(Writthen by my father Mr. SM Ratanpura when he visited US in summer of 2007)
The ‘Is-ness’ of The Christ, the ‘Sower of Seeds’, or the Sons of God, flung my vision back to the Un-Manifest state of the Supreme. It is described beautifully in the oldest scripture of the East, The Rigved. In the twentieth century Sri Aurobindo, a yogi and mystic poet par excellence, also described this state superbly in the opening lines of his epic ‘Savitri’. Only the first stanza of the present poem is a shadow of it. This piece of literature is not a theology but a poem without metric norms. Expressions fleshed upon the blue sky of my mind. It is my homage to the Christ. My Eastern ‘memes’ have enough space to fill my being with pure love for Jesus.
A few days after my coming to America, automatically I felt that the grand idea of the ‘Second coming’ is in the air of this land .The sense dawned upon my inner being. The poem ends with a great expectation from a great nation, the United Nations.
It is a long poem in two parts. The first part, keeping in view the twenty-first century, depicts the doctrine of the ‘Second Coming’ of Jesus in particular and the Sons of God in general. The hitherto untouched and the most important aspects of this doctrine, along with the traditional ideas, are presented in a broad perspective .It underlines the importance of a band of hundred saints needed to pave the path for the manifestation and to break the hardest nut of spirituality to ‘Transform’ the human body into ‘corps glorieux’. The figurative number may remind the readers Abraham’s negotiation with the Almighty for ten. Perhaps humanity has to wait and waiting may be long. The second part is about America. May it be a new ‘promised land’? Is the nation ready to fulfill the virtues of a harbinger? What is the role of the scientists to spread the Love and Care of Jesus, the Christ.
Part One
i
O Original Night! Thou art the Womb of all creation,
I salute Thee.
Since the beginning of Timeless
Thou art there,
Dark, dumb, denied of any movement;
As if intense darkness covered with unfathomable darkness.
May I call thee Nothingness? Or,
The Un-Manifest, Absolute, Perfect, Pure, Silence, the Supreme.
ii
The All Blissful whispered in sheer delight,
The original Will emerged from the boundless void
As if a dance from the Dancer.1
The voiceless Creative Word
Heard or witnessed by nobody
Save the original Womb:
“Lo, I will make ‘Me’ worlds out of my being”2
“Let there be Manifestation and there was Manifestation.”
The Supreme Will and Creative Power
Worked hand in hand as single entity.
If we deny the Supreme Causeless Will,
Quantum theory justifies causeless events.
The Universe emerged without a cause,
And an Aspiration leaped up from Its core
Setting itself for an endless journey.
iii
May the silence of the Night bless my meditative pose.
May my daily sleep be a portion of the Night,
To bury the past everyday, and with essence
Perpetually reborn to manifest only Thy Will.
iv
The power inherent in the Word
Crystallized into Light, the essence of all
And One became Many.
Innumerable shining bodies scattered into the limitless space,
Whirling for ever since their birth.
Thus came into existence Time and Space
Let the scientist call it the great Big Bang.
v
Then a day eventuated.
A ray from a shining body
Descended into bottomless space
And became a whirling ball of fire.
Thus came into existence the mother Gaea:
“The essence of all physical world”3
With the passage of time,
The creative intrinsic coolness hidden into the heart of fire
Transformed into matter multiple.
The multitudinous ocean. the image of the Vast,
The aspiring- skyward mountains,
The merging- motion of rivers,
The expressive- bubbling of springs,
The meditative poses of hills,
The blissful offering of flowers,
The roaring of might and right of lions,
The meek innocence of deer’s eyes,
The myriad music of the birds.
In countless ways the twin sisters Faun Flora,
Harmoniously woven all with rhythmic charms.
vi
None was there to behold and sing the glory,
Unknowingly all moved in harmonious pace,
There was a peaceful rhythmic flow of time,
The endless repetition of unaware-selves.
But the circular movement filled her heart with sad satiety,
A Divine unrest seized Mother Nature’s heart.
A throe came and changed the rhythm of her heart,
As if a pebble was thrown in a peaceful lake.
She felt the throbbing of mute ‘mutation’ within.4
A sense was born without a word
As if an airy something without ‘habitation and name.’5
She looked within and saw the original Light,
She felt nearness with her Creator.
