A LETTER TO EDGER D. MITCHELL, PH.D FROM GOPI KRISHNA

Founder of The Institute of Noetic Sciences. He was the sixth man to walk on the Moon . He did this with Alan Shepard as part of the Apollo 14 mission on February 9 , 1971

Dear Captain Mitchell;


Thanks for your letter written to my friend,
Gene Kieffer, through whom I this answer send.
May God bless your fine efforts for a cause
Which, at the moment, is and always was
The most important project one could take
In hand, with all his heart and soul, to slake
The burning thirst to peer behind the scenes
Of this Creation to know what it means,
To find out of what stuff our soul is made:
A lasting substance or a fleeting shade,
To explore the mystery of life and death,
And know what happens after the last breath.
Does any fragment of our conscious being
Survive the end, still knowing, feeling, seeing?
And in what form or to what planes ascends
This deathless essence when life's drama ends?


This, my dear friend, has been the unceasing quest
From distant Stone Age and has found no rest,
For ev'n the savage in his burial holes
Placed their belongings to attend the souls
Of his departed kin, in his mind sure
They in another world would long endure.
This is the problem which in many ways
Was tackled by the wise from ancient days:
This is the riddle of which none so far
Has found the answer and ev'n now we are
No nearer to a solution than once were
Egypt's wise priest and India's gifted seer.


The strange exhibitions, which we now name
As psi phenomena, were just the same
In prehistoric days, and thence have come
Unaltered to this day, denied by some,
Admitted by others, but one thing is sure
Whatev'r was wrought through them did not endure.
They are as undependable and unsure
Today as in Buddha's time, who, to cure
The monks of their allurement, many a time
Denounced the hunger for them as a crime.


None of the founders of the major faiths
Advised pursuit of spirits, ghosts and wraiths.
In fact, a healthy instinct in the race
Has oft condemned all these pursuits as base
Which deal with witchcraft, sorcery or spells,
Recalling souls from fancied heavens and hells,
Seeking love-philtres, cures for the evil eye,
Charms for success, misfortune to defy,
Black-magic methods enemies to kill,
Or make someone obedient to one's will,
Mind reading and clairvoyance used to aid
The black magicians in their daily trade.


The psi phenomena you seek to probe,
From one end to the other of the globe,
Are not new, but in one or the other guise
Have always baffled and intrigued the wise
From immemorial times, but not ev'n once
Could some adept the art teach to his sons,
Which would have been the case had any one
The secret of this craft from nature won.


The gifted men and women, whom we know
As mediums and psychics and who show
Undoubted possession of uncanny traits,
Materialize some form, or write on slates,
Or cause, without touching, things to move
And thus the power of mind ov'r matter prove,


Are not themselves aware to what they owe
The strange, uncommon gift nor do they know
How and when they can show the rare displays
To critical skeptics in convincing ways.
Not they, some other power possesses the boon
For during seances they are oft in swoon.


We can approach the problem in two ways;
To prove the occurrences and the strange displays,
So that the skeptics one and all agree
That psychic feats are a reality.
The second is to find the hidden source
Of these phenomena, the unearthly force
Which can communicate without the aid
Of some material link or as a shade
Or poltergeist play mischievous pranks,
In haunted houses, weird spots or river banks,
Or grant to some the talent or the means
To read someone's mind or see distant scenes,
Or make a prophecy, which now the teams
Of scholars and psychologists explore
To know about the occurrences something more.


Whatev'r the aim, in either case we deal
With mind, a mystery still under seal.
I think you will agree that life and mind
Are more than what we know and have behind
A still unfathomed deep of which we see
A glimpse in psi, dreams or insanity,
Also in genius and the wonder child,
In all these categories covering a wide,
Unknown territory, about which we
Are all yet floundering in a plumbless sea.


For skeptics psi phenomena still lack
Conclusive evidence, immune to attack.
What is ev'n more surprising is the fact
That in the past too all did not react
To them with favor but preferred to treat


Them as mere sleight-of-hand or freakish feat.
This rather over-critical frame of mind
Comes from an ego often hard to bind
To a balanced, rational view about a thing
Extremely puzzling and bewildering.


Now if the aim of your proposed research
Be to place psi phenomena on a perch,
Impregnable, from criticism immune,
As doubt-free as a visit to the moon,
It is a laudable project and I send
Hereby my good wishes for a happy end.
It certainly will help to clear the doubt
Which now divides the learned ranks about
The basic facts concerning life and mind:
Whether a cosmic stuff or just a kind
Of epi-phenomenon, a glimmer born
Of matter, fading when from body torn.


It would be a happy augury for ev'n more
Sustained attempts to increase the existing store
Of knowledge on a subject vital for
Our peace of mind, but due to bad luck or
An ill-advised indifference from the ranks
Of scholars and the attempts of atheist cranks,
Which has become an agitated pool
Of hot discussions, leaving no one cool.


It is, indeed, an unmistakable sign
Of grace, of a saving gesture from Divine,
That in the midst of vice, narcotics, drugs,
Unbridled lust, crime, charlatans and thugs,
Which have brought down the spiritual plane
To mockery, to a dirty trade for gain,
There are unselfish souls, like you and Gene,
Who out of live, on this research are keen:
Love for the neighbor, love for all mankind
That it may soon to Peace the right way find.


But if, of your research, the final aim
Is but to harness to man's will and tame
The conscious forces of nature that create
The psi phenomena to open the gates
Of our imagination, and set free
Those who beyond dry reason cannot see,
Then I must frankly tell you, though I wish
You good luck ev'n there, that you cannot fish
In this stupendous ocean, we call mind,
An incorporeal force for use to find.


You may experiment a hundred years
You will be still there, ev'n with whitening hairs,
Where you stand now, perhaps the more confused,
For the simple reason that the methods used--
Methods arising from man's arrogance
To bring within control when there is a chance,
The amazing force which operates behind
These psi phenomena can never find
The source with ev'n the finest instrument,
Which man's ingenuity can ev'r invent.


For, my friend, it needs only common sense
To grasp that as long as we know not whence
We come ourselves and of what stuff are made,
How can we know enough about a shade
Or ghost or spirit or how can we find
From closer study of a psychic's mind,
By any kind of probing we may try,
What substance brings before his inner eye
The view of distant scenes or how it finds
The way to read the thoughts in other minds.


