TERMS STARTING WITH
TERMS ANYWHERE
Although our senses tell us nothing of these innumerable other planes, yet the inner and invisible higher spheres are inexpressibly important because they are the causal realms of which our physical universe is but the phenomenal production. But while these higher planes are the fountainhead, ultimately, of all the energies and matters of the whole physical world, yet to an entity inhabiting these inner and invisible worlds, these latter are as substantial and real to that entity as our physical world is to us. Just as we know in our physical world various grades or conditions of energy and matter, from the grossest to the most ethereal, so do the inhabitants of these other worlds know and cognize their own grossest and also most ethereal substances and energies.
Anusaya: The balance or residue of Karma which forces the soul to take rebirth in this or the other world after temporary freedom enjoyed in the higher spheres.
cittaviprayuktasaMskAra. (T. sems dang ldan pa ma yin pa'i 'du byed; C. xin buxiangying fa; J. shinfusoobo; K. sim pulsangŭng pop 心不相應法). In Sanskrit, "conditioned forces dissociated from thought"; forces that are associated with neither materiality (RuPA) nor mentality (CITTA) and thus are listed in a separate category of factors (DHARMA) in ABHIDHARMA materials associated with the SARVASTIVADA school and in the hundred-dharmas (BAIFA) list of the YOGACARA school. These conditioned forces were posited to account for complex moral and mental processes (such as the states of mind associated with the higher spheres of meditation, where both physicality and mentality were temporarily suspended), and anomalous doctrinal problems (such as how speech was able to convey meaning or how group identity was established). A standard listing found in the DHARMASKANDHA and PRAKARAnAPADA, two texts of the SarvAstivAda abhidharma canon, includes sixteen dissociated forces: (1) possession (PRAPTI); (2) equipoise of nonperception (ASAMJNASAMAPATTI); (3) equipoise of cessation (NIRODHASAMAPATTI); (4) nonperception (AsaMjNika); (5) vitality (JĪVITA); (6) homogeneity (sabhAgatA); (7) acquisition the corporeal basis (*AsrayapratilAbha); (8) acquisition of the given entity (*vastuprApti); (9) acquisition of the sense spheres (*AyatanaprApti); the four conditioned characteristics (SAMSKṚTALAKsAnA), viz., (10) origination, or birth (JATI); (11) continuance, or maturation (STHITI); (12) senescence, or decay (JARA); and (13) desinence, or death (anityatA); (14) name set (nAmakAya); (15) phrase set (padakAya); 16) syllable set (vyaNjanakAya). The later treatise ABHIDHARMAKOsABHAsYA includes only fourteen, dropping numbers 7, 8, 9 and adding nonpossession (APRAPTI). These listings, however, constituted only the most generic and comprehensive types employed by the VAIBHAsIKA school of SarvAstivAda abhidharma; the cittaviprayuktasaMskAras thus constituted an open category, and new forces could be posited as the need arose in order to resolve thorny doctrinal issues. The four conditioned characteristics (saMskṛtalaksana) are a good example of why the cittaviprayuktasaMskAra category was so useful in abhidharma-type analysis. In the SarvAstivAda treatment of causality, these four characteristics were forcesthat exerted real power over compounded objects, escorting an object along from origination, to continuance, to senescence or decay, until the force "desinence," or death finally extinguishes it; this rather tortured explanation was necessary in order to explain how factors that the school presumed continued to exist in all three time periods (TRIKALA) of past, present, and future nevertheless still appeared to undergo change. The YOGACARA school subsequently includes twenty-four cittaviprayuktasaMskAras in its list of one hundred dharmas (see BAIFA), including such elements as the state of an ordinary being (pṛthagjanatva), time (KALA), place (desa), and number (saMkhyA).
Ghost The occasional apparitions of deceased persons — but in no instances whatsoever of the spirits of the dead — or invisible astral entities producing various psychic phenomena. This age-old belief is consistent with the breaking up of composite human nature into its component parts at death. As the astral model-body, when freed from its familiar physical duplicate, is still magnetically attached to the body, it is sometimes seen haunting the new grave for a short time. Soon the atoms of this shadowy form begin to dissipate. But the more ethereal and enduring astral atoms cohere in the kama-rupic body of the deceased person’s lower mental, emotional, and psychic nature. These imbodied lower passions and desires become in connection with their astral automatic vehicle an earth-bound entity when they are separated from the reimbodying ego at the second death in the purgatorial astral underworld. These so-called spooks are what the Roman writers named umbrae or larvae of the dead; earlier, the Greeks spoke of these human reliquiae as eidola — the astral “images” of the dead. The ancients were well informed regarding the shades or shells which were cast off by the purified inner self when it ascended from kama-loka to its devachan in higher spheres.
Lunar Pitris [from Sanskrit pitṛ father, ancestor] Lunar fathers, also called barhishad-pitris and lunar ancestors; used in distinction from the solar pitris or agnishvattas. Lunar pitris are the actual progenitors of our lower principles, as distinguished from the dhyani-chohans who are, in an important sense, our own selves. Lunar pitris, in the wider sense, come from the moon-chain to inform the earth-chain, forming a sevenfold or tenfold hierarchy. In a more restricted sense, they are those elements in our constitution which are below the evolutionary standard of the agnishvattas, informing our lower principles; whereas the solar pitris originating not in the moon-chain but in a higher sphere, give to man the higher parts of his constitution. There is a subdivision of the seven classes of lunar pitris into arupa (formless) and rupa (form). The lunar pitris built a psychophysical vehicle fit for the informing intellectual spirit which the agnishvattas communicated.
Medicine As the healing art, medicine is as old as thinking man. Before the latent fires of mind were lighted in the third root-race, disease and death were unknown. However, with the physicalization of protoplastic humanity, and the separation of the sexes, the unnatural linking with the animals in the third and fourth root-races disordered the harmonious relations between man and nature. In addition, self-conscious man’s continued evolution into matter, with the involution of his spiritual nature, brought about forms of disorder, disease, and physical death. Then, beings from higher spheres descended, and dynasties of divine kings and spiritual guides taught men, leading them to the invention of all the arts and sciences, including the medical use of plants (cf SD 2:364).
KEYS (10k)
1 The Mother
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
2 The Mother
2 Arthur Machen
1:What is a change of consciousness?
A change of consciousness is equivalent to a new birth, a birth into a higher sphere of existence.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life; the lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:When one sees that everything exists as an illusion, one can live in a higher sphere than ordinary man. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
2:What is a change of consciousness?
A change of consciousness is equivalent to a new birth, a birth into a higher sphere of existence.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#NFDB
3:Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life; the lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
4:I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere of thought, into which other men rise with labor and difficulty; he has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in large relations; whilst they must make painful corrections, and keep a vigilant eye on many sources of error. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
5:Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage—is it not in some ways an advantage—that it can’t pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me? ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
6:A converted wife who despaired of her husband was always very kind to him, for she said, "I fear that this is the only world in which he will be happy, and therefore I have made up my mind to make him as happy as I can in it." Christians must seek their delights in a higher sphere than the insipid frivolities or sinful enjoyments of the world. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
7:Power is a poison well known for thousands of years. If only no one were ever to acquire material power over others! But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal. For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, #NFDB
8:It appears to me that it [sin] is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner. You can understand why it is so rare. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still. ~ Arthur Machen, #NFDB
9:The man, who shuts himself up from all men, however high spiritually he may be, will not be free in Malakut, in the higher sphere. He will have a wall around him, keeping away the jinns and even the angels of the angelic heavens; and so his journey will be exclusive. It is therefore that Sufism does not only teach concentration and meditation, which help one to make one-sided progress, but the love of God which is expansion; the opening of the heart of all beings, which is the way of Christ and the sign of the cross. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
10:It appears to me that it [sin] is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner. You can understand why it is so rare. They are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into higher spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius, who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes, on the whole , it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint. ~ Arthur Machen, #NFDB
11:By Blake's model, as I understand it, it's as though the Fifth Symphony existed already in that higher sphere, before Beethoven sat down and played dah-dah-dah-DUM. The catch was this: The work existed only as potential — without a body, so to speak. It wasn't music yet. You couldn't play it. You couldn't hear it. It needed someone. It needed a corporeal being, a human, an artist (or more precisely a genius, in the Latin sense of "soul" or "animating spirit") to bring it into being on this material plane. So the Muse whispered in Beethoven's ear. Maybe she hummed a few bars into a million other ears. But no one else heard her. Only Beethoven got it. He brought it forth. He made the Fifth Symphony a "creation of time," which "eternity" could be "in love with. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
12:The Trysting Path
Dear little darkened way where we have climbed
How often and again,
Down to the still, star-shadowed haunt where chimed
Uncounted hours of peace beyond all pain!–
There have we lain
And to the leafy whispers of the wood-world rhymed
The music of our hearts' refrain:
Guard thy rare solitude, and may no sullen feet
The wedded paces of thy path profane!
And you–so dear that all things else are dear
That enter your desire–
All that you value, all that I revere
Transformed in our discourse (as in God's fire
The starry choir
With life renewed evolves fresh fitness for a higher sphere,)
With quick interpretings inspire,
Deep inner knowledge, and the need, confessed and sweet,
Of that Sun-power which holds the worlds entire.
Set in blue darkness, once, through wreathing boughs,
We saw the Lord's own star,
And breast to breast there sanctified our vows
Before that throne where all the glories are.
Not very far
From the bright Kingdom standing then, with radiant brows,
And love's long kiss that nought can mar,
You sealed our faith, and so, while lives unnumbered fleet,
As one, we seek th' Eternal Avatar.
~ Albert Smythe,#NFDB
13:Flesh And The Spirit, The
In secret place where once I stood
Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood,
I heard two sisters reason on
Things that are past and things to come.
One Flesh was call'd, who had her eye
On worldly wealth and vanity;
The other Spirit, who did rear
Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.
"Sister," quoth Flesh, "what liv'st thou on
Nothing but Meditation?
Doth Contemplation feed thee so
Regardlessly to let earth go?
Can Speculation satisfy
Notion without Reality?
Dost dream of things beyond the Moon
And dost thou hope to dwell there soon?
Hast treasures there laid up in store
That all in th' world thou count'st but poor?
Art fancy-sick or turn'd a Sot
To catch at shadows which are not?
Come, come. I'll show unto thy sense,
Industry hath its recompence.
What canst desire, but thou maist see
True substance in variety?
Dost honour like? Acquire the same,
As some to their immortal fame;
And trophies to thy name erect
Which wearing time shall ne'er deject.
For riches dost thou long full sore?
Behold enough of precious store.
Earth hath more silver, pearls, and gold
Than eyes can see or hands can hold.
Affects thou pleasure? Take thy fill.
Earth hath enough of what you will.
Then let not go what thou maist find
For things unknown only in mind."
~ Anne Bradstreet,#NFDB
14:Matins
Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,
Of some fresh-awakened bird,
The querulous, shrill tune.
The dark mist hides the face
Of the dim land: no trace
Of rock or river's place
In the thick air is drawn;
But dripping grass smells sweet,
And rustling branches meet,
And sounding water greet
The slow, sure, sacred dawn.
Past is the long black night,
With its keen lightnings white,
Thunder and floods: new light
The glimmering low east streaks.
The dense clouds part: between
Their jagged rents are seen
Pale reaches blue and green,
As the mirk curtain breaks.
Above the shadowy world,
Still more and more unfurled,
The gathered mists upcurled
Like phantoms melt and pass.
In clear-obscure revealed,
Brown wood, gray stream, dark field:
Fresh, healthy odors yield
Wet furrows, flowers, and grass.
The sudden, splendid gleam
Of one thin, golden beam
Shoots from the feathered rim
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Of yon hill crowned with woods.
