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Vision of Dante DANTE is known as a great poet and also as a great seer: Sri Aurobindo
mentions him as one of the very greatest. He names three as the supreme poets
of I was in the middle of my
life's journey, suddenly one day unexpectedly I found myself in the very heart
of a mighty forest. It is a wild, grim, frightful place – selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte. Some of you may remember the description of the Dandaka forest in the Mahabharata, quoted so often by Sri Aurobindo, picturing the vast horror of the forest: vanam pratibhayam sunyam jhillikagananinaditam.¹ Likewise Dante also says that even now when he remembers the scene his heart is full of fear and shivering. However he continues his narration: ¹ "A void and dreadful forest ringing with the cricket's
cry." (Sri Aurobindo) Page – 48 "I proceeded on my way but I did not know
what to do and where to go. I did not know anything why I was here, still I
proceeded through masses of boulders and rocks, up and down a rough and,
difficult path. Suddenly I saw standing before me a figure, a human figure very
beautiful and luminous and noble." But who was this person? Dante
approached him and asked: "Who are you? And what is this place I am
in?" The person answered in a quiet and solemn voice, "You have
surely heard of me. I am Virgil from
Page – 49 needed. You have to climb three worlds and pass through them to reach
your destination. The first world is Hell, Inferno; then there is Purgatory and
then Heaven, and finally the Beyond Heaven. All these domains, some dangerous,
some complicated and confusing, and some incomprehensible, but all
contributing to the growth of your knowledge and consciousness, purifying and
heightening your nature – you will know and go through them with my help and
the grace of divine Beatrice. Now, come, we begin our journey. There is a river
in front, we have to cross it, enter the first zone or domain. It marks the end of earth and
earthly life. It is
Acheron." – We in "Through me you go into the city of sorrows, Through me you go into eternal grief, Through me you go among people lost for ever. Justice moved my supreme Creator, I was fashioned by the Divine Power, The
Page – 50 Before me nothing created was there Unless it was also eternal, and I eternally am. Abandon all hope, you who enter here."! This is Hell, Inferno. There is no hope, no cheer, no ray of light, all dark, dismal, all lurid glare. Virgil tells Dante: "Be brave, be courageous. You will see here the most terrible things, most agonising, most heart-rending, you cannot imagine what sort of sufferings are here." Then Dante was taken down to different regions, to the numberless sinners of the earth who had committed all kinds of sins for which they were now being punished. In how many ways they were tortured, how they suffered – some burning in leaping fire, some freezing in most unbearable cold, some torn to pieces by hideous demons and goblins – the sight was unbearable. As if a thousand concentration camps of Hitler's day were concentrated here, or even more frightful than that. For every sin there is the cruellest retribution and these people have no protection which, as I have said, their body gave them upon earth, as a buffer. Even the poisons they nourished within them, now burst out being no more pressed and contained within. Dante was overwhelmed, he could not bear to look at the scene, man has to suffer so much: but how long? Virgil shook his head and said, "Much more he has to suffer, it is man's own guilt. Long they will have to suffer." "Long? How long?" "That is Divine Justice." There is atonement for many sins – various degrees and kinds of atonement, some mild, some severe, some very difficult but still in the end you get through them and can become free after a time from the effects of your own Karma, but it seems there are lapses and transgressions that are so formidable that no atonement can remedy them, there is no redemption for these. Baudelaire, the great French poet (of the underworld) speaks of the "Irrémédiable". He says, ¹Inferno, Canto
III, 11. 1-9.
Page – 51 when Satan does a thing, if he means it, he does it well. One remembers the frightful picture of Lady Macbeth trying to rub out the damned spot on her hand: she found it impossible and "all the perfumes of Arabia" would not sweeten the hand that bore it; the spot corrodes, eats into the being carrying with it infinite pain and weird misery and madness all through eternity – "the murky hell." Dante then turned his
face, he could not see all this fearful ugliness. He said, "Let us move
from this place." So they moved on. They now approached the next world,
the Purgatory. Here also there is a river dividing the two, Hell and
Purgatory. The river is named "Lethe". It means forgetfulness. You
forget what you have suffered and enter into a quieter and clearer region. You
cannot say you are happy there, but only more quiet and more calm. The people
who come here have washed themselves in the waters of Lethe, they forget everything
else, they remember only that they committed a blunder and they repent for
that. This repentance, this recognition of their error has purified them, to that
extent they are given a certain gladness. Dante speaks of an interesting case.