For instance, let us say a psychic's brain
During the exhibitions shows a chain
Of marked characteristics on a screen,
A play of light and shade that can be seen,
Or burst of color or, maybe, of sound,
Peculiar to the psychic state profound,


Or ev'n admitting there are visible marks
How can these factors help one who embarks
On this elusive quest an insight grant
Into the nature of the force we want
To know or make subservient to our will,
Our thirst to assuage, our object to fulfill?


Reactions on material objects and
Ev'n other evidence that the invisible hand


Of some life-force is clearly at the back
Of psi will not help us to know the track
By which we would reach it to gain our end,
Expose its substance and to our will bend.
Or ev'n learned methods by which we can train
The astounding psychic feats an average brain,
To telepathy or distant traveling in
One's astral body, maybe, ev'n to win
Well-guarded secrets from a hostile clime,
Or change the ruler's mind to avoid in time,
War and destruction, placing in the hands
Of psychically better developed lands
A weapon that can render null and void
The most destructive engine ev'r employed.


How far have we succeeded in finding out
What makes a wit superior to a lout,
What fine organic strains mark out the brain
Of a genius from that of a rustic swain,
Why are some minds pre-eminently wise,
Some just above the plane of animals rise?
There must be some variation in the brains
Of intellectuals and the stupid trains,
So fine that no device designed so far
Could find out what these differences are,
A riddle to which science has no clue,
Although its answer is now overdue.


We now come to an intriguing paradox,
The world of science split up into blocks.


Those who believe in psychical research,
And those who wish to give it a wide berth,
In either case no side goes to the root,
And only at the sky their arrows shoot.
How can it ev'r be possible when they fail
To find the cause for variance in the scale
Of man's intelligence and skill, a near
And visible target, both in front and rear,
That they would gain success in dealing with
Chimeras, phantoms, spooks, some true some myth.


A little thinking for the wise and sane
Should be enough to make the matter plain
That psi phenomena are yet so rare,
And so elusive that no one can dare
Challenge the skeptics to an open bout,
All their mistrust and doubt to put to rout,
No one has dared this mid-day show so far
Because eccentricity and failure mar
The truth and genuineness of these displays,
For they occur in most erratic ways.


The fact that telepathic readings can
Show positive results, whenev'r we plan
The communication in a certain way,
Does not in the least alter what I say.
Because the man responsive to the thought
Or one who sends, by whom the feat is wrought,
Know naught about the gift nor are ev'r sure
When they would score success, when failure pure
. The same applies to all clairvoyants too,
To mediums and psychics, all those who
Deal with the transcendental and the occult,
For all these touch a radiation belt,
Unbounded and far more ethereal than
The Heaviside belt which is helping man
To spread his talk or song across the earth,
His fellow beings to join in grief and mirth.


By no means whatsoev'r, by no device,
By no endeavor, thought or sacrifice,
Can you approach this sphere save through a mind,
By no means save through it to order bind.
A little further thought must make it clear
That to control this frontier with no fear
Of failure, is a super-human feat
Which we so often as a hobby treat.
The reason is that for a lengthy span
The earth has not produced an illumined man
Of such a stature as could help mankind
In knowing more about the riddle--mind.


Disparity in brain-power, skill or wit,
Uplifts some to the sky, makes some unfit,
Of which we are acutely conscious, but
Possess no weapon at its root to cut.
For countless men and women every day
Their mental handicaps stand in the way
Of a peaceful, happy and contented life,
As more than all the struggle and the strife
They have to face for shelter, clothes and bread,
Their lack of mental poise fills them with dread.


Far more than an average man or scholar thinks
Mental disparities, defects and kinks
Provide the root cause of the countless ills
Which still infect mankind, whose horror chills
The heart of every lover of the good
And pure for only they provide the wood
For every conflagration which consumes
In war and bloodshed, with its fire and fumes,
Large crowds of human beings every year,
And one ov'r, the other starts to burn and sear.


All wars would end, all strains and tensions cease
If we could only rid of all disease,
Defect and fault the boiling human mind,
Its effervescence into order bind.


But still far from succeeding in this task
The more our savants try to lift the mask
The nearer they come to a seething mass,
Which nor the wisest man nor veriest ass
Can call his property, possession, goods,
For no one can predict its changing moods.


The mentally retarded meet our eyes,
We see their scalding tears, we hear their cries,
But can we help them have a normal mind
A better life to live, more joy to find?
The shape and size of skull does not explain
The fault, for some have ev'n a normal brain.
In fact, one of the largest brains ev'r seen
Belonged to an idiot, not to wisdom keen.


Are we not hopelessly entangled in
A thorny mass of riddles to the chin,
When we attempt to unravel, ev'n in part,
The mystery of mind with all our heart?
My dear friend, every problem that we face:
The nuclear horror threatening all the race,
Upheavals, revolutions and revolts
Which death spread all around, like thunderbolts,
The lamentations of the poor and weak,
The misery of the cretin and the freak,
The wild-eyed shrieking forms in clinics and
Ten times their number, now in every land,
Who live their life out of asylums, but
Are hunted creatures though they laugh and strut
They all depict the awful price we pay
For both our wrong approach and long delay
In dealing with the mind, for it is not
Amenable to any methods to which we brought
To bear on matter, and still more delay
May whole or part of mankind blow away.


We have this sad position now before
Our eyes and are unhappy, sick and sore


That human life can have such hideous shades,
Such grim reminders of plutonean Hades,
As make compassionate hearts to groan in pain
In silence, powerless to reverse the chain.
But do we for miraculous methods try
To cure these sores staring us in the eye?
Of hapless, grieving wretches who surround
Us now and whose cries ov'r the earth resound?
Or have we done aught in a hundred years
To help those whose poor brain equipment bears
Inferior stamps, and who retarded by
Innate flaws fail to rise, ev'n if they try?


We cannot help them as we cannot change
The inherent power of the brain nor can its range
Extend nor ev'n correct the various faults
Which lead to idiocy or cause the assaults
Of lunacy nor mend inherited taints
Not only in the sinners but ev'n in saints.