Down its embowered side,
As living waters slide,
So the great morning tide
Follows in sunny floods.
From bush and hedge and tree
Joy, unrestrained and free,
Breaks forth in melody,
Twitter and chirp and song:
Alive the festal air
With gauze-winged creatures fair,
That flicker everywhere,
Dart, poise, and flash along.
The shining mists are gone,
Slight films of gold swift-blown
Before the strong, bright sun
Or the deep-colored sky:
A world of life and glow
Sparkles and basks below,
Where the soft meads a-row,
Hoary with dew-fall, lie.
Does not the morn break thus,
Swift, bright, victorious,
With new skies cleared for us,
Over the soul storm-tost?
Her night was long and deep,
Strange visions vexed her sleep,
Strange sorrows bade her weep:
Her faith in dawn was lost.
No halt, no rest for her,
The immortal wanderer
From sphere to higher sphere,
Toward the pure source of day.
The new light shames her fears,
Her faithlessness, her tears,
As the new sun appears
To light her godlike way.
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~ Emma Lazarus,#NFDB
15:Ione
I.
AH, yes, 't is sweet still to remember,
Though 't were less painful to forget;
For while my heart glows like an ember,
Mine eyes with sorrow's drops are wet,
And, oh, my heart is aching yet.
It is a law of mortal pain
That old wounds, long accounted well,
Beneath the memory's potent spell,
Will wake to life and bleed again.
So 't is with me; it might be better
If I should turn no look behind, —
If I could curb my heart, and fetter
From reminiscent gaze my mind,
Or let my soul go blind — go blind!
But would I do it if I could?
Nay! ease at such a price were spurned;
For, since my love was once returned,
All that I suffer seemeth good.
I know, I know it is the fashion,
When love has left some heart distressed,
To weight the air with wordful passion;
But I am glad that in my breast
I ever held so dear a guest.
Love does not come at every nod,
Or every voice that calleth 'hasten;'
He seeketh out some heart to chasten,
And whips it, wailing, up to God!
Love is no random road wayfarer
Who Where he may must sip his glass.
Love is the King, the Purple-Wearer,
Whose guard recks not of tree or grass
To blaze the way that he may pass.
What if my heart be in the blast
That heralds his triumphant way;
Shall I repine, shall I not say:
'Rejoice, my heart, the King has passed!'
In life, each heart holds some sad story —
The saddest ones are never told.
I, too, have dreamed of fame and glory,
And viewed the future bright with gold;
But that is as a tale long told.
Mine eyes have lost their youthful flash,
My cunning hand has lost its art;
I am not old, but in my heart
The ember lies beneath the ash.
I loved! Why not? My heart was youthful,
My mind was filled with healthy thought.
He doubts not whose own self is truthful,
Doubt by dishonesty is taught;
So loved! boldly, fearing naught.
I did not walk this lowly earth;
Mine was a newer, higher sphere,
Where youth was long and life was dear,
And all save love was little worth.
Her likeness! Would that I might limn it,
As Love did, with enduring art;
Nor dust of days nor death may dim it,
Where it lies graven on my heart,
Of this sad fabric of my life a part.
I would that I might paint her now
As I beheld her in that day,
Ere her first bloom had passed away,
And left the lines upon her brow.
A face serene that, beaming brightly,
Disarmed the hot sun's glances bold.
A foot that kissed the ground so lightly,
He frowned in wrath and deemed her cold,
But loved her still though he was old.
A form where every maiden grace
Bloomed to perfection's richest flower, —
The statued pose of conscious power,
Like lithe-limbed Dian's of the chase.
Beneath a brow too fair for frowning,
Like moon-lit deeps that glass the skies
Till all the hosts above seem drowning,
Looked forth her steadfast hazel eyes,
With gaze serene and purely wise.
And over all, her tresses rare,
Which, when, with his desire grown weak,
The Night bent down to kiss her cheek,
Entrapped and held him captive there.
This was Ione; a spirit finer
Ne'er burned to ash its house of clay;
A soul instinct with fire diviner
Ne'er fled athwart the face of day,
And tempted Time with earthly stay.
Her loveliness was not alone
Of face and form and tresses' hue;
For aye a pure, high soul shone through
Her every act: this was Ione. ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar,#NFDB
16:The Flesh And The Spirit
In secret place where once I stood
Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood,
I heard two sisters reason on
Things that are past and things to come.
One Flesh was call'd, who had her eye
On worldly wealth and vanity;
The other Spirit, who did rear
Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.
'Sister,' quoth Flesh, 'what liv'st thou on
Nothing but Meditation?
Doth Contemplation feed thee so
Regardlessly to let earth go?
Can Speculation satisfy
Notion without Reality?
Dost dream of things beyond the Moon
And dost thou hope to dwell there soon?
Hast treasures there laid up in store
That all in th' world thou count'st but poor?
Art fancy-sick or turn'd a Sot
To catch at shadows which are not?
Come, come. I'll show unto thy sense,
Industry hath its recompence.
What canst desire, but thou maist see
True substance in variety?
Dost honour like? Acquire the same,
As some to their immortal fame;
And trophies to thy name erect
Which wearing time shall ne'er deject.
For riches dost thou long full sore?
Behold enough of precious store.
Earth hath more silver, pearls, and gold
Than eyes can see or hands can hold.
Affects thou pleasure? Take thy fill.
Earth hath enough of what you will.
Then let not go what thou maist find
For things unknown only in mind.'
pirit.
'Be still, thou unregenerate part,
Disturb no more my settled heart,
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For I have vow'd (and so will do)
Thee as a foe still to pursue,
And combat with thee will and must
Until I see thee laid in th' dust.
Sister we are, yea twins we be,
Yet deadly feud 'twixt thee and me,
For from one father are we not.
Thou by old Adam wast begot,
But my arise is from above,
Whence my dear father I do love.
Thou speak'st me fair but hat'st me sore.
Thy flatt'ring shews I'll trust no more.
How oft thy slave hast thou me made
When I believ'd what thou hast said
And never had more cause of woe
Than when I did what thou bad'st do.
I'll stop mine ears at these thy charms
And count them for my deadly harms.
Thy sinful pleasures I do hate,
Thy riches are to me no bait.
Thine honours do, nor will I love,
For my ambition lies above.
My greatest honour it shall be
When I am victor over thee,
And Triumph shall, with laurel head,
When thou my Captive shalt be led.
How I do live, thou need'st not scoff,
For I have meat thou know'st not of.
The hidden Manna I do eat;
The word of life, it is my meat.
My thoughts do yield me more content
Than can thy hours in pleasure spent.
Nor are they shadows which I catch,
Nor fancies vain at which I snatch
But reach at things that are so high,
Beyond thy dull Capacity.
Eternal substance I do see
With which inriched I would be.
Mine eye doth pierce the heav'ns and see
What is Invisible to thee.
My garments are not silk nor gold,
Nor such like trash which Earth doth hold,
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But Royal Robes I shall have on,
More glorious than the glist'ring Sun.
My Crown not Diamonds, Pearls, and gold,
But such as Angels' heads infold.
The City where I hope to dwell,
There's none on Earth can parallel.
The stately Walls both high and trong
Are made of precious Jasper stone,
The Gates of Pearl, both rich and clear,
And Angels are for Porters there.
The Streets thereof transparent gold
Such as no Eye did e're behold.
A Crystal River there doth run
Which doth proceed from the Lamb's Throne.
Of Life, there are the waters sure
Which shall remain forever pure.
Nor Sun nor Moon they have no need
For glory doth from God proceed.
No Candle there, nor yet Torch light,
For there shall be no darksome night.
From sickness and infirmity
Forevermore they shall be free.
Nor withering age shall e're come there,
But beauty shall be bright and clear.
This City pure is not for thee,
For things unclean there shall not be.
If I of Heav'n may have my fill,
Take thou the world, and all that will.'
~ Anne Bradstreet,#NFDB
17:In Honour Of That High And Mighty Princess, Queen
Elizabeth
Proem.
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Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie,
Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky
Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime,
And so has vow'd, whilst there is world or time.
So great's thy glory, and thine excellence,
The sound thereof raps every human sense
That men account it no impiety
To say thou wert a fleshly Deity.
Thousands bring off'rings (though out of date)
Thy world of honours to accumulate.
'Mongst hundred Hecatombs of roaring Verse,
'Mine bleating stands before thy royal Hearse.
Thou never didst, nor canst thou now disdain,
T' accept the tribute of a loyal Brain.
Thy clemency did yerst esteem as much
The acclamations of the poor, as rich,
Which makes me deem, my rudeness is no wrong,
Though I resound thy greatness 'mongst the throng.
The Poem.
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No Ph{oe}nix Pen, nor Spenser's Poetry,
No Speed's, nor Camden's learned History;
Eliza's works, wars, praise, can e're compact,
The World's the Theater where she did act.
No memories, nor volumes can contain,
The nine Olymp'ades of her happy reign,
Who was so good, so just, so learn'd, so wise,
From all the Kings on earth she won the prize.
Nor say I more than truly is her due.
Millions will testify that this is true.
She hath wip'd off th' aspersion of her Sex,
That women wisdom lack to play the Rex.
Spain's Monarch sa's not so, not yet his Host:
She taught them better manners to their cost.
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The Salic Law had not in force now been,
If France had ever hop'd for such a Queen.
But can you Doctors now this point dispute,
She's argument enough to make you mute,
Since first the Sun did run, his ne'er runn'd race,
And earth had twice a year, a new old face;
Since time was time, and man unmanly man,
Come shew me such a Ph{oe}nix if you can.
Was ever people better rul'd than hers?
Was ever Land more happy, freed from stirs?
Did ever wealth in England so abound?
Her Victories in foreign Coasts resound?
Ships more invincible than Spain's, her foe
She rack't, she sack'd, she sunk his Armadoe.
Her stately Troops advanc'd to Lisbon's wall,
Don Anthony in's right for to install.
She frankly help'd Franks' (brave) distressed King,
The States united now her fame do sing.
She their Protectrix was, they well do know,
Unto our dread Virago, what they owe.
Her Nobles sacrific'd their noble blood,
Nor men, nor coin she shap'd, to do them good.
The rude untamed Irish she did quell,
And Tiron bound, before her picture fell.
Had ever Prince such Counsellors as she?
Her self Minerva caus'd them so to be.
Such Soldiers, and such Captains never seen,
As were the subjects of our (Pallas) Queen:
Her Sea-men through all straits the world did round,
Terra incognitæ might know her sound.
Her Drake came laded home with Spanish gold,
Her Essex took Cadiz, their Herculean hold.
But time would fail me, so my wit would too,
To tell of half she did, or she could do.
Semiramis to her is but obscure;
More infamy than fame she did procure.
She plac'd her glory but on Babel's walls,
World's wonder for a time, but yet it falls.
Fierce Tomris (Cirus' Heads-man, Sythians' Queen)
Had put her Harness off, had she but seen
Our Amazon i' th' Camp at Tilbury,
(Judging all valour, and all Majesty)
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2.89
2.90
2.91
2.92
Within that Princess to have residence,
And prostrate yielded to her Excellence.
Dido first Foundress of proud Carthage walls
(Who living consummates her Funerals),
A great Eliza, but compar'd with ours,
How vanisheth her glory, wealth, and powers.
Proud profuse Cleopatra, whose wrong name,
Instead of glory, prov'd her Country's shame:
Of her what worth in Story's to be seen,
But that she was a rich Ægyptian Queen.
Zenobia, potent Empress of the East,
And of all these without compare the best
(Whom none but great Aurelius could quell)
Yet for our Queen is no fit parallel:
She was a Ph{oe}nix Queen, so shall she be,
Her ashes not reviv'd more Ph{oe}nix she.
