The Soul’s Journey

The Soul’s Journey
As glimpsed in the selected short poems of Sri Aurobindo

Dr. A. Rama Krishna Rao

Prabhavati. Y

T. S. Eliot observed that “the capacity for writing poetry is rare, the capacity for religious emotion of the first intensity is rare, and it is to be expected that the existence of both in the same individual should be rarer still.” To make poetry out of one’s spiritual experience is a challenging task. It involves attempts to express in terms of language what is in its very nature, beyond verbal expression. However it has not deterred creative people from making the attempt. Sri Aurobindo undoubtedly belongs to that class of seer poets who have achieved outstanding success.

Sri Aurobindo’s poetry is the outcome of the soul’s sublime experience of transcendental bliss. Poetry, according to Sri Aurobindo, comes from the “stress of soul vision”, and is the mantra of the Real. Even a student who lacks the knowledge of the spirit cannot but understand the fact that the poetry of Sri Aurobindo is a verbalization of a fully realized spiritual experience and not merely a physical vision. His poetry does not aim at clarification of ideas, thoughts or philosophical propositions, Sri Aurobindo’s Thought the Paraclete is a fine illustration of this point. This poem enables one to catch a glimpse of Sri Aurobindo as a poet who does not satisfy himself with a mere imitation of an external object in poetic terms. One can clearly perceive his capacity to go beyond its physical confines and envision a greater reality. The reality thus expressed is both beautiful and highly spiritual.

“As some bright archangel in vision flies
Plunged in dream-caught spirit immensities,…
Flew my thought self-lost in the vasts of God”

Tracing the Soul’s Journey - The tortured mind and setting out on the path:

Sri Aurobindo portrays the ordinary man who is caught in the enormous confusion of life. In this process called living most people fall into a set pattern, with their conduct and thinking becoming mechanical and their responses automatic. They continue to plod on within the circuit of this narrow living. Sri Aurobindo’s Man the Thinking Animal is–

“A creature of his own grey ignorance,
A mind half shadow and half gleam, a breath
That wrestles, captive in a world of death,
To live some lame brief years”

Caught in the routine of living, man might go through a stage of deep, abiding frustration which is reflected in the following lines from Sri Aurobindo’s poem My Life is Wasted when he says, “I bum and know not why...” Man then resigns himself to face it all. However amidst all this confusion, frustration and sense of resignation, there are some, who, like Sri Aurobindo’s Man the Mediator, strongly believe that “Rooted in mire heavenward man’s nature grows.” They then begin questioning and searching. They wonder what this thing is that is called living and whether there is anything beyond it. They set out on the path even though they may be “scorched by the fire of fitful passions, o’ertaken with dismay, surprised by lust.”

The Bewildering Search: What / Who is God? Where is God?

The man who begins the search may not have a clear vision of what he is seeking. He only knows that he is seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare. He is no longer one with the rest of the crowd. There are even times when the seeker wonders what he should call the goal of his search — Truth or God or Reality. Sri Aurobindo’s poem Who expresses this predicament.

“But where is He then? by what name is He known?
Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?
Bodied or bodiless? twin or alone?”

The seeker may also be troubled by the question of whether he can really find this something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption. The seeker has to dig into his inner resources to keep him going and not give up. The seeker who continues with the search finds himself in the midst of an utterly confusing yet intensely interesting adventure. When he looks outside there is the universe - the object of the senses which often bewilders, tempts and stands as a barrier. When he looks within there is the turbulent, continually changing mind. Sri Aurobindo’s poem Who describes this spiritual quest in vivid detail. The seeker looks for Him -­

“In the blue of the sky, in the green of the forest...
In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman,
In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl”

Not finding Him there, he wondered:

“These are His works and His veils and His shadows
But where is He then?”

This question cannot be answered by books, priests or philosophers. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. This realization that one cannot depend upon anybody, brings despair or determination. The seeker might despair that he ran into a dead end. He might wonder:

“Is this the end of all that we have been,
And all we did or dreamed,
A name unremembered and a form undone,
Is this the end?”

