Opening remarks
Evil is not just a state or a domain, it is an institution in its own right. There are beings that live and thrive by evil.
Race demoniac
A race possessed inhabited those parts.
There were beings in this dark underworld who embodied these energies of falsehood and evil.
A force demoniac
A force demoniac lurking in man’s depths
That heaves suppressed by the heart’s human law,
Awed by the calm and sovereign eyes of Thought,
Can in a fire and earthquake of the soul
Arise and, calling to its native night,
Overthrow the reason, occupy the life
And stamp its hoof on Nature’s shaking ground:
This was for them their being’s flaming core.
This evil force lurks in the subconscient parts of humanity. Ordinarily however it is kept under check under the heart’s law of love and the calm human reason. Yet a moment’s lack of vigil can overthrow our defence and these forces may emerge and push our life leaving their sting and stamp on our nature. What upsurges here from time to time was the very core of that demoniac life.
A monster god
A mighty energy, a monster god,
Hard to the strong, implacable to the weak,
It stared at the harsh unpitying world it made
With the stony eyelids of its fixed idea.
Worshippers of a crude and cruel power these beings were stone hard in their heart. They knew not pity but followed a fixed and rigid way of life where there was no place for sympathy, tolerance or wideness of thought and understanding.
Dire hunger’s wine
Its heart was drunk with a dire hunger’s wine,
In others’ suffering felt a thrilled delight
And of death and ruin the grandiose music heard.
They hungered to kill and destroy and felt a joy in the suffering of others. The clangour of death and devastation was music to their ears.
Grim totalitarian reign
To have power, to be master, was sole virtue and good:
It claimed the whole world for Evil’s living room,
Its party’s grim totalitarian reign
The cruel destiny of breathing things.
A grim Dictator was the king in this realm who sought to expand his borders and seize the whole earth for his dominion and evil use. To crush others under its feet, to rule by trampling other lives was its way of governance.
Dark dictatorship
All on one plan was shaped and standardised
Under a dark dictatorship’s breathless weight.
Every being there was governed by a fixed iron rule with no scope or allowance for different circumstances and stages of life. The deed was all and the same punishment meted out to everyone without consideration of motives and other things that constitute a balanced judiciary. It was a blind and heartless law.
Subhuman beings
In street and house, in councils and in courts
Beings he met who looked like living men
And climbed in speech upon high wings of thought
But harboured all that is subhuman, vile
And lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl.
He met these beings everywhere, even in high places of position and authority. In court rooms and counsels, in streets and house he met beings who though brilliant in mind and speech harboured all that is evil and wicked in their heart. They had learnt to conceal the poison in their heart and breath and hence were more dangerous than the most poisonous snake.
Wry monstrosity
The reason meant for nearness to the gods
And uplift to heavenly scale by the touch of mind
Only enhanced by its enlightening ray
Their inborn nature’s wry monstrosity.
They used their faculty of reason meant for uplifting man only to justify their evil deeds and to safeguard the evil-doers. Their mind’s brilliance only enhanced their wickedness and the ability to do harm.
Closing Remarks
These are the being described as Rakshasa and Asura in Indian mythology and with similar terms in other mystic lores. Aswapati goes down into the pit where they live and draw their power from. He has gone there to seek the radical remedy of Evil.
