Opening Remarks
Narad, the demigod who was once a human but has arrived at the status of immortality and dwelling with the Lord is the divine messenger who can travel freely anywhere through his yogic abilities. Now he journeys to the palace of Aswapati.
Bordering the mortal planes
In silent bounds bordering the mortal’s plane
Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.
Narad, the heavenly sage dwells with Vishnu, the great Preserver God in the Overmind planes bordering the mortal worlds. He crosses the brilliant peace of the realms of Paradise and arrives chanting the Names of the Lord through them.
Golden summer earth
Attracted by the golden summer-earth
That lay beneath him like a glowing bowl
Tilted upon a table of the Gods,
Turning as if moved round by an unseen hand
To catch the warmth and blaze of a small sun,
He passed from the immortals’ happy paths
To a world of toil and quest and grief and hope,
To these rooms of the see-saw game of death with life.
He was drawn towards the golden summer-earth that looked like a glowing bowl tilted upon a table of the Gods. The earth turned as if by an unseen hand to catch a little warmth and glow of the sun. Narad now passed from the immortal gods happy planes to the lower worlds of toil and quest and hope and grief where the game of death and life goes on.
Blind somnambulist Force
Across an intangible border of soul-space
He passed from Mind into material things
Amid the inventions of the inconscient Self
And the workings of a blind somnambulist Force.
He passed from worlds of mind to the material worlds across the spaces of the soul where he witnessed the creations of the Divine Self hidden in the Inconscient working through a blind mechanical seemingly unconscious Nature.
Dumb Spirit identity
Below him circling burned the myriad suns:
He bore the ripples of the etheric sea;
A primal Air brought the first joy of touch;
A secret Spirit drew its mighty breath
Contracting and expanding this huge world
In its formidable circuit through the Void;
The secret might of the creative Fire
Displayed its triple power to build and form,
Its infinitesimal wave-sparks’ weaving dance,
Its nebulous units grounding shape and mass,
Magic foundation and pattern of a world,
Its radiance bursting into the light of stars;
He felt a sap of life, a sap of death;
Into solid Matter’s dense communion
Plunging and its obscure oneness of forms
He shared with a dumb Spirit identity.
Below him circled myriad suns of the material universe and other domains. Each plane of consciousness has its own sun and skies. He moved through the ether constituting space. He felt the touch of the breath upholding these universes creating their expansions and contraction. He felt the secret Fire that creates and builds the forms. It is out of this Fire that sparks and waves constituting matter is born. This quantum world of infinitesimal particles weaving matter through a stupendous dance is born out of this creative secret Fire, the Divine Energy. It is from this that the light and radiance of stars is born. He felt in matter a touch of death and a touch of life. Plunging into the oneness of forms he experienced a dumb spirit identity.
Closing Remarks
Thus we see Narad moving through the five subtle elements that constitute the world.
