Now the poet highlights the power of good or “comely” thoughts to prevail against emergency situations of which the previous poem is a type. Drawing from the vocabulary commonly applied to energy conservation, the poet allies his thought with the powerful thrust of modem progress. The resources of the future, he asserts with a faint touch of irony, are the wealth that man has consciously shored up in his inner being. The positive affirmation of this poem provides the perfect counterpoint for the negative movement of “Each Uncomely Thought.”
Finally, still in Volume 66, we find a poignant and compassionate address to the mind:
I FULLY SYMPATHISE WITH YOU
My poor, tiny mind,
I fully sympathise with you.
How can you brave
The ruthless and sleepless onslaughts
Of a multitude of uncomely thoughts?
(6588)
Once lord of his being, the mind has been reduced to a helpless state. It is unable to withstand the buffets of thought and we are led to the extra-syntactical conclusion that for this reason it cannot be held wholly responsible for such thoughts.
This cluster of mind poems occurring in fairly close proximity typifies the kind of thematic interweaving that pervades Ten Thousand Flower-Flames. We cannot help but read each new appearance of this theme in the light of those poems that have preceded it. Thus we can begin to sense the very considerable cumulative power that reigns over the poems. As individual and autonomous creations they have an integrity that is stringently maintained by the poet but, seen in the context of the work as a whole, they would seem to gather a special resonance: poems on the heart comment on those on the mind; poems on weakness anticipate poems on aspiration; poems on journeying prefigure man’s ultimate goal. Because the larger overspreading theme, that of the soul’s ascent, is single, these various strands tend to merge into a single universe of discourse, even as a multitude of flickering, dancing flames forms a great conflagration.
Having established that the poems are spontaneous formations springing from the inmost soul of the poet, we may begin to examine in detail the fixed notions on which the poems pivot. Foremost among these is the poet’s conviction that the true worth of man lies in his inner life, the degree to which
he has realised his true nature and the amount of effort that is directed towards achieving self-perfection. The poet assesses these questions on both a universal and an individual scale:
CENTURIES HAVE ROLLED AWAY
Centuries have rolled away,
And still the outer man does not know
Where the inner man
Unmistakably is.
And the inner man does not know
What the outer man
Actually wants.
(1436)
In other poems, the poet adopts the first person speaking voice to supplant this general aimlessness of purpose. The tone of these personal poems is clear and unfaltering:
MY IMAGE OF LIFE-PERFECTION
I shall always maintain
My image of life-perfection
For the full Satisfaction
Of my Beloved Supreme.
(2904)
In spite of any signs of prevailing spiritual barrenness in the modern world, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames as a whole is infused with the conviction that each man shall one day be awakened to his soul’s purpose:
IT WAS GOD’S PLAN
It was God’s Plan
Right from the beginning of time
To give our soulful faith
A splendid victory.
(3204)