On Savitri
THEME/S
CANTO VI
THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER LIFE
From the region of the lower vital plane where Aswapathy found the denial of the highest possibilities of man he came up to the kingdoms of the higher vital where he found at least "a dubious hope". There was in this plane of consciousness a possibility of self-finding, a sureness of form, adventure of the mind and choice of the human heart, "And a touch of sure delight in unsure things". In this higher vital world there was always the zest: of achievement, of trial and dream but none of these things ever fulfilled itself. For "To achieve would have destroyed that magic Space". They were worlds of marvels, beauty, wonder, fancy which reflected dimly some great spiritual splendour above. But the life here was only an ineffectual search which never ended in a victory. Everything on this plane allured but nothing satisfied. In fact everything here was
"...unsafe, miraculous and half-true.
It seemed a realm of lives that had no base."
From here he saw a wider horizon with a greater promise. He saw that there was a self-conscious Spirit trying to seek its own self, busy with little fragments of life. Here, for the first time, the secret Spirit could find some expression, though very inadequate for its delight, beauty, truth and absoluteness. It was possible now to have some beginning of knowledge, intuitive sight and "Some passion of the rapturous heart of Love".
The beings or the forces belonging to this symbol vital world "have made landings on our globe". Many human activities are inspired by their impact and infiltration. Nature in her march from the Inconscient to the Unknown in
"Her high procession moves from stage to stage,
A progress leap from sight to greater sight,
A process march from form to ampler form,
A caravan of the inexhaustible."
In this task of unfolding the Infinite she does not seem to be conscious of any aim
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"But labours driven by a nameless Will
That came from some unknowable formless Vast."
It seems that she is attempting
"To catch the boundless in a net of birth,
To cast the spirit into the physical form,
To lend speech and thought to the Ineffable".
And, it must be admitted that she has not altogether failed because, "She has lured die Eternal into the arms of Time". Though the task is not yet fulfilled and she has no self-knowledge nor the knowledge other acts, the process of her working is difficult, i.e. "Insignificant her means, infinite her work"; yet,
"In little finite strokes of mind and sense
And endless truth she endlessly unfolds".
She has a vision of her greatness and of her perfection which with her is a passion and yet this very effort entails pain. It is as the poet says "A rapture and pang, her glory and her curse''. Aswapathy saw this glorious and mighty effort of the vital world.
"A folly and a beauty unspeakable,
A superb madness of the will to live,
A daring, a delirium of delight".
The consciousness of the Knower had not yet awakened in this world. He was still a prisoner of life, though attempting to escape from his prison by leaping "to the summit thought, the summit light". The effort of this world can only be a
"... strain towards some bright extreme:
Its greatness is to seek and to create."
This greater Life-Force is creative. She is the same "on earth, in heaven, in hell". Even in the conditions of earthly evolution where she meets with great difficulties she is compelled by her
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inmost spirit to encounter all the obstacles and make an effort which appears, at first sight, impossible. Even the "Inconscience is her long gigantic pause" and from it she is impelled to create life and death and all the consequences of an imperfect world, and yet:
"Her tortured invisible spirit continues still
To toil though in darkness, to create though with pangs".
For
"She carries crucified God upon her breast."
This vast and splendid life that marches in her procession towards the Infinite through eternal time and unlimited space is a spectacle of such a dazzling glory. Aswapathy saw that
"This world is her long journey through the night,
The suns and planets lamps to light her road,
Our reason is the confidante of her thoughts,
Our senses are her vibrant witnesses."
It seemed to him that life was labouring
"...to replace by realised dreams,
The memory of her lost eternity."
Then, he saw that in this endless march through the veil of ignorance and the night of inconscience, she has been working for her "eternal Lover". It is for this great lover, the Puruṣa, that she has been working so hard, trying all along to "cajole with her small gifts his mightiness". She wants to keep him attached to her under all conditions "Lest from her arms he turn to his formless peace". This is her heart's business "and her clinging care". In spite of this great care, she follows a law of contradiction and, forgetting that She and Puruṣa are eternally related,
"Her will is to shut God into her works
And keep him as her cherished prisoner
That never they may part again in Time",
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In order that his formless peace and timeless eternity may be attracted to a creation in time
"She builds creation like a rainbow bridge, "
Between the original Silence and the Void."
