PRINCIPLES OF A HIGHER ORDER OF LIFE
by Swami Krishnananda
The Cosmic Form Speaks
"Behold this Form that myriad-faced here radiant includes all,
With all their facets, all conditions and all times inone.
Behold the gods and all the heavens, regions and all things,
The sun and moon and all the stars and all-pervading space.
Behold the beauty, grandeur, terror and the varieties,
Which all creation holds in bosom here and now at once.
The past and present and the future and all history
Do behold with the eye integral, flesh can never know."
Then, thus declaring Yoga's Lord revealed that mighty wondrous form
With marvels untold stunning thought and passing reason's sharpest reach.
The glory passing understanding, magnificence risen high,
With faces turned in all directions, everywhere its mouths and ears.
In every speck of space its eyes did twinkle as if flames
No atom lived in all creation where it missed to dwell.
Lo, Wonder's heart in full blossom, all marvel's secrets' high relief,
That was Sri Krishna as he stood to represent the God of gods.
As million suns may rise suddenly darting forth their flooding rays,
Sri Krishna's Person rose to heights that dazzled glory eternal.
The dirt and evil, ugliness, the darkest hell that threaten life,
There in that wondrous Frame of God did shine as rays eternal sun's.
Distances flew, time took to heels and worlds got rounded into one,
In that miracle, timeless, spaceless, mind and reason glowed as flame.
No persons, things and regions there except as fiery limbs of God,
Where it did end or where began, none outside it could comprehend.
It new Itself, none else can know, It knowing-being was in one,
The hardest earth and worst of creatures melting rose to God adorn.
And every speck and particle did dance around that central core,
Which excelled beauty's beauteous heart, all eyes did gaze in rapture love's.
The death of all who lived by ego, non-relenting icy hand
To everything that stood by finite mortal's value however grand.
What was, what is and what shall be were all displayed as here and now,
In that eternal magnitude in single grasp of consciousness.
The boundless splendour of that all, who that is born can ever gauge,
The Archetype of archetypes which range transcendent beyond forms.
As acts and deeds are objects posed to consciousness which is the truth,
No act can touch or act as means to reach this glory beyond time.
The Mighty Being, Subject Sole, as all-pervading truth of truths
Can scarce be reached by acts mundane which rise from non-subjective modes.
How can the knower be the known, the All-Subject defies objects;
Thus casting knowledge empirical out of ken as shadows' fare.
Hence scriptures, works of charity, philanthropy, or sacrifice,
Austerity or study's lore, can none attain this vision's light.
When heart and reason surge in one as non-objective total soul,
The God beholds God everywhere, as no one else can behold God.
Doing all deeds for Its own sake, depending on It solely, lone,
Devoted to It in one's heart, and sundered from all attachment;
To none ever bearing ill-will, to man or beast or bird or life,
That blessed one does reach the Glory of the Absolute, the Great.