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CHAPTER THREE
POEMS BY VIVEKANANDA
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3.1
THE STORIES BEHIND THE POEMS
For Vivekananda poems were an expression of his creative impulses and he
wrote them for his own pleasure. Of all his writings the verses are his most
personal accounts. As noted by his friends and peers, Vivekananda had a
poetic temperament and his poems, concurring with Mathew Arnold’s idea
of true poetry, were conceived and composed in his soul. He was a spiritual
man who recognised the divinity around him. At the same time he was
acutely aware of the exultations and the tribulations of a human life. His
poetry is an interjection of a human soul that is wise enough to not be led
into hedonism and instead longs for a spiritual union with God. He has his
own marque of mysticism, which shines through his poetry and sets him
apart from other poets. His honest renditions about the trials of a yogi are
revealing and such trepidations and profundity are uncharted themes for
most poets and writers. His poetic attempt to capture in words the ethereal
brilliance renders the verses sublime. These poems are a secret window to
the passions of a man who had essentially lived a life of renunciation and
public service.
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Vivekananda held the art of poetry in a very high regard. On the subject he
remarked:
“Poetic suggestion is the highest poetry. There should not
be too much detail in the depiction of an ideal. The poet
gives a few touches of an ideal at its highest glimpses. A
poem should act as a stimulus, flooding the heart and
mind with light, waking up a sea of emotions.”
(Eastern and Western Disciples. 2002: 55)
At times he would find himself overwhelmed by the beauty of things
created by God. Once regarding the brilliant full moon of that particular
evening he wondered: “Why recite poetry when there is the very essence of
poetry?” (Eastern and Western Disciples. 2002: 481). His conversations,
speeches and writings are festooned with such poetic surges and
imaginative reflections.
Mrs. Funke, one of Vivekanada’s followers recalled that
“He considered most of our (American) poetry to be
obvious, banal, without the delicacy of that of his own
country. He has the poet’s heart, and the most
insignificant things interested him immediately. A bird, a
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flower, a butterfly, will start him off, and he will tell us
stories from the Vedas or recite Indian poetry. I recall one
poem started with the line ‘Her eyes are like the black bee
on lotus.’” (Banhatti. 1995: 236).
He was very fond of Kalidasa and had high opinion on Sanskrit poetry. K.
S. R. Sastri described how he explained to him the noble purport of the
beautiful description on the Himalayas occurring in the first verse of
Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava, which read as follows:
“Exists on the northern boundary the emperor of
mountains called Himalaya ensouled by Gods, standing
as the measuring rod of the earth, touching the oceans to
the east and the west.” (Banhatti. 1995: 236).
He even translated Sanskrit Vedic texts in the form of English poetry. One
such is Nasadiya-Sukta from Rig-Veda, X129 in Vivekananda’s own words:
“Death was not then, nor immortality,
The night was neither separate from the day,
But motionless did That vibrate
Alone, with Its own glory one –
Beyond that nothing did exist.”
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(Vivekananda. 2007: 76).
As Chari Chandra Misra says in Ruminations of a Monk: A Reading of
Vivekananda’s Poetry “Vivekananda’s translation of the [the verse from the
Veda] is not only a perfect rendering of the Hindu scriptures but also
testimony of an accomplished poet.” (Misra. 2001: 4).
The sources of Vivekananda’s poetic thoughts and themes can be gathered
from the study of his letters and speeches and the accounts detailed by his
disciples. A remarkable fact about his poems is that several of the ones with
spiritual theme were written immediately he had had a vision or a mystical
experience during meditation. Kali The Mother is one such poem. Sister
Nivedita has written that during their pilgrimage to Kshir Bhavani temple in
Kashmir in 1898, Vivekananda was immensely inspired and felt he could
not rest till his thoughts were written down in words. Written “in a fever of
inspiration” as Sister Nivedita put it, Kali The Mother is a powerful poem
with strong imagery:
“The stars are blotted out,
The clouds are covering clouds.
It is darkness vibrant, sonant.
In the roaring, whirling wind
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Are the souls of a million lunatics
Just loosed from the prison-house,
Wrenching trees by the roots,
Sweeping all from the path.
The sea has joined the fray,
And swirled up mountain-waves,
To reach the pitchy sky.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 25).
This poem is a fine example of the strength of poetry written by
Vivekananda. It is vibrant and rhythmic and exudes dynamism. Dr. R. C.
Majumdar, in his book Swami Vivekananda: A Historical Review, has said,
“Some of his English poems have reached a sublimity of no mean order.
The best and most famous of them is ‘Kali The Mother’.” (Majumdar. 1999:
85). His poems are philosophical and retrospective. In My Play Is Done he
wonders when he will reach his life’s goal and talks about his exasperation
with the “ebb and flow” of life. The Cup is a fatalistic poem that says each
person is allotted a “cup” of dark brew that he alone must drink. Here the
“cup” and the “dark drink” refers to fate and destiny and which is the result
of the person’s own actions “fault and passion, [committed] ages long ago,/
In the deep years of yesterday.” (Vivekananda. 2007: 14).
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Several of Vivekananda’s poems were written as personal messages to his
disciples and friends. They carried messages of hope, strength and wisdom,
or sometimes they were just a playful exchange of words. A Benediction
and Birthday Wishes for Mrs. Sturges were composed as blessings for his
disciples Sister Nivedita and Alberta Sturges who were completely
dedicated to the cause of Ramakrishna Mission. Requiescat in Pace was
written at the eve of J. J. Goodwin’s death and was sent to his mother as a
Vivekananda’s personal memorial of her son. It said,
“Speed forth, O soul! upon thy star-strewn path,
Speed, blissful one, where thought is ever free,
Where time and sense no longer mist the view,
Eternal peace and blessings be on thee!”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 21).
J. J. Goodwin had started off as a stenographer for Vivekananda but had
soon became a devoted follower who accompanied him everywhere and
tirelessly worked to take down lengthy lectures and speeches, type them
down and then get them printed as soon as possible. Vivekananda had
acknowledged J. J. Goodwin’s work on several occasions and his death was
particularly painful for him.
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Letters were the most effective way to keep in touch with his friends and
disciples in those days and Vivekananda wrote regularly and extensively to
people he knew in India, America and in Europe. One of the most
interesting correspondences is the one between him and Mary Hale where
the entire conversation, which spans five letters, is carried out in verses.
Mary Hale, her sisters and their parents were very close to Vivekananda.
The letter followed an altercation between Mary Hale and Vivekananda
over his calm attitude towards his critics. The poems included in the letters
to her are both personal and philosophical. He is affectionate and reminds
her that his reprimands are those of a brother and a well-wisher,
“Now Sister Mary,
You need not be sorry
For the hard raps I gave you,
You know fully well,
Though you like me tell,
With my whole heart I love you.”
(Vivekananda. 2006: 8: 162).
In another such lyrical correspondence with Mrs. Mcleod on December
26, 1900, Vivekananda give a mystic’s response to P. B. Shelley’s To A
Skylark, which goes:
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“We look before and after
And pine for what is not
Our sincerest laughter
With same pain is fraught.”
(Boas. 1947: 203)
Vivekananda’s reply was:
“Look behind and after
And find that all is right,
In my deepest sorrow
There is a soul of light.”
(Vivekananda. 2006: 8: 168).
Hold On Yet A While, Brave Heart was another poem written in a letter to
Ajit Singh, the Maharaja of Khetri. Ajit Singh was a friend and disciple of
Swami Vivekananda and had met him during his days as wandering monk
in India. The Maharaja had played an important role in arranging finances
for first his trip to America in order to participate in the World’s Parliament
of Religion. Throughout his travels Swami Vivekananda kept regular
exchange of letters with the Maharaja and would inform him about his
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travel experiences and even share his hopes, doubts and his visions for the
future of India and her people.
