|
|
Book Two Canto VIII: The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and
the Sons of Darkness |
|
Aswapati
beholds the hidden core of Night. It is a spiritless blank Infinity, a Nature
denying Truth, wanting to abolish God. There is no Light, no divine Soul
here; Evil and Pain are busy erecting their own world. Titans,
Demons and the rest of the nether hosts come into their own and a veritable
Hell appears to exist. Aswapati's
gaze pierces through this heavy gloom and observes this realm of dark
contraries — Non-Being, Inconscience. Here suffering is the daily food of
Nature, torture yields delight, Good produces Evil. An
illimitable and vague Something basing itself on an all-swallowing Death
dominates everything. Time
was when there was nothing else except a soulless Matter. Then came Life into
that Void striving to create a way for the Spirit to be. But the response of
the Night was different: a vast Non-Being, a Nescience came to life and
occupied the Earth with its huge body of Doom. Death, Pain, Falsehood emerged
vitiating and deforming the original design of creation. The Truth-Light was
put behind and an antagonist Energy usurped the place of the eternal Mother. This
antagonist pushes backwards the human aspiration and will to advance and grow
and tries to keep man ever at the animal level. All the same the divine
Spirit grows in man though the Enemy is ever on the prowl wanting to smother
the new-birth. She uses all means of fascination and joy for her nefarious
purpose of turning man away from God and Light. She
infects life, misguides the mind, uses doubt to slay faith and brings about
the virtual banishment of God. Thus
is brought the inner death by the expulsion of the divine element. The
creative Spirit allows these agencies full scope to play out their
possibilities. Under the cover of Ignorance these Powers act against Light,
Peace and Truth. They shut out the Divine Grace by their own formations. They
interfere with the workings of God everywhere. And always these dark
Adventurers seem to win. They have occupied all positions of vantage and
claim to be the sole rulers of the minds and hearts of men. They are allowed
their play because by their very resistance and opposition they serve the
Cosmic Purpose. Their home is the Black Night from where they scheme and work
out their inescapable dominion on earth. Aswapati
decides to sound the depths of this Hell and enters into this dark and
terrible realm, where evil and misery are the natural climate and bliss is
unknown. Happiness is tabooed, torture a festival. Tranquillity
is a bore; suffering adds spice to life. Pitiless Power is worshipped and Hate
is the archangel of this Kingdom. Even inanimate objects exude these evil
passions and afflict their users. The
anguish of this environment opens out in the breast of Aswapati. His ears are
filled with the clamours of pain. He traverses the passages of Doom across
the many dangers of misguidance, treachery and death. He bears the tremendous
assaults of Hell and drinks her poison to its dregs. All the while he keeps
alive the flame of his spirit. Even when thought, sense, all fails, his soul
sees and knows. Thus sounding the mystery of the Infinitesimal and the
Inconscient, he arrives ultimately at the very heart of the Dark Gulfs from
where the creation has emerged. Here he discovers by sheer identity, the
presence of a Wisdom and Will that works behind all the veils of Nature. Here
he sees the key to all change. In his luminous vision he sees an invisible
Hand of the Spirit laid upon error and pain which turn into ecstasy at that
touch. He
sees clearly that Night is only a veil of the Eternal, death a process of
Life, destruction a rapid step of Creation, hell a short cut to the gates of
Heaven. The
Illusion of the Nether Absolute is dissipated. All
on Earth reveals its divine significance. Life comes into its own pure action
in the physical embodiment. Hell
collapses. Division ceases to be, God is present. The
soul lights up the conscious body and Matter and Spirit become one. |