Thought the Paraclete As some bright archangel in vision
flies
Plunged in dream-caught spirit immensities,
Past the long green crests of the seas of life,
Past the orange skies of the mystic mind
Flew my thought self-lost in the vasts of God.
Sleepless wide great glimmering wings of wind
Bore the gold-red seeking of feet that trod
Space and Time’s mute vanishing ends.
The face Lustred, pale-blue-lined of the hippogriff,
Eremite, sole, daring the bourneless ways,
Over world-bare summits of timeless being
Gleamed; the deep twilights of the world-abyss
Failed below. Sun-realms of supernal seeing,
Crimson-white mooned oceans of pauseless bliss
Drew its vague heart-yearning with voices sweet.
Hungering, large-souled to surprise the unconned
Secrets white-fire-veiled of the last Beyond,
Crossing power-swept silences rapture-stunned,
Climbing high far ethers eternal-sunned,
Thought the great-winged wanderer parac1ete
Disappeared slow-singing a flame-word rune.
Self was left, lone, limitless, nude, immune.
Thought, the Paraclete is a mystic poem which opens up a
vision or revelation of an ascent through spiritual planes. It may lend itself
to a descriptive interpretation or help the emergence of a general idea but
what is really important in it is the vision, what one can apprehend through
intuitive perception rather than through logical explanation. If poetry has
its origin in a spiritual experience, it has to be perceived only intuitively.
The title of the poem: ”Paraclete” means „one who intercedes on behalf of
another, an advocate, a defender”.
As Dr. Iyengar has observed, the central idea of the poem is the
transformation of the self brought about as a result of the ascent of
consciousness to the supramental level. This idea is suggested by the imagery
and the music rather than explained in terms of logical argument. Dr. Iyengar
identifies in the poem four separate ―movements. (Vide Dr. K.R. Srinivasa
Iyengar Indian Writing in English pp. 167-68).
Notwithstanding the view that this poem calls for a perception
rather than logical explanation, the poem does lend itself to analyses at
various levels. For instance, close attention to the imagery, its movement and
the colour scheme in the poem will help one kind of response. The title of the
poem: “Paraclete” means „one who intercedes on behalf of another, an advocate,
a defender”. It is the title given to the Holy Ghost in (John XIV, 16, XVI 7)
The Bible meaning that it is the mediator between the human and the
divine.
In Sri Aurobindonian metaphysics ―thought‖ itself is such a
mediator. Man is the “Mediator” between Matter and Spirit and man is
distinguished by his thought. Thought: Thought in this poem has a very wide
significance, for it stands not only for cognition but the faculty of
perception which in Indian parlance is denoted by chit or consciousness.
According to Aurobindo, consciousness becomes the medium as well
as the mediator for the yogic evolution leading to the higher levels of
Consciousness and Being. Consciousness, as explained by Aurobindo in his Life
Divine, progresses from Mind to Supermind passing through four stages or
levels, namely Highermind, Illumined Mind, Intuition and Overmind.
Archangel: Principal or chief angel.
Thought is described as leaving behind earth conscious-ness and
flying into the vasts of God passing over the seas of life and skies of the
mystic mind — like an archangel flying in a dream.
Green crests of the sea of life: the green colour symbolizes the
vital forces and the light of emotions. The aspiring individual self struggles
in the immensities of the spirit. Orange skies: Orange symbolizes a desire for
a union with the divine, to have a touch with the higher consciousness. ―The
skies of the mystic mind‖ are therefore said to be orange in colour. The human
consciousness has its own limitations caught as it is in the mesh of ignorance
and the mechanical laws of Prakriti or nature.
Now this human consciousness makes an effort to make a mystic
search for the higher realms of bliss. Since it cannot easily make it with the
limitations of nature it makes an ascent by substituting super-nature for the
old, ordinary nature. Sleepless wide great glimmering. wings of mind………. Drew
its vague heart- yearning with voices sweet: This second movement delineates
the next stage in the upward progress of consciousness, which moves on from
the Higher Mind to the Overmind crossing the Illumined Mind and Intuition.
Sleepless wide… vanishing ends: These lines represent the first
stage of this movement from the Higher mind to the Illumined Mind. The wings
of wind, that is the soaring spiritual aspiration, carry the spirit which is
on its quest, sleepless and restless‘.
Gold-red: Signifies the radiance of the supernature in the
physical.Space and Time‟s mute vanishing ends: We have here the image of a
wanderer who is relentlessly searching for the goal breaking even the vital
limitations imposed by space and time. The Higher Mind is ―No longer of
mingled light and obscurity of half-light but a large clarity of the Spirit.”
This is so because as at every other stage of progress, there is a
corresponding illumination from above which is activating the next stage of
the progress. Now the limitations and obstacles posed by the lower nature on
the scale of time and peace vanish. The face lustred, pale-blue-lined summits
of timeless being gleamed: The face of the soul is gleaming in the radiance
like the face of a solitary hermit (Eremite) who dares to explore the
unexplored and unchartered ways to enter the visionary realms. The illumined
mind is no longer a mind of higher thought but a mind illumined by spiritual
light. It is a realm in which ―a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and
power breaks from above into consciousness.
Hipprogriff: A mythical animal, a fabulous monster consisting of
horse with the head and wings of griffin: Like the uni-corn or salamander it
is always solitary. The word carries with it associations of brightness and
splendour, for the sun who is the visible form of righteousness is believed to
have taken the form of a horse to find his wife Samjna who had taken the shape
of Asvini (mare) to escape him.
Pale-blue in the mystic colour-scheme symbolises the light of
higher knowledge. When this stage is reached in the illu-mined mind the world
below becomes a blurred picture seen in a pale, mingled light and half-light.
Seen from that vantage height, the world (Both physically and figuratively)
becomes hazy and blurred or even dark. It seems like an abyss When
Consciousness soars to higher realms, the vital con-sciousness left below
becomes dark and almost vanished.
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