To the Heights

An ocean of Light shall I become,

A thousand rivers of light flowing into it and rising out of it -

Light playing with light, light woven into light-

A solar world made of the glories of the gods!

October 1, 1932

III

ALL my heart melts into a fountain of gratitude

And tears rush to the eyes -

Such sweet tears, angel-stars that come from afar

With healing Peace and Bliss.

Love transcendent

That disdains not our crawling mortalities,

But embraces them with a passion beyond the little human heart to know,

Love that in its supreme love has given itself away

And become the clod of earth we are. . . . . .

Yet human life is but a blind rejection, a heartless denial

Of this one thing that makes life living.

My poor limbs are all astir within,

A faint and muffled echo sways along their closed and dark-some corridors!

Is it the awakening of the sleeping goddess?

Is it the resurrection of the self-immolated One?

My heart yearns to welcome Him whom the ages have ignored.

And melts into a fountain of tears!

October 2, 1932

IV

IN silence move the stars,

In silence mounts the sap within the plant,

The secret energies of Nature work and create in the deeps of silence.

Out of the uttermost stillness the whirling universe was born -

All the turmoil and tumult, the roar and fury that meet the eye

Flourish upon an unfathomed quiet below.

In the tranquillity of death a new birth prepares itself,

The gathered calm of Night's ending ushers in the rejuvenated Sun .

And were my wild senses to turn back, they would face the abysmal silence of the soul.

The cry of the heart shoots up like a column of silence -

That voice alone reaches straight to the High Throne and moves it to grace.

The gods descend along a path of luminous silence spread in

the farthest spaces of our inmost being.

October 3, 1932

V

I LAY myself bare-limb by limb,

From the outmost to the inmost, from the highest to the lowest,

From the crown of the head to the tip of the toe,

From my senses to my soul.

I lay myself bare - simply and wholly -

To the touch of the one who is our Beloved,

Like a babe, all beauty in its sheer nakedness,

Reposing ecstatic in the warmth of the mother's lap.

The clothings and trappings, the pretences and falsities -

All the proprieties that make up our adult wisdom-

Cast to the winds -come as innocent as when you were born

And bathe in the wide sunlight of the Love Divine.

October 4, 1932

VI

MAHESHWARI

VAST and serene as the infinite spaces,

Far away from our little earthly world,

And yet overarching and leaning down in a protective gesture-

The Mother of Light, the Mother of all-comprehending wisdom, throned on the highest heights,

Sheds, equal and unruffled, her benign compassion on obscure mortals,

Draws them infallibly ever nearer to her through the rolling ages -

Her very presence is the power that decrees, the grace that redeems.

October 5, 1932

VII

MAHAKALI

SHE has burst open the veil and leaped to the front,

Into the very thick of the combat

Our Captain, our Warrior - her flaming sword, her battering mace,

Her thundering cry sweep the field.

She brooks no delay, has no mercy for weakness -

Straight is her path and swift she speeds to the goal:

Here and now shall be her victory.

Terrible Mother who presses her children through blazing fire,

The sooner to burn out the dross and free the gold -

The sooner to smother them with her passionate bliss!

Her every tread crushes a demon's head,

Unseals for mortals a fount of immortality.

October 6, 1932

VIII

MAHALAKSHMI

MOTHER of Delight-

Of Love that moves the sun and stars!

She is the Rapture that quickens our inmost heart,

She is Beauty's self that enthrals our earthly senses; In her is the whole meaning of existence.

She has come down close and intimate to a humanity avid of joy;

She casts her noose of charm and captures us even by our weakness;

Her radiant smile transfigures a whole world of gloom and pain

Into an Abode of Bliss -

And we know not when have we transcended our human frailties

In our eagerness to contemplate her gracious form,

To kiss those glorious feet of hers

That trail the Dawn!

Hasten to welcome her, O heart, hasten!

O Lest she turn away -

For she will not force herself,

Our adorable and shy Mother!

October 10, 1932

IX

MAHASARASWATI

SUPREME Artisan and Fashioner of perfection,

Atom by atom she builds up the world-she is slow, patient, faultless.

And by her consummate craftsmanship the universe-and each object in the universe -

Is a marvel of pattern, a model of divine arabesque,

A carefully wrought jewel.

