Rijuta Jain

Upanishadic Influence in Wordsworth Poetry

2009-01-19T12:39:00.000-08:00

It is an unquestionable fact that the Indian seers occupy the highest post in the realm of seeking and exploring the depths of the spirit. When Europe even did not 'witness showers and the rays of dawn of civilization,' the Vedic Rishis had sung marvelous songs of the spirit. It is needless to say that English poetry or literature, in general, is not confined to the United Kingdom only. The contribution of other nations in the development of English Literature, especially Indian, is a landmark. It is not beyond controversy that Plato's mind was shaped by 'Upanishad' and Vedic thoughts. Nobody can ever deny the overwhelming influence of Indian Philosophy on Arnold, Yeats and so many other poets and writers. I feel that even the poets who were not in touch with Indian Philosophy can be judged and appreciated from Indian philosophical point of view.

Wordsworth is one blooming genius in English Poetry whose poems are very close to the philosophy of the Vedas. But, before coming to Wordsworth, I would like to point out the relation between poetry and philosophy, which will enable us to have a comprehensive idea about our Vedantic interpretation of Wordsworth's poetry.

To begin with, Aristotle says that poetry is the most philosophical of all writings where Truth is carried alive into the heart of passion. Wordsworth not only comprehends it but goes one step further to declare that "poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.” He does not stop here. Like Vedic rishis, his poems are not the composition of mental faculty. (The Vedic poets are called 'Drashta' and 'Shrota' because they have heard the songs and seen the truth in deep meditation -- whatever they have composed was 'heard' and seen by them.) Wordsworth, falling in the line of Vedic seers, declares that his poems are "meditations passionate from deep recesses of man's heart."

All these things point out that a creation of a piece of art or a poem is not by the so-called mental faculty only. It does not mean that it is below the mind but it is beyond the mind. Plato could not understand the truth, calling poetry imitation's imitation, and thus twice removed from the truth. Ironically, he explains the traditional view in his book 'Ion':

"The muse first of all inspires men himself… For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems, not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed; so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains. For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him."

It is an ironical statement of Plato, but if we can replace the phrase 'the mind is no longer in him' by 'going beyond' and the tranquility of mind and not absence of mind, we can understand the truth of the creation of poetry. At this stage, I am reminded of the famous lines of `Tintern Abbey':

“If I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind, with tranquil restoration ...

I may have owed another gift

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the myster, in which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened ...............

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul;

We see into the life of things.”

So like the Vedic seers. The composition of sublime poetry is only possible when the poets go beyond the ordinary mind or enter into meditation and can 'see' the 'beauty' and 'truth'. How aptly Coleridge described the being of Wordsworth: "The rapt one, of the godlike forehead. The heaven-eyed creature."

In the 'Prelude', we have a statement -- "The light of sense goes out, but with a flash that has revealed the invisible world.” Commenting on the above lines, Ernest de Selincourt remarks: “But the highest vision is superinduced upon this in a state of ecstasy in which the light of sense goes out and the soul feels its kinship with that which is beyond sense."

The Upanishad declares that the highest Truth is beyond even mind there is an existence of a being beyond senses and mind. The body, vital and mind receive capacity 'from the source' unknown to them. That state of being 'sees' the mystery of the world or "we see into the life of things."

Keno Upanishad 1-3: 'There sight travels not, nor speech, nor the mind. We know it not nor can distinguish how one should teach it." It is that state of being, which not only “sees into the life of things,” but the unknown and unknowable source is felt, too.

The line quoted earlier, "that blessed mood...We see into the life of things," also gives expression to a state of trance, which in Indian tradition and Yoga is called 'Samadhi'. It is a condition of 'body-sleep' and 'mind sleep' but activeness in the higher region of our being, which enables us to see things beyond. "That serene and blessed mood" in which the lightning takes place. It is to be marked that the serenity is of the mood and not merely of the physical being -- "The motion of human blood almost suspended." The spirit experiences the profound peace, the soothing calm that enables the poet to cross the human limitation and transcend to a higher plane where he is able to have an experience. We see not into the form of things. This capacity opens the mystic capacity of knowledge through identity.