She makes of this mobile universe a snare for the Infinite. Even though her steps appear ignorant there is a knowledge behind which moves them. When the human mind tries to find out the purpose
"...workings riddles prove,
Examined, they grow other than they were,
Explained, they seem yet more inexplicable."
All forms which she creates here are symbolic of some veiled idea. Thus, every act is a symbol with her and the symbol hides a living power. In spite of all her efforts. Nature is yet not successful in carrying out her purpose on this level of the higher vital being. "But what she needed most she cannot build". She finds everything else but misses the Infinite.
Then, Aswapathy found on the levels of the higher vital world, that there was a consciousness, lighted by the truth, but which did not actually hold the truth. There was an idea and the world was based upon that idea. It could have a conception of God. The beings who live upon this higher plane of life are capable of embodying an ideal. They are beings who hear "A voice of unborn things" They feel the need of bringing about a change in life in the image of some higher light and are equipped with great power to achieve their aims. Sometimes they succeed in establishing the rule of some idea and want always to rule their little empire, they want to be kings in their private world. This, to them, is a sufficient field for the exercise of their power. These are beings who are ..."the kinsmen of our earthly race" and "This region borders on our mortal state".
The beings of this higher vital world are cast in "the hero's mould". Even though this is not a region of true and highest divine life, still, there is here a movement towards the light, for
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the first time "An ideal is their leader and their king". These beings aspire to establish a government of some high ideal on earth and in order to do that they themselves try to incarnate the ideal in their daily acts. Their thoughts, their speech, their lives become saturated with the ideal and they mount or ascend into the very god- head who is the presiding power of the ideal. But it is not always the powers of Light and Heaven that they follow, but sometimes the powers of darkness and hell, for
"Warriors of Good, they serve a shining cause,
Or are Evil's soldiers in the pay of Sin."
This is not a world of moral good only. It is a free world of the higher vital where knowledge is always relative and therefore carries with it ignorance as its counter part, "and Sin too there is a divinity". Even Sin can try to establish her domain, look beautiful and splendid and even proclaim her law as the divine. It can even put on the pose of virtue and try to recruit her worshippers. For these beings there is no common lot,
"A mighty victory or a mighty fall,
A throne in heaven or a pit in hell".
These higher vital beings, if they manifest on earth, achieve some- thing and establish a stage in the evolutionary progress. They upset the balance on the material plane where gross things are regarded as more important than the subtle, but they bring in a contrary balance. Because to them "The gross weighs less, the subtle counts for more". It is on this level that the possibility of contact and interchange between two beings arid a relation,—a mental, an emotional, even a vital and nervous relation is actualised which, for the first time, draws beings together and creates the possibility of collective life. For
There beat a throb of living interchange:
Being felt being even when afar
And consciousness replied to consciousness."
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And yet, this interchange and relation was not "the ultimate oneness". Because yet "There was a separateness of soul from soul". It is very true that the Inconscience was left far behind, but,
"The miracle of the Superconscient still
Unknown, self-wrapped, unfelt, unknowable,"
was yet far off. It looked down upon all of them from above. These higher vital beings were by no means highest in the rung of the ladder of creation. They were of a middle world, having
"A darkness under them, a bright Void above,
Uncertain they lived in a great climbing space".
They did not know yet the full purpose of creation nor did they know themselves. Even Aswapathy when he was there "Himself he grew a riddle to himself" and "As symbols he saw all and sought their sense".
He followed the great track of this higher life-force which appeared like a perilous adventure without an end. He could not envisage any purpose on the wide steps of this life-force for he saw that it was far away from the materiality of earth, and as it went further. from the earth it seemed to be pulled by some other unknown force towards which it moved "Ever she circled towards some far-off Light". But, the source of this Light was neither visible nor clear and everything on this plane appeared to be a puzzle, the solution of which he did not know.
"A thousand baffling faces of the Truth
Locked at him from her forms with unknown eyes".