Hers is the keen eye, hers the deft finger, the sure handling

And they compel intractable Matter

To bend and bow down to her as to its sovereign Mistress.

She is the growing divinity within us that like inevitable fate

Is slowly taking possession of our human life,

She is moulding it as she wills it to be -

A vessel and an instrument-a visible embodiment

Of the Consciousness, the Power, the Bliss

Of the Divine Mother.

October 14, 1932

X

ON this troubled world, distracted beyond measure,

Erring in the double darkness of ignorance and ill-will,

Seeking remedy and refuge from evil

At Evil's gate,

Pour, pour thy soothing Light, O Divine Compassion!

When men have passed through their little illusions,

They will love thee and cling to thee the more passionately,

And understand thee with a clearer vision;

They will know thee and will come back to thee

At the end of all their nightmare!

Thou art the one pivot on which revolves the universe,

The hidden spring that presses my heart to a ceaseless beating;

The light thou scatterest to the farthest star

Shines in my eye with a purer gleam;

Thou art the gladness that makes the earth green and the sky blue -

Thou art the ecstasy that has turned the blood in my veins To a crimson red!

October 15, 1932

XI

IT is the Eye of the eye and yet it is the object that the eye contemplates;

It is the Sense of the senses and still the senses can apprehend it;

It is not merely the inmost, it is as well the outermost.

It thins itself out to utmost tenuity -even into nothingness,

And it condenses itself to impenetrable solidity -

It is Pure Consciousness and it is absolute Matter.

Spirit is Matter sublimated, Matter is Spirit crystallised.

Soul is Body introvert, Body is Soul extravert.

October 16, 1932

XII

THOU hast fashioned thy limbs into the curves of every human contact;

Thou art neither too subtle nor too vast, neither the far transcendent, nor the wide universal;

Thou hast framed thyself into the limits of common mortality,

And standest level upon the earth.

This is thy utter self-giving and this thy supreme grace -

This smile of kindness has brought here below

All the bliss of an unseizable beyond,

The words of thy mouth incorporate

The inexpressible silence,

And this Flesh has made the Immutable Truth

Living and throbbing, warm to our embrace!

October 17, 1932

XIII

UPON this mortal earth thou buildest a garden of Paradise,

O Mother of Dreams, Mother victorious!

Overwhelmed with wonder the heart lies prostrate at thy feet,

O Mother victorious!

Saints and great souls sing to thee in adoration,

O Mother omnipotent, Mother victorious!

Blind darknesses fall faint and numb before the arrows of thy Light,

Mother victorious!

Saviour from all evil, deliverer from pain is thy Great Name,

O Mother victorious!

A home of safety is the refuge at thy feet,

O Mother of Bliss, Mother victorious!

The fear of death and age vanishes today,

O all-conquering Mother, Mother victorious!

The seas of sorrow disappear at the touch of thy Grace,

O Mother of Peace, Mother victorious!

The sheen of gold pales before thy hue that enthrals my soul,

O Mother of Light, Mother victorious!

In the heart of the devotee thou art the delight that is heaven's nectar,

O Mother of Love, Mother victorious!

October 29, 1932 [Translated from Bengali]

XIV

MAHALAKSHMI

DEAR to thee are gardens of the lotus,

Where else shall I spread thy seat, O Mother?

On the lotus of my heart press the dawn-roses of thy feet and make it flower.

Things ungainly afflict thee, O Mother,

I will not cherish them anywhere in me even a little.

O Queen of Beauty, charmer of the worlds,

Keep abiding thy grace upon me.

Thou sufferest not an arid heart,

So of thyself hast thou come and put on bonds of affection -

O Mother, by the magic of thy sweetness, quicken and upheave me with Love.

[Translated from Bengali]

XV

GOD THE SUPREME MYSTERY

HE is the Soul of our soul, He is the Body of our body -

Our eye veils Him, but He is revealed to the Eye of our eye;

He is Soul embodied and He is Body ensouled.

He is the farthest of the far and the highest of the high -

The senses cannot accost Him nor any human instrument inveigle;

He is the nearest of the near and the lowest of the low -

The very earth of our body is kneaded out of His substance.

He is the goal towards which the creation wheels in its ceaseless cycles,

He is the firm foundation upon which the universe is reared.

