On Savitri
THEME/S
SUMMARY OF BOOK TWO
BOOK OF THE TRAVELLER OF THE WORLDS
CANTO - I
THE WORLD-STAIR
ASWAPATHY'S vision was widened beyond the confines of human limits, he could see the whole cosmos as "A limitless movement" that "filled a limitless space". He saw it as a selfcreation of the Unknown without end or pause, revealing the grandeurs of the Infinite. He saw there "The world-shapes that are fancies of its Truth". The chequered fields of experience with their vast and multiple play of knowledge, ignorance, pleasure, pain, etc. he could see and feel that
"Here all experience was a single plan,
The thousandfold expression of the One."
The former objects of his perception also underwent a great transformation. What was before only a limited form became something entirely different:
"Aspects of Being donned world-outline; forms
That open moving doors on things divine"
became familiar to his sight. On that wide plane he came to know all that can be known and all that cannot be known by the human mind and this new knowledge tended to become a permanent part of himself, and his soul's natural environment. He found there everything that the Infinite had manifested and the only thing that was missing — in order to make that world a world of perfection — was:
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"The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute."
From his status beyond the world, he saw the world-pile
"Erect like a mountain chariot of the Gods,
"As if Matter's plinth, and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme,
"It swelled upwards but none could see its top".
It rose from the Inconscience to Matter, from there to Life and Mind and thence to the Divine,
"A ladder of delivering ascent,
And rungs that Nature climbs to Deity."
In order to make this ascent possible there was a descent of the Deity into the Inconscience.
"Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme."¹
"Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterened ground of all we are."
The diviner parts of man, the spiritual elements that have entered into his formation aspire to join Immortality and the Divinity from
¹ Compare the similar idea in "The Mother"
In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice of the Purusha., but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakṛti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother. The Mother.—VI
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which they have come. Nature has provided him with necessary instrumentation to realise his oneness with the Divine and therefore one day
"This faint and fluid sketch of soul called man
Shall stand out on the background of long Time
A glowing epitome of eternity,
A little point reveal the infinitudes."
Though at first sight it appears as if, some blind force "...made in sleep this huge mechanical world" yet, it is this very matter which hides, behind its inertia, all the rich possibilities of life; mind and spirit. Thus, the universe is a process of mystery and "to live this Mystery out our souls came here". Aswapathy saw that he had travelled alone to this realm of the spirit's Infinity as yet unrealised by man where stillness, light and silence reign. He saw that he was moving up on this vast cosmic stair, mounting heaven after heaven, and yet being drawn more and more upward by some invisible magnet as it were. He saw that he was the sole figure "...on Nature's giant stair" and from there he could not see the end of his movement, though he felt that he was standing on the summit of created things.
CANTO II
THE KINGDOM OF SUBTLE MATTER
Having crossed the boundaries of this gross material cosmos Aswapathy came to a world of subtle material existence where "All shapes are beautiful and all things true". This world of subtle matter is really the origin of our gross earth. In fact it is the "brilliant roof of our descending plane" and it serves to protect the material world from the operation of subtle forces which might be too strong for it. It canalises the glow of the subtle material world for this earth. All attempts at beauty of form which man makes here have their inspiration in this world. There is, on this plane, a union of mind and form; and in 'order to perceive these subtle forms one has to have senses subtler than those
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possessed by man today. It seems as if it were a world where "matter and soul in conscious union meet". After the death of the gross body, the subtle body of man persists which, in fact, existed before the gross was created. On the level of the subtle material being there is a perfection of form and a perfection of expression. On the lower level, this subtle material world "...has dangerous nether planes" and though on the height it is immortal, still, it weaves for us ".. .death's sombre robe". It is from the fall of this subtle matter that "...our denser Matter came". All typal forms which serve as the basis of material forms are preserved in this subtle matter.
It was this plunge of the Divine into the night of the Nescience that created the possibility of evolution from the Inconscient to the Conscient as if
"She must reconstitute from fragments lost,
Re-word from a document complete elsewhere
Her doubtful title to her divine Name".
The Nescience dared to do this because there is a great kinship between it and the Divine. There is an attempt at creating perfection from. imperfection which is really the law of evolution. It is because of this that even in ordinary ignorant human life
"Earth's great dull barrier is removed awhile,
"And we grow vessels of creative might."
