Light: Aurobindo

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

Light, endless Light! darkness has room no more,

Life’s ignorant gulfs give up their secrecy:

The huge inconscient depths unplumbed before

Lie glimmering in vast expectancy.

Light, timeless Light immutable and apart!

The holy sealed mysterious doors unclose.

Light, burning Light from the Infinite’s diamond heart

Quivers in my heart where blooms the deathless rose.

Light in its rapture leaping through the nerves!

Light, brooding Light! each smitten passionate cell

In a mute blaze of ecstasy preserves

A living sense of the Imperishable.

I move in an ocean of stupendous Light

Joining my depths to His eternal height.

Light as a sonnet is one in the celebration of the Light Divine, the mystical flashes of it, how the light emanating, breaking upon, shining the inward and the outward to endow with the Divine Blessing, but in addition to that here the yogic, meditative strain is so strong to tell of the transformation it does when one gets stricken, blessed with the beams taking over, glittering or flashing over. But as far Aurobindo is concerned the yogic practices are the source of enlightenment felt by the incumbent. Life’s ignorant gulfs give up their secrecy and the huge depths unplumbed before lie glimmering in vast expectancy.  

It is definitely a symbolic title as and when the poet talks about light. Hearing it, we think within as for what it is light. It is light which but discerns darkness, it is light which shows the universe, it is also the light of the self, it is light which flashes mystically. Inner light we call it and without this light, one can cannot know the secret things of the world and creation. Light is knowledge, the knowledge of the self. Tamso ma jyotirgamay is but a prayer asking to lead from darkness to light. It is a prayer of a good soul and a good heart. It is a prayer for the opening of new avenues and horizons, the widening of the spectrum.The Biblical line too is excellent, Let there be light and there was light.

But here it is the light of transcendental meditation, the flower of bliss, sat, chit, ananda; the lotus of idea, thought and reflection. Here the lotus blooms in the heart, in the soul and the sadhaka gets delight in meditating.

May we ask, what it is light? Light is gnan, vidya, buddhi, knowledge, learning, wisdom. But how to get it? How to be knowledgeable? How to acquire learning and wisdom? For that one requires light, inner light, the light of the soul and the heart, the knowledge of the self and without the self-knolwedge, one cannot get it all.

But there is also a path which but leads unto Him, and it is but the path of sadhna. Sadhna as a word is a very complicated word as because it requires rigorous efforts and labour and your sadhna cannot be complete if you pour it  not your heart and soul into it. Life is but another name of sadhna. Without  sadhna nothing is possible. Only a karmayogi can do it. Channelize your energies into that. Gve your self wholly. The lotus is gnan, when does it bloom? Do you know? It opens  after the acquiring of knowledge, the knowledge of the self. But light, the Light Divine is something different. It is but the lotus of sadhna, something that do you after accomplishing it tirelessly, inculcating rigorous practice and efforts.

The path of sadhna is not easy; it takes time and it reuires penance as well as perseverance. Some accomplish it throgh bhakti, some through yoga and some through knowledge and action. Service too is not less than. But to see the Sparkle of Light, the Glitter of the Golden Beam, flashing the darker corners, what to say it?

Light, timeless Light is unchanging, always standing apart from. The holy sealed doors unclose as and when the burning Light from the Infinite diamond heart quivers in his heart where it blooms the deathless rose. Here the poet talks about the Light Divine lights it light. As the light sparkles from a gemstone so is the case herein. The Diamond Heart of the Infinite, only a gemologist can say it about.

Light in its rapture keeps leaping through the nerves. Light is, but brooding Light! Each smitten passionate cell in a mute blaze of ecstasy preserves a living   sense of the Imperishable.

In the last two lines of the sonnet the poet says he moves into an ocean of stupendous  Light joining his depths to reach the Eternal height.

Here God is Light and Light is Knowledge, the Knowledge of the Self is the central idea of the poem. How to get Light, the Light Divine? What is it in the Light Divine? How to get it?  In Aurobindo we have come to mark it that the mystical element is not so in a plenty. Only the yogic elements are strong and he comes via these. The raw things of mysticism are not easily available in him. Aurobindo as a poet is Bertrand Russellian, a poet of knowledge and wisdom and to add to further George Bernard Shawian.