Life was multi-coloured, immense, full of possibilities of unalloyed bliss, beauty and love. It was full of fantasy, pomp and play. Her craft was rich and delicate. She had a mysterious will which acted upon all who came in contact with her, and yet the mind of this power was not satisfied. Her heart was unable to capture the one beloved. She was
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"An exiled goddess building mimic heavens,
A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun."
Thus, trying to probe the depth and the secret of this vital plane, he was nearing a Spirit whose "passive presence was her nature's strength". But he could not see this spirit outwardly. It was only occasionally that there was a vague feeling of such a Presence and then
"He saw a half-blind chained divinity
Bewildered by the world in which he moved".
Sometimes by an act of sheer intuition he felt the direction of this "life-force" and could comprehend, the landmarks it had created in course of time. But, again, this clarity was lost in the "many- toned marvel of her chant" and the Puruṣa was attracted to several directions at the same time. Thus, "He loses himself in her but wins her not". This spirit that is hidden, and is trying to decipher the meaning and purpose of life, finds that it is baffled and
"...the Word of Life is hidden in its script,
The chant of Life has lost its divine note."
There is plenty of thrill in her, ravishments of mind and sense abound, but snatches of real felicity are brief and rare. The Self entangled in this maze is
"A wanderer of forlorn despairing routes,
Forsaken cries to a forgotten bliss."
Because he has gone
"Astray in the echo caverns of Desire,
"Or lingers upon sweet and errant notes
Hunting for pleasure in the heart of pain."
And yet even this transient experience of life is supported by an all-pervading element of joy so that creatures find delight in the
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mere act of living "Even grief has joy hidden beneath its roots" because "nothing is truly vain the One has made". This all-pervading joy of the divine Presence in things gives glory and rapture to this passing phenomenon of life. So long as the Spirit is en- tangled in and attached to this imperfect expression of its ultimate purpose it is unable to awaken to the highest and eternal world except, perhaps as an occasional murmur. Very rarely, some blissful voice or beauty's touch recalls the strength and sweetness which are not to be found in their purity on this plane, yet exist somewhere on a higher plane of being.
Even though the outer mind of this vital force has forgotten the. purpose for which it exists, still, "Her depths remember what she came to do". It was to effect a total transformation, "To create her Creator here was her heart's conceit". It was to "marry with a sky of calm a sea of bliss". But this vision of Nature seems to go be- yond the reach of her actions. For instance, she sees the possibilities of the life of gods in her vision but in actuality she succeeds in creating "A demi-god emerging from an ape". The secret energies of Nature act in such a way in this ignorant world that by their own action, sometimes by their very strong action, they put off or render impossible the very attainment of their objective. For instance, she holds the spirit so tight "In her embrace" that "it cannot turn to its source". Even her thinking is weighed down by the inertia of the Nescience and as a result "A sense of limit haunts her masteries" and "nowhere is assured content or peace". Aswapathy, as the observer, tried to see if there was a way of escape out of the movement of this vital plane and he saw that there was no gate of escape so long as the being was imprisoned in it.
"Our being must move eternally through Time;
Death helps us not, vain is the hope to cease;
A secret Will compels us to endure.
Our life's repose is in the Infinite;
It cannot end, its end is Life supreme."
The process of birth and death is only a passage and the human Spirit is carried from birth to birth and even after giving up the body the spirit can continue to act. This plane of the vital was
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always filled with "busy murmur", it was always "a stir" and it strove to escape from its ''long monotone", "And made new things that soon were like the old.
The mind here was cheated with the idea of change and it became busy with invention, production, interchange, economic progress, etc. This kind of progress never led to any real perfection and therefore whatever it achieved was always relative. One scheme was followed by another scheme, ideas were brief-lived and even when a declaration was made of finality, it was found that it was "a world made ever anew, never complete" and it always "piled... half-attempts on lost attempts". It considers fragments as wholes. And, in the vast imperfect activity of this vital plane, existence seems quite purposeless, full of opposites and driven by necessity. It appears only as "A futile and recurring sum of souls" and still life goes on not because Acre is no aim but because
"There quivers still within her breast and ours
A glory that was once and is no more".
This dream of perfection is not something alien to the spirit of Life because
"This knowledge in oar bidden parts we keep;
Awake to a vague mystery's appeal,
We meet a deep unseen Reality
Far truer than the world's face of present Truth".
