Book-3-Study-Canto-2

Book Three: Canto II

The Adoration of the Divine Mother

Summary
As the soul approaches its self-discovery there comes an absolute stillness; the sense is swallowed up; all that the mind has known appears unreal. Only an Inconceivable is left. There is liberation from all.

But that is not the end. This escape is not the crown for the labours of the soul; the soul has a purpose to fulfil, a mystery to solve. The silence and the release is only a gate on the Journey. Behind the zero is the face of the Immortal, who is to be revealed in the shape of this material world.

As Aswapathy has this experience of extinction, the Presence he has yearned for draws close. A Being of wisdom, power, delight emerges drawing to her breast Nature, world and soul. From this Being issues a beautiful lustre and links itself to the heart of Aswapathy. All turns beautiful, felicitous.

It is the Mother of All, the mediatrix between earth and the Supreme. In her presence opposites cease to strive. Wisdom dawns, existence reveals its purpose.

Love manifests and suffering ceases to be. Life gains over death. Error drops away. The Formed and the Formless join in Her face.

She, the Divine Mother, stands at the head of Time, She is the luminous heart of the Unknowable. All Nature calls to her alone. She is the Way and She is the Goal.

Her rapture fills the limbs of Aswapathy; all his seekings are fulfilled in Her. He realises, however, that his single freedom cannot satisfy him. He asks for Her light and bliss for all earth and men. He is aware that his own strength is inadequate for this purpose and he surrenders all of himself to Her so that Her vast Power can act and fill the finite with the Infinite, bring Her healing touch of Love, Truth and Joy into the suffering world. He gives his freed soul to her and her alone.

A Stillness Absolute

A stillness absolute, incommunicable,
Meets the sheer self-discovery of the soul;
A wall of stillness shuts it from the world,
A gulf of stillness swallows up the sense
And makes unreal all that mind has known,
All that the labouring senses still would weave
Prolonging an imaged unreality.

As one steps, in the course of one’s spiritual quest, across the threshold of the soul, one is greeted with an over-powering stillness, a silence beyond all relations. In that stillness the world is cut off from oneself. The sense gets lost in its deeps; all the experience that the mind has had before appears to be unreal; all that the senses would construct can only prolong this image of unreality.

Self’s Vast Silence

Self’s vast spiritual silence occupies space;
Only the Inconceivable is left,
Only the Nameless without space and time:
Abolished is the burdening need of life:
Thought falls from us, we cease from joy and grief;
The ego is dead; we are free from being and care,
We have done with birth and death and work and fate.

The boundless silence of the self extends everywhere. What remains is the Unthinkable, the Nameless beyond time and space. The urgency of life is abolished. There is no more thought, no more joy, no more grief. The lynchpin of life in the world, the ego, is no more. One feels one has seen the last of the struggle of life and death, strife and fate. One has arrived.

Too Early to Rejoice

O soul, it is too early to rejoice!

Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the Self,
Thou hast leaped into a glad divine abyss;
But where hast thou thrown self’s mission and self’s power?

On what dead bank on the Eternal’s road?

One was within thee who was self and world,
What hast thou done for his purpose in the stars?

Escape brings not the victory and the crown!

That, however, is only a misleading appearance. The journey’s end is not yet. The soul has reached only the silence of the Self, plunged into the happy deeps of divine Peace. The true mission with which it set out on its career is not fulfilled, the power with which it was endowed is not utilised. The soul is laden with the charge of the manifesting Divine who indwells it, but it has not served its purpose. Certainly, it has escaped the toil and the struggle of the manifestation, but that surely is not the victory and the crown that were intended for it when it was launched on the great adventure!

Only Half is Done

Something thou cam’st to do from the Unknown,
But nothing is finished and the world goes on,
Because only half God’s cosmic work is done.

Only the everlasting No has neared
And stared into thy eyes and killed thy heart:

The soul came from the Unknown Source with a mission; but its mission is not completed and hence the world goes on on its usual rounds. If the mission of the soul were fulfilled the world would be different. What has been done is only part of the assignment given by God. Only an aspect of the Reality that is not involved in the labour of becoming has been experienced and the soul’s will to become, to manifest has been smothered.

Everlasting Yes

But where is the Lover’s everlasting Yes,
And immortality in the secret heart,
The voice that chants to the creator Fire,
The symboled OM, the great assenting Word,
The bridge between the rapture and the calm,
The passion and the beauty of the Bride,
The chamber where the glorious enemies kiss,
The smile that saves, the golden peak of things?

