In this, the first, stanza we are warned against taxing, or even using, our physical powers, instead of aiming, as we should, at a purely spiritual existence, by virtue of which we shall ultimately be wafted away to the distant Centre in the Infinite.
"Lo, the Immortal, borne by spirituality, His hand grasping a lotus-flower, Away to Time everlasting, Trackless through the regions of Space!"
These four lines from stanza v give us a glimpse of the liberated mortal on his upward journey. The lotus-flower, which the poet has placed in his hand, is one of those loans from Buddhism to which I shall recur by and by.
"As iron from the mines, As silver from lead, So purify thy heart, Loving the limpid and clean. Like a clear pool in spring, With its wondrous mirrored shapes, So make for the spotless and true, And riding the moonbeam revert to the Spiritual."
These eight lines from stanza vii, which might be entitled "Smelting," show us the refining process by which spirituality is to be attained.
Seclusion and abandonment of the artificial are also extolled in stanza xv:--
"Following our own bent, Let us enjoy the Natural, free from curb, Rich with what comes to hand, Hoping some day to be with the Infinite. To build a hut beneath the pines, With uncovered head to pore over poetry, Knowing only morning and eve, But not what season it may be ... Then, if happiness is ours Why must there be Action? If of our own selves we can reach this point, Can we not be said to have attained?"
Utterances of this kind are responsible for the lives of many Taoist hermits who from time to time have withdrawn from the world, devoting themselves to the pursuit of true happiness, on the mountains.
"After gazing abstractedly upon expression and substance, The mind returns with a spiritual image, As when seeking the outlines of waves, As when painting the glory of spring. The changing shapes of wind-swept clouds, The energies of flowers and plants, The rolling breakers of ocean, The crags and cliffs of mountains, All these are like mighty TAO, Skilfully woven into earthly surroundings ... To obtain likeness without form Is not that to possess the man?"
This stanza means that man should become like the contour of waves, like the glory of spring,--something which to a beholder is a mental image, without constant physical form or substance. Then motion supervenes; not motion as we know it, but a transcendental state of revolution in the Infinite. This is the subject of stanza xxiv:--