Paramahansa Yogananda's "Pikes Peaks" dramatizes the yogi's mountain trip by car, while it metaphorically portrays the spiritual journey of the meditating devotee.
A Journey up a Mountain
Paramahansa Yogananda’s poem “Pikes Peak” from Songs of the Soul dramatizes the majesty of the mountain while inspiring awe that the true nature of the human soul can be united with the Creator of all that beauty.
The poem consists of five verse paragraphs with sporadic rime that produces a delightful and surprising effect. The poem begins, “Ne’er did I expect to roam / On wheels four / Where thousand clouds do soar.” Those individuals who have traveled by car up Pikes Peak will realize that this poem is giving them back that experience. The clouds will be part of the memory for anyone who has taken this same journey. As the speaker has exclaimed, the experiences are surprising, unexpected.
From the Physical to the Spiritual
As the speaker continues, he metaphorically likens the trip up Pikes Peak to a spiritual journey. The speaker spends the whole night at the top of Pikes Peak: “And I did swoon / To spy, by light of miser moon / The deep, deep hollow hall of space below.” Then the speaker sees the sunrise: “The moonlight dim / Did slowly, strangely change to light of dawn.”
The speaker says, “All creation rose from sleep.” He continues to offer descriptions of “all sleeping things” and their “awakening glow.” The speaker’s portrayal of the breathtakingly beautiful scenes helps the reader begin to understand the desirability of transcending the physical realm of existence. Addressing the sun, the speaker exclaims, “O Sun, redeemer of darkness! Now I know: / All things, all awakened creatures / Are looking in wonder / Not at thee but at the Unseen Wonder.”
As wonderful as the mountain beauty is and as breathtaking as the sky, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the “twinkling cities,” and “shadowy trees” are, the real wonder rests with the “Unseen Wonder,” the One who creates and sustains all of these physical wonders.
Communing with the Natural and the Supernatural
From the physical sun that renders all creatures visible and all beautiful earthly objects from trees to glowing rivers, the meditating devotee transcends into the “breathless state” where he is no longer merely observing God’s creation but is, in fact, one with the Creator, because the “roar and din of the tipsy sense” has quieted.
In the final stanza, the yogi/speaker communes with nature: “I asked the winds / Pursued the rainbow, / Begged the pure white clouds / To tell me if they saw.” Then the speaker communes with Spirit, the Creator of nature: “Him whom I’d just spied / Whose One Face to see I’d tried/ . . . And in joy I cried aloud, ‘See Him hide / Beneath the beauty tide!’”
This poem gives each reader an adventure of crawling up a mountain by car, of viewing the panorama from the mountain top, and the added bonus of being made aware of the unity between the individual soul and “Unseen Wonder.”
