Opening Remarks
Immediately behind this world of ours, we can discover the world of subtle forms, beautiful and charming. These forms are accompanied by corresponding impact on other senses giving a pleasant experience to the sensuous being in man. In this passage we are being shown the first glimpse of this world even as Aswapati, the Seer and Yogi enters here.
A life that lives not by the flesh
In the impalpable field of secret self,
This little outer being’s vast support
Parted from vision by earth’s solid fence,
He came into a magic crystal air
And found a life that lived not by the flesh,
This world like all other worlds is held within the One Self. What we experience as outer reality is in fact just a fringe outer support of a much vaster Truth. But our senses trap us in the prison of outer life and deny us entry into the subtle worlds. But Aswapati is able to pierce the screen and discover a whole world built of subtle matter that different in quality and organisation than this crude outer material life.
Light made visible immaterial things
A light that made visible immaterial things.
It is a self-luminous world where objects carry their own varying luminosity thereby making them visible.
A wizard world of fine degree
A fine degree in wonder’s hierarchy,
The kingdom of subtle Matter’s faery craft
Outlined against a sky of vivid hues,
Leaping out of a splendour-trance and haze,
The wizard revelation of its front.
There is almost a magical quality to this world with its own sky and colour and line that is a wonder and a masterly craft.
Beautiful and true
A world of lovelier forms lies near to ours,
Where, undisguised by earth’s deforming sight,
All shapes are beautiful and all things true.
Such is the nature of this world with its stress upon beauty of form and outline. But earthly sight is not yet trained to experience this beauty. It adds its own deforming disguise just as a curved lens or a fragmented mirror covered with dust distorts what is being reflected in it.
An unearthly sense
In that lucent ambience mystically clear
The eyes were doors to a celestial sense,
Hearing was music and the touch a charm,
And the heart drew a deeper breath of power.
The senses in the subtle physical world are of a different order since freed from this rigid matter’s deforming power. Sight and hearing and touch are all a heavenly experiences there and each feeling drew its energy from a purer source.
Earth nature’s shining origins
There dwell earth-nature’s shining origins:
The perfect plans on which she moulds her works,
The distant outcomes of her travailing force,
Repose in a framework of established fate.
In the process of involution this world comes first and lies just anterior to our physical earth. From here the consciousness takes a sudden downward plunge. Indeed all events that are yet to take place upon earth are first formed and prepared in the subtle physical. Our earth-nature itself finds itsluminous origin there. What is distorted here is there beautiful and perfect.
Prefigured events
Attempted vainly now or won in vain,
Already were mapped and scheduled there the time
And figure of her future sovereignties
In the sumptuous lineaments traced by desire.
Earth is a field of effort while the results remain hidden from our sight. But once Destiny decides to give or take away something from us, its scroll is placed in the subtle physical world with the result and time marked out in detail. If we could have an access to this world we could rearrange things and even alter certain events that are just about to take place in our life.
The unfound riches
The golden issue of mind’s labyrinth plots,
The riches unfound or still uncaught by our lives,
Unsullied by the attaint of mortal thought
Abide in that pellucid atmosphere.
Not only events and happenings but also thought forms settle in this world first before leaping downwards and entering our earthly mind.
Beginnings and ends
Our vague beginnings are overtaken there,
Our middle terms sketched out in prescient lines,
Our finished ends anticipated live.
Thus we see that all the drama and scenes enacted in our earthly lives have already been rehearsed in this world so to say before they take shape in our lives. The course of the drama, the plot of the story, the end of the tale are all decided and fixed in the subtle physical world before showing up here as unexpected events.
Closing Remarks
These are some of the main characteristics of this world that lies in close proximity to our earth. It is like a prelude, even a sketch of what is going to take place in our life. Sometimes this can show up in dreams or trance or even in thought and feelings. But our human organs are not yet trained to catch its murmur and subtle indications.
