Earlier this century, in his essay entitled “The Future Poetry”, Sri Aurobindo hailed the coming of the new age of the spirit:
“Greatest of all is the promise of the age that is coming, if it fulfils its possibilities; for it is an age in which all the worlds are beginning to open to man’s gaze and invite his experience, and in all he is near to the revelation of the Spirit of which they are, as we choose, the veils, the significant forms and symbols or else the transparent raiment.”
The spirit of intellectual enquiry which reigned in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be seen as a necessary prelude to this wider cosmic sense of the universe for, having pursued the capacity of the intellect to its limit, man is now poised before a new and significant advance. He is faced with the option of going beyond the bounds of the mind to be nourished by the revelations of intuition. Sri Aurobindo felt that this exceeding of the mind would be given its greatest impetus by the genius of a single poet who, containing within himself the largest vision of man and God, would appear among us as the seer-poet, the fiery giver of the word.
As we contemplate the poems of Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, memories of that prediction revive within us, for this great mass of poems has suddenly arrived among us, fully-formed, bearing on its breast the message of the soul. The personality of the poet is nowhere to be found and the only reference to things external to the soul is contained in the initial poem which describes the genesis of the work. Rather it is in the consciousness that is diffused throughout the poems that we find our seer-poet, in his enlarged understanding of the universe and in the radiance this vision sheds on all forms of language and thought which he adopts as instrument.
- Ten Thousand Flower-Flames is simplicity. It is a quality not only of clear and lucid expression but of vision. There is a genuine lack of complexity in Sri Chinmoy’s soul-view. He is that rare combination of the man who is both wise and simple.
- Ten Thousand Flower-Flames is abundance. The creation of manifold forms is an index of the profound nature of the poet’s vision. It operates on the largest possible scale to establish the universe of the soul.
- Ten Thousand Flower-Flames is universality. The poet expands his personality so that it may house the universal soul. Each subtle spiritual experience of this universal soul raises a corresponding vibration in the hearts of all men.
- Ten Thousand Flower-Flames is revelation. For the poet, his creation is a means of expressing an inner wisdom which exists independently of the poem. Satya and Rita, eternal Truth and eternal Law, realisation and revelation, are as important to Sri Chinmoy’s work as they were to the Vedas of ancient India. It is revelation, or the fertilisation of the soul, which necessitates art.
- Ten Thousand Flower-Flames is mantra. It is the highest form of poetry, the spontaneous voice of the soul. It transforms words into sacred vehicles capable of kindling the spark of aspiration in man. It is sruti, the divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the one who could receive it The poet is but an instrument of the Divine. For himself he claims nothing, for his Beloved Supreme Absolute he claims everything:
“In me is Your Eternity’s Transcendental Cry,
For me is Your Infinity’s Immortal Smile.”
- Ten Thousand Flower-Flames fulfils in amplitude the promise of the future poetry. Through this monumental epic work, the poet has gone further than any other poet in articulating the song of the soul: