On Savitri
THEME/S
The first edition of this book was published in 1952. In this book I have taken the opportunity of bringing under one cover the whole of epic, Savitri. Three or four topics have been added before the story of the Second part of Savitri: Yoga of Aswapathy and the Yoga of Savitri. A short story of "Overhead planes and esthetics" has also been included so that the reader may see all poetry from another view-point.
Even though readers of poetry in England have not as yet come to realise the value of Sri Aurobindo's contribution, I believe that time will come when that will happen. "Savitri" is a great epic which ushers in a new age in poetic creation. Being a masterpiece of the greatest mystic of our times it does not lend itself easily to mere intellectual understanding. Its meaning, rather its Reality, is to be felt. One has to allow the vibration of it to sink into oneself, one has to arouse in himself the power of vision and see what the master is showing.
In course of my reading "Savitri" with some friends I tried to make it better and more easily understood by acquainting them with the general idea, the symbols, the legend etc.
This book is the result of putting all that material for the general reader. It is hoped that the book will fulfil its purpose of encouraging and helping earnest students to enter into the Master's great vision.
A. B. PURANI
I
IN approaching Sāvitrī as a poem we must take note of the — possible difficulty likely to be encountered by foreigners who are not accustomed to certain ideas of Indian culture. It is natural that having a different background of culture they would find it difficult to enter into the spirit of a poem which has been called "a legend and a symbol".¹ In fact, since Dr. J. H. Cousins' book New Ways in English Literature and even before it, there had already begun to collect a considerable body of literature, including poetry, written in English by Indians. For some time it was called "Indo-English literature" but since the popularity and the great triumph of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali which earned him world-recognition, the course of English literature has been more and more influenced—especially after the two world wars—by other cultural currents, from the East and from the new world of America. Today the result is that Englishmen can no longer claim English as the exclusive language of British Islanders. In the words of an eminent Englishman, Ronald Nixon, alias, Sri Krishna Prem, "The English language has been given to the world and its usages and limits can now no longer be determined exclusively by the ears of the Islanders whose tongue it originally was. Those who would remain sole rulers of their language must abjure empire". If an integral world culture is to arise and if English is to be the medium
¹ In this connection an observation of Sri Aurobindo in his The Future Poetry, a book recently published, is interesting. He says, "The work of the poet depends not only on himself and his age, but on the mentality of the nation to which he belongs and the spiritual, intellectual, aesthetic tradition and environment which it creates for hire".
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of its expression, then it will have to widen its cultural horizon and include the currents of different cultures in the forms of its literary expression. English has already become the chief language of the commercial world and it has a great chance of becoming a world language on condition that it abjures its linguistic empire and does not want to impose its present limits to prevent its natural growth into a wider sphere.
The foregoing remarks become necessary in the present unsettled state of poetical literature in which it is very difficult to find generally acceptable standards of literary criticism. For instance, here is what Ronald Nixon says about Sāvitrī: "It is an omen of the utmost significance and hope that in these years of darkness and despair such a poem as Sāvitrī should have appeared. Let us salute the Dawn". And here is another estimate,—if it can be so called—by an American Journalist, "Sri Aurobindo is also engaged upon one of the longest and worst epic poems of all time called Sāvitrī". These two opinions indicate how very difficult is the task of evaluating so great a poem.
Sāvitrī has an Indian legendary background. But this background is merely the starring point for the poet's inspiration and the reader is not expected to know all the details of the original legend. But as some acquaintance with the legend may help the reader to enter into the spirit of the poem a short account of the legend is given here
II
ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING OF THE NAMES
The word "Savitri" is derived from the word "Savitru" which in its turn is derived from the root "su"="to give birth to". The word "Soma" which indicates an "exhilarating drink", symbolising spiritual ecstasy or delight, is also derived from the same root "su". It links therefore the creation and the delight of creation. Savitru, therefore, means the Divine Creator, One who gives birth to, or brings forth from himself into existence, the creation. In the Veda, Savita is the God of illumination, the God of creation,
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Usually, he is represented by the material sun which also illuminates the solar system and is its creator and sustainer in the material sense. Savitri therefore would mean etymologically "some one descended from the Sun", "one belonging to the Sun", "an energy derived from the Sun, the Divine Creator". In our poem, Savitri is the princess who embodies Divine Grace descended in human birth to work out with the aspiring soul of humanity his divine destiny. The word "Satyavan" means etymologically "one who possesses,—or wants to possess,—the Truth", or "one who has the Truth".
Aswapathy, the father of Savitri, has been significantly called by the poet "the Lord of Life". (Book II. Canto XV). The name suggests an affinity to Vedic symbolism. In the Veda, Aswa, the horse, is the symbol of life-energy or vital power. Aswa+ paty, Lord, would mean the "Lord of Life". In the poem King Aswapathy is the symbol of the aspiring soul of man as manifested in life on earth.
III
THE LEGEND
The story woven in this epic is based upon the Mahabharata (Aranyak Parva, Ch. 248). This is the story. Aswapathy, the king of Madra, was childless. In order to have a child he resorted to austerities and a life of celibacy, fasting every sixth day. Simultaneously he performed a hundred thousand sacrifices. After a period of these austerities lasting eighteen years, the goddess Savitri, was propitiated and appeared before him out of the sacrificial fire. She declared herself pleased and said that his desire for having an issue would be satisfied by Brahma, the God of Creation. From her own self, as her prasād, her special grace, she bestowed upon him a daughter. In consequence of the boon, a daughter was born to him and as she was a gift of the goddess Savitri, Aswapathy gave her the name of "Savitri". She was beautiful like Laxmi, the Goddess of Beauty and of golden colour, more like a daughter of a god than of man. In course of time, she grew to age and the parents
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found it dufficult to get her married because no prince came forward to ask for her hand as her personality was known to be too strong and brilliant. Aswapathy was pained at this and he asked her to go round the country and choose her own partner. He sent her out to travel with an old minister as an escort. After travelling over the country for more than two years when she returned to her father's place, the great seer, Narad, happened to be there. She disclosed her choice of Satyavan, son of king Dyumatsen who was living in a hermitage in the forest. Dyumatsen was living in exile because his enemies had taken advantage of his blindness and driven him out of his kingdom. The young prince Satyavan was brave, intelligent, generous, forgiving. The parents therefore approved of her choice. But Narad disapproved of the choice because he knew that Satyavan was fated to die after one year. In the face of this reading of the future Savitri persisted in and clung to her choice, saying that one makes the choice once only. The parents consented to her choice and she was accordingly married to Satyavan. Immediately after marriage she betook to the simple and hard life of the hermitage where Satyavan lived. Even though she was extremely happy to have married Satyavan, the man of her choice, she could not for a moment forget the dire prophecy of the great sage, Narad. She was preparing herself for the great crisis and for the last three days of the year she resorted to complete fast, standing at one place all the time.
On the fateful morning, Satyavan wanted to go to the forest in order to bring fuel for the sacrificial fire, Savitri insisted on accompanying him to the forest, as she did not want to undertake the risk of letting him go alone to face his death. Satyavan's parents were obliged to consent to her going by her entreaties. The excuse she had given for accompanying Satyavan was that she wanted to see the forest. In fact, she was so occupied with the idea of Satyavan's fate that while going with him she hardly looked at the forest. They reached a certain place well known to Satyavan and stopped there to cut wood. After cutting some wood, Satyavan complained of a severe pain in the head and Savitri offered her lap for him to rest his head. After a short time, Satyavan fell asleep, and Savitri saw the God of Death standing before her. He declared that he had come to take the life of Satyavan and accordingly took it. Savitri
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followed the spirit of Satyavan separated from his physical body and captured in the noose of the God of Death. She conversed with Yama, the God of Death, while following him, and her conversation so pleased him that he granted her several boons, the last of which was the restoration of the life of Satyavan. Thus Savitri triumphed over Death as well as Fate and returned to her hermitage.
In the Mahabharata legend, Satyavan afterward recovers his father's kingdom and rules happily over it.
This legend has been kept almost intact in its story-part by the poet. But the legend itself can be interpreted as a symbol and the poet has not only interpreted it but, in fact, has transformed it into a living symbol. There are, for instance, portions like the first Canto of the first Book and Canto III, IV and V of the same Book which contain the poet's own experience of the origin of the world -and his conception of Aswapathy's character. The life of the childless king Aswapathy performing tapasyā in order to have a child has been entirely changed by the poet into a symbol of human soul descended on earth from divine heights trying to acquire knowledge of the Self and the world. The entire second Book is, in fact, Aswapathy' s travel over worlds heaped upon worlds in a complex cosmogony mounting from the plinth of the plane of Matter right up to levels of Higher Mind and the plane of the Cosmic Being leading to worlds of greater knowledge. Aswapathy represents the aspiring human soul down the millenniums of evolution in his search for the truth of himself, of the world and of God. He acquires by his tapasyā immense knowledge of the possibilities of the human consciousness, its deeper depths and its higher and the highest heights. In his heart bums the flame of aspiration to create here on earth an image of the perfection which his soul feels is possible for man and earth to attain. The third Book describes Aswapathy's entry into and his experience of Supracosmic planes of consciousness and his meeting face to face with the Supreme Creatrix, the power of the omnipotent Divine. At the end of his spiritual efforts he thus enters not a featureless Infinite and a void Absolute but a divine world of die Spirit—what the poet calls the House of the Spirit—where Truth and Knowledge, Power and Consciousness, divine Delight and Harmony are the constituent
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elements. And he feels the possibility of bringing this Truth- world into the earth so that a new creation, the kingdom of the Divine, would be manifested here. He receives from this Divine Power the direct inspiration to continue his spiritual efforts and struggles for bringing the Truth-world in the midst of human ignorance and against the opposition of the Powers of Darkness, suffering, inertia and Death. She holds out the promise to Aswapathy of the ultimate victory of the Divine in spite of all difficulties and oppositions. But Aswapathy feels that his mere human spirit would find the task very hard and unless the Divine Mother herself comes down on earth, or sends her representative emanation on earth in a human form, it would be impossible to create the world of Truth here, life divine in the midst of life human. The supreme Mother in her infinite grace gives Aswapathy a boon that a human manifestation of her Grace would be born on earth. "A new light shall break upon the earth, a new world shall be born, things that were promised shall be fulfilled." (The Mother.)
Thus, Savitri was born in answer to Aswapathy's intense aspiration for the Divine's help in creating divine perfection here. How far this is from the childless king of the legend performing austerities and sacrifices for a child! ! The whole period of Aswapathy's austerities as reported in the legend has been transformed by the poet into an epic climb of human soul in its journey from the Inconscient to the very gates of the Superconscient and the whole symbol becomes full of a tremendous cosmic significance. Aswapathy's penances are here the trials and tribulations of the evolving Soul of Humanity and his gains are the gains of the human race during its long struggles for attainment of the Truth.
Savitri also ceases to be a mere accomplished princess and becomes the manifestation of the Grace of the Supreme coming down to humanity to share in its burden of suffering and ignorance in order to enable it to achieve the victory over forces of Darkness and Death. Savitri achieved this by facing Yama, the God of Death, at the time when he came to take the life of Satyavan. It is by the extension of her protection, of her own Infinity and Immortality, that she saved Satyavan from the God of Death. The rest of the story,—her growth from childhood to age, her going out to choose the partner for life, her selection of Satyavan in the
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hermitage, her return to her parents and meeting the sage, Narad,— has been kept intact by the poet with the difference that Savitri, throughout, is treated as one conscious of her Divinity and at the same time conscious of her humanity. The episode of Narad's declaration of fate has been raised to a very high pitch of spirituality wherein cosmic purposes and intentions, the destiny of the human being, are brought into play. The delineation of Savitri 's character in Books IV, V, and VI maintains the dignity of the boon of the Supreme Mother given to Aswapaty in Book I Canto IV. In the original legend, as also in the symbol, Savitri faces Yama, the God of Death. But in the legend the conversation which takes place between Savitri and Yama is rather conventional and is only religio-ethical in its manner; where as here, in this epic, Savitri clearly stands not merely as the representative of the race but also as the embodiment of the supreme Grace. Yama, on the other side, puts before her all the opposition that the subtlety, ingenuity and cunning that Ignorance can devise. The whole dialogue moves on a very high plane of inspiration in which brilliant flashes of revelation and overmental lightning occasionally break forth. Here also one sees how far the poet has enriched the original legend,—how far, in fact, he has heightened the Indian myth by turning it into a rich episode full of significance for the human soul and its destiny. He has turned a local legend into a tremendous psychological fact full of significance for the human evolution. It is this transforming power which is the alchemy of the great Master. The originality of the poet scintillates when he deals with the life of Savitri and Satyavan after the conquest, of Death. In the legend, they return to the earth and Satyavan regains his father's kingdom and rules it for many years and is happy ever after. But, in the poet's symbol both Savitri and Satyavan rise from the kingdom of Death to the region of Eternal Day where the Sun of Troth never sets, where Ignorance is unknown and Death has no place. After staying in this region of Truth for some time, they look upon the earth and return to it in order to accomplish their Divine Work—the creation of a new humanity. Thus the legend is completely transformed by the creative vision of the great Master into a cosmic symbol.
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IV
TIME-SEQUENCE IN THE EPIC
Some readers have found it difficult to follow the time-sequence in the arrangement of Books and Cantos of Savitri, Really speaking, there is no discrepancy in the time-sequence because the story in the symbol follows the same course as the story in the legend. Only, the poet of the epic has made a rearrangement of the subject matter in his presentation. The poem has definitely gained in its power of gripping the attention of the reader. The poem opens with the Symbol-Dawn that simultaneously ushers in the outbreak of the Spirit in Matter as that of the Sun from the dark Night. We see here Savitri face to face with the crucial problem of her life, the death of Satyavan. We see her face to face with Earth, Love and Doom, with universal pain in her heart gathering her calm and supreme strength to meet the forces of Nescience concentrated in the God of Death. The second Canto gives us a picture of Savitri 's own inner workings before she faces the supreme test of her human life. The remaining Cantos of the first Book (HI, IV and V), take us back to Aswapathy before the birth of Savitri. After the first two Cantos the poet goes back upon the story to connect it up with the central incident by creating the vast background of Aswapathy's inner life, its struggles, its achievements and the circumstances under which the birth of Savitri becomes possible. The results of his individual sadhana lead him to the knowledge of the planes of being, the levels of consciousness, below and above the human range. Having completed his ascension almost to the top of the created cosmos, he is led to supra-cosmic planes and worlds whence he descends back to the earth with a command to pursue his labour for the spiritual perfection of mankind and a promise of help of the supreme Grace that would ultimately solve the problem of man and achieve the victory for the Divine. This cosmic and supra-cosmic voyage occupies Books II and III.
Book IV brings us to the birth of Savitri, her growth and her going out to choose the partner of her life. Book V, the Book of Love, deals with her meeting Satyavan, their falling in love with each other, and her promise to return to him after once going
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back to her father. Book VI, the Book of Fate, describes the meeting between Savitri, her parents and Narad when Satyavan's fate and Savitri 's choice are affirmed. Savitri returns to Satyavan and the story goes up to their marriage, one year's married life and the death of Satyavan.
So, when Book VII, the Book of Eternal Night, opens, the day that dawns in the first Canto of the first Book has arrived and we have to resume the thread of the story from the seventh Book onward as if it were passing in consciousness, and not on earth. For, when Yama, the God of Death, has taken Satyavan, Time has already ceased to be. Again, when Savitri and Satyavan, free from Death, rise to the Higher Consciousness, it is also the realm of the Eternal Day where human time does not exist. So, when they both return to the earth to begin their Divine Work, the day that dawned in the first Canto of the first Book has hardly ended. Perhaps they resume their work even on earth in the presence of the Eternal Day. So far as the time-sequence of the story is concerned, it is perfectly understandable.
V
SYMBOLS
"All language is symbolic"
LASCEILES ABERCROMBIE.
As Sāvitrī is a symbol it might be helpful to understand the place of symbols in life and in literature. One has only to turn to the most ancient scriptures of the world like the Veda and the Bible to find that symbols have been used profusely by men from the earliest times to convey their meaning. To men in those times everything seemed symbolic. Mr. H. W. Garrod is right when he says, "Once upon a time the world was fresh, to speak was to be a poet, to name objects an inspiration; and metaphor dropped from the inventive mouths like some natural exudation of the vivified senses". Before man began to think he perceived with his soul.
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The first naming of objects was certainly an act of inspiration or intuitive perception, for, there is no logical reason for names given to objects in languages, e.g., the sound "Cow" has nothing inherent in it, nothing rational in it, to indicate the quadruped known by that name. Even when he developed the intellect, symbols seem to have occurred to man in the form of metaphors. Metaphor does not rise in the mind as a result of rational thinking but wells up in the consciousness as an intuitive flash. Natural objects, like the sun, the moon, the sky, rivers, phenomena like the dawn were perhaps the first, to be intuitively perceived as symbols. The sun and the light were symbols of knowledge, night and darkness of ignorance. The ocean and the sky symbolise wideness and infinity in all literatures of the world. Birds like the eagle, the swan and the dove, animals like the lion and the ass, flowers like the lotus and the rose have been used as symbols. Even signs like the cross and the swastik have been symbols. Apart from symbols that can be called universal there are others valid for the individual as also there are symbols created or rather constructed by the intellect of man. We find these most profusely in mathematics where they are very useful for the sake of their brevity, economy and power of generalisation. Besides these, man uses symbols in religious ceremonies, in mystic rites, even in expressing his political ideology, party emblems and national spirit. In Hebrew each letter of the alphabet is a symbol.
In poetry symbols come naturally as very effective means for expressing the poet's experience, besides being economical. According to C. Day Lewis, the special faculty of the poet is the "power of creating images". These "images" that a poet creates are a kind of sign-language which forces itself on him under the stress of the creative impulse or in the moments of intensity of his creative faculty. The "image" created by the poet is effective and therefore authentic in proportion as it conveys the experience or the state of his consciousness, without diminution or distortion. When the image is authentic it is a symbol, that is to say, it does not merely represent the experience but conveys the experience and is the most effective expression of it in language. Sri Aurobindo calls this "the finding of the inevitable word" and "inspired phrase". AE in the Candle of Vision speaks of his experience of visions and rightly calls in
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question all the modem theories of psychology that try to explain them or rather explain them away on a materialistic basis. AE finds that the visions he saw had the character of self-existent forms made available to his inner-subtle sight under certain inner conditions.
Sri Aurobindo is even more definite about this matter. He says, "Vision is the characteristic power of the poet, as is discriminative thought the essential gift of the philosopher and analytic observation the natural gift of the scientist".
It is the faculty of vision, the power of seeing the truth of one's experience or even some supra-intellectual Truth embodied as a symbol that gives the poet his special expressive power. It is true that a poet can create, or rather construct with the help of his imagination, an intellectual symbol which conveys his import to other people by a figure of symbol which represents rather than is the experience. Kalidas can use the "Cloud" as a "messenger" and Shelley convey the poet's Truth through the "Skylark".
