Paramahansa Yogananda’s “In Stillness Dark” from Songs of the Soul features two stanzas; the first consists of ten lines of scatter rime, AABCDDEFGG, while the second stanza offers thirteen lines of cluster rimes, AAABBBBCCDEED. This type of rime scheme fits precisely into the theme of deep meditation, which at first is accomplished by fits and starts. The speaker dramatizes the journey to peace and calmness that allows the deeply meditating devotee to view the all-important spiritual eye.
First Stanza: “Hark!”
The speaker begins by commanding the meditating devotee, “Hark!” He is instructing the devotee to be aware of what he is going to tell about the magic of becoming still at night in preparation for deep communion with the Divine.
The speaker explains that “when noisy dreams have slept / The house has gone to rest.” House metaphorically represents the body, and at the same time, it literally represents a domestic residence. Thus, when “busy life” calms down at night it “cease[s] its strife.” After home life has settled down for the night and the body becomes calm, the devotee may quiet the mind in preparation for the profundity of silent communion with the soul.
During that quiet time, the soul becomes aware of itself; the peace of the soul automatically causes the “truant flesh” to be “soothe[d].” The soul “speaks with mind-transcending grace,” and the “soundless voice” of the soul offers rest and peace to the body.
Second Stanza: “Through transient fissures deep”
The speaker commands the meditating devotee to peer through the “walls of sleep.” While “peep[ing]” through those “transient fissures,” the devotee must take care not to “droop” and not to “stare,” but to “watch with care.” The devotee must remain relaxed, not falling asleep nor straining as s/he watches for the “light of the spiritual eye, seen in deep meditation.”
The speaker poetically refers to that spiritual eye as “the sacred glare,” which is “ablaze and clear.” The light, because it seems to appear on the screen of the mind in the forehead, does so “in blissful golden glee” as it “flash[es] past [the meditating devotee].”
The light of the spiritual eye puts “Apollo” to shame with its brilliance: “Ashamed, Apollo droops in dread.” The “luster overspread” is not that of the physical cosmos; thus, it is not the sun in the physical sky, but instead exists in the “boundless reach of the inner sky.”
The speaker dramatizes the act of achieving the magnificent result of deep meditation that leads to communion with the Divine. Through calming the physical body and the mind, the devotee allows the energy from the muscles to move to the spine and brain where true union with Divinity is achieved.
Source
- Paramahansa Yogananda, “In Stillnes Dark," Songs of the Soul, Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, 1983.
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