The vast and fathomless Peace and Silence of Uncreation is He,

He the vehement Energy that swirls out in the aeons and the worlds.

He is the Father whose wise love marshals our destinies,

He is the Mother whose passion-white light accordantly

fashions us and bears us through,

He is our own Self, ourselves beyond the ignorance and the

bondage of the moment.

He is there and we are He -

To bring down on earth and incorporate in this body

Something of the high divinities that form His Nature -

Through the travail and storm and stress of yearning mortalities

To give birth to an Immortality

Secured and housed here below.

April 10, 1933

XVI

FAINT Heart! Kindle your faith and take courage!

Stupendous obstacles block the way?

But omnipotent is the Power that awaits you,

And under her ensign you will conquer -

Conquer all that looks unconquerable

And much more besides,

Worlds now beyond reach and out of sight.

The little being within appears so small and so helpless!

And yet it is the diamond-point

That cuts through even the hardest matter as through water,

It is the streak of light that easily pierces

The densest sway of darkness.

There is a breath that moves mountains,

There is a touch that makes the dead arise,

There is a voice that is the doom of Yesterday

And the radiant herald of Tomorrow.

May 26, 1933

XVII

LORD, this is my prayer:

May the voice of thy silence enter me, -

Rousing every atom of my being,

Till it vibrates to thy Truth,

And is the harp of its utterance

And is its visible embodiment.

All the tumultuous surges of the wide world

Rush towards me assured of victory-

May they roll back in confusion and turn away upon themselves

And leave me as a virgin rock

Tranquil and ever firm on its pristine foundations.

May the universe dissolve, may it vanish

Even like a dream -

And thou alone appear, thou alone abide

One in thy multitudinous reality;

I shall find a new world in Thee, a world made of Thee;

Therein each limb of mine shall realise its fullness of union with Thee

And shall taste utter felicity.

May 28, 1933

XVIII

LORD, thou hast heard our prayer,

And come down into our mortal ways -

Assumed the form, the flesh that build our weakness,

Thou hast deigned, to be close to us and wear our make,

To be with us and to be of us.

But we have taken thy humanity in a too literal and familiar way,

We have forgotten the Aspiration and the Descent, the

answering Grace that took shape in thy advent;

And now we blame thee and slight thee, because thou art

become like us-earthly and human.

Divine, thou art too far-human, too near!

For, the aberration of our petty minds knows no limits!

:But thou sufferest all

And keepest thy unruffled and unabated benignity -

On thy lips is the smile of eternal and infinite Grace,

The smile that is thine alone.

June 1, 1933

XIX

THE MARCH INTO THE NIGHT

ENDLESS, endless labours the way:

Its meanderings seem always to come back near to the same old familiar spot.

We have travelled through long ages and countless lives,

Through immemorial vistas of Time, as though through all the length of Eternity -

And yet see we not the same old sun jogging up and down

Between its same old prison bars?

The lone luminaries afar that appear so close to the very heart of the Great Mystery,

Twinkle and blink as inconsciently as ever;

The cold and barren face of the moon stares as bland and stupid as its wont;

The same old shadow still lingers at our feet and entangles them inexorably;

And the eternal viper remains coiled fast into the darkness of our entrails. . . .

The march of aeons has brought us none the nearer to Light or Deliverance.

Ah, Soul, we have indeed progressed into obscurity,

Into a deeper and deeper gloom have we entered -

Yet who is this intrepid voyager that has dared the other

Unknown, the nether profundities?

It is thou, O my Soul, it is the Light itself, the beacon from above!

For whither else could Progress lie?

Towards Light and more Light?

But the Soul is All-Light and needs no illumination;

It is Darkness that yearns for the Light

And so the Soul has descended in answer

Into the gloom -

The gloom stretches interminable,

The abyss seems fathomless, -

Only to the spirit that ventures with its own lantern;

But my Soul is never alone -the Mother of Light upbears it -

A cataract of limitless blaze swirls behind

And presses it forward in and through the gloom

That will roll out and melt,

Sooner perhaps than one may believe, -

The soul and gloom and all -

Right on the other side

Into the free and infinite and sheer translucence.

July 24, 1933

XX

THERE is a deep within the deeps,

There is a height beyond the farthest heights. . . .