The question how these symbols arise has been a great puzzle to poets, critics and even psychologists. The explanation of the creative activity of the poet offered by the psychologists by referring it to the "subconscious" and the "collective inconscient" is most unconvincing and at best partial. Day Lewis in his Poetic Image states that the process of creation of a poem is more or less a mystery. The difficulty in tracing the origin of a poem arises from the fact that the consciousness of the poet as of all men is complex and there are therefore several planes of consciousness as possible sources of poetry in him. The poetical symbols are also of various kinds and can be seen on various planes of being. All symbols are true—i.e. effective—as far as they go. The higher the plane from which a symbol is seen the greater is the authenticity it carries. Sri Aurobindo in reply to a correspondent writes about symbols as follows: "Symbols may be of various kinds, there are those that are concealing images capable of intellectual interpretation but still different from either symbolic or allegorical figures". Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory. Arthurian legends may be the type of concealing images capable of intellectual interpretation. Prometheus Unbound of Shelley can be taken as a symbolic figure.
With regard to the function of the symbol in expression Sri Aurobindo says in another letter: "A symbol expresses not the play
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of abstract things or ideas put into imaged form but a living Truth or inward vision or experience of things, so inward, so subtle, so little belonging to the domain of intellectual abstraction, and precision that it cannot be brought out except through symbolic images—the more these images have a living truth of their own which corresponds intimately to the living truth they symbolise, suggests the very vibration of the experience itself, the greater becomes the art of the symbolic expression. When the symbol is a representative sign or figure and nothing more, then the symbolic approaches nearer to an intellectual method, though even then it is not the same thing as an allegory."
It has been sometimes assumed that the symbol is a more appropriate form for poets of early times and that it is not in keeping with the modernist spirit. This belief goes against facts, for, even a bird's eye-view of English poetry reveals that not only poets like Blake and others in the past have resorted to the symbol but that many of the modem poets have used it effectively. Francis Thom- son's The Hound of Heaven is symbolic of the Divine Love pursuing insistently its victim, the human soul. W. B. Yeats and AE in their poems and dramas make profuse use of ancient Irish legends which are symbolic: Deirdre, Countess Catheleen, Unicorn from the Stars, Cuchulain. C. Day Lewis' Magnetic Mountain and Herbert Reads' Mutations of the Phoenix are avowedly symbolic. The 'Phoenix' stands for the finite mind of man which moves in its nest of light towards the Infinite.
Before he wrote the great symbol-epic Sāvitrī Sri Aurobindo had written many shorter, poems in which he has used symbols with marvellous success. His poems The Bird of Fire, The Rose of God, and Thought, the Paraclete are only a few of the shorter poems and Ahanā is a longish poem in which his remarkable power of creating, or rather seeing, symbols has already found expression.
VI
Sāvitrī is symbolic and the poetic genius of Sri Aurobindo has been saturated not only with English, Greek and Latin poetry but it has dived deep into the earliest poetry of humanity, the Rig
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Veda. How the Veda is living poetry and how Sri Aurobindo makes it live again in his translations of the hymns of the Veda is well known to those who have seen his epoch-making researches in the realm of Vedic interpretation embodied in his published book Hymns to the Mystic Fire and the still unpublished work Secret of the Veda. His thesis is that the Rig Veda is symbolic poetry embodying the spiritual wisdom of the early mystics. He himself has been a mystic all along his life and because of his affinity with the spirit of mystic expression it is natural that in Sāvitrī there are passages and lines which echo in their proper setting some of the poetic forms of the Vedic symbolists. A list is given below on some analogies which is by no means exhaustive.
( i )
"The brief perpetual sign recurred above.
A glamour from the unreached transcendences
Iridescent with the glory of the Unseen,
A message from the unknown immortal Light
Ablaze upon creation's quivering edge,
Dawn built her aura of magnificent hues
And buried the seed of grandeur in the hours."
Sāvitrī, Book I, Canto I.
( 1)
Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone who was dead....
(a) projecting forward her illumination, she enters into communion with rest that are to come.
Rig Veda, I. 113, 8, 10.
(b) Lo, Dawn, queen of the plenitudes,...she has created her host of ruddy cows.
Rig Veda, I. 124. II.
(c) "Lo! in front of us that Supreme Light full of the knowledge has arisen out of the darkness; daughters of heaven shining wide
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the Dawns, stand in front of us like pillars in the sacrifices; breaking out pure and purifying they have opened the doors of the pen, the darkness".
Rig Veda, IV, 51. 1—2.
(2)
"And the Animal browses in the sacred fence
And the gold Hawk can cross the skies no more."
Sāvitrī, Book I, Canto 2.
(a) He moves like a beast that wanders at will and has no keeper.
Rig Veda, IX. 96-19.
(b) Like a Hawk, a kite. He settles on the vessel and upbears it.
Rig Veda, II. 4-7.
(3)
"A spirit that is a flame of God abides.....
Immortal in our mortal poverty." .
Sāvitrī, Book I, Canto 3.
That which is Immortal in mortals and possessed of the Truth, is a God and established inwardly as an energy working out in our Divine Powers.
Rig Veda, IV. 2.-I.
(4)
"A seer was born; a shining Guest of Time"
Sāvitrī, Book 1, Canto 3.
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(a) The guest of all the human beings, may the Fire draw to us the protection of the Gods.
Rig Veda, IV. 1-20.
(b) The purifier he is rubbed bright and pure and our benignant guest.
Rig Veda, VI. 8.
(c) He is wide in his light like a seer of the day;...he is the immortal in mortals; he is the waker in the dawn, our guest,...
Rig Veda, VI. 4-2.
(5)
"All the grey inhibitions were torn off,
And broken the intellect's hard and lustrous lid;"
The face of Truth is hidden by a golden lid: that remove O! fostering Sun, for the Law of the truth, for sight.
Iśa Upanisad, 15.
s mortals add possessed of the Truth, ardiy as an energy working out in our
(6)
"Where the God-child lies in the lap of Night and Dawn"
(a) A son of two mothers...
Rig Veda, III. 55-7.
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(b) Two are joined together, powers of truth, powers of Maya, —they have built the child and given him birth and they nourish his growth.
Rig Veda, X. 5-3.
(c) "Two mothers of differing hues move and nourish alternately the child for common good."
Rig Veda, I. 95-1.
(7)
"A darkness carrying morning in its breast
Looked for the eternal wide returning gleam,
the advent of a larger ray
And rescue of the lost herds of the Sun.
There is a permanent, a truth hidden by a truth where the Sun nyokes his horses.
Rig Veda, V. 62-1.
(8)
(a) "In the deep subconścient glowed her jewel-lamp;
Where, by the miser traffickers of sense unused"
(b) "The trogdolytes of the subconscious Mind,
Ill-trained slow stammering interpreters,
Only of their small task's routine aware,
And busy with the record in our cells,
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 5.
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(a) They who are conscious of the much falsehood in the world...
Rig Veda, VII. 60-5
(b) Panis who make the knot of the crookedness, who have not the will to works, spoilers of speech who have no faith—He has broken down by his blows the walls that limit.
Rig Veda, VII. 6-3.
(9)
"An eye awake in the voiceless heights of trance".
That is the highest place which is seen ever by the seers like an eye extended in heaven.
Rig Veda, I. 22-20.
(10)
"Matter smitten by matter glimmered to sense".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 4.
By the truth they hold the truth that holds all.
Rig Veda, V. 12-2
(Here there is similarity of the way of expression, not of substance).
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(11)
"The dragon of the dark foundations keeps
Unalterable law of Chance and Death"
Sāvitrī, Book III, Canto 4.
"Who are they that protect the foundation of falsehood? Who are guardians of the unreal word"?
Rig Veda, V. 12. 2-4.
(12)
(a) "Its gold-homed herds trooped into earth's cave-heart."
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 10.
(b) "And rescue of the lost herds of the Sun."
(1) The hill parted asunder.
Rig Veda, V.
(2) "He found them. Radiant-ones of the arriving dawn went abroad, he uncovered those that were in the pen."
Rig Veda, V. 45.1-2.
(3) "When thou didst tear the waters out of the hill, Sarama became manifest before thee; so do thou as our leader tear out much wealth for us, breaking the pens, hymned by the Angirasa".
Rig Veda, IV. 16-8.
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(13)
"The python-coils of restricting Law
Could not restrain the swift arisen God".
Sāvitrī, Book I, Canto 5.
The "python-coils" reminds us of Ahi-Vritra of the Rig Veda where it is symbolic of the coils of Ignorance enveloping the human being restricting his freedom and knowledge.
Rig Veda.
(14)
"The divine-Dwarf towered to unconquered worlds".
The "Dwarf" here brings to our mind the Vamana—"The divine Dwarf", an incarnation of Vishnu who measured the three worlds—the material, the vital and the mental—in his three steps. In die Rig Veda there is a symbolic reference to this which is enlarged as usual, in the Puranas.
Rig Veda, I. 22. 17-18.
(15)
"Their love, their anger, their unspoken hopes
Entered in currents or in pouring waves
Into the immobile ocean of his calm."
Compare, Gita: "As the waters enter the ocean, filling it but with its base unshaking, even so do desires enter into him,—he the sage attains peace, not the one who entertains desires."
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(16)
"In darkness' core she dug out well? of light"
"In the hill there are dug out the abounding wells of sweetness''
Rig Veda, IV. 50-3.
(17)
"She broke in with inspired speech for scythe
And plundered the Unknowable's vast estate."
This recalls the vedic image of Brihaspati and Angirasa breaking open the hill of the Panis by the inspired word.
(a) "Their cry heated all the earth and heaven".
Rig Veda, III. 36-10.
(b) "Severing the hill of heaven by die words"
Rig Veda, V. 45-1.
(c) "Let the word come forward from the seat of the Truth".
Rig Veda, VII. 36-1.
(18)
"Pursuing all knowledge like a questing hound."
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"When Sarama found the broken places of the hill,
She made continuous the great and supreme goal
She, the fair-footed, led him to the front of the imperishable ones"
Rig Veda, III. 31-6.
( l9)
(a) For Vrishabha, The Bull, roaring aloud:
* * *
USHA IN THE RIG VEDA
(b) This is the awakening of the Light of consciousness from the mass of darkness of the Night of the Inconscient. In Man's life Usha is his awakening to the need of spiritual life from his state of normal human Ignorance.
"Usha is the divine illumination. The result of the birth of divine vision is that man's path manifests itself to him and those journeyings of the gods or to the gods which lead to the infinite wideness of the divine existence".
"The eye of Dawn has come into being in front. The path of man is that of his journey to the Supreme plane. There is a divine law of the life into which soul has to grow".
The Dawn leads to the "level wideness" Samāne ūrvé. This is the vast Truth and the infinite being of Aditi.
The error, the crookedness, falsehood by which men violate the workings of the Gods and by which different principles of their being, consciousness and knowledge enter into confused conflict with each other, have been removed by the eye or vision of the divine Dawn".
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ONCE speaking at the Lingaraj College, Belgaum, on Sri Aurobindo's personality I said that looking round for a personality of the past with whom Sri Aurobindo can be compared in the wideness and the versatility of his genius, in the grandeur of revelation, in a superhuman atmosphere of sympathy for humanity which pervades his temperament and works, in high poetic achievement, in complexity and subtlety of intellect, in a rare synthesising and integrating power, in a total view of human perfection individual and collective, I could not find anybody except perhaps Veda-Vyas, the great seer-poet of India. But, Veda-Vyas has been regarded as a mythical figure by European scholars, for they could not believe that one single person could have written all the various works ascribed to him. They admit he must have written some works, but believe that subsequent generations have gone on adding to his works in order to borrow the halo of his genius and authority. But, if ever I believe now in the existence of Veda-Vyas as one single personality responsible for all the works ascribed to him, it is because I know Sri Aurobindo today. It is not easily possible to believe that one and the same person could have written not only the greatest masterpiece of philosophy of the time but also indicated solutions for social problems and international politics, laid down new lines of poetical criticism and written not only short poems of striking merit both from the point of view of poetical substance and form—some of them ranking equal to the highest lyrical expression in the English language—but also a great epic poem of humanity.
This is an age of what is called "modernist" poetry and even the possibility of an epic being written in modern times is strongly discounted. It is supposed that the epic requires a certain primitive atmosphere for its birth and growth, and as modem times are
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anything but primitive it is impossible for an epic to be written now. Even though in some of their latest tendencies in painting, sculpture and poetry the modernists are trying hard to reproduce, or create according to primitivism with a vengeance, still, this being a critical age in which reason dominates and materialism is a living force, it is considered a practical impossibility to attempt a great epic and succeed. But we should be prepared for agreeable surprises from the creative spirit which can burst forth at the most unexpected moments in human history, for, the breath of the Lord bloweth where it listeth.
The conclusion about the impossibility of writing an epic in modem times rests mainly upon the examination of the trend of poetical spirit by European critics. They have taken for granted the cultural domination of the world by Europe as they took its economic and political domination. But culture is something much deeper than economics and politics. There are historical instances where a declining culture, politically dominated by another nation, has revived with a remarkable power of creativity. Very often the literary impact of an alien culture stimulates, invigorates and resuscitates the dormant creative possibilities of the subject race. This seems to have happened in the case of modem India. It is true that the various literatures of regional Indian languages were stagnant on account of the decline of national life, and all of them received a powerful impetus by the impact of European culture, especially as represented by the English language. Novel, drama, poetry, criticism, history, research along all the lines of literary effort have received an unprecedented inspiration as a means for the expression of national genius. A remarkable degree of literary progress has been achieved in every Indian language. But apart from these regional languages, English was adopted all over the vast continent not only as a medium of instruction but also as a vehicle of literary expression by its most advanced writers and thinkers. This gave rise to what has been termed Indo-English literature, and has led to a curious literary phenomenon which is a very hopeful prelude to the cultural unification of mankind.
While the creative spirit of European nations is showing distinct signs of exhaustion and even some tendencies of decline, the resurgent spirit of India with all its rich spiritual heritage and possibilities
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is finding expression in the English language. The first sign of this remarkable achievement in poetic creation was given by the success of Tagore's "Gitanjali". It showed that the expression of the Indian Spirit even in a remarkably Indian manner, can find a high place in the cultural achievement of the human spirit. In fact, that which finds expression in Tagore is something of the fundamental spiritual elements and forms of Indian culture, not its widest sweep and utter depth. National resurgence after a period of political and social decline stirs the soul of the race to its very depths in the process of its re-awakening, throwing up all the elements of the culture with their characteristics into a ferment. Those elements that are found capable of survival, utility and vitality are retained, while those that have outlived their utility are rejected and dissolved. The basis of Indian culture goes back to the living spiritual experience embodied in the Vedas and Upanishads, the Gita, the Tantras and the Vedanta. Apart from the wide diffusion of spirituality in the consciousness of the masses, a traditional continuity of the practical process of self-realisation runs through- out the period of Indian history including the period of her decline. The names of Kabir, Nanak, Ramanand, Tuisi, Dadu, Chaitanya and others easily come to the mind while tracing the continuity to the very dawn of the Indian renaissance, which can be said to begin with the appearance of the colossal figure of Ramkrishna Paramhansa.
The fundamentally spirituo-religious character of the first forms which this movement of awakening took shows that it was not merely in isolated individuals that the Indian spiritual tradition persisted but that it had entered into the conscious life-forms, religious, social and even the sub-conscious of the whole race. The Brahmo Samaj, the Prarthana Samaj, the Arya Samaj are some of its well-known expressions. The national awakening and the struggle for political freedom gave inspiration to many writers and poets who boldly experimented with new forms of literary expression.
Poets are not lacking who tried to invent new forms suitable to the expression of the rising spirit of the nation and in almost every Indian regional language all the forms of European poetical expression have been accepted and experimented upon. Blank
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verse, prose poetry,—all have been tried, some of them with remarkable success. They all contributed to the awakening of the new spirit of literary expression, though it must be acknowledged that a conscious search for an epic form did not meet with success. Usually it ended with a discovery of a new metre, or of new combinations of old metres or a novel use of an old metre by introducing into it new laws of rhythm so as to yield some form very near to the blank verse of English language. But a search for a mere new poetic form for an epic was perhaps bound to fail because though form is important, and very important, in literary expression, yet it is the spirit which the form embodies that really gives life to the form.
It augurs well for the cultural unification of mankind that India has begun to pay back the great cultural debt it owes to Europe by her new creations in the English language. It was therefore a phenomenon of very great significance when Sri Aurobindo turned his remarkable poetical capacity to the creation of an epic in English to embody his grand vision of the Spirit. It is well-known that Sri Aurobindo had devoted himself to the pursuit of spirituality which is the foundation of the Indian culture. He is not merely a revivalist, his spirituality is not of the type of a traditional repetition, it is a resurgence, a reorientation, which carries the tradition many steps forward by his spiritual discovery of the Supermind. In him the Indian spirit finds its greatest exponent. The Divine, the sense of that living Reality, the need of bringing the influence and the presence of the Divine in all human activities and the consequent transformation of human nature and life into an expression of the Divine,—these are some of the fundamental concepts of his great vision of man's future. In the words of K. D. Sethna "Philosophical statement lending logical plausibility to facts of the Spirit is necessary in a time like ours when the intellect is acutely in the forefront and Sri Aurobindo has answered the need by writing that expository masterpiece, 'The Life Divine'.... To create a poetic mould equally massive and multiform as the 'Life Divine' for transmitting the living Reality to the furthest bound of speech —such a task is incumbent on one who stands as a maker of a new spiritual epoch". Sāvitrī fulfils that task.
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Epic as a form of literary expression has not been static and conventional but has been continually developing, both with regard to the subject matter, manner and form. This can be seen from the remark of a critic who says: "Homer fixes the type and way and artistic purpose; Virgil perfects the type; Milton perfects the pur- pose". Whether one agrees with this opinion or not, it is clear that the epic has not been a stereotyped form of literary expression throughout history. It has not been a form constantly present, it has been recurrent. Looking at the whole field of epic poetry, one may divide it into two main classes: the authentic epic, generally intended for recitation, and the literary epic mainly intended for reading. The first type has a simple concrete subject and a sustained grandeur and splendour. Generally it concerns a great story which has been absorbed into the prevailing consciousness of the people. The story is supposed to have taken place in what has been termed the 'heroic age' in which hot racial elements and nascent cultural trends are brought out boldly and simply. While in the 'Iliad', Odyssey and in the Niebelungenlied, the subject matter concerns a great fight which has stamped itself indelibly on the memory of the race, in Dante's Divine Comedy there is no story at all in that sense. With regard to this difference, a great critic says, "It is not necessary for the story to be a historical fact. Only it must have poetic reality". The authentic epic tells the story greatly, that is, in a high manner. This consists in endowing life with a significance. One of its purposes can be said to be to create values in life. Life by itself seems to have no significance, it is valueless. When there is this sense of utter want of significance of life, a sense of its ultimate uselessness, "a blankness of unperturbable darkness", then, says a critic, "the word 'hell' is not too strong to express it". In the authentic epic wherein courage in the face of danger, heroism in fighting for a cause is portrayed the significance of life is brought out, its value found. This bringing out of the purpose in the epic may not be intellectually precise, but it is deeply felt. Let us observe in passing also, that courage or heroism are not the only values of life, and that love, sacrifice, attainment of perfection and other ideals can rank even higher.
