Puppet of the Dance of Time
A conscious soul in the Inconscient’s world,
Hidden behind our thoughts and hopes and dreams,
An indifferent Master signing Nature’s actsLeaves the vicegerent mind a seeming king.
In his floating house upon the sea of Time
The regent sits at work and never rests:
He is a puppet of the dance of Time;
He is driven by the hours, the moment’s call
Compels him with the thronging of life’s need
And the babel of the voices of the world.
This mind no silence knows nor dreamless sleep,
In the incessant circling of its steps
Thoughts tread for ever through the listening brain;
It toils like a machine and cannot stop.
BOOK VII: The Book of Yoga 478
CANTO II: The Parable of the Search for the Soul 479
_________Word Meaning
Vicegerent = Deputy
Regent = one who rules or governs, especially in the absence of the sovereign
Babel = A biblical reference to a huge Babylonian tower whose construction challenged Heaven and caused the confusion of languages. It is used here in the sense of the scene of confusion, disorder and the noise of many voices.
Incessant = Non Stop, Continuous without break
________
Inspired Reflections
The inner soul of man is aloof from the mental turbulations and excitement and despairs. Man is in the grip of Nature. His mind is not a free mind as it appears to be, but subject to the Nature. He is a conscious soul in the inconscient’s world. Though the inner soul is the real Master, he gives his power of attorney to the Mind and prefers to watch in an aloof manner. The Mind forgets that he is only acting on behalf of the inner soul and feels that he is the real king. He dwells in a ‘floating house upon the sea of Time’. This indicates that he does not have any firm foundation. The mind is interlocked with the time, whereas the soul is beyond time. The mind is given the metaphor of a ‘regent’ – the commander who acts in the absence of the real King. He is ever at work without rest. Even when the body is sleeping, this regent is at work. He is ‘a puppet of the dance of Time’. This is ironic. The regent who thinks himself a supreme commander is actually a slave of the invisible force of Time. He is ‘driven by the hours’. He is always engaged in fighting the small battles – nay petty squabbles, forgetting his mission to win the War. He is driven hither and thither with even small impulses and is dragged with the needs and passions of the life. He gets confused with his impulses and desires pulling him in all directions. The mind can not rest in peace. It can not even have sleep without a dream. Even when we think that we did not have any dream during our sleep, in reality it only means that we did not remember our dreams on waking up and therefore erroneously think that we did not have any dream. It goes round and round without any break, its own thinking process. Our brain mechanically responds to our thoughts and is therefore always engaged, even during our sleep, with our mind. Though it thinks itself to be a conscious entity, in reality it acts like a machine. Therefore, as mentioned in the beginning of this stanza, man is having a ‘conscious soul in the inconscient’s world’.
