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SECTION TEN:
THE IMPACT OF THE WORK

Sri Chinmoy entered the new year of 1983 midway through this great project. Over 5,000 poems had been completed in a period of 38 months. It was thought that he would finish the poems during 1986. Sri Chinmoy surprised his readers, however, by forecasting that he would reach his goal by his birthday on August 27th – just 8 months hence. Sri Chinmoy made this announcement while travelling in Japan where originally in 1979, the work may be said to have had its beginnings. This most recent visit by the poet seemed to cause an acceleration or resurgence of his creative impulse. In the three weeks from December 18th to January 7th he composed 1500 poems for the series. Returning to his home in New York, he found that this tremendous surge of inspiration continued to motivate him. It was a seemingly inexhaustible fountain that knew no aridity or poverty of vision. Poems literally seemed to flow from his pen over the next few months.

By the end of June, with the goal in sight, Sri Chinmoy increased his poetic output to around fifty per day and it was calculated that he would finish by July 13th, fully six weeks ahead of his own deadline. Working far beyond all expectation, however, the poet declared on July 2nd that only ten more poems were remaining to bring Ten Thousand Flower-Flames to a close. The following day, on July 3rd, he revealed that he had written these final ten during the night, the last being composed at 2:19 a.m. This ultimate poem stands as a supreme tribute to the divine power of inspiration that descended and acted in and through the poet:

Ten Thousand Flower-Flames

O my sound-life!
I love you
Because you are
Powerful.

O my silence-life!
I need you
Because you are
Beautiful.

O my Beloved Supreme!
I at once love You
And need You
Because Your Eye is my
Dream-Boat,
Your Life is my
Silver Journey
And Your Heart is my
Golden Shore.
O my Beloved Supreme Absolute!
In me is Your Eternity’s Transcendental Cry,
For me is Your Infinity’s Immortal Smile.

(10,000)

The journey’s marathon was complete. The garland of “flaming flower-poems” had been strung together and now the poet was laying it at the Feet of the Supreme in the same spirit of humble and dedicated service with which he had commenced the work. Poem number 10,000 is a hymn of love for the One who as the Doer had written these words through him and who as the Enjoyer was now receiving them back. It is a song of praise sung at the point of departure, when the words of the poet are winging beyond speech and sound to their eternal silence-home. It is the mergence of the self in God: the poet has returned from across the vast sea of human life to the Golden Shore of the Supreme. In his poems he has played the role of the seeker, whose cry for self-knowledge is his constant companion, and of the Supreme who smilingly offers man the immortal wisdom-fruits. He has grasped the formless within the bounds of form, the infinite in the finite, the universal in the particular. Above all, he has communicated the full measure of his intuitive realisation. The great vision that was within him, so immense that it seemed scarcely possible one man could contain it, has come forth. How shall men receive it? What shall be the extent of its impact in our time and in after ages?

We belong to the first generation of readers of Ten Thousand Flower-Flames. There is no comfortable distance between us and the poems as in the case of the classics. Sri Chinmoy’s ascendancy in English literature is not yet an accomplished fact. No criteria of taste have been established to provide a context with which to evaluate the poems. It is a rare and challenging position to find ourselves suddenly engulfed by the great tidal flow of a new work, having only our immediate impressions to guide us. We can enjoy the unique freedom of being able to commune with the poems directly. Moreover, because we live at the same period of history as the poet, it is possible to appreciate more keenly this efflorescence of the soul without recourse to an intermediary.
Firstly, let us consider the times which have given rise to this work. As the loss of spiritual faith became more widespread in the early part of our century, it provoked a profound reaction. Creative writers made an art of despair, negativity and disillusion. They formulated wholly interiorised private worlds of feeling. These worlds were entirely discrete, containing nothing which might bind them to other men or hint at any so-called community of belief. In consequence, language became more and more dislocated, mirroring the irregular rhythms of consciousness.

As the century has progressed, however, this despair, which was in fact another form of man’s searching, has no longer occasioned the same reaction. Over a period of time the loss of spiritual faith has virtually become a mode of living. It has ceased even to be a cause of despair. The fact that the great spiritual texts, which were in former times the hearthstone of life, have gradually slipped from common currency, has passed almost without notice. To many modern readers they seem to represent ancient thought modes couched in ancient terms and having no bearing on the pulse of everyday life.

If we look at this decline in spirituality from a vaster perspective, we might say that one cycle has reached its nadir. It has been nearly completely withdrawn. Scriptures have been reduced to words, words have faded into ideas and ideas have dissolved back into formlessness. Everything is in suspension. Outwardly modern man continues his round of life but the great spiritual forces in the universe have receded and are dormant. The cycle must be unwound again. Unconsciously mankind waits for the spiritual laws to impress themselves once more on the life plane of humanity, for those laws to be shaped into words and elevated to sacred speech. In whom shall this new flowering of inspired speech be felt? Which man may own sufficient power of vision to stand apart in the certainty of his faith and reveal the universal truths that unite all men?

 

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