The Winds of Wonder

“Is this the end?”

“Is this the end?”

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RY Deshpande

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“Is this the end?”

Ask a rhetorical question: “Is this the end?”

And the bird says: “But I am here always to sing;

The tree on which I have built my handsome nest

Is the ancient promise lofty like a hill;

Ever climb octaves and octaves to silence

To receive from it marvels of harmony;

I see joys growing in the richness of the soil

Furrowed with the gilded plough of lustrous renown.”

4 October 2024     

                                         

“एतत् किम् अन्त्यम्?”                                            

अलङ्कारप्रश्नं पृच्छतु- “किम् एषः एव अन्त्यः?”

पक्षी च वदति- “अहं तु अत्र सर्वदा गायनार्थम् अस्मि;

यस्मिन् वृक्षे मया मम सुन्दरं नीडं निर्मितम्

किं प्राचीनप्रतिज्ञा पर्वतवत् उच्छ्रिता;

नित्यं अष्टकं अष्टकं च शान्तिं प्रति आरोहयन्तु

तस्मात् सङ्गीतस्य आश्चर्यं प्राप्तुं;

मृदासमृद्धौ वर्धमानान् आनन्दान् पश्यामि                                                         

तेजस्वीख्यातस्य सुवर्णहलेन विदारितः” इति ।

४ अक्टोबर २०२४

Fallen is the harp; shattered it lies and mute;

Is the unseen player dead?

Because the tree is felled where the bird sang,

Must the song too hush?

https://incarnateword.in/sabcl/5/is-this-the-end

4 responses to ““Is this the end?””

  1. RY Deshpande Avatar
    RY Deshpande

    It is said that this is a very sad poem. In fact one biographer of Sri Aurobindo even considers it as a failure of his yogic pursuit. But what is ignored is (deliberately it seems) the Immortal working in the mortal. Here are the last two stanzas:

    The Immortal in the mortal is his Name;
    An artist Godhead here
    Ever remoulds himself in diviner shapes,
    Unwilling to cease

    Till all is done for which the stars were made,
    Till the heart discovers God
    And the soul knows itself. And even then
    There is no end.

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  2. claudechamberland Avatar
    claudechamberland

    Dès que l’on goûte à ce poème autrement que par le mental, le coeur comprends très bien que loin d’être un poème triste, ces vers sont porteuses d’espoir. Il s’agit d’une promesse livrée par Celui qui sait.

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  3. RY Deshpande Avatar
    RY Deshpande

    The poem was written by Sri Aurobindo in June 1945 and the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo says that it is “uncharacteristically dark”. This happens only when one doesn’t read the last two stanzas. These make the point that the “Immortal in the mortal” — of the Rig Veda — is “unwilling to cease”. And the Mother reveals that it is this Immortal in the mortal, the psychic being who is going to materialise and usher in the race of Gnostic Beings. Towards that Sri Aurobindo had already in him realised the Mind of Light, the physical’s mind opening and receiving the supramental Light and Force, this since 8 August 1938. The question “Is this the end?” is a rhetorical question and the emphatic occult-yogic answer is “No”. And that the last line has no question-mark after “And even then there is no end”.

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  4. RY Deshpande Avatar
    RY Deshpande

    Let me reproduce a comment from my book An Atrocious Biography published ten years ago, in 2014. It is as follows:

    The title of the poem “Is this the end?” must be first understood properly. The word “end” here means “goal”, not “termination”. It is a poem about evolution. The Immortal works his magic behind the apparently transient by evolving forms. These lines which were omitted by the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo connect the two parts of the poem

    An artist Godhead here

    Ever remoulds himself in diviner shapes,

    Unwilling to cease.

    This is a motivated distortion. The title of the poem doesn’t have a question mark after “end”.

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