It was that of a man who was there now: at the last moment of his life he
recognised his guilt, his error, and was thinking of repentance – thinking only
– but he died just at that moment. He said now in sadness, "If I had
repented fully as I had intended, probably I would have gone beyond this
Purgatory, to So the two arrived at
the end of their journey through Purgatory. Here the people were pursuing the
process of cleansing and correcting themselves, becoming more and more
conscious and shuffling off the past as much as possible. Virgil now looked at
Dante and said: "Dante, my task is done. I am not allowed to go beyond
this region of Purgatory and have to turn back. You see the river beyond, that marks
the beginning of Heaven. You have to cross it. Another person will now come and
take
Page – 52 charge of you, do not grieve. Beatrice herself will come." Dante was elated hearing the name of Beatrice but then to leave Virgil was a great grief. He exclaimed: "But why, why my sweet guide, why are you not allowed to enter?" Virgil answered: "That is my secret. But I keep nothing hidden from you. If you want to hear I will tell you. Intellectual knowledge I had enough, I had also a kind of mental image of the supreme realisation in spiritual life,. I had even a luminous understanding, but what I lacked in was faith, true faith, the simple trust that surpasseth all understanding. This I yearned for but I could not arrive at. Perhaps it is a thing not to be acquired or attained through any effort, it comes to you, it is given to you or you do not have it. So I am stuck up here and awaiting the Lord's final decree. I am given a place which is called 'Limbo'." So Virgil stopped and remained silent for a while. Do you know what is a limbo? Limbo seems to be a region for silent meditation, quiet musing on God and Heaven, forgetting all else. It was even a kind of passive happiness and man can continue to be in it eternally. However in this matter of recording Virgil's somewhat sad fate, the poet Dante was not responsible, he could not do otherwise: he had to conform to the prevalent orthodox Christian doctrine that only Christians, the humanity who came after Christ, had the privilege and opportunity to enter Heaven, naturally the Christian Heaven. The rest of mankind, the pagan world could aspire to reach, the best of them, only the top of the Purgatory and there pass their days, their life in purifying themselves till the doomsday decide finally their destiny. Virgil now asked leave
of Dante. Dante was very sad to part from his friend but then Virgil waved his
hand and slowly retired. While Virgil was retiring, Dante noticed that Virgil
did not cast a shadow and was surprised to see that he himself had a shadow.
He now remembered that he had come all the way up to this region with his
physical earthly body itself. In fact he did not die, he simply disappeared or
was
Page – 53 transported into an unearthly region from the
earth. Commentators say that only one person in the Christian tradition went
to Heaven in the physical body, it was Mary, mother of Christ: nobody else was
given this special privilege except Dante. In Indian tradition too there were some fortunate people
who could go to Heaven in their physical body – Yudhishthira with his dog (who
was not really a dog but Dharma metamorphosed) was one; Narada, Bibhishana,
Ashwatthama and Hanuman – these went up only in their subtle physical body,
they had to give up the gross material form (immortal, cirañjivi). Then thinking of Virgil he moved along the bank of the river that separates now Purgatory from Heaven. The river is known significantly as "Ennce" – it is a word of Greek origin – the root means mind, thinking, intelligence; here I take it to mean mindedness, that is true mind, right consciousness. When you bathe in. its waters you wash away your old mind; a fresh luminous divine mind gives you a clear and complete vision of the Truth. However as Dante was
walking along the bank he heard a beautiful music, heavenly sweet, coming
floating as it were from the other shore. He looked and saw two beautiful
damsels there who made a sign to him to follow them. They were moving in a
contrary direction to the current of the river. After a while he found himself
on the other shore and as he looked up he saw at a distance a figure divinely
beautiful and imposing. Oh! it was Beatrice herself! Directly he saw her he
was so overwhelmed that he forgot himself – Dante says, all his old
passion rose with renewed intensity, all that was suppressed in him. Was the
love, the passion earthly, was it heavenly? he was confused. Beatrice with a tone
of severity spoke and reprimanded him: "Dante, do not yield to the pulls
of your past, do not yearn for the things that you have left behind. I noticed
your attachment to Virgil also. That too is an obstacle, that too you must
leave behind; look to your future, look to what is ahead. You have to
Page – 54 be strong, even severe, perhaps merciless at times." Indeed Beatrice herself was at times severe, even stern towards Dante; whenever he was about to stumble or slip into the past, into the mind he was to cast aside, she corrected him, pulled him back as on the present occasion. Now they walked on and moved upward towards the final destination. The Heaven is composed
of many circles or regions, tier upon tier, a hierarchy of worlds. They are
inhabited by saints and holy persons of various degrees of merit; the greater
