The Destiny of Man, pp. 339-340

Opening remarks
Though unhappy and sublime man yet carries within him the seed of greater divine possibilities.

Ambassadors of the Unseen
His transience trembles with the Eternal’s touch,
His barriers cede beneath the Infinite’s tread;
The Immortals have their entries in his life:
The Ambassadors of the Unseen draw near.

Man evolves slowly with the Eternal’s touch, even though with doubt, uncertainty and resistance. His limits fall away from him under the pressure of the Infinite. The Gods influence, enter and remould his thoughts and life. The Light and Power and Truth of the far Transcendent draws near to him.

A wandering guest
A splendour sullied by the mortal air,
Love passes through his heart, a wandering guest.

The splendour that these mighty guests bring is spoiled in the mortal cloak as it enters the brain and the body. They are too obscure and cannot keep these gifts of the Spirit for long. It is the inability of the physical instrument, the imperfection of matter that is the biggest hurdle in the realisation of the dream of a divine life here upon earth. Love passes through our hearts, an angel from the far Transcendent realm, but only for a while as a wandering guest.

Hopes of a deathless sweetness
Beauty surrounds him for a magic hour,
He has visits of a large revealing joy,
Brief widenesses release him from himself,
Enticing towards a glory ever in front
Hopes of a deathless sweetness lure and leave.

Beauty and wideness and joy from higher realms surround him granting freedom and release from the prison of the human ego for a while. Thus he is enticed to move towards a yet unseen Glory and hope for a deathless sweetness that lure and then retire. It is as if there is a tussle between the higher truths and the lower nature which is unable to hold these things for long.

Glimpses half divine
His mind is crossed by strange discovering fires,
Rare intimations lift his stumbling speech
To a moment’s kinship with the eternal Word;
A masque of Wisdom circles through his brain
Perturbing him with glimpses half divine.

A greater Illumination seizes upon the human mind and rare intimations lift our stumbling speech to momentarily draw near to the eternal Word. A semblance and a reflection of Wisdom circles through our brain perturbing us through glimpses that are half divine.

Unknown Eternity
He lays his hands sometimes on the Unknown;
He communes sometimes with Eternity.

Sometimes we touch the Unknown and commune with Eternity.

Man’s mighty fate
A strange and grandiose symbol was his birth
And immortality and spirit-room
And pure perfection and a shadowless bliss
Are this afflicted creature’s mighty fate.

Man’s birth is a strange and grandiose symbol. He is meant to become what he presently is not yet strives to be. He is born for immortality and to fill his body with the Spirit. He is born for pure perfection and shadowless bliss which are his mighty fate. Yet at present he is caught up in the net of suffering and death and struggles for the release of his higher possibilities.

Alchemy of Heaven and Earth
In him the Earth-Mother sees draw near the change
Foreshadowed in her dumb and fiery depths,
A godhead drawn from her transmuted limbs,
An alchemy of Heaven on Nature’s base.

In man the Earth-Mother draws near to her divine destiny that is already shadowed in her own fiery depths. Man is here to create godhead in clay by transmuting earthly limbs. In man she prepares for the marriage of Heaven and Earth, to build heaven upon earth on the base of material nature.

Closing remarks
Man is a transitional being. Though marred and riddled with opposites, though dragged behind by his animal past, man is still the creature through which the Divine Perfection will be created here upon earth.