A cooling breath, a silence immaculate

Abides for ever,

Unbroken and ceaseless reigns over sinful earth

A smiling Grace.

A ray, the shadow of a Hand,

The touch of a happy unspeakable sorcery,

Bends down to our mortality held fast in pain and ignorance -

A wide quietude suffuses and masters the heat and turmoil of the senses,

We obey the gesture of a compassion that sees and feels, that relieves and delivers.

This surface is a veil, a tissue made of obscurity,

It is a level plain that circumscribes a crawling vision -

Peel off the dull crust, release the living translucence of inmost fires,

Soar on the wings of the soul's high destiny to stellar infinitudes.

Deep is the obscurity, but there is a light behind,

Long is the suffering, but there is a supreme joy in which it culminates;

For the utmost clearness of human day is but the faint echo of another Sun,

And the most exquisite, the purest pleasure on earth is no

more than a soon-sinking beacon

That lures us on towards other Delights, intimate, unseen, unfailing, ineffable.

XXI

LET me not shame thee, my soul,

Let me not profane thee -

With a faithless glance or a straying step

Or a sigh that heaves not for thee.

Straight as the sun's ray, clear as the virgin spaces

Let my whole being converse and fix upon thee.

Thy voice is still and small -

Oh the delicatest thing that ever bloomed in a mortal frame!

Thy slightest wish, the most casual inclination

Be for me a thundering command and an impetuous drive

To immediate embodiment.

Thou art the Architect that builds from within,

From the deepest foundations:

The edifice thou rearest rises inexorably;

Nothing can mar it, nothing can shake it,

It stands a marvel of ages -

Time lies prostrate at its feet in awe and adoration.

Thou art the Child that we carry as in a womb

And nourish with the light that we press out of every cell and every pore;

Thou growest with each drop of the Grace that distils from above into our mortality-

Our common clay that houses the Divine Inhabitant thins out and dissolves,

Like a shadow passes out and merges into thy substance.

September 19, 1933

XXII

My eyes have followed the lines of thy beauty,

The winging curves of grace that embody thee -

In a delight that was gathered to its core of utmost intensity,

To its height of supreme exquisiteness. . . . . .

A light bathed them, a glory suffused them slowly -

A clear and vast vision entered,

I stood face to face with the Truth -

And the scales of Ignorance fell away!

The enraptured contemplation of thy embodiment

Quieted and soothed the heat and turmoil

Of my feverish hungers

That had rushed so long incontinent towards a myriad mirages -

My desire has found its one haven of rest,

An unspeakable tranquillity holds my mind and heart, An utter purity nestles me!

My ears have drunk thy voice -

Its ringing sweetness filters through the depths of my being,

And it awakens crystal listenings that mirror and capture

The mother-harmony of immemorial spheres,

Thy rhythm divine that graces and moulds my life.

My hands have touched the roses of thy feet -

The very soul of fragrance has passed into the substance

Of my transmuted earth. . . . ..

This body has grown sheer into thee as if it were thy own limb!

October 3, 1933

XXIII

THERE is no darkness, we only close our eyes

and shut out the Light;

There is no pain, it is only our shrinking

from an intense and unwelcome Delight;

There is no death, it is only our dread of the Life Eternal

that comes back upon us and smites us.

Our senses are tremulous and fearsome

and cling to the empty littlenesses of the surface moment,

they heed not the vast surges of Infinitude

that sweep and pass by.

Calm, calm, my soul! Sink down and deep:

Fashion the crystal bowl of thy heart

with all the serene profundity of the unknown spaces -

and drop by drop will gather there

a bliss immortals only can taste,

and ray by ray will dawn the Light supernal. . . . . .

Or -be prepared for this too, soul, my soul -

the down-rush of a myriad undyked cataracts,

the sudden bursting of a whole stellar conflagration.

March 17, 1935

XXIV

LEST I become proud of my strength

thou hast revealed to me the bundle of weakness that I am. . . .

Lest I sink down and wallow in my weakness

thou hast set blue-kissing wings to my feet

and made me soar high -

high towards heights beyond all my dreaming.

Thou art the Strength of the strong,

and the stronger he becomes the more he knows it:

weakness is but thy absence -

one has only to fill up the void with thyself

to be transformed into the very store-house of power.

