The phrase "two black eyes" operates first as an image and then as a symbol of eternal, spiritual love in Paramahansa Yogananda's poems about his beloved mother.
Two Poems about Two Black Eyes
In his spiritual classic, Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda says, “I loved Mother as my dearest friend on earth. Her solacing black eyes had been my refuge in the trifling tragedies of childhood.” But at the early age of eleven years, the little boy, known then as Mukunda Lal Ghosh, lost those two black solacing eyes when his mother unexpectedly died.
He deeply loved his father, his three brothers, and four sisters, but the loss of his mother was a crushing blow; he asserts, “Years passed before any reconciliation entered my heart. Storming the very gates of heaven, my cries at last summoned the divine Mother.”
In his collection of spiritual poems, Songs of the Soul, Paramahansa Yogananda focuses on those two solacing black eyes in two poems, “Two Black Eyes” and “My Mother’s Eyes.”
“Two Black Eyes”
“Two Black Eyes” portrays a storm-tossed world that, nevertheless, offered a safe harbor of security and comfort for the speaker’s young soul: “When my brother or my teacher / Stormed at me, / In the haven of my mother’s two black eyes / I found my retreat.”
That imagistic phrase of “two black eyes” works itself into the memory of the reader, and the importance of that image for the yogi/poet is displayed repeatedly throughout his written works, especially throughout his creative writing, but also from time to time, he invokes that image in his philosophical writings.
He calls on that image in other lines, as he searches in vain to find his mother’s eyes: “I sought those lost two eyes everywhere,” “There were many black eyes / That sought to mother me”; naturally, none of those others equal “those that I loved.”
He remains constant in his search and finally wins his coveted prize: “Looking, searching for her everywhere, / I found my Divine Mother; / And in Her love / I found my mother’s love.” With that love, the beautiful and solacing truth for the seeking devotee is revealed, “I found those lost two black eyes.”
“My Mother’s Eyes”
“Two Black Eyes” consists of only 20 lines, while “My Mother’s Eyes” has 94 lines. But once a gain, the speaker dramatizes his heart’s search to find the lost black eyes that he loved so much: “Seeking and seeking my dead mother, / I found the Deathless Mother. / The lost love of my earthly mother / I found in my Cosmic Mother.”
The speaker begins with that quintessential image: “Whence came the black-eyed light, / Flickering in my life a moment?” He alludes to earlier incarnations wherein he had experienced the love that flowed from similar black-eyed mothers. The speaker roams beyond the physical plane, transcends to the cosmic level where the Divine Mother resides.
Still he recounts his earthly, physical experiences: “Many a time / By bitter speech and sadness driven, / The boat of my life found safety / In the harbor of those two eyes.” The speaker metaphorically dramatizes his life as a boat, searching for a safe harbor, and that safe harbor is found only in those two black eyes that he has lost on the earth plane.
Reaching the Safe Harbor at Last
The searching speaker finally realizes that by finding his Divine Mother, he also finds his earthly mother with the solacing black eyes: “The cloud voice of Mother divine / Burst through the firmament within.”
The speaker’s soul achieves the spiritual unity that he had always craved, and the Divine Mother explains his true situation: “Many times have I fed thee / The life-blood of My milk / From the breasts of many mothers. / Your black-eyed mother, / Whom you lost awhile, / Was none else but Me, only Me . . . . ”
In reality, he had not lost his mother, and the Divine Mother now explains all of this to the speaker/devotee. That all-important image of the two black eyes is now realized as a great symbol of love, not temporary earthly love, but eternal, spiritual love. The heart realizes it was never bereft, just merely operating under mayic delusion.
