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When the transfigured soul, who is also a poet or writer, wishes to convey
a little of his experience through the medium of language, then certain images
and symbols suggest themselves as being more readily appropriate than others.
Yet even this selection may have been made by God for the poet. Yeats suggests
that the symbol the poet elects to use "is indeed the only possible expression
of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame. "[63]
After closely reading the works of Sri Chinmoy, I am convinced that what
we accept as symbols in many cases Beloved, Boatman, Sun, Master and Father
to name a few-are, in fact, more than symbols. I believe they must constitute
the original elements of the mystic vision of God. Who can say whether the
figure of the Boatman is a formulation of the imagination or a fact of the
interior life? Who can perceive where plain statement ends and a metaphorical
expression begins? Mystic poets do not generally have a vast storehouse of
literary symbols on hand. They speak simply, of what they know and of what
they have felt. To what then can we attribute the fecundity of images in
such a one as Sri Chinmoy? The answer lies somewhere on the heights of silence
where the lustre of God's myriad forms is first perceived by the aspiring
human soul