Thy grace, O Lord, has made this dumb one eloquent,

this lame one it has made to cross the mountains.

April 8, 1935

XXV

I T bent, bent down and touched the earth -

the gracious Light -

even as the wide azure curves and kisses the level horizon:

all my soul flushed roseate with delight,

and this body stilled to trance shone vibrant with an inly glow -

a bride led to the altar.

The scars of a thousand pangs that had branded the limbs

through aeons of ignorance

are now smoothed out, and with the freshness of a morning life

my being is dowered whole and entire.

Behold! I am a new-born babe in the lap of the Immaculate Mother -

the glory of her love pulsates in every cell and fibre,

a whole futurity of her vision

is incarnated in this frail earthly vessel.

A mighty secret is being wrought upon in the far depths -

but it shall out one day

and blaze like a rising sun on the brow of creation.

April 11, 1935

XXVI

I AM not ashamed of my failings,

I do not claim to be an angel of heaven,

I cannot boast that I have never faltered -

I am not ashamed of my humanity.

I possess not the halo of saintliness,

nor do I wear the tares that tangle me round as a crown of glory -

Lord, thou hast made me humble,

But I have known to be humble with humility.

Through all my failings and errings

thou hast proved me to be the commonest of men,

a child of clod and clay -

Through my failings too thou hast led me on:

across the shoals and marshes and quagmires

thou hast guided me on to higher and firmer and surer footings -

thy Grace in its chrysaline warmth has enveloped

this earth-bound worm.

Thou hast proved, O mighty one,

that the meanest of things here below is rounded

with a divine ending,

and man is not all too human:

there is a prophecy in mortal creature that only bides its time,

nothing is impossible even in this sorry world -

For, behold, I am no longer what I was.

April 14, 1935

XXVII

NOT for me, not for me

I breathe and move and act -

not for me, not for me,

but for the beloved Lord of my life.

I have cast myself away -

oh, the rapture of looking up to Him, of listening to Him alone:

I am the slave of His Will,

a plaything in His sweet hands.

But I am no more -

this is a mere vacant frame that you see,

its ancient substance has dissolved -

it is now my Lord's tabernacle, it is His gestures that are traced there.

The I that seems is an empty thing

that bubbles up with His breath as He chooses

and utters and enshrines His iridescent Delight

and sinks back again and melts into His tranced silence.

April 22, 1935

XXVIII

IN the wide, wide sapphire stillness of my heart's heaven in trance,

the diamond tips of other-world raptures

peep out and twinkle and beacon -

Oh, the radiant sisterhood of the benign Graces

who distil upon my earth the Lord's love-laden smile.

Is it a gloom that invades? a frown that menaces?

But these hosts of the Enemy hurl themselves in vain

against the blazing armour that my Lord's laughter

has fashioned around me -

they are turned back upon themselves and are scattered.

In the shade of the Light, a happy traveller I move on

Ever secure and tranquil.

I have heard His call and He has embraced me

intimately from afar;

Lo, I am grown into the translucency of His divine serenity,

the earth-made cells of flesh are now spirit-stars

that bear the undecaying lustres of immortality.

April 30, 1935

XXIX

GRACE is the golden lining to the dark cloud:

it is the touch of love that rounds off all our faults,

he Divinity that lies imbedded in our earth,

revealing itself a-sudden like a lightning flare.

I t is the flaming heart of things

that nothing has yet been able to extinguish:

it is that which breaks out,

through the obdurate rock and the damping water,

in volcanoes and geysers.

It is the vaulted infinite answering back

to the unheard still cry, out at the other end;

it is the ardent call of the Beyond

that has travelled down to a forgetful Here Below,

awakening us to reminiscences of our ancient and eternal estate,

our only Home.

May 11, 1935

XXX

TURN my gaze away from thousand nothingnesses -

One thing for me is enough and more,

O Queen of hearts!

What avails the senses each to pursue its luring fire

That leads but to a dismal engulfing bog,

To nothingness or worse?

The Sense of the senses dwells at home

And through its moon-lit grace distils

Peace and ease and rapture exquisite!

The essence of delights, the secret sap of blooms,

The winkless Light beyond all flickerings,

The one treasure intimate -it is Thou!

My all has melted away and vanished

Into the single orb of thy compassion,

O my One and All!