When all our zeal directed to that end
The faults and flaws of brain yet could not mend,
And still we as impotent stand before
The mind as we were in the days of yore,
When still our brain and its companion, thought,
Excite our wonder and discussions hot
Among the wise, when still the learned train
Knows not what oil and fuel feed the brain,
When to the growing threat of mental fault
We lack the knowledge ev'n to call a halt,
What cloud of ignorance obstructs our eye,
So that defeated on earth we attack the sky,
And try, though eluded by the visible host
Of mental ills, to catch a melting ghost.


I hope you see how faulty thinking can
Confuse the mind of ev'n a noble man.
It is not you alone who miss the way,
But with you stands the whole esteemed array


Of those psychologists who hope to gain
Laurels of victory in a new domain,
Who view the paranormal as a field
For harvesting a more abundant yield.


But who forget that, when we failed to gain
Triumphant scores ev'n in the normal plane,
In paranormal so devoid of strength
That we can ransack all its breadth and length,
And hold the precious secret in our palm
For our exhausting toil a soothing balm.


Forgive me, I do not mean least offense,
And have myself committed errors, hence
Am eager to assist because I feel
That in the subject, with which we now deal,
There is such great confusion and such chaos
No wonder if we make mistakes so gross
As to suppose irreverent reason can
Fathom the mystery surrounding man.


The psi phenomena, a baffling part
Of man's environment, though near his heart,
Like dreams, psychoses, prodigies, genius, trance,
His area of thought and research enhance.
They all emerge from but one cosmic Law,
A psycho-physical one to which I draw
The attention of the wise, for 'tis the route
Which in the historical period bore some fruit.
And by this harvest man has been so blest
That he now stands upon the glittering crest
Of progress, still unsure which way to take
To find the Truth lost in this gilded fake.


From nature's ponderous hand we cannot wrest
The smallest bit, ev'n if we try our best--
She lets us have what we are looking for
In her own time, both during peace and war.
The Greeks with all their culture to which still


Europe is much indebted for thought and skill,
Could not discover steam or that great force,
Electricity our inexhaustible source
Of power and joy because time was not ripe
To bring a radical change in human life.


Renaissance woke in Europe at a time
When Faith's despotic rule was in its prime,
And not unoften death or torture drowned
The voice of those on whom her servants frowned.
In such a climate you could least expect
A bloom of genius which not only wrecked
Her citadel, but in it also left
A guard of skeptics, 'gainst such future threat,
And this Renaissance-born agnostic force
Of current nihilist trends is the source.


How could it happen that some ancient climes
That had come sailing through luxurious primes
And had to heights of wealth and culture soared
When Europe housed a raw, barbaric horde,
Were all defeated in the final race
When some mysterious Power increased the pace
Of Europe which a revolution brought
In human life and all its spheres of thought?
What Law decides when time's inscrutable hand
Builds or destroys the glory of a land?



II


Ten thousand scholars working hard to probe
The mystery of life will only grope
In darkness, if they still employ the same
Devices they used nature's forces to tame.
For in this new domain we come across
Intelligent forces that do not wave and toss
Like ocean waters, when hit by a storm,
But have a will to which we must conform,


If we desire access to secrets which
We are now searching for our life to enrich.


Remember that in psi phenomena
We meet an Ocean from which we too draw
Our life, our mind, intelligence and will,
As droplets, and that no amount of skill
Or cleverness on our part can avail
Against this Cosmic Giant, and hence we fail
In our attempts, as our approach is wrong,
For 'tis ridiculous to think we are strong,
When matched against a Power before which suns
And earths are pellets shot out from toy guns.


Do not think earth is but a hunting ground,
Where always something novel can be found,
With thought, resourcefulness and patient toil,
Something of profit from the yielding soil,
To add more to our comfort and delight,
Or ev'n to our capacity to fight,
As mankind has been doing through the past,
Or as we have done both, the atomic blast
And every luxury one can desire
To pass life, half in heaven and half in fire,
For while our bodies in all comfort bide,
The mind a thorn has always in its side.


Nothing occurs haphazardly by chance
On earth and no chaotic forces dance.
The universe in perfect order runs
From tiny atoms to colossal suns.
It is the narrow width of our own mind,
And pride and bias which its thinking bind,
That to our sight a broader look deny
And view Creation through a jaundiced eye.


All great achievements, heights and triumphs scored,
In recent times by us, by which we soared
To peaks of knowledge, plenitude and wealth,


To broader social orders, freedom, health,
Were not won solely by our effort, skill
And wit, but as ordained by Cosmic Will,
They all were gifted at the proper time,
Like our own being, under Laws Sublime.
Can parents help a child when it abides
In womb. they act their part the end Law decides.


Our great discoveries in material things
Have turned our head and lent our fancy wings,
And we imagine we can have at dawn
Whatev'r we wish or set our hearts upon.
It is a sheer mistake to imagine that
Nature will let us grow more proud and fat,
With some rewarding prize from Life's rich realm,
To intoxicate us more, and overwhelm
Our reason and our judgment even more
Than done already by the prodigious store
Of our material finds, to form a base
For a still keener competitive race
For psychic powers among contesting lands,
And place dread secrets in the impious hands
Of ov'r-ambitious rulers and nuclear giants
To kill humanity like poisoned ants.


A faulty notion at this time prevails
Among the wise, that only mankind sails,
Borne by the earth through all primordial space,
The only clever and intelligent race,
And many a scholar has it in his head
That science can do all, ev'n raise the dead,
And they look forward to a glorious span
Of sensuous sovereignty for mortal man,
And in this golden future only miss
Some steps ahead the visible, yawning abyss
Of war, and ev'n see not the slightest trace
Of dangers threatening man from outer space.


Defenseless creatures, whom unbounded Grace
Raised to the stature of a mighty race,
Elated by a few discoveries made
And those too with intuition's gracious aid,
Now have no reverence for the Almighty Power
Which keeps them shielded in an ivory tower,
Where but a moment's break in vigilance
By living cosmic forces would leave no chance
For their survival, but they know it not,
Denied the Vision by much clouded thought.


