VOICE IN THE AIR

High above the clouds in the Home of Light I dwell. My days are passed in the peace of Great Understanding. For their welfare do I visit men in all corners of the earth. At the command of the Mother I move, up and down, East and West, showering the rays of Freedom upon all; The Mother is the Circle, I am but a curve; The Mother is the Whole, I am but a part; The Mother is the Opening Lotus, I am but a single petal; The Mother is the Ocean of Honey, I am but a thirsty bee. Men call me Lord of the Sky and Father of the Heavens. They know naught who speak thus. I am the Space and its all-infilling Light and the sight in Man’s eyes which sees them both; I am the Sense whereby Man knows the Quarters; I dwell in peace, encompassing all these living orbs of light; I know the secret of the Primal Song; the gods are all the offspring of a Song, by them unheard; I keep the record of men’s thoughts in my infinite House of Sky; From æon to æon I hold up the Mirror of Thought to each man’s mind, to lead him across the shoreless Sea of Mirage; Yet I do but the bidding of the Mother of Eternal Power; I am in all hearts, save only those where Love is not.

By the will of the Mother I am the Lord of the Air; I reign over all who breathe; I carry sweet fragrance from ocean to ocean; My song is heard in the mountain forest, but men hear not my music in the clouds; My home is near to the Lord of the Heart; I am the Lord of Life’s Brother and Playmate; I walk with Man from the door of Birth to the door of Death; waking and sleeping, by day and by night, I watch over him; I sweep from Pole to Pole and none can withstand my power; I am the Friend of the Flowers—from one to another I bear sweet messages of love; This all I do at the command of the Mother of Life. There stands the Mother tenderly smiling, filling with sweetness the Quarters of the Heavens. Yea, like a spreading mountain pine She stands in the soft autumn twilight, and it pleases Her that I play upon my reed for the comfort of all creatures that breathe.

I come. Ye ask, “Who art thou?” Gods have not named me. I call myself “Humanity”; I dwell on land and in the seas; I sweep through the air and the ether. I am man and woman and the intermediate one; I am the ape and the tiger and the lamb. I wander in the woods of dark continents as the savage cannibal; I watch by the bedside of the sick in the home of mercy. I am ferocity in the beast of prey; I am compassion in the heart of the mother. I devour my own offspring; I sacrifice myself to save others. I change—every moment, every season, every æon; I fill the pages of my history with romances written in blood; Out of my dreams of heaven I create this earth; I wax strong and wage war to please Death; I laugh at Death and hurl him into the flaming furnace of hell—and this I do to please my children. I enter the portals of Life with strong crying—and with a sigh I bid farewell to Life. I am prophet; I am idiot; I am king and shepherd and fisherman. I put my foot on the neck of kings and shepherds and fishermen and turn them into dust; And with their dust do I besmear myself and madly dance over green meadows. I am—what ye fear to think of me; I will be—what ye love to dream of me. But I will baffle all your fond expectations and all your clever calculations; In a moment of infinite time I will take the whole world by the hand and lift it up to the heaven of my heart. I am the most erring of the High Mother’s children, but one sure instinct I possess—I stand erect the moment I fall, and by the aid of the very obstacle that caused my fall do I rise again. I sorrow not over my shortcomings and my sufferings; I hope—yet know that my hopes are too wild to be realised. In a part of Space called the Corner of Pain I have made my home; I breathe the atmosphere of pain—I drink from the well of pain—I eat the fruits of the tree of pain—my sleep is troubled by the dream of pain. I love not Pain—Pain loves me; The whole history of my existence is a constant fleeing from this cruel lover of mine; I have prayed to God to be delivered from him—has He heard my prayer? I have worshipped a million lesser divinities—nature-gods, man-gods, god-gods—throughout the ages, hoping to be relieved of pain—have they saved me? I have believed in prophets, saviours, saints—have they healed me? I have listened to philosophers, scientists, magicians—have they protected me? Kings, statesmen, law-givers have boldly proclaimed the gospel of peace and security—have they not themselves plunged the poisoned dagger into my heart? I am old as Eternity—yet I feel not the burden of eternal years; I am young as the babe of to-day—yet I am wise as all the hoary Bible-makers of all the races of the earth. I am one—I am many; I am spirit, ghost, man, animal, and tree: yet my hidden life flows ever with passionate impetuosity towards the distant future above the heads of nations. To me the least is not less than the greatest; in all I am their sensitiveness to pain—the pain of a perpetual new birth of cosmos or of chaos. I am large, and my largeness moves me to face great pain for the avoiding of great pain; I am strong, and my strength lies in discovering the source of consolation even in the moment of suffering from suffering itself; I am inured to pain—so that I delight in excitement that brings pain and inflicts pain. Who brought this pain upon me? Had it been God-given, God would one day have taken it away; has He taken it away? Had it been the gift of Nature, I would have revenged myself upon her; but I feel no enmity to Nature—I desire that she be endless, infinite, that I may ever conquer her; I desire to be charmed by her—yet to be her master; I wonder, shall I ever wish to end this play? Deeming myself the mother of my pain, I seek the aid of floods and earthquakes, war and pestilence and famine, to bring destruction on myself; but ever by a mysterious magic I rise from my own ashes and live again; and after my resurrection, sitting in the dawn-light by the waveless ocean, Psyche comes and whispers to my heart: “Not thou, O sweet Humanity, art cause of thine own pain!” And I muse: If I be the father of my sufferings, how can I desire to live again? How can I inflict pain upon myself? How can I construct machinery for my own torture? I know that my nature is rooted in contradiction; have I perhaps sought to grow at the cost of happiness and peace? Bright Powers in the heavens are watching over my mysterious destiny. Have they lauded me as good and true and beautiful? Have they condemned me as bad and false and ugly? Who will say whether I am developing aright? Who will say whether the daily use to which I am constrained to put my life is not frustrating the Eternal Purpose? I am left alone with my unforeseeing understanding and my ever forward-springing untamable energy. My knowledge embraces not the whole reality. Perchance my sensitiveness to pain has sprung from my limited uncomprehending understanding. True, in my own eyes I grow from ugliness to beauty, from ignorance to knowledge, from slavery to freedom, from sin to holiness. I make progress in culture and civilisation—but I rise to the zenith only to descend to the nadir. Henceforth I will seek new and inward space for my progress. In the coming age I will seek to bore a tunnel in the spirit, to find an inner path to the Divinity of my Heart. But I will not destroy the bridges which I have built during the past ages, linking this earth with the distant divinity of suns and moons and stars. I will be free, glorious, and immortal. The Voice ceases. Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.