The path looks like a lost trail. Determination and hope spur the seeker on.

“Hill after hill was climbed and now...
A step, and all is sky and God.”

The Path — A Razor’s Edge:

Sri Aurobindo points out in no uncertain terms that one needs to travel light on this journey. The consciousness that is cluttered with fears, doubts, prejudices and desires needs to be cleared first. Only then is it possible for the highest reality to be reflected there. Only that seeker continues to walk on this razor’s edge who does not “...shrink from pain / without whose friendly strife/Joy could not be”. It is only the truly brave ones who continue to plod on.

The soul that aspires to transform itself from the lower to the higher, from the human to the Divine, will have to prepare itself for the rejection of the lower nature and a whole-hearted surrender to the Divine. Sri Aurobindo’s poem Invitation also warns the aspiring soul of all the perils and obstacles it has to encounter. This poem clearly states that only a process of self-culture can prepare a human being to face the challenges on the path of spirituality. The Invincible Spirit issues an invitation to the other human souls that only they should proceed on the path who can accept a life of intensity, discipline and hard work in a spirit of total dedication to the Divine.

“Who would live largely? Who would live freely?
Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend...
Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger
Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.”

More energetic and moving is The Vedantin’s Prayer. Caught in the life mundane, the desperate human soul poses the inevitable question:

“Ah wherefore with this darkness an I veiled,
My sunlit part
By clouds assailed?”

The reader is deeply touched when the soul that realizes the futility of worldly clamours cries out in earnest plea:

“Let not my grey
Blood-clotted past repel thy sovereign truth
Nor even delay,
O lonely Truth!”

Sri Aurobindo’s poems succeed in making the reader curious about the progress that one could make in this spiritual quest. The reader is given a glimpse of the seeker, who, at some point begins to see that the truth he is seeking is something living and moving and has no specific resting place. Sri Aurobindo describes the nature of Parabrahman as follows:

“The Self of things is not their outward view,
A Force within decides. That force is He
His movement is the shape of things we knew”

However, the real nature of God remains hidden as long as duality persists. Sri Aurobindo’s poem The Ways of the Spirit clearly states that man’s intellect cannot take him to his spiritual goal:

“How shall ascending Nature touch her goal?
Not through man’s stumbling peering intellect
But the far subtler vision of his soul.”

The Find: I am He. He is all
Self-realization and Self-surrender

Sri Aurobindo leads the reader to the understanding that darkness is dispelled only when the seeker realizes, not intellectually, but through actual experience that the truth he is seeking is he himself. When all veils and shadows are lifted, the seeker finds Him in his own heart and realizes that

“The Master of man and his infinite Lover,
is close to our hearts, had we vision to see”

To understand one’s own self is thus the beginning of wisdom. In an exploration of the self one realizes that the Self is neither a static state nor an abstract entity. It is real and alive. Sri Aurobindo thus describes its nature:

“There are two beings in my single self.
A Godhead watches Nature from behind
At play in front with a brilliant surface elf,
A time-born creature with a human mind.”

A realization of the Self leads the spiritual voyager to amazing discoveries. The mystery of the Self is unlocked after ascending the steps of matter; mind and spirit. Actual spiritual experience finds expression in the poems of Sri Aurobindo. The reader can easily be swept along into a phase that brings an acceptance of the belief in the immanence of God. Sri Aurobindo says:

“To be aware of self is liberty.
Self I have Got and, having self am free.”

The very simplicity of this declaration emphasizes its great significance. Another poem, The Self’s Infinity describes Sri Aurobindo’s experience of the Self in greater detail:

“I have become what before time I was...
Naked my spirit from its vestures stands;
I am alone with my own self for space...
A momentless immensity pure and bare,
I stretch to an eternal every where.”