This too is Truth at the mystic fount of Life.

But there is also the aspect that affirms, that enjoys the manifestation. There is the immortality at the core pressing to realise itself; there is the call that summons the formative energies; there is the rhythmic word of sanction constantly vibrating; there is this world-bridge between the states of calm and the intensities of bliss; there is the wonderful beauty and passion of Nature; there is the meeting place of the opposites making creation possible; there is the smile of Grace; there is the summit of the shining Truth.

All of this is equally true and compulsive of life.

Veil of Light

A black veil has been lifted; we have seen
The mighty shadow of the omniscient Lord;
But who has lifted up the veil of light
And who has seen the body of the King?

The veil of Ignorance concealing the sovereign Reality has been lifted and we have seen the great shadow of the omniscient Lord. But there is yet another veil, the veil of light, that is to be lifted before the very body of the supreme King of All is visible.

The luminous stillness and Silence that greets the seeker is not the end; it is only a veil albeit of Light—and that has to be lifted and the quest pursued. For beyond is the very Person of the Lord.

Mystery Remains

The mystery of God’s birth and acts remains
Leaving unbroken the last chapter’s seal,
Unsolved the riddle of the unfinished Play;
The cosmic Player laughs within his mask,
And still the last inviolate secret hides
Behind the human glory of a Form,
Behind the gold eidolon of a Name.

The question of the how and the why of God’s manifestation is not yet solved, the last seal on the mystery is not yet broken, the plot of the Cosmic Play is still to be unveiled. The Player of the Cosmic Drama is still behind a mask, keeping the secret to himself, hiding it behind the greatness of the human form, behind the glittering spectacle of a Name.

The Beyond

A large white line has figured as a goal,
But far beyond the ineffable suntracks blaze.

What seemed the source and end was a wide gate,
A last bare step into eternity.

The white purity of silence appears to be the terminus. But there is a beyond. Unspeakable vasts of Glory are there, farther on. What appeared to be the origin and the goal of the world reveals itself as a fresh large opening, an ultimate bare step into Eternity.

Rays Return to the Sun

An eye has opened upon timelessness,
Infinity takes back the forms it gave,
And through God’s darkness or his naked light
His million rays return into the Sun.

An opening is effected from Time into the Timeless. All the multitude of forms that issued from out of the Infinite Being return to it. The countless emanations that spread out at the beginning of creation seem to return to their Source through the Divine Darkness of Cessation or through the dazzling light of Splendour.

Zero Sign of the Supreme

There is a zero sign of the Supreme;
Nature left nude and still uncovers God.

But in her grandiose nothingness all is there:
When her strong garbs are torn away from us,
The soul’s ignorance is slain but not the soul.

The Supreme is represented by many signs. And the zero is one of them. But it is not an empty zero. For even when Nature is denuded of all forms and movements, it is not a mere Nothing that is left but the very Godhead that stands unveiled. This magnificent zero in fact contains all in its embryo. When all the veils of Nature are removed, it is only the coverings of ignorance over the soul that are eliminated, the soul is revealed ever pure and shining.

Negation is not all

The zero covers an immortal face.

A high and black negation is not all,
A huge extinction is not God’s last word,
Life’s ultimate sense, the close of being’s course,
The meaning of this great mysterious world.

The zero is only a mask over the Face of the Immortal. A total negation is not the whole truth. An immense extinction is not the ultimate say of God, the final note of Life, the end of the journey of the soul, the true meaning of the mystery of the universe.

The Power in Silence

In absolute silence sleeps an absolute Power.

Awaking, it can wake the trance-bound soul
And in the ray reveal the parent sun:
It can make the world a vessel of Spirit’s force,
It can fashion in the clay God’s perfect shape.

It is in silence that power gathers itself. In absolute silence an absolute Power is dormant. When this sleeping, potent Power awakes, it can move into action the soul that is lost in itself, and in its radiance, reveal the Source of all, the Truth-Light. This Power can turn the world that is subject to the incapacities and limitations of Ignorance, into a receptacle of the Force of the Spirit. It can mould the most obscure matter into a beautiful form of God.

To Fulfil God’s Desire

To free the self is but one radiant pace;
Here to fulfil himself was God’s desire.

To liberate the soul from the bonds of ignorance and falsehood into the vasts of Silence, the folds of unnamable Peace, is indeed necessary. But that is not the final goal; it is only a great step in the Journey. The real objective is to fulfil the will of God and that will is to manifest Himself here, in this world. The soul has this mission to discharge after its liberation.