Another critic of the epic says, "epic-purpose will have to abandon the necessity of telling a story". We have already observed
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that the Divine Comedy has neither a mythological nor a historical story. It is in fact allegorical. Dante himself distinguishes between two senses in a poem,—a literal and an allegorical sense. The literal sense of the Divine Comedy is the fortunes of a certain soul after death. Its allegorical sense is the destiny of man and the idea of perfect justice". Dante has made a reliable symbol out of his own experience. In Milton's Paradise Lost the pure story element is absent. "Milton from the knowledge of himself created Satan and Christ"—says Lascelles Abercrombie. His angels are not like Homer's Gods. To Homer the Gods are close and real, whereas Milton's angels are far and seem abstract. Milton's story deals with the mystery of the individual will in eternal opposition to the Divine will. Satan, the creator of all evil on earth is conscious —very acutely conscious, of his limitations and also of the Divine Power that contains and drives him. It seems almost certain that after Milton an epic dealing entirely with an objective story is not possible, for, the rationalism with which the modem age began has been pushing man more and more towards a greater and greater subjective trend.
Sometimes it is said that "man and man's purpose in the world" is the theme for all epics. This may be accepted if a progressive evolution of man and of his purpose also is admitted. Man has been trying to discover, or "uncover" his Self—and in this great discovery he is bound to discover also this purpose as an individual and as a collectivity.
Efforts at writing an epic in European languages after Milton have, so far, not been successful. The feeling among the critics is that epic-manner and epic-content are trying for a divorce at present. The last effort, on a sufficiently large scale on the continent, was Goethe's Faust which, however, falls far short of the epic height and grandeur. Efforts in the English language were more or less of the nature of exercises and experiments lacking vitality and inspiration, and have therefore not attained success. Shelley's Revolt of Islam, Keats' incomplete Hyperion have something of the epic accent, but they do not go far enough. Hugo's La Légende des Siècles or Browning's The Ring and the Book, Hardy's Dynasts—all seem to have some element which can be called epic in the sense of a developing significance of life which they see, but they fail to achieve
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the largeness, the grandeur and the sustained height and an integration which can give the sense of unity. We have already referred to a feeling among critics that the authentic epic as a literary form is doomed. Guesses have been hazarded as to the possible future of the epic content and of the epic form. The question has been debated whether it is possible to combine the epic and the dramatic forms with success. Some have thought of a connected sequence of separate poems like Hugo's as a possible and even an appropriate form. But the creative-spirit has its own surprises for us. This was exemplified once in the past/when the dictum that an epic should be a narrative on a large scale was falsified by Dante. For the modern lover of the muse another such pleasant surprise is offered by Sāvitrī.
European critics have not taken any serious notice of the epics of India, both authentic and literary, because the Indian form naturally did not fall within the idea and the form—or rather the formal definition—of epic in the West. But that is no reason to deny the right of epic to the Indian Māhābhārata, Rāmāyana and Bhāgavata of the Sanskrit language and Shāhanāmā of the Persian besides literary epics like the Raghuvanśa of Kalidasa and Jānakiharanam of Kumardas. The Indian epics represent "the ancient historical or legendary traditional history turned to creative use as a significant mythus or tale expressive of some spiritual or religious or ethical or ideal meaning, and thus formative of the mind of the people.... The work of these epics was to popularise high philosophic and ethical ideas and cultural practice".
Sri Aurobindo has given an estimate of the two Indian epics, the Māhābhārata,and the Rāmāyana in his Foundations of Indian Culture which is quoted here:
"The Māhābhārata especially is not only a story of the Bharatas, the epic of an early event which had become a national tradition, but on a vast scale the epic of the soul and religious and ethical mind and social and political ideals and culture and life of India. It is said popularly of it and with a certain measure of truth that whatever is in India is in the Māhābhārata The Māhābhārata is the creation and expression not of a single individual
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mind but of the mind of a nation. It would be vain to apply to it canons of a poetical art applicable to an epic poem with a smaller and a more restricted purpose, but still a great and quite conscious art has been expended both in its detail and its local structure. The whole poem has been built like a vast national temple unrolling slowly its immense and complex idea-from chamber to chamber, crowded with significant groups and sculptures and inscriptions, the grouped figures carved in divine or semi-divine proportions, a humanity aggrandised and half-uplifted to superhumanity and yet always true to the human motive and idea and feeling, the strain of the real constantly raised by the tones of the ideal, the life of this world amply portrayed but subjected to the conscious influence and presence of the powers of the worlds beyond it, and the whole unified by the long embodied procession of consistent idea worked out in the wide steps of the poetic story.
As is needed in an epic narrative, the conduct of the story is the main interest of the poem and it is carried through with an at once large and minute movement, wide and bold in the mass, striking and effective in detail, always simple, strong and epic in its style and space. At the same time though supremely interesting in substance and vivid in the manner of the telling as a poetic story, it is something more—a significant tale, Itihas, representative throughout of the central ideas and the ideals of Indian life and culture.
The Vedic idea of the struggle between powers of Light and powers of Darkness, powers of truth and powers of falsehood is continued in these epics and takes the figure of a story. It is the old struggle of Deva and Asura, God and Titan, but represented in terms of human life.
The Rāmāyana is a work of the same essential kind as the Māhābhārata; it differs only by a greater simplicity of plan, a more delicate ideal temperament and a finer glow of poetic warmth and colour. The main bulk of the poem is evidently by a single hand—in spite of much accretion—and has a less complex and more obvious unity of structure. There is less of the philosophic, more of the purely poetic mind, more of the artist, less of the builder. The whole story is from beginning to end of one piece and there is no deviation from the stream of the narrative. At the same time, there is a like vastness of vision, and even more wide-winged flight of epic sublimity in the conception and sustained richness of minute execution in the detail. The structural power, strong workmanship and method of disposition of the Māhābhārata remind one of the art of the Indian builders; the grandeur and the boldness of outline and wealth of colour and minute decorative execution of the Rāmāyana suggest rather a transcript into literature of the spirit and style of Indian painting.
On one side is portrayed an ideal manhood, a divine beauty of virtue and ethical order, a civilisation founded on the Dharma and realising an
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exaltation of the moral ideal which is presented with a singularly strong appeal of aesthetic grace and harmony and sweetness; on the other are wild and anarchic and almost amorphous forces of superhuman egoism and self-will and exultant violence, and the two ideas and powers of mental nature living and embodied are brought into conflict and led to a decisive issue of the victory of the divine Man over the Rakshasa.
The poetical manner of these epics is not inferior to the greatness of their substance. The style and the verse in which they are written have always a noble epic quality, a lucid classical simplicity and directness, rich in expression but stripped of superfluous ornaments, a swift, vigorous flexible and fluid verse constantly sure of the epic cadence. There is a difference in the temperament of the language. The characteristic diction of the Māhābhārata is almost austerely masculine, trusting to the force of sense and inspired accuracy of term, almost ascetic in its simplicity and directness and a frequent fine and happy bareness; it is the speech of a strong and rapid poetical intelligence and a great and straightforward vital force, brief and telling in phrase but by virtue of a single-minded sincerity and without any rhetorical labour of compactness, a style like the light and strong body of a runner nude and pure and healthily lustrous and clear without superfluity of flesh or exaggeration of muscle, agile and swift and untired in the race. There is inevitably much in this vast poem that is in an inferior manner, little or nothing that falls below a certain sustained level ill which there is always something of this virtue. "
The diction of the Rāmāyana is shaped in a more attractive mould, a marvel of sweetness and strength, lucidity and warmth and grace; its phrase has not only poetic truth and epic force and diction but a constant intimate. vibration of the feeling of the idea, emotion or object; there is an element of fine ideal delicacy in its sustained strength and breath of power. In both it is high poetic tone and inspired intelligence that is at work; the directly intuitive mind of the Veda and the Upanishads has retired behind the veil of the intellectual and outwardly psychological imagination".
We shall close this long citation of the estimate of the two great Indian epics by Sri Aurobindo with a comparison with the European epic which he himself has given:—
"These epics are therefore not a mere mass of untransmuted legend and folk-lore, as is ignorantly objected, but a highly artistic representation of intimate significances of life, the living presentment of a strong and noble thinking, a developed ethical and aesthetic mind and a high social-political ideal, the ensouled image of a great culture. As rich in freshness of life but immeasurably more profound and evolved in thought and substance than the Greek, as advanced in maturity of culture but more vigorous and vital and young in strength than the Latin epic poetry, the Indian epic poems were fashioned to serve a greater and completer national and cultural function;
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and that they should have been received and absorbed by both the high and the low, the cultured and the masses and remained through twenty centuries an intimate and formative part of the life of a whole nation is of itself the strongest possible evidence of the greatness and fineness of this ancient Indian culture."
—("The Foundations of Indian Culture" Sri Aurobindo)
Sāvitrī possesses unity of structure in a remarkable degree. The legend on which it is founded affords an ample story element for such a unity. The opening canto with the Symbol Dawn brings us straight to the crisis of the story—the imminent death of Satyavan and introduces the chief character Savitri in glowing and divine colours. It brings out at the same time the nature of the crisis, its cosmic significance and thereby raises the character of Savitri to that of the "saviour" of men. The attention of the reader is gripped,—if he can enter into the Seer's vision—and he is anxious to know how Savitri is going to meet Yama, the god of Death. To show how Savitri came to be constituted as a "half-divine" being even in her external being the Seer rightly pursues the thread of her birth and explains to us how "a world's desire compelled her mortal birth". This brings us to the character of Aswapathy, her father, who is no ordinary king but a "colonist from immortality". His attempts at self-perfection and his great spiritual attainments form a very natural background for the birth of so great a spiritual figure as Savitri. The "epic climb" of human soul really gains an epic grandeur in the vision of the Master and endows this earth with a tremendous significance. There are greater worlds than the earth, higher levels of consciousness than man's, but there is no more significant world than this our earth in the great divine destiny that it holds.
The canvas of Sāvitrī. is as wide as the cosmos and it takes into its purview worlds of being that are connected with humanity which are not perceived by it because of its limitations of ignorance. Nevertheless, these levels do act upon human consciousness. They also include higher planes of consciousness which have not yet manifested here but which are pressing upon the earth-consciousness for manifestation. They contain beings, powers and presences that live on those planes of Light, Consciousness and Bliss, the worlds
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of Truth. The soul of aspiring humanity symbolised in Aswapathy, the Lord of manifested Life, first descends from his human consciousness into nether regions of unconsciousness and materiality, the regions of the lower vital, its heaven and its hell, as a conscious witness. He then ascends to the regions of Heavens of the higher Vital and then crosses over to the Heavens of the Mind. After scaring into regions above Mind, into the Heavens of the Ideal and Illumined Mind he passes beyond the borders of manifested creation to the centre from which creation proceeds. Through a great shaft of Light across a tunnel that leads to the centre, he comes face to face with the World-Soul, the Two-in-One. It is there that he experiences the presence of the Divine Mother who supports the cosmos. It is She, the Power of the Supreme, supporting the cosmos, who bestows on him the boon that saves mankind from the stark imprisonment of Ignorance and subjection to Death. Being a power of the Truth-Consciousness Savitri not only liberates man but creates conditions here for the embodiment of the Light Supreme. She shows how man's life here can be fulfilled in a life divine.
This complex and rich yet clear cosmogony revealed in Aswapathy's voyage enriches the significance of the earth as a crucial centre of a divine experiment and enriches the life of man beyond his highest dreams. Incidentally it indicates the nature of the task awaiting Savitri and the tremendous odds against which she would have to contend. Aswapathy himself has advanced a great deal on the path to self-perfection. Throughout his vast journey through the various worlds.
"He travelled in his mute and single strength
Bearing the burden of the world's desire".
Sāvitrī., Book II, Canto I.
But he, a "protagonist of the mysterious play", "a thinker and a toiler in the ideal's air", "one in the front of the immemorial quest", —felt baffled when he considered the destiny of the race. When the Divine Mother commands him to continue his labours for man's perfection he invokes her help. A boon is given to him in answer to his prayer. Savitri's mortal birth was thus in answer to "a world's
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desire". Even ordinary incidents in Savitri get endowed with cosmic significance. There is nothing that is not conscious—even the seasons are not a mere mechanical succession of external changes but conscious operations in the cosmic body.
Thus we see the problem and the difficult conditions for its solution. The problem is of man's imperfection and his unquenchable thirst for perfection, of his groping in the Darkness of ignorance and his seeking for Light, of his mortality and his thirst for immortality. It can be solved by spiritual efforts alone—no external change however well-meaning or seemingly successful would really solve his problem. And even the highest spiritual effort of man cannot attain the goal unaided,—the task is impossible. It can be solved only if the supreme Divine can be persuaded to descend on earth and take up the burden of man. Such higher and divine sources of help are available to man. In fact, that is the claim and testimony of man's religion, mysticism, philosophy, and all his upward efforts. Savitri lays down the conditions of the problem in the clearest manner. The story attains its cosmic significance and the fate of Satyavan rings with the destiny of man. Man, the middle term between the Nescience and the Superconscience, sees the forces of the nether worlds and feels their impact upon his life. He sees also the possibilities of Higher Worlds and feels their action upon himself. He has to work out his destiny with the Divine help upon this terrestrial globe. This has been determined by a supreme Wisdom and Power. All this we see while we share the Master's cosmic gaze turned towards the earth. The vision of the elements that help and those that hinder,—and by their very hindrance make the final victory possible,—the imprisoning limitations even of those that help, gives us some idea of the tangled weft of human life with its baffling complexity and brings out the need of looking up beyond all mental and ethical idealism to something above all that man has attempted and attained up till now.
The Indian conception of the Avatār, the descent of the Divine in earth-consciousness, undergoes in the character of Savitri a profound change. Savitri, the Supreme Power of Grace descended into life, is the only feminine Avatār in the world. It is perhaps in the fitness of things that the Divine Mother in all her love, sympathy and deep understanding should descend to help her children
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on earth in the fight against the forces of Inconscience and bring to birth a new race of men embodying here the higher Supramental Consciousness But in the current Indian conception even though the Avatār is the Divine descended into the earth-consciousness he is not supposed to participate in human imperfections. He comes down generally to do a divine work—to save humanity in a crisis or help it forward in its evolution. But he remains all the time and always Divine and to the Divine nothing could be impossible. When he labours at his task it is only to conform to the human law that he does so. In reality, his divinity does everything. An Avatār, thus, is in humanity but not of it; his experiences are not like those of other men. Sri Aurobindo for the first time has brought out clearly the necessity of complete identification in his nature part by the Avatār with the nature of man in order to save humanity. This identification, be it noted, is not an ignorant subjection on his part to Nature or even an outcome of sympathy as ordinarily understood by man. It proceeds on the basis of knowledge,—it is an act of divine compassion, an act of grace.
The greatest saviours of men do not have to deal directly with outwardly great or critical events in the life of humanity. For, when properly understood, man's problems are all inner, psychological and spiritual. The roots of man's conflicts are within him and it is his inner conflict that projects itself into his outer life. Some of the great spiritual battles that are fought within man's soul stamp themselves on human history, as in the case of Christ and Buddha. The epic Sāvitrī accomplishes two difficult tasks; it creates a personality, Savitri, a human-divine character and secondly it succeeds in making all the inner spiritual experiences of man real, concrete and direct. It is well known that the highest spiritual experiences defy expression in language. But Sāvitrī for the first time succeeds in such a thorough objectification of them in terms of images and symbols that the sensitive reader feels their concreteness. Out of many examples we shall just give one here as an illustration: it describes the work of the Goddess of inspiration,—
"In darkness' core she dug out wells of light,
On the undiscovered depths imposed a form,
Lent a vibrant cry to the unuttered vasts,
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And through great shoreless, voiceless, starless breadths
Bore earthward fragments of revealing thought
Hewn from the silence of the Ineffable".
Sāvitrī , Book 1, Canto 3.
One feels the concreteness of the silence of the Ineffable and the "hewn fragments of revealing thought" being borne slowly earthwards.
This was no result of a happy accident but a result of the conscious art of the great Master. That he was conscious of it becomes clear from the following quotation taken from a letter in reply to certain criticism of Sāvitrī . He speaks about the plan of Sāvitrī :—
"It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or Comus or same brief narrative poem, but of the larger epical narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor Rāmāyana; it aims not at the minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its world-vision or world-interpretation. One artistic method is to select a limited subject and even on that to say what is indispensable, what is centrally suggestive and leave the rest to the imagination or under- standing of the reader. Another method which I hold to be equally artistic or, if you like, architectural is to give a large and even a vast, a complete interpretation, omitting nothing that is necessary, fundamental to the completeness: that is the method I have chosen in Sāvitrī."
Sāvitrī deals with a realm of experience that is not known to the common man and it is therefore likely that it may not meet with general appreciation or understanding at first. The creator of Sāvitrī knew this very well and so he wrote: "Sāvitrī is a record of a seeing, of an experience, which is not of the common kind, and it is often very far from what the general human mind sees or experiences". But even the modernist poet cannot lay claim to a universal understanding and appreciation of his work. Sāvitrī demands a certain minimum of capacity of vision in addition to a broad cosmopolitan enlightened outlook familiar with the latest advances in several branches of human knowledge. But that cannot be a bar to its high epic qualities. On the contrary, it opens out an altogether new and rich realm of experience to the reader and if he has to make an effort to enter into the spirit of it, lie will find that his labours are more than amply rewarded.
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We have brought to the notice of the reader that there is a spiritual affinity between the poetical expression of the Veda and that of Sāvitrī . In a general sense it can even be asserted that the subject matter of Sāvitrī has an affinity with the subject matter of the Veda. That is to say, not only in some parts does the manner of expression resemble the Vedic style but the vision of Sāvitrī is surcharged with a constant play of the light of inspiration and revelation from which the Vedic seers received their hymns. The Veda deals with the struggle between the powers of the Light and the powers of the Darkness in terms of symbols. Of course, there is a basic difference between the symbolism of Sāvitrī and that of the Veda. The occult system of symbolism which the Vedic seers used as a sort of spiritual algebra fell into disuse and was forgotten because of the conscious veil of secrecy used by them. In Sāvitrī it is replaced by an open psychological and spiritual symbolism which interprets the legend using it as a transparent veil for conveying its world of spiritual experience. In fact .the legend lends itself easily to such an interpretation. It is itself full of incidents and characters into which the poet's inspiration has woven the whole question of the supreme silent Eternal and its manifestation in Time beginning with the dark Night of the Nescience and mourning step by step by evolution towards some superconscient expression of the Eternal in earth consciousness. In that unfolding manifestation of the cosmic effort man appears as a transitional being between the Nescience and the Superconscient Divine. This vision alters entirely the value of man and his life and places before him the high destiny he is here to fulfil as an instrument. Throughout the poem this grand purpose dominates the atmosphere and wherever poetically necessary the Seer brings it to our view by apt repetition. Another important point of difference between symbolic Vedic poetry and Sāvitrī is that the Vedic hymns are a creation of various seers with their natural temperamental characteristics of expression, while Sāvitrī is the creation of a single genius.