It was a common case with him - he would often choose the form of poetry
in lieu of prose to express something very personal. When asked to write an
introductory letter for the first issue of Prabuddha Bharata he came up with
a poem instead which was later titled To The Awakened India. It is a poem
was the clarion call to the youth of India to “Awake, arise, and dream no
more!” Composed in June 1898 in Srinagar this poem was published in
August 1898. It was a difficult time for India and her people. Sucked dry off
it’s riches by years of colonial rule, the country was despondent and without
hope. There had indeed been a wave of unrest among the intellectual class
but this movement lacked the strength to mobilise the masses. Vivekananda
wanted to remind his fellow countrymen of India’s splendid past and
encourage them to gather strength and recognise their own glory:
“Once more awake!
For sleep it was, not death, to bring thee life
Anew, and rest to lotus-eyes for visions
Daring yet. The world in need awaits, O Truth!
No death for thee!
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Resume thy march,
With gentle feet that would not break the
Peaceful rest even of the roadside dust
That lies so low. Yet strong and steady,
Blissful, bold, and free. Awakener, ever
Forward! Speak thy stirring words.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 21-22).
Vivekananda also wrote a poem To The Fourth of July to commemorate the
anniversary of American Independence Day on July 4, 1898. He was in
Srinagar with his European and American disciples and as a part of a
“domestic conspiracy” planned out a little celebration of the day for his
American students who were feeling homesick. The poem is about liberty
and freedom; only in this case it talks about the liberation of the soul from
the holds of Maya. This poem proved to be prophetic as Vivekananda took
Mahasamadhi on this very day four years later:
“Behold, the dark clouds melt away,
That gathered thick at night, and hung
So like a gloomy pall above the earth!
Before thy magic touch, the world
Awakes. The birds in chorus sing.
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The flowers raise their star-like crowns —
Dew-set, and wave thee welcome fair.
The lakes are opening wide in love
Their hundred thousand lotus-eyes
To welcome thee, with all their depth.
All hail to thee, thou Lord of Light!
A welcome new to thee, today,
O Sun! Today thou sheddest Liberty!”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 23-24).
All the poems by Vivekananda have a story behind them. His habit to “gift”
poems under different circumstances made for perfect anecdotes to be
associated with that piece of poetical writing. It fits that a monk who had
taken a formal vow of renunciation at the age of twenty-four and a person
with natural attitude of a seer did not bother to keep a piece of art he had
created with himself.
Vivekananda as a poet wished to arrest in words the divinity he was
confronted with in the form of his Guru, in the divine vision of the Mother
or in the sublime beauty of the Kashmir Valley. His poems display his
eagerness to communicate this divinity and inspire man to recognise his
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own divinity. Incidentally, Beethoven has said, “All artistic creation comes
from God, and relates to man only in so far as it witnesses to the action of
the divine within him.” (Boutroux. “The Evolution …).
3.2
INFLUENCE OF THE VEDANTIC TEXTS ON VIVEKANANDA’S
POETIC WORK
The Bhagwat Gita and the Upanishads are considered the canonical texts of
the Vedanta. During his life as a wandering monk, one of the only
possessions of Vivekananda was the Bhagwat Gita. He quoted it often and
used the wisdom in it as a guide for his own life. He used his keen insight
and knowledge of Gita to expound on the four Yogas – Bhakti, Jnana,
Karma and Raja Yoga. According to him,
“if one read this one shloka –
‘Klaibyam ma smagamah parth naitatvyayupapadyate
Kshudram hridayadaurbalyatam tyaktvoktishth paramtap’
- one gets all the merits of reading the entire Gita; for in
this one Shloka lies imbedded the whole message of the
Gita.” (Vivekananda. 2006: 4: 110).
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The translation of the quoted shloka is:
“Yield not to unmanliness, O son of Pritha. There is in the
world neither sin nor misery, neither disease nor grief; if
there is anything in the world which can be called sin, it is
this — ‘fear’; know that any work which brings out the
latent power in thee is Punya (virtue); and that which
makes thy body and mind weak is, verily, sin. … Shake off
this weakness, this faintheartedness! Thou art a hero, a
Vira; this is unbecoming of thee.”
(Vivekananda. 2006: 4:109).
This call of Krishna to Arjuna telling him to let go of fear and strongly face
his enemies translates into the call of Swami Vivekananda to the youth of
the British occupied India to “Awake Arise!” in his poem To the Awakened
India which was written in 1898 urging the Indians to take courage, stand
up and reclaim all that they had lost under the British rule.
The transcendental wisdom of the Bhagwat Gita is especially evident in the
poems he wrote. From Angels Unawares, My Play is Done, One Circle
More to The Living God, all carry the echo of the knowledge that Sri
Krishna imparted to Arjuna. His poems are lyrical extension of what he had
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learned from his readings of the Gita. Through his writings and poems he
took the teaching of the Gita to the West and encouraged his disciples, both
Indian and Western, to read the original manuscript. As a Yogi he had
realised the true core of the unmatched philosophical treatise hidden in the
folds of the epic. As a writer and as a poet he let the quintessence of the
Gita to seep into his work.
The Bhagwat Gita was source for inspiration and wisdom for him and his
personal interest in the text of this treatise is highlighted in a particular
lecture he gave where he discussed even the style in which the Gita is
written in. This lecture has been reproduced as At the Paris Congress of the
History of Religions and it says:
“The style of language of the Gita is the same as that of
the Mahabharata. Most of the adjectives used in the Gita
to explain matters spiritual are used in the Vana and
other Parvans of the Mahabharata, respecting matters
temporal.” (Vivekananda. 2006: 4: 428).
Vivekananda considered the Upanishads the epitome of fine literature and
poetic expression. He said:
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“Apart from all its merits as the greatest philosophy,
apart from its wonderful merit as theology, as showing the
path of salvation to the mankind, the Upinashadic
literature is the most wonderful painting of sublimity that
the world has.” (Vivekananda. 2007: 3: 234).
Vivekananda mentioned that although there are some passages in the poems
by Milton, Dante and Homer that are sublime and beautiful yet there is
always a “grasping of the senses” in them which debases them in
comparison to the transcendental sublimity of the Upanishads.
Swami Vivekananda was able to appreciate the divinity as well as the
literary aspect of the Vedas. His poems hold the embers of the same fire of
divine knowledge that burns in Sri Krishna’s discourse to Arjuna, which
makes the Bhagwat Gita, and the wisdom that is imparted in the
Upanishads.
The poem In Search of God is a reiteration of a part of Sri Krishna’s
discourse to Arjuna where he talks about the omnipresence of Param
Brahma and tells Arjuna that each and every thing of beauty is in fact a
manifestation of Param Brahma:
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“The moon's soft light, the stars so bright,
The glorious orb of day,
He shines in them; His beauty - might -
Reflected lights are they.
The majestic morn, the melting eve,
The boundless billowing sea,
In nature's beauty, songs of birds,
I see through them - it is He.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 4-5).
The poem Requiescat in Pace, written at the eve of a disciple’s death, is
about the circle of life and death and the concept of mukti or moksha. It is
the sublime beauty of the divine wisdom of the metaphysical ensconced in
the narration that unravels the relationship between the Kauravas and the
Pandavas; and culminates in Sri Krishna’s divya darshan on the battlefield
of Kurukshetra, that makes Mahabharata much bigger than the world’s
longest epic it is already known to be. The sublimity of Vivekananda’s
poetry is an ode to that wisdom. The philosophy of Karma and duty which
is the core of the Upanishads and which Sri Krishna’s elaborated when he
told Arjuna that he will have to raise weapon against his own cousins and
uncles who stood in the battlefield as his enemies no matter how painful the
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task is because that is his duty as a Kshatriya, is reiterated in these lines
from the poem The Cup:
“This is your task. It has no joy nor grace,
But it is not meant for any other hand,
And in My universe bath measured place,
Take it. I do not bid you understand.
I bid you close your eyes to see My face.”
(Vivekananda. 2006: 6: 177).
