Who is that Presence?

A Poem and A Song - III: A Series to Celebrate Art in All Forms 

It is actually quite amazing when you find the same thought being expressed through a picture, a poem, a song, or even a gesture.
Perhaps it happens because the thought has sunk deep into you, at least for the time being, and you just view a certain picture, read a certain poem and hear a certain song as expressions of that singular thought.
Or perhaps they really are conveying the same thought, but in different shades and hues. 
And it just so happens that when that very thought captured your attention, certain pictures, poems and songs also appeared before you allowing you to delve deeper into the thought and let it reveal its deeper essence to you.
Regardless of how it happens, it is always a moment to relish and cherish the beauty. The beauty of the picture, the song, the poem. The beauty of the experience. The beauty of the moment.

Artist: Prince Chand

I still remember the first time I heard the poem titled "Who" by Sri Aurobindo. It was being recited by someone at a public function. The immensity of what I felt at the moment can't be described in words. Since then I have read this poem so many times and every time it has been a blessing. 

The poem was written in 1909, and was first published in Karmayogin. 

Read it aloud to know Who Is. Who is That?

Who

In the blue of the sky, in the green of the forest,

Whose is the hand that has painted the glow?

When the winds were asleep in the womb of the ether,

Who was it roused them and bade them to blow?

He is lost in the heart, in the cavern of Nature,

He is found in the brain where He builds up the thought:

In the pattern and bloom of the flowers He is woven,

In the luminous net of the stars He is caught.

In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman,

In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl;

The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven,

Spends all its cunning to fashion a curl.

These are His works and His veils and His shadows;

But where is He then? by what name is He known?

Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?

Bodied or bodiless? twin or alone?

We have love for a boy who is dark and resplendent,

A woman is lord of us, naked and fierce.

We have seen Him a-muse on the snow of the mountains,

We have watched Him at work in the heart of the spheres.

We will tell the whole world of His ways and His cunning:

He has rapture of torture and passion and pain;

He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping,

Then lures with His joy and His beauty again.

All music is only the sound of His laughter,

All beauty the smile of His passionate bliss;

Our lives are His heart-beats, our rapture the bridal

Of Radha and Krishna, our love is their kiss.

He is strength that is loud in the blare of the trumpets,

And He rides in the car and He strikes in the spears;

He slays without stint and is full of compassion;

He wars for the world and its ultimate years.

In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages,

Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure,

Beyond the last pinnacle seized by the thinker

He is throned in His seats that for ever endure.

The Master of man and his infinite Lover,

He is close to our hearts, had we vision to see;

We are blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions,

We are bound in our thoughts where we hold ourselves free.

It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,

And into the midnight His shadow is thrown;

When darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness,

He was seated within it immense and alone.

~  Sri Aurobindo

And then hear this...Truth expressed in another way. A lovely rendition of Husn-e-haqiqi, written by Sufi poet Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1845-1901). 

Beautiful indeed. 

Singer: Arieb Azhar
Credit: This version with English subtitles is available via the youtube channel of 
Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry 

To see previous posts in this series, click here and here.