Pictures of Sri Aurobindo's poems

A God’s Labour

Read poem >

I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
   Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
   My jewelled dreams of you.

31.7.1935, 1.1.1936

The Mother, More Answers from the Mother: 26 July 1969

Forsaking my godhead I have come down
   Here on the sordid earth,
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
   Twixt the veils of death and birth.

I have been digging deep and long
   In a horror of mud and mire
A bed for the golden river's song,
   A home for the deathless fire.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

He who would bring the heavens here
   Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
   And tread the dolorous way.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

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.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

According to Sri Aurobindo the rainbow is:

Sign of Peace and Deliverance

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Sky, Weather, Night and Dawn

It is quite true that falsehood reigns in this world, that is the reason why these difficulties manifest. But you have not to allow yourself to be shaken. You must remain calm and strong and go straight, using the power of Truth and the Divine Force supporting you to overcome the difficulties and set straight what has been made crooked by the falsehood.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV: The Difficulties of Yoga

Falsehood is the very symbol of that which wants to oppose the divine work of Truth.

The Mother, Some Answers from the Mother: Letters to a Young Sadhak - IX

Anyone who lives in falsehood is an enemy of humanity...

The Mother, Words of Long Ago: Sincerity

It is the unconsciousness of creation that constitutes the Falsehood of the Creation. As soon as the creation will become conscious again of being the Lord, the Falsehood will cease.

The Mother, On Thoughts and Aphorisms: Aphorism - 109

Sri Aurobindo describes about the Sphinx in Savitri Book 3, Canto 4:

On his long way through Time and Circumstance
   The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx
Her dreadful paws upon the swallowing sands,
   Awaits him armed with soul-slaying word: ||89.29||

According to Sri Aurobindo:

The Sphinx is a symbol of the eternal quest that can only be answered by the secret knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Constructions

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.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

The Mother discloses:

Sri Aurobindo is here, as living and as present as ever, and it is left to us to realise his work with all the sincerity, eagerness and concentration necessary.

The Mother, Words of the Mother - I: Mahasamadhi

Sri Aurobindo is always with us, enlightening, guiding, protecting. We must answer to his Grace by a perfect faithfulness.

The Mother, Words of the Mother - I: Eternal Presence

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.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

Water: Symbol of a state of consciousness or a plane.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Water and Bodies of Water

When the water is so symbolic it is a big expanse of water; a river or a pond are not enough to symbolise a plane.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Water and Bodies of Water

Gold: Knowledge of the divine Truth; indicates at its most intense something from the supramental, otherwise overmind truth or intuitive truth deriving ultimately from the supramental Truth-Consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Colours

Supramental is simply the direct self-existent Truth-Consciousness and the direct self-effective Truth-Power.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: The Supermind or Supramental

The supramental is the Truth-Consciousness and what it brings in its descent is the full truth of life, the full truth of consciousness in Matter.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism

It is Truth that conquers and not falsehood; by Truth was stretched out the path of the journey of the gods, by which the sages winning their desire ascend there where Truth has its Supreme abode.

Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads: Mundaka Upanishad

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.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

The earth is the place of evolution in which all these forces meet and try to manifest and out of their working something has to develop. On the other planes (the mental, vital etc;) there is not the evolution — there each acts separately according to its own law.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: Descent and Transformation

The psychic is the soul or spark of the Divine Fire supporting the individual evolution on the earth and the psychic being is the soul-consciousness developing itself or rather its manifestation from life to life with the mind, vital and body as its instruments until all is ready for the union with the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: The Psychic Being

Let the earth, the entire world and the heavens be enlightened by the brilliant supreme light of Lord Sun and inspire our intellect.

Rigveda

Sri Aurobindo

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.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

इमे चेतारो अनृतस्य भूरेः मित्रो अर्यमा वरुणो हि सन्ति |
इम ऋतस्य वावृधुर्दुरोणे शग्मासः पुत्रा अदितेरदब्धाः ||

ऋग्वेद, VII. 60. 5
मैत्रावरुणिर्वसिष्टः
मित्रावरुणौ, त्रिष्टुप्

These are they who are conscious of the much falsehood in the world; they grow in the house of Truth, they are the strong and invincible sons of Infinity.

Rigveda VII, 60. 5.

Sri Aurobindo

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.

Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: A God's Labour

When the Mother was asked: Will you explain these lines? She replied: "Explain? There is no explanation. They speak for themselves very clearly. Poetry is not to be explained. It is to be felt and not reasoned about. The poetic inspiration is above reason. It must not be made to sink into the domain of the reason, because it will get spoiled.... It is to be understood by an internal contact much more than by words."

The Mother, Questions and Answers (1954): 31 December 1954