The Two Faces of Fantasy, pp. 190-191

Opening Remarks
The world of fantasy and imagination has its own reality. It is not just an escape door but a dwelling place for some. It is important therefore to choose carefully what kind of imagination we shall dwell upon.

Life more concrete
Amidst live symbols of her occult power
He moved and felt them as close real forms:
In that life more concrete than the lives of men
Throbbed heart-beats of the hidden reality:
Embodied was there what we but think and feel,
Self-framed what here takes outward borrowed shapes.
A comrade of Silence on her austere heights
Accepted by her mighty loneliness,
He stood with her on meditating peaks
Where life and being are a sacrament
Offered to the Reality beyond,
And saw her loose into infinity
Her hooded eagles of significance,
Messengers of Thought to the Unknowable.

Imagination is a power that derives from the Divine power to build forms out of the Infinite. When directed and used consciously it can act in occult ways to help or to harm. It is a derivative of Maya in the lower triple creation. It not only has the power to create a whole world but can also reach out and open an inner door to unknown vistas of reality. At its highest it is a power of Maya that mediates between infinity and the finite worlds of name and form each of which is significant of some aspect of Truth now covered to our vision.

Secret of her soul
Identified in soul-vision and soul-sense,
Entering into her depths as into a house,
All he became that she was or longed to be,
He thought with her thoughts and journeyed with her steps,
Lived with her breath and scanned all with her eyes
That so he might learn the secret of her soul.

Aswapati now completely identifies with this world created by the power of thoughts and feelings. Thus alone could he learn its secret and discover its core.

Marvels of her rich and delicate craft
A witness overmastered by his scene,
He admired her splendid front of pomp and play
And the marvels of her rich and delicate craft,
And thrilled to the insistence of her cry;
Impassioned he bore the sorceries of her might,
Felt laid on him her abrupt mysterious will,
Her hands that knead fate in their violent grasp,
Her touch that moves, her powers that seize and drive.

Aswapati now saw all her ingenious crafts and admired all its richness and pomp and spectacular show. He experienced the thrill of her creations and bore the powers of her magical occult powers. He too felt her touch persuading him to mould his own fate by the power of his heart’s desires.

But this too he saw
But this too he saw, her soul that wept within,
Her seekings vain that clutch at fleeing truth,
Her hopes whose sombre gaze mates with despair,
The passion that possessed her longing limbs,
The trouble and rapture of her yearning breasts,
Her mind that toils unsatisfied with its fruits,
Her heart that captures not the one Beloved.

But he also saw the impermanence of these creations built by the vital powers. Their joy is short-lived and often ends in despair. Its hope turns out to be a deception, her passion and longing a subtle trick that misleads the soul. Therefore her creations invariably end up in tragedy and tears since they miss the sole beloved who alone can fulfil the heart’s need for love and sweetness and lasting joy.

An exiled goddess
Always he met a veiled and seeking Force,
An exiled goddess building mimic heavens,
A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun.

Though her might derives itself from Maya of the Lord, here it can only build mimic heavens and not the real thing that would abide. She ends up being a puzzle unto herself who must find the key further beyond in the supramental Life now hidden to her eyes.

Closing Remarks
These are the works and creations of this greater Life that draw their substance from some hidden aspect of truth. They seek to manifest it here through these forms. But these are not real creation nor have an enduring power. They can give us temporary satisfactions but not the ultimate release or the transformation that our souls seek.