The Divine Alchemist

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The Divine Alchemist

A Poem

Sri Aurobindo

Sages and Rishis there have been, minds to the Sun attuned,
They who ferried god-light to men burdened with falsehood acute.
But too ancient the pact of Night, the dark womb that yielded man,
Too ingrained the ache and pain by the method of evolution.

The early dawns that outlined our mighty curve,
Were too great for middling men and their feeble nerve.
The ‘spiring top that welcomed the Sun into mind, 
Could coax not the vital and the physical blind.

A greater light and mightier Sun must be invoked,
To transmute all ways of the evolutionary road. 
What heart or mind would endure heaven’s blaze,
And walk too with barren feet Night’s terrible maze?

He seated, scouted the worlds, like Sarama the hound,
For the endless future to be measured every bound.
On Veda the foundation, fortified by the Seven Tetrads,
An inviolable formula to house and nourish the coming light broods.

The mystic formula refused none, shorn of all opposing dualities,
Only the seal of a flame it sought and a courage to confront all contraries.
The forerunner had to house in his body’s frame,
An infant’s gaze to his god, and the dark elf’s deeds of shame.

What god could endure ignominy and ignorance?
To bear vice bereft of light or joy and no immediate deliverance.
What asura could endure the divine and the divinities?
To be a giant paced to aeonic crawl of minutely perfect mysteries.

By the unspoken yet immanent formula the forerunners must walk,
To bring the sun into their daily deeds and common talk.
The long night will end, on faces the early rays of dawn shall shine,
The transformed physical in a pale-gold hue, reflecting its Master sublime.

His mind-born sons are we, witness to innumerable dawns prior,
We serve His will, speak His words and do His deeds with rigour.
For this is He who casts eternity into a mortal hour,
The Divine Alchemist who brews our golden future.

Note: Offered to the Divine Mother, on Day 8 of Navaratri 2019, by Kali’s Brood and Murli R.