Canto 4Jivanmukta
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Six Poems
“Arms taking to a voiceless supreme delight,
Life that meets the Eternal with close breast,
An unwalled mind dissolved in the Infinite,
5Force one with unimaginable rest?
“I, Earth, have a deeper power than Heaven;
My lonely sorrow surpasses its rose-joys,
A red and bitter seed of the raptures seven; —
My dumbness fills with echoes of a far Voice.
10“By me the last finite, yearning, strives
To reach the last infinity’s unknown,
The Eternal is broken into fleeting lives
And Godhead pent in the mire and the stone.”
Dissolving the kingdoms of happy ease
15Rocked and split and faded their dream-chime.
All vanished; ungrasped eternities
Sole survived and Timelessness seized Time.
Earth’s heart was felt beating below me still,
Veiled, immense, unthinkable above
20My consciousness climbed like a topless hill,
Crossed seas of Light to epiphanies of Love.
Jivanmukta
There is a silence greater than any known
To earth’s dumb spirit, motionless in the soul
25That has become Eternity’s foothold,
Touched by the infinitudes for ever.
A Splendour is here, refused to the earthward sight,
That floods some deep flame-covered all-seeing eye;
Revealed it wakens when God’s stillness
30Heavens the ocean of moveless Nature.
Pondicherry, c. 1927–1947
A Power descends no Fate can perturb or vanquish,
Calmer than mountains, wider than marching waters,
A single might of luminous quiet
35Tirelessly bearing the worlds and ages.
A Bliss surrounds with ecstasy everlasting,
An absolute high-seated immortal rapture
Possesses, sealing love to oneness
In the grasp of the All-beautiful, All-beloved.
40He who from Time’s dull motion escapes and thrills
Rapt thoughtless, wordless into the Eternal’s breast,
Unrolls the form and sign of being,
Seated above in the omniscient Silence.
Although consenting here to a mortal body,
45He is the Undying; limit and bond he knows not;
For him the aeons are a playground,
Life and its deeds are his splendid shadow.
Only to bring God’s forces to waiting Nature,
To help with wide-winged Peace her tormented labour
50And heal with joy her ancient sorrow,
Casting down light on the inconscient darkness,
He acts and lives. Vain things are mind’s smaller motives
To one whose soul enjoys for its high possession
Infinity and the sempiternal
55All is his guide and beloved and refuge.