Sri Chinmoy uses the notion of defeat as a fine paradox, for by rejoicing in his own defeat he is also celebrating the victory of Truth. He has added a special poignancy to this contrast by electing to relate the poem to a personal context. Not “one’s entire life” but “my entire life” is highlighted as the stage of defeat.
It is possible, even from this preliminary example, to see how Sri Chinmoy’s poem grows out of the earlier model, encompasses it, and then presses forward to a new revelation: the necessity of surrender to Truth. In a similar way, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames as a whole may be said to be born of the Vedic line of thought.
Chief among the four Vedas is the Rig Veda which comprises 10,055 stanzas. Although Sri Chinmoy’s 10,000 poems immediately suggest a broad correspondence with that work in terms of contour, he has adapted his form and language to the modern age. The entire Vedic landscape and cosmogony have been removed to pave the way for a style that is unerringly direct and simple. Using the natural spoken forms of the English language and selecting in the main its central words, Sri Chinmoy has produced a chastened form of speech, free from heavy ornamentation and applicable to all men regardless of cultural differences. The simple-appearing crystalline strophe, coloured only by an inner frame of reference, is a hallmark of these poems:
GOD’S FORGIVENESS-LIGHT
If you are bathed
In God’s Forgiveness-Light,
Then no dust of earth
Will be able to cling to you.
(6606)
The transparent clarity of this language is the carrier of a new mode of spirituality. Although Sri Chinmoy largely maintains the stanzaic integrity and mantric quality of the Vedic poetry, he continually strives to conquer its opacity of expression by creating a style which is lucid, graceful and dignified. Having disencumbered himself of the thick fabric of a fixed symbolic language, the poet’s only remaining mystery or secret is that most splendid mystery of all – the transformation of the human soul. “Self is the Lord of all things, Self is the King of all things” say the Vedas and Sri Chinmoy writes:
A REALITY OUT OF DATE
Unless you dare to be
Your real and transcendental Self,
No matter what you do,
No matter what you say,
No matter what you become,
You will still remain
A reality completely out of date.
(5008)
ONE STEP
From the quick magic
Of my heart’s surrender
To the abiding magic
Of my life’s transformation
Is but one step.
(4847)