bare not thy kingdom to the foe;
Consent to hide thy royalty of bliss
Lest Time and Fate find out its avenues
And beat with thunderous knock upon thy gates.
Hide whilst thou canst thy treasure of separate self
Behind the luminous rampart of thy depths
Till of a vaster empire it grows part.
But not for self alone the self is won:
Content abide not with one conquered realm;
Adventure all to make the whole world thine,
To break into greater kingdoms turn thy force.
Fear not to be nothing that thou mayst be all;
Assent to the emptiness of the Supreme
That all in thee may reach its absolute…
If for thy own sake only thou hast come,
An immortal spirit into the mortal's world…
Why hadst thou any need to come at all?
Thou hast come down into a struggling world…
To make thy life a bridge twixt earth and heaven…
God must be born on earth and be as man
That man being human may grow even as God.
He who would save the world must be one with the world…
His soul must be wider than the universe
And feel eternity as its very stuff,
Rejecting the moment's personality,
Know itself older than the birth of Time,
Creation an incident in its consciousness,
Arcturus and Belphegor grains of fire
Circling in a corner of its boundless self,
The world's destruction a small transient storm
In the calm infinity it has become.
If thou wouldst a little loosen the vast chain,
Draw back from the world that the Idea has made…
Then shalt thou know how the great bondage came.
Banish all thought from thee and be God's void.
Then shalt thou uncover the Unknowable
And the Superconscient conscious grow on thy tops;
Infinity's vision through thy gaze shall pierce,
Thou shalt look into the eyes of the Unknown;
Find the hid Truth in things seen null and false,
Behind things known discover Mystery's rear.
Thou shalt be one with God's bare reality
And the miraculous world he has become
And the diviner miracle still to be
When Nature who is now unconscious God
Translucent grows to the Eternal's light,
Her seeing his sight, her walk his steps of power
And life is filled with a spiritual joy
And Matter is the Spirit's willing bride.
Consent to be nothing and none, dissolve Time's work,
Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name.
Annul thyself that only God may be.”
Article Source : http://www.sciy.org/blog/INTEGRALYOGA/SRIAUROBINDO/_archives/2008/2/2/3502180.html
Varnamala
Gangotri
INVITATION
With wind and the weather beating round me
Up to the hill and the moorland I go.
Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?
Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?
Not in the petty circle of cities
Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell;
Over me God is blue in the welkin
Against me the wind and the storm rebel.
I sport with solitude here in my regions,
Of misadventure have me a friend.
Who would live largely? Who would live freely?
Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.
I am the lord of tempest and mountain,
I am the Spirit of freedom and pride.
Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger
Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.
--(Alipore Jail 1908-09)
REVELATION
Someone leaping from the rocks
Past me ran with windblown locks
Like a startled bright surmise
Visible to mortal eyes, --
Just a cheek of frightened rose
That with sudden beauty glows,
Just a footstep like the wind
And a hurried glance behind,
And then nothing, -- as a thought
Escapes the mind ere it is caught.
Someone of the heavenly rout
From behind the veil ran out
A TREE
A tree beside the sandy river-beach
Holds up its topmost boughs
Like fingers towards the skies they cannot reach,
Earth-bound, heaven amorous.
This is the soul of man. Body and brain
Hungry for earth our heavenly flight detain.
THE MIRACLE OF BIRTH
I saw my soul a traveller through Time;
From life to life the cosmic ways it trod,
Obscure in the depths and on the heights sublime,
Evolving from the worm into the god.
A spark of the eternal Fire, it came
To build a house in Matter for the Unborn.
The inconscient sunless Night received the flame,
In the brute seed of things dumb and forlorn
Life stirred and Thought outlined a gleaming shape
Till on the stark inanimate earth could move,
Born to somnambulist Nature in her sleep
A thinking creature who can hope and love.
Still by slow steps the miracle goes on,
The Immortal's gradual birth mid mire and stone.
BECAUSE THOU ART
Because Thou art All-beauty and All-bliss,
My soul blind and enamoured yearns for Thee;
It bears thy mystic touch in all that is
And thrills with the burden of that ecstasy.
Behind all eyes I meet Thy secret gaze
And in each voice I hear Thy magic tune:
Thy sweetness haunts my heart through Nature's ways
??? Nowhere it beats now from Thy snare immune.
It loves Thy body in all living things;
??? Thy joy is there in every leaf and stone:
The moments bring thee on their fiery wings;
??? Sight's endless artistry is Thou alone.
Time voyages with Thee upon its prow?
And all the futures passionate hope is Thou.
?
BRIDE OF THE FIRE?
Bride of the Fire, clasp me now close,--
??? Bride of the Fire!
I have shed the bloom of the earthly rose,
??? I have slain desire.
Beauty of the Light, surround my life,--
??? Beauty of the Light!
I have sacrificed longing and parted from grief,
??? I can bear thy delight.
Image of ecstasy, thrill and enlace,--
??? Image of bliss!
I would see only thy marvellous face,
??? Feel only thy kiss.
Voice of Infinity, sound in my heart,--
??? Call of the One!