Ordinarily, man imitates material and vital shapes from the subtle material and vital worlds. As long as he imitates the forms of subtle matter and subtle vital planes he succeeds in giving them some kind of shape in gross matter. But when he tries to embody things beyond the range of the earth-consciousness, beyond this material cosmos,—he finds that the stuff of this earth is too crude and the tools too rude. Even when he succeeds in embodying something of the spirit, with all his effort man is only able to achieve a transient success because of the inherent imperfection of earthly elements which are necessary to give form and body to the divine Spirit.
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And yet, it is possible to embody, even here, a perfect expression of the Divine. The condition is that one must join "a line of the Transcendent" which "meets our road",
"And Joins us to the timeless and the true".
It is then that man gets the "inevitable word"
"The godlike act, the thoughts that never die."
In that state of exaltation, man is surrounded by the 'vast Unknown" and he feels that "A subtle link of union joins all life" and "...all creation is a single chain" i e., man no longer feels that he is left alone "in a closed scheme",—
"Between a driving of inconscient Force
And an incommunicable Absolute."
Unlike our gross earth the world of subtle matter at its height embodies something of the divine perfection of the Infinite. For, there the resistance of the expressive medium is non-existent. There "love and sweetness are the law of life". In fact, we awaken to "A fourth dimension of aesthetic sense where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all". And yet the inmost being in us feels that this is not the highest height of our attainment and that we have not to forget to reach the very highest Divine whose home is far above the realm of subtle matter.
The world of subtle matter which lies behind our material world is full of "fantasy, symmetry and grace". There all movements are natural, pure and simple. There is a perfection which comes by acceptance of limits and within those limits the perfection is '' perfect. But the human soul aspires to reach a deeper spiritual perfection and to such a deep aspiration the world of subtle matter would only be a "brilliant courtyard". Aswapathy, therefore, "left that fine material Paradise" because he had to rise to other higher and greater worlds.
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CANTO III
THE GLORY AND FALL OF LIFE
Having left the limits of the physical mind Aswapathy entered the world of life, the plane of vital being. To this plane belong change, doubt, adventure, toil without repose. Life pursues a goal which seems to recede like a mirage as it is pursued. In fact, this plane of pure life-force was "the manifest incalculable". Here, life could take all shapes and need not remain confined to any fixed form. Life here is fearless and can court disasters and dangers and follow the wake of discovery almost as her law. Life here experiments with everything and nothing ever seems to matter to her. From the smallest worm that crawls to the mighty Titan, she manifests herself and pursues a conquest in the various fields of life. She can also be enamoured of pain and sorrow and can willingly become utterly stricken by grief, she can follow fears, and lusts dogged by dead fatigue. In the midst of this plethora of her activity, in the very depth of life, there is some deep dissatisfaction, for, "every change prolongs the same unease". Something in her wants to go to heaven but, actually, turns towards hell
"Her moods are faces of the Infinite:
Beauty and happiness are her native right,
And endless bliss is her eternal home."
When he went up towards the higher levels of life he found
"As far as heaven, as near as thought and hope,
Glimmered the kingdom of a griefless life."
He saw in the blue expanse of life mounting up to the Infinite, there was no suffering, grief or struggle as in human life, there was no anger, gloom and hate on the heights. Its beings experienced immortal gladness. Though these beings and their state appeared miraculous to mortal eyes, yet, to the inmost being of man they were not something unattainable. It is an unattained but close realm which is immune from the harsh clutch of Death and Time, All
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beings there are living in the "griefless country under purple suns".
To Aswapathy these vital beings and their realms were no longer dreams but realities. This realm of pure Vital Being rose to breathless summit regions where
"Only a miracle's high transfiguring line
Divided life from the formless Infinite".
It is this highest vital plane of being that really gives to man and his life all the brilliant pursuits and victories even of his mental and idealistic life. This drive of life it is in which
"Our human ignorance moves towards the Truth
That Nescience may become omniscient".
Then Aswapathy saw that this high region was also plunging towards nether depths. Thus
"There were vasts of the glory of life's absolutes:
"Before the darkness came and pain and grief were born".
He could see this vast infinite of upper life trying to become its very opposite and bring into existence struggle and sorrow and pain.
