The Soul’s Battle, pp. 458-459

Opening Remarks
The Soul has entered this world of Ignorance to have a kind of experience to grow towards its fullness. Fate is the process and mechanism to lead it towards that. Often it takes the form of a battle in the course of its journey.

Sacrifice to the gods
On the altar throwing thy thoughts, thy heart, thy works,
Thy fate is a long sacrifice to the gods
Till they have opened to thee thy secret self
And made thee one with the indwelling God.

Throwing our thoughts and heart and works on the altar of life, our fate is a long sacrifice to the powers and aspects of the Divine until we are made ready to become one with the indwelling God within us. Then they open the doors to our secret self.

A passage from Matter
O soul, intruder in Nature’s ignorance,
Armed traveller to the unseen supernal heights,
Thy spirit’s fate is a battle and ceaseless march
Against invisible opponent Powers,
A passage from Matter into timeless self.

Our soul is an intruder in Nature’s ignorance as an armed traveller to unseen supernal heights. Our spirit’s fate is a battle and ceaseless march against invisible opponent Powers cutting a passage from Matter into timeless self.

A forced advance
Adventurer through blind unforeseeing Time,
A forced advance through a long line of lives,
It pushes its spearhead through the centuries.

Our soul is an adventurer through the blind unforeseeing passages of Time making a forced advance through a long line of lives pushing itself as a spearhead through the centuries.

Army of the waylost god
Across the dust and mire of the earthly plain,
On many guarded lines and dangerous fronts,
In dire assaults, in wounded slow retreats,
Holding the ideal’s ringed and battered fort
Or fighting against odds in lonely posts,
Or camped in night around the bivouac’s fires
Awaiting the tardy trumpets of the dawn,
In hunger and in plenty and in pain,
Through peril and through triumph and through fall,
Through life’s green lanes and over her desert sands,
Up the bald moor, along the sunlit ridge,
In serried columns with a straggling rear
Led by its nomad vanguard’s signal fires,
Marches the army of the waylost god.

Across the dust of earth and mire of earth, along many guarded lines and dangerous fronts, facing dire assaults and slow retreats in a wounded state the soul moves holding the ideal’s battered fort. It fights against heavy odds in lonely posts, or camped in night around the fires awaiting the trumpets of the dawn. In hunger and in plenty and in pain, through peril and through triumph and through fall, through the green lanes and over desert sands, up the uncultivated lands and along sunlit ridges, in columns and straggling rears, led by the signal fires the soul marches like the army of the waylost god.

Skies from which he fell
Then late the joy ineffable is felt,
Then he remembers his forgotten self;
He has refound the skies from which he fell.

In the end the soul of man reaches the state of ineffable joy and remembers his forgotten self. He discovers the skies from which he fell.

Stands upon the splendour-peaks of God
At length his front’s indomitable line
Forces the last passes of the Ignorance:
Advancing beyond Nature’s last known bounds,
Reconnoitring the formidable unknown,
Beyond the landmarks of things visible,
It mounts through a miraculous upper air
Till climbing the mute summit of the world
He stands upon the splendour-peaks of God.

At last the parts in him that are ready force their way through the last points of ignorance. The soul advances beyond the last known limits and boundaries of nature in ignorance and begins to glimpse the formidable Unknown. It soars beyond the world of our mortal senses and climbs through a miraculous air until it reaches the mute summit of the world and stands upon the splendour-peaks of God.

Closing Remarks
The soul’s advance through lives gathering countless experiences in multiple forms is to push the veil of ignorance until it eventually gives way and a bridge is made between matter and God, between the world here and the Divine.