Section Four THE FOUNDATION OF SADHANA THE FOUNDATION OF SADHANA I It is not possible to make a foundation in yoga if the mind is restless. The first thing needed is quiet in the mind. Also to merge the personal consciousness is not the first aim of the yoga: the first aim is to open it to a higher spiritual consciousness and for this also a quiet mind is the first need. *  *  *  The first thing to do in the sadhana is to get a settled peace and silence in the mind. Otherwise you may have experiences, but nothing will be permanent. It is in the silent mind that the true consciousness can be built.     A quiet mind does not m

Section Two INTEGRAL YOGA AND OTHER PATHS INTEGRAL YOGA AND OTHER PATHS I I do not agree with the view that the world is an illusion, mithya. The Brahman is here as well as in the supracosmic Absolute. The thing to be overcome is the Ignorance which makes us blind and prevents us from realising Brahman in the world as well as beyond it and the true nature of existence. *  *  * The Shankara knowledge is, as your Guru pointed out, only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Existence. It was because he went by this side only that Shankara was una

Section Five SADHANATHROUGH WORK SADHANA THROUGH WORK I The ordinary life consists in work for personal aim and satisfaction of desire under some mental or moral control, touched sometimes by a mental ideal. The Gita's yoga consists in the offering of one's work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature. Men usually work and carry on their affairs from the ord

Envoi Ite hillc, Camenae, vos quoque ite jam, sane Dulces Camenae, nam fatebimur verum Dulces fuistis, et tamen meas chartas Revisitote sed pudenter et raro. Pale poems, weak and few, who vainly use Your wings towards the unattainable spheres, Offspring of the divine Hellenic Muse, Poor maimèd children born of six disastrous years! Not as your mother’s is your wounded grace, Since not to me with equal love returned The hope which drew me to that serene face Wherein no unreposeful light of effort burned. Depart and live for seasons many or few If live you may, but stay not here to pain My heart with hopeless passion and

The Meditations of Mandavya ONE O joy of gaining all the soul’s desire! O stranger joy of the defeat and loss! O heart that yearnest to uplift the world! O fiercer heart that bendest o’er its pain And drinkst the savour! I will love thee, O Love, Naked or veiled or dreadfully disguised; Not only when thou flatterest my heart But when thou tearst it! Thy sweet pity I love And mother’s care for creatures, for the joys I love thee that the lives of things possess, And love thee for the torment of our pains; Nor cry, as some, against thy will, nor say, Thou art not. Easy is the love that lasts Only

-61_“I”.htm “I” This strutting “I” of human self and pride Is a puppet built by Nature for her use, And dances as her strong compulsions bid, Forcefully feeble, brilliantly obtuse. Our thinking is her leap of fluttering mind, We hear and see by her constructed sense; Our force is hers; her colours have combined Our fly-upon-the-wheel magnificence. He sits within who turns on her machine These beings, portions of his mystery, Many dwarf beams of his great calm sunshine, A reflex of his sole infinity. One mighty Self of cosmic act and thought Employs this figure of a unit nought. Omnipresence He is in me,

NOTES THE BIRD OF FIRE AND TRANCE These two poems are in the nature of metrical experiments. The first is a kind of compromise between the stress system and the foot measure. The stanza is of four lines, alternately of twelve and ten stresses. The second and fourth line in each stanza can be read as a ten-foot line of mixed iambs and anapaests, the first and third, though a similar system subject to replacement of a foot anywhere by a single-syllable half-foot could be applied, are still mainly readable by stresses. The other poem is an experiment in the use of quantitative foot measures. It is a four-line stanza reading alternately ˘ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ¯ | ¯ ¯ ˘ | ˘ ¯ ¯

Hic Jacet GLASNEVIN CEMETERY Patriots, behold your guerdon. This man found Erin, his mother, bleeding, chastised, bound, Naked to imputation, poor, denied, While alien masters held her house of pride. And now behold her! Terrible and fair With the eternal ivy in her hair, Armed with the clamorous thunder, how she stands Like Pallas’ self, the Gorgon in her hands. True that her puissance will be easily past, The vision ended; she herself has cast Her fate behind her: yet the work not vain Since that which once has been may be again, And she this image yet recover, fired With godlike workings, brain and hands inspired,

VII METRICAL EXPERIMENTS Winged with dangerous deity, Passion swift and implacable Arose and, storm-footed In the dim heart of him, Ran, insatiate, conquering, Worlds devouring and hearts of men, Then perished, broken by The irresistible Occult masters of destiny,- They who sit in the secrecy And watch unmoved ever Unto the end of all. Metrical Scheme: ¯ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ˘ ¯ | ˘ ¯ | ˘ ˘ | ˘ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ |

Urvasie CANTO I Pururavus from Titan conflict ceased Turned worldwards, through illimitable space Had travelled like a star ’twixt earth and heaven Slowly and brightly. Late our mortal air He breathed; for downward now the hooves divine Trampling out fire with sound before them went, And the great earth rushed up towards him, green. With the first line of dawn he touched the peaks, Nor paused upon those savage heights, but reached Inferior summits subject to the rain, And rested. Looking northwards thence he saw The giant snows upclimbing to the sky, And felt the mighty silence. In his ear The noise of a retreating bat