But between this high vital heaven and the lower depths there were intermediate regions of life. They were superior to the life as already manifested in matter but possible to life on earth, if earth could become purer and reach out towards the Absolute. They were quite conceivable by life in matter though not easily attainable. Here
"Only to be was a supreme delight,
Life was a happy laughter of the soul
And Joy was king with Love for minister."
Here life obeyed the law spontaneously and joyously. Here service, worship, obedience, faith were spontaneous acts and life willingly surrendered herself to the rule of the mind. As the poet says "Life
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throned with mind, a double majesty". There was no fatigue in its endeavour and "There work was play and play the only work". In fact,
"Life was an eternity of rapture's moods :
Age never came, care, never lined the face."
This life played with danger and sported with elements of nature; it conquered space and created sciences, giving man the mastery of the world. Here life was true to self, it was entirely sincere, without falsehood and crookedness. "There freedom was sole rule and highest law". This life did not require any other guide except "her luminous heart". It was life full of the delight of creative ecstasy.
Aswapathy saw this world of vital bliss and wanted to enter .into its joy. But he found no possibility of entrance into it, as there was no bridge and his own mind was so consituted that for a time it looked to him as if he was looking at
"a bright desirable dream
Conceived in a longing distance by the heart
Of one who walks in the shadow of earth-pain."
To react to such perfect joy, power and creativity is very difficult for the human being, because "a dire duality is our way to be". It was only in the very beginning of the cosmos that there was a complete immersion of Spirit in Matter and the imprisoned spirit had to cry to Life to invade the material realm so that the consciousness might be released from the material sleep. In response to this earnest appeal. Life left her native light and poured her splendour, her sweet- ness and her bliss upon the earth. She stooped down from her home to awaken feeling, hope and thought, to create charm and beauty upon the earth. As a result,
"Life's glory and swiftness ran in the beauty of beasts,
Man dared and thought and met with his soul the world."
But before Life could establish her perfect glory upon the earth "A dark, ambiguous Presence questioned all". So that when Life actually
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manifested herself on earth she could not recall her original happy state and actually accepted the law of the Inconscience and became subject to joy, sorrow, struggle, desire, etc.
"And all her glory into littleness turned
And all her sweetness into a maimed desire.
To feed death with her works is here life's doom".
This was the mysterious change that came over Life when it passed to earth.
CANTO IV
THE KINGDOMS OF THE LITTLE LIFE
A life arose as a result of the dolorous meeting of the higher Vital and the Inconscience which was so full of unappeased unrest that it could not allow contentment on this inert, solid, globe of the earth. This plane of the little life has given the law of craving to man. It is because of these formless yearning passions in his heart that man is unable to rest content with his life like the beast, or live happy like the flowers and trees. Man's life has added care, reflection and discontent to itself, and he has become an insatiate seeker. All the original fire and might of pure life is brought down here into the littleness of the material being; and life is feeling here a push, an urge towards unattained conditions. For
"She brought into Matter's dull tenacity
Her anguished claim to her lost sovereign right,
Her tireless search, her vexed uneasy heart,
Her wandering unsure steps, her cry for change."
In her labour to reach the status from which she had fallen, she makes restless moves and runs after transient joys,
"Like a child-soul left near the gates of Hell
Fumbling through fog in search of Paradise".
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This fumbling life-force must follow a slow course of evolution in order to arrive at the salvation of the earth-consciousness. This life-force was very near the night of the Inconscience and accepted death as a condition for its temporary living. It was mainly subconscious in its operations. It was graceless and full of animal desire. It seemed to have forgotten its original glory and felicity. Unable to realise fully its spiritual consciousness; it began to live in a pigmy world of its own which seemed to be a dumb confine of life and matter. It was subject to dull sensations and animal instincts. To Aswapathy this lower aspect of life did not appear as its chief characteristic. He saw in it rather the mighty beginnings of "some tremendous dawn of God"—
"The first writhings of cosmic serpent Force
Uncoiled from the mystic ring of Matter's trance".
The whole purpose of this movement seemed to him to be
"To release the glory of God in Nature's mud"
and behind all this lower play of life-force he felt a mystic Presence that was the
"Creator of this game of ray and shade"
who
"...by the swift vibration of a nerve
Links its mechanic throbs to light and love."
This divine Presence behind the working of the lower vital force drives the course of evolution towards, first, the finite loves and lusts and, then,
"The will to conquer and have, to seize and keep,
To enlarge life's room and scope and pleasure's range,
"A yearning to possess and be possessed,
To enjoy and be enjoyed, to feel, to live."