September 1, 1936

XXXI

LIVE it, my soul, live the Truth

Than which never a fairer or truer one

Has been vouchsafed to man -

Live it and be blessed!

Earth carried it in her womb

Ever since she was born -

She was born to bear it

And deliver to the expectant world.

The shining divinities once came down:

They anointed themselves with the earth of earth,

Entered the prison of ignorance and pain and grief

And became the mortals that we are -

Even as the blooming flower and the luscious fullness of the fruit

Once lay hid within the dark and dank tortuous striving and travail of the roots!

To come out and regain the native and pristine estate,

To become the sun and the air and the glory that is abroad,

To be in flesh and bone the radiant secret self,

To embody the prophecy that inspired the march of the ages

To fulfil, the golden day is come!

September 6, 1936

XXXII

I SAW Her footsteps just flit across the sky. . . . . .

And the sun blazed up and still it burns incontinent

And so the stars to the end of the world -

But the little moon was consumed outright and became the pale dead mass it is.

The golden trail of Her footsteps has kindled a quenchless Fire in my heart,

And all my life is now a volcano with its thousand tongues of flame leaping up to kiss the trail -

But where are the little senses' little pleasures gone

And all the spell of the near and the dear and the small?

They have gone the way of the lunar light and its borrowed lamp

When the sun is high.

Lo, he is made to ride the comet that sweeps the expanding spaces,

The creature who once crawled in his murky pit......

A glance has melted,

A touch has moulded

A mortal into an Immortal!

September 11, 1936

XXXIII

I SLEPT away......

And awoke into a sunbright wakefulness

Far-gazing, untwinkling, tranquil, intense!

A breath from somewhere came a-sudden

And wiped my memory out once for all....

I stood new-born, fresh with other thoughts, feelings, urges

High and clean and scintillating,

Like rills that flow on summits and still bear the pristine snow-touch.

An utter distaste filled my mouth

And this wide world of milk and honey turned mere sand and dust. . . .

Behold the sea of delight that burst upon me,

The ecstasy that became my being!

I died. . . .

And emerged on the other shore

Into the Life Immortal!

September 15, 1936

XXXIV

THY Voice rings clear and loud

In the 'bluest depth of my heart

Through the gathered silence of unfathomed ethers......

It dims as it rises into the confused noise of my thoughts and desires, ,

It is wholly lost amidst the turmoil and bustle of life and the world.

Thy Face shines bright and near limned in all its compelling

beauty, When I gaze beyond where the golden sun-gate opens......

It dims and fades as its rays descend and are scattered and dispersed here .

In the muddled illusions, the swirling mirages of life and the world.

Close eyes, close ears, close up entire

Even like a rose bud

And hold within and be, O my soul,

The stilled fragrance of Love unsensed.

September 18, 1936

XXXV

IN Thee I am a perfect slave,

Sovereignly free and happy!

Without Thee I become the master,

Bound head to foot, a figure of misery!

The two worlds are cloven apart

And a chasm yawns between,

The deluding midworld that with its lurid

shadow Divides Heaven and Earth!

But one day they shall come close

And the lightning fire leap out

To consume the shadow track

And turn it into the gleaming path

For Heaven to descend upon earth.

September 18, 1936

XXXVI

THE sky is clear, the breeze is brisk....

Unfurl all the sails, my soul,

And forward!

The white waves are hurrying on with a gleeful murmur;

They go tripping towards the verge of the world-

The blue Infinite calls them!

They keep me company, the little sisters

Tossing their diamond tresses,

Scattering their silvern laughter;

They fill my sails with the fragrant breath of their little mouths-

And forward drives my bark!

Lo! I have grown golden wings,

And I soar into the blue of the high heaven,

Right on the verge of the spaces!

My little brothers are all around,

The bright twinkling star-angels;

A very galaxy of them escorts my winging voyage,

Each holds aloft his blazing discus-

Avaunt, Darkness and Night!

Hail, Light of the Beyond!

September 22, 1936

XXXVII

THE Fire shines there, but burns not......

It burns when it descends here below

And lies imprisoned in the crust of earth:

Then its tongues leap out in red-hot wrath

And consume the narrowing barriers

And the entrenched darkness.

