Flooded The Heart With The Water Of Alakananda Poem by Suman Pal

FATHOMLESS -
My failure to recognise You
With Your Meeting,
Flooded the heart
With the Water of Alakananda.

Live with pleasure,
Read with fair arrangement
The inscription of life drawn on,
Inscription - curving and bending -
Beneath the hill, on the plainness.

Who wanders lonely, find Him

Have You found - Fathomless - have You ever?

Falling from hand
The inscription of life drifts on water -
Destined to float, if it be not recalled.

The inscription, fallen, still in water -
Destined to remain fallen -

For picking it up
The Poet dies drowning -
Floating in the Water of Alakananda.


(A translation of the Bengali Poem' Hridi Vese Jai Alakananda Jole ' written by renowned poet JOY GOSWAMI)

About the poem:

This poem presents the Upanishadic doctrine of Advaitism, i.e., 'I am Brahman' or 'I am divine.' (Sanskrit: अहं ब्रह्मास्मि aham brahmāsmi) .
The poet wants to say that Brahman, or God, is present in every particle of the universe. Brahman means that it is omnipresent and pervading all things. According to the Kathopanishad, the divine soul, the original source of creation, manifests itself in different forms. Brahman is limitless, though it is our flaw that we can't recognise that divine glory in others. That's why we are running to die in the temple, mosque, and church to find God, who is in front of us in millions of forms. So, the poet is in utter despair as he fails to recognise the supreme divinity; he wants to drown in the water of Alakananda (drown himself in tears as a penance because only tears can make one's mind pure) .

In the other sense, the poet drowns every time in the glory of natural beauty. He wants to float in the water of Alkananda (a state of spiritual ecstasy) . In fact, the poet pervades the whole world; he himself is a whole poem.

(According to Hindu mythology, Alaknanda, or the Ganga, is the river of heaven. Alaknanda is one of the holy streams to emanate from the locks of Lord Shiva.)

Inner meaning of the poem:

The poem expresses the Advaitic idea that the Divine is present everywhere. Brahman is not separate from the world. The Divine exists in every person and in every part of nature. The poet's sorrow comes from his failure to recognise this divine presence.

The 'inscription of life' suggests the divine meaning written throughout existence. Life gives us many signs, but we often fail to read them correctly. The inscription is 'curving and bending' because life has many different forms and experiences. The lonely wanderer searches for God, but God is already present around him.

The word 'Fathomless' refers to the limitless nature of Brahman. The Divine cannot be measured or fully understood by the human mind. The poet asks whether we have truly found that fathomless presence. His search is therefore also a search for self-realisation.

The inscription falling into the water suggests the loss of this divine awareness. The poet wants to recover it. The water of Alakananda represents the sacred and divine presence. It is also associated with purity and spiritual awakening.

The final 'drowning' is intentional. The poet does not drown because he wants to die. He immerses himself in the sacred water as an act of complete surrender to the Divine. He gives up his separate ego and allows himself to be absorbed in spiritual ecstasy. Thus, 'drowning' means immersion in divinity, while 'floating' suggests the state of spiritual ecstasy after surrender.

The poem moves from the poet's failure to recognise the Divine to a deep sense of spiritual longing. He then experiences a sense of loss as he fails to understand and recover the divine meaning of life. Gradually, he moves towards recognition of the Divine presence everywhere. Finally, he completely surrenders himself to the Divine and enters a state of spiritual ecstasy.

Failure to recognise the Divine → spiritual longing → loss → recognition → complete surrender and ecstasy.


The deepest idea is:

The Divine is everywhere, but we fail to recognise it. When the poet finally surrenders himself completely to that Divine presence, he does not really disappear; he becomes one with the fathomless whole.