She felt that she had done what was commanded,
To go beyond was not in her power.
The unseen hand led her weary pace to God,
With folded palms she unlocked her heart.
With mystic smile the great God greeted her
And soothed her heart with foreboding words:
“The Creative Power is brooding over,
A new creation is to come in perfect time,
It will also be nursed none other than thee,
It will drink thy sap, still free from thee.
It will eat the fruits of its actions, good or bad,
But still I will sit unseen in its heart;
It will be a spark of Me.”
The God labored and created many forms
But fond Himself dissatisfied with all of them
Ultimately he remembered Himself and
‘Made man in the image of Himself.’6
Seeing blissfully He sang the glory of His own creation.
“O what a piece of work man is!7
‘Unique psychic spark covered with mind’8
You are out of Me still free from Me.
I am always sitting in the cave of thy heart,
Ready to respond even if you remember Me.”
vii
Fore-knowing the march of Evil pace with pace with free will,
The All Merciful appointed his Apostles,
The Sons of God or His own Incarnations,
‘In flesh’, ‘in body of fire’, or as ‘corps glorieux.’
Making them immortal next to Him,
In different countries in different hues,
Keeping in harmony the laws of the lands.
With the first ray of human consciousness, they are there
To look after, to guide, to uplift.
With the passage of time in the ‘promised land’
The first articulation of Grace and Gratitude9
The ‘seed of humanity’, the father of three religions,
Abram (Abraham) was born.
After a generation few, the Christ proclaimed:
‘When Abram was I ‘am’, am the eternal,
Confirming the immortality of sons of God.
viii
The intimations of immortality are of sun-beams made,
Blessed are chosen few quenched by rays divine.
He who chooses God is chosen by God.10
The gray matter, the substance wonderful, of the blessed few
Can receive the intimations coming from Above,
The prismatic cortex make them spectrum Allegoric.
The intimations are stained but are beautifully woven,
The words are poor yet bear the mysteries manifold.
The rainbow of meanings gathers colures wonderful
From laws of the lands and passage of time.
The only way to make humanity understand the truth of God,
Let Philo‘s11 method prevail upon the interpretation
Men of letters should wait; even waiting may be long,
With calm of mind dogmas spent.
Waiting for the unfolding of flower, petal by petal.
Let the religions differ about the theories of creation.
Whatever is best the thread of Love is best:
“......to feel Love and Oneness is to live
And this the magic of our golden change”12
ix
The Omnipotent’s creation is not once over action,
Be all and end all was never uttered by Him.
The advent of all embracing spirituality is looming large,
“The advent of new creation is not proclaimed by beating of drums.”13
Repetition –looking eyes can never behold the advent of the new.
Only the peeping of the seers, sees the subdued rays,
The freshness and grandeur of everyday dawn
And the soft music of its approaching steps.
The blessed can behold the sublimity of coming dawns.
Behind the veil of so called good and evil
Common men are unable to see the march of evolution;
Even they deny the truth seen with Galileo‘s telescope.
The ignorant, animal- like, anarchic primitive life
God’s representatives on earth gave it social life
Forgetting the originally given task, Nero played flute upon burning Rome.
Seeing the futility of religion, denied of love,
“God came down on earth as an atheist to deny His own existence”14
To recognize love and compassion in magnitude of ocean blue,
Calm within but roaring strength of Titanic power,
Lenin, the atheist, denied the very existence of God.
To wipe out the tears and to give home, work and words to all.
But timely truth is not the Truth, now we have a different Russia.
Two third population of the world was under chains,
The single stroke of World War made them free.
The Mystic God, to give pride to Friendly Nations
Made ‘god of nation’ at war with the greater Demon.
But snatched away Colonies after Colonies from them.
“Just are the ways of God and justifiable to men”15
x
To make men realize the misuse of freewill and strength of mind
The two edged discoveries are knocking the door.
The atomic energy of a spoon of water
Can topple down the economy of the countries richest.
The unfolding mysteries of DNA
Can create gods and demons on the earth.
