Book-2-Study-Canto-12

Book Two: Canto XII

The Heavens of the Ideal

Summary
Awakened Thought leaves the boundaries of the known to scale the peaks of the unknown. It longs for the unrealised Truth, the Light that is above birth and death. Each stage of its ascent reveals a new world of wonder and bliss.

At either end of the effulgent stair Aswapathy sees the heavens of the ideal Mind. On one side are worlds of undying Bliss, the Kingdoms of the deathless Rose. This Bliss lies between the Supramental realms above and the abysses of the Inconscient below; it also flows behind all life—though unseen and unsuspected by the suffering world. It is the Rose of Bliss that slowly blossoms in the garden of life on earth as an offering to God and the answering Grace of God fulfils the object of existence by enabling life to manifest the Spirit.

All that is in these higher worlds of sweetness and Bliss is there incipient in mortal life. It awakens and grows by the touch of the divine Breath which visits the earth time and again.

On the other side of the stair are great realms of luminous Knowledge, the Kingdoms of the deathless Flame. The unquenchable flame of Knowledge mounts up from the altar of the Mind aspiring to reach the absolutes of the Being. Its worlds of ascent are great in proportion, bright and mighty. They constantly pull the human soul upwards to their heights. Their peaks point to some distant Splendour of the Truth Infinite.

Man, unaided by the strength and spirit of the Eternal, can hardly hope to climb these heights. His knowledge, strength and energy are too puny for the immense adventure.

Aswapathy moves through these kingdoms of the Ideal, participates in their glory but does not accept to stay under their rule. He finds that each Idea, however bright and great, is but a partial truth; and yet each seeks to reign alone as the sole truth. Many are such absolutes each claiming to be the Supreme. There are regions, indeed, where they meet and join, but each retains its separate individuality.

Aswapathy passes on to a diviner sphere. There all these great Powers forget their difference and combine in a single multitudinous Whole. There on the wide height of the Spirit, in the immutable Truth, all are one.

Ideal Beckons

Always the Ideal beckoned from afar.

Awakened by the touch of the Unseen,
Deserting the boundary of things achieved,
Aspired the strong discoverer, tireless Thought,
Revealing at each step a luminous world.

Aswapathy watches the Ideal that is always ahead exercising a pull towards itself. He sees how Thought, which is astir by the touch of the unseen Reality, gives up its attained positions and, ever avid of fresh discoveries, pushes forward bringing into view newer and more luminous realms one after the other.

Towards Unknown Peaks

It left known summits for the unknown peaks:
Impassioned, it sought the lone unrealised Truth,
It longed for the Light that knows not death and birth.

Thought is on the move, adventuring from the known heights to the still unknown peaks. It is afire with seeking for the unique Truth that is not yet realised, for the supreme Light that is beyond the vicissitudes of birth and death.

Being’s Mighty Stair

Each stage of the soul’s remote ascent was built
Into a constant heaven felt always here.

At each pace of the journey marvellous
A new degree of wonder and of bliss,
A new rung formed in Being’s mighty stair,

Here is built the many-stepped stair of the heavens for the far ascent of the human soul. Each stage of this wonderful journey is marked by a new intensity of marvel and bliss, a new formation in the great stair of the creative Being.

Great Wide Step

A great wide step trembling with jewelled fire
As if a burning spirit quivered there
Upholding with his flame the immortal hope,
As if a radiant God had given his soul
That he might feel the tread of pilgrim feet
Mounting in haste to the Eternal’s house.

A luminous wideness opens out athrob with a mighty aspiration upholding the undying hope in Creation. It looks as if the pathway for the ascending pilgrim-soul is paved with the very substance of a radiant Godhead so as to offer him the most intimate support in his effort.

Heavens of Ideal Mind

At either end of each effulgent stair
The heavens of the ideal Mind were seen
In a blue lucency of dreaming space
Like strips of brilliant sky clinging to the moon.