Aswapathy is aware of this truth.

A Presence Nears

Even while he stood on being’s naked edge
And all the passion and seeking of his soul
Faced their extinction in some featureless Vast,
The Presence he yearned for suddenly drew close.

Across the silence of the ultimate Calm,
Out of a marvellous Transcendence’ core,
A body of wonder and translucency
As if a sweet mystic summary of her self,
Escaping into the original Bliss
Had come enlarged out of eternity,
Someone came infinite and absolute.

When Aswapathy is thus standing on the bare edge of existence and all his search and passion are about to get lost in the yawning featureless Vast, suddenly, a Presence which he has long thirsted for comes close. This Presence infinite and absolute, draws near across the silence of the pervading Calm from out of the bosom of the Transcendent. It is a marvellous body, luminously transparent; a happy epitome of its self, precipitating itself into a native bliss. It comes out of eternity huge and infinite.

Being of Wisdom and Delight

A being of wisdom, power and delight,
Even as a mother draws her child to her arms,
Took to her breast Nature and world and soul.

Abolishing the signless emptiness,
Breaking the vacancy and voiceless hush,
Piercing the limitless Unknowable,
Into the liberty of the motionless depths
A beautiful and felicitous lustre stole,
Imaged itself in a surprising beam
And built a golden passage to his heart
Touching through him all longing sentient things.

A being of light, power and bliss takes in her arms, as a mother draws her child, the whole universe. The featureless void is no more, the hush of stillness is broken; the boundless Unknowable is opened up and a beautiful, happy Light comes over in the form of an unexpected beam forging a shining passage to the heart of Aswapathy and through him touching all the yearning sentients.

Sweetness of the All-Beautiful

A moment’s sweetness of the All-Beautiful
Cancelled the vanity of the cosmic whirl.

A Nature throbbing with a Heart divine
Was felt in the unconscious universe;
It made the breath a happy mystery
And brought a love sustaining pain with joy;
A love that bore the cross of pain with joy,
Eudaemonised the sorrow of the world,
Made happy the weight of long unending Time,
The secret caught of God’s felicity.

of the cosmic whirl. All through the unconscious universe, Nature is felt vibrating with a divine Soul. This divine Presence turns the breath into a felicitous mystery, brings in a love that buttresses pain with joy, makes of the world’s sorrow a glad mystique, makes the heavy tread of unending time a happy experience and grasps the secret of the Felicity of God.

Justifying the Labour

Affirming in life a hidden ecstasy
It held the spirit to its miraculous course;
Carrying immortal values to the hours
It justified the labour of the suns.

This divine Heart constantly affirms in life the presence of a veiled Delight, the Delight that makes all living possible, that sustains and directs the evolving spirit on its journey. Imparting immortal significances to the unrollings in time it justifies the labour of Nature.

Mother’s Might

For one was there supreme behind the God.

A Mother Might brooded upon the world;
A Consciousness revealed its marvellous front
Transcending all that is, denying none:
Imperishable above our fallen heads
He felt a rapturous and unstumbling Force.

For here is someone, supreme behind the ruler of the worlds. A Mother Power broods upon the world. A Consciousness that is above all, and yet excluding none, reveals itself. Aswapathy feels an imperishable, rapturous and irresistible Force above our defeated selves.

The Mother of all

The undying Truth appeared, the enduring Power
Of all that here is made and then destroyed,
The Mother of all godheads and all strengths
Who, mediatrix, binds earth to the Supreme.

What reveals itself is the eternal Truth, the undiminishing Power that upholds all this transient creation. It is the Mother of all creative puissances, who links mortal life with the Immortal, the earth with the Supreme, and makes possible the union of both.

Enigma Ceases

The Enigma ceased that rules our nature’s night,
The covering Nescience was unmasked and slain;
Its mind of error was stripped off from things
And the dull moods of its perverting will.

Now ceases the enigma of this creation. Nescience that covers half the creation is stamped out. The errorful mind born of this Nature in nescience is eliminated; the inertia and falsehood of its distorting will are thrown off.

All-Seeing Identity

Illumined by her all-seeing identity
Knowledge and Ignorance could strive no more;
No longer could the titan Opposites,
Antagonist poles of the world’s artifice,
Impose the illusion of their twofold screen
Throwing their figures between us and her.

