Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Part Seven. Pondicherry
Sonnets from Manuscripts, c. 1934 – 1947

The Indwelling Universal

I contain the wide¹ world in my soul’s embrace:

In me Arcturus and Belphegor burn.

To whatsoever living form I turn

I see my own body with another face.

All eyes that look on me are my sole eyes;

The one heart that beats within all breasts is mine.

The world’s happiness flows through me like wine,

Its million sorrows are my agonies.

Yet all its acts are only waves that pass

Upon my surface; inly for ever still,

Unborn I sit, timeless, intangible:

All things are shadows in my tranquil glass.

My vast transcendence holds the cosmic whirl;

I am hid in it as in the sea a pearl.

Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 5.- Collected Poems.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 625 p.

¹ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: whole

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