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Book Two Canto XI: The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind |
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Aswapati
crosses beyond the limits of the human mind into the regions of a vaster
transcending Thought. This
higher Thought is allied to a Vision facing the Spirit Eternal. On these
peaks are seen the glories of the Ideal Mind. This
Ideal Mind is the source and inspirer of all the great hopes and movements on
earth. It is the bridge between man and God. In this world dwell the Gods who
are the forms taken by the truths of the Spirit. Here are the Truth-Ideas
that prefigure creation below. Their light and influence touches the human
world and moves it to greater effort. The source of human faith in progress
and perfection lies here. Man
is not an alien to these regions; he belongs to them on his heights. In his
condition of Ignorance he is exiled from there but his thought carries
memories of this origin and, in moments if rare communion, is enlivened by
its light and force. Yet human will and sense act as barriers to this flow of
greatness from above. The soul of man, however, can climb to these luminous
planes. Aswapati
enters into this realm and sees the pure worlds of Thought where Knowledge is
the leader and thought the substance, where feeling responds readily to the
Call of Truth, where form is a self-shaping of the creative Ray, will, a
conscious vehicle of the Gods. Here
life is brimming with scintillations of Consciousness. Joy
and Bliss are natural here. Farther
off on the higher levels of Thought he espies newer heights where Time
touches the horizons of Eternity and Nature communes with the Spirit. The
ascent is through a triple realm of Thought. The
first levels are close and similar to human mind — they are neither too high
nor too broad for human effort. The guardians of this world intercede with
the creative Puissance above and cast the immensities of Thought into life.
They are the interpreters between man's mind and God's. They are masters of
World-Time, enjoyers of World-Bliss; they form Matter by the hidden stress of
Mind; they measure out World-Space. They give finite shape to infinite
things, Form to the Formless. But they impose a law on every movement and
turn every step into a link of the chain of Necessity. They deprive Idea of
its plastic infinity and make it fit in into a worked out design. The
knowledge they erect is bounded and perishable. They seek to tie down the
fire and spontaneous movement of the One into determined time, space and law. Above
this belt opens another range. The beings here have a wider sight and shine
with the light of a liberating Knowledge within. Their forte is vision, not
conception. They penetrate into the occult mind of the creative Power and
formulate their discoveries in terms of symbol, design of line and number and
cosmic Law. But they try to structure the free rhythms of the infinite
Consciousness into the logic of the finite thought. And in doing so, they
construct a calculus of Destiny to measure the immeasurable. As a result they
are lost in detail and miss the Whole. The Unknowable retains its secrecy
from them. Still
higher are the kings of Thought whose all seeing gaze embraces Time and
Space. They hold and transmit to earth and heaven the imperative of the
creator Self. Theirs is an all-ruling Consciousness. The
cosmos is indeed no accident in Time. It is guided and led by a Truth-Wisdom.
The seed of creation sprouts from the Being of the Eternal and is shaped into
birth and growth by the creative gaze of the Absolute. There is a secret
power in things compelling the concealed Godhead to emerge. Even Nature's
ignorance is Truth's instrument. The Supreme Will works in the guise of
destiny and the mortal grows towards the Immortal. The truth of the Spirit, however,
is hidden and it reveals itself only to the inner eye bereft of ego. This
fact escapes human thinking which seeks for a rule where a free Wisdom works,
which alternates between Chance and Law as the truth of life. The
Kings of Thought attempt to grasp with thought the Truth absolute, to capture
Reality in the abstractions of the conceptual Mind. They eliminate sense,
form, sound and make a vacuum to hold the One. They arrive at an austere
negation as the meaning of all, a zero as the finis. Such
is the play of the gods of Thought trying to snare Truth into concept and
phrase for the delectation of the thinker. Truth is sought to be imprisoned
in the cabin of the human mind and made an instrument for man's domination of
the world. However,
in response to all these seekings from below, the Truth-Goddess appears to
yield herself somewhat and consents to dwell on earth and install her
presence in the human breast. Man gives her a shape according to his own mind
and self, clothes her in the Idea. Each one thinks his is the sole truth. The
fact remains that the eternal Truth cannot be seized by thought or by word.
The world itself lives in the ray of this Truth-Sun which cannot be
imprisoned within the walls of the thought of man. However high the thought,
it is still inadequate. Thought has to yield to Vision and surrender to the
supreme Truth. Only then will the Unmanifest reflect himself in the living
glass of the still mind. |