All this is rhythm. May-fields, child-hearts, evening skies, Grow corn and wisdom and stars By the throb of rhythm; And Muses from the Milky Way Nightly visit The sleeping poet’s downy pillow By the law of rhythm; And angels bring him faces Flushed with morning’s rose, Tinted with even’s quiet, By the sweet impulse of rhythm. Wait, O soul! Outside thy door, upon the green, Heaven stands expectant, Waiting to be ushered in By Rhythm, Just now—or perchance to-morrow. Śrī Ānanda Āchārya. From “Usarika.”

Friend, dwell thou within my ruby-lotus heart of dreams; Friend, see thyself in the diamond mirror of my heart of hopes; Friend, sport with me in the garden-walks of my heart, fringed with everlastings; Friend, sleep thou on the shore of the song-throated ocean of my heart; Friend, shine in me like sunlight in the heart of a rose-bud of jade. Śrī Ānanda Āchārya. From “Usarika.”

Thou art the rose, I am the honey; Thou drinkest the light of the four heavens, And my soul is suffused with the rainbow of seven tints; I give myself to the bees And become a song on the wings of winds that sing to the gods and the fleecy clouds and the sleeping children of Life. Śrī Ānanda Āchārya. From “Usarika” (Dawn-Rhythms).

Snow-blossoms, snow-blossoms, Are you alive? In your heart I see the image of the heavens, the disc of the sun, And when clouds veil the face of the sky I see your facets tinted with the ink of dark sorrow. Children of Varun, sweet guests of late Autumn, you too hear the whispers of Immortality. Like our village sons, dwelling in lighted cottages by the gloom-canopied graves of their departed ancestors. Śrī Ānanda Āchārya. From “Saki” (The Comrade).

The rose of eternity is my heart, the sun-gold honey is my love for my Saki, the honey-bees are my sighs and songs, the river is my feeling of life, and the light of my Saki’s eyes is the true life of the red rose. What grey dews or blind canker can harm this ever-smiling rose of my heart? Śrī Ānanda Āchārya. From “Saki.”

The blue of Indra is thy laughter frozen into the sky-ocean and these stars and this earth are frozen lilies and we living creatures are frozen bees. O Saki, laugh no more. Śrī Ānanda Āchārya. From “Saki.”

The shadow of a flying bird across the sun’s disc fell on the still floor of my morning-quiet cave and vanished— Like the memory of one who passing through the bright shade of my garden trees of early days entered into the deep shadows of another’s garden trees. Śrī Ānanda Āchārya. From “Saki.”