Opening Remarks for Book Two Canto II

Opening Remarks for Book Two Canto 2: The Kingdom of Subtle Matter

Behind the veil of our solid outer world and its forms that we see and touch there exists a Kingdom of subtle matter. It is here that we can find the truth of a form in significant lines of beauty that express the hidden truth. It is a world of perfect forms so to say with beauty of outline and charm and grace of figure as the main concern. Sometimes it is also called as true matter because it is the matter that has emerged as the result of a progressive condensation of the Spirit as it has involved Itself in making the system of worlds. But what we ordinarily call as matter, something rigid and usually fixed, is the by-product of the plunge of true matter into the Inconscient which spreads all over and covers it like a dark cloth, modifying its laws and perhaps falsifying its function. Perhaps the Scientists have entered into this domain without really calling it thus. Closely in contact with what we know as the material world, its forms and figures bear a close resemblance to the forms we see here. It is this world that is just behind this material world as we know it, its beings and forces and action, function and influences, that is being described here in this Canto.