In the Trails of Life, p. 188

Opening Remarks
Aswapati now moves deeper along the trails of life to see where it is leading our journey. Is there a purpose at all in its movements or all is a chance caprice? He shares his discoveries with us.

Perilous adventure
Across the leaping springs of death and birth
And over shifting borders of soul-change,
A hunter on the spirit’s creative track,
He followed in life’s fine and mighty trails
Pursuing her sealed formidable delight
In a perilous adventure without close.

Birth and death are both steps of life. They are incidents of one great journey of life undertaken in different forms as vehicles. The scenes shift and change as life moves on creating new acts in the great epic drama. Aswapati follows in her tracks discovering sealed formidable delight that can only be the share of those who undertake the perilous adventure.

The first steps
At first no aim appeared in those large steps:
Only the wide source he saw of all things here
Looking towards a wider source beyond.

The first steps of the journey seem to be aimless though moving towards a wideness. It was as if moving towards its own wide Source.

A vaster formula
For as she drew away from earthly lines,
A tenser drag was felt from the Unknown,
A higher context of delivering thought
Drove her towards marvel and discovery;
There came a high release from pettier cares,
A mightier image of desire and hope,
A vaster formula, a greater scene.

Life upon earth is tied to the material formula; material laws and processes hold her free movements and wide uplifts back. But as she begins to be free from slavery to matter and bodily existence, it soars higher as if pulled by its own high Source. It changes its mode and quality of thought. Released from petty cares of the body it can now move towards the free heights and discover the marvel that is now concealed to our eyes. A greater hope than the mere survival and maintenance of the body now enters its ken and a vaster way of living takes charge of our journey.

Circling towards some far-off Light
Ever she circled towards some far-off Light:
Her signs still covered more than they revealed;
But tied to some immediate sight and will
They lost their purport in the joy of use,
Till stripped of their infinite meaning they became
A cipher gleaming with unreal sense.

Though released from earth’s trouble and care and intuitively sensing a Light beyond, it is not easy to reach that far-off Source. It circles around symbol worlds and indicative signs. Its sight and will released from material preoccupations begin to lose joy in common everyday ordinary things. All that it took joy in begins to lose its charm until it enters a mighty vacancy where all seems unreal and without any sense.

An invisible target
Armed with a magical and haunted bow
She aimed at a target kept invisible
And ever deemed remote though always near.

It continued its journey towards a nameless invisible goal as if driven by an unseen will and pulled hauntingly with an invisible goal. The goal seemed to shift farther afar though always near and close to her deeper heart.

Closing Remarks
All life is a journey and a discovery of what she carries deep within herself. But for this she must move through the entire range of experiences until it touches the rim of the Infinite out of which it has emerged.