In the brilliant light thrown by the Divine Mother’s vision which embraces all in one identity, Knowledge and Ignorance, the old antagonists on the world’s stage, combat no more. They no longer impose the seeming double screen of their workings between us and the Divine Creatrix.

Wisdom was Near

The Wisdom was near, disguised by its own works,
Of which the darkened universe is the robe.

No more existence seemed an aimless fall,
Extinction was no more the sole release.

The Wisdom which is concealed behind the exterior of its multitude of activities, and of which this obscured universe is the cloak, which ever beats within the body of this universe in Ignorance, draws near. Existence is no more seen as an aimless fall, extinction from life is no more posed as the sole possible release for the soul. The real meaning of existence begins to dawn.

Clue Found

The hidden Word was found, the long-sought clue,
Revealed was the meaning of our spirit’s birth,
Condemned to an imperfect body and mind,
In the inconscience of material things
And the indignity of mortal life.

The mystic Word that holds the clue is found. The meaning of the birth of the spirit on earth, why the free and immortal spirit embodies itself in imperfect body and mind, buries itself in the stark inconscience of matter and suffers the degradation of mortality, is revealed.

Sorrow Annulled

A Heart was felt in the spaces wide and bare,
A burning Love from white spiritual founts
Annulled the sorrow of the ignorant depths;
Suffering was lost in her immortal smile.

A divine Heart is felt vibrating in the wide spaces; a flaming Love springs from the pure spiritual founts above and negates utterly the sorrow in the depths of Ignorance. In the immortal smile of the Divine Mother, all suffering is forgotten, lost.

All Light and Love

A Life from beyond grew conqueror here of Death;
To err no more was natural to mind;
Wrong could not come where all was light and love.

An eternal Life from beyond the known ranges of existence grows and conquers Death. The mind which errs normally in its judgements ceases to do so; not to err becomes natural to it. And where all is light and love as a result of this Presence of the Mother of All, wrong does not come.

Her Body of Beauty

The Formless and the Formed were joined in her.

Immensity was exceeded by a look,
A Face revealed the crowded Infinite.

Incarnating inexpressibly in her limbs
The boundless joy the blind world-forces seek,
Her body of beauty mooned the seas of bliss.

Opposites like Form and the Formless are found together in the Great Mother. Her look is vaster than the Immensity of existence. The multitudinous Infinite stands revealed in her single Face. Her limbs embody, mysteriously, the endless joy which the blind forms in the world seek but fail to secure. Her body is a veritable structured beauty and acts as a moon to the seas of bliss, stirring and throwing them into rapid movement; bliss flows where her body is.

At the Head She Stands

At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,
In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;
Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base.

She stands high above controlling the cycles of birth, labour and fate. She alone can alter the mighty foundations of inexorable Time.

Golden Bridge

Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;
The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.

The secret of existence veiled by Nescience is in her keeping. Hers also is the transforming energy of the Spirit. She is the shining bridge between earth and heaven, Matter and Spirit, darkness and light. She is the marvellous Flame that builds the creation and leads it to its goal.

Luminous Heart of the Unknown

The luminous heart of the Unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent,
The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts,
The joy that beckons from the impossible,
The Might of all that never yet came down.

She is the luminous core of the Unknown, the silence-based Power in the profounds of the Reality. She is the Force that effectuates, the exact Word that manifests and creates. She is the summit that pulls us upwards to it. She is the blazing Light from which we kindle our many lights, the Splendour that looms over the still unreached vasts of God. She is the Joy that .inspires adventure and makes possible the impossible. She is the Might from which all derives but which has not yet come down on earth.

All Nature Calls to Her

All Nature dumbly calls to her alone
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.

Striving Nature mutely appeals to her, and her alone, to heal with her touch the incessant ache of life, to break the seals that keep the soul of man in obscurity, to light her flame of aspiration, ascent and liberation in the shut-in heart of things.

Contraries Prepare Harmony

All here shall be one day her sweetness’s home,
All contraries prepare her harmony;
Towards her our knowledge climbs, our passion gropes,
In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,
Her clasp will turn to ecstasy our pain.

One day all here shall be the home of her felicity. All the present contraries are really preparing in their clash the advent of her harmony. Our knowledge climbs up to her, our passion gropes towards her; what is pain now shall be transmuted by her clasp into ecstasy and in that miraculous rapture we shall dwell.

Fulfilment

Our self shall be one self with all through her.

In her confirmed because transformed in her,
Our life shall find in its fulfilled response
Above, the boundless hushed beatitudes,
Below, the wonder of the embrace divine.