A fairly long, unbroken, fertile spell
Of triumphs which continues still to swell,
In undertakings on the material plane,
Has somehow stamped the idea on the brain
Of scholars ev'n that nature is a corpse
They can into any choice position force,
Hence in dealing with the realm of mind,
Have expectations of a similar kind,
Hoping their effort or a lucky stroke
Would yield a warming log fire free of smoke.


But we cannot succeed in this exploit
Since we suppose that we are more adroit
Than Life's unbounded Wisdom, which behind
The egoist conscious and unconscious mind
Of all the teeming millions of our race,
Has still enough to fill the whole of space,
Down to the atoms and up to the stars,
In their rotations, spins, collisions, wars,
And 'tis this Ocean which we try to trick
In our conceit, forbidden fruit to pick.


In probing mind or psi phenomena
We seek approach to a Power which deals out law
And order to the cosmic multitudes,
A mind which on the whole creation broods.
And we should not forget that from this Power
Arise the living creature, plant and flower,


All bearing marks of flawless workmanship,
Bound with such causal chains that scholars slip
And fall, not skilled enough to reconcile
With perfect Wisdom all the organic pile,
Forgetting that a wise creation needs
All kinds, both well-built and mis-shapen breeds.


Do not these psi displays seem oft so strange,
So freakish and aberrant that we change
Our mind about them, sometimes feeling sure,
And sometimes thinking they are too obscure,
But nev'r imagining it can be a joke,
A planned maneuver nature uses to stroke
The fire of our curiosity to turn
Inwards, new worlds to see, new things to learn.


Those who in Europe, Asia or the States
Attempt their level best to wrest from Fates
The Secret of this most mysterious Power
Would find, like one attempting from a tower
To bring down from the sky a twinkling star,
The power where 'tis now, and themselves where they are,
Ev'n after scores of years, if out of pride
They do not on a change of mind decide.


For man's own safety and to keep him from
Intelligent, evil forces which rage and storm
Through all creation, scattered far and wide,
The forces which ev'n in his unconscious bide,
Come to the surface in nightmarish dreams,
In war hysteria, phobia, evil schemes,
In fraud and swindle and all that contrives
To kill, disorient or mar human lives,
It is expedient he should keep aloof
From these bizarre events save to gain proof,
Or serve the cause of knowledge in some way,
And not to win control, establish sway
Or idly tamper with these awful powers
For their recoil is worse than nuclear showers
.

Let us suppose awareness of the psi
Becomes more common, and we too stand high
As pioneers in yet another science,
Far more alluring than the older ones,
A wondrous science that can help us mold
Another mind to our choice and unfold
Its secrets: all its hid, most intimate thought,
Of which now ev'n a glimpse cannot be caught,
Expose the moving, dancing, flashing forms
Of lust, desire, ambition and the storms
Of grief and anger, also fun and chaff,
A simmering earthen pot whose lid is off.


Soon a new era will dawn on the earth,
And mankind will find naught of greater worth
Than this amazing art which at no price
Can work unthought-of magic in a trice,
Put into shade the greatest wonder wrought
By science, and but with the power of thought
One can reach New York from Greece in a wink,
See what is happening there, what people think,
Or make an astral visit to the moon
Or Mars or Jupiter and with this boon
Avoid the immense cost and the enormous loss
Of time and labor spent to send across,
Vast lengths of yawning space, heroic men,
Who risk their lives for this trip now and then.


The secret will not stay unknown for long,
Confined to but a chosen, learned throng,
Nor will but one race, group or country hold
It ev'r inviolate and nev'r unfold.
For as soon as our hard attempts succeed
The news will cover earth with lightning speed,
Everywhere gathering breathless crowds agog
With them, on doorsteps and roadsides in fog
And rain ev'n, into each others' ear will drum
The glad news that the Psychic-Age has come.


The adventurous and the ambitious will not let
Grass grow under their feet, but soon will set
Themselves with all their heart and soul to learn
The secret, to immediate use to turn.
When flying saucers kept mankind alert
For many years, and thousands rushed to assert
Their truth, but later in a calmer frame
Of mind, but few now substantiate the same,
Still if newspapers again begin to write
Thousands will 'gain the speeding dishes sight.


What wonder then that mind-discoveries will
Excitement raise to boiling pitch, and thrill
Mankind has yet, no other find has done,
Enthuse and grip the heart of every one.


We can be sure that, once the rumor spreads
That such a method can change hearts and heads,
Of all and sundry in a way we choose
Millions will join the chase for a wild goose,
And ev'n if only a few gain their end
The fact will not affect the general trend,
Till in addition to existing vice
This foul art will exact a greater price,
A greater toll of precious human lives,
And cause more havoc than all guns and knives.


A sinister world of foul, ambitious dreams
Will spread before the eyes of ruling teams.
The poorer states that lack the nuclear dart
Will wildly snatch at this infernal art,
Intrigue and conspiracy, agents, spies
With all their store of treachery, tricks and lies--
The high distinction of enlightened realms
And of the galaxies that hold their helms--
Will spread all ov'r the earth a wider plague,
And blight, more common, than in tropics ague,
When lurking spies and agents trained to it
Each other will with mental arrows hit,


And black magician armies, day and night,
Among themselves a ghostly war will fight,
Killed or disabled in mysterious ways
With thought, converted into murderous rays.


Occult academies to teach the art
Will spring up overnight in every part
Of earth, as urge for power and wealth will leave
No stone unturned to learn the art to weave
The spells, or how to concentrate the mind
With well-directed thought success to find,
And none will gain more plaudits and applause
Than those who can the greatest mischief cause,
For deadly fear of irreparable harm,
Caused from a distance with a lethal charm,
Will keep the boldest critics dumb with fear,
But loud in praise when these mind-pests are near.
This sounds surprising but do we not see
How nuclear pest has won supremacy.


New hope will come to disappointed love
To change the heart of his reluctant dove,
For fleshpots and the lovelorn it will soon
Become the rage, the most sought after boon,
The most delightful hobby that can bring
New hope to life, new joy to dance and sing,
As one can now with swooning rapture fold,
Ev'n if most ugly, sick or old,
Into one's arms the most bewitching lass
With but a thought ray or magnetic pass.