Her personal perfections, who would tell,
Must dip his Pen i' th' Heliconian Well,
Which I may not, my pride doth but aspire
To read what others write and then admire.
Now say, have women worth, or have they none?
Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone?
Nay Masculines, you have thus tax'd us long,
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
Let such as say our sex is void of reason
Know 'tis a slander now, but once was treason.
But happy England, which had such a Queen,
O happy, happy, had those days still been,
But happiness lies in a higher sphere.
Then wonder not, Eliza moves not here.
Full fraught with honour, riches, and with days,
She set, she set, like Titan in his rays.
No more shall rise or set such glorious Sun,
Until the heaven's great revolution:
If then new things, their old form must retain,
Eliza shall rule Albian once again.
Her Epitaph.
3.1
3.2
3.3
Here sleeps T H E Queen, this is the royal bed
O' th' Damask Rose, sprung from the white and red,
Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air,
54
3.4
3.5
3.6
This Rose is withered, once so lovely fair:
On neither tree did grow such Rose before,
The greater was our gain, our loss the more.
Another.
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
Here lies the pride of Queens, pattern of Kings:
So blaze it fame, here's feathers for thy wings.
Here lies the envy'd, yet unparallel'd Prince,
Whose living virtues speak (though dead long since).
If many worlds, as that fantastic framed,
In every one, be her great glory famed
~ Anne Bradstreet,#NFDB
18:The Shadow
1.
A vision haunts me, love, when thou art near,
Chilling my heart as frost nips April flowers;
A covering cloud, when all is fair and clear,
That takes the sweetness from our happiest hours.
2.
It steals the colour from our brightest sky;
It mars my soul's content when all seems well;
It quenches laughter in a shuddering sigh —
In thoughts that thrill me like a tolling bell.
3.
It numbs my passion when I love thee most;
It dims my eyes — it veils thy face; it slips,
An unseen shadow, like a creeping ghost,
Betwixt thy kisses and my hungering lips.
4.
What, amid richest plenty, starves me thus?
What is it draws my trustful hand from thine?
That sits a guest at marriage feast with us,
And mixes poison with the food and wine?
5.
In broad noonday — in dark hours long and lone —
252
A small green mound, a lettered name, I see.
There love is symboled in a graven stone —
There I lie dead, worth nothing more to thee.
6.
There weep the dews, and winds of winter blow;
The soft breeze rustles in the bending grass;
The cold rain falls there, and the drifting snow —
But tears fall not, nor lovers' footsteps pass.
7.
Bees hum all day amid the young spring leaves;
The rooks caw loud from every elm- tree bough;
The sparrows twitter in the old church eaves —
But no voice cries for me or calls me now.
8.
Bright beams of morn encompass me about;
The stars shine o'er me, and the pale moonlight;
But I, that lit and warmed thee, am gone out,
Like a burnt candle, in eternal night.
9.
Earth to the earth upon this churchyard slope.
We made no tryst for happier time and place;
And in thy sky gleams no immortal hope,
No distant radiance from my vanished face.
10.
253
And still the sands between thy fingers run —
Desires, delights, ambitions — days and years,
Rich hours of life for thee, though mine are done —
Too full for vain regrets, too brief for tears.
11.
I have lost all, but thou dost hold and save,
Adding new treasure to thy rifled store,
While weeds grow long on the neglected grave
Where sleeps thy mate who may be thine no more.
12.
This is the fate I feel, the ghost I see,
The dream I dream at night, the thought I dread —
That thus 'twill be some day with thee and me,
Thou fain to live while I am doubly dead.
13.
Thou still defiant of our common foe;
I vanquished quite — the once- resplendent crown
Of all thy joys become a dragging woe,
To be lopped off, lest it should weigh thee down.
14.
I, once thy sap of life, a wasteful drain
On thy green vigour, like a rotten branch;
I, once thy health, a paralyzing pain,
A bleeding wound that thou must haste to stanch.
254
15.
Because the dead are dead — the past is gone;
Because dear life is sweet and time is brief,
And some must fall, and some must still press on,
Nor waste scant strength in unavailing grief.
16.
I blame thee not. I know what must be must.
Nor shall I suffer when apart from thee.
I shall not care, when I am mouldering dust,
That once quick love is in the grave with me.
17.
Cast me away — thou knowest I shall not fret;
Take thy due joys — I shall not bear the cost.
I, that am thus forgotten, shall forget,
Nor shed one tear for all that I have lost.
18.
Not then, not then shall sting of death and dole,
The penal curse of life and love, befall;
'Tis now I wear the sackcloth on my soul,
Bereaved and lonely, while possessed of all.
19.
0, wert thou dead, should I, beloved, turn
Deaf heart to memory when of thee she spake?
Should I, when this pure fire had ceased to burn,
255
Seek other hearths, for sordid comfort's sake?
20.
No — no! Yet I am mortal — I am weak —
In need of warmth when wintry winds are cold;
And fateful years and circumstance will wreak
Their own stern will on mine, when all is told.
21.
How can I keep thee? Day and night I grope
In Nature's book, and in all books beside,
For but one touch of a substantial hope.
But all is vague and void on every side.
22.
Whence did we come? And is it there we go?
We look behind — night hides our place of birth;
The blank before hides heaven, for aught we know.
But what is heaven to us, whose home is earth?
23.
Flesh may be gross — the husk that holds the seed —
And gold and gems worth more than common bread;
But flesh is us, and bread is what we need,
And, changed and glorious, we should still be dead.
24.
What is the infinite universe to him
Who has no home? Eternal Future seems,
256
Like the Eternal Past, unreal and dim —
The airy region of a poet's dreams.
25.
What spirit essence, howsoe'er divine,
Can our lost selves restore from dusty grave?
Thy mortal mind and body — thine and mine —
Make all the joys I know, and all I crave.
26.
No fair romance of transcendental bliss,
No tale of palms and crowns my dull heart stirs,
That only hungers for a woman's kiss,
And asks no life that is not one with hers.
27.
Not such Hereafter can I wish to see;
Not this pale hope my sinking soul exalts;
I want no sexless angel — only thee,
My human love, with all thy human faults.
28.
Just as thou art — not beautiful or wise,
But prone to simple sins and sad unrest;
With thy warm lips and arms, and thy sweet eyes —
Sweeter for tears they weep upon my breast.
29.
257
Just as thou art — with thy soft household ways,
Thy noble failures and thy poor success,
Thy love that fits me for my strenuous days —
A mortal woman — neither more nor less.
30.
And thou must pass with these too rapid hours
To that great deep from whence we both were brought;
Thy sentient flesh must turn to grass and flowers,
To birds and beasts, to dust — to air — to naught.
31.
I know the parable. The great oaks grow
To their vast stature from an acorn grain,
And mightiest man was once an embryo.
But how can nothing bring thee forth again?
32.
And is the new oak tree the old oak tree?
And is the son the father? And wouldst thou,
If thou couldst rise from nothing, be to me
Thy present self, that satisfies me now?
33.
Words — words! A dream that fades in Faith's embrace,
And melts in Reason's all- refining fires;
The cherished hope of every age and race;
Born of man's fancy and his own desires.
258
34.
Here in our little island- home we bide
Our few brief years — 'tis all that we possess.
The Infinite lies around on every side,
But what it holds no mortal mind may guess.
35.
Say we remain — a lasting miracle —
As well we may; for this small world is rife
With mystic wonders that no tongue may tell,
And all things teem and travail with new life.
36.
Say we awake — ineffably alive,
Divinely perfect — in some higher sphere!
'Twill not be we — the we who strain and strive,
And love and learn, and joy and suffer, here.
37.
What is our hope, if any hope there be?
'Tis for some bliss uncared for and unknown,
That some strange beings, yet unborn, shall see.
Alas! And all we cry for is our own!
38.
Only to be ourselves — not cast abroad
In space and time, for either bliss or woe —
Only to keep the treasures we have stored!
And they must pass away. And we must go.
259
39.
How can we bear it? How can we submit?
Like a wild beast imprisoned, in our pain
We rave and rage for some way out of it,
But bruise and bleed against the bars in vain.
40.
All — all is dark. Beyond our birth and death —
At either end — the same unyielding door.
We live, we love, while we draw human breath.
This much we know — but we can know no more.
41.
The stars shine down upon the minster spires,
Silent, and pale, and still, like watching eyes.
Think of the tumult of those spinning fires —
Think of the vastness of those midnight skies!
42.
Think of our world in the immense unknown —
Only a grain of stellar dust; and man,
Wanting a God, a Saviour, all his own —
Wanting to break the universal plan!
43.
He but a phase of planetary change,
260
That once was not, and will give place anon
To other forms, more beautiful and strange —
To pass in turn — till earth herself is gone.
44.
Earth, that is next to nothing in the sum
Of things created — a brief mote in space,
With all her aeons past and yet to come.
Ah, think of it! How we forget our place!
45.
Casual atoms in the mighty scheme
That needs us not, we dimly wax and wane,
Dissolving ever like a passing dream —
A breath breathed forth and then drawn back again.
46.
Lone in these infinite realms, perchance unseen —
Unheard. And yet not lost. And not so small,
So feebly futile, pitifully mean,
As our poor creeds would make us, after all.
47.
Still are we details of the great design,
Set to our course, like circling sun and star;
Mortal, infinitesimal — yet divine,
Like Him — or It — that made us what we are.
48.
261
Let manhood, God- begotten, have its due.
'Tis God — whate'er He be — hath made us thus,
Ourselves as gods to know the right and true.
Shall He not, then, be justified in us?
49.
The warm sap runs; the tender leaves unfold;
Ant helps his brother ant; birds build in spring;
The patient earthworm sifts the crumbled mould; —
A sacred instinct guides each living thing.
50.
Shall we, its born interpreters, not heed?
Shall we confess us failures, whom He lifts
So high above these creatures that succeed?
Or prove us worthy of our nobler gifts?
51.
Shall we not prove us worthy? Ay, we will
Because we can, we must — through peace and strife,
Bright hope and black despair, come good, come ill.
'Tis man's sole title to his place in life.
52.
To stand upright in all the winds that blow,
Unbeaten as a tree in driving rain;
In all our doubts, to do the best we know,
From no base fear of loss or hope of gain.
262
53.
To still the cry of self — give listening ears
To stern Truth's message, whatsoe'er it be;
To share our brother's toil and dry his tears —
This is the task set forth for thee and me.
54.
This is the lesson that we live to learn,
And, by brave thought, by word and deed, to teach;
These are the heights our lifted eyes discern
Through cloud and darkness, that our souls must reach.
55.
Not less am I in wisdom and in will
Than ants and worms. I am full- furnished too
My arduous errand hither to fulfil.
I know my work, and what a man can do.
56.
My God, I ask Thee nothing. Thou hast given
This conscious mind, this brain without a flaw;
And I will strive, as I have humbly striven,
To make them serve their purpose and Thy law.
57.
But thee, my soul's companion — thee I seek
For daily courage to support my lot.
In thee hath Nature made me strong or weak.
My human comforter, forsake me not!
263
58.
My nobler self, in whom I live my best,
Strengthen me! Raise me! Help me to the last!
Lay thy dear head upon my throbbing breast —
Give me thy hands, that I may hold thee fast!
59.
Come close — come closer! Let me feel thy heart,
Thy pulsing heart, thy breathing lips, on mine.
O love, let only death and graveyard part —
If they must part — my flesh and soul from thine!
60.
Let no mistrust, no doubt, no poor caprice
Darken for me in thy transparent gaze;
Let no self- wrought estrangement wreck our peace,
Nor vain dissension waste our precious days.
