The meditative rhythms of this poem, with its freely cadenced long sentence, incline to a more philosophical presentation of the experience of awareness. Here we find concept mingled with intuition. This mixture of philosophy and poetry does not affect the overall poetic impact of the mantra, for when concepts are blended with intuitions they cease to be abstract and independent. They lose their identity as autonomous thoughts and emerge as the simple elements of intuition.
IF YOU HAVE STOPPED
If you have stopped
At the boundary of knowledge,
How will you be able to enter into
The kingdom of wisdom? (3717)
The concept that knowledge is limited and wisdom is unlimited is given a dramatic inner form by the poet’s question. He invites us to approach the concept spatially by seeing the outermost limits of knowledge as a boundary line which one must cross in order to enter into the kingdom beyond that is the domain of wisdom. Notwithstanding the conceptual content of the poem, its total effect is an
undifferentiated intuition.
The mantras of Sri Chinmoy are impregnated with concepts which belong to a realm of pure, abstract thought. In striving for the poetic expression of the immutable soul-facts, he has had to create a new thought-mould, a new way of envisioning reality. As a result, the poems have a greater conceptual content than if the poet had been nourished within a society in which spiritual values already flourished. Sri Chinmoy’s greatest task has been to express or make manifest a spiritual reality which has never been made fully articulate either in our times or in our language. The seers of ancient India repeated:
The Face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden orb.
Remove it, O Sun, so that I who am devoted to the Truth
may behold the truth.
Across the centuries, the Truth-finder replies:
I SHALL TELL YOU WHERE GOD IS
I shall tell you where God is
Only when you dare to believe wholeheartedly
That God is eagerly waiting for you.
I shall tell you who God is
Only when you dare to imagine
That you have never loved
Anyone else but God, Your other Self,
Your highest Self,
Your true Self. (3766)