And who can dare resist, who can deny
The power of Cupid when his arrows fly
To pierce the yielding heart of amorous men
And dames. With such a power before their ken
Would they not grab at this alluring art
To press the sweetheart to their throbbing heart?
And would not hardened libertines and rakes
From early years, when youthful love awakes,


Corrupt the morals of young girls and boys,
Blasting fresh lives for their own transient joys?


A prickly bed of thorns, a burning sore
Would always keep on smarting at the core
Of hearts, united in conjugal love,
For like the lightning, striking from above,
A sudden change may make one of them turn
Towards another or intensely burn
For someone else, one whose enchanting skill
Makes him or her obedient to his will.


Since countless dames and men will make the art
The dominating passion of their heart,
To function as a means to calm the surge
Of love, a most predominant basic urge,
Mankind will soon become a stormy mass
Of mental waves which will pass and repass
From one brain to the other, and again
Towards the sender from another brain,
An aweful crisscross of attacking rays,
A tense bombardment lasting nights and days,
Consider what would be the sorry state
Of men's brains when exerted at this rate?
Will not the whole race, with a hopeless sigh
At this uncanny madness, too soon die?


The rulers guided by clairvoyant teams,
Informed by astral visits and their dreams,
Confused or ev'n mistaken in the heat
Of passion or excitement may defeat
The very purpose for which they were trained,
For lust and passion are in man ingrained,
And, far from being a dependable arm,
May, more than good, do irretrievable harm.
Or scores of Rasputins, exciting hate
And fear, with their devices may create
Such chaos and confusion in a land
That it may like a fallen mansion stand,


A house divided, in which no one cares,
Out of spite, to mend cracks and do repairs.


A thousand missiles, each one deadlier than
The deadliest, cannot do such harm to man,
As will be done if spells and magic reign
To cause suspense and fear in the human brain.
For every nation and her ruling heads
Will have no peace or rest, ev'n in their beds,
When once they know invisible powers can strike
Them flat, whenev'r and where their enemies like.



III


One may say there will be good uses too
By countless people, straightforward and true,
Which will repay for any damage wrought
By wicked ones who can be traced and brought
To book, when governments become alert
And ov'r the sorcerers their will assert,
Establish laws and rules to keep in check
The miscreants who peace and joy would wreck,
Who use willpower to force conscientious fold
To assuage their lust, to live beneath their yoke.


Who can deny when lent to proper use
These gifts will open other avenues
For man's delight, prosperity and wealth,
Enhance his mental power, improve his health,
Reveal new realms and new ways for his thought
To escape the rut in which it now is caught,
Bring healthy change in all the spheres of life,
And prove untrue misleading notions rife
About life and mind, about soul and God,
To clear this realm of error, lies and fraud.
In short, it will be a blessing in disguise
If lure of psychic gifts make people wise


About the eternal world of life and mind
An anchor for their restless search to find.


But if we see the world as it exists,
And do not lose our judgment in the mists
Of optimism, we can distinctly see
The harvest of this science in a free
And highly competitive social field,
When once life forces their key secret yield.
For soon it will pass into unholy use,
And prove a gold mine for the earth's refuse
And scum to pose at once a greater threat
To all the things on which we value set,
Than nuclear weapons for the foes can work
Unseen, and in each nook and corner lurk.


Will not the human lust and passion find
A strong companion in this power of mind,
And common vices, envy, hate and greed
Make higher profit ev'n with greater speed?
For most men seldom work for truth and right
As they do out of jealousy and spite.
And ev'n the knowledge that a mental dart
Would need laborious work to learn the art,
The crowds of cheats and ruffians, and the slaves
To ambition and lust, would choose early graves,
From killing labor, rather than resign
The alluring products of this golden mine.


Full many scholars who would hate to soil
Their hands with this occult research and toil,
Involved in studying psi phenomena
Now that Russia has entered the arena,
Only for fear that he might gain a start,
So strongly urge and take a leading part,
That those who from the start had it in mind
Their sudden change of heart amusing find.
Our mind, in scholars ev'n, is often prone
To evaluate a thing, not for its own


Merit, but mostly how it would affect
Our values, tastes, opinions, ev'n our sect.


In Grecian Mysteries, Egyptian rites,
In magic and the occult at many sites,
The psi phenomena you wish to explore
Caused deep religious awe and, what is more,
Provided evidence for afterlife,
But often helped by superstitions rife
In those dark ages and uncritical times,
Placed in the hands of priests in various climes,
A weapon they could for their gain abuse,
When possible by imposture, trick and ruse.


The modern record, too, is full of fraud
And trickery practiced in the name of God
And soul and but a few among the names
Of sensitives and mediums, whose claims
To paranormal gifts were put to test,
Could set the investigator's doubts at rest.


Knowledge of human nature, ev'r so slight,
Should teach us to keep it nev'r out of sight,
That ev'n the holiest mission, cause or aim
Can quickly turn into a selfish game,
Unless the mind is purged of lust and greed,
The reason why the anointed stressed the need
For inner cleaning so that when endowed
With these adornments, rare among the crowd,
The beneficiary should retain his poise
And not be swept off by these dangerous toys.


The present ethical structure of the race,
A tottering mansion with a hollow base,
In which they talk of goodness, truth and right,
But do the opposite when out of sight.
We know too well, perhaps, the sorry game,
Religion, God and worship but in name.
Profession, politics, trade and commerce,


Ev'n knowledge and art serve to fill the purse.
A prodigal world where increasing need
The measure of the earth may soon exceed,
In which acts are judged by the harvest brought,
And all is fair in daily battles fought.


The best examples in the public eye,
Who oft for peace and justice cry,
Are rulers and the pillars of our states,
For whose each word the nation tensely waits,
Aloof and solemn, with imposing looks,
Discussed in daily papers, journals, books,
Cheered, listened to and honored by the crowds,
Declamatory and loud, like thunder clouds,
Whose smiling face shows no trace of the plots
Which blood and carrion spread at luckless spots.
Ev'n ghastly bloodbaths, where they millions kill,
Excite no pity, no heart with horror chill,
Among the statesmen, when diplomacy
Forbids their ears to hear and their eyes to see.


This is our world in which the highest prize,
The brightest chances for unlimited rise,
Honor and fame fall mostly to the share
Of those whose ends use means that are not fair.
A sorry world in which each decade brings
No nearer happy summers, falls and springs,
Or winters ev'n because the path we tread,
Away from soul, towards rich carnal bread,
Is dangerous slippery, all against the Law,
To which I, of the elite, attention draw.