The work done, it regains its own natural and superior self,

The keen and serene substance of Bliss that it is,

The solar light with the soul of the Moon's concentrated ecstasy.

The Fire burns-

It burns the dross, but illumines the core of gold;

It tears and tortures the obdurate and the unwilling,

It tones and braces the docile and the willing.

I t is the pure energy of the Gods,

The clear knowledge that fashions bodies of delight.

But the unregenerate flesh

And the self-will of Ignorance

Feel it as the dread devouring Flame.

September 25, 1936

XXXVIII

You think this thing you love and that,

You hunger for this other with all the yearning of your entrails,

And without that other again your heart seems to cease beating!

In vain you seek to bind your soul to earthly moments:

It pursues another orbit encompassing Infinity,

And the myriad shadows on this side of life

Veil not its glorious face for ever turned to the Eternal Sun.

It heeds not the little joys the flesh offers it,

Nor do tearing anguishes leave a scar upon its diamond clarity:

It passes through, undeviated, gathering lights

From out of the darknesses of its many lives,

Presses onward to the one goal,

The fullness of Illumination in the Supreme Light!

It is lone in its own orbit -

Or, the One Companion is enough for it,

The one inner Presence.

Orbits may touch or cross each other,

As they traverse the terrestrial zone -

But the souls themselves rest apart -

None waits, none looks for another, but all move on,

Each absorbed in its one and single passion for That within,

The Soul of souls.

September 27, 1936

XXXIX

I HAVE now learnt to love the sun, even the sun of the burningdesert. . . .

Once I drew back from it and liked the shade and the glade,

Cool pleasant walks and humid grottoes,

All that is darksome, dank and moist,

The rippling curtain of ceaseless rains,

The chillness and haze of a grey winter sky, -

All that narrowed down the being to its smallest stature,

Hid from it far visions and wide extensions,

All that shrank from the touch of the warm empty distances, -

For I chose to close the blinds and lie screened,

In the cosiness of ignorant moments, level with the sap and

ooze of earth.

But now as I open my eyes with the rise of the sun,

Scales fall off and I feel a glowing clarity coursing in my veins,

I yearn to scan and traverse, eagle-like,

The vastnesses that lie bare under the glare of the noon.

The torrid heat and the scalding sands and the steaming air

Throb with a naked and palpitating life, clean and ardent and vigorous......

Even so the burning Truth brings me a male delight,

It has drained and dried the marshes of small desires,

Scattered the fog and mist of doubting fearsome mind,

A glorious veilless heaven it has branded upon my earth!

October 1, 1936

XL

WAVES come from the immemorial past, they sweep into the unending future;

They who stand on the plains shall lose their foothold and be carried away.

Rise to the dry land of serene heights and let the flood pass by underneath.

There is no other way but to take wings and soar aloft -

Never be tempted to wait and brave the onset of centuries,

The most skilful swimmer is sure to come to grief:

None can stop or retard the inexorable wheel of Time, none who is within it;

Only if you leap up and go beyond can you find the secret that controls it.

This human frame is a thousand-mouthed sponge,

You cannot leave it on the flood-level and hope to find it free from slime and water;

Hold it up, as high as the farthest and bluest skies,

Let it drink in and be satiate with the golden light of the sun.

October 3, 1936

XLI

ASPIRE wholly,

Ask for the fullness of Grace -

But weigh not the measure of Response,

Nor repine if it seems doled out scantily, niggardly.

The high wisdom knows and gives just what is needed -

Could we only rest contented and move in its rhythm an d not transgress its will,

Serene would be the path and perfect and even prompt the achievement;

But our greed and vanity and self-love

Magnify our worth and distend our girth:

We lay claim to that and pull at that which is beyond our desert,

We force the supreme Bounty and infinite Abundance,

And in answer it condescends to come down....

But we are unable to contain it and the inflated receptacle we have made ourselves to be

Bursts and crashes a ruined and shattered heap!

Give yourself wholly and ever more and more,

It is your unreserved giving that will create the spaciousness

to hold safely the gift from the Divine.

October 9, 1936

XLII

THE lamp lies unlit and dismal dark -

Bring to it the spark of your morning love and life,

The lamp is lit and burns.

The lamp burns low and dim -

Bring to it your earnest loyalty and clear adhesion,

The lamp burns high and bright.