The projection of thoughts and emotions,
The reading of the deepest ranges of mind and heart,
In the forms of images on the screen, the property of all,
The hypocrisy and diplomacy of saints and lovers and leaders
Will hover over like wind upon the earth,
Who will be there to chain the wings of madness?
xi
The hardest nut of spirituality is yet to be broken,
Spirituality never talked about divinization of the cells of body.
All the sages and seers and sons of God
Labored hard for uplifting consciousness of men
For ages, Light comes and touches hearts and minds of men
But it has wings and flies away at its whim.
Everyday human beings swing between light and darkness.
The cells of the body seem unable to bear the Light for ever
As if, it is destined to be a prison- house of the soul.
The scientists are busy unfolding the hidden powers of matter
But to transform its consciousness is beyond their scope
Long ago Bose, the scientist, has proved even metal has consciousness.
The new spirituality will uplift the dumb driven force
To transform and to make it perfect vehicle of the Spirit.
Sri Aurobindo, a yogi, par excellence,
In total seclusion for forty years he worked
As a scientist to transform human cell
And opened the gates of Super-mental power:
“Wide open are the ineffable gates in front
......more there is concealed in God’s Beyond.
+ + +
Even the body shall remember God
And Spirit’s fires shall guide the earth‘s blind force.
+ + +
The Spirit shall look out through matter’ gaze
And matter shall reveal the spirit’s face.”*16
The only good God knows how much of Himself
Is to be manifested when, where and how.
To invoke the being of Jesus or the son of God
Needed not number of creeds, sects and splendid places of worship.
Only a band of saints hundred all over the world.
Or Abraham’s negotiation with God even for number ten. 17
Let us sing the glory of the harbingers:
Egoless, masters of themselves,
With cloudless forehead, body agile,
Calm of mind, dogmas burnt and passions sublime,
Rhythmic beatings with remembrance of God,
And burning of Aspiration always within.
The blue silence of their hearts and minds never witness,
The passing of single turbid wave.
No unrest even for calling Jesus on the earth,
Even it may need lives beyond.
Workers of “Divine-wages” like lotus on the water, 18
With a tie of Oneness with thread of Love.
Living in eternal now with no stains of past and present,
Only God’s presence, denied of hell and heaven.
Faith and self- giving are their only strength.
Their cells and tissues bespeak their nearness to God,
And their bodies of light cast in human shape.
If humanity does not have forerunners few,
And Christianity without sects even in one country.
Better to forget for ever the second coming of the son of God.
God does not need human help for His work;
He asks for collaboration only to give delight of worship
If humanity fails, the Supreme chooses His Time and place.
He may send His Sons in different hues or incarnation one,
May appear in flesh and blood or formless Consciousness,
To brood over the eggs of Spiritually Transformed World.
If Christ comes, he will be in Body-divine.
If Mother Mary’s Body be assumed it will not go to Heaven.
It will remain with us to radiate Love Divine.
“The Mighty Mother shall take birth in Time,
A Divine force shall flow through tissue and cell.
The earthly life will become life Divine’’19
Part two
(The Blessed land: America)
i
O Mighty, Mighty nation,
Almost a continent,
I salute thee!
Thou art vast land of snow, sand and fertile land,
Deep valleys and hills and mountains few,
Skyward aspiring billions of trees tall,
Standing on thy carpet green.
Garlanded with rivers and ocean like bosom-lakes.
Beautifully woven like diamonds in garland of pearls.
Fountains, brooks and birds singing thy glory day and night.
The ever roaring of might and awe-some beauty of Niagara Fall.
Thou art ‘Ratnagarbha’20 .
Surrounded by oceans two and nations friendly,
God given boon of fear- free nation.
What not mother Nature profusely bestow upon thee?
ii
Thou art the land of cream of humanity,
The sons of land before the setting of Columbus’ feet,
The men of adventure came here,
Riding on the waves of oceans vast.
The great Presidents with liberal look,
Invited the people of wisdom, wealth and valour,
From all around the world to make the nation rich.
No colors are enough to paint thy people of different hues.
Thy armies with atomic power and laser beams clad
They can win war in distant lands
Without sending or losing a man or two;
Thy heads of armies even to day
Might be aspiring not for more lands and arms,
But for the wisdom and valour of the great Generals
Of the golden period of Roman Empire.
