The Path of Tapasya, pp. 280-281

Opening Remarks
Two are the paths through which man can climb towards Godhead. One is through his secret by discovering his psychic being through love, devotion, surrender. Another is through the mind climbing up through higher and higher planes by tapasya,

Tremendous voice
A thunder rolling mid the hills of God,
Tireless, severe is their tremendous Voice:
Exceeding us, to exceed ourselves they call
And bid us rise incessantly above.

In his ascension man is aided by the higher beings we call as gods. They bid us incessantly to lift our consciousness higher and higher. Not accepting weakness and intolerant of inertia and unconsciousness, they want man to develop the force through which he can rise to the higher planes.

Too lofty for our mortal strength
Far from our eager reach those summits live,
Too lofty for our mortal strength and height,
Hardly in a dire ecstasy of toil
Climbed by the spirit’s naked athlete will.

These heights to which they call us are not easy to climb. Our mortal strength shakes before these lofty peaks. It is seldom that, pushed by the sheer ecstasy of effort that the spirit caught in the meshes of ignorance deep in the abysses of nature can summon up enough force to run towards these tremendous heights. Often it does so by divesting it of the investiture of humanity and discarding human nature.

Absolute and intolerant
Austere, intolerant they claim from us
Efforts too lasting for our mortal nerve
Our hearts cannot cleave to nor our flesh support;
Only the Eternal’s strength in us can dare
To attempt the immense adventure of that climb
And the sacrifice of all we cherish here.

These beings of higher planes residing on austere heights of the Spirit ask us efforts too difficult for our mortal frailty. Our human hearts and human strength ordinarily do not have the capacity to put in this kind of effort unless it is supported by the Eternal’s strength. Too immense this adventure, too great the sacrifice demanded in this effort.

Human knowledge
Our human knowledge is a candle burnt
On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth;
Man’s virtue, a coarse-spun ill-fitting dress,
Apparels wooden images of Good;
Passionate and blinded, bleeding, stained with mire
His energy stumbles towards a deathless Force.

Our human knowledge on which we rely so much is hardly a flickering candle burning at the altar of the sun-vast Truth. Our virtues are too coarse and crude to carry us upwards. Still we labour on passionate and blinded, walking with wounded feet, bleeding and stained with the mire of earth nature stumblingly towards the supreme Force.

Pale reflections
An imperfection dogs our highest strength;
Portions and pale reflections are our share.

Even our highest strength is far too imperfect to carry us and all that we manage with our efforts is some small portion and pale reflection of the Truth that we seek.

Heirs and co-sharers of divinity
Happy the worlds that have not felt our fall,
Where Will is one with Truth and Good with Power;
Impoverished not by earth-mind’s indigence,
They keep God’s natural breath of mightiness,
His bare spontaneous swift intensities;
There is his great transparent mirror, Self,
And there his sovereign autarchy of bliss
In which immortal natures have their part,
Heirs and cosharers of divinity.

Happy are the beings dwelling upon these heights that know not our fallen state. There Will is one with Truth and Good is one with Power. Here these are often divorced maiming our strength. But there we can experience God’s natural mightiness and swift intensities and clear Wisdom reflected in the Self. There one finds the great powers that dwell perpetually in Bliss which is the natural portion of the gods who share and are heirs to divinity.

Closing Remarks
We see described here the plane of the gods to which Aswapati has risen by his tapasya. But he knows this is far from easy. Human strength and will are still too weak to take up this climb.