The flame mounts slow uncertain -

Bring to it your ardent yearning and unshakable faith,

The flame mounts swift and firm.

The flame sweeps tireless ever upward -

Call unto it the bending Grace from beyond,

The lamp has become the Sun!

October 13, 1936

XLIII

THE child has eyes for nothing else than its mother,

Its entire bound of vision is rounded in by the radiant presence of its beloved.

It cannot but be so, for where does the Mother abide? - Within its own eyes!

Fearsome figures appear now and then -

A night rife with dark and dangerous bodings,

A whole sky of cloud scowling and rumbling -

The child sees the mother at game and laughs-all disappear:

The beaming smile of the adored one alone is there!

All beauties-the rising morn, the reposing eve, the bloom

on the rose, the light of the awakening soul in the human face -

All, all are radiances from the sparkle of her eyes,

The eyes that hide within the eyes of the child.

The child looks at itself, its own person -

Lo, itself has become the mother,

And takes in its arms the entire world

And fondles it as its child

With the passionate love of innocence.

October 18, 1936

XLIV

WHITE - colour of the moon poised on high in an autumn night -

The soothing peace, the quiet heave of an in-gathered rapture!

White -colour of the sun glaring overhead in a midsummer sky -

White heat of the Energy that quickens the universe,

The creative ardour of the light of Truth!

White-colour of the pearl reposing in the womb of the mother-of-pearl -

Innocence of a little heart, delicate and fine and strong in trust.

White - colour of the diamond, miracle of the black-souled ore transfigured -

The immaculate consciousness of the Mother, the Mother yet of a sin-bred earth!

White-colour of the snow piled on wind-swept peaks grim and bare -

Naked and frigid austerity that juts sheer into the inviolate worlds beyond!

White-colour of the foam breaking and bubbling exultant -

All the passions of my entrails surging and speeding to the tranquil refuge of Thy embrace!

White-colour of the jasmine so candid and pure and unpretending -

The smiling perfume of the Grace that has touched my soul!

White - colour of the lotus -

the endless commiseration of my Lord

that has taken body upon earth!

October 30, 1936

XLV

QUIET the waves that roll and ripple,

Hush the murmur that crowds the- air,

Let the myriad glistening sparks die out

In one seamless sheet of soothing blue.

Draw back from the outgazing facets,

Veer round and dive into the core -

The stop and pause and perfect repose,

The rock of light self-luminous,

The frozen sea of compact delight.

This is the silence and annihilation,

Beyond the little voices and lesser forms,

The Mother of absolutes -

This the Void that has devoured all And still lies vacant!

November 16, 1936

XLVI

FIRE Red - the red wrath of Rudra

that burns the dead mass of earth, melts and consumes it

into tongues of leaping ardour

that cry out for Beatitudes beyond.

Sun Red at dying eve - the breath of a god

sweeping over the darkening horizon

the debris of a vanishing life and world,

scattering the last shreds of mortal ties that

yet strive to linger.

Blood Red -the red sap of life

that anoints the far Spirit and sets it throbbing

and welling out into an earthly mould -

immortal's homage to flesh-throned mortality.

Wine Red - the quenchless thirst and passion,

even the lust of the body

wholly uplifted and transfused into the ethereal Bliss,

Bliss made here and now a sensuous rapture -

poignant and exhilarating and undecaying.

Ruby Red - the concentrated essence of the supreme substance

brought down into our lower sphere

and glowing and blushing with new-born love in a human frame.

November 28, 1936

XLVII

O my soul, once you lay

Nude and innocent in the womb of the Eternal.

What dreams had you then?

What hopes, what urges?

Were there star-lit expanses, galaxied blues,

Constellated depths after depths?

Or a rose-gold sun hanging on the rim of infinite horizons?

Or a radiant smile swaying the throb of Timelessness' heart?

It stands today, the self-same soul

In daylight's rude broadness,

Amidst the stone-hard reals,

In the externals and the crusts,

Under noon-tide's blazing eye...

Oh, no longer the sweet simple innocence of yore:

The child has grown and now its limbs are hewn

Out of a marble-consciousness!

The Dream has become the iron will,

The secret urge the body's urgent gesture:

A human being that was has yielded to the godhead's devouring embrace,

The Divine is set in human limbs.