Yogananda's The Cup of Eternity

Attaining Bliss

Apr 10, 2008 Linda Sue Grimes

The omniscient speaker metaphorically compares a thirsty traveler to a spiritual seeker on the path to God-realization.

Paramahansa Yogananda’s poem, “The Cup of Eternity,” from Songs of the Soul consists of seven quatrains; each quatrain consists of two rimed, often slant-rimed, couplets. The speaker dramatizes the spiritual longing, “thirst,” which can by quenched only by God-realization.

First Quatrain

In the first quatrain, the reader meets the traveler who is spiritually dry: “All weary, thirsty, sore doth seek / To quench the quenchless mortal thirst.” The traveler suffers from “[t]he wordless worry of his heart.” This longing is very difficult to name; many individuals suffer for decades before they become aware that what they are really seeking is God.

Second Quatrain

The thirsty traveler “spies a cup” and speeds to take a drink but then stops because there seems to be so little in the cup. When the beginning spiritual aspirant first embarks on his journey of meditation, he finds little to interest him. He seems merely to be sitting silently doing nothing. So he is apt to give up before he finds his goal.

Third Quatrain

But then the thirsty traveler again starts to drink and a vagrant thought intrudes on him that he might, in fact, simply increase his thirst. However, because he continues to try again, he finds encouraging inner “counsel deep” that spurs him on. Instead of giving in to doubts, he is heartened to persist in meditation.

Fourth Quatrain

While the act of meditation seems like a futile act to the ordinary uninitiated viewer, those experienced in meditation realize the usefulness of the act. Those who lack the awareness of their own immortality continue to deem “the cup” dry, while those who have persevered find out the glorious value of their effort. They become “soulful” and realize that they are not “mortal.”

Fifth Quatrain

Because the spiritual aspirant/traveler has realized the valuable contents of the “little cup,” “he’ll see / Th’ unsounded deep of eternity; / For ageless hours and endless days / The ambrosial drink he’ll taste and praise.” His consciousness will be absorbed in God, and he will spend eternity satiated with his soul-awareness. He will know his soul is immortal and eternal, and he will praise God for the blessing.

Sixth Quatrain

Death will no longer touch the God-realized; the spiritual seeker who has arrived at his destination will never again suffer a “parched” soul. He will continue to drink the ambrosia of God-realization and not suffer worldly tragedies. With his spiritual thirst quenched, he will enjoy bliss eternally.

Seventh Quatrain

After the spiritual aspirant has reached his goal of self-realization, there is only one desire left for him: to encourage others to find their own souls. Therefore, “For other thirsting souls he’ll weep, / And beg them, / ‘From the cup, drink deep!’” The God-realized soul wants only the same for others, so he implores them to drink from the cup of soul-realization, so they may attain their own bliss.

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Paramahansa Yogananda