Opening remarks
The process is the same for all. Even the great and the strong must pass through the dark field of Nature. In fact, greater the being, greater is the burden it must bear. And yet there is a difference. Aswapati is the conscious representative of the Divine in humanity. He is the Avatara and hence He does not lose His greater consciousness when he returns for working on the dark and turbulent fields of nature.
Even his godlike strength to rise must fall
Even his godlike strength to rise must fall:
His greater consciousness withdrew behind;
Dim and eclipsed, his human outside strove
To feel again the old sublimities,
Bring the high saving touch, the ethereal flame,
Call back to its dire need the divine Force.
Aswapati is the very embodiment of tapasya. Yet it is not easy to keep the high poise as long as one is living in a mortal body. An untransformed body will not allow a free play of the Divine Force all the time. It is bound to draw the soaring soul back to the grooves of bodily functions and old habits. This too serves a purpose. Here too the Fire of yoga must be lit even in these dark fields.
Always the power poured back like sudden rain
Always the power poured back like sudden rain,
Or slowly in his breast a presence grew;
It clambered back to some remembered height
Or soared above the peak from which it fell.
The darkness illuminated and the burden lightened, the soul soared yet higher. Thus each such backward pull only prepares for a greater ascension.
Each time he rose there was a larger poise
Each time he rose there was a larger poise,
A dwelling on a higher spirit plane;
The Light remained in him a longer space.
Each rise and fall is actually a clearing below, an increasing purification of nature below that helps our further ascent.
The glory of the integer of his soul
In this oscillation between earth and heaven,
In this ineffable communion’s climb
There grew in him as grows a waxing moon
The glory of the integer of his soul.
This is the mystic marriage between Earth and Heaven envisaged by the Vedic seers, a progressive union and fulfillment of Matter with the Spirit. It is this repeated touch and influence and a growing contact of the material base represented by our physical body and the Spiritual planes above that will lead to the fullness of the soul and the possibility of a divine life upon Earth.
Made whole the fragment-being we are here
A union of the Real with the unique,
A gaze of the Alone from every face,
The presence of the Eternal in the hours
Widening the mortal mind’s half-look on things,
Bridging the gap between man’s force and Fate
Made whole the fragment-being we are here. (p 36 begins)
Our present existence is a fragmented one. If we turn towards Earth we tend to lose sight of the Spirit, and if we turn towards the spiritual heights we tend to lose hold upon the Earth. But yoga, in its fullest sense, means a union of these very seeming opposites and, through it, the divine conquest of earthly life. It means not only the union of our uniquely individual Soul with the One and only Supreme Reality, the Supersoul so to say, but also the bringing down and a conscious play of the Divine in our everyday mundane existence. Thus we grow into wholeness and integration that comes by a conscious and constant union of our entire being with the Divine.
Closing remarks
The seer-king Aswapati leads us and shows the way out of our present limited and ignorant existence and transforming it into a conscious play of the Eternal and the Infinite.