This is the glamorous topsy-turvy world
In which our dormant conscience still lies curved,
Like human embryos, in the prodigious womb
Of Knowledge, now grown into a catacomb,
Wherein no cell has ev'n a gleam of light
To show which side our way lies--left or right.
A sad world in which rank confusion reigns,


Because among the most intelligent brains
There is disharmony and clash of views
About an issue on which ethics lives:
Is man a short-lived, carnal frame
Which nev'r will know what it is, whence it came,
What is the purpose of its earthly round,
Will it end here or somewhere else is bound:
For other worlds of being, there to seek
A more rewarding life beyond the creek,
A shoreless ocean in which, when he dives,
He gains the experience of a million lives?


In such confusion and din, who can bind
To harmony and order human mind?
In which a thousand voices shout at once
Directions, some even at the point of guns,
In which each scholar oft believes that he
Has learnt, more or less, all that there can be,
Where every year a thousand books disclose
As many fronts, as many problems pose,
With their divergent shades of scattered thought,
Hoping the multi-hued mosaic wrought
Would educate, inform and train the mind,
The highway to a happy life to find.
Would you a mind to instruct, inform and calm
Prescribe the Tower of Babel as a balm?


What hope can you see for a world distraught
By hundreds of conflicting streams of thought?
The growing vagrancy, indiscipline,
Promiscuity and disaffection in
The youth stem from the fact that they are not
Harmoniously united in their thought.


Our study and experience are the means
To peer with practice through the organic screens,
Which keep a droplet from a Boundless Main
Connected to the body through its brain.


The object of the evolutionary drive
Is that the embodied soul should learn to dive
Into the Deep, of which he is a drop,
To reap a more and more abundant crop
Of knowledge, for man has but made a start
Towards a peak, if he plays well his part
Where such a feast is spread before his eyes,
That nothing of the earth nor of the skies
Compares to it, where, brighter than the sun,
The cosmos fuses with the Eternal One.


This is the Path, the pre-determined course
Man has to follow close to reach the Source,
Shut from which, like a cloud-obstructed ray
Of light, he lives on the earth, back to find his way,
To win, against nigh insurmountable odds,
The lofty stature of terrestrial gods.
All our attainments, all our inventions made,
Mark our promotion to a higher grade,
And are the accessories we all shall need
To extend our vision, to increase our speed,
For at each step of this immortal route
We shall show more of god and less of brute.


My dear friend, such a world of deep surprise,
Beyond our reason, fancy and surmise,
Our life, the earth and every thing around
Hold veiled in them that knowledge nev'r can sound
Its depth. We live shut in a bewildering maze,
A bed of mysteries beyond our gaze.
Out of this labyrinth but one path leads,
Through stones and boulders, nettles, thorns and weeds,
Towards the Light. This one and only Light
Evolving mankind must keep well in sight,
And nature ev'r ensures that this lone route,
While scholars theorize, wrangle and dispute,
With timely hints, becomes known to mankind,
And these hints we in Revelation find.


There is no other path, no other route:
The millions running round us bear no fruit.
Howev'r hard pompous Knowledge tries to peep,
Into this Wisdom, this unfathomed Deep,
It will return defeated from the quest
Until it does the ov'r-wrought mind divest
Of every ounce of superfluous thought,
To clear the conflict and confusion wrought,
And dive within into the Eternal Fount
Of Wisdom, of which it takes no account,
It would find all its learning, skill and art,
And infinitely more, from them apart,
Already waiting to be fished, like pearls,
Below the never quiet whirls and swirls
Of passion and desire which hide from view
The Ocean of whose drops it drinks a few.


From immemorial times a firm belief,
With bigotry, delusion, bloodshed, grief,
Born of the lusts which our mind abounds,
And often goes to extremes on trifling grounds,
A strong grip always kept on the human brain
That there exists a Law, a Higher Plane,
Or God to which we mortals have to find
Access with purer conduct, chastened mind
And sundry disciplines to mold our heart
And head to act, in life, a nobler part.
Some mode of conduct, discipline, belief,
Ideals and doctrines constitute the chief
Ways of behavior which they called the "Path"
Proper attention to which avoided scath.


Unluckily we have denounced as false,
With logic and derision, hisses, catcalls,
This Path to safety, peace, contentment, love
Which nev'r was reasoned but came from above.
The racial mind that knows the target set
Reveals it and reminds lest we forget.


The Dama of Buddhists, of Muslims Sarat
The Ten Commandments and the Christian Path,
Dharma of Hindus and Zoroastrian Law
From it their strength and all authority draw.


Long ages before, when knowledge had not grown
So vast and science had not grabbed the throne,
Religion, with all its faults, reigned supreme
For thousands of years, holding to its dream,
Defective still, about an earthly life,
Rich in ideals for a nobler strife.
It is incredible that a knowledge born
Of long experience from the very morn
Of culture, some raw scholars of this age,
Who its immense importance could not gauge,
Denounced unwisely, with no probe or test,
As pure delusion or brown mental rust.
And in this sorry way reduced to naught
A lesson by ages of experience taught.



IV


It is by this path and this path alone
That human mind to lust and passion prone,
When left unbridled can be made to adjust
Itself to a conduct which it follow must.
The racial mind at every critical stage,
Cut to the mental stature of the age,
Using a more or less adjusted brain,
Makes known the allotted path 'gain and again,
Unwise denouncement of our faith and belief
Which many a skeptic scholar made his chief
Effective weapon to destroy the base
Of our religions, has confused the race.
And in this earth-wide atmosphere of doubt,
When some for and some 'gainst religion shout,
Whose tongue can dare defend faith and aver
That truth is on his side and the others err.


And if one dares who will put trust in him,
When other tongues dub what he says as whim?


We have a duty, in importance, prime
To end this greatest scourge of our time
Which, left uncurbed, would so corrupt mankind
And set up such a rot in the human mind
That what we see now happening everywhere,
Immoral traffic, drugs, deception, fear,
Would seem a trickle near to what would be
A river sweeping ov'r our progeny.


