Dance of Krishna, Dance of Kali

Two measures are there of the cosmic dance.
Always we hear the tread of Kali’s feet
Measuring in rhythms of pain and grief and chance
Life’s game of hazard terrible and sweet:
 
The ordeal of the veiled Initiate,
The hero soul at play with Death’s embrace,
Wrestler in the dread gymnasium of Fate
And sacrifice a lonely path to Grace.
 
Man’s sorrows made a key to the Mysteries,
Truth’s narrow road out of Time’s wastes of dream,
The soul’s seven doors from Matter’s tomb to rise,
Are the common motives of her tragic theme.
 But when shall Krishna’s dance through Nature move,
His mask of sweetness, laughter, rapture, love?

Dance of Krishna, Dance of Kali supportive of the main title The Cosmic Dance and clarifying it forms the part of the text apart from taking the Divine Play of Kali and Krishna. But Sri Aurobindo as a poet is closer to metaphysics and logic and intellectual properties abound in his poetry as he likes to sift through intellect and reasoning. There is nothing as that he colours and paints, but he puts it forward with logic and reasons discerning it all. He is not mythical and sentimental enough to charm us and in George Bernard Shaw’s language he presents them logically, reasonably presenting the anti-thesis. As Shaw is regarding romanticism so is Aurobindo in his poetry. Everything is but abstract into the hands of his. The poet busts the myth of the Divine Play and the things illusory, hallucinatory, and cyclic. His is a study of how the raw things are, mass, matter and consciousness, life-matters, the super manly concepts and metaphysical illumination holds the key to his poetry. The poet keeps on elucidating metaphysically, transcendentally laying it bare the abstract metaphysics. The molten mass and matter, the incongruities he envisages them through the prism of light and its illumination, the metaphysical light. His poetry is the poetry of the superman, the metaphysical aspects in the similar way as George Bernard Shaw through his superman delineates it his talks, ideas and discourses. Aurobindo’s poetry is shorn of emotion and feeling, sentiment and romanticism. Crystal metaphysics keeps illuminating it all. As Shaw is an anti-romantic, as is Philip Larkin so is Aurobindo faded and discoloured, devoid of emotions, sentiments and feelings.

The tread of the feet of Kali with the measuring rhythms of pain, grief and chance tells of life’s gamble with hazards so terrible and sweet. While reading the lines, we think within what this life is, why are we here, how the ways, what are we for, what is the purpose of it that we are after it pursuing for so long without knowing the meaning, the purpose of our living and that of the play of God the Maker into whose hands are we playthings. The ordeal of the veiled initiates it all. The hero soul embraces it Death which is but a play. The wrestler lies it in the dread gymnasium of Fate. It happens as per the Divine Wish and the things have been created just as representations. Let a lonely path be sacrificed to Grace. It is Her Divine Grace which but quells it all.  She seems to be at tumult but is not at all. This is but Her Lila, Lila Divine, the Divine Play.  Things get dramatized from matter as because it is matter the play of sensation and consciousness.

 Man’s sorrows made a key to the Mysteries, Truth’s narrow road out of Time’s wastes of dream, the soul’s seven doors from Matter’s tomb to rise, are the common motives of her tragic theme. Sorrows unlock the keys of Mysteries. Truth’s narrow road becomes visible clearly when futility comes to light. Time’s wastes of dream lay it bare in the end. The maximum of the poem has been dedicated to the discussion of Kali and the last ones to Krishna stated it differently. Kali is mythical and mystical no doubt, but why the play is so? Demons and devils, are these but in reality? Who has created them? Is it God the Creator? Why does Kali incarnate as Terror wreaking to end the demoniac, devilish forces? Kali the Dreadful is the dark side, the mythic, mystical side of creation.

But Krishna’s dance is different from; it is a dance of Nature, Nature moving, lush green, floral and exotic and wild full of vegetation, beauty, mystery and glory. The blue-blue mountains touching the skies and radiating in the sun present the picture as Ghanashyam, Tripurari representing what beauty it is in the dark clouds deepening and ‘manna’ sad in His remembrance, the gopis and the devotees sad about, patiently waiting to hear the break of flute notes, so chirpy lies just like the cooing of the cuckoo and rhythmic. The world is the shringaric play field of Krishna, Sri Krishna. The Lord of Love too dances but in a classical way with the lambs bleating and the herds of small-small cows going, and the bells tied around the necks tinkling and He plays the tunes, the Divine tunes. The Blue Boy of Brindavan is the Sagun Brahma aspect of creation.