Opening Remarks
Not for long can the energy of life remain in this locked realm. She is bound to seek something beyond. She is destined to go further in her quest for the Ultimate, the ever-lasting, the limitless since she is secretly driven by the breath of the Eternal.
Old and faded charm
An old and faded charm had now her face
And palled for him her quick and curious lore;
His wide soul asked a deeper joy than hers.
The charm and joy of this life still tied to the surfaces and moving in the boundaries of Ignorance cannot hold the awakened soul for long. The charm fades and the seeking for something deeper and truer and lasting awakens within us. Thus Aswapati now seeks to move further beyond this charming world.
No exit gate
Out of her daedal lines he sought escape;
But neither gate of horn nor ivory
He found nor postern of spiritual sight,
There was no issue from that dreamlike space.
Aswapati now seeks an exit door out of the maze and haze of this realm. Though charming and captivating, it always leaves behind a trail of dissatisfaction and frustration in the end. What he discovers however that this captivating dream-like space is actually a prison house that captures the soul in a world of imagination out of which it is difficult to emerge. There is no gate as it were out of this world.
Death helps us not
Our being must move eternally through Time;
Death helps us not, vain is the hope to cease;
A secret Will compels us to endure.
Even death is unable to help us exit as the soul continues to linger in this state and its charm draws it back to this world again and again. Yet there is a secret Will that helps us to endure through this passage.
Our life’s repose
Our life’s repose is in the Infinite;
It cannot end, its end is Life supreme.
Yet this endless circling as a captive in this realm cannot be the end of our journey. Life must eventually break free from this bounded world since it is drawn towards the Infinite. Since life has emerged as a power of the Supreme it must take her journey to its logical conclusion that is the Life Divine.
Death is a passage
Death is a passage, not the goal of our walk:
Some ancient deep impulsion labours on:
Our souls are dragged as with a hidden leash,
Carried from birth to birth, from world to world,
Our acts prolong after the body’s fall
The old perpetual journey without pause.
Death is only an incident, a passage in this grand epic of the soul. There is upon us the burden of a Will that impels us to move forward. Through birth and death, from life to life we are pulled as if tied to the energies that we have set into motion in our ignorance. Thus the journey continues until we have found the goal of our walk which is the Divine.
No silent peak
No silent peak is found where Time can rest.
There are spaces and moments of time when we feel rested and rejuvenated from the long and arduous journey. And yet even ion rest and sleep the journey carries on driven by the secret Will in things.
Magic stream
This was a magic stream that reached no sea.
This world within its boundaries was like a stream that stopped without reaching the sea. That is to say that life in this realm could never find its way to the Divine Source and grand culmination of all things.
Wheel of works
However far he went, wherever turned,
The wheel of works ran with him and outstripped;
Always a farther task was left to do.
Whichever way he went, Aswapati found his being tied to the law of karma, its energies wound around him giving him revealing yet another unfinished task before he could seemingly exit.
Closing Remarks
Trapped in this world of greater life, Aswapati feels trapped in an intermediate zone where all is mixed and all is half false, half true.