By becoming one with her, we become one with all; for in her all find their unity. When our life becomes one with her it gets transformed into her superlife and gets established in her; then is it fulfilled and then it discovers the still vasts of bliss above and the wondrous clasp of the Divine everywhere on earth here below.

One Pointing Spire

This known as in a thunder-flash of God,
The rapture of things eternal filled his limbs;
Amazement fell upon his ravished sense;
His spirit was caught in her intolerant flame.

Once seen, his heart acknowledged only her.

Only a hunger of infinite bliss was left.

All aims in her were lost, then found in her;
His base was gathered into one pointing spire.

This Knowledge flashes to Aswapathy and the rapture of the immortal invades his being. His senses are overcome by bliss and lie amazed. His spirit is seized by the conquering flame of the Divine Mother. Once he has seen her, his heart acknowledges her alone as its sovereign. Only the devouring hunger of the boundless bliss remains; all his previous aims merge in her and then find themselves in her. His whole foundation gathers into a single high pointing cone.

Seed Cast

Thus was a seed cast into endless Time.

A Word is spoken or a Light is shown,
A moment sees, the ages toil to express.

So flashing out of the Timeless leaped the worlds;
An eternal instant is the cause of the years.

Thus is a seed sown in Aswapathy, the seed that is to grow in time to come.

Such is the process in this Creation. One great Word is uttered, a Light flashes, and in one single moment the Vision is seen but it requires ages of toil to work out, to manifest what is so released. This is how the worlds have issued out of the Eternal. A moment’s vibration in the Eternal is at the root of these unrollings of Time.

He must now New-Shape

All he had done was to prepare a field;
His small beginnings asked for a mighty end:
For all that he had been must now new-shape
In him her joy to embody, to enshrine
Her beauty and greatness in his house of life.

Aswapathy realises that all his efforts thus far have only prepared the field; what he has achieved are only small beginnings and a great fulfilment has yet to be achieved. Whatever he has formed in himself now needs to be newly shaped if he is to embody the Divine Mother’s Joy in himself, to establish her beauty and glory in the edifice of his life.

Asks for Earth and Men

But now his being was too wide for self;
His heart’s demand had grown immeasurable:
His single freedom could not satisfy,
Her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men.

Aswapathy’s being has grown wide, too wide for his single self. Now his heart asks for something that cannot be measured. He is unable any more to be satisfied with his own freedom. He asks that the Light and Bliss of the Divine Mother be for all men, the whole earth.

Heaven is too High

But vain are human power and human love
To break earth’s seal of ignorance and death;
His nature’s might seemed now an infant’s grasp;
Heaven is too high for outstretched hands to seize.

This Light comes not by struggle or by thought;
In the mind’s silence the Transcendent acts
And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.

However, human power and love alone are hardly enough to break the bonds of ignorance and death over earth. All his strength now seems to Aswapathy to be no more than a child’s grasp. Heaven is indeed too high for the eager hands of man to seize. The Light beyond cannot be got by effort or by thinking. It is only when the mind falls silent that the Transcendent Reality begins to act in it; it is only when the heart is stilled of its agitations that the unspoken creative Word is heard.

Vast Surrender

A vast surrender was his only strength.

A Power that lives upon the heights must act,
Bring into life’s closed room the Immortal’s air
And fill the finite with the Infinite.

Aswapathy realises that the only effective way open to him to achieve his object is to surrender himself in all his wide being to the Divine Power so that it could act in him and through him. For this Power that is above the lower hemisphere of existence can alone act here, bring into the limited field of life the breath of the Immortal and infuse the finite creation with the Infinite.

What Denies must be Slain

All that denies must be torn out and slain
And crushed the many longings for whose sake
We lose the One for whom our lives were made.

In the process everything that negates this objective must be pulled out from its roots and destroyed. So too must be slain all the desires that crowd upon man and occupy him demanding satisfaction and thereby leading him away from the Divine to realise and manifest whom life is given to him.

His Soul Given to Her

Now other claims had hushed in him their cry:
Only he longed to draw her presence and power
Into his heart and mind and breathing frame;
Only he yearned to call for ever down
Her healing touch of love and truth and joy
Into the darkness of the suffering world.

His soul was freed and given to her alone.

Aswapathy has no other desire, no other seeking except to draw into himself the great presence and power of the Divine Mother. He longs intensely to call down for ever Her healing touch of love, truth and joy into the obscurity of this suffering world.

His soul is freed of every other claim and offered to the Divine Mother alone.