This vast subject, compared with those of other epics that are extant turns out to be greater than any that has been sung by any epic poet. Dante speaks of inferno,—hell,—through which the human spirit has to pass to arrive at purgatory to be purified of all
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its dross in order to reach the vision beatific. But the Beatitude is far in the heaven of the Divine and this earth is condemned to remain a vale of tears,—it is a place where the soul of man is tested in order to prove its worthiness to reach the kingdom of God away rom the earth. Milton wanted "to justify the ways of God to man" but he does not succeed in his task because perhaps the inspiration of puritanic Christianity was not sufficient to fulfil that task. Sāvitrī is a poem of hope and fulfilment on earth. It is a poem of knowledge in the sense that it weaves the conditions of man's highest fulfilment in its epic pattern.
Sri Aurobindo has said that his Sāvitrī is planned like a Rāmāyana on a small scale, but it is full-bodied so far as the subject-matter is concerned, therefore it is to be taken as a full-fledged epic. Though from the point of length Sāvitrī already overpasses that of all European epics yet all earnest critics would agree with Abercrombie that length by itself is not enough to gain the stature of epic greatness for a poem. It is the sustained breath of inspiration, the high tone of poetical expression that are important.
Between the Rāmāyana and the Mahābhārata on the one hand and Sāvitrī on the other there can be no real and direct comparison for obvious, reasons. The spirit of the two languages Sanskrit and English would itself bring in so many incommensurate elements. And yet it is possible to consider them as expressions of the Indian spirit in poetry separated by a period of at least two thousand years. "Rāmāyana," says Sri Aurobindo, "has epic sublimity in the conception and sustained richness of minute execution in detail". The Rāmāyana has more feeling of ideas and emotions of things. It has "ideal delicacy and sustained strength of power". It portrays ideal manhood, and a "divine beauty of virtue and ethical order, a civilisation founded on Dharma, the ideal law of conduct". It gives us on the one hand the picture of "an exaltation of moral ideal which is presented with a singularly strong appeal of aesthetic grace and harmony and sweetness; on the other hand are wild and anarchic and almost amorphous forces of superhuman egoism and self-will and exultant violence". These two ideals and powers of the mental nature are brought into conflict in the embodiments of Rama and Ravana, and led to a decisive issue of victory of the ideal man over
Rakshasa.
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The Mahābhārata proceeds from a "strong and quick intelligence and a great and straight vital force and single-minded sincerity". Both the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyana are "products of inspired intelligence with a high poetic tone". Both are "ensouled images of a great culture". These epics give us the spiritual significance of individual and collective life from a strong and noble thought power of a mind that has high social, political and ethical ideals and is artistically delicate and refined. Sāvitrī too offers a whole world of experience but it is altogether a new world in which the life of man,— in fact the whole view of the cosmos,—undergoes a great and radical change. In Rāmāyana, for instance, the ideal law of conduct, Dharma, is seen triumphing over the forces of Titanic egoism that were trying to establish their reign. Sāvitrī is not a rendering, or a vision of the world in terms of the current laws of human evolution as seen by the ideal mind. It enunciates a new law, a new world of consciousness transcending—and yet fulfilling at the same time— the evolution attained by man up till now. And it renders it with such a rare power of inspiration and vision that it succeeds in making the rare experience concrete to our minds. The Rāmāyana hints at the supra-rational and openly speaks of the Divine as against the Asura and the Rakshasa—the Titanic force. But there it remains something mystical and therefore unknown. Sāvitrī deals with the suprarational but makes it a natural part of its vision of man and deals with it as one of the legitimate fields of consciousness to be attained by man. In spite of these differences one can say that there is similarity in the poignant pathos pervading the life of Rama, the Sattwic hero, and of Sāvitrī ,—the embodiment of Divine Grace descended to save mankind from the bondage of Ignorance and Inconscience. In Rāmāyana, Dharma, the ideal law of life as formulated by the religious seeking in man, and Rama, the man who embodies that law, seem to reign supreme, or rather, to pervade the whole atmosphere of the poem, while in Sāvitrī not merely an ideal law of life, but the Divine and his Purpose reign and pervade the atmosphere. In Rāmāyana the Divine is brought face to face with a great crisis through his own formed Sattwic nature,—the highest human mould attained by Nature in her evolution up till then. The conflict there is with the exaggerated forces of egoism and ambition trying to dominate the world. In Sāvitrī evolution reaches a higher rung than the
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mind and Savitri, the Divine Grace incarnate, has to fight—not with the hostile demonic ego merely but—with the original force of cosmic Ignorance, the Inconscient represented by its extreme form of death. In raising this basic problem of elimination of the Inconscient, the cause of man's subjection to his imperfection, suffering and evil, Sāvitrī is unique, and goes deeper than other epics towards its solution. It calls out the Divine that is hidden at present in the human mould to deal direct with the problem of man's emancipation and of establishment of the divine kingdom on earth. To the vision of Sāvitrī , to the vision of Truth seen by the Seer, the whole of life is the legitimate field for the Divine to manifest himself in. It also sees with equal clearness the great and formidable obstacles in the path of the divine victory.
The Mahābhārata as Sri Aurobindo has said "embodies not only the whole national tradition of India but is an expression of the religious and the ethical mind and social and political ideals of India. It is a vast store of story within story, a whole string of mythology built like a vast national temple", "a humanity aggrandised and half uplifted to superhumanity yet always true to the human motive, idea and feeling". Life of this world in Mahābhārata is amply portrayed but is subjected to constant conscious influences and divine powers of worlds behind it and a consistent idea brings about a son of complex unity in the epic. Sāvitrī lifts the veil for man from over the worlds that are behind. In fact it is a world upon world full of beings and powers heaped upon one another laying bare the inter- action of these complex worlds and man's life upon earth. Here in Sāvitrī it is not the ethical and the religious soul of India embodying a national tradition only; it is the soul of man in the mould of the Indian spirit widening out into the vast Soul of Humanity under the stress of an intense spiritual aspiration—ascending to the highest and turning its gaze upon the whole complex field of cosmogony illuminating with its power of rare knowledge all the worlds that are the legitimate field for the spiritual adventure of man. It is said,— "whatever is in India, is in the Mahābhārata". It can be said that all that man is and holds within himself, all that he is likely to be, is in Sāvitrī. The poet of the Mahābhārata perhaps saw with his prophetic vision the age of Kali, the Iron age, approaching and sang his song celestial of the triumph of righteousness against the apparently
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overwhelming array of the forces of unrighteousness by the play of the secret Divine managing the whole plot of the human drama from behind the veil. Sāvitrī turns its grand vision to the Age of Gold that is coming, the reign of Truth that is in prospect and envisages the supreme fulfilment of man by his ascent to the Divine and the open reign of the Divinity over life to the most external aspect. It is a creative vision that calls upon the soul of man to rise to its highest. It synthesises all the spiritual gains of humanity in a living and organic unity. It is like a vast cosmic temple built for humanity. It unrolls, unfolds its structure of immense complex worlds through which the Master's vision shows us the voyaging soul of man traversing and ascending till it reaches at last its own Reality in the Divine and brings down the Divine Presence here on earth to transform the life of man. In Mahābhārata with its different purpose, the outer story engulfs our attention. We get lost in the human and emerge after long intervals for a short while to see the spiritual significance of things or feel the play of hidden divine forces behind the surface. At times, character dominates. The Mahābhārata enchants us by the play of the changing colours of life, the play of hazard, its high mental ideals, the deep pathos of human life and fate. Kings and royal dynasties and their fate claim our willing attention and interest. In Sāvitrī the basic issue of subjection of man to the Darkness of Ignorance—earth, and love and doom—and the inevitability of death grips us from the first. The problem stands out clear and is never out of sight. Events and characters come but have significance in so far as they are conscious agents in the working out of the problem of man's destiny. Sāvitrī lifts us out of the mundane and the ordinary rut of human life to a point of view from where we see the whole play of life, in fact, the whole cosmos, with a cosmic vision of a divine Purpose trying to work itself out through the life of man. The ultimate significance of life as emanating from the Mahābhārata is often ambiguous, depending upon individual interpretation of events, of motives of characters and of the ideals pursued. We often meet people drawing diametrically opposite conclusions about the significance of the Mahābhārata . So far as Sāvitrī is concerned it is free from such possible ambiguity. In the Mahābhārata man suffers, struggles, tries to win, sometimes succeeds or fails, fate intervenes in human life, and the relation between man and God is in a very great degree indirect.
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In Sāvitrī, even as a struggling and a suffering being, man is raised to a higher status because man knows himself to be an episode between the Inconscient and the unattained Superconscient. In this view, the whole life of man becomes a part in the working out of a higher purpose, a supreme will. In Sāvitrī the relation between man and God is direct.
Throughout Sāvitrī one finds the question of Eternity and Time and their relation constantly repeated in different contexts to bring out their interdependence, or rather, the dependence of Time- Eternity on Timeless-Eternity. It is Timeless-Eternity of the Absolute that wells out into the flow of Time-Eternity, carrying with it the unrolling of the cosmos. "The Eternal's quiet holds the cosmic act" (P. 110) says the Master. There are two ends of Eternity visible in Sāvitrī,—an Eternal below facing man with its unfathomable depth of darkness of the Nescience which may be called the Dark Eternity described in the Veda as "darkness covered thickly by darkness" in which there was neither "being nor non-being". The other is the Eternity of the Divine Absolute, beyond the realms of the three supernals—Sat, Cit and Ananda. Many have felt an irreconcilable opposition between Timeless Eternity of the Absolute and Time- eternity which is constantly flowing. Time is posited as something contradictory to the Timeless, the Eternal. It is maintained that the Eternal beyond Time alone is the Real and that time-movement is unreal and even non-existent. Sāvitrī throughout gives the vision of the true reconciliation of this opposition. It shows us the Nescience, the dark Night, as a mask of the Divine, the Eternal and wherever an opportunity occurs it also shows that Timeless Eternity (of the Absolute) is the fount and origin of Time and that the Divine is Himself the creator and dynamic support of the cosmos behind the veil. The conception of a Time-Eternity as a dynamic Reality depending organically upon Timeless Eternity is one enunciated clearly for the first time by Sri Aurobindo in the world of thought. He constantly speaks of the two ladders, one of descent of the Absolute into the Nescience and the other of ascent from Nescience to the Supreme. Far from Eternity being in opposition to Time-movement the
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grand vision of Sāvitrī constantly brings Eternity in moments of Time. This opposition between Time and Eternity is, in fact, a result of our mind's divided consciousness and its inability to reconcile what seems to it the opposites. Mind commits the error of applying its own logic which is that of the finite to the Infinite whose logic is different. The result is that mind can give us only a partial view of the Infinite. In any supreme vision of the Reality the two—Eternity and Time—are not only reconciled but become organic and indivisible. Viewed as an expression of die supreme Divine—on some date in the "calander of the Unknown"—-the moments of Time become replete with the presence of the Eternal and then the whole cosmos, from the infinitesimal material particle to the highest Infinite Being, is seen pulsating with such a multiple and vast play of Eternity that the word "eternity" itself seems to gain an ineffable significance in that great vision. It is about such a moment of realisation that Savitri says "a marriage with eternity divinised Time". It is possible that the mind may continue to ask. Why at all this movement, this cosmic manifestation from the Supreme and Silent Eternity? The answer—one among the many poetical answers—is:
"That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time
And world manifest the unveiled Divine."
Sāvitrī, Book /, Canto 4.
To another question. How did this miracle happen, the Seer says that it is Life that "has lured the Eternal into the arms of Time." (Book II, Canto 6.) It is true that man does not fed this eternity in his present state of consciousness because there it is hidden by the movement of Time which exclusively occupies him. But even there it is present behind the veil. The Master expresses it so poetically! "Lulled by Time's beats eternity sleeps in us". (Book II, Canto 5.) We then feel the justification of the line which says, "spiritual beauty" "squanders eternity on a beat of Time", (Book I, Canto I) and also of the description of Sāvitrī as "a prodigal of her rich divinity" (Book I, Canto i) who gave herself and all she was to men. He speaks of Aswapathy, the human king, as "a colonist from immortality" because in his inner being he was conscious of his origin in the
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Eternal. He sees the relation between Eternity and Time- movement:
"Ascending and descending twixt life's poles
The serried kingdoms of the graded Law
Plunged from the Everlasting into Time,
Then glad of a glory of multitudinous mind
And rich with life's adventure and delight
And packed with the beauty of Matter's shapes and hues
Climbed back from Time into undying Self,
Up a golden ladder carrying the Soul,
Tying with diamond threads the Spirit's extremes".
Let us for a moment suppose that Eternity is realised here in Time and man succeeds in manifesting the Divine in life. What then would happen? The Master envisages an endless divine unfoldment in time. Says he:
"The Spirit's greatness is our timeless source
And it shall be our crown in endless Time".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 1.
The opposition between Eternity and Time seems to be resolved in human life by the intervention of a power of the Divine. It is She who acts as an "ambassadress" between Eternity and Time. She embodies herself forth in the form of Divine Love, or rather, of a being carrying the saving power of the Divine Love within herself. All true human love has this divine element in it, however, perverted it may be in its actual expression. The highest ideal of love conceived by man is really speaking a manifestation of this "infinity's centre". Love is that embodiment of the Eternal in Time which carries with it the stamp of immortality.
"Eternity drew close disguised as Love
And laid its hands upon the body of Time".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 9.
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In the language of the Master—"death is a shadow of love". This love "wider than the universe" is really the Divine Love. Love and Death seem to embody two contradictory principles, one affirming the divine Eternity and the immortality, the other, insisting on the eternity of the Nescience, of mortality. Through three of his poems, this subject of love has been treated by the Master, and it is in Sāvitrī that it reaches its highest height. In Urvaśī, Pururavas struck by the shaft of immortal love, denied fulfilment by the power of the gods, at last gains his immortal love on the heights of Heaven. In Love and Death Rum recovers Priyamvada from the dark nether regions of Death by the power of the charm of the supreme Mother and that of the God of Love. In both of these poems the immortality and eternity of Love is affirmed. It is in Sāvitrī that Love divine comes as the embodiment of the Supreme Grace to deliver the soul of man out of the clutches of Death. Sāvitrī raises the whole problem to its cosmic proportions and brings hi the necessary divine elements whose intervention alone can lead to the successful solution of the opposition. The colloquy between Sāvitrī, Love Divine incarnate, and Death is among the most inspired utterances of world's poetry. Conquest over death, attainment of immortality has been the dream of man from the dawn of his awakening. It finds expression in the Vedic hymns, in the famous aspiration of the seer of the Upanisad who chanted "from death lead me to immortality", and who affirmed in a mortal world the immortality of man's soul by addressing men as "children of immortality". Sāvitrī takes up the same subject, brings out all the necessary conditions for the realisation of this dream of man. It affirms the necessity of the birth of a new Power, the Power of Divine Grace, or Love, which alone can save man from the reign of Ignorance which is Death.
We have said in the beginning that Sri Aurobindo's Sāvitrī in its origin and in the realm of experience with which it deals—and even in some of its expressions—is comparable to the highest spiritual poetry of the world, the Veda and the Upanishads, Some passages have already been cited in the Introduction showing the deep spiritual affinity between Sāvitrī and the Veda. We shall pursue the subject a little further to show that the epic height and manner of expression
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which is native to the Veda and the Upanishads is in Sāvitrī the most sustained element giving to the whole poem the most sublime throb of an organic divine creation. This is because Sri Aurobindo's life-work comes naturally in a line with that of the Rishis of the Veda and the Upanishads. His work in fact adds to the rich spiritual treasures of the past by giving to mankind his great vision of the Supermind,—the divine gnosis,—and by his insistence that life must be related to the Divine if man wants to arrive at the true solution of his problems. Besides, his mode of poetical creation is akin to that of the ancient seers. It is not to say that he takes them as models for imitation, but in him the Goddess of speech seems to act—consciously on his part—from above the plane of human mind and is constantly bringing in currents,—and torrents even—, of Light from higher planes which have been touched or tapped occasionally but are far from being the normal possession of even the highest genius of poetical expression. When Sri Aurobindo speaks of "a torrent of rapid lightnings" which represents the irresistible current of illuminating inspiration, he is not using merely a figure of speech but is expressing his own personal experience, it is by such an onrush from above the mental level that "knowledge of the Deathless Divine leaps on the human consciousness and by whose thronged and glittering invasion the revelatory speech of the Overhead spiritual is born".—K. D. Sethna.
Again when he says:
"Missioned voices drive to me from God's doorway
Words that live not, save upon Nature's summits,
Ecstasy's chariots",
—he is stating his own experience.
It is because he derives his poetical inspiration from this higher world known to the ancient Rishis that his poems bear a kinship to the creation of the ancient sages. In Gītā perhaps the eleventh chapter giving the vision of the Viśwarūpa, the Cosmic Divine, bears a resemblance to some portion of Sāvitrī. The student may compare the utterance of Arjuna in his exaltation of the vision, and of Viśwarūpa, as the Destroyer of the world, with the colloquy of Aswapathy and the Divine Mother in the third Book.
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Sāvitrī has got the intense directness, vastness and comprehensive- ness of the Vedas and the Upanishads. The Vedas and the Upanishads speak of the One, the Divine, the Supreme Ineffable. It is that which finds expression in myriad forms in the cosmic dance. In the seer's vision, the shadows of the lower planes of cosmic existence are shot through with the Light of this Eternal Reality and to him, therefore, the whole Nature seems to be bathed in an ether of Delight. This experience seems so far from the ordinary experience of man that one would have thought that its expression in poetry would lack the sense of a convincing Reality. But the most miraculous power of the Goddess of poetry is that the expression of this experience by the ancient sages carries with it a very intense sense of concreteness, what Mr. Sethna calls "a burning throb of realisation". This power of expression comes to them, not from the realms of mere mind but from Overhead regions of intuition, inspiration, revelation and even beyond it from the Overmind. It is the spiritual alchemy of this overhead poetical expression that renders this immeasurably remote realm of experiences intimately near to us, and carries a sense of their reality to our most outward mind. While reading those inspired utterances one feels opening before him altogether a new world of experiences, a world of beings, "more real than living man", for in it breathe and move "nurslings of immortality". Like Veda and the Upanishads, Sāvitrī also opens us to this realm of the Eternal. It is not merely a reproduction of the experience of the past; for, Sri Aurobindo has discovered new realms of the spirit. Sāvitrī , therefore, is charged with a similar inspirational afflatus but is also at the same time, "a springing forward". We are not here concerned with the difference of spiritual content, which could take us far,— but with the similarities in their content and mode of expression.
