Divaldo Franco and Rabindranath Tagore

This life is the crossing of a sea, 

where we meet in the same narrow ship. 

In death we reach the shore 

and go to different worlds. 

(R. Tagore, in Stray Birds, 1916 (4))

So I will sing and mine will be poems and songs of immortal kind. 

(R. Tagore, psychography Divaldo Franco, Pássaros Livres, 1990 (5)).

Certain things had happened to me 

when alone in my room which convinced me 

that there are spiritual intelligences 

which can warn us and advise us.  

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939).

According to A. Kardec, mediumship, as the faculty of "people who can serve as intermediaries between the spirits and men" (1), is not simply a hability to communicate and exchange information. Psychography in particular is the ability that mediums have to lend their minds so that spirits can use them for writing including for manifesting artistic content. In this process, the spirit mentally induces ideas and concepts to the medium who can then either write with his own words what he perceives or use entire semantical expressions suggested by the spirit author. In this sense, we conceive the existence of a scale of mental transparency between the medium and the spirit author so that some mediums may faithfully replicate what the author intends to write while others only poorly transmit what they mentally listen or see. The use of poetic language, however, is a good indication of an efficient "channeling" process between the discarnate and the medium because subtle elements of identification may be transmitted. Automatic writing is the name given to a very specific kind of mediumship. The term "psychography" encompass a much broader kind of writing experience than automatic writing. Therefore the preference for this term by spiritists. 

An example of such phenomenon is Divaldo P. Franco (1927-) (2) collaboration with Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). According to Divaldo, he never heard about Tagore when he was first visited by his spirit in the year 1949. The episode is described by Divaldo himself as quoted in the book Semeador das Estrelas (3)  

In the year of the first psychographic works by Marco Prisco in 1949, I was lying on the bed a certain night when I heard a music of indefinable beauty played by a kind of zither. With the sound of such mournful and plangent music, I had a beautiful vision of grassy and flowered gardens severed by a brook of clear water on which a boat was sliding. On the boat a honorable entity dressing a white robe with a dark skin showed me a face with large, black and bright eyes and a blanched beard where silver threads could be seen. - "I'm Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian poet and wanted you to write some of my thoughts", said the spirit. I woke up immediately and got some material for the psychography, entering psychic trance after a while. I could still hear the beautiful and pervasive melody while I was writing. I confess that I never heard about that name before, nor had read anything on that spirit. From that night on, for a certain period, Tagore dictated several messages that were gathered in a book only published in 1965 entitled Filigranas de luz.

The author of "Stray Birds" (4) returned to sing new birds in books like Pássaros Livres ("Free Birds", 5) and Estesia ("Aesthesia"), after the first cited work Filigranas de Luz ("Watermarks of Light") in 1965. There are no English translations for the verses or texts (prose) in these books so I decided to provide rather sketchy versions from some excerpts below.   

It has been said that Tagore works in English do not faithfully represent their original beauty in Bengali (6). The famous Irish poet W. Butler Yeats (1865-1939) said "Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English" (6 and 7). Is it then possible that, by writing through Divaldo's mind, Tagore managed to convey his thoughts better than if he had used Bengali and then an English translator? Anyway, the original language here is Portuguese and is very probable that some noise exist in the Tagore-Franco "mental link" as in the poor translation that I provide. However, we can imagine the potential use of mediumship in the future when the great discarnate artist of the past could be back to transmit new works in the medium's own language.

For that aim, they need only a faithful medium instrument.

Free Birds

My singings are songs that the heart unfasten with rapture thrill.
My songs are melodies that tenderness liberates from my soul's depths and launches toward travelling winds to reach far distances.
My sensibility is sharpen by love and I release the sweet music of hope standing on the tiny window of my pettiness.
I spread through the air the scores of a pentagram chanted by life from the bottom of my being.
By searching my King and my Lord, I modulate my word, I call, I sing and implore.
Like free birds dressed in light they fly to reach open space toward the infinite.
During either the heavy monsoons or droughts, my birds in the same way sing in freedom, enhancing the landscape with sound and beauty.
My birds are living poems of love that liberate themselves from the narrow cage of emotion where they are born to earn the vastness, like birds of happiness.
Take my songs my Lord and convert them into peace carrying birds heralding the eternal springtime for all the unfortunate ones in the world.
So I will sing and mine will be poems and songs of immortal kind.

R. Tagore (Divaldo Franco's psychography. Original in Portuguese, Pássaros Livres, in Pássaros Livres, 5)

Place of love

In everyone there is
A bare, unfathomed
Soundless, deep
Spotless hedge.

In every being there remains
A holly and ignored
Never encroached,
Enriched of tenderness,
Watchful world.

In the abyss of every soul there is
A rock,
A place, an isle,
A paradise
A corner of wonder
To be discovered.

In every heart
Dawn takes an open space,
A wide field
To be worked on,
Land of God,
Place of dream,
A haven for the future.

In every life
There is place for more lives,
As on every happiness,
A sweet gloom hovers
Presaging distress.

