The Flame Burning in Silence and Solitude pp. 78-80

Opening remarks
What follows now is a new journey for seer and yogi Aswapati, a journey beyond all that has ever been known. It is a journey towards the shoreless Infinite. It is this new adventure that will eventually bring down and establish the New Consciousness upon Earth that Aswapati, the divine representative in our humanity, now withdraws from outer fields of action and enters in an inner Silence and outer solitude for such is the demand of this new and unprecedented Work.

A strategic spiritual retirement
His soul retired from all that he had done.

Having glimpsed the Glory of glories and having seen the futility of all things here as they stand today, Aswapati now withdraws from the efforts and activities, he has been engaged in this far. But this withdrawl is far from being an ascetic withdrawl from life. As we shall subsequently see it is a withdrawl to engage in a deeper tapasya to bring down a greater Consciousness into the world and transform human nature by Its Impact and Influence.

The din of human toil
Hushed was the futile din of human toil,
Forsaken wheeled the circle of the days;
In distance sank the crowded tramp of life.

Human effort always makes a great show and noise about itself. But one who has risen to inner heights and seen the Wisdom at work in the heart of creation, it all appears so futile and meaningless. The true divine action, on the other hand, takes place without ostentatious show, quietly but assuredly.

Sole companion
The Silence was his sole companion left.

Aswapati has already stilled his mind and consciousness. His being now rests in an inner Silence, at once profound and powerful.

Immune from earthly hopes
Impassive he lived immune from earthly hopes,
A figure in the ineffable Witness’ shrine
Pacing the vast cathedral of his thoughts
Under its arches dim with infinity
And heavenward brooding of invisible wings.

This is the inner state of one who is seeking to go beyond the limits and boundaries of the earthly human mind. He has passed the limits of earthly hopes and earthly efforts. His mind has become wide and vast, luminous and pure, a shrine of the Witness Self brooding over the Infinity Beyond.

Wideness of the Eternal’s reign
A call was on him from intangible heights;
Indifferent to the little outpost Mind,
He dwelt in the wideness of the Eternal’s reign.

Moved by the fiat of the Supreme his soul ascends beyond the Mind and lives in the wideness of the Eternal realms, not subject to mutation and death.

Universal being
His being now exceeded thinkable Space,
His boundless thought was neighbour to cosmic sight:
A universal light was in his eyes,
A golden influx flowed through heart and brain;
A Force came down into his mortal limbs,
A current from eternal seas of Bliss;
He felt the invasion and the nameless joy.

As a complimentary movement to ascension there is a growing widening and universalisation that the seer King Aswapati is experiencing. This universalisation is necessary before any further ascent can take place. With this change, he begins to receive and experience powers and forces and delight of the cosmic Divine. His vision and action assume a universal scope, his thought and feelings are inspired by universal Truth and Delight.

A living centre of the Illimitable
Aware of his occult omnipotent Source,
Allured by the omniscient Ecstasy,
A living centre of the Illimitable
Widened to equate with the world’s circumference,
He turned to his immense spiritual fate.

Man’s spiritual destiny is to rediscover himself as an individual Soul, a Universal being and a portion of the Transcendent. Aswapati is realizing now a harmonious integration of his individual Soul and the cosmic being. Omniscience, omnipotence and the delight of the Divine begins to express in those who have founded this inner unity and dwell in the vast luminous regions above.

The infinite above
Abandoned on a canvas of torn air,
A picture lost in far and fading streaks,
The earth-nature’s summits sank below his feet:
He climbed to meet the infinite more above.

This ascension to vast domains of Light and Peace and Bliss raise our consciousness far above earth nature. The only link that remains with earth is the body still connected with the Inconscience.

A ray returning to its parent sun
The Immobile’s ocean-silence saw him pass,
An arrow leaping through eternity
Suddenly shot from the tense bow of Time,
A ray returning to its parent sun.

The Immobile’s ocean-silence is what we call in India as the Brahman Consciousness. This is where old yogas stopped. But Sri Aurobindo went further, in search of the Supramental Sun. Even as an arrow going straight to the target, his soul ascended towards its Supramental Source.

Death lay beneath
Opponent of that glory of escape,
The black Inconscient swung its dragon tail
Lashing a slumbrous Infinite by its force
Into the deep obscurities of form:
Death lay beneath him like a gate of sleep.

Even as Aswapati climbed towards the Supermind, the dark Inconscient below resisted his advance attacking his body by its opposing forces trying to draw him towards the abyss of death. It is matter which is the strong hold of the Inconscient and the forces of darkness. These forces, though still there in the subconscient, lay in a state of quiescence.

One-pointed quest
One-pointed to the immaculate Delight,
Questing for God as for a splendid prey,
He mounted burning like a cone of fire.

But charged with the mandate of eternity, driven by the breath of God, the fire of aspiration in Aswapati mounted towards the Beyond, soaring as if to shatter every limit and seize upon God.

Closing remarks
Thus we see here Aswapati preparing for a further ascension by a universalization of his consciousness and a one-pointed aspiration towards the Transcendent Beyond.