There are stairs after stairs, each one shining luminous, leading from one heaven of the ideal Mind to another set in the bright blue expanse of the highest region of the Mind.

Deathless Rose (I)

On one side glimmered hue on floating hue,
In a glory and surprise of the seized soul
And a tremulous rapture of the heart’s insight
And the spontaneous bliss that beauty gives,
The lovely kingdoms of the deathless Rose.

There is a glimmer of hue upon hue and spread out on one side are the bewitching realms of Bliss seizing the soul in their rapturous clasp. Beauteous by nature they breathe a spontaneous bliss.

Deathless Rose (II)

Above the spirit cased in mortal sense
Are superconscious realms of heavenly peace,
Below, the Inconscient’s sullen dim abyss,
Between, behind our life, the deathless Rose.

These Kingdoms of Bliss lie between two realms: the transcendent realm of peace beyond the worlds of the sense-embodied spirit, and the dark depths of nescience below. This Bliss is also spread out behind the whole creation; for, as the Scripture says, without this underlying Bliss what indeed could breathe even for a moment!

Body of Cosmic Beauty and Joy

Across the covert air the spirit breathes,
A body of the cosmic beauty and joy
Unseen, unguessed by the blind suffering world,
Climbing from Nature’s deep surrendered heart
It blooms for ever at the feet of God,
Fed by life’s sacrificial mysteries.

This deathless Rose, this ever-existent Bliss flows across the entire gamut of the cosmic creation from the core of Nature to the summits of the Spirit. It draws its sustenance from the life-experiences of the Soul. Only the world in its short-sightedness and preoccupation with its suffering is unaware of this flow of bliss supporting its existence from behind the veil.

Its Bud in Human Breasts

Here too its bud is born in human breasts;
Then by a touch, a presence or a voice
The world is turned into a temple ground
And all discloses the unknown Beloved.

This Bliss lies in the human breast like an unopened bud. When by the impact of a higher touch or voice or even Presence, it begins to open, life changes its character; all becomes sacred and everything reveals the presence of the Divine Beloved.

Soul Opens to Felicity

In an outburst of heavenly joy and ease
Life yields to the divinity within
And gives the rapture-offering of its all,
And the soul opens to felicity.

There is a great outburst of unearthly joy and happiness and life gives itself spontaneously to the divine Indweller, makes an offering of its raptures. The soul is then filled with a deep felicity.

Unceasing Bliss

A bliss is felt that never can wholly cease,
A sudden mystery of secret Grace
Flowers goldening our earth of red desire.

Unlike the happiness caused by external factors, which ceases with their cessation, this inner bliss is unending, it may be interrupted at times, but never does it entirely cease. There is a sudden blossoming of Divine Grace imparting a luminous glow to the passion-filled earth.

High Gods Reveal their Names

All the high gods who hid their visages
From the soiled passionate ritual of our hopes,
Reveal their names and their undying powers.

When this event of capital importance in the enfoldment of the soul takes place, the gods who withhold themselves from the usual desire-infected worship of mortals, step out of their veils and reveal their intrinsic truth and power to the chosen individuals.

Miracle Fulfilled

A fiery stillness wakes the slumbering cells,
A passion of the flesh becoming spirit,
And marvellously is fulfilled at last
The miracle for which our life was made.

In the dormant cells there awakes a powerful, potent stillness; there is an intense aspiration in living matter for conversion into the spirit. The great and difficult object of life—to manifest the Spirit in life—is at last brought near to fulfilment.

Faces of Immortal Light

A flame in a white voiceless cupola
Is seen and faces of immortal light,
The radiant limbs that know not birth and death,
The breasts that suckle the first-born of the Sun,
The wings that crowd Thought’s ardent silences,
The eyes that look into spiritual Space.

Revelations follow close one upon the other; the white flame of purity burns silently; forms embodying undying light, immortal, supremely nourishing, peopling deep silences on the peaks of Thought, gaze into the vasts of the Spirit.