To great ideals, noble causes and
Missions but few now lend a helping hand,
That too due to conventions from the past,
Which are now losing their grip rather fast.
The world is sinking as it has lost hold
Of images which only mind can mold,
And anchorless, the intellectual food
Which it receives, subject to changing mood,
Is at the bottom of the mental riot,
No healer can control howev'r adroit.


There is no greater good that can be done,
If safety of the race is to be won,
Than, by the most effective means, to ignite
A flame of harmony that would unite
The battling armies of conflicting views,
The fighting hosts of contradictory news,
Which fall on mankind like a locust swarm,
And do to evolving brain enormous harm.


There still are secrets in our mortal frames,
Of which ev'n scholars, whose distinguished names
Resound through earth, know next to nothing yet,
Some so dogmatic they would stake a bet
That no such secret, as I hold, exists,
And some may ev'n defend their stand with fists,
For some men study, not for study's sake,


With growing knowledge their deep thirst to slake,
But for distinction, for reward and name,
And take it as a challenge to their fame
If some one dares impute a glaring lack:
It causes annoyance and provokes attack.


The mere admission that our brain evolves,
Towards a predetermined goal, involves
So many factors, raises such a host
Of issues, nearest and the outermost,
That almost every branch of knowledge would
Suffer some change, and have some further food
For thought and fresh experiments to move
Out of the present rather narrow groove.
This is necessary if we wish to avoid
The race becoming a hopeless paranoid,
Each of us with a serious mental kink
When what we do, design, determine, think
Is in discordance with the changes in
The brain. Hence Revelation called them sin.


Before the birth of reason animal man,
Controlled by instinct had no need to scan
His thought and act, instinctively guided in
Accordance with the processes within.
But now as master of his thought and act
He has to exercise his will with tact,
Assisted by his knowledge of the brain
And all accessories, his mind to train
To that point of self-governance where he
Does not disturb the inner harmony.


The reason why I have so freely dwelt
On this important point is that I felt
It was most necessary to make it plain
That any view, accepting that the brain
Is still in evolution, must take stock
Of this, that each disturbance, thrill or shock
And every prick of conscience can affect


The inner processes we nev'r suspect.
It is because the modern world has lost
Touch with this Wisdom that it pays the cost
In crime and war, in countless mental ills
Which nor physicians nor wits nor the skills
Of politicians can eradicate,
Save with the knowledge of the trend innate
Which draws mankind towards a glorious life,
Distinct from all the ideas and notions rife,
A life of close internal link with God,
While working hard but rightly with the sod
.

Pray do consider what is of more worth:
To search each nook and corner of the earth
For psi phenomena we cannot solve
Till we the riddle of our brain resolve,
Or to devote our mind, resources and skill
This serious gap in knowledge soon to fill.
To find a Truth which can unite mankind,
Religion and science in kinship bind,
And end the clash between believers in
Divine and non-believers too to win
A safe, united world, convinced about
The basic vital issues, now in doubt,
Inviting scholars to write what they please
To cause disharmony which too will cease.


Believe me when I say that you will gain
Blessings of hungry crowds which now, in vain,
Make door to door search, round the planet seek
To find from some one who has touched the Peak,
The answers to Life's eternal riddles which,
In some, a thirst, drawn to the highest pitch,
That keeps them restless, pray to hopes and fears,
Or constant disappointments ending in tears.


Not only will this Truth mankind unite,
And keep religion and science out of fight,
But also promise great ideals for youth
To plant them on the way to right and Truth,


Extend to the aged strength and hope to meet
The challenge of Death, him with smiles to greet,
For this research will prove what has been said
By all enlightened sages, alive or dead,
That Cosmic Consciousness, as human soul,
Return to pristine glory makes its goal.


The awareness that an Eternal Fount of Life
Is latent in us in the grieving wife,
Husband, child, parent, kith or friend will help
To ov'rcome sorrow, lessen love for pelf
And power, remove the fear of death, disclose
The path to glorious Life Divine to those
Who, nearer to the evolutionary Peak,
From birth, intensely Illumination seek,
And prove the most sublime incentive for
Self-mastery which only can end war.


Research on psi phenomena will not
Provide incentive to ennoble thought
Or purify heart, ev'n if they are proved,
Nor pleasure seeking mortals will be moved
From their existing rut by any means
That make no end of grief and death-bed scenes.
And do not lend a more alluring field
For man's eternal quest to find a shield
Against disease, decay, want death and pain,
All of them targets for the evolving brain.


The deep desire aflame in human hearts,
Which often from the earliest childhood starts,
When lost in wonder, with wide open eyes,
Listening to fairy tales of brighter skies
And happier earth, the excited darlings hear
Or read avidly of folk, far and near,
Who graceful and angelic, borne on wings,
Roam at their pleasure, have all the things


They like, live in perennial peace and joy,
Unaging youthful men and maidens coy.


A little older and their interest veers
Towards invincible heroes, magic-gears,
And wonder-men whose super-human feats
They with excited fancy, rapid beats
Of heart and fired imagination read,
Enthused and warmed by every valorous deed,
Become one with the hero of the tale,
The roam the planet and in spacecraft sail
To distant orbs, unconquered, dauntless, strong,
Chivalrous, kind, benign, detesting wrong,
Of future man, to rise from finer breeds.


And this has happened from man's savage past,
So full of travail we view it aghast,
Invisible spirits, gods, life in all things,
Miraculous powers, theocratic chiefs and kings,
Beginning first from crudest concepts born
In paleolithic man, before the morn
Of history, in later prophet, sage
And seer became refined, now in our age,
Lost in the flood of reason--a trick of fate--
They fresh refinement and revival wait.


The ideas of sirens, goblins, elves and nymphs,
Point to creations we oft never glimpse.
But their existence in the racial mind
The same significance carries behind,
Namely man's contact with invisible planes
Of boundless life, beyond the average brains.
The same significance which fairy tales,
The invincible wonder man, who never fails,
Belief in sprites and souls in primitive mind,
Endowed with prowess of a miraculous kind,
The ideas of angels, Devas, heavenly gods
Gird with invincible powers to ov'rcome odds,
Which form a part of man's religious faiths,


Are not pure fancy--shadows seen as wraiths--
But vague foretellers of a future state
Which mankind will gain, as decreed by fate,
To sojourn on earth as a godly race,
And thence to people other earths in space.