61.
Be thou my purer eyes, my keener ears,
My finer conscience, steadfast, unafraid —
Till these few, swift, inexorable years
Have borne us both beyond the reach of aid.
62.
Be thou my staff upon this lonely way.
Be thou my lamp till need of light is past —
Till the dark shadow, lengthening day by day,
264
Spreads over all and quenches us at last.
63.
Keep me from falling! Keep me from despair!
Keep me true man, if only man I be,
Faithful and brave to bear what I must bear.
For what else have I, if I have not thee?
~ Ada Cambridge,#NFDB
19:First Anniversary
Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,
So Man, declining always, disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years;
And his short tumults of themselves compose,
While flowing Time above his head does close.
Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs,
(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns:
And still the day which he doth next restore,
Is the just wonder of the day before.
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring,
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.
'Tis he the force of scattered time contracts,
And in one year the work of ages acts:
While heavy monarchs make a wide return,
Longer, and more malignant than Saturn:
And though they all Platonic years should reign,
In the same posture would be found again.
Their earthy projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle than the China clay:
Well may they strive to leave them to their son,
For one thing never was by one king done.
Yet some more active for a frontier town,
Taken by proxy, beg a false renown;
Another triumphs at the public cost,
And will have won, if he no more have lost;
They fight by others, but in person wrong,
And only are against their subjects strong;
Their other wars seem but a feigned contèst,
This common enemy is still oppressed;
If conquerors, on them they turn their might;
If conquered, on them they wreak their spite:
They neither build the temple in their days,
Nor matter for succeeding founders raise;
Nor sacred prophecies consult within,
Much less themself to pèfect them begin;
No other care they bear of things above,
57
But with astrologers divine of Jove
To know how long their planet yet reprieves
From the deservéd fate their guilty lives:
Thus (image-like) an useless time they tell,
And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell,
Nor more contribute to the state of things,
Than wooden heads unto the viol's strings.
While indefatigable Cromwell hies,
And cuts his way still nearer to the skies,
Learning a music in the region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher sphere.
So when Amphion did the lute command,
Which the god gave him, with his gentle hand,
The rougher stones, unto his measures hewed,
Danced up in order from the quarries rude;
This took a lower, that an higher place,
As he the treble altered, or the bass:
No note he struck, but a new stone was laid,
And the great work ascended while he played.
The listening structures he with wonder eyed,
And still new stops to various time applied:
Now through the strings a martial rage he throws,
And joining straight the Theban tower arose;
Then as he strokes them with a touch more sweet,
The flocking marbles in a palace meet;
But for the most the graver notes did try,
Therefore the temples reared their columns high:
Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates
Th' harmonious city of the seven gates.
Such was that wondrous order and consent,
When Cromwell tuned the ruling Instrument,
While tedious statesmen many years did hack,
Framing a liberty that still went back,
Whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour
That island, which the sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issued out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice, the powerful strings.
58
The Commonwealth then first together came,
And each one entered in the willing frame;
All other matter yields, and may be ruled;
But who the minds of stubborn men can build?
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour from its centre brought;
None to be sunk in the foundation bends,
Each in the house the highest place contends,
And each the hand that lays him will direct,
And some fall back upon the architect;
Yet all composed by his attractive song,
Into the animated city throng.
The Commonwealth does through their centres all
Draw the circumference of the public wall;
The crossest spirits here do take their part,
Fastening the contignation which they thwart;
And they, whose nature leads them to divide,
Uphold this one, and that the other side;
But the most equal still sustain the height,
And they as pillars keep the work upright,
While the resistance of opposèd minds,
The fabric (as with arches) stronger binds,
Which on the basis of a senate free,
Knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree.
When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurls e'er since the world about him round,
And in his several aspects, like a star,
Here shines in peace, and thither shoots in war,
While by his beams observing princes steer,
And wisely court the influence they fear.
O would they rather by his pattern won
Kiss the approaching, not yet angry Son;
And in their numbered footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy oracles do lead;
How might they under such a captain raise
The great designs kept for the latter days!
But mad with reason (so miscalled) of state
They know them not, and what they know not, hate.
Hence still they sing hosanna to the whore,
And her, whom they should massacre, adore:
59
But Indians, whom they would convert, subdue;
Nor teach, but traffic with, or burn the Jew.
Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred,
By malice some, by error more misled,
If gracious heaven to my life give length,
Leisure to time, and to my weaknes strength,
Then shall I once with graver accents shake
Your regal sloth, and your long slumbers wake:
Like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east,
Winding his horn to kings that chase the beast.
Till then my muse shall hollo far behind
Angelic Cromwell who outwings the wind,
And in dark nights, and in cold days alone
Pursues the monster through every throne:
Which shrinking to her Roman den impure,
Gnashes her gory teeth; nor there secure.
Hence oft I think if in some happy hour
High grace should meet in one with highest power,
And then a seasonable people still
Should bend to his, as he to heaven's will,
What we might hope, what wonderful effect
From such a wished conjuncture might reflect.
Sure, the mysterious work, where none withstand,
Would forthwith finish under such a hand:
Foreshortened time its useless course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest day.
But a thick cloud about that morning lies,
And intercepts the beams of mortal eyes,
That 'tis the most which we determine can,
If these the times, then this must be the man.
And well he therefore does, and well has guessed,
Who in his age has always forward pressed:
And knowing not where heaven's choice may light,
Girds yet his sword, and ready stand to fight;
But men, alas, as if they nothing cared,
Look on, all unconcerned, or unprepared;
And stars still fall, and still the dragon's tail
Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail.
For the great justice that did first suspend
60
The world by sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest day still counterposèd wastes,
The ill delaying what the elected hastes;
Hence landing nature to new seas is tossed,
And good designs still with their authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth
A mould was chosen out of better earth;
Whose saint-like mother we did lately see
Live out an age, long as a pedigree;
That she might seem (could we the Fall dispute),
T' have smelled the blossom, and not eat the fruit;
Though none does of more lasting parents grow,
Yet never any did them honour so,
Though thou thine heart from evil still unstained,
And always hast thy tongue from fraud refrained;
Thou, who so oft through storms of thundering lead
Hast born securely thine undaunted head,
Thy breast through poniarding conspiracies,
Drawn from the sheath of lying prophecies;
Thee proof behond all other force or skill,
Our sins endanger, and shall one day kill.
How near they failed, and in thy sudden fall
At once assayed to overturn us all.
Our brutish fury struggling to be free,
Hurried thy horses while they hurried thee,
When thou hadst almost quit thy mortal cares,
And soiled in dust thy crown of silver hairs.
Let this one sorrow interweave among
The other glories of our yearly song.
Like skilful looms, which through the costly thread
Of purling ore, a shining wave do shed:
So shall the tears we on past grief employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in our joy.
So with more modesty we may be true,
And speak, as of the dead, the praises due:
While impious men deceived with pleasure short,
On their own hopes shall find the fall retort.
But the poor beasts, wanting their noble guide,
61
(What could they more?) shrunk guiltily aside.
First wingèd fear transports them far away,
And leaden sorrow then their flight did stay.
See how they each his towering crest abate,
And the green grass, and their known mangers hate,
Nor through wide nostrils snuff the wanton air,
Nor their round hoofs, or curlèd manes compare;
With wandering eyes, and restless ears they stood,
And with shrill neighings asked him of the wood.
Thou, Cromwell, falling, not a stupid tree,
Or rock so savage, but it mourned for thee:
And all about was heard a panic groan,
As if that Nature's self were overthrown.
It seemed the earth did from the centre tear;
It seemed the sun was fall'n out of the sphere:
Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled;
Courage disheartened, and religion cooled.
A dismal silence through the palace went,
And then loud shrieks the vaulted marbles rent,
Such as the dying chorus sings by turns,
And to deaf seas, and ruthless tempests mourns,
When now they sink, and now the plundering streams
Break up each deck, and rip the oaken seams.
But thee triumphant hence the fiery car,
And fiery steeds had borne out of the war,
From the low world, and thankless men above,
Unto the kingdom blest of peace and love:
We only mourned ourselves, in thine ascent,
Whom thou hadst left beneath with mantle rent.
For all delight of life thou then didst lose,
When to command, thou didst thyself dispose;
Resigning up thy privacy so dear,
To turn the headstrong people's charioteer;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing,
Then ought below, or yet above a king:
Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress,
Yielding to rule, because it made thee less.
For neither didst thou from the first apply
62
Thy sober spirit unto things too high,
But in thine own fields exercised'st long,
An healthful mind within a body strong;
Till at the seventh time thou in the skies,
As a small cloud, like a man's hand, didst rise;
Then did thick mists and winds the air deform,
And down at last thou poured'st the fertile storm,
Which to the thirsty land did plenty bring,
But, though forewarned, o'ertook and wet the King.
What since he did, an higher force him pushed
Still from behind, and yet before him rushed,
Though undiscerned among the tumult blind,
Who think those high decrees by man designed.
'Twas heaven would not that his power should cease,
But walk still middle betwixt war and peace:
Choosing each stone, and poising every weight,
Trying the measures of the breadth and height;
Here pulling down, and there erecting new,
Founding a firm state by proportions true.
When Gideon so did from the war retreat,
Yet by the conquest of two kings grown great,
He on the peace extends a warlike power,
And Israel silent saw him raze the tower;
And how he Succorth's Elders durst suppress,
With thorns and briars of the wilderness.
No king might ever such a force have done;
Yet would not he be Lord, nor yet his son.
Thou with the same strength, and an heart as plain,
Didst (like thine olive) still refuse to reign,
Though why should others all thy labour spoil,
And brambles be anointed with thine oil,
Whose climbing flame, without a timely stop,
Had quickly levelled every cedar's top?
Therefore first growing to thyself a law,
Th' ambitious shrubs thou in just time didst awe.
So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds,
Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds,
Who with mistaken course salute the sand,
63
And threatening rocks misapprehend for land,
While baleful Tritons to the shipwreck guide,
And corposants along the tackling slide,
The passengers all wearied out before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal shore,
Some lusty mate, who with more careful eye
Counted the hours, and every star did spy,
The help does from the artless steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer main.
What though a while they grumble discontent,
Saving himself, he does their loss prevent.
'Tis not a freedom, that where all command;
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand:
But who of both the bounder knows to lay
Him as their father must the state obey.
Thou, and thine house (like Noah's eight) did rest,
Left by the wars' flood on the mountains' crest:
And the large vale lay subject to thy will
Which thou but as an husbandman wouldst till:
And only didst for others plant the vine
Of liberty, not drunken with its wine.
That sober liberty which men may have,
That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave:
And such as to their parents' tents do press,
May show their own, not see his nakedness.
Yet such a Chammish issue still does rage,
The shame and plague both of the land and age,
Who watched thy halting, and thy fall deride,
Rejoicing when thy foot had slipped aside,
That their new king might the fifth sceptre shake,
And make the world, by his example, quake:
Whose frantic army should they want for men
Might muster heresies, so one were ten.
What thy misfortune, they the spirit call,
And their religion only is to fall.
Oh Mahomet! now couldst thou rise again,
Thy falling-sickness should have made thee reign,
While Feake and Simpson would in many a tome,
64
Have writ the comments of thy sacred foam:
For soon thou mightst have passed among their rant
Were't but for thine unmovèd tulipant;
As thou must needs have owned them of thy band
For prophecies fit to be Alcoraned.
Accursèd locusts, whom your king does spit
Out of the centre of the unbottomed pit;
Wanderers, adulterers, liars, Munster's rest,
Sorcerers, athiests, jesuits possessed;
You who the scriptures and the laws deface
With the same liberty as points and lace;
Oh race most hypocritically strict!
Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict;
Well may you act the Adam and the Eve;
Ay, and the serpent too that did deceive.
But the great captain, now the danger's o'er,
Makes you for his sake tremble one fit more;
And, to your spite, returning yet alive
Does with himself all that is good revive.
So when first man did through the morning new
See the bright sun his shining race pursue,
All day he followed with unwearied sight,
Pleased with that other world of moving light;
But thought him when he missed his setting beams,
Sunk in the hills, or plunged below the streams.
While dismal blacks hung round the universe,
And stars (like tapers) burned upon his hearse:
And owls and ravens with their screeching noise
Did make the funerals sadder by their joys.
His weeping eyes the doleful vigils keep,
Not knowing yet the night was made for sleep;
Still to the west, where he him lost, he turned,
And with such accents as despairing mourned:
`Why did mine eyes once see so bright a ray;
Or why day last no longer than a day?'
When straight the sun behind him he descried,
Smiling serenely from the further side.
So while our star that gives us light and heat,
65
Seemed now a long and gloomy night to threat,
Up from the other world his flame he darts,
And princes (shining through their windows) starts,
Who their suspected counsellors refuse,
And credulous ambassadors accuse.
`Is this', saith one, `the nation that we read
Spent with both wars, under a captain dead,
Yet rig a navy while we dress us late,
And ere we dine, raze and rebuild their state?
What oaken forests, and what golden mines!
What mints of men, what union of designs!
(Unless their ships, do, as their fowl proceed
Of shedding leaves, that with their ocean breed).
Theirs are not ships, but rather arks of war
And beakèd promontories sailed from far;
Of floating islands a new hatchèd nest;
A fleet of worlds, of other worlds in quest;
An hideous shoal of wood-leviathans,
Armed with three tier of brazen hurricanes,
That through the centre shoot their thundering side
And sink the earth that does at anchor ride.
What refuge to escape them can be found,
Whose watery leaguers all the world surround?
Needs must we all their tributaries be,
Whose navies hold the sluices of the sea.
The ocean is the fountain of command,
But that once took, we captives are on land.
And those that have the waters for their share,
Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air.
Yet if through these our fears could find a pass,
Through double oak, and lined with treble brass,
That one man still, although but named, alarms
More than all men, all navies, and all arms.
Him, in the day, him, in late night I dread,
And still his sword seems hanging o'er my head.
The nation had been ours, but his one soul
Moves the great bulk, and animates the whole.
He secrecy with number hath enchased,
Courage with age, maturity with haste:
The valiant's terror, riddle of the wise,
And still his falchion all our knots unties.
66
Where did he learn those arts that cost us dear?
Where below earth, or where above the sphere?
He seems a king by long succession born,
And yet the same to be a king does scorn.
Abroad a king he seems, and something more,
At home a subject on the equal floor.
O could I once him with our title see,
So should I hope that he might die as we.
But let them write is praise that love him best,
It grieves me sore to have thus much confessed.'
Pardon, great Prince, if thus their fear of spite
More than our love and duty do thee right.
I yield, nor further will the prize contend,
So that we both alike may miss our end:
While thou thy venerable head dost raise
As far above their malice as my praise,
And as the Angel of our commonweal,
Troubling the waters, yearly mak'st them heal.
~ Andrew Marvell,#NFDB
20:The First Anniversary Of The Government Under O.C.
Like the vain Curlings of the Watry maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking Weight does raise;
So Man, declining alwayes, disappears.
In the Weak Circles of increasing Years;
And his short Tumults of themselves Compose,
While flowing Time above his Head does close.
Cromwell alone with greater Vigour runs,
(Sun-like) the Stages of succeeding Suns:
And still the Day which he doth next restore,
Is the just Wonder of the Day before.
Cromwell alone doth with new Lustre spring,
And shines the Jewel of the yearly Ring.
'Tis he the force of scatter'd Time contracts,
And in one Year the Work of Ages acts:
While heavy Monarchs make a wide Return,
Longer, and more Malignant then Saturn:
And though they all Platonique years should raign,
In the same Posture would be found again.
Their earthly Projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle then the China clay:
Well may they strive to leave them to their Son,
For one Thing never was by one King don.
Yet some more active for a Frontier Town
Took in by Proxie, beggs a false Renown;
Another triumphs at the publick Cost,
And will have Wonn, if he no more have Lost;
They fight by Others, but in Person wrong,
And only are against their Subjects strong;
Their other Wars seem but a feign'd contest,
This Common Enemy is still opprest;
If Conquerors, on them they turn their might;
If Conquered, on them they wreak their Spight:
They neither build the Temple in their dayes,
Nor Matter for succeeding Founders raise;
Nor Sacred Prophecies consult within,
Much less themselves to perfect them begin,
No other care they bear of things above,
But with Astrologers divine, and Jove,
To know how long their Planet yet Reprives
137
From the deserved Fate their guilty lives:
Thus (Image-like) and useless time they tell,
And with vain Scepter strike the hourly Bell;
Nor more contribute to the state of Things,
Then wooden Heads unto the Viols strings,
While indefatigable Cromwell hyes,
And cuts his way still nearer to the Skyes,
Learning a Musique in the Region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher Sphere.
So when Amphion did the Lute command,
Which the God gave him, with his gentle hand,
The rougher Stones, unto his Measures hew'd,
Dans'd up in order from the Quarreys rude;
This took a Lower, that an Higher place,
As he the Treble alter'd, or the Base:
No Note he struck, but a new Story lay'd,
And the great Work ascended while he play'd.
The listning Structures he with Wonder ey'd,
And still new Stopps to various Time apply'd:
Now through the Strings a Martial rage he throws,
And joyng streight the Theban Tow'r arose;
Then as he strokes them with a Touch more sweet,
The flocking Marbles in a Palace meet;
But, for he most the graver Notes did try,
Therefore the Temples rear'd their Columns high:
Thus, ere he ceas'd, his sacred Lute creates
Th'harmonious City of the seven Gates.
Such was that wondrous Order and Consent,
When Cromwell tun'd the ruling Instrument;
While tedious Statesmen many years did hack,
Framing a Liberty that still went back;
Whose num'rous Gorge could swallow in an hour
That Island, which the Sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issues out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice, the pow'rful Strings.
The Commonwealth then first together came,
And each one enter'd in the willing Frame;
All other Matter yields, and may be rul'd;
But who the Minds of stubborn Men can build?
No Quarry bears a Stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour from its Center brought;
None to be sunk in the Foundation bends,
138
Each in the House the highest Place contends,
And each the Hand that lays him will direct,
And some fall back upon the Architect;
Yet all compos'd by his attractive Song,
Into the Animated City throng.
The Common-wealth does through their Centers all
Draw the Circumf'rence of the publique Wall;
The crossest Spirits here do take their part,
Fast'ning the Contignation which they thwart;
And they, whose Nature leads them to divide,
Uphold, this one, and that the other Side;
But the most Equal still sustein the Height,
And they as Pillars keep the Work upright;
While the resistance of opposed Minds,
The Fabrick as with Arches stronger binds,
Which on the Basis of a Senate free,
Knit by the Roofs Protecting weight agree.
When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurles e'r since the World about him round,
And in his sev'ral Aspects, like a Star,
Here shines in Peace, and thither shoots a War.
While by his Beams observing Princes steer,
And wisely court the Influence they fear,
O would they rather by his Pattern won.
Kiss the approaching, nor yet angry Son;
And in their numbred Footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy Oracles do lead;
How might they under such a Captain raise
The great Designs kept for the latter Dayes!
But mad with reason, so miscall'd, of State
They know them not, and what they know not, hate
Hence still they sing Hosanna to the Whore,
And her whom they should Massacre adore:
But Indians whom they should convert, subdue;
Nor teach, but traffique with, or burn the Jew.
Unhappy Princes, ignorantly bred,
By Malice some, by Errour more misled;
If gracious Heaven to my Life give length,
Leisure to Times, and to my Weakness Strength,
Then shall I once with graver Accents shake
Your Regal sloth, and your long Slumbers wake:
Like the shrill Huntsman that prevents the East,
139
Winding his Horn to Kings that chase the Beast.
Till then my Muse shall hollow far behind
Angelique Cromwell who outwings the wind;
And in dark Nights, and in cold Dayes alone
Pursues the Monster thorough every Throne:
Which shrinking to her Roman Den impure,
Gnashes her Goary teeth; nor there secure.
Hence oft I think, if in some happy Hour
High Grace should meet in one with highest Pow'r,
And then a seasonable People still
Should bend to his, as he to Heavens will,
What we might hope, what wonderful Effect
From such a wish'd Conjuncture might reflect.
Sure, the mysterious Work, where none withstand,
Would forthwith finish under such a Hand:
Fore-shortned Time its useless Course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest Day.
But a thick Cloud about that Morning lyes,
And intercepts the Beams of Mortal eyes,
That 'tis the most which we deteremine can,
If these the Times, then this must be the Man.
And well he therefore does, and well has guest,
Who in his Age has always forward prest:
And knowing not where Heavens choice may light,
Girds yet his Sword, and ready stands to fight;
But Men alas, as if they nothing car'd,
Look on, all unconcern'd, or unprepar'd;
And Stars still fall, and still the Dragons Tail
Swinges the Volumes of its horrid Flail.
For the great Justice that did first suspend
The World by Sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest Day still counterpoysed wastes,
The ill delaying, what th'Elected hastes;
Hence landing Nature to new Seas it tost,
And good Designes still with their Authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth
A Mold was chosen out of better Earth;
Whose Saint-like Mother we did lately see
Live out an Age, long as a Pedigree;
That she might seem, could we the Fall dispute,
T'have smelt the Blossome, and not eat the Fruit;
Though none does of more lasting Parents grow,
140
But never any did them Honor so;
Though thou thine Heart from Evil still unstain'd,
And always hast thy Tongue from fraud refrain'd,
Thou, who so oft through Storms of thundring Lead
Hast born securely thine undaunted Head,
Thy Brest through ponyarding Conspiracies,
Drawn from the Sheath of lying Prophecies;
Thee proof beyond all other Force or Skill,
Our Sins endanger, and shall one day kill.
How near they fail'd, and in thy sudden Fall
At once assay'd to overturn us all.
Our brutish fury strugling to be Free,
Hurry'd thy Horses while they hurry'd thee.
When thou hadst almost quit thy Mortal cares,
And soyl'd in Dust thy Crown of silver Hairs.
Let this one Sorrow interweave among
The other Glories of our yearly Song.
Like skilful Looms which through the costly threed
Of purling Ore, a shining wave do shed:
So shall the Tears we on past Grief employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in our Joy.
So with more Modesty we may be True,
And speak as of the Dead the Praises due:
While impious Men deceiv'd with pleasure short,
On their own Hopes shall find the Fall retort.
But the poor Beasts wanting their noble Guide,
What could they move? shrunk guiltily aside.
First winged Fear transports them far away,
And leaden Sorrow then their flight did stay.
See how they each his towring Crest abate,
And the green Grass, and their known Mangers hate,
Nor through wide Nostrils snuffe the wanton air,
Nor their round Hoofs, or curled Mane'scompare;
With wandring Eyes, and restless Ears theystood,
And with shrill Neighings ask'd him of the Wood.
Thou Cromwell falling, not a stupid Tree,
Or Rock so savage, but it mourn'd for thee:
And all about was heard a Panique groan,
As if that Natures self were overthrown.
It seem'd the Earth did from the Center tear;
It seem'd the Sun was faln out of the Sphere:
Justice obstructed lay, and Reason fool'd;
141
Courage disheartned, and Religion cool'd.