Hidden Centres Open

Our hidden centres of celestial force
Open like flowers to a heavenly atmosphere;
Mind pauses thrilled with the supernal Ray,
And even the transient body then can feel
Ideal love and flawless happiness
And laughter of the heart’s sweetness and delight
Freed from the rude and tragic hold of Time,
And beauty and the rhythmic feet of the hours.

There are in the deeper being of man certain centres of spiritual force, but they are commonly dormant as he normally lives very much on the surface levels. When, however, he enters or is exposed to the higher atmosphere of the Spirit these centres open out spontaneously. Mind ceases from its restless mechanical activity and stands thrilled at the touch of a Ray of the higher Light. Even the physical body—subject to the limitations of mortality—begins to experience true love based upon an entire self-giving, a happiness that is not marred by the shadow of sorrow, a joy and deep bliss in the heart that is undecaying, a sense of beauty and rhythm in the march of Time.

Bud Blossoms

This in high realms touches immortal kind;
What here is in the bud has blossomed there.

All this, however, is not something totally new and foreign that is grafted on the being. Man always holds in himself these potentialities, undisclosed, untapped; they open out and blossom in the higher, more favourable atmosphere of the Spirit. There the mortal enters the realm of the immortal.

House of Flame

There is the secrecy of the House of Flame,
The blaze of Godlike thought and golden bliss,
The rapt idealism of heavenly sense;
There are the wonderful voices, the sun-laugh,
A gurgling eddy in rivers of God’s joy,
And the mysteried vineyards of the gold moon-wine,
All the fire and sweetness of which hardly here
A brilliant shadow visits mortal life.

There, above, is the secret Home of Knowledge, the flamings of illumined thought and the acme of purified sense-joy. All is a wave of celestial delight. What passes for knowledge and happiness in the mortal world is but a distant shadow of these originals in the supernal.

Flutings of the Infinite

Although are witnessed there the joys of Time,
Pressed on the bosom the Immortal’s touch is felt,
Heard are the flutings of the Infinite.

Here, above, is the real and full delight of the Eternal’s movement in Time, here is felt the concrete touch of the Immortal upon the mortal, here is heard the call of the Infinite to the finite.

Early Beginnings upon Earth

Here upon earth are early awakenings,
Moments that tremble in an air divine,
And grown upon the yearning of her soil
Time’s sun-flowers’ gaze at gold Eternity:
There are the imperishable beatitudes.

That is so on the Planes of existence high above. But here below on earth are seen only thrilled awakenings to those beatitudes. These rare moments of upliftment come as a result of soaring aspiration on earth for the Eternal.

Million Lotuses on one Stem

A million lotuses swaying on one stem,
World after coloured and ecstatic world
Climbs towards some far unseen epiphany.

This creation of God is multiple in profusion but one at its base; And this supporting base is only a part of the Infinite Being. It is a variegated system of worlds after delightful worlds rising towards a glorious manifestation that is far above.

Kingdoms of Deathless Flame

On the other side of the eternal stairs
The mighty kingdoms of the deathless Flame
Aspired to reach the Being’s absolutes.

On one side of the climbing stairs, Aswapathy has seen the kingdoms of the deathless Rose—worlds of Bliss. Now on the other side of the stairs, he sees great kingdoms of flaming Knowledge aspiring to reach to the utmost Verities of the manifest Being.

Burns on the Altar Mind

Out of the sorrow and darkness of the world,
Out of the depths where life and thought are tombed,
Lonely mounts up to heaven the deathless Flame.

In a veiled Nature’s hallowed secrecies
It burns for ever on the altar Mind,
Its priests the souls of dedicated gods,
Humanity its house of sacrifice.