This self realization is not easily achieved. Sri Aurobindo’s poem Who clearly brings out the fact that the ultimate realization comes only when we are no longer “blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions.” Sri Aurobindo is a poet­-saint who realized the Self in all its resplendent glory. His poetry is a supreme revelatory utterance of that spiritual experience.

God’s Omnipresence:

Sri Aurobindo also brings out the paradoxical truth that seeing God in one’s own self leads to the discovery of God in everything. God is no longer inscrutable, nameless and formless. God is all. There is a perfect harmony between Man, Nature and God. Sri Aurobindo acknowledges the presence of the immanent Divine in Man and Nature. He advises the “worshipper of the formless Infinite” not to reject form. He says: “Each finite is that deep Infinity.” Another poem Omnipresence also expresses the same belief:

“He is in me, round me, facing everywhere...
Each finite thing I see is a facade;
From its windows looks at me the Illimitable.”

The Freedom:

Sri Aurobindo describes the state of the soul after it has reached the goal of truth. The aspiring soul that has truly felt the presence of God is shown soaring straight into the Infinity and asserting its majesty without any hesitation. The reader can catch a glimpse of the soul that is freed from all bonds. To the free soul, life is a vast movement without the bondage of time. The poet’s vision follows the soul’s rise to eternal freedom. The soul then soars high, flies beyond the reach of time and space. Sri Aurobindo urges the soul to undertake a journey to freedom that lies beyond the field of consciousness:

“Soul, my soul, reascend over the edge of life,...
But there pause not but go far beyond
Where thy natural home motionless vast and mute
Waits thy tread.”

Such descriptions of the soul’s flight to freedom contain a lightning movement and an unearthly calm. The very spontaneous nature of these descriptions impresses upon the reader the fact that true freedom of the spirit only comes about as a natural outcome of one’s spiritual progress.

The Illumination and the Bliss:

Sri Aurobindo reveals the final stage of the spiritual journey when the aspirant, after having attained true freedom of the spirit goes beyond all limitations of temporal existence. There is no more darkness of ignorance, but only light. This stage is called Illumination or Enlightenment. The poem titled Light describes that exalted state of illumination:

“Light endless Light! darkness has room no more,...
The huge inconscient depths unplumbed before
Lie glimmering in vast expectancy.”

The happiness of unillumined persons, is shadowed by the fear of its loss; Onthe other hand, the joy of the illumined is not a soft, hesitant joy but a joy of tremendous power which nothing can destroy, a joy which destroys everything that is anti-joy. Nothing is perhaps more inspiring in literature than the records of such supreme joy experienced by man. Sri Aurobindo gives a fine expression of the eternal glory and the boundless joy that can be attained only through a truly spiritual life:

“I am the one Being’s sole immobile Bliss:
No one I am, I who am all that is.”

A study of Sri Aurobindo’s poetry thus gives the reader a glimpse into the dazzlingly bright and beautiful realm of the spirit. This is achieved through the projection of a solid and real feeling. His poetry does not merely voice abstract philosophic truths. It reveals how the Infinite can be made to manifest itself in the finite. The essential power of his poetic creation is the outcome of his “large and powerful interpretative and intuitive vision of Nature, life and man.” It gives a glimpse of a slight new world as visualized by Sri Aurobindo. This vision offers the possibility of being shaped into reality because of the immense potentiality of man. The hope and the faith of Sri Aurobindo in the glorious future of Man are truly inspiring. This seer-poet of modem India may be referred to as the poet of all times because of the universality of his poetic and spiritual outlook. He offers hope for the modern man who is caught up in the strange anomaly of living yet not living.

Religion

All religions have each the same story to tell. The occasion for its birth is the coming of a great Teacher of the world. He comes and reveals and is the incarnation of a divine Truth. But men seize upon it, trade upon it, make an almost political organisation of it. The religion is equipped by them with a government, policy and law, with its creeds and dogmas, its rules and regulations, its rites and ceremonies, all binding upon its adherents, all absolute and inviolable.
- The Mother (Courtesy, ‘Sri Aurobindo’s Action’)