A dismal Silence through the Palace went,
And then loud Shreeks the vaulted Marbles rent.
Such as the dying Chorus sings by turns,
And to deaf Seas, and ruthless Tempests mourns,
When now they sink, and now the plundring Streams
Break up each Deck, and rip the Oaken seams.
But thee triumphant hence the firy Carr,
And firy Steeds had born out of the Warr,
From the low World, and thankless Men above,
Unto the Kingdom blest of Peace and Love:
We only mourn'd our selves, in thine Ascent,
Whom thou hadst lest beneath with Mantle rent.
For all delight of Life thou then didst lose,
When to Command, thou didst thy self Depose;
Resigning up thy Privacy so dear,
To turn the headstrong Peoples Charioteer;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing,
Then ought below, or yet above a King:
Therefore thou rather didst thy Self depress,
Yielding to Rule, because it made thee Less.
For, neither didst thou from the first apply
Thy sober Spirit unto things too High,
But in thine own Fields exercisedst long,
An Healthful Mind within a Body strong;
Till at the Seventh time thou in the Skyes,
As a small Cloud, like a Mans hand didst rise;
Then did thick Mists and Winds the air deform,
And down at last thou pow'rdst the fertile Storm;
Which to the thirsty Land did plenty bring,
But though forewarn'd, o'r-took and wet the King.
What since he did, an higher Force him push'd
Still from behind, and it before him rush'd,
Though undiscern'd among the tumult blind,
Who think those high Decrees by Man design'd.
'Twas Heav'n would not that his Pow'r should cease,
But walk still middle betwixt War and Peace;
Choosing each Stone, and poysing every weight,
Trying the Measures of the Bredth and Height;
Here pulling down, and there erecting New,
Founding a firm State by Proportions true.
When Gideon so did from the War retreat,
142
Yet by Conquest of two Kings grown great,
He on the Peace extends a Warlike power,
And Is'rel silent saw him rase the Tow'r;
And how he Succoths Elders durst suppress,
With Thorns and Briars of the Wilderness.
No King might ever such a Force have done;
Yet would not he be Lord, nor yet his Son.
Thou with the same strength, and an Heart as plain,
Didst (like thine Olive) still refuse to Reign;
Though why should others all thy Labor spoil,
And Brambles be anointed with thine Oyl,
Whose climbing Flame, without a timely stop,
Had quickly Levell'd every Cedar's top.
Therefore first growing to thy self a Law,
Th'ambitious Shrubs thou in just time didst aw.
So have I seen at Sea, when whirling Winds,
Hurry the Bark, but more the Seamens minds,
Who with mistaken Course salute the Sand,
And threat'ning Rocks misapprehend for Land;
While baleful Tritons to the shipwrack guide.
And Corposants along the Tacklings slide.
The Passengers all wearyed out before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal Shore;
Some lusty Mate, who with more careful Eye
Counted the Hours, and ev'ry Star did spy,
The Helm does from the artless Steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer Main.
What though a while they grumble discontent,
Saving himself he does their loss prevent.
'Tis not a Freedome, that where All command;
Nor Tyranny, where One does them withstand:
But who of both the Bounders knows to lay
Him as their Father must the State obey.
Thou, and thine House, like Noah's Eight did rest,
Left by the Wars Flood on the Mountains crest:
And the large Vale lay subject to thy Will,
Which thou but as an Husbandman would Till:
And only didst for others plant the Vine
Of Liberty, not drunken with its Wine.
That sober Liberty which men may have,
That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave:
And such as to their Parents Tents do press,
143
May shew their own, not see his Nakedness.
Yet such a Chammish issue still does rage,
The Shame and Plague both of the Land and Age,
Who watch'd thy halting, and thy Fall deride,
Rejoycing when thy Foot had slipt aside;
that their new King might the fifth Scepter shake,
And make the World, by his Example, Quake:
Whose frantique Army should they want for Men
Might muster Heresies, so one were ten.
What thy Misfortune, they the Spirit call,
And their Religion only is to Fall.
Oh Mahomet! now couldst thou rise again,
Thy Falling-sickness should have made thee Reign,
While Feake and Simpson would in many a Tome,
Have writ the Comments of thy sacred Foame:
For soon thou mightst have past among their Rant
Wer't but for thine unmoved Tulipant;
As thou must needs have own'd them of thy band
For prophecies fit to be Alcorand.
Accursed Locusts, whom your King does spit
Out of the Center of th'unbottom'd Pit;
Wand'rers, Adult'rers, Lyers, Munser's rest,
Sorcerers, Atheists, Jesuites, Possest;
You who the Scriptures and the Laws deface
With the same liberty as Points and Lace;
Oh Race most hypocritically strict!
Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict;
Well may you act the Adam and the Eve;
Ay, and the Serpent too that did deceive.
But the great Captain, now the danger's ore,
Makes you for his sake Tremble one fit more;
And, to your spight, returning yet alive
Does with himself all that is good revive.
So when first Man did through the Morning new
See the bright Sun his shining Race pursue,
All day he follow'd with unwearied sight,
Pleas'd with that other World of moving Light;
But thought him when he miss'd his setting beams,
Sunk in the Hills, or plung'd below the Streams.
While dismal blacks hung round the Universe,
And Stars (like Tapers) burn'd upon his Herse:
And Owls and Ravens with their screeching noyse
144
Did make the Fun'rals sadder by their Joyes.
His weeping Eyes the doleful Vigils keep,
Not knowing yet the Night was made for sleep:
Still to the West, where he him lost, he turn'd,
And with such accents, as Despairing, mourn'd:
Why did mine Eyes once see so bright a Ray;
Or why Day last no longer than a Day?
When streight the Sun behind him he descry'd,
Smiling serenely from the further side.
So while our Star that gives us Light and Heat,
Seem'd now a long and gloomy Night to threat,
Up from the other World his Flame he darts,
And Princes shining through their windows starts;
Who their suspected Counsellors refuse,
And credulous Ambassadors accuse.
"Is this, saith one, the Nation that we read
"Spent with both Wars, under a Captain dead?
"Yet rig a Navy while we dress us late;
"And ere we Dine, rase and rebuild our State.
"What Oaken Forrests, and what golden Mines!
"What Mints of Men, what Union of Designes!
"Unless their Ships, do, as their Fowle proceed
"Of shedding Leaves, that with their Ocean breed.
"Theirs are not Ships, but rather Arks of War,
"And beaked Promontories sail'd from far;
"Of floting Islands a new Hatched Nest;
"A Fleet of Worlds, of other Worlds in quest;
"An hideous shole of wood Leviathans,
"Arm'd with three Tire of brazen Hurricans;
"That through the Center shoot their thundring side
"And sink the Earth that does at Anchor ride.
'What refuge to escape them can be found,
"Whose watry Leaguers all the world surround?
"Needs must we all their Tributaries be,
"Whose Navies hold the Sluces of the Sea.
"The Ocean is the Fountain of Command,
"But that once took, we Captives are on Land:
"And those that have the Waters for their share,
"Can quickly leave us neither Earth nor Air.
"Yet if through these our Fears could find a pass;
"Through double Oak, & lin'd with treble Brass;
"That one Man still, although but nam'd, alarms
145
"More then all Men, all Navies, and all Arms.
"Him, all the Day, Him, in late Nights I dread,
"And still his Sword seems hanging o're my head.
"The Nation had been ours, but his one Soul
"Moves the great Bulk, and animates the whole.
"He Secrecy with Number hath inchas'd,
"Courage with Age, Maturity with Hast:
"The Valiants Terror, Riddle of the Wise;
"And still his Fauchion all our Knots unties.
"Where did he learn those Arts that cost us dear?
"Where below Earth, or where above the Sphere?
"He seems a King by long Succession born,
"And yet the same to be a King does scorn.
"Abroad a King he seems, and something more,
"At Home a Subject on the equal Floor.
"O could I once him with our Title see,
"So should I hope yet he might Dye as wee.
"But let them write his Praise that love him best,
"It grieves me sore to have thus much confest.
"Pardon, great Prince, if thus their Fear or Spight
"More then our Love and Duty do thee Right.
"I yield, nor further will the Prize contend;
"So that we both alike may miss our End:
"While thou thy venerable Head dost raise
"As far above their Malice as my Praise.
"And as the Angel of our Commonweal,
"Troubling the Waters, yearly mak'st them Heal.
~ Andrew Marvell,#NFDB
10 Integral Yoga
6 Occultism
4 Philosophy
2 Poetry
2 Christianity
1 Science
5 Nolini Kanta Gupta
4 The Mother
3 Franz Bardon
2 Sri Aurobindo
2 Satprem
2 Plato
2 James George Frazer
3 The Practice of Magical Evocation
2 The Secret Doctrine
2 The Golden Bough
2 Savitri
2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such a stage in human evolution, the advent of Homo Faber, has been a necessity; it has to serve a purpose and it has done admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious, the scientific artists of today. Their task is to forge an instrument for a type of poetic or artistic creation completely new, unfamiliar, almost revolutionary which the older mould would find it impossible to render adequately. The yearning of the human consciousness was not to rest satisfied with the familiar and the ordinary, the pressure was for the discovery of other strands, secret stores of truth and reality and beauty. The first discovery was that of the great Unconscious, the dark and mysterious and all-powerful subconscient. Many of our poets and artists have been influenced by this power, some even sought to enter into that region and become its denizens. But artistic inspiration is an emanation of Light; whatever may be the field of its play, it can have its origin only in the higher spheres, if it is to be truly beautiful and not merely curious and scientific.
That is what is wanted at present in the artistic world the true inspiration, the breath from higher altitudes. And here comes the role of the mystic, the Yogi. The sense of evolution, the march of human consciousness demands and prophesies that the future poet has to be a mysticin him will be fulfilled the travail of man's conscious working. The self-conscious craftsman, the tireless experimenter with his adventurous analytic mind has sharpened his instrument, made it supple and elastic, tempered, refined and enriched it; that is comparable to what we call the aspiration or call from below. Now the Grace must descend and fulfil. And when one rises into this higher consciousness beyond the brain and mind, when one lives there habitually, one knows the why and the how of things, one becomes a perfectly conscious operator and still retains all spontaneity and freshness and wonder and magic that are usually associated with inconscience and irreflection. As there is a spontaneity of instinct, there is likewise also a spontaneity of vision: a child is spontaneous in its movements, even so a seer. Not only so, the higher spontaneity is more spontaneous, for the higher consciousness means not only awareness but the free and untrammelled activity and expression of the truth and reality it is.
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So well see how long this is going to last. I understand why people have never tried to change it: stir up that quagmire? No! It takes a lot (laughing), a lot of courage! Oh, its so easy to escape, so easy to say, None of that concerns me. I belong to higher spheres, it doesnt concern me.
Anyway, its obvious that nobody has succeeded, so far not a single person and I understand! I understand. When you find yourself face to face with it, you wonder, How could anything possibly withstand this!
0 1966-12-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Basically, when we have reached the end (the end which is the beginning of something else), the end of this work of transformation, when it really is the transformation and we are settled in it, maybe well remember and derive a special pleasure from remembering having gone through this? In the higher spheres it has always been said that those who have the courage to come for the preparation will have, when its done, superior assets and of a more intimate and deeper quality than those who will have quietly waited for others to do the work for them.
