Opening remarks
Seer-king Ashwapati is now fully awakened to the workings of a higher and deeper Intuition that has changed his perception and understanding of life. He is now in possession of powers and faculties that are not ordinarily experienced in the normal operations of nature though they work secretly from behind. It is his experiences or shall we say Sri Aurobindo’s own experiences and realisations revealed to us through Aswapati that are being shared. The very first thing we are told is that there is much that lies beyond the ken of our normal perceptions, beyond the ranges of mind and its ordinary functioning.
The height that looks towards greater heights
On a height he stood that looked towards greater heights.
The ascent of consciousness is often felt like climbing a mountain. Each height we reach opens up to still greater heights.
Sunrise splendours
Our early approaches to the Infinite
Are sunrise splendours on a marvellous verge
While lingers yet unseen the glorious sun.
Truth is beyond all formulas and dogmas because it is by its very nature Infinite. Each experience is a beginning of still greater things to come. Therefore one should not stop at any particular experience or realization or build philosophical systems or cults around it. It is only when we reach the Origin that we can discover the total secret. Here the Intuitive planes are being compared to the sunrise splendours whereas the very Home of Truth is the Supramental Sun where we can find the Integral Knowledge, the perfect Truth that reconciles the different approaches towards the Infinite.
Shadow of what must come
What now we see is a shadow of what must come.
This is the attitude of progress we must keep. Not to rest at any stage, however high it may be compared to our present humanity, but to go higher, ever higher until we find the shadowless Light, the integral and infinite Truth.
The epic climb
The earth’s uplook to a remote Unknown
Is a preface only of the epic climb
Of human soul from its flat earthly state
To the discovery of a greater self
And the far gleam of an eternal Light.
The soul’s upwards ascension is an epic journey towards a remote Unknown that is yet to manifest. Our highest mental idealism, our most profound spiritual experiences and occult vision, our loftiest philosophies, our widest religious aspirations are mere preparations and far off glimpses of what is yet to come, – the supramental transformation.
An unborn Power
This world is a beginning and a base
Where Life and Mind erect their structured dreams;
An unborn Power must build reality.
The efforts of our life and mind to create a better world are like the initial tuning of the earthly instrument. But it is only when the Supramental Power remoulds our body and earthly life that the true Divine Perfection can be established upon earth. This is the unborn Power that Aswapati, the yogi-seer and the Avatara is seeking to bring down upon earth.
Forgotten vastnesses
A deathbound littleness is not all we are:
Immortal our forgotten vastnesses
Await discovery in our summit selves;
Unmeasured breadths and depths of being are ours.
There are much greater planes of consciousness than what we are accustomed to now. There is much more concealed within us than we can presently even dream of. What has manifested until now is nothing compared to what yet must come.
Neighbours of Heaven
Akin to the ineffable Secrecy,
Mystic, eternal in unrealised Time,
Neighbours of Heaven are Nature’s altitudes.
The Heaven being spoken of here is not the heaven of Religions but high states of consciousness that await our discovery. These high states border on eternity and are glimpsed when we climb upon the high peaks of Nature where the great gods dwell in blissful and luminous peace.
High-peaked dominions
To these high-peaked dominions sealed to our search,
Too far from surface Nature’s postal routes,
Too lofty for our mortal lives to breathe,
Deep in us a forgotten kinship points
And a faint voice of ecstasy and prayer
Calls to those lucent lost immensities.
There are vast domains of Light and Peace and Bliss. We search for these states instinctively but we know not the route. Our surface nature is unaware and our death-bound life unable to reach out to these domains now sealed to our vision and search. Yet we get hints and glimpses of these states when our heart gathers in a one-pointed prayer and a breath of joy is felt upon our lives descending from Above.
Temples to the godhead none can see
Even when we fail to look into our souls
Or lie embedded in earthly consciousness,
Still have we parts that grow towards the light,
Yet are there luminous tracts and heavens serene
And Eldorados of splendour and ecstasy
And temples to the godhead none can see. (p 47 begins)
Still, even in our state of utter darkness and ignorance, even in our unconsciousness there is a divine impulsion pushing us towards these luminous heights. Even when we are not conscious of it, still we grow towards the Light. There lies within us wealth and riches beyond measure, and pathways of light and peace and bliss that lead us to the sanctum sanctorum where the Unseen Divine reigns in all His Splendours.
A short miraculous escape
A shapeless memory lingers in us still
And sometimes, when our sight is turned within,
Earth’s ignorant veil is lifted from our eyes;
There is a short miraculous escape.
Yet there are moments of Grace when an inner door or window opens upon the Infinite. If instead of being turned always outwards involved and engaged with outer things, we turn our sight within we escape momentarily from this dense veil of Ignorance and stand before the gates of the Infinite.
Narrow fringe of clamped experience
This narrow fringe of clamped experience
We leave behind meted to us as life,
Our little walks, our insufficient reach.
These are moments when we step out of the ordinary everyday life with its smallness of motives and narrow purposes tied around petty cares and worries that hardly carry us afar.
Calm immensities of spirit space
Our souls can visit in great lonely hours
Still regions of imperishable Light,
All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power
And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss
And calm immensities of spirit space.
There are moments when our soul stands alone with the wonderful Divine Presence and breathes Its luminous atmosphere of Calm and Wideness and Bliss and shares His silent Power. It can bathe in the Divine Wisdom and Power that has gone into creation. Such is the possibility open for man.
Closing remarks
This is the vast background of Seer-King Aswapati’s discovery, a discovery accessible to all who so aspire. But ordinarily we are too much tied to and preoccupied with the surface life to even think about it.