There are other expressions too that call for notice. One occurs in 'The Prelude', Book VI. Wordsworth, looking back at an experience, tries to know in depth its implications and realizes how “that awful power,” imagination, rose from the mind of abyss: "But to my conscious soul I now can say I recognize the glory, in such strength of usurpation, when the light of sense goes out, but with a flash that has revealed –

The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,

There harbors, whether we be young or old,

Our destiny, our being's heart and home

Is with infinitude, and only there."

Shri Aurobindo, the great seer philosopher said – “The wonderful fact that not only is death seeming, but life itself is seeming." The Indian seers always believed in the continuity of life. This fact is so deep rooted in the consciousness of the Indian people that even the rustic believes it without a single ray of doubt. The doctrine of 'Karma' lingers with the seemingly passing away of life into another life. The oft-quoted lines of Geeta have very beautifully compared it with the changing of clothes: “When the garments are worn out man changes them, similarly the man changes the body when it is old or becomes useless for the soul.”(Bhagvad Gita, Chapter 2 - verse 22)

Time cannot touch; it is present -- in life, after life. How beautifully Wordsworth sung the song of soul's immortality in his world famous poem, “Ode to Intimation of Immortality”:

"Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting,

The soul that rises with as, our life's star

Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from a far

And not in utter nakedness

But trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home."

Isha Upanishad I-I says that there is a divine spark in every atom and the same spirit dwells in everybody and every molecule. God dwells in the whole of universe.

Now we come to Wordsworth. Nature is not matter, a non-living mass. It has its own being. Every object of nature not only exists but also has knowledge that it exists:

"Every flower enjoys the air it breathes" (lines written in Early Spring). And not only flowers, but also all things:

“Every form, rock, fruit and flower

Even the lose stones that cover the highway."

The poet says: "I saw them feel." (Prelude)

Shewtashwatara Upanishad 1-4 says that, “Thou art the blue bird and the green and the scarlet-eyed, Thou art the womb of lightning and the seasons and the oceans, spirit without beginning, because thou last poured thyself Man-foldly into all forms, therefore the words have being.”
And to quote the pragmatic yet beautiful lines from Tintern Abbey:

"………And I have felt A presence

...

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns

And the Round Ocean and living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things."

Again, there are almost parallel lines in Taittiriya Upanishad for the last two lines quoted above.Taittiriya Upanishad (4-1) says that the spirit who is here in man and the spirit who is there in the sun, it is the spirit and there is no other.

To sum up I think it will more than suffice to quote Shri Aurobindo's comment on Wordsworth:

“It is difficult for the modern mind to understand how we can do more than conceive intellectually of the self or God; but it may borrow some shadow of this vision, experience and becoming from that inner awakening to Nature which a great English poet has made a reality to the European imagination. If we read the poems in which Wordsworth expressed his realization of Nature, we may acquire some distant idea of what realization is. For, first, we see that he has the vision of something in the world which is the very self of all things that it contains, a conscious force and presence other than its forms and manifested in them. We perceive that he had not only the vision of this and the joy and peace and universality which its presence brings, but the very sense of it, mental, aesthetic, vital, physical; not only this sense and vision of it in its own being but in the nearest flower and simplest man and the immobile rock; and finally, that he even occasionally tainted to that unity, that becoming the object of his dedication, one phase of which is powerfully and profoundly expressed in the poem 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal', where he describes himself as become one in his being with earth, “rolled round in its diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees.” Exalt this realization to a profounder self than physical Nature and we have the elements of the Yogic knowledge.”

THE CHRIST IS (When Abram was I am)

2009-01-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

(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.

The Eagle Flight of an Undaunted Spirit

2009-01-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

(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