Man, the Thinking Animal

A trifling unit in a boundless plan

Amidst the enormous insignificance

Of the unpeopled cosmos’ fire-whirl dance,

Earth, as by accident, engendered man,

A creature of his own grey ignorance,

A mind half shadow and half gleam, a breath

That wrestles, captive in a world of death,

To live some lame brief years. Yet his advance,

Attempt of a divinity within,

A consciousness in the inconscient Night,

To realise its own supernal Light,

Confronts the ruthless forces of the Unseen.

Aspiring to godhead from insensible clay

He travels slow-footed towards the eternal day.

-          Sri Aurobindo