Too much of intellectual study mars
The healthy growth of mind and tightly bars
The door to thoughts and fancies of the child,
Whom we take lightly with amusement mild.
But we forget that our amazing brain
Was all complete ere we began to train
And teach ourselves, that it can yield some clue
Not only to our past but future too.


Terrestrial consciousness in it contains,
Not open yet to our imperfect brains,
The store of future also, like the past,
In all its rich detail from first to last,
And glimpses of this filter through the brains
Not tightly bound by intellectual chains,
Of children and the primitive, also those
Who to inner guidance their mind do not close.


The biting skepticism and eating doubt,
Now all our moral horde are throwing out,
And cynicism, deriding God and soul,
Is burying faith forev'r, complete and whole.
Ideals built with ages of sweat and toil
They have distorted or are out to spoil.
This vandalism has left no goal before
Mankind, except to multiply the store
Of wealth, possession, power, excitement, thrill
The surest way the evolving brain to fill
With wrong ideas and aims that form the base
Of serious dangers staring in the face
Of ruler, statesman, scholar, thinker, priest,
Who see but can't avert it in the least.


There is the danger of a nuclear war
Which, though it seems unlikely, is not far.
Then ev'n catastrophes from outer space
May visit earth, imperiling the race.
Then there is the evil of the sorry mess,
Affecting all the countries more or less,
The new-born wagonload of mushroom creeds
Of crazy, spurious and hysteric breeds,
The host of Hydras sprung up from the blood
Of major faiths, which trampled in the mud
By skeptic pens, without providing first
A substitute New Faith to allay the thirst
For the Unseen, a natural urge in man
Which naught can thwart, arrest, put under ban.


Therefore the already gathering storm of mind
In some calamity a vent will find.
The race will face a most disastrous span
Of time, for man is disbelieving man,
And for this reason all the earth has turned
Into a war camp, where those rules are spurned
Which once confined war to the combatants,
Now changed to include the aged, sick, dames and infants.


Each passing year nearer and nearer brings
The day when nuclear wasps will use their stings,
Each one preparing for the fatal day,
While swearing that it for peace paves the way.
Thus kept in dark the people, gay and smart,
Hardly aware that but a spark will start
A chain of horrors, in the nick of time,
Which will not be allowed by Grace sublime,
To cause extinction of the afflicted race,
Which awful loss and suffering has to face.


I have put this on record to remain
A monument to witness that man's brain
By Grace Divine can into future see,
And, when allowed, to voice a prophecy.


The racial mind at times of greatest stress
When, as the fruit of self-created mess,
The race is threatened, in responsive brains,
In which a future happening entry gains,
Attempts to sound a warning note in time,
Which to the sensitive minds in every clime,
Come as forebodings, waking or in dreams,
And in some way affect their normal streams
Of thought, creating feelings of alarm,
Or sense of danger and impending harm.
But in the ferment of our age, the boon
Is ignored, and the hints forgotten soon.


But in the seers, whose well adjusted brain
Is always close to Life's eternal Main,
The warning comes both in the vision seen,
And its inspired expression, as has been
The case with those illumined prophets, whose
Inspired words soothe, inspire us and enthuse.
They live in touch with subtler planes of life,
And though attentive to the earthly strife,
Possess an inner life of peace and bliss,
And have the experience which most scholars miss,
That knowledge seeps into the human brain
From an Oceanic Store, a boundless Main
Of Being, whereof each drop, near and far,
Contains all Wisdom, one there where you are.


May Heaven bless those, whose sympathetic heart
In this good cause would like to take a part,
And help avert the approaching frightful scenes,
With well-applied thought, action and the means.
For nothing is impossible for Grace
To undo or do at its own time and place.
The danger threatens as mankind defies
The Eternal Law of Life, upon which lies
A glorious future, by wrong act and thought,
And must needs reap the harvest on the spot.


But Grace and Mercy can undo, indeed,
A vicious harvest of our thought and deed,
As Life Eternal is Herself the Cause
Of all the actions, actors and the laws.


No change is needed no ov'rhauling sweep
Is called for: only bring conviction deep
That there exists a God and Higher Life,
And let this faith be firm, broad-based and rife,
To wake afresh the innate religious awe
Of Heavenly Justice and Celestial Law,
Not fear of God, no unhealthy cramping ties,
Only that ov'r us, like the ambient skies,
Omniscient eyes see all our act and thought,
And soon amazing changes would be wrought.
Let us assume a moment that the probe
Of psi phenomena reveals a globe,
Around the earth, of living forces we name
As Psychic Energy we try to tame
To extend dominion ov'r the forces of life
To have whatev'r we long for in our strife.


But will this not add to our longings, too,
And leave some unfulfilled whatev'r we do?
With all the store of luxuries since gained
Have we eradicated lust, ingrained
In human nature, and contentment brought
To people so that now much is not sought?
Have not our victories increased the fire
So that we now to impossible things aspire?


Let us suppose again that we succeed
In this adventure, gain a precious meed:
A live electricity which we can bind
And use to win whatev'r we have in mind,
All our ambitious targets and desires
And all whatev'r we wish to quench the fires
Of lust and passion, to feel proud and gay:
Have all delights, thrills and sensations, day
And night, until the flame of life expires


And sodden earth extinguishes all our fires,
Do you think we will prove a happy race
And in creation have an Honored Place?
Or as a host of foul magicians
Would meet the fate of lost Atlanteans.


May Grace Divine avert the nearing threat
Of war, and on the road to safety set
Benighted mankind, and guide her elite
To choose the Path to Peace, to Truth and Right.
And may those noble men whose feeling heart
Is throbbing now to act an honest part
In helping strife-torn, unaware mankind
That way to unending peace and joy to find,
Make right decisions in this critical age,
For history to write a golden page.
And may our rising generations, wise
About the yet undreamed of, glorious prize
In mortal flesh, make earth the abode of joy
And peace, their body, mind and time to employ
In striving for the destined sovereign goal
Of life, to unveil the Glory of the Soul.


Yours in Truth and Service

(Gopi Krishna)

Zurich, Switzerland,
March 15, 1972.






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