This Flame of potent Knowledge, the unfolding Consciousness, breaks out from the depths of Nescience in which it is latent and, through all the gradations of Ignorance, pain and suffering of the Earth-World, it climbs upward to the Beatitudes of the Spirit. Behind the veil of the exterior mental workings, this Flame of Consciousness burns in the chamber of the inner Mind, cherished and promoted by the God-powers striving for its manifestation. The whole of humanity is indeed the field for the growth and radiation of this Power of Knowledge.

A Fire along Mystic Paths

Once kindled never can its flamings cease.

A fire along the mystic paths of earth
It rises through the mortal’s hemisphere,
Till borne by runners of the Day and Dusk
It enters the occult eternal Light
And clambers whitening to the invisible Throne.

Once this Power of Knowledge, this flame of aspiration for Light, is lit up, it cannot be extinguished. It spreads into a veritable fire visible on the routes of the Earth’s journey towards the Spirit. It rises upwards on its own force till it is taken charge of and led by the Cosmic Powers into the secret realms of the eternal Light. There, purified of all dross of subtle impurities, the white Flame climbs up to its seat of sovereignty.

Steps of an Ascending Force

Its worlds are steps of an ascending Force:
A dream of giant contours, titan lines,
Homes of unfallen and illumined Might,
Heavens of unchanging Good pure and unborn,
Heights of the grandeur of Truth’s ageless ray,
As in a symbol sky they start to view
And call our souls into a vaster air.

a luminous and conquering might. They are the paradise of unafflicted Good and on their peaks shines the glory of the eternal Ray of Truth. They look upon earth and beckon the human soul to rise into their vastitudes.

They Point Above

On their summits they bear up the sleepless Flame;
Dreaming of a mysterious Beyond,
Transcendent of the paths of Fate and Time,
They point above themselves with index peaks
Through a pale-sapphire ether of God-mind
Towards some gold Infinite’s apocalypse.

These worlds bear the unceasing Flame on their summits. They envisage in their dream some mysterious Beyond which transcends the courses of Fate and Time. Rising through the skies of the God-mind, pale-sapphire in hue, their peaks point above to some splendid Revelation of the Truth Infinite.

They Call

A thunder rolling mid the hills of God,
Tireless, severe is their tremendous Voice:
Exceeding us, to exceed ourselves they call
And bid us rise incessantly above.

These worlds of the Ideal Mind exceed the earth and the men on earth. But they are concerned with the humans and they call them, insistently, incessantly, to rise above themselves and approach the Ideals.

Climbed by Spirit’s Athlete Will

Far from our eager reach those summits live,
Too lofty for our mortal strength and height,
Hardly in a dire ecstasy of toil
Climbed by the spirit’s naked athlete will.

They are indeed above the reach of the impatient striving of men; human strength and stature cannot reach up to them. It is only the indefatigable will of the Spirit in exertion that can, with difficulty, scale their lofty heights.

Only the Eternal’s Strength can Dare

Austere, intolerant they claim from us
Efforts too lasting for our mortal nerve
Our hearts cannot cleave to nor our flesh support;
Only the Eternal’s strength in us can dare
To attempt the immense adventure of that climb
And the sacrifice of all we cherish here.

The demands of these summits of the Ideal are too severe and too demanding for the human faculties to bear and respond to. It is only the will and the strength of the Spirit in man that can set out on this daring adventure of the ascent to the Ideal, leaving behind him all that he cherishes here in his human frailty.

Human Knowledge a Candle

Our human knowledge is a candle burnt
On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth;
Man’s virtue, a coarse-spun ill-fitting dress,
Apparels wooden images of Good;
Passionate and blinded, bleeding, stained with mire
His energy stumbles towards a deathless Force.

An imperfection dogs our highest strength;
Portions and pale reflections are our share.

All the boasted knowledge claimed by the human mind is like a burning candle before the vast Knowledge radiating from the Sun of Truth above. The highest Good that human morality can envisage is but a lifeless image, and its virtue is a make-a-do garment for that artificial figure. Human energy, mechanical and blind, surges on in its intensity but gets maimed and strained in its effort to reach the heights of the immortal Force of the Spirit. The highest human strength is dogged by some imperfection or other; all that comes to the human share is some fragment, some pale reflection of the prize that is aimed at.