We are always pursued by the idea of some great Kingdom of Perfection lost by us. At present our life is a march to a victory never won and yet the aspiration and hope never end or wane. Man in the midst of his utmost difficulty still retains his aspiration and the faith in an ultimate and utter peace. He intensely believes in the coming down of a Divinity from above and hopes that
"One day he shall lift his beauty's dreadful veil,
Impose delight on the world's beating heart
And bear his secret body of light and bliss,"
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When the highest fulfilment has been attained, will there be then a complete rest—a cessation from all activity?
"Or there repose and action are the same
In the deep breast of God's supreme delight."
It would not be necessary then to strive for peace and bliss for they would be self-existent and action would be
"...A ripple in the Infinite
And birth a gesture of Eternity."
In that state of the divine Existence where human contraries are reconciled in a supreme self-existent harmony, it would be possible for the earth to attain her dream. For
"Then God could be visible here, here take a shape;
Disclosed would be the Spirit's identity;
Life would reveal her true immortal face."
But till this consummation is attained this endless game of life, its ever circling wheel of action would go on spinning. Till then it appears that
"An error of the gods has made the world,
Or indifferent the Eternal watches Time."
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CANTO VII
DESCENT INTO NIGHT
Aswapathy tried to find the cause of the failure of this higher vital world. He peered into the darkness that was below and tried to locate there the cause, if any. Suddenly, "The veil was rent that covers Nature's depths" and there
"He saw the fount of the world's lasting pain
And the mouth of the black pit of Ignorance",
This region was located there "where dies subjective Space". It was the region of the Nescience where everything that is present in life is turned into its opposite with almost an equal imperativeness. For instance, there was a Power, there was a Presence and there was what might be called Doom which was the opposite of Destiny. There was a mind also which, instead of serving truth, corrupted it with her own formula and everything there was consequently "overcast with error, grief and pain". It was this mind of the Nescient that "Effaced the signposts of Life's pilgrimage" and instead "Erected its bronze pylons of misrule". Under its influence, even the very best became dangerous and harmful. Due to. this universal presence of evil and falsehood everything "bore black fruit of suffering, death and bale". Seeds of evil and falsehood seemed to be scattered everywhere. Here even though he saw some brighter side of life, some truth, some love, some friendship and beauty, he also could not help seeing the anguish and "A breath of disillusion and decadence" that was in store for all life. And even the truths that were once living became dead and yet people were cherishing the putrid corpses of those dead truths. There were fear and lust everywhere and the spontaneous good of the soul was "Replaced by a manufactured virtue and vice" so that the evil that was present was only "a relief from spurious good". Thus, in this dark region
"All glory of life dimmed tarnished into a doubt,
All beauty ended in an aging face;
All power was dubbed a tyranny cursed by God
And Truth a fiction needed by the mind;
The chase of joy was now a tired hunt;
All knowledge was left a questioning Ignorance."
In this region of darkness he saw many beings embodying dangerous propensities full of menace. Even Aswapathy saw that
"...ominous beings passed him on the road
Whose very gaze was a calamity".
There were also charming and sweet faces but full of dangers, "Faces that raised alluring lips and eyes" but their beauty was "like a snare".
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These beings who were themselves in this dark imprisonment did not even realise they were prisoners. This contact with the dark world gave Aswapathy some knowledge of its constitution. But he felt that there was yet something more to be known and so he followed the track of these forces of ignorance "Returning to the Night from which they came". It was a region which was "A borderland between the world and hell" where all could enter but none could stay for long. This was the world of pretence and falsehood and yet "nothing would confess its own pretence". It was a world of deception where nothing could be relied upon, for, there
"Joy nurtured tears and good an evil proved,
"Love ended early in hate, delight killed with pain,
Truth into falsity grew and death ruled life."
It all seemed to be the work of an evil power which was clothed in light and put on the appearance of a helping angel.
"He deceived with wisdom, with virtue slew the soul
And led to perdition by the heavenward path.
A lavish sense he gave of power and joy."
