The Eagle Flight of an Undaunted Spirit

(Written by my father Mr SM Ratanpura)

Inspired by the news that Prof. Stephen Hawking is planning a space flight.

I
O undaunted blithe spirit!
I salute thee.
Thou art the mystic seer of ‘Time’
Time can never wither away thy youthful spirit
Posed against all odds, ‘doubly
Redoubled strokes’ with passage of time
Could do no harms to thy unsurmounted will.
To my inward eyes thou doth appear:
A majestic emperor or ‘Bellona’s bridegroom’,
The world has ever seen
Seated upon wheel-chair.

II
The Omniscient might have whispered
Into thy ears,
Or intimations oozing out from heavenly clouds
Of universal mind,
Might have articulated rainbow of inspiration
Across the sky of thy prismatic cortex.
Or the wisdom of setting sun
Turned the clouds of gray matter
Into subdued colours of the horizon.
Or an aspiration leaping up
From the core of thy heart like cloud of fire
Setting itself for ‘zero-gravity flight’

III
O mighty mind!
Thou art free from weary weight of fragile body,
To give sanction and glory to matter
Thou art robed in human frame.
Thy body is an instrument, an act of grace
For the world to make it able to listen from thy whispering lips
The intimations coming out from ‘Black Holes’
Exceeding even light-speed.

O Omnipotent’s mind!
Thou doth seem a power with or without brain
How can I sing thy glory, no words are at my command
Except to rewrite Shelly’s verse:


“Waking or asleep
Thou…. doth deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream
Or how could thy whisper flow in such a crystal stream?”

IV
On the occasion of thy eagle-flight
My heart is flooded with all good wishes.
O fully blossomed mind!
Be a bud again, keeping in womb
All thy age-long wisdom only in essence
Not a turbid wave of forms and words of knowledge
Disturb the sap and colors of the bud

“In the heart of silence, rich with creative beats”
O son of wisdom, thou wilt reborn
As a new born babe, an Unmanifest wisdom
Still thou art not coming from ‘entire forgetfulness’
‘Trailing clouds of glory’ is thy true home
On the wings of zero- gravity flight
Thou wilt be blessed to see the images of
One without second*
The Unified Theory will be revealed to thee
Long live the ‘born-again’ aged–wisdom

V
I look into the future,
Thou art in the blue.
I am sitting cross–legged; on the earth
May the invisible thread unite us:
You to explore,
I to invoke Grace.

Wilt thou give me a favor?
Letting me know the earthly time.
Of your space time,
So that in India, I may sit
In meditative pose praying for thee.

A poet, seer and yogi, par excellence,
Has rightly and uniquely said
In the play of hide and seek with God
Only atheist have chance to catch the Omniscient
Because he is not running after shadow**
“All can be done if God – touch is there”. ***

References: -

* - the core principle of Advaitvad of Indian philosophy
** ‘Thoughts and Aphorism’ – Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry India
*** ‘Savitri’ – page 3, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry India