Sri Aurobindo came to Me

APPENDIX III

Homage to Sri Aurobindo*

I bow to thee, O Guru! How arduous is the path that you have trod!

When the soul is clouded, it is your sunshine that radiates the new dawn—of hope:

When the sterile heat of diffidence sears the heart:

When the fresh garland of adoration fades into a loveless string:

When the saltus of hope is arrested and the night of doubt closes in:

When the vision of the Far-off seems a fatuity to the inner heart, imprisoned in its skeleton-cage:

When the ray from aloft becomes wan and the soul's secret urge is broken to pieces by mortification:

In that hour your starry effulgence sheds the certitude of faith with the harmonies of your azure expanse of attainment.

When, in the pain of an unquenched thirst, tears of regret inundate the earth:

When the heavy-laden soul asks who robbed it midway of all that it was to achieve:

In that moment your sun quells the night and awakens the flute-music of a new sunrise.

And the immortal herald sings: "All that you forfeit today shall flash forth hereafter in deathless hues."

"But when —O when?" I ask — for masses of anguished darkness hurl along chasing away the last traces of light!

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* This poem is translated from Author's original Tribute in Bengali by the author himself and revised by Sri Aurobindo.

In that hour your summit defeats the gloom by the bugle-blare of its cloud-kissing light.

And your clarion sings from the summit: "I have triumphed over the desert to bear the laughter of blossoms in the secret chalice of the heart:

"I have transformed the wreck of life with the ecstasy of love and attained the Realisation:

"I have known the talisman that can transmute earthly mire into blossoms of Paradise:

"I have discovered the alchemy that kindles, lead into gold: "I have known the rainbow-glisten that makes tear-drops gleam like pearls." ,.

In the path where thorns: and weeds-crowd out flowery fulfilment:

In the path where muddy moss stops the conch-music of the river polluting its crystal currents:

In the path where the legion menaces, of Danger create the nightmare of despair:

In the path, 0 Guru, by the gift of your grace, the bleak brow of the desert shines with the flowers of victory. .

In life's weary journey, 0 Guru, when your Dawn Goddess descends in her Elysian chariot,

She deluges the heart's meadows with the beneficent flood of your snow-white nectar,

And the oracle of heavenly prophecy sounds like a familiar trumpet-call,

And I glimpse the advent of a new harmony in the passing away of the old.

At the touch of your boon-giving smile pallid dejection hides in shame and cascades spring forth on the driest rock.

And the dash of your sunbeams slays misty uncertainties and their anklets of joy ring in the dust of the stormwinds.

The voice of your fragrant zephyr rouses the sleeping verdure in the subterranean arbour of the soul.

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And impregnated with the lotus-pollens of your message the heart breaks forth into immaculate buds of whispering worship.

In the boat of your beauteous form I aspire, in an abiding faith, to row across to the Shore of the Formless,

And with the compass of your blessing I cross the raging sea — the pole-star of your peace lighting the voyage.

Vain Man — with his limited vision boasts in ignorance that he wants no initiation from a Guru.

He ignores the sea and is content with the stagnant pool —an enigma indeed!

The unseen vina. calls to him from the depths of his heart but he will not hear!

He will not put off the bandages from his eyes but joyously bathe in the slimy quagmire of darkness!

, The surging waves of doubt drown his hope, the voice of the stars is extinguished — yet he will not pray for your life-giving message.

He clings, in his limited vision, to blind inordinate pride.

He seeks for the throbbing irradiation of consciousness in the pages of dead books;

He looks for the eternal in the ephemeral and the accidental.

He thirsts not for what grows with life, but runs in joy to embrace the sterilities of learning.

In his vanity he will not see that the One beyond life flowers in the life in the person of the Guru.

He insults the luminous call of the Empyrean and wanders in aloof contempt of the Supreme Guide.

The Guruvadi sings his hymn round you, 0 Guru, seeing daily the reflection of the Impersonal in the mirror of your personality.

He seeks to worship you again and again in the temple of his soul to fashion in himself ever more faithfully the image of your perfection.

He says not that the rainbow is the shadow-form of a moment, nor that all forms are undivine.

He says not that all embodiments .must needs be transient

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and chimerical because the incorporeal could never seek a finite mansion.

He weaves his vari-coloured garland to wed in ever-new ways the One beyond all colours.

: He touches his adored image in ever-new rhythms in sleep and dream and wakefulness.

He knows that your smile, 0 Guru, cures all sterility and makes the stream of nectar flow unseen.

In the fane of his earthly love he lights all the candles of heavenly worship — the worship for which the universe is hungry.

He adores not the atom in the rhythm of a water-drop, for none but the infinite ocean can satisfy his soul.

The river thirsts not after the lake but only after the limitless deeps.

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