With the growth of knowledge of human nature one cannot fail to be impressed by the great diversity of human gifts by the richness of individuality among mankind, the almost infinite variety of human being, the complexity of human nature. Theosophists have answered to the question of understanding the infinite variety and vast potentiality of man by the numerical key in which the governing number is seven, so there are seven main types of human beings, each with outstanding natural attitudes and qualities. Knowledge of these seven types and their corresponding attributes provides a key to the understanding of human nature. Again Sinnet in Esoteric Buddhism gives seven principles that are given below:
1. The Body Rupa
2. Vitality Prana or Jiva
3. Astral Body Linga Sharia
4. Animal Soul Kama Rupa
5. Human Soul Manas
6. Spiritual Soul Buddhi
7. Spirit Atma
The seven principles or the components of the human individuality may be regarded as vehicles through which self expression and experience are gained by that unity of spiritual existence that is often called as the Monad (in Theosophy) and we may say it as the spark of one divine flame, the great breath, scintilla of the spiritual son, immortal gem, human spirit and logos of the soul.
The Monad which is regarded as source of the objectives of the seven fold human beings and which is said, never leaves, ‘the bosom of the father’ the divine spirit of man remains within the parent flame throughout the whole period of its partial manifestations as the seven fold human being.
In the light of the above discussion Man of The Seventh Hour appears to be completing the cycle of evolution of human spirit who is journeying from primitive/ To modern/ From void/ To vibrancy/ From subjugation/ to emancipation/ From beginning/ To end/ A process/ of compelling reality’. The who feels each and every ‘materialistic’, ‘superficial’, ‘universal’ and ‘supernatural’ gyrating in its entity and everything mundane and beyond/ not beyond his ascetic perceptibility, has divided the book in seven hours-Victory, Desire, Greed, Fear, Rage, Conflict and Decadence wherein the poet has tried to reach both the pinnacles of progression and digression.
In the first hour of Victory, the poet starts with –
“The seven Seas/ The seven hills/ The iris of life/ The recalling the myth’ and again knowing the same ‘the sun/ As a seven horse chariot/ Unmasking the world at its beginning’.
The poet takes man and woman with the legacy of/ Adam and Eve and admits time as the most powerful-
Endless Time
Fatomless Time
In the vortex
Of birth and death
An eternal riddle
Around each ephemeral existence. (11)
The poet remains optimistic and vivacious in this hour. So he writes on-
Victory of man
Focussing on
New frontiers around
His progeny’s survival texture. (14)
In the second hour of desire the poet seems to be ‘speaking to self-is shapeless one’ and is involved in the realization of his self/ In the art of knowing life itself where ‘from birth to death’ he faces, ‘the infallible lessons of time’ and later on questions:
What does human being resembles?
A wave
In a vast ocean?
Latent in Gun power?
A decibel
In a hubbub?
A Particle
In a Solid substance? (19)
And adds:
Or,
A boiling point
Of the unending desire
Sprouting and spreading
Day in and day out in him? (ibid)
And at last he watches the desirous nature of man as follows:
Primitive longing
And primary incertitude
Over,
Human being
Becomes desirous
More than he needs to be
Squandering everything
To satiate
His desirous self. (20)
Similarly in the third hour of greed, he commences:
Desire begets instinct
Instinct begets lust
Lust lasting
Till it’s combust
In a life- cycle
Digging up man’s innate urge. (23)
And again, he questions the modern man in this hour which is not only relevant but also hints us of our divine ‘self’:
Does Twenty First Century man know
What he really needs
To satisfy himself?
The flower knows not
How its fragrance springs
The garbage knows not
How its rot stinks- (26)
In the fourth hour of fear, the poet talks of fear- ‘that renders one/ dejected and defeated within himself, / makes him apprehensive’ and even afraid of the trait he has so far left, / the sceptre of his own shadow. According to the poet it is all-
As if
Satan inside
An embodiment
Showing so far the seeds
Of lust and greed
Has come out
Growing taller
If not subversive
To
Ridicule man
Scared
Of his own misdeeds
Camouflaged with
Baits and gimmick. (33)
The fifth hour of rage is the shattering of the dreams where he is ‘facing the stark reality/ the emptiness/ and sombreness around’ but he admits a catharsis and adds:
Purification
A process
Linking
Body to soul
Thought to maturity
Humanism to eternity,
That’s yet another phase
Of man trying to come out
Of a deceptive self.(39)
In this section, the poet tries to break all the mirrors of suspicion, bravado and false notions and condemns the man who from Babri/ To/ Bamiyan/ From/ World trade Centre/ To/ Tube rail in London and the same hydra headed monster/ A hoodlum/ Or a hypocrite/ Shorn of realization/ Of his own outfit/ Commits the same crime and repeats the same mistake.
In the sixth hour of conflict, the poet mirrors the modern modes of life like night clubs/ Disco theque/ Body ay play/ Mind at stake and people who are, ‘hand in hand/ chanting deliriously/ feeling hot hot hot’ are so common and the modern nuclear age in which the human being is ‘dying for/ His undying crage and the same ‘twenty first century man/ unmindful/ of his/ struggle rich heritage/ Of love and peace/ and/ A divine origin.’
And at last, in the seventh hour of decadence, the poet thinks deeply about the fate of man recalling the history from Kurukshetra to World War II and questions judiciously:
Does Time
Always demand
Sacrifice
Of innocent blood?
A perennial penalty
For a momentary upsurge
Against
The affluence of a few
At the cost of the masses,
A socio-economic blur? (56)
And he mirrors several bare realities of modern life when he says:
Trust in life
Awaits
The verdict of Time
May be
Hemlock for Socrates
Ambrosia for hyprocrites! (57)
The vulgarity, vanity and lucre-dust of materialism has made the man power hungry and Westoxication of five star glitterati consumerism have liquidated the higher values of our life. Now-a-days violence and torture, carnage and communal laughter have become so common that humanity and compassion seem a dream now. In this hour of decadence the poet reminds us of our follies and evils that we have committed in the human history. According to him, history and nature are the best judges:
The bitter truth:
History takes its own turn
And nature never pardons
Spares none, 63)
Again, he questions:
Isn’t
The quake in Kashmir
A caution
Against human being
Not being
What he should have been. (64)
Therefore, it is spick and span that the poet Manas Bakshi has epitomized the feelings of cosmopolitan heart into his slender volume of poems The Man of The Seventh Hour. Philosophically the poet, in all the seven hours vacillates between materialism to spiritualism and seven bodies reaches to the pinnacle in the seventh hour of decadence. When his personal feelings become universal and his individual pain of the self merges into the point of the globe, when his body (Sthool Shaareera) becomes the universal spirit (Atma) In his gradual evolution from Rupa or Sthool Shareera to Atma, the spirit, the poet face and feels kaleidoscopically and consequently becomes one with the absolute and its radiation. So it is undeniably admitted reality that the poet has known and felt in all the seven planes of theosophy.
The book is though in free verse, yet sometimes appears to be tinged with beautiful lyricism. The content and the universal appeal of the poet make us feel that only poetry can rouse the interest and awareness among mankind for the welfare and upliftment of mankind.
References:
*‘A Poet’s Portrait of Man’s Journey Through Time’ by Srinivas Rangaswami’, IBC, P.C.Mathur, Oct-2006, Jaipur
*The Secret Doctrine, H.P.Blavatsky, Vol.II, Adyar: TPH
*The Man and His Seven Principles: The Seven Principles of Man, by Arthur Robson, Adyar: TPH, Ed. II, 1977.
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