Swami Vivekananda with his strong perception and keen comprehension of
the philosophy behind the episodes of Mahabharata and the crux of
Bhagwat Gita that Vyasya wrote in impeccable Sanskrit verses added his
own poetic and narrative twist leaving the literary world an unequalled
description of the divinity and the Vedanta concept and understanding of
human life in the English language.
“One circle more the spiral path of life ascends And time's
restless shuttle — running back and fro
Through maze of warp and woof
of shining
threads of life — spins out a stronger piece.”
(Vivekananda. 2006: 9: 302).
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3.3
VIVEKANANDA: A ROMANTIC POET
The poetry of Vivekananda belongs to the genre of Romanticism. Born at
the height of the Romantic Movement, he liked reading works by P.B.
Shelly, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Blake
and was a poet with the same romantic heart as theirs. Vivekananda’s
poems are his personal accounts. His acceptance that all the pain he has
gone through is of his own making in No One To Blame or his reassurance
to himself in Hold On Yet A While, Brave Heart are all emotional
confessions of a poet. Wordsworth in the Preface to his and Coleridge’s
Lyrical Ballads stated that good poetry is a result of the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings. Vivekananda’s style and process of writing
confirms to this. Vivekananda wrote intuitively and his inspirations led the
form and the structure of the poetic work he produced. At the same time,
they were a part of a meditative process as he wove philosophical
discourses into English verses. He was extremely sensitive to his
surroundings including the people around him and the nature. These
elements translated as themes for his poems. He wrote about people he
knew, like in his poems To Sri Ramakrishna and A Benediction. He gave
poetic renditions of natural scenes of which his most prominent ones being
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On The Sea’s Bosom and To An Early Violet. Then he wrote numerous
poems on the cosmos and the visions he saw during his Samadi. Like
Shelley the corpus of his poetic work is made up of “those forms which are
common to universal nature and existence” and his poems are “the very
image of life expressed in its eternal truth” (Bradley. 1965: 153).
Vivekananda shared William Wordsworth’s love for Nature and found
divinity in its beautiful exhibitions. Travelling all over the world he took
accounts of beautiful natural spectacles and related them to his friends and
disciples. Like Wordsworth in the Immortality Ode, Vivekananda would
treasure these encounters in retrospect as something invaluable experienced
by him in the past.
In On the Sea’s Bosom the poet is at his romantic best as he describes the
sea and the sky “heaping up spun cotton” during a voyage on a ship. He is
perhaps standing at the deck looking out at the sea. He describes a cloudy
sky full of white and dark colors. The sun “about to say farewell” touches
the clouds with streaks of red. Then he says that the blowing wind breaks
the cloud apart rendering them into “inert creations” like that of a huge
snake, a strong lion and even a couple locked in love. “All vanish, at last, in
the vapoury sky.” (Vivekananda. 2007: 37). Beneath, the sea seems to be
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singing varied music. It can be deduced that his ship was sailing through the
Indian Ocean when he encountered this scene because describing the kind
of music humming through he waters he attributes to India he says:
“But not grand, O India, nor ennobling:
Thy waters, widely praised, murmur serene
In soothing cadence, without a harsh roar.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 37).
The “soothing cadence” of sea appears to be a quality bestowed to it
because of its virtue of being part of India.
Vivekananda’s work carries within its fold an essence of sublime beauty. A.
C. Bradley in his Oxford Lectures On Poetry said that:
“Whatever strikes us as sublime produces an impression
of greatness, and more – of exceeding or even
overwhelming greatness…Sublime things have for the
most part, great magnitude.’ (Bradley. 1965: 41).
The magnitude of the premise of Vivekananda’s poems extends to the
cosmos and the Universe. He presents images of the like of a great river in
the void of space made up of millions of suns and millions of moons and he
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furnishes the picture of this grandeur in words with a poetic perfection. His
sharp intellect, mystical leanings and heightened sense of aesthetics help
him impart his poems with transcendental beauty. His poetic details of the
Param Brahma foster the consciousness of an infinite or absolute. His
poetic imagination soars on his mystical experience presenting verses of
beauty on a theme rarely explored by other English language poets. The
nature of beauty in Vivekananda’s poems falls in line with how Bradley
describes it:
“‘Beauty’ then, we may perhaps say is the image of the
total presence of the Infinite within any limits it may
choose to assume; sublimity is the image of its
boundlessness, and of its rejection of any pretention to
independence or absoluteness on the part of its infinite
forms; the one the image of its immanence, the other of its
transcendence.” (Bradley. 1965: 62).
Vivekananda’s poems are philosophical and spiritual sublime. It should be
noted that while he shares the class of mystic-romanticism with other
English poets, his brand of mysticism had its own flavor because his poetic
inspiration was based in the Eastern philosophy found in the Upanishads.
Among all the poets he comes closest to Shelley in the sense that his
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concept of Param Brahma or the Absolute is same as Shelly’s belief in a
Soul of the Universe or a Spirit in which all things live and have their being.
Just as Vivekananda defines the “Lord of Light” as faceless and formless,
Shelly asserts that "the deep truth is imageless." Neither of them shares
Robert Browning’s desire for an increased and ennobled individuality,
instead they long for mystical fusion of their personalities with the Spirit,
which is their object of worship and devotion.
The sense of Unity of the Spirit in all things and matter that is perceived in
Shelley’s poetic works Adonais and Prometheus is persisting element in
Vivekananda’s poetry also. Shelley believed that death was but the rending
of a veil, which admit all to the full vision of the ideal, which is the
Ultimate Truth. Vivekananda talks about his exasperation at being tied up
with the “chains of Maya” to this world and not being able to join the
Absolute and asks Mother to pull the veil off the Truth, although it should
be noted that he being a seer had had visions of the Absolute, which he
presented in his poems. His concept of the divine working in the universe
was much more defined than that of Shelly’s as he was a yogi and
philosopher too.
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3.4
VIVEKANANDA: A MYSTICAL AND METAPHYSICAL POET
3.4.1
MYSTICISM
Mysticism is a strain that connects the God men of different religions.
Accounts bear witness that the experiences of mystics, notwithstanding
which religion they belong to, are similar in essence and at its core.
Mysticism stands at the very root of a religious experience, yet it shatters
the boundaries created by the latter. As Otto Pfleiderer, a 19th century
scholar has stated, mysticism is the immediate feeling of unity of the self
with God. A mystic seeks a direct experience with God, he makes an effort
to understand the Ultimate Truth in the manifestations of God, which are
his creations - be it the nature or the universe or even the people. A mystic’s
insistence on this direct experience is the bond of kinship he shares with
other mystics. That is why the writings of Blake, Emerson, Sri Aurobindo
and Vivekananda cab be compared.
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There is a well-established tradition of the mystics using the medium of
poetry to articulate their experiences. Dr. Johnson challenges this poetical
expression of devotion on the basis of incompatibility he sees between
religious activity, and poetry. He is not critical of the devotional frame of
mind but considers the state of mind during a prayer to be a higher one than
poetry can confer. T.S. Eliot on the other hand sees no such incompatibility
but is shy of according the status of major poets to those who write about
the Divine. His contention is that devotional poetry suffers from limited
range because it is bereft of “major passions” thus providing the reader with
limited pleasure. According to T.E. Hulme it is not natural for a man to be
engaged in the pursuit of the Divine, and a man absorbed in a prayer is not
his normal self hence devotional poems do not represent an image of a
natural man. Such contradiction of perspectives is interesting but should not
belittle the worth of mystic poetry.