In the Kathopanisad, there is a situation which is apparently similar to the one we find in Sāvitrī. There, the boy Nachiketa like Savitri confronts Yama, the God of Death. But the similarity is only apparent because Death does not meet its challenge, neither is Nachiketa faced with the inevitability of death. The precocious boy seeks the acquaintance of Death and turns Death into his instructor and learns from him the way to reach the immortal Self. The question of the world-existence does not arise there. The question of man struggling on earth, subject to ignorance and his possible
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emancipation from seemingly eternal bonds during his earth- existence, is not there in the picture. But apart from the dissimilarity of content one can see that there are passages where the expression of the Upanishads rises to a plane of impersonality of Illumined Mind which sees life in large and compact masses and is at the same time itself suffused with a wide and intense emotion of the tragedy of life subject to human ignorance. It is a very effective and direct poetical utterance. When he reaches the house of Death, Nachiketa thinks within himself,:
"Like grain a mortal ripens!
Like grain he is born hither again",
and when the God of Death dissuades him from seeking knowledge of the Self and offers him temptations instead, he replies:
"0 Ender of all things; transient, ephemeral are all these. Moreover,
they wear out the brightness of such sense-powers as a
mortal has. Even aeonic life is short.
Not with wealth is a man to be satisfied and if we should desire it,
having once seen thee we shall- surely obtain it".
("Krishna Prema")
There are many passages in Sāvitrī that convey a similar inspiration. We choose one in which the insignificance of man, inconsequential nature of all his works, and the ephemeral nature of all his enjoyments is brought out effectively:
"An inconsequence dogs every effort made,
A chaos waits on every cosmos formed;
In each success a seed of failure lurks".
Man is
"A thinking being in an unthinking world,
An island in the sea of the Unknown,
He is a smallness trying to be great,
An animal with some instincts of a god,
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His life a story too common to be told,
His deeds a number summing up to nought,...
His hope a star above a cradle and a grave."
Sāvitrī Book I, Canto 5.
The tragedy of human life subject to ignorance is intensely brought home to us. And yet there is much more than that in these lines. And about the nature of man's enjoyments, he says:
"Here even the highest rapture time can give
Is a mimicry of ungrasped beatitudes,
A mutilated statue of ecstasy,
A wounded happiness that cannot live,
A brief felicity of mind or sense,
Thrown by the World-Power to her body-slave,
Or a simulacrum of enforced delight
In the seraglios of Ignorance."
These lines indicate to our minds that there exists an unchanging delight, an unwounded happiness and ecstasy somewhere towards which are directed all the pathetic strivings of the ignorant human soul. "A statue mutilated", a "happiness" mortally "wounded" or the "enforced delights" of the harems "of Ignorance"—are marvellously vivid images.
Throughout Sāvitrī one feels the pulsating presence of the One, the Perfect, the Divine, and there are moments when the inspired utterance expresses this presence:
"Then by a touch, a presence or a voice
The world is turned into a temple ground
And all discloses the unknown Beloved."
Sāvitrī , Book II, Canto 12.
Or
"The Immanent lives in man as in his house."
Sāvitrī Book I, Canto 4.
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The opening verse of the Isopanisad runs:
"All this—visible universe—is for habitation by the Lord".
The world becomes a holy place when we enter into this vision. It is the same truth we find in the expression of the Gītā:
"All is Vasudeva,—the Divine Being"—
"Vāsudevah Sarvam."
Take another passage from the Iśa reconciling the Static and the Dynamic aspects of the ultimate Reality in a powerful image:
"That moves, and That moves not; That is far and the
same is near. That is within all this and That also is
outside all this".
Iśa 5.
It .is similar to a passage of Katha which says:
"Sitting, He proceeds far;
Lying, He goes everywhere".
Katha, I, 2-27.
The Seer of Sāvitrī gives us a similar vision in his own inspired utterance:
"Near, it retreated; far, it called him still".
Sāvitrī Book III, Canto 1
or
"Hidden by its own works it seemed far off."
Sāvitrī Book III, Canto I.
The Rishi in the Iśa speaks symbolically of the necessity of breaking beyond the limitations of the mind in order to reach the highest Truth which is beyond. It says:
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"The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid;
that do thou remove, 0 fosterer, for the law of the Truth,
sight."
Iśa 15.
The Master in Sāvitrī speaks in the language of living symbolism. Describing Aswapathy's spiritual achievement he says:
"And broken the intellect's hard and lustrous lid."
Sāvitrī Book I, Canto 3.
In another context recounting the limitations of the mental being which remains satisfied and self-complaisant he says:
"There comes no breaking of the walls of mind,"
Sāvitrī Book II, Canto 10.
The basic idea both in Iśa and Sāvitrī in these expressions is that the highest Truth is above the plane of the mind which acts as a barrier to the Truth above, and it is attained by breaking the obstruction of the mind and ascending beyond.
How the spirit and the vision of the Master in Sāvitrī moves on the regions of the Superconscient and how some of the symbols and modes of expression come out of the creative power as organic pans of a living process can be seen from a line like the following which describes Aswapathy's wanderings in the dark world of Falsehood—(the world where the Mother of Evil gives birth to her sons of Darkness)—where he
"...roamed through desolate ways
Where the red-wolf waits by the fordless stream".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 8.
This reminds one of the Vedic hymn:
"once the red-wolf saw me walking on the path."¹
Rig Veda V, 105-18.
¹"Aruno ma Sakrit Patha Yantam Dadarsha Hi" Rig Veda V, 105-18.
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The Red-Wolf is the symbol of the powers that tear the 'being', that suddenly fall upon it to destroy it. They are persistent, destructive, cruel, unscrupulous powers of the lower Darkness. Sri Aurobindo in his expression has made the symbol more effective, improving spontaneously upon the original in the alchemy of his poetical process by the image of "fordless stream". In the original hymn there is only 'path'. The "fordless stream" brings in the needed element of danger and difficulty of the path of the aspirant when he has to cross this dangerous region.
He does the same with several Vedic symbols which he employs. For instance, consider the line:
"Its gold-homed herds trooped into earth's cave-heart".
It indicates the descent of the "gold-homed" Cows—symbolising the richly-laden Rays of Knowledge—into the Inconscient of the earth, its "cave-heart". Generally, in the Veda the action is that of breaking open the Cave of the inconscient and releasing the pen of Cows, the imprisoned Rays of Light for the conscious possessions by the seeker. Here is how a Vedic hymn speaks about it:
"They drove upwards, the luminous ones,—the good milch-cows, in their stone-pen within the hiding cave."
Rig Veda IV, 1-13
Or, take another, similar one:
"By a mind seeking the Ray-cows, they rent the firm
massed-hill which encircled and repressed shining herds,
man desiring, laid open the strong pen, full of Ray-
Cows by the Divine Word."
Rig Veda IV, 1-15.
One sees in Sāvitrī the process reversed and the Master's vision lays open the original act of involution of the Light into the darkness of the Inconscient.
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The growth of the divine potentialities in man is spoken of in Veda as the growth of a Child. The Master takes the symbol straight and employs it thus:
"Where the God-child lies on the lap of Night and Dawn."
Sāvitrī Book 1, Canto 3.
The idea is that through the state of ignorance that is Night and through the state of awakening that is Dawn,—through the, alterations of the two—, the God-child in man attains its growth. Ignorance is not thus something anti-divine. It contributes to the growth of the Divine in man. This certainly reminds one of the hymn in the Veda which runs as follows:
"Two are joined together, powers of truth, powers of Maya
They have built the Child and given him birth and they
nourish his growth".
Rig Veda X, 5. 3.
In Sāvitrī the symbol has been made more clear and effective by the word "God-'child".
Speaking about the rise of the Many from the One, the Master says,
"The Sole in its solitude yearned towards the All"
Sāvitrī Book III, Canto 3.
or, in another context he speaks of:
"The seed of Spirit's blind and huge desire"
Sāvitrī , Book I, Canto 3.
to explain the rise of the many which reminds us of Taittiriya 2-6:
He desired— "May I be many".
The omnipresence of the Divine, not merely as an abstract principle but as a living Reality finds expression in a concrete and convincing image as in the following lines:
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"And garbed in beggar's robes there walks the One."
Sāvitrī Book II, Canto 5.
It vs. similar to a passage in the Swetāśvatara Upanisad,
"Old and worn. Thou walkest bent over a staff."
Swet. IV, 3. 4.
The same basic idea of the Self perceived in all and all perceived in the Self finds similar expression both in Sāvitrī and the Iśa.
"Where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all."
Sāvitrī Book II, Canto 2.
"The Self in all existences, and all existences in the Self."
Iśa 6.
There is also a similar passage in the Gītā (6-29) which speaks of the same truth.
The mystic Self that is present in all but is hidden is spoken of by the Master as:
"....a larger self
That lives within us, by ourselves unseen,"
There are many passages in the Upanisad that speak of the presence of this mystic Self, sometimes in the cave of the heart, sometimes as merely hidden. The Katha for instance, says:
"This secret self, present in all beings, does not shed its light—is not apparent".
Katha III, 12,
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The Gītā describes the condition of the sage
"That which is Night to all the beings, in it wakes the
man who controls the self; that in which the
creatures awake, is to the awakened sage, the dark Night".
Gītā, 2. 69
The change that comes over the consciousness of Aswapathy as a result of his awakening to the inner Light is 'compactly described in Sāvitrī as—"A grand reversal of Night and Day", which conveys the same idea as the verse of the Gītā, quoted above.
When the secret Presence of the divine in the heart begins to manifest itself it becomes, in the words of the poet, "a living image seated in the heart" (Book I, Canto 4.) no longer hidden and working indirectly but overt and working directly. There is a similarity in the tone of expression with the verse of the Gītā,:
"The Lord abides in the heart of all beings".
Gītā, XVIII, 61.
So also, the two lines referring to the original Transcendent One:
"He was here before the elements could emerge,
Before there was light of mind or life could breathe".
Sāvitrī, Book I, Canto 4.
are similar to one of the Vedic hymn;
"That One lived without breath
There was nothing else, nor aught beyond it".
Rig Veda X, 120.
The identity of the Two who are One is expressed in the following:
"He is the Maker, and the world he made,
He is the vision, and he is the seer;
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He is himself the actor and the act,
He is himself the knower and the known".
Sāvitrī, Book /, Canto 4.̣
At first it looks, rather a philosophical statement to our intellect but really speaking in the context of the poem where the poet speaks of the whole cosmos as the figure of the Transcendent One, and sees the process of the creation of duality from the .original Identity, each of these lines adds an aspect and a colour to the apparent self-division of the One. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka expresses it thus:
"It is not a second or other than, and separate from himself
that he sees, speaks to, hears, knows".
Bṛhad. IV, 3-23.
While describing the spirit of man struggling in this world, apparently without success, the Seer penetrates behind the appearance and sees the deeper significance of the struggle and says—in spite of all appearances to the contrary—
"His is a search of darkness for the Light,
Of mortal life for immortality".
This vision echoes the well-known aspiration of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka:
"Lead me from darkness to Light
From death to immortality".
Bṛhadāraṇyaka, I, 3-28.
The One as the basis of the multiple expression is beautifully figured in Canto I of Book II where the silence of the Eternal sees its own Universal Power building up the whole cosmos with all its innumerable elements including all subjective experiences which fall into "a single plan" and become "the thousand-fold expression of the One", (p. 88) Swetāśvatara speaks of this as "the One fashions one seed in many ways". {Sweta, VI, 12.) That Sāvitrī,
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touches the same suprarational and supernal regions of the infinite can be seen from many passages. We shall only here touch upon one or two, which in their similarity to the Upanishadic utterances are striking:
"For not by Reason was creation made
And not by Reason can the Truth be seen".
or,
"Where judgment ceases and the word is mute".
"But mind too falls back from a nameless peak".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto n.
"Not by thinking can its knowledge come".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto l l,
"But thought nor word can seize eternal Truth".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto II.
This is similar to Katha:
"This wisdom which thou hast attained is not to be gained by any Process of logical thought".
"This Atman is not to be attained by exposition, nor by intellectual thinking nor by much hearing".
Katha, 1, 2-9.
Some passages in Savitri bear a very close resemblance to,—in fact are identical in content with,—some of the passages of the book "Mother" which reach the height of epic expression in prose, for example:
"Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
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Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto I.
These lines are from the "Mother":
"Moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother".
The Mother, P. 47-48.
Or, take from another context:
"She guards the austere approach to the Alone.
At the beginning of each far-spread plane
Pervading with her power die cosmic suns
She reigns, inspirer of its multiple works
And all creation is her endless act".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 14.
"Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; The Mahāśakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever
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is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining force, and delight without which they could not exist....Each of „ the worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahāśakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul and Personality of the transcendent Mother....The one original transcendent śakti, the Mother, stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine''. Mother (P. 38).
The spiritual truth conveying the logic of the Infinite is contained in the following lines:
"Each soleness inexpressibly held the whole".
Sāvitrī, Book III, Canto 3.
"It made all persons fractions of the Unique,
Yet all were being's secret integers".
Shantipatha of the Iśa opens with a similar Mantra:—
"This is perfect, so is 'that' perfect; from the perfect what arises is Perfect; deducting Perfect from the Perfect the Perfect alone remains". "Each soleness" holds the "whole", and all persons though fractions of the Unique are "integers" in the logic of the Infinite.
The passages cited here are by no means exhaustive but they serve to show the affinity of content and the revelatory and inspired character of the expression. In the Vedas and the Upanishads the same Overhead lightnings break forth revealing the universe in so different a light from that of the intellect that it has remained for mankind a new world of spiritual experience to which it has aspired from the dawn of its history. The lightning has revealed sometimes the higher regions of Solar Light, the regions of golden light or Truth, at times, the moonlit worlds of infinite Delight, at times, deep chasms of the Darkness of the Inconscient and the whole world of teeming cosmic
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life Sāvitrī, is like a vast band of lightning steadied into the poetic empyrean, illuminating the cosmos from end to end, from the deepest and the darkest Night of the Nescience to the highest heights of the Transcendent Divine, revealing the double ladder of divine dynamics, the ladder of Descent of the Divine and the ladder of ascent of the human soul. It points to a culmination in the descent of the Divine into the earth-consciousness and the consequent transformation of the earth-nature into the divine nature. Mr. K. D. Sethna in his book says, "only the ancient Vedas and Upanishads embody with anything like a royal freedom these ranges of mystical and spiritual being, hidden beyond the deepest plunge and highest leap of intuition known to the great masters. Over and above opening up such movements, Sri Aurobindo discloses planes that have been sec- ret hitherto. Sri Aurobindo stands as a creator of new Vedic and Upanishadic age of poetry." It is not only the content but the poetic manner, the height of the tone, the inevitability of the word, in fact all the elements that go to make up the highest manner and technique of poetic creation are also present in Sāvitrī, In the words of Mr. Sethna "The expression is organic to the sight and consequently carries an authentic and convincing power". We will close this section with an apt quotation from Mr. Sethna's 'Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo':—
"To create a poetic mould equally massive and multiform as The Life Divine for transmitting the living Reality to the furthest bounds of speech—such a task is incumbent on one who stands as the maker of a new spiritual epoch. Without it he would not establish on earth in a fully effective shape the influence brought by him. All evolutionary influences, in order to become dynamic in toto, must assume poetic shape as a correlate to the actual living out of them in personal consciousness and conduct. In that shape they can reach man's inner being persistently and ubiquitously over and above doing so with a luminous and vibrant suggestiveness unrivalled by any other mode of literature or art. But scattered and short pieces of poetry cannot build the sustained and organised weltanschaung required for put- ting a permanet stamp upon the times. Nothing except an epic or a drama can, moving as they do across a wide field and coming charged with inventive vitality, with interplay of characters and events. Nor
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can an epic which teems with ultra-mental realisations be wholly adequate to its aim if it does not embody these realisations in ultra- mental word and rhythm. Hence, Sāvitrī, is from every angle the right correlate to the practical drive towards earth-transformation by India's mightiest Master of spirituality in his Ashram at Pondicherry. Next to his own personal working as Guru on disciples offering themselves for a global remoulding of their lives, this poem that is at once legend and symbol will be the chief formateur of the Aurobindonian age. Out of its projected fifty thousand lines about twelve only are said to be ready yet in final version, but even that number is enough to give it a central place, for the whole length of Paradise Lost is exceeded and in no other art-creation so continually and cumulatively has inspiration, the lightning-footed goddess, "A sudden messenger from the all-seeing tops" disclosed the Divine's truth and beauty:
"Even was seen as, through a cunning veil
The smile of love that sanctions the long game,
The calm indulgence and maternal breasts
Of wisdom suckling the child laughter of Chance,
Silence, the nurse of the Almighty's power,
The omniscient hush, womb of the immortal Word,
And of the Timeless the still brooding face,
And the creative eye of Eternity.
From darkness' heart she dug out wells of light,
—Sāvitrī,
(The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo—by K. D. Sethna.)
Sri Aurobindo in his "Future Poetry" wrote the following lines about the epic as a poetical form and its possibilities in modem rimes:
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"The epic is only the narrative presentation on its largest canvas and, at its highest elevation, greatness and amplitude of spirit and speech and movement. It is sometimes asserted that the epic is solely proper to primitive ages when the freshness of life made a story of large and simple action of supreme interest to the youthful mind of humanity, the literary epic an artificial prolongation by an intellectual age and a genuine epic poetry no longer possible now or in the future. This is to mistake form and circum- stance for the central reality. The epic, a great poetic story of man or world or gods, need not necessarily be a vigorous presentation of external action: the divinely appointed creation of Rome, the struggles of the principles of good and evil as presented in the great Indian poems, the pageant of the centuries or the journey of the seer through the three worlds beyond us are as fit themes as primitive war and adventure for the imagination of the epic creator. The epics of the soul most inwardly seen as they will be by an intuitive poetry, are his greatest possible subject, and it is this supreme kind that we shall expect from some profound and mighty voice of the future. This indeed may be the song of greatest night that will reveal from the highest pinnacle and with the largest field of vision the destiny of the human spirit and the presence and ways and purpose of the Divinity in man and the universe."
(pp. 376-77)
Now in the light of Sāvitrī, that is. before us it is clear he was anticipating his own work in the forecast. And who can say that he has not amply fulfilled those anticipations? For, he has given us "the song of the greatest flight" that has revealed "from the highest pinnacle and with the largest field of vision the destiny of the human spirit and the presence and the ways and purpose of the Divinity in man and the universe."
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So far as poetical creation is concerned, the present is a period of transition, that is to say, there are many widely separate attempts, some fine and powerful beginnings but no large consummation, no representative work, no dominating figure. But it is a period full of hundreds of influences, many-motived, and therefore naturally rich in interesting and fruitful experiments. So far as the output of the modem poetry is concerned the new age is not yet. It is with Sāvitrī that the new age may be said to have arrived.