It was such a deceptive power that it used logic to convince man's mind and made the false seem true. Very often, this being spoke in the name of God himself. But all who lived in this atmosphere "lived for themselves alone". Under the garb of outer friendship and good-will, there lay treachery and hate. Behind the apparent safety all round, there lurked fear and danger everywhere. Everyone a/as cautious and yet caution did not pay. There was no place of safety and everybody had to be on the alert the whole time. In spite of so much mutual distrust and animosity, they all combined in their opposition to the mind that "sought some higher good". They would not tolerate any one or any idea that would contradict "The settled anarchy" of their state.
After some time, with a keener gaze, Aswapathy saw that there was a capital but no State. It was a city
"Founded upon a soil that knew not Light.
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"There Ego was lord upon his peacock seat
And falsehood sat by him, his mate and queen".
These two, falsehood and ego, usurped the place of truth and God. Everything here was founded upon force "And licence stalked prating of order and right". There was no true freedom, no harmony, no tolerance anywhere for these beings and "Power and utility were their Truth and Right". The weaker went to the wall and the stronger "did what in others they would persecute". Even though they v/ere themselves sinful, they stoned a neighbour caught in sin. They persecuted every faith that did not agree with theirs "And founded unity upon fraud and force". They cherished no ideals and considered spiritual seeking as a self-deception "or mad chimera" or "hypocrite's fake". In this anarchical state, "A lie was there the truth and truth a lie". While passing through this region Aswapathy found it necessary to protect himself by uttering the divine Name, for, this region is full of deceptive dangers where the pilgrim of truth might receive a treacherous blow that "might cast him prostrate" and "pin to unholy soil". The power of evil can make the pilgrim of truth fall as a casualty and he might permanently lose his goal. Only those who keep God in their hearts and put on the armour of courage, with the sword of faith in their bands, can hope to come out successful and safe from this dangerous region. Such men would be alert with
"The hand ready to smite, the eye to scout,
Casting a javelin regard in front,
Heroes and soldiers of the army of Light".
But this was not the deepest depth of the darkness of the Nescience. There was a worse reign below, evil's extreme to which he now turned his gaze. It was a region of such pitchy darkness that the "Eye could not see but only the soul feel". It was, as it were, a region where there were situated the "savage slums of Night". There were squalid huts "Neighbouring proud palaces of perverted Power". There were "inhuman quarters and demoniac wards". And he saw that here life had fallen into the lowest depth of degradation, obscuration and deformation, while Life tried to attract and
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allure the Spirit to her degraded state in order to perpetrate "Epics of horror and grim majesty". This darkest region was one which
"In booths of sin and night-repairs of vice
"And sordid imaginations etched in flesh,
Turned lust into a decorative art".
Everything was twisted out of' its natural form, everything was exaggerated and here life "made vileness great and sublimated filth". '
"All Nature pulled out of her frame and base
Was twisted into an unnatural pose".
Agony, hatred and torture tried to work as their opposites. The mental being here turned itself into an animal and entered the pit of mire in order to disport itself,
"Thence bubbling rose sullying the upper air,
The filth and festering secrets of the Abyss:
This it called positive fact and real life."
This was the region which might rightly be called hell.
It was not a region without population. The beings of this region took delight in everything perverted and even though they looked y human in appearance they were really subhuman in all their tendencies "lower than the lowest reptile's crawl". They installed in the seat of power insolence capable of an orgy of violence, ruling every- thing by sheer force. It put down free thought and started her own slogans of falsehood as its substitute. Fear and weakness became so rampant that men subjected themselves to them without thought of resistance. It tried to fill the world with
"its hard and shameless clamour...
And threatening all who dared to listen to truth"
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it tried to keep on its false empire of the abyss.
Aswapathy like
"A lone discoverer in these menacing realms
Guarded like termite cities from the sun,"
passed from the dark abyss to the nethermost region of the Nescience where "He walked between wide banks of failing eve". He was lonely and it was dangerous to be lonely. He felt a possible attack upon his mind and saw that he was face to face with "a sense of death and conscious Void". And yet it was not pure inertia; for he felt that there was a life here but a hostile life. As he went further down into the abyss a
"...solitude wrapped him in its voiceless folds.
All vanished suddenly like a thought expunged".