Johnson’s view is a result of his preoccupation with the requirements of the
poetic art as an exercise in conscious craftsmanship but there are examples
of the likes of William Blake and Sri Aurobindo to prove the employment
of remarkable craftsmanship by mystic poets while writing poetry. Even
Johnson will have to consent that these poems pass his strict standards. As
for Elliot’s engagement with the lack of variety in the passions displayed by
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mystic poets in their works and Hume’s assertion that the said writing
cannot be credited to belong to a “natural man” – these attitudes are
contended by the fact that mysticism is not an emotion or an idea alienated
from human nature. It comes from within the human psyche and has a
history as old as the mankind. And the mystics choosing to write only about
their mystic experience is just as same as a romantic writing only about his
unrequited love like Lord Byron did. Poets do not need to write about the
plethora of human emotions to be considered better poets. Helen Vendler, a
poetry critic words it to close precision:
“the word ‘poetry’ is often used to mean: how people
choose intelligibility out of randomness they experience;
how people choose what they love; how people integrate
loss and gain; how they distort experience by wish and
dream; how they perceive and consolidate flashes of
harmony; how they (to end the otherwise endless) achieve
what Keats called a ‘Soul or Intelligence destined to
possess the sense of Identity.’ ” (Vendler. 1988: 224).
Horace wrote a treatise on poetics called Ars Poetica (also known as The
Art of Poetry, Epistula Ad Pisones, or Letters to Piso), published c. 18 BC,
advising poets among other things to be brief and to make their poems
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lasting. Timeliness as a standard of good poetry has come across as a factor
agreed upon by both ancient as well as modern literary critics. Hence
Archibald McLeish, a modernists’ entry, “A poem should not mean / But
be.” (McLeish. “Ars Poetica”)
In such a case mystic poetry both as an expression of a human feeling and
as a genre becomes important and worthy of critical literary appreciation.
Most of mystic poetry has had to fight narrow interpretation. The reason
could be the difficult classification and the limited understanding of the
subject matter – God and the poet’s personal experiences with the Ultimate
Truth. This leads to such cases as with Omar Khayyam whose mention of
wine in his Rubaiyat is still considered by some readers as actual reference
to alcohol where as it really is a metaphor for the pure love of the divine
and the feeling of intoxication it brings. Reading of a mystical poetry
requires a finer sensibility on the reader’s part. As with understanding of
any art it requires an open mind and suspension of few ideals and set
theories on the onset, but apart from that it also requires a level of faith and
belief in something bigger, overwhelming but unexplained. The way to read
and experience mystic poetry is with the heart, as if listening to a beautiful
piece of music. Let the words flow unimpeded and let the notes guide the
reason and logic of what the poet is saying.
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Each mystic poet has treated the medium of poetry in his own accord to
document his experiences and mystical intuitions. Yet they are all similar in
their emphasis of the imageless character of the Reality. Among Christian
mystics of the Middle Ages, Dionysius the Areopagite, a mystic thinker
who wrote between 475 AD and 525 AD, faithfully followed Plotinus and
introduced the seemingly contradictory concept of “divine dark” into
Christian mystical theology. The concept confused Christians as it put
atypical stress on the attribute-less character of Reality. The East, on the
other hand, has a long history of mysticism and its depiction. Hindu
scriptures have talked about form-less Param Brahma and the human
aspiration to be one with it. Sufism, the mystic strain of Islam, has inspired
a significant branch of literature, Sufi literature, which is enriched with
verses by several notable poets. The deep historical and cultural association
with mysticism has rendered the Eastern sensibility better disposed to the
understanding of mysticism, as compared to the Western sensibility.
Mysticism as a school of thought has its root in the East, in the great
Oriental religions. The essence of Upanaishads is that the soul or the
spiritual consciousness is the source of true knowledge and if the one
concentrates on the soul, which is also called the “seer” or the “knower”,
one can confront the Reality. The soul is capable of this because in essence
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it is one with the Param Brahma, the universal soul. The ego of a person
and his apparent separation from the Param Brahma is caused by Maya –
the illusion of matter. Hence, according to Hindu scriptures, Maya is an
obstruction and a deception, and the Eastern mystic rejects and subdues all
that is part of the Maya and uses all his faculties to realise his spiritual
consciousness. Vivekananda’s mysticism belongs to this very order.
Mysticism is, in truth, a temper rather than a doctrine. It is an attitude of
mind founded upon an intuitive or experienced conviction of a Divine Truth
that governs this universe. Mystic thinkers have documented this Divine
Truth as they saw, each presenting his own picture using whatever device
that suits him even resulting in contradictory viewpoints in few cases.
While Wordsworth realised divinity through Nature, Blake regarded Nature
as a hindrance and considered Imagination the only reality. Yet all mystics
make the same passionate assertion of the Ultimate Truth and the
unexplainable beauty it withholds. No matter the country or age, the works
of all mystics have resonated with the words of Krishna:
“There is true knowledge. Learn thou it is this:
To see one changeless Life in all the Lives,
And in the Separate, One Inseparable.”
(The Bhagwat Gita, Book 18.)
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There is an inherent inadequacy in language as a means of communication
for those who conceive of Reality in transcendental terms. However, the
poetic language, interestingly, is found to be capable of performing the
paradoxical function of suggesting experiences, which cannot be fittingly
delivered with ordinary speech. Ernst Cassirer delves into the use of
language by a mystic:
“Thus all mysticism is directed towards a world beyond
language, a world of silence ... The spiritual depth and
power of language is strikingly evinced in the fact that it
is speech itself which prepares the way for that last step
whereby it is itself transcended.” (Bhatnagar. 2000: 62).
A mystic poet is engaged in the continuous effort to use symbols and
images to describe the very reality that he affirms, “hath no image”. Mystic
literature is abundant with similes and metaphors employed in the same
vein. Helen C. White makes an interesting observation of the relationship
between mysticism and poetry:
“It is not a strange hybrid of poet and mystic who writes a
mystical poetry. It is not a man who writes first as a
mystic and then as a poet. It is not even a mystic who
turns over to the poet who happens to dwell within the
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same brain and body the materials of his insight to be
made into a work of art by the competent craftsman. It is
rather that the same human being is at once a poet and
mystic, at one and the same time, from the beginning of
the process to the end.” (Bhatnagar. 2000: 63).
Even Vivekananda concedes that sometimes a sage in his Samadhi is able to
see something so divine that he falls short of words to express it. In Who
Knows How Mother Plays Vivekananda says, “Perchance the shining sage /
Saw more than he could tell” (Vivekananda. 2007: 31).
3.4.2
VIVEKANADA: A PIONEER SEER-POET
The history of Indian Literature encompasses several saints who have
produced great literary works in one or the other vernacular Indian
languages. Seer poetry and mystical writings have been an important and
peculiar aspect of Indian literature where religious and spiritual discourses
are found interwoven with the fictional and poetic accounts. The epics –
Ramayana and Mahabharata are exemplary pieces of writings, engaging
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poetry and storytelling in perfect forms, at the same time they are also the
cornerstones of Hindu religion and the Hindu philosophy. Seer poetry is
spiritual, mystical and devotional and the composers of the Vedas and the
Upnishadas, Ved Vyas and Valmiki were the founders of Indian tradition of
Saints Poetry. There are numerous texts in various Indian languages –
Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Tamil, etc., written over
several hundreds of years, which enrich the tradition of mystical writing,
and seer poetry in India and they exercise great influence on the literature in
India.
Yet, the history of such writings in English language by an Indian is pretty
recent and the first names to be associated with it happen to be
Vivekananda (January 12, 1863- July 4, 1902), Sri Aurobindo (August 15,
1872- December 5, 1950), Swami Ramtirtha (October 22, 1873- October
27,1906) and Paramhansa Yogananda (January 5, 1893- March 7, 1952). A
closer look reveals that Vivekananda was the first saints to write in English,
hence was the pioneer of English seer-poetry in Indian English literature.
Paramhansa Yogananda arrived much later in the scene; following
Vivekananda after a decade Ramatritha’s poems date after those written by
Vivekananda; and the early poems by Aurobindo, who was nine years
younger to Vivekananda, were not seer-poetry. Prof. Satish Kumar
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considers Swami Vivekananda and Swami Ramtirth as founders of 19th
century saint poetry in Indian English literature and observes,
“Vivekananda is the pioneer of saint-poetry which is
characterized by spirituality and mysticism. As a poet he
belongs to the category of Indian poets- Kabir, Sur,
Tulsida, Meera, Chaitanya, Mahaprabhu, Tkaram,
Nanaka etc. … In commensurate with the spiritual and
mystical genius of India, Swami Vivekananda and Swami
Ramtirtha, the two illustrious saints, who were well
versed with the use of English, composed beautiful
poems.” (Kumar. 2000: 45).