Stamp there thy radiance, never to part,
??? O living sun.
?
?
A GOD'S LABOUR?
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
??? Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
??? My jeweled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
??? Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
??? The moods of infinity.
But too bright were our heavens, too far away,
??? Too frail their ethereal stuff;
Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay;
??? The roots were not deep enough.
He who would bring the heavens here
??? Must descend himself? into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
??? And tread the dolorous way.
Coercing my godhead I have come down
??? Here on the sordid earth,
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
??? Twixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and long
??? Mid a horror of filth and mire
A bed for the golden river's song,
??? A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter's night
??? To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
??? Are my meed since the world began.
For man's mind is the dupe of his animal self;
??? Hoping its lusts to win,
He harbours within him a grisly Elf
??? Enamoured of sorrow and sin.
The grey Elf shudders from heaven's flame
??? And from all things glad and pure;
Only by pleasure and passion and pain
??? His drama can endure.
All around is darkness and strife;
??? For the lamps that men call suns
Are but halfway gleams on this stumbling life
??? Cast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hope
??? That lead to a failing edge;
A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,
??? An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,
??? The Light of lights they refuse;
To ignorant gods they lift their cry
??? Or a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,
??? Each enemy slain revives,
Each battle for ever is fought and refought
??? Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one
??? And the Titan kings assail,
But I cannot rest till my task is done
??? And wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!
??? "Thy hope is Chimera's head
Painting the sky with its fiery stain;
??? Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead.
"Who art thou that babblest of heavenly ease
??? And joy and golden room
To us who are waifs on inconscient seas
??? And bound to life's iron doom?
"This earth is ours, a field of Night
??? For our petty flickering fires.
How shall it brook the sacred Light
??? Or suffer a god's desires?
"Come, let us slay him and end his course!
??? Then shall our hearts have release
From the burden and call of his glory and force
??? And the curb of his wide white peace."
But the god is there in my mortal breast
??? Who wrestles with error and fate
And tramples a road through mire and waste
??? For the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!
??? Dig deeper, deeper? yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
??? And knock at the keyless gate."
I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
??? At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God's riddle sleep
??? On the Dragon's outspread wings.
I left the surface gods of mind
??? And life's unsatisfied seas
And plunged through the body's alleys blind
??? To the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth's dreadful heart
??? And heard her black mass's bell.
I have seen the source whence her agonies part
??? And the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moan
??? And the goblin voices flit;
I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,
??? I have walked in the bottomless pit.
On a desperate stair my feet have trod
??? Armoured with boundless peace,
Bringing the fires of the splendour of God
??? Into the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still;
??? All veils are breaking now.
I have heard His voice and borne His will
??? On my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged
??? And the golden waters pour
Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged
??? And glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven's fire is lit in the breast of the earth
??? And the undying suns here burn;
Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth
??? The incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:
??? Down a gold-red stair-way wend
The radiant children of Paradise
??? Clarioning darkness's end.
A little more and the new life's doors
??? Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
??? In a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air,
??? For in a raiment of gold and blue
There shall move on the earth embodied and fair
??? The living truth of you.
Article Source : http://www.geocities.com/varnamala/aurobindo.html
INVITATION
With wind and the weather beating round me
Up to the hill and the moorland I go.
Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?
Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?
Not in the petty circle of cities
Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell;
Over me God is blue in the welkin
Against me the wind and the storm rebel.
I sport with solitude here in my regions,
Of misadventure have me a friend.
Who would live largely? Who would live freely?
Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.
I am the lord of tempest and mountain,
I am the Spirit of freedom and pride.
Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger
Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.
--(Alipore Jail 1908-09)
REVELATION
Someone leaping from the rocks
Past me ran with windblown locks
Like a startled bright surmise
Visible to mortal eyes, --
Just a cheek of frightened rose
That with sudden beauty glows,
Just a footstep like the wind
And a hurried glance behind,
And then nothing, -- as a thought
Escapes the mind ere it is caught.
Someone of the heavenly rout
From behind the veil ran out
A TREE
A tree beside the sandy river-beach
Holds up its topmost boughs
Like fingers towards the skies they cannot reach,
Earth-bound, heaven amorous.
This is the soul of man. Body and brain
Hungry for earth our heavenly flight detain.
THE MIRACLE OF BIRTH
I saw my soul a traveller through Time;
From life to life the cosmic ways it trod,
Obscure in the depths and on the heights sublime,
Evolving from the worm into the god.
A spark of the eternal Fire, it came
To build a house in Matter for the Unborn.
The inconscient sunless Night received the flame,
In the brute seed of things dumb and forlorn
Life stirred and Thought outlined a gleaming shape
Till on the stark inanimate earth could move,
Born to somnambulist Nature in her sleep
A thinking creature who can hope and love.
Still by slow steps the miracle goes on,
The Immortal's gradual birth mid mire and stone.
BECAUSE THOU ART
Because Thou art All-beauty and All-bliss,
My soul blind and enamoured yearns for Thee;
It bears thy mystic touch in all that is
And thrills with the burden of that ecstasy.