And nothing was left now "not even an evil face". Now "He was alone with the grey python Night". This nameless Nothing threatened to annihilate everything "That it might be for ever nude and sole". Aswapathy was caught into the jaws of this python, he was almost attracted by the giant's mouth and by the darkness which was grim. He felt then a cold sensation, a chill in his heart and he almost entered me state of death, "life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath". He felt that his body was being licked up by "a tenebrous tongue". Existence, hope, belief, memory, all disappeared, leaving behind "A nameless and unutterable fear". He felt as if the whole sea of the Inconscient was approaching him to be swallowed as a victim. "A lifeless vacancy was now his breast". But he outlived all these trials and found that that which was Self in him was still there.
"Then peace returned and the soul's sovereign gaze
To the blank horror a calm Light replied".
The godhead in Aswapathy was awake "And faced the pain and danger of the world".
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CANTOVIII
WORLD OF FALSEHOOD, THE MOTHER OF EVIL AND THE
SONS OF DARKNESS
When Aswapathy saw the heart of the Night he found that there was a spiritless blank eternity where the eternal truth was denied and it was hoped to continue the anarchy of darkness. There was only a brute principle of life without the revealing presence of divine Light, Evil and pain acting in this brute life gave rise to demoniac powers which were
"World-egos racked with lust and thought and will,
Vast minds and lives without a spirit within".
They were in fact embodiments of dark ideas which were responsible for the creation of man's hell. This hell was
"...the gate of a false Infinite,
An eternity of disastrous absolutes".
It denied all true things because it was the power of the Inconscience. Thought became an instrument of perversity and even Good
"...a faithless gardener of God,
Watered with virtue the world's upas-tree".
He saw some vague, illimitable power sitting on Death and trying to subject everything to the one fate.
In the very beginning when the Inconscience reigned, life first touched the "insensible Abyss". The greatest difficulty then was to prepare a way for the Spirit to manifest itself. Life, in its first contact with the Inconscient, could not create in the inconscient matter the right form for the manifestation of the Spirit. It tried "But from the Night another answer came". Because there was the seal in the Inconscient itself,—
"In Nature's titan embryo. Ignorance."
which
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"Lifted its ominous head against the stars;
Overshadowing earth with its huge body of Doom
It chilled the heavens with the menace of a face.
A nameless Power, a shadowy Will arose
Immense and alien to our universe."
This life that emerged from the Inconscience introduced an element of disharmony into the original cosmic. Will and bound it to struggle and vicissitudes. It introduced error and, consequently, slowed down the process of evolution and made man dependent upon his external sense in preference to his natural instincts. The divine Presence in man's heart was also obscured. This life was afraid of the birth of the soul in man and, to prevent it, it resorted to all kinds of tricks and methods. Sometimes this life suddenly attacks, at other times, she captivates her victims. It. even happens at times that
"The. self of life yields up its instruments
To Titan and demoniac agencies"
in which case man's thoughts are guided by these forces and his faith is destroyed by them. Man becomes completely their subject and all the chances of his spiritual evolution are lost. Such beings have no soul "and only a mind and body live to die" in their case.
Ignorance shields many terrible, enormous powers which are 'Haters of light, intolerent of peace". They imitate the divine; Presence in the heart while shutting its doors to the Divine completely and they keep out by the. Law "his tireless Grace". They always intervene in the passage of Light from above; "Wherever the. Gods act, they intervene". Generally they occupy all the, seats of power and influence in humanity and proclaim eternal laws as falsehoods. They even occupy "The world's shrines" and establish themselves as the ruler of this world. They assume Divinity unto themselves they desire to guide and rule mankind. Even they happen "to serve by enmity the cosmic scheme". They take refuge in the dark- ness of Ignorance and protect themselves in "sunless privacy" of their "forts of gloom". There, under the shadow of creative Death "The giant. sons of Darkness sit and plan". They plan the tragic drama that may come to be enacted on the earth's stage. All who would
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raise fallen mankind come under their dangerous attacks. Aswapathy also had to pass through this realm, for, "None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell".