Vivekananda’s philosophical discourse found the perfect expression in the
rhymes of poetry and his literary writings are a delightful combination of
Eastern sensibility with Western language. He was a mystic in supreme
sense of the term- he was a self-realized soul, and along with that, he had a
great command over the language and a way with words. He employed
these abilities to produce a body of work steeped in mystic aroma of unique
nature. On poetic accomplishments of Vivekananda Brahmchari Amal has
said, “His genius was such that whatever interested him, he substantially
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mastered. … His poetry … contains gems of rare value.” (Burke. 1985: 4:
223)
The mysticism in the writings of Indian seer poets is not an imitative one
rather it is deeply rooted in the great Indian traditional epics and scriptures.
Most of the acclaimed Indian mystical poets like Kabir, Vivekananda, Sri
Aurobindo, and Rabindranath Tagore, draw from the resources of the
Vedas, Upanishads and other holy texts. It is one genre where Indian
writers writing in English offer a unique perspective and their treatment of
the subject matter has a flavour of its own and is a testimony of the Indian
aesthetics and its rich Vedantic tradition.
An interesting vein of the history of Mystic poetry in India is its deep
relationship with Saint Poets or Seer Poets. An expression of bhakti, Indian
saint poetry has seen shining examples of the likes of Kabir and Tulsidas.
Expressed in many of the twenty-four Indian languages, including Sanskrit,
saint poetry in English language has found its exponent in Vivekananda,
Aurobindo and Tagore. These writers were saints, mystics as well as
literary giants. They were spiritual leaders with exemplary gift of
expression.
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Vivekananda’s standing as a Saint and his body of Mystic writings in the
English language is unique. Timeline proves that he was the first Saint poet
to diverge from the traditional use of one of the vernacular languages and
employ English language instead to express the Indian mysticism in poetic
verses. One of the earliest poems by Vivekananda is In Search of God,
which was included in a letter sent from Salem, U.S.A to Prof. John Henry
Wright. Vivekananda had prefaced the poem with a note: “Here are a few
lines written as an attempt at poetry. Hoping your love will pardon this
infliction.” (Vivekananda. 2005: 7: 450). In Search of God details the
zealous journey of a Seeker of God “O’er hill and dale and mountain
range” (Vivekananda. 2005: 7: 450) with little to guide him but for a distant
“echo” of a “voice divine” till finally he expresses, “A flash illuminated all
my soul” (Vivekananda. 2005: 7: 451). Thereafter Vivekananda describes
the state of the enthralled seeker to have finally found what he had been
searching for several years; of the Divine he says “‘Thou art’, ‘Thou art’
the Soul of souls” (Vivekananda. 2005: 7: 453). Such an emphatic debutant
in the tradition of Mystic and Saint Poetry was followed by several more
such works, written in the ensuing years till his death in 1902.
The world to Vivekananda is karma bhoomi a transitional phase in the
soul’s journey to Param Brahma. This view of the world is structured
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around the ballparks of Hindu philosophy. Though Vivekananda gave
extensive lectures on the Vedas, it is the Upanishads and the Advaita
philosophy propounded in it, which Vivekananda predominantly preached
and weaved into his poems.
Vivekananda’s mystical reflections eventually translate into metaphysical
renditions in the form of poetry. Metaphysics as a philosophical notion
deals with nature and the concept of reality. A topic of extensive research
by Spinoza, Hume and Hegel – works by all of whom Vivekananda read as
a student, metaphysics engages questions about reality and illusion of
perception; nature, organisation and the origin of the universe; the
philosophy of the being and the like. Not only poetry but Vivekananda’s
almost entire work is a discussion in the philosophy of the metaphysical.
But instead of confirming to Plato’s ideal “forms”, Spinoza’s pantheistic
“God” or Hegel’s “Absolute”, Vivekananda endorses the Upanishad’s
concept of Param Brahma and its doctrine on human life. Vivekananda has
composed several expositions on the Absolute. The poem Peace is the
perfect example here, which discusses the nature of the Ultimate in abstract
phrases comprehensible in its entire scope only to his mystic sensibility:
“It is not joy nor sorrow,
But that which is between,
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It is not night nor morrow,
But that which joins them in.
It is sweet rest in music ;
And pause in sacred art ;
The silence between speaking ;
Between two fits of passion—
It is the calm of heart.
It is beauty never seen,
And love that stands alone,
It is song that lives un-sung,
And knowledge never known.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 29).
3.4.3
VIVEKANANDA’S CONCEPT OF GOD
Vivekananda believed in the formless, faceless Param-Brahma. As a
student he had confirmed to the Brahmo Samaj Movement and dejected idol
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worship. Later in the company of Sri Ramakrishna he gained Vedic
perspective on the tradition of idol-worship in Hinduism. Sri Ramakrishna
taught him that there was one Supreme who created this srishti or the
Universe, which Vivekananda reiterated in his poem The Song Of The Free,
in the line - “Nor two nor many, ‘tis but one” (Vivekananda. 2007: 7). He
also learned from Sri Ramakrishna that the gods and goddesses were
manifestations of His powers and were a part of His creation. Hence while
one must know and believe in the Absolute Brahma, one must not deject the
Gods and Goddesses. The transcendental Brahma has been described in
several verses through the mystic eye of Vivekananda. In A Song Of
Creation he writes:
“One Mass, devoid of form, name, and colour,
Timeless, devoid of time past and future,
Spaceless, voiceless, boundless, devoid of all—
Where rests hushed even speech of negation.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 38).
This is the Absolute without any attributes or qualities. Coleridge
persistently held that unseen that which is known by the things that can be
seen and the only nature that Vivekananda finds he can relate Brahma with
is light. Calling him the “Lord of Light” his poems about a human journey
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to find the absolute always culminate into a meeting or confrontation with
“light” as in the case of his poem Peace:
“Behold, it comes in might,
The power that is not power,
The light that is in darkness,
The shade in dazzling light.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 29).
In The Living God he urges people to know just One Reality:
“He who is in you and outside you,
Who works through all hands,
Who walks on all feet,
Whose body are all ye,
Him worship, and break all other idols! ”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 20).
Here the call to “break all idols” is symbolic. Vivekananda not only
respected the various gods and sects in Hinduism, he had great reverence
for all religions and their holy figures. He never told anyone which god
the person must worship. The quoted verse restates Vivekananda’s
doctrine of universal divinity. He said all mankind was part of Brahma
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hence all men were divine, “He who is in you and outside you.” He also
said that it was the power of the same Absolute, which flowed through
every one and he protested against the divide that men have created
among themselves based on which idol they worshipped.
Acquiescing with the Vedanta concept of the Absolute and the jiva or the
soul’s capacity to realise the Truth by internal contemplation and
meditation, Vivekananda wanted to inspire the mankind to find it’s own
divinity. A number of his poems include the assertion that the Brahma is
not without but within the human soul. He also acknowledges that Maya is
a device of Brahma himself to keep the soul engaged to the worldly
pleasures. It is for the man to realise that the pains and joys of this world are
nothing but illusions and that there is a greater reality that exists and the
knowledge of which can liberate him from the endless cycles of birth and
death and the roller-coaster of expectations, disappointments, happiness and
sorrow, in life. In The Song of The Sannyasin he writes:
“There is but One—The Free—The Knower—Self!
Without a name, without a form or stain;
In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream.
The Witness, He appears as nature, soul.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 17).
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3.4.4
A YOGI’S PURSUIT OF THE DIVINE
The pursuit of the Divine is a longstanding theme of Vivekananda’s poetry.