Behind all eyes I meet Thy secret gaze
And in each voice I hear Thy magic tune:
Thy sweetness haunts my heart through Nature's ways
??? Nowhere it beats now from Thy snare immune.
It loves Thy body in all living things;
??? Thy joy is there in every leaf and stone:
The moments bring thee on their fiery wings;
??? Sight's endless artistry is Thou alone.
Time voyages with Thee upon its prow?
And all the futures passionate hope is Thou.
?
BRIDE OF THE FIRE?
Bride of the Fire, clasp me now close,--
??? Bride of the Fire!
I have shed the bloom of the earthly rose,
??? I have slain desire.
Beauty of the Light, surround my life,--
??? Beauty of the Light!
I have sacrificed longing and parted from grief,
??? I can bear thy delight.
Image of ecstasy, thrill and enlace,--
??? Image of bliss!
I would see only thy marvellous face,
??? Feel only thy kiss.
Voice of Infinity, sound in my heart,--
??? Call of the One!
Stamp there thy radiance, never to part,
??? O living sun.
?
?
A GOD'S LABOUR?
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
??? Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
??? My jeweled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
??? Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
??? The moods of infinity.
But too bright were our heavens, too far away,
??? Too frail their ethereal stuff;
Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay;
??? The roots were not deep enough.
He who would bring the heavens here
??? Must descend himself? into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
??? And tread the dolorous way.
Coercing my godhead I have come down
??? Here on the sordid earth,
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
??? Twixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and long
??? Mid a horror of filth and mire
A bed for the golden river's song,
??? A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter's night
??? To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
??? Are my meed since the world began.
For man's mind is the dupe of his animal self;
??? Hoping its lusts to win,
He harbours within him a grisly Elf
??? Enamoured of sorrow and sin.
The grey Elf shudders from heaven's flame
??? And from all things glad and pure;
Only by pleasure and passion and pain
??? His drama can endure.
All around is darkness and strife;
??? For the lamps that men call suns
Are but halfway gleams on this stumbling life
??? Cast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hope
??? That lead to a failing edge;
A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,
??? An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,
??? The Light of lights they refuse;
To ignorant gods they lift their cry
??? Or a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,
??? Each enemy slain revives,
Each battle for ever is fought and refought
??? Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one
??? And the Titan kings assail,
But I cannot rest till my task is done
??? And wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!
??? "Thy hope is Chimera's head
Painting the sky with its fiery stain;
??? Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead.
"Who art thou that babblest of heavenly ease
??? And joy and golden room
To us who are waifs on inconscient seas
??? And bound to life's iron doom?
"This earth is ours, a field of Night
??? For our petty flickering fires.
How shall it brook the sacred Light
??? Or suffer a god's desires?
"Come, let us slay him and end his course!
??? Then shall our hearts have release
From the burden and call of his glory and force
??? And the curb of his wide white peace."
But the god is there in my mortal breast
??? Who wrestles with error and fate
And tramples a road through mire and waste
??? For the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!
??? Dig deeper, deeper? yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
??? And knock at the keyless gate."
I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
??? At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God's riddle sleep
??? On the Dragon's outspread wings.
I left the surface gods of mind
??? And life's unsatisfied seas
And plunged through the body's alleys blind
??? To the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth's dreadful heart
??? And heard her black mass's bell.
I have seen the source whence her agonies part
??? And the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moan
??? And the goblin voices flit;
I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,
??? I have walked in the bottomless pit.
On a desperate stair my feet have trod
??? Armoured with boundless peace,
Bringing the fires of the splendour of God
??? Into the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still;
??? All veils are breaking now.
I have heard His voice and borne His will
??? On my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged
??? And the golden waters pour
Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged
??? And glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven's fire is lit in the breast of the earth
??? And the undying suns here burn;
Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth
??? The incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:
??? Down a gold-red stair-way wend
The radiant children of Paradise
??? Clarioning darkness's end.
A little more and the new life's doors
??? Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
??? In a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air,
??? For in a raiment of gold and blue
There shall move on the earth embodied and fair
??? The living truth of you.
Article Source : http://www.geocities.com/varnamala/aurobindo.html
Lord Krishna, poem by Aurobindo
Krishna by Sri Aurobindo
At last I find a meaning of soul's birth
Into this universe terrible and sweet,
I who have felt the hungry heart of earth
Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna's feet.
I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,
And heard the passion of the Lover's flute,
And known a deathless ecstasy's surprise
And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.
Nearer and nearer now the music draws,
Life shudders with a strange felicity;
All Nature is a wide enamoured pause
Hoping her lord to touch, to clasp, to be.
For this one moment lived the ages past;
The world now throbs fulfilled in me at last.
At last I find a meaning of soul's birth
Into this universe terrible and sweet,
I who have felt the hungry heart of earth
Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna's feet.
I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,
And heard the passion of the Lover's flute,
And known a deathless ecstasy's surprise
And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.
Nearer and nearer now the music draws,
Life shudders with a strange felicity;
All Nature is a wide enamoured pause
Hoping her lord to touch, to clasp, to be.
For this one moment lived the ages past;
The world now throbs fulfilled in me at last.
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