Liberation

[Lisa Walford]

Many of the poems that I have shared have bene from contemporary writers. The poems have addressed our shared connections, angst, hopes and prayers. Here is a poem that speaks to the state of being referred to by many mystics. 

Sri Aurobindo (1872 - 1950) was a philosopher, mystic, yogi, and Indian nationalist. He was twice nominated for the Nobel prize, once for literature and once for peace. He studied in Cambridge, England, and, upon returning to India, he advocated for Indian independence from British rule. His spiritual awakening began while imprisoned for his political views. 

Perhaps some of you have heard of the Aurobindo ashram in Pondicherry, India? It is a coastal town in southeast India. Here Aurobindo developed Integral Yoga. He believed that through our yogic practices divinity, which is both inherent and transcendent, would emerge and help to transform our worldly existence. He was a prolific writer. Here, from one of his Last Poems:     

Liberation

I have thrown from me the whirling dance of mind

And stand now in the spirit's silence free;

timeless and deathless beyond creature-kind,

The center of my own eternity. 

I have escaped and the small self is dead;

I am immortal, alone, and ineffable;

And have grown nameless and immeasurable.

My mind is hushed in a wide and endless light,

My heart a solitude of delight and peace,

My sense unsnared by touch and sound and sight,

My body a point in white infinities. 

I am the one Being's sole immobile Bliss:

No one I am, I who am all that is. 

21.7.1938

22.3.1944