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Even this was only the first cry of the awakening of the soul when it began to look at the light. If the original Infinite Divine had not sacrificed its state of knowledge, power and bliss, then, the dark night of the Nescience could never have ended into the glory of the dawn of spiritual awakening on earth. For,
"A contradiction founds the base of life:
The eternal, the divine Reality
Has faced itself with its own contraries".
It has created the opposition of the Nescience and the Being, ecstasy and pain and all the play of opposites in life in order to create, at some distant future, the great harmony which would resolve them all.
The next level of vital creation which Aswapathy saw was the vast animal world, a world of primitive pythons "great puissant creatures with a dwarfish brain". They had no complex system of sensations and perceptions. In fact, it was a very primitive organisation of nerves which only fulfilled the very primary functions of life. Even the human beings that lived in that stage
"...worked for the body's wants, they craved no more,
Content to breathe, to feel, to sense, to act".
The human being living in that primitive stage was not troubled by thought or reflection. He lived on the verge of sensation, hunting and enjoying the elements of the earth. He could not probe behind into the purpose of Nature around him, nor into the purpose of his own existence. These human beings grouped themselves into friendly or hostile primitive societies, fighting against one another, almost behaving like herds of animals. They did not think of evolving a culture or improving human life spiritually. They were only busy with "movement and speed and strength" and these "were joy enough". All their knowledge was only sensational. The mind that was developed in this state was only a vital mind incapable of pure mental working.
Aswapathy then saw a third creation which contained the capacity for pure thinking. There arose gradually a seeing power within
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the evolving nature which tried to arrange everything round that inner point of light. The world became more ordered, organised, even under the action of "a restricted clamped intelligence". Its thinking was confined to the visible
"A thought was there that planned, a will that strove,
But for small aims within a narrow scope".
It was the existence of a
"...creature passionate only to survive,
Fettered to puny thoughts with no wide range".
Thus, even though Life had awakened to some of its potentialities,
"It knew not the Immortal in its house".
This life of man did not awaken to the vast possibilities of the Spirit it could not know its own origin or its purpose.
CANTO V
GODHEADS OF THE LITTLE LIFE
Aswapathy saw this empire of little life as "An unhappy comer in eternity". And as he wanted to see this region more clearly
"...he plunged his gaze into the siege of mist
That held this ill-lit straitened continent
"...safe from Truth and Self and Light."
To his vision of knowledge this misty world of lower life became very clear
"As when a search-light stabs the Night's blind breast,
And dwellings and trees and figures of men appear
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As if revealed to an eye in Nothingness,
All lurking things were torn out of their veils
And held up in his vision's sun-white blaze."
He saw in that light motley creatures, innumerable in their multitudes, spirits, imps, goblins, genii, all kinds of lower vital beings who were
"Ignorant and dangerous wills but armed with power,
Half-animal, half-god their mood, their shape."
It is these beings who were seen by him to act upon the inner beings of man and to turn them round and round in the inescapable circle of ignorance. For
"To sport with good and evil is their law;
Luring to failure and meaningless success,
All models they corrupt, all measures cheat,
Make knowledge a poison, virtue a patten dull
And lead the endless cycles of desire
Through semblances of sad or happy chance
To an inescapable fatality."
Everything here on earth is enacted under their influence
"Here too these godlings drive our human hearts".
The twilight of human nature is the place they lurk in and they speak to the human being "with the voices of the Night". It is thus that these forces utilise human beings for their purpose and build up structures or constructions which they force upon men leading in the end to blind ignorance. This happens because "reason is used by an irrational Force". Even though man is born on the earth and is of the earth, still, "This earth alone is not our teacher and nurse" because, "The powers of all the" worlds have entrance here". Man is thus very powerfully influenced and moulded not only by the earth and its forces but by life, and vital forces that are subtle and by mental forces and even by forces beyond mind. But it does not
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mean that all the higher planes are very near and easily available to man's ordinary consciousness and the very highest plane of Light, as the poet says, "but now, the Light supreme is far away" and generally "Our conscious life obeys the inconscience's law". This fate lasts so long as man's soul does not attain its freedom. When man awakes to his free Self, then, "Nature steps into the eternal Light", "Then only ends this dream of nether life".
