Opening Remarks
There are three states of the One Divine, often termed as the three Purushas, – the Individual, the Cosmic, the Transcendent. Through yoga we too can enter into oneness with these three. Here we see Aswapati’s experience as he becomes one with the cosmic consciousness.
One spirit with that immensity
All came at once into his single view;
Nothing escaped his vast intuitive sight,
Nothing drew near he could not feel as kin:
He was one spirit with that immensity.
It is a global vision that the Seer-King Aswpati has acquired as a result of his ascension. He is conscious of the whole world at the same time. This does not mean that his mind has become an encyclopedic jumble but simply that he can know whatever he is keen to know by simply turning his intuitive sight towards the object of knowledge. Also this knowledge is of the nature of truth-knowledge, that is to say an intimate knowledge of the object by identifying with its essence. This way the entire creation becomes his kin, an extension of himself, and the distinction we make between the subject (or the self experiencing things) and the object (that is outside oneself) dissolves in a vast oneness.
Structured visions of the cosmic Self
Images in a supernal consciousness
Embodying the Unborn who never dies,
The structured visions of the cosmic Self
Alive with the touch of being’s eternity
Looked at him like form-bound spiritual thoughts
Figuring the movements of the Ineffable.
To the cosmic Divine, all planes and movements appear as taking place within himself. It is He himself whose figures these countless forms are. It is His Vision that these forms and figures of creation attempt to embody. Now Aswapati has become a privy to these truth-images projected by the cosmic Self into creation. These images are truths that emerge from the Unmanifest Supreme into the immense cosmic field. Aswapati becoming one with the cosmic Being becomes aware of these truths that are yet to take shape and express themselves.
Living bodies of the Spirit’s reality
Aspects of being donned world-outline; forms
That open moving doors on things divine,
Became familiar to his hourly sight;
The symbols of the Spirit’s reality,
The living bodies of the Bodiless
Grew near to him, his daily associates.
In the cosmic Consciousness, the near and the far lose their meaning . all is an extension of the One Spirit, the bodies of the Bodiless. Each form is seen here as a symbol of the Spirit’s reality, a door to some divine quality, aspects of the One Divine hidden and reflected in countless forms. .
A thousand realms
The exhaustless seeings of the unsleeping Mind,
Letterings of its contact with the invisible,
Surrounded him with countless pointing signs;
The voices of a thousand realms of Life
Missioned to him her mighty messages.
There is here a constant invasion of images and voices from the thousandfold realms that exist within the body of the cosmic Divine. Yet each of these conveys a subtle hint or a message from the Supreme. Even his sleep has undergone a fundamental change since he has grown conscious of and one with the cosmic mind that knws not sleep.
Sublime proportions
The heaven-hints that invade our earthly lives,
The dire imaginations dreamed by Hell,
Which if enacted and experienced here
Our dulled capacity soon would cease to feel
Or our mortal frailty could not long endure,
Were set in their sublime proportions there.
Everything is there in the Divine Consciousness, even the opposites that we term as good and evil, but it is altered in experience and placed in its right place and just proportions. But the human ego distorts everything by aggrandising few and diminishing others, by an excessive focus on one side and a denial or lack of awareness of the other. Ultimately, this is the real cause of evil that things are not in their proper place or the just proportion.
Beautiful or terrible delight
There lived out in their self-born atmosphere,
They resumed their topless pitch and native power;
Their fortifying stress upon the soul
Bit deep into the ground of consciousness
The passion and purity of their extremes,
The absoluteness of their single cry
And the sovereign sweetness or violent poetry
Of their beautiful or terrible delight.
It is the fusion of the opposites in the Divine Consciousness, but this fusion brings about a corresponding change. Each quality or movement or attribute discovers its divine value and true worth in the whole. We see the good behind evil and also how good can turn into evil as it enters our field of Ignorance..
Spirit-sense
All thought can know or widest sight perceive
And all that thought and sight can never know,
All things occult and rare, remote and strange
Were near to heart’s contact, felt by spirit-sense.
The mode of knowledge changes here as also the senses which now become instruments of the cosmic Spirit. This is a different kind of working through which the yogin living in the cosmic consciousness knows things. The conceptions of near and far vanish as he becomes the very essence of everything, even though physically he is at a particular point in Time and Space.
Marvel and multitude
Asking for entry at his nature’s gates
They crowded the widened spaces of his mind,
His self-discovery’s flaming witnesses,
Offering their marvel and their multitude.
All the energies and forces and beings of countless worlds knock at his nature’s gates and reveal their divine truth to his widened mind.
New portions of himself
These now became new portions of himself,
The figures of his spirit’s greater life,
The moving scenery of his large time-walk
Or the embroidered tissue of his sense:
These took the place of intimate human things
And moved as close companions of his thoughts,
Or were his soul’s natural environment.
It is thus that Aswapati reclaims his universal being. The mastery over individual nature now extends over cosmic nature. What was outside and seemingly other than himself became now his widened consciousness part and parcel.
Truth’s secrecies
Tireless the heart’s adventure of delight,
Endless the kingdoms of the Spirit’s bliss,
Unnumbered tones struck from one harmony’s strings;
Each to its wide-winged universal poise,
Its fathomless feeling of the All in one,
Brought notes of some perfection yet unseen,
Its single retreat into Truth’s secrecies,
Its happy sidelight on the Infinite.
Behind it all, behind creation behind the world of forms and names and movements there stands the universal bliss. This he experiences now but also knows that there is more, a greater perfection yet to come.
Beauty of passionate difference
All was found there the Unique has dreamed and made
Tinging with ceaseless rapture and surprise
And an opulent beauty of passionate difference
The recurring beat that moments God in Time.
The dreams of the One are reproduced by Nature in the many and the multitude. These dreams are executed by the patient Trustee Time through long and winding passages. We cannot fathom it in our ignorance, but for one who has identified with the Divine each moment is afresh and each movement of creation is an impulsion of Her Love.
The sole timeless Word
Only was missing the sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound,
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas,
The integer of the Spirit’s perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute.
And yet there is a Beyond. The experience of the Overmind may seem complete in itself, its splendours may dazzle us as if we have reached the very home of Truth but what Aswapati discovers is that it is a gate, a door or a portico of God and not the ultimate sanctum sanctorum. It is the Cosmic Consciousness, the Transcendent is yet to be discovered in His full Glory and plenitude.
Closing Remarks
Thus Aswapati now stationed in the Overmind casts his gaze to discover the mysteries of the creation that he is missioned to change. He is now the representative of the race since his individual consciousness has become universal.
