Revelation:Aurobindo

Revelation: Maharshi Aurobindo

By

Bijay Kant Dubey

Someone leaping from the rocks

Past me ran with wind-blown locks

Like a startled bright surmise

Visible to mortal eyes,–

Just a cheek of frightened rose

That with sudden beauty glows,

Just a footstep like the wind

And a hurried glance behind,

And then nothing,– as a thought

Escapes the mind ere it is caught.

Someone of the heavenly rout

From behind the veil ran out.

Revelation is one of those short poems of Maharshi Aurobindo which figure in the collection named Short Poems 1895-1908. A yogi and a sadhaka, Aurobindo is well versed in Western and Oriental classics. Here the tale which he resorts to is one of sadhna and its mystical experiences. There are several states of experimenting with The Experience Mystical, the State of Sadhna after living a life of that sort, going by, practicing austerity in ascetism, call it tantrical or nocturnal. To invoke Kali during the late hours, how will one feel like? Generally, one selects one to approach to pass the test of devotion or sadhana. Though Aurobindo talks of Narayan darshana, we are not sure of it who his Ishtadevata? Whatever be that, he is an ashramite as a sadhka. Sitting in sadhna, restricting one to a circle, fearing it not at a lonely place at some nook and corner of summer midday or during the midnight time, one can have the bouts of experiences. The aghora sadhakas do sadhna with the  skulls and skeleton bones stuck into their huts by the river banks of the crematorium and the dogs going with them as the Bhairava vahanas, if not ghosts, spirits and shadows, doubtful is it indeed.  Those who are veggies, abstain from taking meat and so on may do with the coconut balls as substitutes for skulls, it is said. It is a very rigorous process full of austerities and restrictions, free from kaaam, kraudh and vaasana. But many while undergoing tests, succumb, yield to fascination, infatuation, lust and greed for power which but corrupts it all. Many while doing sadhna fail to keep in control, give away to irrationality and sacrifices in hallucination. The Creative Force it is difficult to contain in and to explain it logically. Kamrupa Kamakhya, Bhagalpur Ganga-side, Calcutta Kalighat, Tarapith, etc. are famous  sadhaka spots. While sitting for sadhna, one must exclude the fear of suspense and doubt, must have the power to face boldly, away from human haunt, always frightening, full of questions and anxieties. Kaamdev dispels the hallucinations of sex and apsaras company them in dreaming through the opiate eyes. Aurobindo’s Savitri has born out of it.

Someone leaping from the rocks ran him past with the locks hanging overhead and on the shoulders and he striding along with speed and velocity. Who was he going with such a speed, running past and hurtling across as if blew it the wild west wind and the dry leaves swirled it making it a vortex? What did it happen?  The poet felt it while in a state of sadhna feeling about the myth and mystery of life and the world and some stood past taking the test of sadhna through mystical presence and going hurriedly. It was really a mystical experience stunning him, making him look aghast and awe-struck. What was that it ran past him with so force and movement without having a vis-a-vis with?

There is nothing as that to intercept and interrogate him; there is nothing to interrupt him. This is something like jumping from the sturdy grown mighty trees. The tales of Yaksas and Brahmapisachas do the rounds from the days of yore. The mighty and old peepul, banyan and mango trees have always frightened us with the tall palm trees and the birds making the long leaves of it dilute. Such a thing Charles Lamb too describes in his Dream Children: A Reverie. 

The locks and wind like velocity, power and force, leaping out makes us remind of Milton’s satans and Bhairava’s images. Yama’s figure too is one such which Tagore takes to in Gitanjali, but Donne hurling a defiance to death, you try to kill me, ready for a bout and dual, a scuffle with. But here dakinis, pisachinis and Bhairava rupas can be taken into consideration. Mother Divine as yoginis too can be taken into consideration. There are different yogas with yoginis.

The striking lines of the small poem take us back with so much wonder and astonishment and curiosity:

Someone leaping from the rocks

Past me ran with wind-blown locks

The language too is very powerful and he has made it as a vehicle of his thought and idea. The last two lines tell about the mystical presence and fleeing of the creational force or his attribute, showing and going without revealing the motto and purpose of such a trauma and experience exerted upon:

Someone of the heavenly rout

From behind the veil ran out.

Only in sadhna one can feel like this. The experiences of sadhna are difficult to be relayed. Such a thing it is in John Milton and Thomas Traherne. The creational force is Nature, Prakriti, always dark and unexplainable with the forces and layers of consciousness always lying layered and fathomless, wild, tameless and swift which Shelley says about the West Wind.

Buddha’s Middle Path learnt through the nautch girls and Mahavira’s attainment of Jin state are the climaxes reached far. Trailanga Swami, his hathyoga, few will match with, not even Aurobindo. Who can be greater than this south Indian naked yogi of Benares whom even the British feared it most as the great Indian sadhu to be put behind the bars?

While reading the poem, Revelation, the pictures conjure of the Pondicherry ashrama. There also conjure up the images of Siddarth attaining enlightenment under the peepul tree and the banyan trees with the roots hanging just like those of the matted saints and sadhus of India? What more do we know about the Naga sadhus and their spectacles? Had we, this would have been the greatest probable English poetry from the Northeast. 

Shiva as Mahakal, Kalbhairava tests the sadhakas or gets it through the dogs as the vahanas of His, coming in the form of, but in reality spirits and goblins. This is why for which the tantricas love the black cow, the black dog and the black cat so much. Sometimes wild animals and snakes too come before as hallucinations during sadhna time in the river- bed. Goblins, spirits and ghosts as shadows try to frighten with howls and shadows.

Aurobindo writes the poetry of sadhna and is a sadhaka. Revelation which comes as a surprise is really revelatory in its nature. Something logical and something illogical appears it to be, which Aurbindo asks them to believe as well as disbelieve. Maybe these the talks of hallucination of an opiate eye. Who can ever determine this? Science will naturally confute it. The things of sadhna or mystical experience, how to explain them? That is why he uses the word, surmise, suppose that something is true without having evidence to confirm it.

The poet Aurobindo surmised it to be so which one may not a accept as there is nothing as reasonable to base it, everything is but on conjecture, the hypothesis, may be or may not be. The words, leaping from the rocks, wind blown locks, startled bright surmise, visible to mortal eyes, a cheek of frightened rose, a footstep like the wind, a hurried glace behind, then nothing, a thought escapes the mind ere it is  caught, etc. add tot eh beauty and mystery of the poem. Milton too in his poem titled by the editors On His Blindness, talks of the supernatural agents and messengers of God always at His Kingly Duty carrying out the Commands; God does not need man’s labour. The answer of Revelation is in Transformation where Aurobindo takes refuge in ‘Satchidananda’, but the thematic of the former is one of sadhna, the mystical raw experimentation, a tryst with the Supernatural, the Mystery Divine, the Creative Force, the Dark Element.

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