Paramahansa Yogananda's two poems, "The Tattered Dress" and "Tattered Garment," portray the act of dying as shedding old clothing.
The Tattered Dress
Many times in his writings the great yogi/poet Paramahansa Yogananda has likened death to the act of changing clothing. The soul’s leaving the body is like the body shedding a ragged old coat and putting on a new one. The following poem from Songs of the Soul dramatizes that act of shedding old clothing for new:
The Tattered Dress
- I see Thy magic hands of death
- Snatch away in stealth
- And change the tattered dress —
- Which fondly men caress
- With blind attachment —
- Into soul-sheen habiliment:
- A newly given robe,
- That shines with th’ empyrean beauties
- Of Thy globe.
In Paramahansa Yogananda’s poem, “The Tattered Dress,” the speaker refers metaphorically to the physical body as a garment of clothing. The old worn body is like a dress that is ragged and torn; thus it is a “tattered dress.”
But the main thrust of this brief poem is the act that removes the ragged clothing and replaces it with a fine new radiant gown that reflects the beauty of the Divine’s highest elements. That act is the act of dying.
Instead of mundanely saying something like “when you die, your soul simply changes its physical body for a new astral body of light,” the speaker has created a little drama in which he watches as Spirit with “magic hands” quickly pulls the soul from its “tattered dress” and places it into a “soul-sheen habiliment” or “a newly given robe”—a new dress that reflects the lights of heaven.
In the following poem, also from Songs of the Soul, the speaker again likens the body to clothing that is simply shed at death, but this poem also reveals that the soul is like gold—a precious metal—that has been hidden by dust. The body is also referred to as “dust” in the Holy Bible.
Tattered Garment
- Sing thou no plaintive lay
- When my earthly raiment dies,
- Nor let ashes tell they tears where it lies.
- Oh, blow my tattered garment’s dust away!
- Of dust clean-washed,
- The hidden Gold beneath will show
- Itself anew, all brightly brushed,
- And shine somewhere with wisdom’s glow.
- It waits with luring luster
- For the wandering Home-lorn soul—
- To show the path, with lightning glimmer,
- From darkness to the Goal.
Again this speaker refers to the physical body as a garment of clothing. And the speaker tells his listeners not to be concerned about that old body after his soul has left it. He wants his ashes just scattered to the wind, “Oh, blow my tattered garment’s dust away!”
The Soul Does not Die
He is both comforting and instructing his devotees about the important reality: even though the body changes and dies, the soul does not change or die but goes on in splendor, and those who practice diligently the yoga techniques will be able to experience that splendor just as their guru has done.
The second stanza refers to the soul as “Gold” which is seen only after it has been “clean-washed” of the “dust” or physical body. But the speaker reminds his listeners that the soul does not simply glow just through death; the devotee must have been preparing for the ability to become soul-aware; therefore, “The hidden Gold beneath will show / Itself anew, all brightly brushed, / And shine somewhere with wisdom’s glow.”
And the final stanza further instructs the devotee that that golden soul of light will guide the “wandering Home-lorn soul,” or one who strongly craves Spirit “with lightning glimmer, / From darkness to the Goal” or the strongly striving soul will be shown the way with certainty as he makes his way through the darkness of earth to his Goal in God.