Among the precursors of this new age may be counted Whitman, Carpenter, Yeats, A. E. Meredith, Stephen Phillips, Tagore in whose works one can see clear indications of the new spirit and experiments with many forms of poetic expression. The nature of this change may be said to consist in the deepening and enlarging of the thought-mind of man, a more profound and intimate way of seeing life, of feeling and interpreting Nature. A greater "inwardness" seems to be the drive of the creative spirit. A greater subjectivity I than has yet found expression in poetry is becoming dominant. The subjectivity of the nineteenth century was an individual subjectivity but what seems to be coming after the appearance of Whitman is a I universal subjectivity, that is to say, we see the rise of creators in the field of poetry who, as individuals seem to be striving to live in the universal soul and the universal mind. This tendency naturally means a move towards a greater thought-element as material for poetry. Among the precursors of the new age, various tendencies have been trying to find expression, but behind them all, one sees the general element consisting of the acceptance of the greatness of man as an individual and as a community, of his life, of Nature, of the unity of mankind rising upto the divinity of man in rare moments of inspired sight. When we say "thought-element" we mean to
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imply that the creator will observe life and the whole field of his experience from the region of his clear intellect; he will be above the vital and the emotional mind which reacts more powerfully and immediately to life. The creation that comes out from the reactions of the life-spirit alone can give us the feeling of the power of the vital thoughts, force of passion and emotion, and all the multi- coloured play of the life-spirit in its intensity and grandeur. But this dear intellect as the creator gives us the feeling of a greater spirit which embraces life and is capable of showing what is behind life and what is more than life.
When we say that the thought or the intelligence would be the creator we do not mean that it will be devoid of force of life or vigour and it would be something remote and lifeless. It will be thought-element suffused with enthusiasm, giving a greater breath of life to poetical creation. A growing sense of a greater spirit in man and in Nature is one of the most fundamental tendencies of the coming age. It is that which breaks forth in one of those inspired out- bursts of Whitman wherein "he casts forward the ideal heart of this wider movement into the sense of the divine unity which is its completion": (Future Poetry)
"0 Thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre
of them, Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how
speak, if out of myself,
I could not launch to those superior universes?
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders. Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee, 0 soul, 0 actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
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Greater than stars or suns,
Bounding, 0 soul, thou journeyest forth;
What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, 0 soul?
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity,
perfection, strength?
What cheerful willingness for others' sake to give up all?
For others' sake to suffer all?
. Reckoning ahead, 0 soul, when thou, the time
achieved,...—
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim
attained,
As filled with friendship, love complete, the Elder
Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms".
—Leaves of Grass.
In addition to the work of innovator of the new world here is an example from A. E. the Irish poet, inheritor of the old Irish culture:
"Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress;
Each chimney's vapour, like a thin grey rod,
Mounting aloft through miles of quietness,
Pillars the skies of God".
—A. E. George Russel.
This strain is present in more or less degree in all the writers whom we have named as precursors.
The old forms of poetic speech cannot contain entirely the new spirit and they must either enlarge and deepen themselves or under-go a transformation. In the actual process of poetical creation the originating inspiration comes from above the intellect. It might come through the intuitive soul or the soul of vision. Even when a truth either of mind or of life, of philosophy or religion, or science even, has to be expressed in poetry the creator has not merely to offer
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"a precise and a harmonious or forcefully presented idea" to the mind. He has, in fact, to suffuse it with life-force and therefore he would naturally turn to a more intimate and directly intuitive speech which comes from the deeper Soul. It is not mind that is the creator of the highest poetry. It is imaginative intellect that is the general basis of poetic creation, but at its highest, creation comes out of inspiration from above the intellect. But very seldom the whole body of poetry is received direct from the original higher source. The mind, the brain, the critical intellect and many other faculties generally mix up with the Over-head inspiration and mar the purity of the original form. It is when the Intuitive Soul can receive both the soul and the body, the spirt and the word, without ad- mixture in the transmission that we get "immortal tones of speech" and the highest creation. That is to say, the poetic creation has to rise from the imaginative intellect to the intuitive spirit, and even above it to what Sri Aurobindo calls, "the seeing mind" where the expression becomes illuminative speech, and if the poet can rise still higher, to the very home of creative force, he would there find that his creation rises to "the inevitable, absolute and revealing word". "The greatest poets have been those in whom these movements of a highest intensity of intuitive and inspired speech have been of frequent occurrence".—Sri Aurobindo.
It has been argued since Whitman that metre and rhyme are played out and have no future. It is even said that as modern life is large and many-sided and constantly changing, poetry to be sincere must also follow this movement of life and therefore should have no rigid bondage to metres or rhymes. It may be granted in justification of the impulse behind the modernist spirit that poetic form today needs a medium which can allow of a vast flowing movement of the spirit giving it liberty to express sudden turns and alterations indispensable in a complex context of life today. But it must also be borne in mind that art does not always follow life in its imperfect forms or in its chaotic movements. It always tries to impose a more perfect form upon its creation and it is this severe self-discipline which gives beauty and nobility to poetical expression. This self-restraint and
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obedience to a greater law of inner harmony gives to poetry its ideal perfection, and Sri Aurobindo is right when he gives a note of warning that whoever "in the name of freedom relaxes this effort" permits "a laxity and a dangerous downward movement".
The modernist movement can be said to begin with the frank denunciation of metre as a hindrance by Walt Whitman who regards it at best as a petty ornament. After him, poetry dominated by thought-element came in vogue. And now today, in the words of W. B. Yeats, "younger men are in revolt against irrelevant description of Nature, scientific moral discursiveness, political eloquence" and what they call "psychological curiosity". Many poets are trying something like poetic journalism and want to make it even striking; they are, that is to say, trying to be 'reporters'. Taking a survey of the present-day field of poetry one finds that though England has more poets than at any other time, except perhaps in seventeenth century, but there is no dominating figure. Yeats finds the whole field of modernist poetry made up of "soulless self-reflection of man's skill". It seems to be the result of "great boredom" and is trying "to force language against its will into powerful artificial vividness". In trying to arrive at "essential form" modernist poets resort to dry intellectual analysis which reduces the form to its bare vulgarity devoid of all force and beauty of life. It reduces man's life to that which is most persistent in him—"the bone"! Yeats says: "the symbol itself is contradictory, it is the horror of life—horror of Death!"
Apart from Yeats there are other modem critics who are quite critical of the modernist spirit in poetry. Here is what F. L. Lucas says, "Today, the high way of poetry is being blocked by laboriously eccentric gentlemen begging the public to stop and overhear them". He pleads for "the echo of a great soul" in poetry.
Alien Brokington, in his book, "Poetry and Mysticism" says, "The modernist poet hardly has any reserved areas though he is trying to create some with barbed wire of psychological jargon, or economic doctrine. Life is being psycho-analysed in verse, and consciousness tortured to yield new materials. Modernist poetry proves, however, that as yet no safe anchorage has been found and both the struggle for new forms of expression and the character of literary materials assembled show that the effort to introduce
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novel associations and links which lie below consciousness have yet to find its justification"... "In short, something more than a pursuit of process is called for". He says about Auden, "Mr. Auden's poems often demand from the reader the ingenuity of a cross-word puzzle expert used to ready handling of reference books, notes and current controversies". And he continues, "free verse has, indeed, come to stay within strict limits. But, it remains, and can never replace blank verse, rhymed lyric, or sonnet, today mainly as an evidence of the daring explorations of the modem craftsman rather than of major creative achievements".
Sri Aurobindo says about modernist poetry, "It is an error to regard metre as an artificial element. It is a natural form for certain states of creative emotion and vision". Further he says, "modern poetry lacks only two things: the inspired phrase and inevitable word, and the rhythm that keeps a poem for ever alive. It is not the irregular verses or rhymes that matter, one can make perfection out of irregularity. They write poetry from the cultured striving mind, not from the elemental soul-power". To Sri Aurobindo, "much of it seems to be mere flat objectivity, or, what is worse, an exaggerated—emphatic objectivity; emotion seems often to be replaced by intensive vital-physical sensation of the object.... Not only that there are no boundaries left in some arts—like poetry of ultra-modem school—but no foundation or no art either.... Obscurity and unintelligibility are not the essence of any poetry and cannot be its aim and principle".
While trying to estimate and understand the aim of modernist poetry he says, "the turn there is to suppress emotion, rhetoric, colouring, sentiment and arrive at something very direct, expressive recording either the thing exactly as it is or some intimate essential truth of the thing without wrapping it up in ideas and sentiments, superfluous images and epithets". He tries to find a psychological justification for the modernist and envisages even a possibility of advance. Says he, "all the same, there is behind, but not still successfully achieved, the possibility of a real advance, an attempt
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to get away from ornate mental constructions about things to the expression of the intimate truth of the things themselves as directly seen by a deeper sight within us. Only it seems to me a mistake to theorise that only by this kind of technique and in this particular way what is aimed at be done". Analysing further the largest trends in English poetry, he says, "the latest craze in England is either for intellectual quintessence or sensations of life, while any emotional or ideal element in poetry is considered as a deadly sin. But beautiful poetry remains beautiful even if it is not in the current style. And, after all, Yeats and A. E. are still there in spite of this new fashion of the last one or two decades".
Under the stress of modem psychological conditions brought about especially by the two world wars and the upsetting of the outer conditions of life, the modernist poet has found it very difficult to find the true centre of his inspiration. As a result we find the field of poetry full of many theories. While conceding that remarkable experiments have been made under some of them, it must be confessed that barring some creation of high merit the over-all picture of the modernist creation of poetry does not appear to be a successful performance nor does it seem to convey the impression of a lasting creation. Some of the theories are that poetry, mainly, should be the "expression of thought", that poetry should be the "expression of the personality of the poet"; while equally emphatic is the opposite theory that poetry is an "escape from personality". There are some who hold that poetry must deal with the "flux of life" and there are others who maintain that expression of "essential form" is the main business of poetry. There may be other theories with their votaries. We shall not discuss these theories in detail because the highest poetry is hardly written in strict conformity with any theory. But we can observe that all these theories tend to stress the subjective aspect of expression in poetry. In other words, the poet wants to convey his own thought-structure of life or cosmos, he wants to convey some special side of his nature or individuality, he wants to interpret to us the flux which he sees or notices around him, he wants to convey his subjective perception of the essential form. At times, he wants to convey even what he calls direct sensation of the object without
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any ornamentation, image or colour. In this attempt he very often becomes unintelligible, obscure, artificial and prosaic.
With the foregoing enumeration of the faults, shortcomings and imperfections of the modernist poet, let us try to see the deeper springs of his efforts and experiments and see if they are justified. In this connection, Sri Aurobindo's appraisal of the modem times gives us a profound view and psychological justification for these modernist attempts in poetry. In his book, "The Future Poetry", he says, "Everywhere there is a seeking after some new thing, a discontent with the moulds, ideas and powers of the past, a spirit of innovation, a desire to get at deeper powers of language, rhythm, form, because a subtler and vaster life is in birth. There are deeper and more significant things to be said than have yet been spoken and poetry, the highest essence of speech, must find a fitting voice for them".
While analysing the causes for such a seeking and such a discontent he probes deeper and says, "the human intelligence seems on the verge of an attempt to rise through the intellectual into an intuitive mentality". He already sees the signs of such a change not only in the modernist efforts but in the deeper and higher psychological and spiritual strains visible in the field of poetic expression. He observes, "a glint of this change is already visible and in poetry there is already the commencement of such a greater leading; the conscious efforts of Whitman, the tone of Carpenter, the significance of the poetry of A. E., the rapid, immediate fame of Tagore are its first signs. The idea of the poet who is also Rishi has made again its appearance". (P.P.) This new poetic departure will not necessarily be the old, ordinary, outer vital emotional and mental life of man but will contain, even when it deals with these fields, the deeper and the higher strains from the regions of the intuitive, the inspirational, the revelatory and the spiritual consciousness. The modernist is attracted by the subliminal, the subconscient and the abnormal of the vital and the lower vital regions of human consciousness by a kind of false subjectivism. But the real fulfilment of his efforts; the highest strains of his expression
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would be attained when he would contact, either deliberately or by accident, the higher levels of human consciousness which, though for him not constant and permanent at present, are still available and attainable and, in a way, are inevitable in the course of his upward evolution. That would be the true subjectivism enlarging him beyond the limits of the intellect, and opening him to higher levels of consciousness. Sri Aurobindo refers to this possibility in his following observation: "The poetry of Whitman and his successors has been that of Life but of Life, broadened, illumined, raised by the strong intellectual intuition of the self of man and i the large soul of humanity. At the subtlest elevation of all that has yet been reached stands, or rather, wings and floats in a high intermediate region, the poetry of Tagore not in the complete spiritual but amid an air that with its seekings and glimpses found in a psycho-spiritual haven of subtle and delicate soul experience transmuting the earth-forms by the touch of the Radiance". It is Sāvitrī that lifts us into the very body of that Radiance.
We have already spoken of the nature of the psychological tendencies that are at work behind the efforts and experiments of the modernist poets. As the lyrical form permits a rhythmic intensity of expression and as in the modem age the impulse is more lyrical than anything else, we should expect the new tendencies to find expression in the lyric. The lyric also permits an infinite variety of soul-experience within its mould. It allows also a great freedom and variety in its motives and cadences. It has even the capacity to rise to the height of an epic. Sri Aurobindo has himself made very striking and successful innovations in the lyrical form and has given us lyrics that set altogether a new pattern with regard to both the content and the form; but as we are here primarily concerned with Sāvitrī the epic, we shall not take up the study of his lyrics here. We shall try to survey the field of modernist poetry and see if we can discover in it the new inward turn of expression, a more subjective attitude and a new way of sounding the possibilities of the language. There are many among the modern writers who under the stress of life have given evidence of a capacity to
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rise to intuitive perception or inspired expression or psychic insight in their creation. There is the perception of the universal subjectivity on their part and it gives a new vision of nature—of the land and the sea and the earth and its objects—a new way of looking at human relations, a vision of the collectivity or of humanity—carrying altogether a new throb, and there is above all, in most of them, a perception of the supra-rational and a tendency to concretise, to objectivise, so to say, inner, states or spiritual experiences. Among these poets may be counted C.Day Lewis, George Barker, Stephen Spender, W. H. Auden, Peter Yeats, Walter Alien, Edith Sitwell, David Gascoyne, J.A.Chadwic alias Arjava, K.D.Sethna, Sigfried Sasson, Herbert Read, to give only a few names out of the many.
Of these writers. Day Lewis stands out as a very remarkable poet embodying these inmost tendencies in the highest degree in his work. His 'Magnetic Mountain' and some other works which I had occasion to see in anthology have given me a very great thrill of delight to see in them a surprisingly ample element of conscious intuitive insight and expression. Some of his poems, notably, "The Poet", "Word Over-all", "The Revenant" are all remarkable in the faithful rendering of the spiritual experience or insight. The poet in him has caught the movement at its white heat of experience and has succeeded in casting it into an inspired utterance, the language and the rhythm,—the words and the image,—carrying with it a power of reality with the concreteness of the image. The location of the magnetic mountain is described thus:
"Somewhere beyond the rail-road,
Of reason, south or north,
Lies a magnetic mountain,
Riveting sky to earth".
There is here a positive feeling of the reality of a region of consciousness beyond reason and the concrete image of the Magnetic Mountain makes the experience real endowing the Supra-rational Reality with a power of an irresistible attraction. While developing the poem, the poet in fact brings out the elements that will draw him to this supra-rational Mountain,
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"Iron in the soul,
Spirit steeled in fire,
Needle trembling on truth,
These shall draw me there".
As is natural in a great poem, the unity and harmony are through- out maintained—the magnet, iron and steel are all there. Here is the "iron" that is "in the soul". There is perhaps the needle of the compass, conscience, trembling indecisively upon Truth trying to adjust itself in the direction of the Magnetic Mountain. These certainly are some of the elements in man that subject him to the attraction of the supra-rational Magnetic Mountain. The poet has evidently touched the plane of intuitive sight which has brought into his consciousness the symbolic image of the suprarational Reality as the Magnetic Mountain. The Reality, says the poet further, is not only suprrational but is beyond time and space, for there:—
"Compass and clock must fail
For space stands on its head there
And time chases its tail".
When he reaches the mountain the poet finds there will be enough girders "to take the leaden strain of a sagging sky" and he hopes to "build right over chaos a cantilever bridge" with the help of the material he will find in that "miraculous mountain".
His second poem, "The Poet" also moves on the plane of intuition where he feels the exaltation of the creative moment and in three brilliant images, each typifying a special process of poetic inspiration on a level higher than the mind, gives us almost the secret of the true poetic creation. First is "the moon's fitful sleep on a clouded bay"; second is "the maiden flight of white swans" coming down upon poet's mind, and third is the "ascent of the poet's consciousness to the height of intuition". Hear what he says about the ascent to the height of intuition, the third image:—
"Oh, on this striding edge,
hare-bell height of calm
Where intuitions swarm
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Like nestling gulls and knowledge
Is free as the winds that blow,
A little while sustain me,
Love, rill my answer is heard!
Oblivion roars below,
Death's cordon narrows: but vainly
If I have slipped the carrier word".
This stanza gives us a very faithful description of the poet's experience. The precipitous and precarious height of calm above the ordinary mind would lead him to the "swarms" of "intuition", and to regions of free knowledge, and it is from there that the poet would bring "the carrier-word". The description agrees so completely with that given by Sri Aurobindo of the creation of poetry from over-head inspiration! Really, the poet, here, has "in the forest of rime" plucked "eternity's single leaf".—C. Day Lewis.
Day Lewis is also remarkable in his faith in the Word,—the true poetic creation. The power of the Word is so well-known to the Vedic Seers but here we find a modem poet echoing the faith of the most ancient poets. The whole poem would be too long to reproduce here but it is one of those remarkable poems produced during the war-time which gives us a hopeful vision of the destiny of man. In effect, he says, that the poet who is obliged to live in the present cannot know all the forces at work which produce all kinds of results in that narrow slit of time. Besides, rime carries the stamp of impermanence, so even a catastrophe or collosal suffering may seem shifting and impermanent. In a sense, the dangers of the last world-war were temporary inconveniences to some, but they have left behind many in permanent destitution. In face of millions of refugees obliged to migrate, the poet says:—
"The real migrations,
Millions fated to flock,
Down weeping roads to mere oblivion—strike me
Dumb as a rooted-rock".
And, what a living and revealing image he gives us of the search- light! Says he:—
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"I watch when searchlights set the low-cloud smoking Like add on metal".¹
He gives us the description of the fear of the whole town under the bombs by two powerful images only, and conveys the poignant tragedy of the war:—
"The roofless old, the child beneath the debris,
How can I speak of these?"
After stating his inability to express his feelings, he affirms his faith in the Word:-—
"Yet words there must be, wept on the cratered present,
To gleam beyond it,"—
words born of intense sympathy with the suffering of man, rising not only to a pitch of intensity but to an image of extraordinary beauty! For, here there is not only an intensity of feeling but an inspired utterance in which the spirit and the word expressive of it come fused together under the white heat of poetic alchemy. The expression "cratered present" transfers the bombing from the objective to the subjective world, and the poet's hope that the words expressing his sorrow would gleam—like the splinters of the bomb —into the future does the same. A fine affirmation of the poet's faith in his mission and in the undying power of the Word!
Describing a chamber in the heart in his "Live you by love confined," he uses unconsciously an image of the Gītā, describing the self-gathered state of the soul—"as a lamp in a windless place wavers not"—before the moment of self-realisation. He says about the chamber of heart:—
¹ Compare Sri Aurobindo's living image.-—
"As when a searchlight stabs the Night's blind breast
And dwellings and trees and figures of men appear
As if revealed to an eye in Nothingness".