Happier Worlds

Happy the worlds that have not felt our fall,
Where Will is one with Truth and Good with Power;
Impoverished not by earth-mind’s indigence,
They keep God’s natural breath of mightiness,
His bare spontaneous swift intensities;
There is his great transparent mirror, Self,
And there his sovereign autarchy of bliss
In which immortal natures have their part,
Heirs and co-sharers of divinity.

Fortunate indeed are the worlds that have not suffered the fall that the earth-world has. In them, unlike on earth, Truth-Knowledge is one with Will and therefore self-effectuating; Good is endowed with the needed Power to rule. There the spontaneous might of the Spirit suffers no diminution due to the inadequacy of the supporting mind as on earth. There the Divine Self is able to reflect all without blemish, there is the play of self-existent Bliss. Beings who are immortal alone share in these glories of the Divine.

Aswapathy Moves at Will

He through the Ideal’s kingdoms moved at will,
Accepted their beauty and their greatness bore,
Partook of the glories of their wonder fields,
But passed nor stayed beneath their splendour’s rule.

Aswapathy moves effortlessly through the many kingdoms of the Ideal Mind, experiencing their beauty and greatness, participating in their wonderful glories. But he is not overpowered by them nor does he choose to stay in their realms.

Each Idea Makes a World

All there was an intense but partial light.

In each a seraph-winged high-browed Idea
United all knowledge by one master thought,
Persuaded all action to one golden sense,
All powers subjected to a single power
And made a world where it could reign alone,
An absolute ideal’s perfect home.

Everything here is intense but partial. Each master Idea claims to be absolute and seeks to organise all knowledge around itself, all action to its own high sense, all power under its one single power. Each creates a world of its own where it is the sole monarch.

Insignia of Victory

Insignia of their victory and their faith,
They offered to the Traveller at their gates
A quenchless flame or an unfading flower,
Emblem of a high kingdom’s privilege.

Each of these Master Ideas offers to the traveller who arrives at the portals of its kingdom its own characteristic illumination of Knowledge and specimen of beauty.

Each Deemed Truth’s Fount

A glorious shining Angel of the Way
Presented to the seeking of the soul
The sweetness and the might of an idea,
Each deemed Truth’s intimate fount and summit force,
The heart of the meaning of the universe,
Perfection’s key, passport to Paradise.

Each Idea is presented in its full sweetness and power, exclusively, as the ultimate root and highest dynamism of Truth, the real meaning of the universe, the sole key to perfection, the needed gate-pass for entering into Paradise.

None would his Body Lose

Yet were there regions where these absolutes met
And made a circle of bliss with married hands;
Light stood embraced by light, fire wedded fire,
But none in the other would his body lose
To find his soul in the world’s single Soul,
A multiplied rapture of infinity.

There are also here regions where these absolute ideas meet, recognise each other and stand together. But none is prepared to lose his individuality, his separate character, to find his rightful and due place in the one Truth with its multiple rapture.

Onward to Multitudinous Whole

Onward he passed to a diviner sphere:
There, joined in a common greatness, light and bliss,
All high and beautiful and desirable powers
Forgetting their difference and their separate reign
Become a single multitudinous whole.

Aswapathy passes on to another sphere, more divine, where all the great ideas join together in a greater glory. They no more lay stress on their individual distinctness and domination, but together form one manysided Whole.

Where all are One

Above the parting of the roads of Time,
Above the Silence and its thousandfold Word,
In the immutable and inviolate Truth
For ever united and inseparable,
The radiant children of Eternity dwell
On the wide spirit height where all are one.

These luminous Powers of the Eternal dwell on the wide heights of the Spirit where all are one. They are united and impartible in the immutable, untouched Truth that stands above the manifestation in Time, above the Silence and its multiple expressions.