Paramahansa Yogananda’s “When I Cast All Dreams Away” from Songs of the Soul dramatizes the incompleteness and ultimate failure of all earthly pleasures to give true joy to the soul. The first eleven lines catalogue the activities and things from which the speaker tried to wring joy. The final seven lines conclude simply that from them no true peace or happiness is to be obtained; however, they also aver that that happiness is possible.
“I sipped the sap of each sane pleasure”
The speaker reports that he has sampled all innocent or “sane pleasure[s]”; he has been enthralled by the exquisite “beauty of sextillion stars.” He has attempted to extinguish all sadness and for a time “basked in the glory blaze.”
“I quaffed the questing love of all hearts”
He has enjoyed and felt comforted by all of his friends and family who have loved him and whom he has loved. He has understood that all love is important and that all love whether it is “paternal, maternal, [or] fraternal” comes from one source; thus he metaphorically stirred these loves together as one would lemon juice, sugar, and water to make a “solacing draught.”
Continuing with the drink preparation metaphor, he asserts, “I squeezed the scriptures for drops of peace; / I wrung poems from the winepress of Nature.”
“I lifted gems from the mine of thoughts”
As his life progressed, his hunger and thirst for bliss motivated him still to continue the search for the ultimate happiness; thus, he continued his search by “lift[ing] gems from the mine of thought.” The human mind becomes greedy for a philosophy or a religion that will afford it some direction, some inspiration that promises enlightenment.
The speaker continued and “stole the sweetness from the honeycomb of innocent joys”; again, he looks for satisfaction in the simple pleasures life offers. He continued his search in activities such as reading, smiling, working, planning, and still he “throbbed” and “aspired” for that all-quenching something-else that seemed to elude him.
“But naught was sufficient”
The speaker then abruptly halts his report of his search and states directly that nothing worked. He found absolutely nothing to fill that hole in his heart, that emptiness of mind that kept him aware that he is missing something important. He realizes that he is finding “[o]nly nightmares of incompleteness.”
All of those lovely things offered by creation, the beauty of stars, the love of friends and family, the gemstones of philosophy, the poems he was able to fashion “from the winepress of Nature,” all the sweet, innocent joys amount to little; they all just “reced[ed]” as “will-o’-the-wisps of promised happiness.” They all promised happiness but then one by one failed to keep that promise. All those broken promises “[h]aunted and hastened [his] heart.”
With a heart troubled by the fantasies of happiness, the speaker finds himself at his lowest point. With his blood racing, he comes to the conclusion of his search.
“But when I cast all dreams away”
Finally, when the speaker refocuses his mind, he gazes no longer upon the ghosts and “dreams” of this material world; he places his attention on the Creator of all of the earthly gifts and realizes that it was the Creator, for whom he had long pined, not the paltry gifts that kept him busy for so long. He finally realizes where his bliss lies with “God alone!” He then discards all those dreams, all of those ghosts of unreality, “[a]nd [his] soul sang: ‘God alone!’”
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