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"There as the candle's beam
Stands firm and will not waver,
Spire-straight, in a close chamber,
As though in a shadowy cave, a
Stalagmite of flame,
The integral spirit climbs
The dark in light for ever".
Live you by love confined
The spirit even though surrounded by darkness ascends to the heights of inner life "in light for ever".
Stephen Spender also gives us remarkable touches of this in- ward subjective turn and of his perception of the worlds that are subliminal. Dissatisfied with the present European civilisation and condemning it to a well-deserved end, he rises to the vision of the collective soul in a world re-made. If some would say it is communism, it should be added that it is the perception of the inner spiritual reality which is the heart of communism. It is the poet's throbbing identity with the soul of man,—the most down- trodden man—that finds expression here. Says he:—
"Into the image of a heart
That feeds separate functions with blood they need
For what they make, we'll shape the wealth
Of the dispossessed world and let those riches pour
Their fertilizing river delta
Across the starved sand of the peoples".
The image of the wealth of the peoples as a heart feeding and nourishing all the different functions of the body social and enriching the dry starved and unproductive sands—the peoples and turning the sands into a fertilizing delta, is a proper acme to the poet's inspiration which invokes the peoples in the following words:-
"Rise, Will of life in brothers". The physical body serves as a very apt symbol of the body social. In contradiction to the theory of class war as the solution of social problems this symbol brings
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out the organic nature and interdependence of various social units like limbs of the human body. Rather than conflict it suggests mutual adjustment and co-operation based on a sense of living unity.
His another poem "A Trance" contains an image of human love. From mutual unity attained by the lovers
"Sometimes, apart in sleep, by chance
She falls out of my care alone
Into the chaos of a trance".
The person that moves in the trance goes through suffering and sorrow which is reflected dimly on the physical features of the sleeping partner. Suddenly there is a communication to this world from the world of trance and in her unconsciousness she asks:—
"Who blesses?
Or, 'I am pursued by time', she moans".
And the lover who hears these words "thundering at his heart like stones" says:—
"I watch that precipice of fear
She treads among her naked distresses".
He is perhaps sorry that he cannot participate in the suffering and all the other experiences of her distress which, however strong their unity of love in life, she must bear alone in that inner world. Probably the poet realises the difference, between the several personalities of his beloved and arrives at a deeper knowledge of the complex and mysterious personality of man.
"To that deep care we are committed
Beneath the forests of our flesh
And shuddering scenery of these dreams,
Where unmasked agony is permitted
And bones are bared of flesh that seems;
Our hands, unravelling beauty's mesh,
Meet our real selves, our charms outwitted".
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"The forests of the flesh" and the "shuddering scenery" of dreams permits some part of our being to suffer "unmasked agony"; and when the thick curtain of the physical being is removed, one stands face to face with his inner personalities—"real selves" which have lost all the charm which the external being had got. Man contains, like 'Jekil and Hyde' even contradictory personalities within him- self and the author hints at their integration by a power of love; that is not important. What is important is the coming out of the subliminal worlds into the world of poetry, with living, concrete and vivid experience which opens out a new realm of the subliminal and the occult to the present-day poetry.
David Gascoyne brings in a symbolic sense of the natural phenomenon with great poetic success. In his 'Snow in Europe' the hush of death that fell on Europe during the last world-war is symbolised by snow and throughout the poem, the poet works out the symbol in such a way as to make the inert operations of Nature capable of carrying a great and living and subjective significance. This is how he describes the fall of the snow symbolising the falling of the bomb:—
"Out of their slumber Europeans spun
Dense dreams: appeasement, miracle, glimpsed flash
Of a new golden era, but could not restrain
The vertical white weight that fell last night
And made their continent a blank".
While in this poem he endows a natural phenomenon with a symbolic significance of human events, in another poem, 'Winter Garden', he makes the natural phenomenon itself a living thing and turns it into a suggestive symbol of man's inner life. He describes "The Winter Garden", perhaps symbolising a desolate heart, as follows:—
"The season's anguish, crashing whirl-wind, ice,
Have passed"—
and yet says the author,
"In this garden there is more strife:
The winter's knife is buried in the earth".
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The winter is not visible outside. It has like a knife gone into the very earth. So that,—
"No blossom is reborn. The blue
Stare of the pond is blind", and no one is here to see—
"a restless stranger"
"whose eyes are tired of weeping, in whose breast
a savage sun consumes its hidden day". .
Poems such as these give us some idea of the outlook on seasons and all Nature which finds altogether a new orientation in Sāvitrī where it becomes an organic part of the complex system of worlds and seems to be a new revelation of earthly seasons, and Nature.
George Barker in one of his poems introduces a striking simile of the forest and a successful use of mathematical language to convey his poetical meaning. He almost implies that man as an individual is lovable, but in the mass is abominable. But it is not what he says, but the poetic turn which he gives to the experience and a new way of using the language that we are concerned with:—
"0 may I mourn the mathematics of man
Who when alone is lovely as the solitary tree
Evolving existence in an algebra of leaves
Against the thunderstorm and the appalling flash:
He is a magnificent one,
But the many of man makes darkness and deceives
Each other with shadow, so that none can see
The human for the flesh".
The following lines from W. H. Auden:—
"Alone the blue sky arching wide
Two black rocks on either side
On your left, and on your right
In the day, and in the night
We are watching you".
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seem to be telling a simple child-like story till we come to grasp the symbolism used by the poet,—the two rocks symbolising time and space, which accompany all operations of human mind. Over and above the use of such symbolism, Auden, like Spender, has the sense of the occult and subliminal levels of being and a perception of their influence on man. In his "In Memorium Ernst Toller" which is a war-poem, he mourns the death of Ernst and feels the inscrutableness of life and says:—
"We are lived by powers we pretend to understand;
They arrange our loves; it is they who direct at the end
The sickness, the enemy bullet, or even our hand.
It is their to-morrow hangs over the earth of the living
And all that we wish for our friends:"¹
That man is not the master of his acts, his likes and dislikes and that events on the physical plane are mostly manipulated by subtle powers behind or above the physical is a truth of the inner life of man which is gradually finding its way in the realm of poetic creation.
Peter Yates in his "Invocation" and "Word of Death" gives us the two most characteristic poems embodying the inmost tendency of the new age in which we find the spirit and the form indivisible. This spontaneous movement of making inner and spiritual elements concrete is successfully illustrated here. See how he invokes
"The star of eternal possibles and joy",
—for nothing is impossible to the Divine Eternal—so he prays,—
"vibrate the marble with your kiss".
¹ Compare—
"Artists minute of the hues of littleness,
They set the mosaic of Life's comedy
Or plan the trivial tragedy of our days,
Arrange the deed, combine the circumstance".
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Probably he invokes the Divine Delight to come down and descend with its Love into the most material level,—the marble—, and make it vibrate to its love. He asks "the star of eternal possibles" to
"aim for the fringe, the thinnest curve
Where strength of possible despairs;
The missing but imagined arc
For which the circle aches,
The vistas waiting to be seen",...
In a situation where "the possible" gives way and the curve becomes thin and weak, he invokes the star to supply "the missing arc",—the crying need—of the circle in the form of some bright vision of the future. The last stanza embodies the most subjective turn and happily makes the inner experience potently objective:—
"O star of mind's dark inwardness,
Prolong the struggle with your force!
By your not being dare to be
More than the eye. can see,
A silence audible with growth".
The last line in which "silence" becomes "audible with growth" is a rare triumph of poetic expression. In his other poem; "The Word of Death" he finds —
"The pure mobility of endless concentration without Name"
—which is stronger than the mobility of thought or of the sex impulse. This nameless concentration, the author says,—
"Let it descend, rest in all thought;
Hear once again
offer Oneness like a bribe,
And haunt the windows of the world
With living's Prisoner imagined free".
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In this last stanza, the Oneness offered by Death seems to attract living human beings who really are prisoners of life but imagine themselves free. It is not Death but the Oneness of consciousness or soul that is offered by Death which acts as an attraction. A new way altogether of seeing the phenomenon of people hastening to war and to death!
Edith Sitwell in her poem, "One Day in Spring" speaks of love and its eternity in face of death. She transfers death from the dead beloved to the living one and endows the dead with life of the living. When the lover, who is a "living dead man" cries to his dead beloved to come home, he implores her in the following words:
"The Cold! How shall I bear my heart without its beat,
My clay without its soul?...! am alone—
More cold than you are in your grave's long night
That has my heart for covering, warmth and light".
Throughout the poem, there is a penetration into the occult worlds and an exchange between what is considered dead and the living and yet love affirms its eternity in the following words:
"The waters love the moon, the sun the day,
"Though all the lovers of the world
Grow old, and fail and die—
Yet how should you and I?
For the world was only made that we should love—
0 heart, 0 eyes, 0 lips that will never grow old".
The very fact of searching behind the phenomenon of death and the acceptance of man's self as free from the bonds of the body, the possibility of the disembodied existence as a subject of poetry has become frequent especially under the stress of the last world-war. It has opened a new realm of experience altogether to the future generations. The same author in "A Song of the Cold" mourns the
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loss of warmth in the hearts of men which has become a "world's fever". She laments "the ultimate cold within the heart of man". This agrees with David Gascoyne and others who have introduced a similar feeling for the seasons.
In this poem "Colliery Country", Walter Alien feels the
"heavy monotonous beat of the colliery pump" in the
darkness of the night, and then,—
"for the time it takes a match to burn out,
The pump was the heart's thump of the tilting earth,
And die earth a sleeping animal that would wake
One day, the whale that Sinbad walked; and I
Sinbad the parasite"....¹
In the presence of that thumping heart in the darkness, the poet feels a terror because it is "an inhuman alien heart". The last turn of the feeling is not a happy one which shows that the poet has not yet acclimatised himself to the presence of the spirit behind material objects.
In many ways very remarkable in voicing the inmost and spiritual tendencies of the new age is the poetry of Herbert Read. He seems to receive through an inner sight powerful images that are capable of expressing directly some spiritual Reality. In a poem which symbolises the three aspects of time,—past, present and future,—he gives a wonderful insight into the mystery of Time. There is an old man who holds "a severed head" like a lantern in one hand, and says:
"I am the storm, which, sunk in me
For a while evades your senses".
He also embodies, or rather is :
"The living point of all the dark forces of the past", and then says he,
¹ Compare the line from Sāvitrī—
"The great hammer-beats of a pent up world-heart".
Sāvitrī,, Book I, Canto 5
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"Yesterday, tomorrow and today
Are in my single glance".
The continuity of the process and the partial view which the mind of man takes about the past, present and future is effectively portrayed in this poem. His other poem "The Mutations of the Phoenix" is openly symbolic. It symbolises the human mind in the process of its rise in the nest of his finite mentality, gradually burning itself up and ending into the golden light of the regions of Reality. Through- out this poem there is a perception of the universal. The eye of the poet is able to penetrate behind the appearances,—even of differences and separation of the physical—and see the One Flame of life, as when he says:
"the blood bums in our limbs with an even flame.
The same sundering flame has burnt the world and
left this crumbling sands
One flame burns many phenomena".
A wonderful compactness in expression and yet it holds a world of significance. It implies the rise of Life from Matter,—some Flame of original Fire burning has left this material world and sands as remnants and given rise to Life that like a flame burns in our very limbs. The line "one flame bums many phenomena" reminds one of the Upanishadic revelation. "It is the one Fire that entered the world and has become every form that we see". The poet continues the figure of the Flame and finds that the Flame burning in the body of man rises in intensity of a mental perception, and then he asks:
"yet how persuade a mind that the thing seen
Is habitant of the cerebral cave
And has elsewhere no materiality?"
All knowledge of man is within his mind and belongs to the mind. The world is a flux and the flux takes place in the mind. He almost makes out that all knowledge is only a mode of the subject, Continuing the same line of feeling he says;—
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"Our world is invisible
Till vision
Makes a finite reflection.
Then the world is finite.
Cast in the mould and measure of a finite instrument".
The poet says it is an Infinite Reality of the world which takes the appearance of a finite world due to the limitations of man's instrument of knowledge. And then, as to the origin of this Phoenix that:
"burns spiritually" its ultimate spark is unknowable, because existence continues only so long as the spark lasts. His invocation to the Phoenix to spread its red wings:
"and soaring in the golden light
survey the world"—
is a call to the mind to rise above its limitations to the regions of golden Light that are above. He is among the modernists a very conscious witness of regions of consciousness beyond mind, for he says:
"But the same mind has seen
Beauties beyond its reach, perfections
Never to be attained. Some state of high serenity
Exist beyond the range
Of febrile senses".
His aspiration for the future of mankind also envisages a new age of perfection. About the new age he says:
"New children must be born of gods in
A deathless land",—and they must have
"No flaw in mind or flesh".
His presaging of the age of perfection gives us a glimpse of that vast new world which is native to Sāvitrī
George Herbert expresses the organic unity of mankind in a striking and illuminating analogy which not only includes the whole of mankind but exterds out to the whole material world.
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"Man is all symmetry,
Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And all to all the world besides:
Each part may call the farthest, brother:
For head with foot hath private amity,
And both with moons and tides"
Among young Indian poets who are writing English poetry, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, Armando Menazes, K. D. Sethna may be considered representative. J. A. Chadwick alias Arjava may be included among them, though an Englishman, on account of his affinity with them in spirit. In his poem the "Errant Life", Sethna touches unusual height and intensity of expression. "This errant life is dear although it dies"—says the poet; to him "human lips are sweet", and although "uncertain" he likes the adventurous spirit of the youth. With the strong bonds binding him to the earth, and yet with an irresistible attraction for the Divine, the poet appeals:
"Sky-lucent bliss, untouched by earthiness!
"If thou desirest my weak self to outgrow
Its mortal longings, lean down from above,
Temper the unborn Light no thought can trace,
Suffuse my mood with a familiar glow".
Pleading man's inability to rise to the Divine, he gives voice to one of the most sincere and powerful aspirations of the human heart, when he says:
"For it is with mouth of clay that I supplicate:
Speak to me heart to heart words intimate,
And all thy formless glory turn to love
And mould thy love into a human face".
The aspiration of the human soul for ascent to the Divine which found a powerful expression in one of the inspired utterances of Whitman and finds intermittent expression in several modernist poets is seen here in Sethna in the new form where the human soul supplicates the Divine to come down on earth. The double
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strand we find in the great epic Savitri—the ascent of the human soul to the Divine, and the descent of the Divine on earth and a promise of transformation of the earth-nature in a harmonious integral and organic expressions—seems to sum up in a grand orchestral music all the strands that extend far into the future of poetic creation.
How entirely different may be the spirit and the form of new creation can be seen from some of the poems of Chadwick of which we give here one as an example:
"The silent Deep all strewn with stars
Unswayably withholds
A moon to reap the star-fraught ears
That midnight's acre folds;
Through a sickle-blade in the harvest hour
Reap all the stars away,
And the gleamer maid of dawn shall leave
The stark bare field of day.
0 Siva-moon be swift and raze
Number and name and form,
Leaving the boon of Wideness bright
And Peace beyond all storm.
In spite of apparent differences in the subject-matter and form of poetry of the modem times, the major trend seems to be clear. It is striving for a subjective expression, direct and unhampered by any conventional considerations of fitness or otherwise of the subject and form of poetry. Often the new poetry deals with the sub- conscient, dream state, abnormal regions of man's consciousness, experiences of his vital and sensational being but its highest and greatest reach goes to the perception of the cosmic consciousness, to that of whole of mankind and to the regions of the supra-rational. Its most important and perhaps the most difficult task would be to contact and reveal in poetic form regions of consciousness which are at present super-conscient to man but are potential in him. In
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the passages quoted from modernist poets in this section one can see that this highest strain finds expression in many of them. What is an occasional inspiration and utterance in modernist lyrical poetry becomes in Sāvitrī an uninterrupted inspired vision, the Word coming out straight from the Spirit. What is lyrical intensity of a point of experience in these forms reaches in Sāvitrī its epic height and grandeur. In "The Future Poetry", Sri Aurobindo has indicated that man in his evolution is moving towards the subjective age and the poet who is the precursor and in his highest function, the prophet, would certainly enter into or ascend those higher regions of consciousness as yet unattained by man. This is what he says: ,
"And it (poetry of future) will open to and interpret not only man and terrestrial Nature, but other domains also, of our spirit. It will give the key of the worlds of supernature, and allow us to move among the beings and scenes, images and influences and presences of the psychic kingdoms which are near to us behind their dark or luminous curtain and will not be afraid to enter into vaster realms of the self and other universal states and the powers that stand behind our life and soul's eternal spaces. It will do this not merely in a symbol of greatened human magnitudes, as the old poets represented the gods, or in hues of romantic glamour or in the far-off light of a mystic remoteness, but with the close directness and reality that comes from intimate vision and feeling, and make these things a part of our living experience". (P. 568)
Sāvitrī takes as its theme the life of man and the movement of his soul over all the cosmic planes. The vision of the poet is like a search-light, turning its revealing light from plane to plane where it brings into our view worlds of being, unknown to the ordinary gaze, their workings and their influences upon earth and man, and the part they play in the evolution from the Inconscient to the Superconscient. In Sri Aurobindo's poetical expression taken as a whole, the movement towards a universal subjectivism gets released from the entanglements of intellectual theories, the uncanny attraction of the lower vital and the distorted view of the abnormal and flies steadily into the region of the higher inspirational consciousness and from there, views the whole of the cosmos including man, other Cosmic Powers and Nature. The spirit of the creator of Sāvitrī is cosmic, it is a world-builder.
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"SAVITRI" AS POETIC EXPRESSION
THE origin of poetry according to modern ideas lies in the primitive peoples' faith in the power of words, or more properly, in their faith in the mystic power of incantation. The primitive people believed that they were surrounded by forces which were not physical and that it was possible to connect themselves with those supra physical forces in order to fulfil some of their desires. Thus it was accepted even by the uncivilised man that life was surrounded and influenced by super-life and that it was possible for him by incantation to influence those beings of the super-life so as to secure their helpful intervention. Hence the earliest form of poetry—incantation —was mystic in a certain sense. There is a striking agreement between the primitive man's belief and that of the Greeks who recognised inspiration as a source of highest creation. They described the psychic state of the poet as that of an exaltation or "enthousiasmos", the state of being in God.¹ In India, the idea that poetry and all
______________________
¹ Mr. C. Day Lewis in his work "the Poetic Image" analyses the process of poetic creation and at last finds that it is something "mysterious". He advises the poets of the future to resort to "Concentration"—"a brooding concentration, the prayer of the intellect"—to be able to create immortal poems. He even feels, like any spiritualist who knows it more intensely, that "the human soul is not a mere spring of pussillanimity in the midst of a trackless jungle". Like old Indian art masters. Day Lewis asks the poets of the future; "Look inward then, but outwards too no less steadily". The poets will always find "in man's unending struggle with fate their permanent myth". "His inspiration comes to the poet as the vision came to Eliphez the Terminite..." It is a veiled vision, a partial intuition communicated to him from the depth of human heart. If he needs mystery, the last mystery is there; and, of all that proceeds from man's heart, nothing is more mysterious than virtue—the disinterested movements of moral fervour and intellectual curiosity, the spontaneous springings of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love. As he passionately responds to these, and with delightful images makes
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artistic creation of the highest order comes from a suprarational source was well established even in the earliest dawn of its culture —the Vedic Age. There is plenty of poetry written dominantly from the imaginative intelligence or from the rich field of experience of life, there is classical and romantic poetry but the Indian aesthete never forgot the distinction between poetry coming from the supra- rational source and that coming from the ordinary levels of being. In fact, the levels of speech or expression were classified under four heads. Vāk, the power of speech, including poetry, comes from four levels according to which it is named:
1. The Parā, the supreme supra-rational word which breaks on the level of consciousness far above the ordinary mental level and carries with it not only the power of the highest Reality it represents or conveys but also the intensity of the rhythm and the body of the word.
