The birth of Birth, pp. 156-157

Opening Remarks
This world may be a dream but it is a dream of the Spirit and hence real even as the Spirit is Real. At first the Spirit casts its dream like seeds in the subtle worlds thereby creating a stir. A period of conception follows and then following the labour pains of creation a new power emerges with matter as its base.

The Force concealed
Then stirred the Spirit’s mute immobile sleep;
The Force concealed broke dumbly, slowly out.

The Force concealed in matter is the Spirit’s Energy. It is a conscious Force and knows its steps. Slowly it struggles to emerge and the forms are made ready under its pressure.

A dream of living
A dream of living woke in Matter’s heart,
A will to live moved the Inconscient’s dust,
A freak of living startled vacant Time,
Ephemeral in a blank eternity,
Infinitesimal in a dead Infinite.

Matter is churned by this increasing internal pressure of the forces of life. They work silently, occultly in the depths of creation until matter gets ready and adapts itself to the new influx.

A serpent Power
A subtler breath quickened dead Matter’s forms;
The world’s set rhythm changed to a conscious cry;
A serpent Power twinned the insensible Force.

The serpent Power is the evolutionary energy that is concealed at the base of creation, within Matter. It slowly unwinds and as it releases itself new forms and possibilities appear. Life brings with it the cry of longing and desire and changes the slow dull rhythm of earth moving incessantly in its changeless orbit.

Islands of living
Islands of living dotted lifeless Space
And germs of living formed in formless air.

At first there are pockets of space where life emerges filling the air. Later it will spread far and wide.

The paradox of its birth
A Life was born that followed Matter’s law,
Ignorant of the motives of its steps;
Ever inconstant, yet for ever the same,
It repeated the paradox that gave it birth:
Its restless and unstable stabilities
Recurred incessantly in the flow of Time
And purposeful movements in unthinking forms
Betrayed the heavings of an imprisoned Will.

At first life depends heavily on matter and chained to it. The forms too hardly grow. They are little seedlings that are born and die. There is no tangible change even though there is a constant flux and exchange taking place between the cell and its environment. Yet its stability was an illusion as within it there was a constant motion, a will struggling to evolve new forms.

First faint thrills
Waking and sleep lay locked in mutual arms;
Helpless and indistinct came pleasure and pain
Trembling with the first faint thrills of a World-Soul.

This first stir of life is simply a mechanical response to its environment without any reaction of pleasure and pain as if the two were slight changes of the same notation. It is almost completely unconscious except for a very faint stir to indicate it is living.

A dim unclosing
A strength of life that could not cry or move,
Yet broke into beauty signing some deep delight:
An inarticulate sensibility,
Throbs of the heart of an unknowing world,
Ran through its somnolent torpor and there stirred
A vague uncertain thrill, a wandering beat,
A dim unclosing as of secret eyes.

Its strength is still locked within. Yet the forms sprinkle charm and beauty over creation. It is as if a child in deep sleep were slowly beginning to wake up but can hardly open its eyes.

Birth was born
Infant self-feeling grew and birth was born.

Some sense of self-feeling is vaguely there in this infancy of life. It seeks to extend itself and reproduce and replicate the self, giving rise to birth that makes life distinct from material existence.

Closing Remarks
Thus emerges the dream of life into the world of material reality using material forms as its base.