At the outset, he saw that in the Eternal consciousness there appeared something which can be called an infinite vacancy or the miraculous Inconscient. This Inconscient seemed to work with an uncanny intelligence but through mechanical processes in which neither the idea nor the knowledge nor the delight were visible, "Being was an inert substance driven by Force". Out of this state of inconscience, etheric space arose and gave rise to tremendous vibrations. These vibrations seemed to be maintained by "a supreme original Breath". The process of expansion and contraction that went on in this etheric space created "touch and friction", "clash and clasp".
"On the hearth of Space it kindled a viewless Fire
That, scattering worlds as one might scatter seeds,
Whirled out the luminous order of the stars."
The world, rather the cosmos, appeared to be a vast electric ocean full of strange wave-particles, "Constructing by their dance this solid scheme". Man was the witness of this material cosmos who saw "His personal vision as impersonal fact". He saw that gradually in the midst of this great multiplicity of material objects, the original force changed its pose,—the spirit's sleep was stirred and "The Force concealed broke dumbly, slowly out". He found that "A life was born that followed Matter's law". It did not know its aim, its purpose, its fulfilment. Sense and thought make their appearance very slowly. There was in this manifestation of life-force not only an unseen will but a drive towards a new becoming and even there was the feeling of the presence of a secret Self.
"An animal creation crept and ran,
And flew and called between the earth and sky"
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It was a short-lived existence, which these creatures had but they were quite happy to live even though only for a while. From this animal consciousness the human consciousness was moulded and it gave rise to a thinking brain in addition to the apparatus of sensation and feeling. Through man Nature looked at herself and a feeling of wonder seized her in man. Even though man is "moulded a being out of a driven force", still. Nature is not satisfied in him. For "To be what she was not inflamed her hope". And, as a result, in man
"An opening looked up to spheres above
And coloured shadows limned on mortal ground
The passing figures of immortal things".
So, from the higher regions, influences were invited and felt. Man, the mental being, found that he was capable of establishing a contact with the higher than mental level of consciousness. Though these visitations from the greater world were rare, they gave to the human being some idea of his spiritual possibilities. The ordinary life of man was humdrum, occupied with very ordinary needs of physical life and the satisfaction of little desires.
"Man laboured on his little patch of earth
For means to last, to enjoy, to suffer and die."
But yet there was in the midst of all this passing activity, a mighty Witness who lived behind this consciousness, whose glory was hidden and whose wisdom governed from behind this world, who in silence listened to the cry of life and seemed to be waiting for some unrealised greatness of a distant hour.
This great cosmos made of the material world and the world of life seems at first unintelligible, meaningless and enigmatic, mechanical. It is, as if, an exact machine was seen without its use being known. It is, as the poet says, "to this first view of mind, An art and ingenuity without sense". It all looks purposeless. This vast play of transient creatures seems an unfathomable mystery. And yet there is a meaning, a significance, a purpose in Nature. But
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"Inapt to feel the pulse and core of things,
Our reason cannot sound life's mighty sea
And only counts its waves and scans its foam."
Due to this inherent incapacity and imperfection in its very constitution human reason tries to turn this vast cosmos and its course to human ends. But in this endeavour man never succeeds, nor can he ever succeed because his own consciousness is "only a little trickle of the vast cosmic current, his mind, his life and even his body, all derive their sustenance from an infinitesimal flow of current from the vast cosmic mind, cosmic life and cosmic matter. In fact, it is these mighty cosmic forces from the subliminal and dark unknown but powerful forces from the subconscient that govern man's life.
"Our lives translate these subtle intimacies;
All is the commerce of a secret Power."
The vital mind of man, though it may seem its own master, is yet in a very great measure the plaything of vital forces that govern it from behind.
"For none can see the masked ironic troupe
To whom our figure-selves are marionettes".
These forces with their actions and reactions on human life contribute to the total working of the evolutionary movement. The chief function which they fulfil is to keep man occupied with inconsequential acts, to make him restless and pass from stage to stage, and to rebel against all higher truth. In this action they very often succeed because
"Inordinate their hold on human hearts,
In all our nature's turns they intervene."
They create in man the conditions of crude earthiness, self-will, pettiness, his little wraths and lusts. Usually these impulses press upon man in his ignorant condition, and man succumbs to them and becomes their mere tool.
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"Until the piece is done and we pass off
Into a brighter Time and subtler Space."