It may be so.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This, however, is an aspect of the problem with which we are not immediately concerned. There is one question with which we have omitted to deal but which is nearer to us and touches present actualities. We spoke of the emergence of the Deity and of the Supreme Deityafter Mind. The question is, how long after? I do not refer to the duration of time needed, but to the steps or the stages that have to be passed. For between Mind and Deity, certainly between Mind and the Supreme Deity (Purushottama, as we would say), there may presumably still lie a course of graded emergence. In fact, Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Overmind and the Supermind, as farther steps of the evolutionary progress coming after Mind. He says that Mind closes the interior hemisphere of man's nature and consciousness; with Overmind man enters into the higher sphere of the Spirit. In this view, the religious feeling or perception or conduct would be but an intermediary stage between Mind and Overmind. They are not really emergent properties, but reflections, faint echoes and promises of what is to come, mixed up with attributes of the present mentality. The Overmind brings in a true emergence.
Still Overmindwhose characteristic is a cosmic consciousness and a transcendence of all ego-senseis not the firm basis on which a new terrestrial organisation can stand and endure. It is still a basis of unstable equilibrium. For it is not the supernal light and, although it transcends all ignorance, yet does not possess that absolute synthetic unity, that transcendent power of consciousness which is at once the cosmic and the individual. That is the domain of the Supermind.
04.02 - The Growth of the Flame, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Invested with a rhythm of higher spheres
The word was used as a hieratic means
07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And draw the harmony of higher spheres
Into the rhythm of earth's rude troubled days.
1.03 - THE GRAND OPTION, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
ologies and systems, to a different and higher sphere, a new spiri-
tual dimension.
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
When we come to these higher spheres, even the eyes of Li-lou are incapable of discriminating the right colour.
How can Shih-kuang recognize the mysterious tune? Shih-kuang was the son of Ching-kuang of Chin in the province of Chiang under the Chou dynasty. His other name was Tzu-yeh. He could thoroughly distinguish the five sounds and the six notes; he could even hear the ants fighting on the other side of a hill. When Chin and Chu were at war, Shih-kuang could tell, just by softly fingering the strings of his lute, that the engagement would surely be unfavourable for Chu. In spite of his extraordinary sensitiveness Seccho declares that he is unable to recognize the mysterious tune. After all, one who is not at all deaf is really deaf. The most exquisite note in the higher spheres is beyond the hearing of Shih-kuang. Says Seccho, I am not going to be a Li-lou, nor a Shih-kuang; for
What life can compare with this? Sitting quietly by the window,
1.05 - Some Results of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
It is absolutely necessary that the student should experience this spiritual aspect of his own inner self before progressing to higher spheres; for his own self constitutes that psycho-spiritual element of which he is the best judge. If he has thoroughly realized the nature of his own personality in the physical world, and if the image of his personality first appears to him in a higher world, he is then able to compare the one with the other. He can refer the higher to something already known to him, so that his point of departure is on firm ground. Whereas, no matter how many other spiritual beings appeared to him, he would find himself unable to discover their nature and qualities, and would soon feel the ground giving way beneath him. Thus is cannot be too often repeated that the only safe entrance into the higher worlds is at the end of a
p. 182
1.06 - Wealth and Government, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A change of consciousness is equivalent to a new birth, a birth into a higher sphere of existence.
How can a change of consciousness change the life upon earth?
1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Therefore, in every sphere we have the same play of elements, the electric and magnetic fluid, which is maintained and controlled by Divine Providence according to the Akasha-principle. The person relying only on what he perceives with his five physical senses has only one sphere open to perception: the sphere corresponding to his physical senses, and he is not able to procede beyond it. Everything else must remain inconceivable, incredible and supersensual to him. The genuine magician, who has refined and developed his senses by mental and psychic training, will only consider this physical world as the starting point of his personal development and will never deny the existence of higher spheres because he is able to convince himself of their existence.
That these spheres are more subtle and more compact states of aggregation has long become obvious to the true magician by his own personal experience. The magician will always be able to visit with his mental body the sphere corresponding to the state of development of his mental body's senses, and to be active in it.
--
Depending on the grade of subtlety or density, there are innumerable spheres and intermediate spheres. To name them all here would be impossible. I will only mention those which are of importance for the practice of magic. Their graded density is called hierarchy. Before a magician plans to work on these spheres he must have a conception of their hierarchy, and must be well acquainted with the sphere in which he intends to work, first theoretically and later, of course, also practically. But, above all, he must have a thorough comm and over the physical sphere before he proceeds to the more subtle one next to it. Each of these spheres of hierarchy have their particular influence on our physical world according to the laws of analogy. With regard to the planetary spheres astrologers have discovered a somehow workable synthesis, but unfortunately the astrologers of today uses this chiefly only for mantic purposes, and it is hardly known that astrology actually only gives a partial explanation of the influences of these spheres, of planets and zodiacal signs. The astrological part of the higher spheres will not be dealt with here, for it does not come within the scope of this book. The true magician, however, will find a much closer relation between the individual spheres, if he deals with astrology, and will notice that astrology shows the true influences of the relevant spheres on our physical world, in their causes and effects.
The grading of the spheres according to their grade of density and their qualities is called, in Quabbalah, the quabbalistic Tree of Life. The analogies and their practical application from the quabbalistic point of view will be dealt with by me in detail in my forthcoming book: "The Key to the True Quabbalah". This book is to rouse the readers interests in the spheres of the quabbalistic Tree of Life as far as they may serve magic purposes, that is as far as their beings are concerned. The spheres in their correct order are:
--
2. The next higher sphere existing above the physical world is the earth zone, the zone girdling the earth. This zone has various grades of density, so-called sub-zones into which man proceeds after having put off his earthly shape. This is the so-called astral world; in its lower grades of density dwell the average persons in their astral bodies after their physical death, in its higher spheres are also initiates, depending on their state of maturity. The more mature, more developed, more ethical a magician is, the more subtle is the zone layer in which he comes after his death. His place in the astral world will depend on how far he advanced during his life in this physical world. There is no heaven or hell in the astral world; these are merely the outcome of silly religious opinions and the object of the teachings of some religions which, due to their ignorance, separate life in the astral world into life in heaven or hell. If one regards the lower, rougher spheres of the astral world as being the hell, the brighter, higher spheres as the heaven, part of these religious beliefs could be true. The magician who knows how to interpret such symbols and ideas will find his own explanation for the expressions "hell", "heaven" and
"purgatory" .
--
It is therefore quite clear that all bonds like love, fidelity etc. which might keep a human being in this physical world come to nothing there. People who have loved each other here, but have not kept the same pace in their psychic and mental development cannot, after dying, live in the same sphere and they will no longer feel the same affection for each other as they have done here. If, for instance, a man and a woman are equally developed they can move in the same sphere of the astral world after their death and will be connected by an inner band of sympathy to each other, but, in spite of this, they will not experience the same kind of love as they did in the physical world. In the astral world there exists nothing like the instinct for self-preservation, the instinct for carnal, sexual love and sexual lust. In the higher spheres a different feeling of affection than on earth connects two equally developed beings by a subtle band of vibration. In our physical world the sympathy or attraction of two beings is usually caused by external stimulation and maintained by the same factors.
Naturally, this is not so in the astral world. The idea of beauty in the astral world, too, is quite different from the idea of beauty in this physical world. Since a deceased person is no longer subject to time and space when entering the astral sphere and thus in that world loses the means to measure its degree of perfection, it longs to return to the earth. The human being not only longs to return because he must equalize, by force of the Law of Karma of cause and effect, the errors he made during his lifetime but he also longs to come back to have another chance of development in the physical world and to gather further experiences, in his spirit, for the higher spheres of the astral world.
Every human being, after having died, will realise yet another fact in the astral world: having only a low degree of development, he will not be able to communicate with beings who, during their lifetime, have reached a higher degree of development, because these beings will stay in a higher, more subtle sphere of the astral world, and he himself will not be able to travel to their sphere of light. Even if he were able to move to those higher spheres he would not be able to stand the elevated vibration there and would drop back, that is he would soon find himself transferred to that astral sphere in which he belongs on account of his degree of development. A person with a high degree of perfection, however, is able to place himself into a lower sphere by accomodating the vibration of that sphere in his spirit.
If, therefore, a spirit with a low degree of development wants to get into contact with a spirit of a higher degree of development, the former must ask the latter, by force of imagination, to come to his sphere. Whether the higher developed being will fulfill the wish of the lower being, always depends on the purpose for which the lower being calls the higher one. This clearly shows that a lower being is not capable of moving to the higher spheres of the astral world. The contrary, however, is quite possible. A magician with a good degree of development is able to place himself iilto any sphere, for he is capable of accomodating and creating every kind of vibration and any form of every sphere he wants to get into touch with. Many a reader will here remember the words of the Bible and perceive its meaning:
"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not".
--
In summing up: in the physical world the physical and the astral bodies are kept together by food and breath and all the three parts - body, soul and spirit - are streng thened from the higher spheres by more subtle material elements during the sleep.
In the astral world, on the other hand, the astral body is enlivened by the impressions it gets by material vibrations in the astral sphere. If a human being is returning from the astral world into the physical world, then the band between the astral and the mental bodies rends so that the being dies there to be reborn in our physical world. The act of dying there is similar to physical death; the astral body is no longer fed by the mental body with impressions from the astral world.
--
Just the same as the not yet fully developed magician in the physical world uses a spiritual guide for his training and likes to be taught by him, either by passive communication or automatic writing etc., a not yet perfect human being too will find his guides in the astral world. These guides will teach him from time to time and assist him whenever necessary. Highly developed spiritual beings of the zone girdling the earth condense themselves in their appropriate astral sphere and thus become the guides of individuals, or of groups of individuals, and initiate the astral beings of lower perfection into the higher laws. Such guides must never be compelled to do their work in the astral world; they are commissioned by Divine Providence to offer assistance to any astral being, depending on its maturity and state of perfection. In the astral world, the guide, one may also call him genius loci, not only teaches his protege the laws, but assists him in his whole development. It sometimes happens that an astral man wants to do something at his own accord, but is warned at the critical moment by his guide or genius not to do anything arbitrarily. The genius will intervene especially in those cases where an astral human being with a low degree of development is about to do something contrary to the laws of Divine Providence. The guide informs his protege about the laws of the physical world and prepares him for his rebirth. This clearly shows how necessary it is that the magical development of a human being during his time in the physical world leads him towards perfection in order to be prepared for life in a higher sphere.
All blows of fate that are apt to purify a man's spirit in the physical world and that will help him to get the kind of experience necessary for his spiritual development are already prepared and determined by Divine Providence in the astral world for each individual according to his maturity and degree of development. The human being knows before his embodiment about the matter of teaching in the physical world and not only agrees to it, but even longs to get through it. At the moment of his rebirth he loses his knowledge about everything that Divine
1.16 - Advantages and Disadvantages of Evocational Magic, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The higher spheres are the place where it is decided whether a magician is willing to reach the highest perfection possible or likes to become a saint. A magician desirous of the highest degree of perfection may become the greatest and highest lord of creation, for he fully symbolises the true and complete image of God in all his aspects. A saint, however, remains under one aspect only and reaches perfection therein. He becomes a part of that aspect, and finally, when he has reached perfection in this aspect, he loses his individuality. The highest degree of perfection that man is ever able to reach is that of becoming a true sovereign, a true magician, thus actually representing a true and complete image of God, whereby he never loses or is forced to give up his individuality.
By the knowledge of the hierarchy of the beings, of their zones, their causes and effects, the true magician is able to rule over any being of creation, no matter whether good or evil, as this is actually his true commission. Ruling over the spirit beings does not necessarily mean ruling by force, for the beings, good or evil, will always be prepared to serve the magician, to complete his will and to fulfill any of his desires without asking for anything in return.