He discusses in details the trials of a man in quest of the transcendental. He
sings the glory of the “Lord of Light” and bemoans at the same time the fact
that he has indeed not become one with it yet. It troubles him to live in a
world of sorrows and to have prayed all his life to the God for deliverance,
and not to have reached his goal yet. Vivekananda’s personality was that of
a strong and an optimistic person. He lived life to the fullest and enjoyed its
simple pleasures. But his poems reveal that the heart of this sage longed and
despaired for the ultimate spiritual union, which is the aspiration of every
seer. Having understood the fleeting nature of all worldly things, he laments
a weariness of the world in the poem My Play Is Done:
“Alas for me. I cannot rest. This floating bubble, earth -
Its hollow form, its hollow name, its hollow death and
birth -
For me is nothing. How I long to get beyond the crust
Of name and form! Ah, ope the gates; to me they open
must.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 10).
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The arduous path of a spiritual seeker is laden with myriad disappointments
and difficulties. Vivekananda understands this only too well and empathises
with a seeker who is struggling to prod through the spiritual path:
“The duties of life are sore indeed,
And its pleasures fleeting, vain,
The goal so shadowy seems and dim,
Yet plod on through the dark, brave heart,
With all thy might and main.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 15).
At the same time, it’s a message to his own heart, a consolatory message for
him self to not be dejected by failures and to continue working his way
through the difficult times. Hold On Yet A While Brave Heart is a message
of hope for his own self and for those like him, that:
“No winter was but summer came behind,
Each hollow crests the wave,
They push each other in light and shade;
Be steady then and brave.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 15).
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Vivekananda also confronts the doubts that ail a spiritual man. Living in a
world that Vivekananda terms “pleasure garden” in Angels Unawares there
are times when even the most devoted man has misgivings about the
fruitfulness of his endeavours. Vivekananda confesses to these moments
especially in reference to the work he was given in life. Sri Ramakrishna
believed that to spread the message of God was Vivekananda’s divine
calling and destiny and Vivekananda carried out this work with all his heart.
Yet, sometimes in the face of oppositions and the lack of financial support
to carry out the work of the Mission, the task itself seemed daunting and
formidable. Encouraging himself that his work is indeed vital, and there is
an important place for his work, he wrote:
“Though the good and the wise in life are few,
Yet theirs are the reins to lead,
The masses know but late the worth;
Heed none and gently guide.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 15).
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3.4.5
PRAYERS
Vivekananda’s poetical mysticism and artistic leanings instigated him to
compose prayers as well. Some of these prayers were delivered as a part of
speech or were written in a moment of spiritual contemplation. Some
uttered in the presence of his disciples, like Sister Nivedita, have been duly
documented. In the prayers we see a constant reference to the nature and its
aspects; the voice is of a mystic enthralled by the signs of God he sees in
every turn of leaf, every blow of wind, and in every crashing wave - “The
blissful winds are sweet to us. / The seas are showering bliss on us.”
(Parlato. “Prayers …”). The prayer Great Benediction after Mourning has a
musical rhythm and its simplicity enhances the purity of worship. Ending
with a beautiful intonation – “The very dust of the earth is luminous with
bliss / It is all bliss, - all bliss, - all bliss.” (Parlato. “Prayers …”).
The allusion of nature is consistent with it being one of the prominent
themes in Vivekananda’s poetical work. For him nothing in this world is
trivial, not even a minor particle of dust because he sees in everything the
blessing of the Devine. He acknowledges the manifestation of God in all
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things supreme and sundry. Much like William Blake who has written in his
poem Auguries of Innocence:
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
(Blake. “Auguries of Innocence”).
For Vivekananda even his family, friends and life’s trivial pursuits are
manifestations of just one Supreme Being. At the same time Vivekananda
recognises the Supreme Being as his only anchor, the only kin and the only
friend and seeks His help in bearing the “burden of life”. He acknowledges
the presence of God within him and without him. This idea has its roots in
the treatise of Bhagwat Gita. Vivekananda speaks from internalisation of
this philosophy in his composition –
“Thou art Our Father, our Mother, our dear Friend.
Thou bearest the burden of the world. Help us to bear the
burden of our lives.
Thou art our Friend, our Lover, our Husband,
Thou art ourselves!”
(Parlato. “Prayers …”).
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The prayer to Mother seems like a quiet interlude of his vibrant poem Kali
The Mother. The shocking imagery of the destroyer Shakti seen in the poem
is alluded to, but a fervid insistence is made at the same time to the Goddess
to bestow on him her motherly love, affection and compassion. He prays for
strength and blessings while invoking the contradictory nature of the
Goddess – a mother strong and merciful yet fearsome as “the night of
Death”. This prayer, again, is given a musical resonance by the use of
intonation of “Thee we Salute”. There are several instances of Vivekananda
using this device in his poems also. In the prayers it works to amplify the
ardent devotion of the writer and lends to the writing the flavour of a
traditional Hindu prayer.
His prayers are quaint testimony of the earnestness of Vivekananda’s love
for God and the struggles he endures as a Seeker of truth. These feelings
find a poetical expression in the succinct line – “spirit is willing but the
flesh is weak.” In this one line Vivekananda manages to encompass the
basic struggle of all men of spiritual inclination who are driven by their
faith and whose spirit is guided by the belief in the Divinity but struggle
against the vagaries of human living and distressed by this contradiction
within them.
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In the case of the poetic works of Vivekananda Henri Bremond’s phrase “la
poesie pure” can be aptly quoted. After all, for Bremond prayer and poetry
are closely linked and he looks upon poetry as a kind of mystical expression
which aspires to an ineffable and incantatory condition.
3.5
STYLE AND STRUCTURE
Vivekananda usually writes without care for form and structure. His literary
aspirations are governed by the theme of the poem, his thoughts and his
moods. Poetry, like all of his other works, was mostly written to serve a
purpose, or to convey a message. In such a case he wrote in whichever form
that suited him and his purpose at that particular moment. In support of his
style - Shelley always gave more emphasis on the “poem” and said that the
overall effect it had on the reader was the true test of how beautiful the
poetry is. He emphasised on the imagination, the rhythm and the idea.
So while in some poems Vivekananda displays a painstaking attention to a
particular rhyming scheme, in others he writes in free verse – but always
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letting the poem choose its own form. This resonates with Aurobindo’s
critical analysis about form of poetry:
“Poetry rather determines its own form; the form is not
imposed on it by any law mechanical or external to it. The
poet least of all artists need to create with eyes fixed
anxiously on the technique of his art. He has to possess it,
no doubt; but in the heat of creation the intellectual sense
of it becomes a subordinate action or even a mere
undertone in his mind, and in his best moments he is
permitted, in a way, to forget it altogether.”
(Aurobindo. 1985: 11).
When he does, Vivekananda uses simple rhyming scheme and shows a
preference for weaving quatrains into the structure of the poem. In My Play
is Done, he uses the rhyming scheme of a-a-b-b.
“Too late, the knowledge age doth gain; scarce from the
wheel we’re gone.
When fresh, young lives put their strength to the wheel,
which thus goes on
From day to day and year to year. ‘Tis but delusion’s toy,
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False hope its motor; desire, nave; its spokes are grief
and joy.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 11).
In Requiescat in Pace he prefers a-b-c-b:
“Speed forth, O Soul! Upon thy star-strewn path;
Speed, blissful one! Where thought is ever free,
Where time and space no longer mist the view,
Eternal peace and blessings be with thee!”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 21).
Vivekananda is also seen to mix different rhyming patterns within the same
poem to suit his style. In A Benediction he chooses to use two types of
rhyming schemes – simple rhyming of a-b-a-b for the first quatrain of the
poem:
“The mother’s heart, the hero’s will
The sweetness of the southern breeze,
The sacred charm and strength that dwell
On Aryan alters, flaming, free;”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 33).
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And the rhyming couplet (a-a-b-b) for the last:
“All these be yours, and many more
No ancient soul could dream before –
Be thou to India’s future son
The mistress, servant, friend in one.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 33).