There is a place in me however,
In the isle of my undisclosed feelings,
An abyss of longing,
An ocean of hapiness,
A cosmos of fantasy,
To offer you
My Lord!

Come my beloved
King and Lord
Master my mistress,
Lead me on the way
Of redemption.

And take this odd and lone land,
To reign and cast your heavenly lights upon it
And happily will I move forward
Until the end of my forces
Bound to your redeeming duty.

Come my King
Into my nook
And make my life
A hymn of service
And for you an everlasting
Song of love.

R. Tagore (Divaldo Franco psychography. Original in Portuguese, Lugar de Amor, in Pássaros Livres, 5)

Birds of recollections

My recollections reach the depth that my memory allows. 

They are like migrating birds which often run away from past winter, searching for the pleasant heat of current summer and hovering on greyish landscapes so difficult to be rebuilt. 

In the time of the ever fleeting today, they become the hallmark of permanence, covering the distances created by the relentless passage of time. 

Your presence shade me either with the sadness of commited mistakes or with the lights of ennobled actions like a magic kaleidoscope of returns and evasions. 

Tears of regret run down my eyes that a hot kiss of happiness wipes out when the birds of my recollections arrive. 

Yet, your presence reaches me up as much as the cage of my memories permits, setting them free.   

R. Tagore (Divaldo Franco's psychography. Original in Portuguese, Os pássaros das recordações, in Pássaros Livres)

Far away reality

I dreamed of a dream...

Where all was cheerfull and sweet fascination

Where pain, suffering, sadness and evil were diluted

like soap bubbles in the air of a singing spring.

Cascading rivers were coloured by rays of a long lasting light

and men, in chattering groups, 

Celebrated love.

Unsuspected communion was everywhere

and the work was voluntary.

The poetry of the good declaimed touching verses

that creatures used to better understand and complete themselves.

I recalled war and hate, plagues and punishments. 

But nobody answered me, 

when I asked the happy citizens of the paradise.

Young and wise they were all at their conquered ages,

beyond conquered times...

Neither shadows nor stains could I find

and I realized that the pervading and flickering glare

was born here and there,

never extinguished in a night of lying victory.

I dreamed about a dream of a future,

when the carriage of the King of Youth and Peace

will tear a road in the infinite toward the never end.

Beloved king, whom I wish so much, I always dream of you,

However, today I dreamed about a dream...

Reality came and woke me up,

and told me a song of hope:

Love and wait!

Tomorrow you will no longer dream

because your dream will ever be.

R. Tagore (Divaldo Franco's psychography. Original in Portuguese, Realidade distante, in Estesia)

When I left

When I left wishing to earn the world but never loosing peace, you said: "Go my son, I will be with you".
I was then very young. I strived to conquer everything...
At the door of a lodge adorned with orange blossoms I asked you: "Will you write me, my mother?"
And you replied: "I will send you my news, because I will always be with you".
I took infinite routes of time and waited for your letter that never arrived.
My hands became callous.
My feet bleeded.
My body bent down with the weight of time but your words never reached me.

Pouring monsoons came dozens of times and the burning of land killed the orchad dozen occasions.

I eagerly stood before the gate of hope, waiting for your news.

Now when the snow of the years decorates my head and my sight fades away with the glazing light, I came to realize that I am the letter and message you delivered to the world, my mother, so that hope and beauty never miss in the hearts.

R. Tagore (Divaldo Franco's psychography. In Pássaros Livres)

References

(1) A. Kardec (1861) "The Medium's book", Spiritist Vocabulary. Chapter 32.

(2) http://www.divaldofranco.net/

(3) S. C. Schubert (1989). O Semeador de Estrelas, "The Sower of Stars", 4th Ed., Published by Livraria Espírita Alvorada.

(4) http://www.kkoworld.com/kitablar/Rabindranat_Taqor_Kocheri_qushlar_eng.pdf (access May 2015)

(5) D. Franco (1990). Pássaros Livres. 2nd Edition. Ed. Livraria Espírita Alvorada.

(6) See Amartya Sen opinion cited in Wikipedia: "anyone who knows Tagore's poems in their original Bengali cannot feel satisfied with any of the translations (made with or without Yeats's help). Even the translations of his prose works suffer, to some extent, from distortion." Originaly cited work: Sen, A. (1997), "Tagore and His India", The New York Review of Books.

(7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore.

What death really is (by Andrew J. Davis)

"I do not promise to believe tomorrow exactly 

what I believe today, and I do not believe today 

exactly 

what I believed yesterday. I expect to make, as I have made, 

some honest progress within every 

succeeding twenty-four hours." A. J. Davis 

Beyond the Valley (1885) p. 134.

Andrew Jackson Davis (1826 – 1910) was a prominent American medium (1), regarded as "John the Baptist" of Spiritualism. We present an interesting text (2) by him below (extracted from his book "The Temple"), a report of his sights at the instant of death of a person. Obviously, his description below is not valid for every person and all types of deaths (he explains some conditions for this death in his text).  Even so, his vision transforms death into a glorious moment in the life of those who lived well to deserve it.