So Aswapathy made his way through this realm
"Peopled by souls who never had tasted bliss,
Ignorant like men born blind who know not light,"
challenging the forces that lived there. As he probed deeper into this world of pain, he found a world of agony and people taking wicked joy in cruelty. Life itself here was a long punishment, the body was "a field of torment", heart was hard and mind without joy. Tranquillity was unknown. Only jealousy, spite, hate and lust continued to work upon men and lead them to their tragic sorrows. The human soul caught into the net of these forces was obliged "To worship a black pitiless image of Power". It had to be thankful to this God of Power for everything that was done however cruel and inhuman it may be,—even for the greatest cruelty perpetrated,
"Cities uprooted, blasted human homes,
Burned writhen bodies, the bombshell's massacre."
They had to invoke the blessings of God. This they thought was a divine action. In fact these dark forces wanted to command the Divine and not to obey Him. Hatred was like an all-pervading element in this region "Burning the soul with its malignant rays". Even physical objects seemed to emanate these lower impulses from them because they seem to give back what they had received. It was not that the beings on this plane were unconscious,—they were conscious but they were all perverse. Aswapathy tried to understand and to know the heart of this Hell. He wanted to understand its root and cause and when the heart of Hell was opened he could hear its goblin voices that misguided, enchanted and ambushed the traveller to the Light. He suffered all the sorrows of this hell and went through all the bitter experiences,—"He drank her poison draughts till none was left". He narrowly escaped the danger of losing his own Self and succeeded in saving himself, because "He treasured between his hands his flickering soul". While passing through this region, even
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though thought had ceased and sense had failed, "his soul still saw and knew". He sounded further the mystery of this dark and bottomless world and by an act of sheer identity with the very deepest spirit that was behind this Nescience he stood at the very entrance of the Subconscient and. saw that the Being that was there though acting unconsciously, was in reality carrying out ? cosmic will. He saw that a secret divine Hand, an invisible hand of Light, was guiding it.
"He saw in Night the Eternal's shadowy veil,
Knew death for a cellar of the house of life
In destruction felt Creation's hasty pace,
And hell as a short cut to Heaven's gates."
When he had realised this great underlying truth, then, the whole aspect of the Night changed and the mechanical iron-rule of ignorance was expunged. The law that bound the soul to ignorance was can celled and quite another message began to be written on the cosmic page. The forms of earth became vessels of the Divine, Inconscience ceased to be and
"a paean song of the free Infinite,
And the Name, foundation of eternity"
was heard, "And the message of the superconscient Fire". Life became pure on earth/'The infernal Gleam died" "Night opened and vanished like a gulf of dream". Then, on this earth "Division ceased to be, for God was there". Thus, at last, "Matter and Spirit mingled and were one".
CANTO IX
THE PARADISE OF THE LIFE-GODS
From the realm of dark gloom, Aswapathy came out into a felicitous daylight. Here life was subject to divine command, assured of its own bliss, without fear or grief "And unalarmed by the breath of fleeting Time". It was at ease here and secure in its joy and universal love. There was ceaseless radiance all round and even the elements
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that touched the senses were full of delight. This world was like "the World -Magician's glass" embodying all the beauty and bliss and gladness far more intense than what can be possibly experienced on earth. In this region were "Rapt dreaming cities of Gandharva kings". There was constant heavenly music chanting the glory of Eternal love. There were the heavens of vital gods where beauty is native to the mould, peace and love and strength are always there; mounting desires, divine pleasures, high dreams were natural to this world—
"In that Paradise of perfect heart and sense
No lower note could break the endless charm"
of the sweetness that was there. The energies that played there were not afraid of their own bliss. The whole constitution of Aswapathy's life-mould was changed and "His earth, dowered with celestial competence" did not require to "smuggle godhead into humanity" across the customs-line of mind and flesh; for, it had now become strong enough to aspire for an unlimited capacity for bliss and
"It drew from sight and sound spiritual power,
Made sense a road to reach the Intangible:
"Made body a nectar-cup of the Absolute."
When he had so changed his vital-mould he found that
"Eternity drew close disguised as Love
And laid its hand upon the body of Time."
This coming down of Eternity in Time might look to us only a little gift
"But measureless to life its gain of joy;
All the untold Beyond is mirrored there.
A giant drop of Bliss unknowable
Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became
A fiery ocean of felicity".
He saw that here "Immortality captured Time and carried Life".
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