the merit the higher the status of their dwelling. Dante describes the first
Heaven, it is the moon; and then follow one by one many of the planets. He saw
the habitat of saints and holy persons each busy with his own occupation, some
studying, some meditating, some assembled in a group engaged in conversation
and so on. We too, we have in India many heavenly lokas, Brahmaloka,
Shivaloka, Vishnuloka, Janaloka, Goloka, inhabited by various types of gods and
spiritual siddhas. We have Hell too in
Page – 55 è nostra pace.¹” It was he who thus uttered the famous mantra so well known to all. Dante wondered and felt illumined hearing the reply of the saint. Apart from the saints and sages and wise men (theologians) of Christendom, the higher Heavens sheltered also non-human, that is to say, godly or divine beings – angels and archangels, cherubs and seraphs – powers of Love, powers of Knowledge – Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Principalities, as Dante names them – various grades and modes of the divine force and energy – or, as we say, Personalities and Emanations. Indeed Dante's mind was full of questions and doubts and Beatrice herself had noticed it and given warnings to him. As she was purifying his heart movements lifting his human love to the divine level, so she sought to cleanse his mind too and as they moved on she was disclosing to him with her love and with her consciousness the nature of true mind and consciousness. At one place she said almost echoing an Upanishadic utterance: "Truth is not attained by debate and discussion, not by the normal intelligence and reason, but through a suspension of these faculties." In the higher Heavens Truth reveals itself spontaneously, whole and entire. Beatrice was lifting up both the mind and the heart of Dante into her knowledge and consciousness, into her own love. Indeed through her words, Dante says, Truth is visible, clear like a star in the sky. They now moved on further and arrived at the last lap, the highest Heaven. Saint Bernard now took charge of him. The saint said: "Henceforth I will be the guide, the last guide. Beatrice now leaves you and goes to her place, beyond the Heaven, God's own home, Perfection and Bliss – the Empyrean." Dante stopped, stood still and was asked to look ahead. Oh, what a bewitching scene! Epiphany – a world of dazzling light – circles and waves of bright gold and diamond! ¹Paradiso, Canto III, 85.
Page – 56 And those entrancing forms and figures! The Supreme Lord, the Supreme Trinity and the Virgin Mother – and Beatrice beside! The moving circles and the glorious figures wove a beautiful faultless pattern – a perfect geometrical kaleidoscope, gleaming and glittering. Dante tries to give an accurate comprehensive description: he says, his mathematical mind sought to arrange all that he saw in a seizable sizeable pattern. The complexity and the enormousness of the content escaped all measures and counts. His brain reeled and got confused. In the end he seems to have lapsed into a blank unconsciousness and forgetfulness. When he woke up what a refreshing calmness and clarity was there! What once was complex and incomprehensible has now become crystal clear and beautiful. What was a baffling mystery revealed a simple fact, a self-evident Truth and in ecstasy he chanted his hymn of thanksgiving to his divine beloved: “O donna in cui la mia speranza
vige, E che soffristi per la mia salute In inferno lasciar Ie tue
vestige, Di tante case, quant'i' ho vedute, Dal tuo podere e dalla
tua bontate Riconosco la grazia virtute. Tu m' hai di servo
tratto a libertate¹ Madonna, all my hope reposes in thee; For my redemption thou didst leave The traces of thy footsteps through Hell. In all things that I saw ¹ Paradiso, Canto XXXI, n. 79-85.
Page – 57 I recognise thy power and solicitude; I t was ever thy grace and thy force. From bondage thou hast pulled me out into freedom. It was her grace that led him to the miraculous vision and. realisation which he describes in his hymn to the supreme Lord: O luee ettema, ehe sola in te sidi Sola
t'intendi, e da te intelletta E intendente te ami ed arridi! Q,uella eireula;;;ion ehe si eoneetta Pareva in te come lume rejlesso, Dalli oeehi miei alquanto eireunspetta, Dentro da sé, del suo colore stesso, Mi parve pinta delta nostra effige; Per ehe ' l mio visa in lei tutto
era messo.¹ O Light Eternal, alone thou dwellest in thyself, Alone thou understandest thyself, and known to thyself And knowing thyself, thou lovest thyself and smilest to thyself alone. That wheeling was self-conceived, I t appeared in thee as a reflected gleam, As I was dwelling upon it for a while. Within itself, in its own hue It appeared to me as a painted image of me; So immersed I was in it whole and entire. ¹Paradiso, Canto XXXII, 11. 124-132.
Page – 58 Dante calls his vision the vision of the "Divine Comedy". That is the name of his great poem. Comedy means a play that ends in happiness and union – here it is the supreme happiness, the bliss of union with God and the Divine Mother. It is the culmination and denouement of an unrolling of God's play of creation and world manifestation. Dante ends his vision of the play in a single line of summation – indeed in a single word – the last line of the "Divina Commedia" : "Love moved me... Love that moves the sun and all the
stars."
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