1.18 - Evocation, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
If the magician has complete control over a sphere without having to use any magical weapons, he advances to the next higher sphere and again makes use of his magical aids until he also controls that sphere completely. The magician must always bear three principles in mind when he wants to bring about a successful evocation:
1. If he intends to call a spirit being of a certain sphere into his sphere, no matter whether he calls it into the triangle, the mirror, or into a fluid condenser, he must bear in mind that the being is only able to move about in an atmosphere appropriate to its own sphere. He therefore must artifically create the spheric atmosphere by accumulating the light, the material of the sphere, either into the triangle, or preferably into the whole room in which he is working. If working with a magic mirror it has to be impregnated or condensed respectively with the according light material of the sphere. When operating in the open air, the impregnation must be kept within such limits that the beings or powers that are to manifest themselves have sufficient room to move about. The accumulated or impregnated light must have a colour which is in accordance with the colour-law of the individual planet. I have already given the reader and student a detailed information on this question of impregnating or accumulating light in space in "Initiation into Hermetics" in the chapter dealing with space-impregnation. If, for instance, a being of the Moon-sphere is evoked outside oneself, the light, or rather the material to be accumulated, must be of a silvery white colour; in the case of a being of Mercury the light-material must be opalescent; beings from Venus must have a green, beings from the Sun a golden yellow, from Mars a red, from Jupiter a blue, from Saturn a violet light, etc.
1.31 - Adonis in Cyprus, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
have escaped from some higher sphere, they are outpourings of
eternal harmony, the voice of angels, the Magnificat of saints. It
14.07 - A Review of Our Ashram Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The work that Mother could do then and was doing, she has herself described and explained to us. It was the creation of a worlda region at leastof the higher consciousness in which everyone who participated had his own place, everyone with his soul-being sufficiently in front; and this being she could connect or link up with a being of the higher spherea counterpart, an over-soul as it were for each soul. It was a kind of descenta subtle incarnation of Gods which the Mother's Grace occasioned or brought about into the elevated and sublimated human level.
The ground had already been prepared, we may note, by the descent of the 24th November 1926the descent of the Overmind or Krishna-consciousness into Sri Aurobindo's body-consciousness and thence generally into the earth-atmosphere and becoming its natural and permanent possession.
--
This creation of a luminous world in a higher sphere of the mind which Mother attempted could not be fully achieved; for the foundations were not properly laid, the basic ground was not prepared. Any higher structure of the mind and overmind must be built upon man's vital being and physical life. The new creation left out of account these realities of basement, so one had to come down, forgetting for the moment the higher realisation, into these darker regions and make a thorough cleaning of them. The regions of the vital consciousness and physical consciousness are, as we all know, full of human failings and dangerous complications. One had to leave the heavens and come down to these lower levels and tackle the problems that beset them, the crucial problems whose solution alone could lay a strong foundation for the final consummation, the supreme transformation. One had to face the stark realities there and master them before one could think of a heavenly ascent. So we all became once more ordinary human beings with human weaknesses and a modicum of aspiration perhaps. This was then the task given to all to battle through and conquer here below. The scene changed completely. A mid-summer night's dream turned almost into a sombre Hamlet-tragedy.
The first sign of this Return, this resumption of life as it is, was the re-assertion of the individual, the freedom of the personal unit. Because of the increased number of people and because of the incursion of children, the earlier frame could no longer hold good. The willing surrender of individuality is a lesson that has to be acquired and achieved: it is not just God's gift, for the many. The many have to grow, grow by degrees, through toil and trouble, and slowly led into the mysteries of the higher realisation of surrender and self-giving. And towards that consummation independence, freedom, is the first step. But once the climb down begins, it does not admit of an arrest, it becomes slide down, a continuous descent until you reach the very rock-bottom of the vale of tears. The Roman poet spoke of the easy descent down the cliffs to the river.2
1.46 - The Corn-Mother in Many Lands, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
spirit on its elevation to a higher sphere. In such cases the
problem for mythology is, having got two distinct personifications
15.06 - Words, Words, Words..., #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now in a general way children all over the world are a privileged class. They possess what old age, even mature age does not possess or has lost. I mention two essential qualities pre-eminently belonging to the green age or to the "salad days": Happinessa child is ever happyin spite of its occasional weepings and wailingsand happiness means a radiant smile. To the old people I have often said, "Always smile. Mother has taught us how to smile in all circumstances." Well, that is the natural gift of the young A smile makes your life's journey smooth. In no other way can you remove so successfully the obstacles that beset you. And also that is the lever to lift up your consciousness it has a mysterious power that automatically relieves you of much of the burden of life, lightens you and leads you into a higher sphere. For smile is a divine quality. Next to Happiness, the natural virtue of a child-consciousness is Freedom. It does not find any barrier anywhere, it can do anything.
These two characteristic virtues of childhood themselves spring from another fundamental quality of young naturesimplicity, a spontaneous outflow of energy without any thinking of before or afternone of mind's complexities and hesitations.
1958-05-21 - Mental honesty, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When one springs up into the higher sphere, into the world of Truth, one will be able to see things as they truly are, and seeing them as they are, one will be able to live them in their truth. Then all falsehoods will naturally crumble. And since the favourable explanations will no longer have any purpose, they will disappear, for there will be nothing left to explain.
Things will be self-evident, Truth will shine through all forms, the possibility of error will disappear.
1958-07-23 - How to develop intuition - Concentration, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important. There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration but one must learn how to do it.
There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key.
1.ww - The Excursion- IV- Book Third- Despondency, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
For different lot, or change to higher sphere,
(Only except some impulses of pride
2.0 - THE ANTICHRIST, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
dowry from a higher sphere; nowadays we have robbed him even of will,
in view of the fact that no such faculty is any longer known. The only
30.11 - Modern Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One aspect of that theory is this. The subject of poetry is free from design, free from covering. Stripped of all embellishments, what is demanded is 'Sunlight on a broken column.' Things have to be seen with the unblinking eye of the burning sun. Hence truth is dust, sand and grit - hard substance reduced to powder, covered, over with an illusory soft, green layer. Wealth and prosperity are the eternal pomp and luxury of a few; as for the masses, theirs are poverty and want, disease and sorrow. The civilised man, the educated man are mere parasites. The forthright children of the earth are the poor, the wretched, the primitive and the uncivilised. One has to go down to the root of all things, in other words, to cut off the head and move towards the lower limbs. The mystery of the lotus has to be sought in the mire. The thing has to be cut and pruned and reduced to its minutest, lowest, most despicable form. Our saints and seers transformed man and raised him to the level of a spiritual seeker. In the present age too we have aimed at the same thing in the reverse direction towards the lowest. The reason why we like prose and its low-pitched movement is that we do not want to remain in the higher spheres of the mind - we like to grovel in the dust.
It is not that the petty, commonplace and insignificant matters of daily concern cannot be the material for poetry. These can be freely used in a poem, but it will not do to have them exclusively in the poet's consciousness which should be of another stuff. The ancient thinkers have equated the poet's consciousness with seer-vision.
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
It was called into being, a ready and perfect vehicle for the incarnating denizens of higher spheres,
who took forthwith their abodes in these forms born of Spiritual WILL and the natural divine power in
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
man'" Light, moreover, on our plane, is darkness in the higher spheres.
"Man and woman on the side of the FATHER" (Spirit) refers to Primary Creation; and on the side of
BOOK VII. - Of the select gods of the civil theology, and that eternal life is not obtained by worshipping them, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
The following gods, certainly, Varro signalizes as select, devoting one book to this subject: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, father Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus,[Pg 260] Vesta; of which twenty gods, twelve are males, and eight females. Whether are these deities called select, because of their higher spheres of administration in the world, or because they have become better known to the people, and more worship has been expended on them? If it be on account of the greater works which are performed by them in the world, we ought not to have found them among that, as it were, plebeian crowd of deities, which has assigned to it the charge of minute and trifling things. For, first of all, at the conception of a ftus, from which point all the works commence which have been distributed in minute detail to many deities, Janus himself opens the way for the reception of the seed; there also is Saturn, on account of the seed itself; there is Liber,[246] who liberates the male by the effusion of the seed; there is Libera, whom they also would have to be Venus, who confers this same benefit on the woman, namely, that she also be liberated by the emission of the seed;all these are of the number of those who are called select. But there is also the goddess Mena, who presides over the menses; though the daughter of Jupiter, ignoble nevertheless. And this province of the menses the same author, in his book on the select gods, assigns to Juno herself, who is even queen among the select gods; and here, as Juno Lucina, along with the same Mena, her stepdaughter, she presides over the same blood. There also are two gods, exceedingly obscure, Vitumnus and Sentinus the one of whom imparts life to the ftus, and the other sensation; and, of a truth, they bestow, most ignoble though they be, far more than all those noble and select gods bestow. For, surely, without life and sensation, what is the whole ftus which a woman carries in her womb, but a most vile and worthless thing, no better than slime and dust?
3. How there is no reason which can be shown for the selection of certain gods, when the administration of more exalted offices is assigned to many inferior gods.
Sophist, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Hegelianism may be said to be a transcendental defence of the world as it is. There is no room for aspiration and no need of any: 'What is actual is rational, what is rational is actual.' But a good man will not readily acquiesce in this aphorism. He knows of course that all things proceed according to law whether for good or evil. But when he sees the misery and ignorance of mankind he is convinced that without any interruption of the uniformity of nature the condition of the world may be indefinitely improved by human effort. There is also an adaptation of persons to times and countries, but this is very far from being the fulfilment of their higher natures. The man of the seventeenth century is unfitted for the eighteenth, and the man of the eighteenth for the nineteenth, and most of us would be out of place in the world of a hundred years hence. But all higher minds are much more akin than they are different: genius is of all ages, and there is perhaps more uniformity in excellence than in mediocrity. The sublimer intelligences of mankindPlato, Dante, Sir Thomas Moremeet in a higher sphere above the ordinary ways of men; they understand one another from afar, notwithstanding the interval which separates them. They are 'the spectators of all time and of all existence;' their works live for ever; and there is nothing to prevent the force of their individuality breaking through the uniformity which surrounds them. But such disturbers of the order of thought Hegel is reluctant to acknowledge.
The doctrine of Hegel will to many seem the expression of an indolent conservatism, and will at any rate be made an excuse for it. The mind of the patriot rebels when he is told that the worst tyranny and oppression has a natural fitness: he cannot be persuaded, for example, that the conquest of Prussia by Napoleon I. was either natural or necessary, or that any similar calamity befalling a nation should be a matter of indifference to the poet or philosopher. We may need such a philosophy or religion to console us under evils which are irremediable, but we see that it is fatal to the higher life of man. It seems to say to us, 'The world is a vast system or machine which can be conceived under the forms of logic, but in which no single man can do any great good or any great harm. Even if it were a thousand times worse than it is, it could be arranged in categories and explained by philosophers. And what more do we want?'
Theaetetus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
And so we must ask again, What is knowledge? The comparison of sensations with one another implies a principle which is above sensation, and which resides in the mind itself. We are thus led to look for knowledge in a higher sphere, and accordingly Theaetetus, when again interrogated, replies (2) that 'knowledge is true opinion.' But how is false opinion possible? The Megarian or Eristic spirit within us revives the question, which has been already asked and indirectly answered in the Meno: 'How can a man be ignorant of that which he knows?' No answer is given to this not unanswerable question. The comparison of the mind to a block of wax, or to a decoy of birds, is found wanting.
But are we not inverting the natural order in looking for opinion before we have found knowledge? And knowledge is not true opinion; for the Athenian dicasts have true opinion but not knowledge. What then is knowledge? We answer (3), 'True opinion, with definition or explanation.' But all the different ways in which this statement may be understood are set aside, like the definitions of courage in the Laches, or of friendship in the Lysis, or of temperance in the Charmides. At length we arrive at the conclusion, in which nothing is concluded.
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