Opening remarks
There are hidden powers and latent possibilities within each one of us. They begin to awake under pressure of the Light growing within us. The transforming Power, the Divine Shakti liberates what is imprisoned within us. The gifts of the Higher Consciousness come to us until we grow into the fullness of the higher Self.
A greater being saw a greater world
As so he grew into his larger self,
Humanity framed his movements less and less;
A greater being saw a greater world.
Though the world is the same, we see it with a different vision and a new set of eyes. Our perception and our understanding change. We become conscious of a greater self and a greater world hidden behind the surface appearances.
A fearless will for knowledge
A fearless will for knowledge dared to erase
The lines of safety Reason draws that bar
Mind’s soar, soul’s dive into the Infinite.
As the soul is freed from the clutch of Ignorance, it begins to soar higher and dive deeper bringing with it new possibilities and powers of the Spirit. The can-be and cannot–be of Reason begin to fade before the growing omnipotence of the Spirit.
A vaster freer air
Even his first steps broke our small earth-bounds
And loitered in a vaster freer air.
Human life is surrounded with misery due to pettiness and smallness. Freedom from ignorance lifts our life into a vaster consciousness where we can breathe the delight of oneness and infinity.
The powers that sleep
In hands sustained by a transfiguring Might
He caught up lightly like a giant’s bow
Left slumbering in a sealed and secret cave
The powers that sleep unused in man within.
There are many hidden faculties, latent powers that begin to awaken as the Light and Force of the New Consciousness start working in our life. This is what is being described as the Seer-King Aswapati experiences them in the early stages of his yoga.
Miracle a common act
He made of miracle a normal act
And turned to a common part of divine works,
Magnificently natural at this height,
Efforts that would shatter the strength of mortal hearts,
Pursued in a royalty of mighty ease
Aims too sublime for Nature’s daily will:
The gifts of the spirit crowding came to him;
They were his life’s pattern and his privilege.
What we call as miracles are nothing but the interventions of a higher determinism that changes the fixed course of things. Nothing is impossible to the universal Spirit that dwells in all things. When man too becomes vast and unites with the Spirit, then he too shall share Its liberty and power. His deeds shall bear the seal of a Superhumanity, now only dreamed or imagined and sometimes glimpsed by a few. Then his daily life itself becomes a miracle filled with the gifts and glories of the Grace.
A pure perception
A pure perception lent its lucent joy:
Its intimate vision waited not to think;
It enveloped all Nature in a single glance,
It looked into the very self of things;
Deceived no more by form he saw the soul.
Our senses deceive us. Together with the mind they construct an image of things rather than revealing the Reality. They are limited in their action, restricted in their range and scope. But the transformation of the senses and the mind by the Higher Consciousness makes them pure channels of Truth and Light showing the Reality behind appearances.
The hidden motive
In beings it knew what lurked to them unknown;
It seized the idea in mind, the wish in the heart;
It plucked out from grey folds of secrecy
The motives which from their own sight men hide. (P 27 begins)
The Higher Consciousness transforms the mind into an intuitive mentality. This new working of the intuition goes deeper behind appearances and picks up hidden motives and forces that move our life.
Effacing the boundaries of Ignorance
He felt the beating life in other men
Invade him with their happiness and their grief;
Their love, their anger, their unspoken hopes
Entered in currents or in pouring waves
Into the immobile ocean of his calm.
The circle of ego in which we are trapped begins to widen and loosen up on every side, opening us to the states of consciousness in others. Our consciousness grows vast and immobile, thereby letting these waves flow into us without creating the least disturbance, even as rivers and streams pour into a sea. This is true Equanimity that can contain a whole world within itself without the least ripple or perturbation.
King of itself
He heard the inspired sound of his own thoughts
Re-echoed in the vault of other minds;
The world’s thought-streams travelled into his ken;
His inner self grew near to others’ selves
And bore a kinship’s weight, a common tie,
Yet stood untouched, king of itself, alone.
Such is the perpetual state of one whose life is transformed by the Higher Consciousness, – a state of equanimity and self-mastery founded upon a vast and luminous peace and inner stillness. One begins to receive and share the life of all beings near and around oneself in a deeper and truer way. Though leaning with Compassion to help and relieve the suffering of others, the soul remains untouched and above the play, even as a king in possession of his kingdom.
Closing Remarks
Thus we see a progressive heightening and widening of the individual consciousness as it soars beyond the Mind and grows towards Freedom and Oneness.