Almost without wireless wings for messages
And needless to talk about arms sophisticated.
iii
Thy wonderful constitution of pages few,
Rich with wisdom and power of law.
But thy throne of White House is still aspiring,
Feminine power, punctuated with love, care and beauty.
A mother’s heart to wipe out the suffering of below twelve,
A loving care and discipline for asthma and excess fat;
A stern look with loving heart at the freedom
Of school going future nation.
And the throne still waiting for the man
For whom the great Civil War was fought;
The golden gains of the War are still to be harvested.
iv
O land of fresh water! Columbous’ Discovery.
Thou art free from weary weight of by gone centuries.
Awake and rise to perform Master act with King Idea.
Be a vehicle of sect-free Dawn of Spirituality.
Leaving aside all efforts: First thing should be done first.
Adore and beautify Christ’s compassion.
With rainbow efforts of thy scientists, expressing God, the Omniscient.
Unlock the spectrum of light-weight atom’s energy
And the power of Sun- god.
v
The master act alone will wipe out all charitable works of the world.
Miraculously the world will be free from pollution and poverty.
All will join to sing the glory of the act,
The collaboration of science for Jesus’ Love:
The blue sky above, with all its glory of dawn and dusk
The ozone’ embrace, full of care and love,
The cooling clouds with rain and rainbow sweet,
The delightful play of Nymphs and Faun and Flora,
All over the bosom loving of our beloved Earth:
The sea and lake, brooks and rivers,
Trees and plants with fruits and flowers,
Fertile fields and valleys deep,
Encircled by forest green,
The earth- worm below and eagle in the sky.
And all above, the human heart,
Full up to the brim with thanks giving prayers.
vi
Thou should remember Saint Paul’s findings,
Even ‘Laws of God’ and ‘Righteous acts’
Find their fulfillment only in Love,
The one word sums up Jesus’ teaching.
O great nation, without love for all nations, thou art not fulfilled.
Without sharing, thy opulence is without smile.
Without the Coming of SON OF GOD thy greatness is not even half.
Nation’s prayer, acts of Love and a band of hundred saints,
Will pay the space for Showers from Above.
With premeditative bend of mind I came in thy land,
To pray for couple of months sittings on crossed legs.
I felt deep in my heart, even with a short-coming few,
Tho art worthy of the Grace.
I pray and pray, will the nation’s prayer be far behind?
LET THY WILL BE DONE
Notes and references:
Part one
1 A dancer creates dance out of himself, he needs nothing to perform it.
2 Attereya Upanishad I-1 Translated by Sri Aurobindo :’On Upanishad’-page-355
3 Brihadaranyaka Upnishad II-44 ‘bhutanam madhu’(Sanskrit) .
4 ‘Mutation’-a word from Biology.
5 ‘Habitation and name ‘-Shakespeare’s phrase.
6 The Bible-‘Hee created thee , in the image of God ‘
7 Shakespear.
8 Taittiriya Upnishad-II-3 Translated by Sri Aurobindo: ‘On Upnishad’-page-329
9 The Grace from above and Gratitude from below (in man’s heart )
10 Unknown.
11 Philo-Philo Judaeus (30 b.c.-4o a.d.) The great Jewish philosopher and ‘the first theologian .
12 Sri Aurobindo : ‘Savitri’-Book-XII canto –Epilogue ,page-724 .
13 The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram :a line from her collected works .
14 Sri Aurobindo : ‘Thoughts and Aporisims’
15 Milton.
16 Sri Aurobindo ‘Savitri’-Book XI. Page-696,704,707.
17 Book of Genesis of the Old Testament: Abraham tried to negotiate with the God to save the twin cities-Sodom and Gomorrah. The term of condition was to find out only ten good person (after a bargaining the figure was reduced to ten) Abraham failed to line up before the God the required number.
18 ‘divine-wages’-a phrase from ‘Savitri’ .
19 Sri Aurobindo :Savitri’-Book XI .page-705,710 .
‘The Mother’-the chit-shakti; the Creative Power of the Supreme .She may descend into human form or as invisible Power.
Part two
20 ‘ratnagarbha’ –a Sanskrit word .It denotes all the riches of the mother Earth –visible-non visible .
Every thing in opulence .It increase day by day .An Omni –Source.
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