The Secret Door I stand again by the secret door That opens on a mystic world, A journey traced through births before The age of time and time unfurled. Now all my days are new begun As sorrow's lantern flickers low Bereft of fuel when tears are done And life is charged by an inner glow. For how can death's sere skull and bones His ashen feet so grey and cold Find purchase mid the golden tones Of earth recast in godhead's mould?

Prayer to the Lord Within O Lord of beauty hidden still within Disclose to us the marvel-key of change Opening that third and truest eye To majesties beyond perception's range. O Lord of wonder veiled in pure delight Impress upon our green and destined earth The image of thy godhead fire-bright, The unifying principle at birth. O Lord of love unblemished sanctify And cleanse from our hearts the sin of separateness Our days anoint, our souls beatify Our tenuous and halting efforts bless. Open our hearts to the One so long denied Prepare us to meet again, Heaven's bride.

The Catenary Line Progressing up the catenary line Descending on the arc that rises higher Forced to abdicate the mental shrine As on a razor's edge or trapeze wire, We tread the path of truth the spirit chose Millennia before mankind's advent As slowly earth towards Godhead's image grows And matter's substance yields to truth's descent. As one we must pierce the shrouded mystery That drives the stars and moves the breast of man While the litanies of our million voiced appeal Call the Unmanifest to appear again, Annex to earth the calm of heaven's peace And all our mortal poverty surcease.

The Spirit's Charge.htm The Spirit's Charge Too often we forget the spirit's charge Lost in the splendid centuries of man, The magnificent creations of his art And his mental constructions evolving plot and plan. Yet are there moments that awaken the inner life Occurring in sudden spaces of the soul, By chance encounter, harmony or strife And set our steps towards the heightened goal. All life's perfections are born from vision within, For a greater consciousness moves our hearts and hands To create the masterworks transcending time From realms alone the spirit understands. Written after a visit to Venice and the Louvre in Paris.

To Dayabhai Vision-Change Jan 1, 2000 I have undergone a vision-change And things once known are new again, All within my mortal range Transforms to view from a higher plane. Acts I abhorred as coarse and mean Were gross impurities in me But now by Her grace is dimly seen In all the masked divinity. All my human attitudes Opinions and desirings Before the stellar plenitudes Of light Sri Aurobindo brings Dissolve as salt in monsoon rain. As His peace descends into our being A greater wideness we attain

The Hour is Upon Us We are a disposable outmoded race, Unwilling to yield to a light beyond our minds, Enraptured by violence, enamoured of death and decay Ignoring the dire forewarnings, the immanent signs. Chaos surrounds us, forces of lust and greed The disrespecting world's contumacy When the centre cannot hold nor intellect read The signs of disintegration nor hear nor see Amidst the whirl of decadence and decay The Force descending, god on silent feet. Time there is no more, the sudden change Occurs amongst us; no longer must we repeat Or be suborned by a nether force within That believes it wields control of earth and hig

Transmuting Hour Chained to a present of obscure desires And the karmic repercussions of our past We wander confused in the alleyways of time And blindly move to an unknown end at last. If we could close the door on darker things, Draw back the brilliant curtains of the mind That hide the luminous vistas of the soul We'd see within our passage well-defined. Transmuting hour, cusp of a century When the great of soul take birth to greet the Dawn, On earth a vast transforming energy, From matter's womb the golden child is born.

Children of Auroville In the tender beauty of their eyes No passion glows, nor any fell disguise, For all with a crystal clarity implies A love descended from those blissful skies Where suffering is done, transformed by grace And pain outcast, a stranger in that place Where soul by soul in kingly harmony pace The silent steps of a diviner race.

From the Manuscripts of Time Deciphering from the manuscripts of time Fleeting wisps or taunting fragments caught By the inner scribe who labours through a mind Awaiting stillness, yet the days are fraught With traceries of dreams and wonder wrought Miracle is found through eyes half-blind And music of the inner realms is taught And halting poetry on wings sublime. Through the growing of the self in all its seasons, The tortured time when winter fills the soul Felicity when burst the buds of spring, And months when blue-white summer skies unroll

Sri Aurobindo's Room.htm Sri Aurobindo's Room Lord of Life a new millennium dawns, A thousand pilgrims tread the winding stairs To bow from some deep reverence of soul Before Thy feet and place such worldly cares As beset the troubled heart, obscure the goal. No sound is heard but the music of anklet bells, Sari's swirl and the sharp intake of breath In this quickened atmosphere where life and death Are facets of the wakened soul's increase; For in this hallowed room the presence dwells And here our human fears and failings cease. By Thee the darkness dies to deathless morns To imprint forever in the memory of our race The grandeur and compassion on Thy face.