CANTO NINE. THE PARADISE OF THE LIFE-GODS
Opening Remarks for the Canto
Aswapati has borne the wounds of the Night. He has faced and conquered the Evil that lurks in nature’s breast. He has fought the Darkness right up to its lair and brought there the saviour Light. Now he must rest awhile and cleanse his wounds. This is the Paradise, the high heaven of the vital worlds where the heroic souls go for rest after they have fought against the siege of Night. What follows therefore is a beautiful and vivid description of this highest heaven of the Vital.
A happy and luminous realm, p. 233
Opening Remarks
Aswapati has slain the Night. The nightmare is over. Now it is time for the Light and Joy to greet Aswapati’s being.
Felicitous Day
Around him shone a great felicitous Day.
A new sunrise greets him bringing happiness to his embattled life.
Heart’s happiness set free
A lustre of some rapturous Infinite,
It held in the splendour of its golden laugh
Regions of the heart’s happiness set free,
Intoxicated with the wine of God,
Immersed in light, perpetually divine.
Here, in this Paradise, the joys of life were freed from the bonds of evil and sin. There was a glow of the Infinite, a touch of the rapture divine, a golden laughter of the gods. The wine of God intoxicated his being with light, turning each moment into a perpetually divine felicity.
Intimate of the Gods
A favourite and intimate of the Gods
Obeying the divine command to joy,
It was the sovereign of its own delight
And master of the kingdoms of its force.
Aswapati now moved in the realm of the great Gods as their favourite and intimate. There was only one thing to do there and it was to be happy filled with a causeless happiness welling up from within that comes when one grows master of the forces of life.
Assured of the bliss
Assured of the bliss for which all forms were made,
Unmoved by fear and grief and the shocks of Fate
And unalarmed by the breath of fleeting Time
And unbesieged by adverse circumstance,
It breathed in a sweet secure unguarded ease
Free from our body’s frailty inviting death,
Far from our danger-zone of stumbling Will.
Assured of the bliss that inhabits forms, unmoved by the touch of fear and grief and the shocks of Fate, unalarmed by the sense of transience, unbesieged by adversity, he breathed an atmosphere of security where one could enjoy freely with an unguarded ease. Here he found himself far from error and stumble and fall, free from frailty and the danger of death.
Warm satisfied sense
It needed not to curb its passionate beats;
Thrilled by the clasp of the warm satisfied sense
And the swift wonder-rush and flame and cry
Of the life-impulses’ red magnificent race,
It lived in a jewel-rhythm of the laughter of God
And lay on the breast of universal love.
The joy one felt here was not just inner but invaded even the very senses. Life was a perpetual wonder and joy driven and moved by the jewel-rhythm of the laughter of God and resting in the breast of universal love.
Closing Remarks
Thus Aswapati entered the Vital Heavens through the gates of Hell. It was as if very his being were purified having gone through the struggle and the pain. He earned the freedom and felicity of the Gods and their intimacy and kinship.