This inconsistency may bother some classicists but Vivekananda’s lack of
slavish adherence to meter and scale is buried in the view of the effortless
harmony he brings to his writings. Vivekananda’s passionate articulation of
thoughts transgresses the boundaries set up by the classic rules of poetry
writing and flourishes in free verse and his use of free verse leads a unique
charm to his writing. In One Circle More he writes:
“One circle more the spiral path of life ascends,
And Time’s restless shuttle – running back and fro
Through maze of warp and woof of shining
Threads of life –spins out a stronger piece.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 21).
Displaying an easy adaptation of the free verse in his style while writing
poetry, Vivekananda is in sync with the rest of the poetic world, which in
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the late 19th century and the early 20th Century was witnessing a rise in the
popularity of the use of free verse. He also leads a number of the Indian
poets writing in English, as the free verse soon became the favoured style of
several Modern and Contemporary Indian poets.
The style and structure of Vivekananda’s poetry do show traces of being
influenced by that of Walt Whitman, whose Leaves of Grass has been
documented as one of Vivekananda’s favourite reads. Whitman is also
known to be the major precursor for modern poets writing in free verse.
Even the titles Vivekananda gave to his poems The Song of the Sannyasin
and The Song of Suradasa could have been influenced by the likes of Song
of Myself and the Song of the Open Road from Leaves of Grass.
Incidentally, in 1875, Walt Whitman was given a copy of the Bhagwat Gita
as a Christmas gift, and it is heard unmistakably in Leaves of Grass in lines
such as “I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe,
and am not contained between my hat and my boots.” (Clapp. “Walt
Whitman”). Though the two never met, Vivekananda hailed Whitman as
“the Sannyasin of America.”
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Vivekananda uses simple but expressive language and words with a
smattering of archaic Old English words. He is emotive and illustrative in
his use of images, symbols, metaphors and other poetic devices but his tone
is always direct and optimistic albeit reflective and philosophical. The
inspiration for all Vivekananda’s poems comes from his own experience.
His voice alternates between persuasive, optimistic, advisory and
inquisitive.
There are several instances of dramatic openings among his poetic works
serving as a reminder to the classic Greek literature. The first line of The
Dance of Shiva – “Lo the Great God is dancing”, an example, also
emphasises the great event that Shiva’s dance is and the brilliance it would
present to the beholder. Throughout the poem he uses this singular line as a
refrain weaving his verses together. His poems have flow and rhythm of a
song and the use of refrains in such manner is another part of his style and
another element that adds to musicality in his works.
He uses illustrative adjectives (“pitchy” sky, “lurid” light) and alliteration at
several places (“the clouds are covering clouds”, “roaring whirling wind”).
Vivekananda’s metaphysical tendencies as a poet find him using oxymoron
like “light that is in darkness”, “shade in dazzling light”, “immortal life
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unlived”. The poem Peace, which is filled with such use of oxymoron, is an
attempt to describe a stage of eternal bliss known as Samadhi, which is said
to bestow eternal peace to the person meditating. This is the kind of subject
whose treatment by Vivekananda in poetic language makes him so unique
and interesting.
In his devotional poems and prayers the choice of select vocabulary items
such as “Lord” and “Mother” is appropriate to the sacredness of the theme.
While other word he uses repeatedly in these poems like “Hari” and “Om”
are significant because of their religious connotations and repetition of
certain phrases like “Hari Om Tat Sat” in The Song of The Sannyasin at
regular interval lends it a ritualistic character.
The Veda is called shruti or the rhythm of the infinite heard by the soul. The
words Drishti and shruti, which are Vedic expressions, point out how the
Vedic knowledge is not a matter of logic demonstration, but an intuitive
insight. The rishis recognised this and,
“The rishis of Vedic hymns calls himself not so much the
composer of the hymns as the seer of them. It is the seeing
of the mind’s eyes or intuitive seeing ... He only transmits
the truth which he sees but does not make.”
(Radhakrishnan. 1977: 128).
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Vivekananda, whose life was based on the philosophy of the Vedas, was
one of the few blessed with this “intuitive insight” and he was keenly
perceptive of the shruti – the rhythm of the infinite heard by the soul. This
rhythm found its way into the poetry he wrote. The musicality of
Vivekananda’s poetry is unmistakable. The alliterations, the repetition of
sounds, and the rhyming do much to accentuate this feature. Vivekananda
was a very musical person so it is inevitable that his poetry should have
rhythmic backbone.
Like a true mystic and a seer poet his poems are adorned with ambiguous
lines like “That which comes as Death and Life” (Vivekananda. 2007: 21).
Vivekananda’s poems call for understanding of certain philosophical ideas.
He constantly refers to concepts and notions from Hindu philosophy
(“Samsara of Maya”, Karma, Yoga, Sannyasa, Tyaga etc) and the treatise
of the Upanishads. To fully appreciate his work one must be able to
understand ambiguous statements like the one above. Here poet is referring
to the Absolute, which does not differentiate between the duality of the
living. His work is a remarkable rendering of philosophy in poetry.
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3.6
IMAGERY
In the context of mysticism and poetry it must be noted that poetry
concerned with mysticism does not present a mystical experience as it is,
instead a mystic poet rebuilds the experience with the help of linguistic
tools and from the transcendental, brings it into the realm of nature.
Symbolism and imagery are popular tools of expression used by the mystic
poets to articulate their experiences. The transcendental or the metaphysical
is often perceived in forms of symbols and images founded on analogies
grounded in the Divine truth. Evelyn Underhill confirms this:
“When we pass to the mystical poets, we find nearly all
their best efforts are due to their extra-ordinary genius for
indirect suggestive imagery ... artistic sidelong
representations of the mystics direct apprehension of the
Infinite on, so to speak, its cosmic and impersonal side.”
(Underhill. 2003: 70).
Vivekananda’s use of symbols and images of varied flavour displays clever
use of the device.
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His poetic imagery is fresh, intensive and has an evocative power. He has
depicted the vibrant mien of Hindu gods and goddesses in several of his
poems. The depiction of the deities in is usually dark and ominous with a
touch of drama. In the poem The Dance of Shiva he describes the cosmic
dance of Shiva, one of the holy trinity of Hindu religion – Brahma, Vishnu
and Mahesh. Shiva is known for his tandava, which Vivekananda imagines
thus:
“His flaming locks have filled the sky,
Seven worlds play the rhythm
As the trembling earth sways to dissolution”
(Vivaknanda. 2007: 40).
In Shiva in Ecstasy, another allusion to the great cosmic dance,
Vivekananda presents a dark image of the great lord who is adorned with a
garland of skulls, a moon on his brow, the Ganges flowing through his
matted locks and fire shooting from his mighty trident.
Kali the Mother presents the best side of imagery, symbolism and drama in
Vivekananda’s poetic works. Vivekananda describes a scene of destruction
and “of death begrimed and black” – a looming darkness shadows the
poem, which starts with the image of “stars blotted out” clouds covering the
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sky and the roaring wind whirling in the darkness. Against the backdrop of
this scene,
“Are the souls of a million lunatics
Just loosed from the prison-house,
Wrenching trees by the roots,
Sweeping all from the path.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 25).
The mood and the image here resonates that of in W. B. Yeats’ Second
Coming. Here the “million-lunatics” refers to millions of people who
choose to remain ignorant of God and His plans. The souls of these people
freed from the “prison-house” of the body is driven to chaos and bedlam. In
this scene of death Vivekananda evokes the “Mother”, the “All-destroyer”.
The death and the destruction is the prelude to her arrival. This depiction is
a reversal of traditional picture of “Mother” as the nurturer. This complex
image of Mother Kali confirms to her portrayal in the Hindu mythologies,
which regards her as the “Goddess of Destruction” and a saviour against the
evil forces. Vivekananda celebrates the “destruction dance” of Kali in all its
glory for according to the mythologies when there is an abundance of evil
in the world, Kali destroys it, making way for the creation of a new world.
In the dance of Kali is the salvation of the universe.