Death is the word used to signify "the end of life", spoken by persons who see not that seeming death is really ‘the beginning of life,’ and the opening of the sacred volume of eternity.  But let us peer through the seeming, into that which is within the veil.

The person is now dying; and it is to be a rapid death.  Observe something about temperature.  The feet are cold; the hands hot and white; a coldness pervades the entire cuticle.  See?  What is that accumulating in the atmosphere just over the pillowed head?  It is an ethereal emanation – a golden magnetic halo – a throbbing, almost self-conscious atmosphere.

The bodily temperature is now lowering rapidly.  The coldness has extended upward from the toes to the knees, and from the fingertips to the elbows; while, in exactly the same ratio, the emanation has ascended higher over the head.  The arms are now cold to the shoulders, and legs to the hips; and the emanation, although not higher in the air, is more expanded, with a compact white center, resembling the bright nucleus of a miniature sun. This brilliant central spot, is, in very truth, the brain of the new spiritual organism now forthcoming.

The death-cold steals over the heaving breast, and around on either side the temperature is greatly diminished.  Look now! The psychic emanation contains some proportion of every principle composing the soul – motion, life sensation, ethers; essences, vital magnetism, vital electricity, instincts – and, much enlarged by accessions, it has floated up in a compact mass, and now occupies a higher altitude near the ceiling. 

Now the lungs have ceased to breathe, the pulse is still, the physical heart is motionless; while the brain cells, the corpus callosum, the medulla, and the spinal cord and ganglia, are ablaze with contractive and expansive energies, which gently pulsate and seem to direct and govern themselves by a kind of automatic self-consciousness.  See!  The negative (gray) substance of the brain is interiorly throbbing – a slow, measured, profoundly deep throb – not painful, but massive and harmonious like the deep heart-beat of the sea.

Look up! The exalted emanation, obedient to its own changeless laws, is now elongated, and has attained a position at right angles with the horizontal body below.  Behold!  See how the outline of a beautiful human form is being fashioned within that emanation.  Beneath it is still tied by a white life-cord to the medulla and the corpus callosum within the brain.

You observe that a very fine vitalic thread still connects the vortices and central fibers of the dying brain with the lower extremities of the exalted outlined human being in the atmosphere. Notwithstanding the existence of this life thread, which acts like a telegraphic conductor – conveying messages in opposite directions at the same moment – you observe that the shadowy image enveloped in a golden emanation, continues almost imperceptibly to ascend skyward.

There! What do I now see?  A symmetrically shaped human head rising above the mass – slowly, beautifully rising out of the golden cloud of substantial principles.  And now appear the outlines of a spiritual countenance – a quiet face and full of beauty, surpassing the power of words to delineate.  Look again!  behold emerging the fair neck and beautiful shoulders; and see! as we gaze, out come one after the other, in a rapid succession, as if influenced and directed by the wand of a magician, all the parts of a new body – a bright, natural looking, yet spiritual image – only a little less than the deserted physical body, a perfect re-appearance of the person in the immediate heavens, prepared to accompany the celestial group of superintending intelligences to the Summerland.

What was that?  In the twinkling of an eye the vitalic electrical telegraphic thread was snapped – the yet lingering particles and principles were suddenly attracted upward and absorbed into the spiritual body – and lo! the new organization is free of terrestrial gravitations, is instantly and absolutely independent of the weights and cares that chained it firmly imprisoned to earth.  (Those only are free at death who have lived righteously. Any enthralling passion, the least feeling of duty undischarged, of injustice committed, holds the spirit to earth, as a ship is fastened by a heavy anchor.  Only the pure are free.)

Here now behold a true, substantial, immortal, spiritual body.  It was sown in darkness and dishonor; it is raised in beauty and brightness. Behold the contrast – the vastly wide difference – between the interior and outward.  Cast your eyes around the room.  There are many friends, aged relatives, and little children, in the death chamber; they mourn, without the comfort even of blind faith; they grieve, with only the whisperings of hope to the doubting ear; they gather around the prostrate, cold body; they press together the lids of the sightless eyes; in silence and in sorrow they withdraw from the scene; and now other hands commence those final preparations with which the living consecrate the dead.

But let us open our brighter eyes – the eyes that we shall all have when clothed with the deathless garment of immortality.  See! The newly organized spiritual body – surrounded by a group of guardian angels – moves gracefully off in the direction of celestial shores.  The arisen personality follows a vibrating thread of magnetic attraction, which while the dying mutations were in process we noticed penetrating the apartment and fastening itself to the earthly brain of the resurrected.  It comes floating down from the sensorium of superior intelligences – a golden fibrillous stream of telegraphic light – sent from on high, to greet with love and guide with wisdom the newly arisen.  The thought-laden love-thread tranquilly draws the new born higher up and farther away.

Over the velvet lands and flower fields of the celestial country the bending bow of eternal promise is visible, filling with indescribable beauty the boundless ocean of world-laden skies, which cover the infinite loveliness the immeasurable zone-lands of the Hereafter.”

References

(1) http://www.andrewjacksondavis.com/
(2) http://whitecrowbooks.com/michaeltymn/entry/the_death_process_as_described_by_andrew_jackson_davis