Enroute - Bangalore to Auroville

Jan. 24, 1973

I wait upon the ending of an age
That has eyed destruction, birth and life and death
Ten thousand ways repeated, and still the veil
Yet hardly shed though we have walked so far.

Who through the stillness calls and who replies?
Am I the answer or must I answer give?
And how reply in silence or in flame
Of soul that rises free in wonder-fire.

Close by my listing heart two voices speak.
I hear and heed the One, then retrogress
To travel paths of senseless habits worn
By the countless tread of dull unconscious feet.

Surfeit brings not release nor abstinence
While forced control is meted out by mind
And soul lies hidden in its well of light,
Persistent, burning dark resistant coals
Of nature, holding, clinging, savouring
The last torn remnants of vanishing vital years.

The world glories in its inconscient bed!
Sleeps, roils, dances and decays
And I out of the Sanctuary of Presence
Partake, immixed, longing to be renewed.

Yet can I pass outside of Her embrace
And things contain that She has not to bear?
I find amidst the vagueness, drift and bale
A sudden clearing, joy of the beckoning hand
And laying all aside, again, return.

Laborious journey to an age so scarce disclosed—
But let not my soul dwell on such thoughts as these,
For I have not vision and nought else shall abide —
But walk, nor softly or with hesitant gait,
Approach the magic fount, the luminous gaze
Of the Seer through whom the future shall be born,
And step into the chamber of the Bride.

First published in Mother India – September 2000