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Vivekananda’s poems are full of cosmic images. In several images that
Vivekananda presents us with in his poems earth becomes no more than an
element of the great design. The cosmic space becomes the backdrop to the
playing out of supernatural forces. Written in the time when satellite images
of the universe were not available, these images in Vivekananda’s poems
are remarkable and unique. In A Song On Samadhi he presents the picture
of the space as he sees it during samadhi. He describes it as “great void of
space”. He propounds the existence of only one ‘I’ and vilifies this world,
this universe fleeting and subject of mechanical rising, floating and sinking.
This is another testimony to Vivekananda’s pantheism.
“In the void of mind involute, there floats
The fleeting universe, rises and floats,
Sinks again, ceaseless, in the current ‘I’.”
(Vivekananda: 2007: 39).
A Song Of Creation presents a very complex imagery. Explaining the
creation of the universe in this poem his description starts with a rush of
cosmic elements and tells about river born out of void “its waters angrily
roaring” with the sound of “I am”. From the void come the elements that
make up the universe - several moons and several suns arise from this river
and expand amid riotous clamor and fill everything with light:
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“Millions of moons, millions of suns,
Taking their birth in that very ocean,
Rushing headlong with din tumultuous,
Overspread the whole firmament, drowning
The points of heaven in light effulgent.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 38).
In such manner Vivekananda illustrates the entire universe expanding out of
nothing. Remarkably even one of the scientific theories about the creation
of universe state that that it all started with a sudden explosion of all the
cosmic elements. Vivekananda says that in this creation reside the vagaries
of human existence – pleasure, pain, disease, birth and death and beings that
are quick to life or dull and lifeless.
There are several depictions of nature in Vivekananda’s poem. For
Vivekananda, nature was a constant source of inspiration and a cradle for
his imagination. To serve his mystic tendencies, the definition of nature
extends from the characters of earth, which he likened to a “fleeting
bubble”, to the universe with all its cosmic attributions. In the span and
factors of this extent he found immeasurable beauty and his muse.
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The Song Of The Free uses the elements of nature to imagine the dramatic
awaking of the soul where nothing short of an epiphany, accompanied by
vivid natural staging, moves the soul towards greatness:
“The wounded snake its hood unfurls,
The flame stirred up doth blaze,
The desert air resounds the calls
Of heart-struck lion's rage.
The cloud puts forth its deluge strength
When lightning cleaves its breast,
When the soul is stirred to its inmost depth
Great ones unfold their best.”
(Vivekananda. 2007: 6).
Vivekananda combines images with words depicting sounds. Shiva In
Ecstasy evokes the sound of Shiva’s tabor or the damaru: “Dimi-dimi-dimi
… Ba-ba-bom”. In A Song Of Samadhi, the “great void of space” he
describes is filled with the words “I am” resounding through it. This refrain
is repeated in A Song of Creation. For Vivekananda “I am” is a reassurance
of the presence of the Supreme and the Absolute power, which he regards
as the only permanent element in the world.
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3.7
SYMBOLS, METAPHORS AND LEITMOTIFS
The symbolism in Vivekananda’s poetic work echoes Coleridge’s idea on
symbolism, which asserts that a symbol is characterised by
“the translucence of the Eternal thought and in the
Tempora. It always partakes of the Reality which it
renders intelligible; and while it communicates the whole,
abides itself as a living part in that Unity of which it is the
representative” (Metzger. 2000: 212).
An important symbol used on several occasions is “Cup” for destiny of a
man. Other symbols are “shackles” and “chains” which stand for the fetters
of Maya, which hold back the soul on this earth and “Home” stands for the
final place of the soul in the cosmic space where the Absolute resides.
In To A Friend Vivekananda alludes to the “cup of Tantalus” and uses it as
a metaphor for Life. Vivekananda’s uses a story from Greek literature to
expound his point, which has its root in Hindu philosophy. According to
Greek mythology Tantalus, a wealthy king and son of Zeus, was punished
in the lower world and made to stand in water, beneath the fruit-laden
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branches of a tree. The water reached up to his chin and the branches with
fruits hung right above his head and the water and the fruit receded at each
attempt by the condemned Tantalus to drink or eat. Humans, in similar way
are punished, “fastened in the neck with karma’s fetters” in this “Samsara
of Maya”. The metaphor of “the cup of Tantalus” is used to explains that
life in this world is void of true happiness and Maya is an attraction like
water and branches of fruits were in the case of Tantalus, and the man is
like Tantalus, condemned to live in this Maya yet trying in vain to grasp the
joys of it at the same time. Vivekananda speaks from experience. He had
lived life of both as a householder and a Sannyasin and had followed all
paths mentioned in the Vedas, and this experience taught him that life is
nothing but a cup of Tantalus surrounded by beautiful things yet incapable
of giving man peace and happiness.
Additional metaphor of note that Vivekananda has used is that of the Cup
with “the dark brew” in it which stands for the destiny handed out to a
person in life and dark brew is all the pain he will have to face. This destiny
is based on the past deeds of the person “but it is not meant for any other
hand” (Vivekananda. 2007: 14) and every person has to bear his own
destiny. It serves the poet’s purpose to explain the theory of Karma.
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The poetry of Vivekananda has a significant array of leitmotifs to denote
the cosmic like “light” which is the Absolute, “void” which is the cosmic
space, and the “Lord of Light”, which is described in detail in The Song of
Creation as calm, faceless, formless, light residing in cosmic void. Another
one is that of a Mother and a child, where Mother is Goddess Kali, and the
child is poet himself, or any other person who prays to her.
One aspect to be noted is a recurring image or rather a continuous reference
to cyclic movements in Vivekananda’s poems. For example, in One Circle
More it is the “back and fro” of the “Time’s restless shuffle” and the
“spiral” path of life. In the Hymn of Creation it is the constant birth and
death of the Universe. The poet seems to see an endless and constant
circular movement resonating in every aspect of life and every aspect of this
universe, which is the creation of the Absolute. The poem My Play is Done
gives a peculiar feeling of being caught up in a wheel of repeating
alternating actions, which is the result of Vivekananda describing his angst
and tiredness of being caught up in the cycle of life and death using images
of the sea waves, the wheel and the constant stages of motion like rolling,
running and floating to describe the sickness of this “unending flow”. These
persistent accounts also serve to unify Vivekananda’s work.
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Vivekananda’s mystic and metaphysical verses are full of symbols,
metaphors and allusions a partial reason for which can be derived from
what Coventry Patmore, an English poet and critic wrote in the essay Love
and Poetry. Patmore said that parables and symbols are the only possible
means of expressing realities that are clear to perception but dark to
understanding. On the same subject he wrote:
“Some light of their [mystics] meaning forces itself
through the, in most cases, purposely obscured cloud of
their words and imagery; but when, by chance, a glimpse
of the disc itself is caught, it is surprisingly strong, bright
and intelligible.” (Bloom. 2007: 34).
In an unsigned manuscript called A Prose Fragment of the Analogies
between God, Nature, Man the Poet, Francis Thompson draws a distinction
between “fancy” and “imagination” by observing that fancy detects
resemblances while imagination detects identities. Herein lies the reason
why a deeply imaginative poet is driven to express his perceptions through
the shrouded language of symbolism. For in nature, all things mean each
other, and one thing means everything. Man is a symbol, Nature a
metaphor, heaven and earth are written in hieroglyphs. The universe is a
metonymy for God.
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Vivekananda’s poetic imagination takes flight on the wings of images,
symbol and sounds. He presents the vivid image of crashing waves of the
sea, the bold and daunting picture of Goddess Kali and the mystic vastness
of the universe while resounds with the echo of ‘“I am” “I am”’. His poetry
is enlivened by his poetic imagination. A. C. Bradley in his essay Poetry for
Poetry’s Sake said that a poem’s “nature is not to be a part, nor yet a copy,
of the real world, but to be a world by itself, independent, complete,
autonomous.” (Bradley. 1965: 5). Vivekananda’s poems are an invitation to
a world of poetic interpretation of the transcendental and sublime beauty of
the eastern mysticism.
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3.8
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