The action of these forces is to hamper and retard the progress of man towards the higher state to which he has the possibility of reaching.
So long as man is subject to the animality within him and so long as his mental gaze is turned outwards, so long will man's life be subject to "incurable littleness". This action of the life-force is common to the insect, ape and man. The only difference is in the designs and details of the expression of life-force. Even if man succeeds in attaining the small aims of his life, his successes are in fact "failures of the soul". He remains tied to his animal needs, busy with his little desires and "His little hour is spent in little things". He can have at the most some passing glimpse of his possible greatness, knowledge and joy. Some little art, some music, real friendship, delight of Nature, enjoyment of her beauty, these are some of his avenues of touching the higher spheres of life. Even when a greater life dawns on him and wide vistas open out before him, still, he is unable to keep up the tension and even the very best things get reduced to "convention and routine".
"He is satisfied with his common average kind;
Tomorrow's hopes and his old rounds of thought"
And yet it is to be admitted that man is a crown of realised evolution in Nature. But, he is not the final culmination of the whole process. Even now he is marching towards a higher state of consciousness and if man were not a passing condition
"On our road from Matter to eternal Self,
To the Light that made the worlds, the Cause of things"
then, mind would be justified in concluding that Life is merely an accident, an illusion, or a freak and that it is a strange "Inconscience monstrously engendering soul". The existence of the human I being in such a world is much more inexplicable and the mind would only see it as "A pointillage minute of little self". This would be the view of a purely materialistic approach to the cosmos
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bound up within the limits of human reason, "within the circle of sense". The only hope which the philosophic mind or religion can offer to man in this state is the hope of perfection, liberation and bliss in some other higher world after death, but not herein life on earth.
But man's entire knowledge is not contained within the formula of his rational knowledge. There is a deeper self capable of a greater and higher vision. There is also in him the witness-soul that awakens and is capable of attaining "truths unseen", of scanning the Unknown. It is then that life loses its appearance as an accident or a freak and a purpose begins to emerge in the confused play of life, Then, the transient experiences of life get connected with "a wordless inscrutable Power". It becomes conscious of a Light which is the source of all, it searches for One who is a real doer of all works, it seeks for
"The unfelt Self within who is the guide,
The unknown Self above who is the goal."
Nature's labour in the cosmos becomes significant and full of purpose and we see that "A mystic motive drives the stars and suns". The purpose of human life gradually reveals itself and the whole vista of cosmic evolution shows that
"In this passage from a deaf unknowing Force
To struggling consciousness and transient breath
A mighty supernature waits on Time."
The whole world afterwards appears quite different to the view of this Witness; because then he sees it as a movement of man racing towards God and the human souls are seen as "deputed selves of the Supreme". And through all the littleness of the human life, he sees the currents of sweetness, joy, unity, laughter,' happiness, exaltation "A heart of bliss within a world of pain". When the human being awakens to the call of this secret divinity within him then "A door is cut in the mud wall of self" and across the threshold higher powers from beyond the human plane, makers of the divine image here, come down into mankind. Pity and sacrifice, sympathy and
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tenderness manifest themselves in man. Then, man is not satisfied with what he attains, because each part of him desires its absolute—
. "Our thoughts covet the everlasting Light,
Our strength derives from an omnipotent Force,
"Our very senses blindly seek for bliss."
When man has aspired with sufficient force and persistence, then, the Higher Self from above begins to come down like a sea "To fill this image of our transience". Wave after wave of the Higher Consciousness descends upon our mind, our life, and senses and even "The body's tissues thrill apotheosised". When that transformation starts
"This little being of Time, this shadow-soul,
This living dwarf figure-head of darkened spirit
Out of its traffic of petty dreams shall rise."
The human play will be moulded into the image of God and even that which is called the Inconscient shall "Quiver, awake, and shudder with ecstasy". But, in order to achieve this great transformation, the human Spirit must first achieve the ascent.
"The soul must soar sovereign above the form
And climb to summits beyond mind's half-sleep".
Then, only, shall we be able to
"Acquaint our depths with the supernal Ray
And cleave the darkness with the mystic Fire."
Aswapathy made his way through the astral chaos, not knowing whether he was treading on firm soil or shifting sands. He was surrounded on all sides by the huge obstruction of this unlit lower vital world. He felt as if he was travelling in a cave and only light which he had was the flame of his own spirit.
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