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Symbols that are drawn from the great impersonal forces-the sun and the ocean-add a definite visual impact to this sphere of ultimate terms. We see man immersed in God, as a drop in the ocean or a ray in the sun:
Although these poems are more difficult to penetrate than poems relating to the personal God, because of the nature of their subject, they reach farther than philosophy or discourse in presenting God as an actuality, not an abstraction. At a certain point, the language of symbolism necessarily takes over from the language of concepts in expressing the totality of God for the reason that symbols are infinitely suggestive. Their meaning cannot ever be finally limited or fixed. Consequently, many of these poems, even when they are imperfectly understood, are intense and moving by virtue of the concrete imaginative experience which we, as readers, are offered.
In studying the firmament of Sri Chinmoy's words for God, one can certainly detect the existence of separate categories of symbols, according to the manner in which God is apprehended. However, the number of poems which balance a delightful and ambrosial vision of God against great surging poetic generalisations would seem to indicate that for the one who is having the direct experience of God, no such clear categories exist. The characteristic attitude of the mystic is of boundless receptivity. He opens himself to the experience, whether it be one of intimate love or fathomless peace or incomprehensible light.
0 Life Infinite, give me the eternal hunger,
aspiration-cry.
The tiniest drop will lose its raison d'etre
In the heart of the boundless ocean.
In fire and air Your Life of Spirit I behold.
0 Beauty, 0 Beauty's Gold,
0 Light of the Supreme![62]
Although these poems are more difficult to penetrate than poems relating to the personal God, because of the nature of their subject, they reach farther than philosophy or discourse in presenting God as an actuality, not an abstraction. At a certain point, the language of symbolism necessarily takes over from the language of concepts in expressing the totality of God for the reason that symbols are infinitely suggestive. Their meaning cannot ever be finally limited or fixed. Consequently, many of these poems, even when they are imperfectly understood, are intense and moving by virtue of the concrete imaginative experience which we, as readers, are offered.
In studying the firmament of Sri Chinmoy's words for God, one can certainly detect the existence of separate categories of symbols, according to the manner in which God is apprehended. However, the number of poems which balance a delightful and ambrosial vision of God against great surging poetic generalisations would seem to indicate that for the one who is having the direct experience of God, no such clear categories exist. The characteristic attitude of the mystic is of boundless receptivity. He opens himself to the experience, whether it be one of intimate love or fathomless peace or incomprehensible light.
