The Two Goals, pp. 311-312

Opening remarks
There is the goal of self-annulment into the silence of nirvana. But that leaves out the purpose of creation. Creation, on the other hand strives towards progressive perfection through a progressive divine manifestation. It is this secret that Aswapati is seeking.

A last bare step
A large white line has figured as a goal,
But far beyond the ineffable suntracks blaze:
What seemed the source and end was a wide gate,
A last bare step into eternity.

Aswapati has reached the home of deathless Light. Here he can annul himself. But he has arrived here seeking the power that can transform life. For that he must enter and find the very source of this Light. Entering this wide gate, he must take the last bare step into eternity.

Million rays returning into the sun
An eye has opened upon timelessness,
Infinity takes back the forms it gave,
And through God’s darkness or his naked light
His million rays return into the Sun.

His eyes are now opened upon timelessness. He must climb through the rays into the supramental sun itself. He must venture into the formless state of Infinity which is beyond the darkness and the light.

Zero sign of the Supreme
There is a zero sign of the Supreme;
Nature left nude and still uncovers God.

When we are stripped bare of all the coverings and coatings of Nature and be a veritable zero then are we ready to meet God in His supreme Reality.

Zero covers an immortal face
But in her grandiose nothingness all is there:
When her strong garbs are torn away from us,
The soul’s ignorance is slain but not the soul:
The zero covers an immortal face.

The zero state, the state of Nothingness is not the beginning or the end of things. The zero itself is a sign and a covering beyond which one finds the Supreme Divine. By entering this zero state, our ignorance is slain but not the soul. Mukti or liberation is therefore a step towards Divine Perfection and not an end in itself.

Extinction is not God’s last word
A high and blank negation is not all,
A huge extinction is not God’s last word,
Life’s ultimate sense, the close of being’s course,
The meaning of this great mysterious world.

Nothingness and Nirvana is not the last Truth. Extinction of our separate self is not the ultimate sense of Life, its final goal. The meaning of this great mysterious world is not a final blank negation of the world and creation itself. It is rather a divine transmutation of earthly life.

Absolute Power
In absolute silence sleeps an absolute Power.

Peace and Silence are only the stable basis for the play of an absolute Power, the Divine Shakti that has gone into creation.

A vessel of Spirit’s force
Awaking, it can wake the trance-bound soul
And in the ray reveal the parent sun:
It can make the world a vessel of Spirit’s force,
It can fashion in the clay God’s perfect shape.

This Absolute Power is asleep within us. It lies involved within creation, in the very Inconscience. As it wakes up the soul held in the grip of darkness also wakes up. Once awake this absolute Power can reshape our life by Her Light and Force. It can make us and the world a vessel of the Spirit’s force. It can build the divine perfection here in terrrestrial life itself.

Radiant step towards fulfilment
To free the self is but one radiant pace;
Here to fulfil himself was God’s desire.

Freedom from Ignorance is needed but it is not the end of the journey. The free soul must engage in fulfilling itself and nature by transforming this clay into God’s perfect image.

Closing Remarks
Slowly Sri Aurobindo is preparing us for the new aspiration of terrestrial transformation that he has implanted upon earth.