BY NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

Endless, endless labours the way:

Its meanderings seem always to come back near to the same old familiar spot.

We have traveled through long ages and countless lives,

Through immemorial vistas of Time, as though through all the length of Eternity–

And yet see we not the same old sun jogging up and down

Between its same old prison bars?

The lone luminaries afar that appear so close to the very heart of the Great Mystery,

Twinkle and blink as inconsciently as ever;

The cold and barren face of the moon stares as bland and stupid as its wont;

The same old shadow still lingers at our feet and entangles them inexorably;

And the eternal viper remains coiled fast into the darkness of our entrails…..

The march of aeons has brought us none the nearer to Light or Deliverance.

Ah, Soul, we have indeed progressed into obscurity,

Into a deeper and deeper gloom have we entered–

Yet who is this intrepid voyager that has dared the other Unknown, the nether profundities?

It is thou, O my Soul, it is the Light itself, the beacon from above!

For whither else could progress lie?–

Towards Light and more Light?

But the Soul is All-Light and needs no illumination;

It is Darkness that yearns for the Light

And so the Soul has descended in answer

Into the gloom–

The gloom stretches interminable,

The abyss seems fathomless,–

Only to the spirit that ventures with its own lantern;

But my Soul is never alone–the Mother of Light upbears it–

A cataract of limitless blaze swirls behind

And presses it forward in and through the gloom

That will rollout and melt,

Sooner perhaps than one may believe,–

The Soul and gloom and all–

Right on the other side

Into the free and infinite and sheer translucence.

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