Sri Aurobindo - Karuna Yoga
Sri Aurobindo - Karuna Yoga Sri Aurobindo - Karuna Yoga
BOOK I: The Book of Beginnings 70 A trafficker in small impermanent wares, At first he hugs the shore and shuns the breadths, Dares not to affront the far-off perilous main. He in a petty coastal traffic plies, His pay doled out from port to neighbour port, Content with his safe round’s unchanging course, He hazards not the new and the unseen. But now he hears the sound of larger seas. A widening world calls him to distant scenes And journeyings in a larger vision’s arc And peoples unknown and still unvisited shores. On a commissioned keel his merchant hull Serves the world’s commerce in the riches of Time Severing the foam of a great land-locked sea To reach unknown harbour lights in distant climes And open markets for life’s opulent arts, Rich bales, carved statuettes, hued canvases, And jewelled toys brought for an infant’s play And perishable products of hard toil And transient splendours won and lost by the days. Or passing through a gate of pillar-rocks, Venturing not yet to cross oceans unnamed And journey into a dream of distances He travels close to unfamiliar coasts And finds new haven in storm-troubled isles, Or, guided by a sure compass in his thought, He plunges through a bright haze that hides the stars, Steering on the trade-routes of Ignorance. His prow pushes towards undiscovered shores, He chances on unimagined continents: A seeker of the islands of the Blest, He leaves the last lands, crosses the ultimate seas, He turns to eternal things his symbol quest; Life changes for him its time-constructed scenes, Its images veiling infinity. Earth’s borders recede and the terrestrial air
CANTO IV: The Secret Knowledge 71 Hangs round him no longer its translucent veil. He has crossed the limit of mortal thought and hope, He has reached the world’s end and stares beyond; The eyes of mortal body plunge their gaze Into Eyes that look upon eternity. A greater world Time’s traveller must explore. At last he hears a chanting on the heights And the far speaks and the unknown grows near: He crosses the boundaries of the unseen And passes over the edge of mortal sight To a new vision of himself and things. He is a spirit in an unfinished world That knows him not and cannot know itself: The surface symbol of his goalless quest Takes deeper meanings to his inner view; His is a search of darkness for the light, Of mortal life for immortality. In the vessel of an earthly embodiment Over the narrow rails of limiting sense He looks out on the magic waves of Time Where mind like a moon illumines the world’s dark. There is limned ever retreating from the eyes, As if in a tenuous misty dream-light drawn, The outline of a dim mysterious shore. A sailor on the Inconscient’s fathomless sea, He voyages through a starry world of thought On Matter’s deck to a spiritual sun. Across the noise and multitudinous cry, Across the rapt unknowable silences, Through a strange mid-world under supernal skies, Beyond earth’s longitudes and latitudes, His goal is fixed outside all present maps. But none learns whither through the unknown he sails Or what secret mission the great Mother gave. In the hidden strength of her omnipotent Will, Driven by her breath across life’s tossing deep,
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CANTO IV: The Secret Knowledge 71<br />
Hangs round him no longer its translucent veil.<br />
He has crossed the limit of mortal thought and hope,<br />
He has reached the world’s end and stares beyond;<br />
The eyes of mortal body plunge their gaze<br />
Into Eyes that look upon eternity.<br />
A greater world Time’s traveller must explore.<br />
At last he hears a chanting on the heights<br />
And the far speaks and the unknown grows near:<br />
He crosses the boundaries of the unseen<br />
And passes over the edge of mortal sight<br />
To a new vision of himself and things.<br />
He is a spirit in an unfinished world<br />
That knows him not and cannot know itself:<br />
The surface symbol of his goalless quest<br />
Takes deeper meanings to his inner view;<br />
His is a search of darkness for the light,<br />
Of mortal life for immortality.<br />
In the vessel of an earthly embodiment<br />
Over the narrow rails of limiting sense<br />
He looks out on the magic waves of Time<br />
Where mind like a moon illumines the world’s dark.<br />
There is limned ever retreating from the eyes,<br />
As if in a tenuous misty dream-light drawn,<br />
The outline of a dim mysterious shore.<br />
A sailor on the Inconscient’s fathomless sea,<br />
He voyages through a starry world of thought<br />
On Matter’s deck to a spiritual sun.<br />
Across the noise and multitudinous cry,<br />
Across the rapt unknowable silences,<br />
Through a strange mid-world under supernal skies,<br />
Beyond earth’s longitudes and latitudes,<br />
His goal is fixed outside all present maps.<br />
But none learns whither through the unknown he sails<br />
Or what secret mission the great Mother gave.<br />
In the hidden strength of her omnipotent Will,<br />
Driven by her breath across life’s tossing deep,