The windows Nature abrupt opened lear,
Faces and tongues ejected from the trees,
Sermons from wind and fire solacing came,
Stones in the forest melted love’s caress,
The voice of gods and angels spoke beside,
The frame of earth and vault of sky lifted
Their cloaks of hardness and void’s emptiness,
Light flashed forth bright from every atom’s pore,
Service and kindness oozed from horizons.
Distances flew and things stood not apart,
Time rose to surge of timeless endurance.
The far off stars roll under one’s own feet,
One gets included in things spread out vast,
Is swept from ground to time’s eternity,
The person’s core disintegrates and flows
With all atmosphere radiant as the sun.
Interconnected web of cosmos breathes,
Interpenetrate planes with denizens,
One sees one’s own self simultaneously
In every place and all periods of time,
And sea-like swells the joy of creation,
Riches endless are spread in points of space,
Lo, his is universe, he himself is it.

The student now become a seer sage,
Returned to cottage where the Master dwelt,
In full fulfilment of stipulation
To bring a thousand cows now multiplied.
The Master, looking brightened face before,
Asked, “how thou blazest as if truth knowest.”
To which he answered “Master, none human
Ev’r instructed, this is the fact, sire.”
“Nothing remains, thou knowest secret’s core,
For angels taught thee as the forms they came,
All, then, is well; so be thou happy, free.”

“Master, I’m blest, thy grace on me do grant,
In forest life I lived a year hard,
With prayer and sincere obedience,
In concentration’s honest peak I reached,
But beauties first and threats I did confront;
Deign, Master, speak, what these visions could be.”

The Teacher went in detailed dilation
And pointed out how these phenomena
Present themselves to seeker’s seeking heart.
“Creation meant a split in universe
As if a half was torn away from half,
And here begins the mystery of love,
Which loves and hates at once a single form.
For halves are filled with longing for the whole
Which transcends both, but blinded by senses
See not the whole and see the half alone
As object cleaved by space and time between,
Thus love missing the very thing it loves,
With wrongful craving for the other half
Distraught with dislike since the ‘other’ stands
As cut from ‘me’ which wrongly fondness shows.
These urges sprung for union with the seen
Which is the half, the ‘other’ outside there,
Project the feature which is beauty called,
Attracting half to other half through eyes.
The threat thou speakest is the rage of wish
Which stands frustrated when the beauty buds
Receive not response from austerity.
None can resist these beauty’s temptations,
Since total whole is cause of halved psyches.
The threats do rise when shunning beauteous forms
Is engendered by force of will applied
Bereft of thought and understanding’s light.”

“Who are the angels who so tempting come
Or discharge visions fearsome from above?”
So Satyakama ‘gain queried the sage,
Who thus explained denizens of heaven.

“Above the earth and internal do live  
The joyous spirits in the astral wide.
But further still are gods and angels bright
Who matchless glory and puissance wield,
And shine as stars whose visage thou hast seen,
The worlds above, seven in ranging lights
Are dwelt by wondrous beauties and powers.”

The student asked, “Master, do souls that quit
This earth then pass to these heavenly worlds
And live rejoicing endless time in peace?”
“Yes; but not all ascend to these great heights,
Some do by stages, some suddenly rise,
But most return by pull of loves and hates
That beset mortals chained to earthly life.
Those that by gradual steps of ascent rise
Are first ignited by the light of Fire,
Then reach celestial and divine o’erlords
Of Day, Bright Half of month and Solar Half
Of sojourn northwards, then of whole year,
The Sun, the Moonlike Field of Stellar Mass,
Then Lightning which the gods rejoicing flash,
Where resplendent Divinity does face
The soul and leads it further by the hand
To Glory that Creator Lord bestows
For Freedom, Bliss and Living Ultimate.

“Thus stagewise move to soul’s liberation;
In Sadyo-mukti, abrupt waking frees
The self from bondage instantaneously.
Not one can reach with wanton senses this,
The goal supreme with restrained mind attained,
With sole awareness total being’s tuned
To All-awareness of creation’s core.

The rugged way though straight does winding move,
For involvement is one, yet multifold,
The law that is the truth of existence
Which strange eludes the grasp of mind and sense
Wriggles as though from its mighty content
And itself looks at itself as this world.
But all this wonder more than wonder reigns
Beyond the earth and reach of heaven high,
For who can gauge what event took place then,
Since none was there, not even space and time.
Being was not, non-being also not;
Darkness, they say, was all-engulfing then.
Liquid-like stood all universe and life;
A sea of seamless, shoreless abyss yawned
With countless points potential thence to sprout
As myriad stars self-shining in their core,
But encrusted with finitising trends
Which wildly cry for self-limitation
In forms which drive to more and more bondage
Of self-centeredness in gross hardened shapes.