Opening Remarks for the Canto
Aswapati has climbed the last peak of the triple world. But his quest has not ended. He seeks the door or path through which he can go beyond. But all that he sees is a vast impersonal universality, the Self as reflected in the Mind. It is what has been generally termed as the Nirguna Brahman, a state where all is annulled in an utter stillness of the Self. When we approach the Reality through the mind then it reaches this state and considers it as the Highest. It is a Witness state where the world is not annulled but one sees it pass before the witness Self as a cinematographic show. One is not engaged with the movements of nature within as well as outside. This is not liberation though it can deepen into the true liberation that can only come by going yet further unto the Unknowable. In that Higher state, one is not only a witness but the One in which all the chains and movements of nature are annulled. What Aswapati is experiencing now is the mental Purusha, the Witness Self that helps us ride over the tides of Nature.