2. Second is Paśyanti, the word that sees, or the seeing speech. It is the utterance that comes spontaneously to the illumined mind above the level of reasoning intelligence, but below the highest level of over-mental creative consciousness. When it breaks into the mind it brings in with the word the light that does not require the help of reasoning or the imperfect sense-data. With the light it carries the force of the Reality.
3. Third is Madhyamā, the word that comes from the intermediate regions between the higher mind and the lower intelligence which deals mainly with life and matter.
4. The fourth is Vaikhari, the word or expression that comes from the throat, the sound expression, which generally deals with the outward life and outward expression of man's being.
Sri Aurobindo, in his introduction to "Hymns to Mystic Fire"
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them more true for us, he plays his unique part in a world where not only poets and their words but all men and all their actions are playthings of—
"The eternal spirit's, eternal pastime
shaping, re-shaping".
This attitude comes nearest to the conclusion arrived at by Sri Aurobindo in his book "Future Poetry" where he envisages the evolution of intuitive consciousness beyond the level of man's mental intelligence.
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explains the origin of the poetry of the Vedas. He says: "The name given to the sages who received the inspired poetry in their illumined minds rather than mentally constructed a great, universal, eternal and impersonal truth, was Kavi, which afterwards came to mean any poet but at the time, had the sense of a seer of truth,—Kavayaḥ Satyạ̣̣̣ śrutaḥ". Rishi Dirghatamas speaks of the Ṛks, the hymns of the Veda, as "existing in a supreme ether imperishable and immutable, in which all the gods are seated", and he adds, "One who knows not That, what shall he do with the Ṛks?. (1.164. 39.)
The idea of receiving the inspired word, an intuitive truth expression, a revelation in the illumined mind has come down from the Veda and the Upanishads down to the classical period. Bhavabhuti, the famous dramatist, in the opening verses of Uttarrāmcarit says, "We bow to the goddess of speech who is the Immortal art-expression of the Self", and then he proceeds, "In the case of ordinary saints, the speech follows their meaning, whereas in the case of the seers of old, the meaning pursues their word". There is even a tradition that the great epic Rāmāyaṇa was written before Rāma went through his experience in actual life. Probably it is a way of saying that the physical is only a result of a greater inner reality which the poet is able to envisage on a higher level of his consciousness before it projects itself on the physical. It is thus clear that poetical creation can go on rising from level to level of consciousness and the difference in the origin would mark the difference in the different grades of poetic creation. On the highest level, the poet becomes the seer, who is the creator, Kavi or Rṣi. The ancients gave the name Kavi to the God,—whose poem is the cosmos.
Rṣi is one who has the vision of the Reality beyond the range of mind and in whom the Vision finds a spontaneous expression in the body of rhythm and word. The Truth that he sees is not unrelated to life. In fact, he brings it into expression that it may be creative of life, of a life not yet realised here. The Truth seen presses for realisation. In this sense it has been said that the sages and seers of the Vedas and the Upanishads created the Indian people. It is their Vision that caught hold of the soul of the race which cast its whole life, in all its intellectual, aesthetic, religious, social and political forms of cultural activity into the mould of that Vision. The turn that the life of the race has taken is the result of the assimilation of the transcendent
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vision of life given by that early poetry of humanity. Sāvitrī is the expression of a truth-vision by the greatest seer of the modem age. It is an integral and cosmic truth beginning with the origin of the world and rising towards man's ultimate divine fulfilment on earth. Affirming that "a death-bound littleness is not all we are", it moves with the mounting aspiration of man "to the frontiers of Eternity". It passes beyond it into the realm of the Eternal Day fronting the supreme Creatrix Power with its moving prayer, and succeeds in bringing down upon earth a supreme manifestation of the Divine Power which makes possible the double victory of man and the Divine by conquering all the forces of darkness and Ignorance here and at last establishes the divine life on earth. It is this "Divine event" to which the whole creation of Sāvitrī tends.
About the subject-matter of Sāvitrī, Sri Aurobindo himself wrote:—
"Sāvitrī is the record of a seeing., of an experience which is not of the common kind and is often very far from what the general human mind sees and experiences. You must not expect appreciation or understanding".
Writing to a correspondent about the qualification of one who would be able to understand Sāvitrī, he says: "One who has had the kind of experience which Sāvitrī sets out to express or who, not having it, is prepared by his temperament, his mental turn, his previous intellectual knowledge or psychic training to have some kind of access to it, the feeling of it if not the full understanding, can enter into the spirit and sense of the poem and respond to its poetic appeal; but without that it is difficult for an unprepared reader to respond, all the more if this is as you contend, a new poetry with a new law of expression and technique". In the same connection while admitting the difficulty of the general reader in understanding Sāvitrī, he says: "But if I had to write for the general reader I could not have written Savitri at all. It is in fact for myself that I have written it and for those who can lend themselves to the subject-matter, images, technique of mystic poetry".
About style of Sāvitrī he made the following observations:
"I have not anywhere in Savitri written anything for the sake of mere picturesqueness or merely to produce a rhetorical effect; what I am trying
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to do, everywhere in the poem is to express exactly something seen, something felt or experienced".
The general difficulty in understanding and appreciating Sāvitrī proceeds, as can be seen from the quotations given above, from the extraordinary nature of the experience it describes. They are above the level of the general human mind. Like all new things it requires the reader to prepare his temperament or his taste to appreciate the new experience and the new technique of expression. It is Words- worth who seems to have said that every true poet creates his own taste. To some extent it requires a kind of readjustment of the mind and general consciousness so that it will be able to accommodate itself to the native vastness of the poem. It is when the reader is not ready or able to remain at the height in his consciousness with the poetic flight that he finds it difficult or complicated or even obscure. It would be advisable not to go on reading when one finds himself unable to keep to the height of the poet's inspiration. Probably it is the question of the reader's consciousness being acclimatised to the air of vastness and to the habit of seeing experiences in the light of intuition on a large scale, that is to say, to get accustomed to see things in their vast collectivity. It is then, that the reader would be able to enter into the spirit of the concentrated, intuitive or inspired utterance of the Master, which carries its own revealing light. It might require patience and application but the reader who would be able to undertake the task will find his labours amply rewarded. This vast difference between ordinary poetry and Sāvitrī comes from the fact that the Seer of Sāvitrī creates from the higher levels of consciousness than the mind and not from the mere imaginative intellect. Because he sees from above, he sees largely and widely The poet's consciousness is not overcome by the experiences he is describing and it is not an excited and temporary stir created by some experience of life that has stung him into creative activity; it is a permanent status of consciousness on which the author is living and therefore his voice has a spontaneity and concreteness of an experience which is real and constant to him. The reader who would appreciate the poem has to get accustomed to the Master's high and wide spiritual atmosphere.
The most outstanding power of Sāvitrī as poetry is its power
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of Truth, its Light of Knowledge. I deliberately refrain from calling it power of "thought", for the poet does not speak from the ground of mind nor does he primarily deal with what is understood as "thought". There are poets and critics who believe that the highest function of poetry is to convey thought,—of course convey it poetically. But as we have already made a distinction between vision of truth and thinking about truth it is clear that they are not the same thing. This is not to say that there is no thought element in Sāvitrī ; only the thought is not analytical or even imaginative mental stuff but is present in compressed form, almost one can say in the form of condensed light of Truth which can reveal or cast its light upon. various lines or masses of thought. It is not thought depending upon or derived from either reasoning or sense-data. This truth-revealing power is spontaneous in the expression itself that comes with the vision of the truth. This concentrated expression when taken up by the mind goes on revealing and suggesting chains or lines of thought concerning not only the particular field covered by the Vision but various other fields of knowledge, sometimes covering the whole of life. The expression and the words when taken up by the mind do not end by yielding an intellectual sense only, but go on reverberating in the mind, sinking and coming to the surface with a wealth of suggestions that are like overtones in a rich musical note. The reader therefore should not read hurriedly but pause often, especially where his mind or some part of his being gets either attracted or interested.
Take for instance a line like:
"God found in Nature, Nature fulfilled in God".
which looks very simple, almost like a dry philosophic statement. Even taken without the consideration of the context, one can see that there is a whole world of thought, knowledge packed in the single line. The Nature we see around us, is made of material elements, compounds and objects. It extends from the earth to the stars, and the farthest solar systems and to the groups of nebula; but Nature is not only material, it is also living. It contains the whole world of life from the insects and invisible germs to the largest animals
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and the most evolved creatures. The same Nature is also mental and contains mind and all its multifarious manifestations in all the forms and institutions of human culture. The Master says that this Nature, manifested and potential, hides behind its external veil of form, the presence of the Divine. This truth has to be found if evolution is to reach its fulfilment. It also implies that every search by the mind in any field of nature is bound to lead to an unknowable, to a mystery indicating the veiled presence of the Divine. The Divine is infinite and it can be pursued by the human mind without exhausting it. Every little addition will certainly add to man's knowledge and his power but he will never come to the end of his intellectual search. This is what Iśopaniṣad says: "By ignorance they cross over death", that is to say, by the slow process of knowledge pursued by the mind, one would be able to devise means that may lead him to the conquest of physical death or to overcome the state of mortality but it is by the knowledge of the One, says the same Upaniṣad, that man attains immortality. The pursuit of knowledge through various subjects by the mind can be converted into the pursuit of the Divine through them. When God is at last found in Nature, there will be then perhaps an end of the aspect of imperfection of Nature. She would cast herself into the image of the Divine. In this effort. Nature would find her fulfilment which she is half blindly seeking at present through her outer instruments. Nature will then reveal herself as conscious manifestation of God, the power of God. All this, and much more is packed in this single line, and it is not necessary to mention that it is far more effective as an expression.
If the line is considered in its context, we will see that it has reference to Aswapathy who was preparing himself for a spiritual transformation. He had already attained a poise of spiritual equality, of tranquil strength and unaltered peace. He could remain above sorrow and delight and see all changes without feeling any change within himself. He helped the toiling world by the stillness of his Spirit. Thus he was slowly chiselling the imperfect material of his Nature into the image of a Divine being. When Nature would be completely transformed then a new creation with "God found in Nature, Nature fulfilled in God" as its basic condition, would come into existence The line forms, seen in this way, the natural culmination
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of the process of transformation which had just begun in the case of Aswapathy.
Take even without regarding the context these lines:
"In the enormous spaces of the self
The body now seemed only a wandering shell,
His mind the many-frescoed outer court
Of an imperishable Inhabitant."
Here we have the experience of the Self described wherein the physical body seems only the outer shell wandering from place to place in the enormous, unlimited spaces of the consciousness of Self, even from birth to birth. The next two lines describe in a compact expression the view of the mind and of all mental activities from the chamber of the Self,—the inner chamber of the psychic being. To the Self the mind is only an "outer court"; mind is not the inmost chamber, the inmost sanctuary. This "court" of the mind is not only "outer" but "many-frescoed". Man goes on painting pictures on the walls of his mental consciousness. Thus the outer court of the "Imperishable Inhabitant" is nicely painted with many frescoes. This beautiful image brings out into clear relief, the place and the value of all mental activity, in relation to the Self. The self of man, the real inhabitant of his nature, is im- perishable because it is one in essence with the Divine. There is, thus seen, an enormous thought-content: the relation of self and the body, the self and the mind, the outer court and the inmost being, in those four lines which can go on releasing various lines of thought along many directions when it is allowed to sink into the mind.
We can take almost any line without reference to the context and we shall find that the power of Truth gives us a very great thought-content in each case: e.g.
"The high Gods watch and choose
" To-day's impossibles for the future's base", or
"A marriage of eternity divinised Time", or,
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"All knowledge was left a questioning ignorance". Or, "Know death for a cellar of the house of life", or, "Eternity drew close disguised as love".
This is also felt when one feels the content of Sāvitrī as a whole. It shows humanity as a small portion against the enormous background of a vast cosmos,—not merely material but a complex and vast cosmos made of a hierarchy of planes of consciousness. The human being and his whole world stands explained. Man here is not trotting the stage with his vain little mind and his half light or ideals. And yet, man is not relegated to an insignificant place. His movements, his efforts, his ideals are all shown in their proper perspective. Man is represented as not only great but Divine in his potentiality, and ultimate fulfilment. Beginning as a "death- bound littleness" man emerges at the end as the conqueror of death, as the Immortal who participates consciously in the Divine's work here to build a creation based upon the Divine Truth.
The second prominent power of Sāvitrī is its vast life-throb. The truth of the vision seen is the truth of life, is in fact, the dynamic truth that is pressing upon life for manifestation. It is at the same time the truth of all the efforts and struggles of the life-force on earth. It is the sense of all human efforts at perfection. Throughout the epic this vast double life,—a life on earth aspiring and ascending towards the heights and a vast infinite Divine Power above which is pressing down for manifestation below,—is felt by us in all its intensity under the Light of the revealing Vision. He sees in his cosmic view, and shows us by his miraculous power, the whole panorama of life from the dark Inconscient to the most intense inner spiritual efforts and attainments of man, and leads us with the same revealing view to the Golden heights that await their hour of descent upon earth. He gives us faith; he sustains our failing aspirations; he attracts us irresistibly to the higher peaks by the beauty with which he endows them. There burns throughout the poem an intense fire that wants to change Life into Superlife, Nature into a Super-nature and this Fire of aspiration in the poem is so intense and contagious that the reader invariably catches something of its flame or at least its life-giving warmth. It is true
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that there is no room in this poem for the expression, however intense, of the experience of ordinary life of man which is more or less spent in trivialities. The Master here has widened his life into the whole life of man and the whole poem throbs with movements and actions of this vast and complex life with which the consciousness of the creator is identified. And yet the Master stands on such a high pedestal of consciousness that the fortunes and vicissitudes of this vast life do not overcome him. In fact he comes to the help of this vast struggling and ignorant life of man with his soothing balm of faith, hope and superhuman sympathy which gives to the whole poem what I have called at another place its cosmic subjectivism. It is not an individual ego-centred mind which sees, but an enlightened being that has risen to not only the cosmic consciousness but has ascended to the regions of the Eternal trinity. Because the life in the poem is vast and cosmic, the emotion that we find in the poem is wide and impersonal, bordering almost on the universal. We do not meet here the play of restless emotions that arise in the ordinary consciousness of man. It is not even the emotion that accompanies the fervour of an ideal or the sentiment that arises in the pursuit of perfection. This vast impersonal emotion has two sides which are possible only to a consciousness that has a power of double identification,—an identification with the life of ignorance here, and an identification with the Higher consciousness above. When he comes to view the human, he brings with him the supporting and sustaining sympathy, faith and love from Above; and when he sees the labour of the Gods in the midst of this human ignorance to create perfection, he evokes in us an intense tragic emotion which arises from his complete identification with the life of struggling humanity. Thus there is a vast. Divine impersonal emotion which carries to us the Divine Grace from above and there is on the other side his Oneness with the human which feels the great tragedy and a sense of disappointment at the great human trials to which the Divine submits himself out of its tireless grace. The Master's solicitude for man and his life and the need of Divine perfection are so all-pervading in the poem that it would not be surprising if many readers miss it for the simple reason that it is natural and all-pervading like the air. The third power of Sāvitrī is its power of delight and beauty.
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It brings in the very first canto when the Omniscient Goddess approaches the dark Night of the Nescience. The author sees the delight breaking out in the whole of creation from the earth to the air, the trees and the hills and the sky. The delight of the play of manifestation of the Two-who-are-One finds expression more than once in terms which raises Sāvitrī to the highest expression imaginable—of love. And throughout this utterance runs an intense spiritual delight which renders the understanding of^the cosmic play so easy and so sweet. The Puruṣa, in this game of hide and seek, is all for Prakṛti and Prakṛti throughout her effort is trying to rise to the Puruṣa's highest possibility. The higher regions to which the Vision takes are not only the regions of Light and Truth and Divine Power, but are also regions of "Beauty and a Sweetness dire". If Light is their attraction. Delight is no less an added attraction. This Delight is not confined to the higher levels of consciousness only but is an inhabitant and the sustaining power of the whole manifestation on earth. The seasons, the outbreak of conscious Life upon earth, the reaching out of Mind to the frontiers of Eternity, Sāvitrī going out to select the partner of her life, her meeting Satyavan and their permanent union, all throughout earth-scenes we feel an intense power of Delight which the author communicates to us in his expression. The fulfilment of earth-consciousness would be possible when the Divine would descend into the most material consciousness. It would then, says the author, take the world of ignorance by storm because the Divine would be manifested in form as beauty and it is the Divine Beauty which would capture the heart of Ignorance. The wide vision of the author sees the all-pervading Delight even in the midst of life of ignorance but his revealing gaze never forgets the difference between true spiritual Delight and its deformation that we find prevalent in life. But there are portions in Sāvitrī, for instance—"The Heavens of the Ideal" (Book II, Canto 12) to give only one example, where this delight is overflowing, and exercises upon us an irresistible attraction. So also in Book IV— The Book of Love—a similar attraction of beauty is felt. There is an expression of beauty throughout, not only when he describes "the Glory of Life Heavens" but even in the description of "the Descent into Night", there is beauty that verges on the sublime, though it is not the sublime of the super-conscient but of the Nescient
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that seemed alive but without body or mind that it might be forever nude and sole,—"an eternity of pain, inhuman and intolerable".
Sāvitrī can be called "the song of life divine" in which humanity will find its fulfilment. It sees the spirit, the divine, the supreme who is Absolute, that by a graded, self-regulated descent from its realms of highest infinities of knowledge, consciousness and bliss descends creating at each step of its descent a universe that manifests its glory. When it reaches the kingdom of the subtle matter in its descent, it takes, or seems to our mind to take, a leap into the Unknown abyss of the Nescience which is the opposite end of the Supreme, the Infinite and the Eternal. It is an eternity of Darkness, of Night, of not only the absence of Light but seems to deny the very possibility of any light, consciousness or feeling. From this unfathomable dark Night,—this negative eternity, there arises to our view the gross material world, but this world seems to bring out into her gross forms the beauty and delight of the subtle material world. The spirit that gradually approached the creation of form in the subtle material kingdom is able to overcome the resistance of gross matter and bring out into expression some of its beauty in this gross material world. Above this subtle material plane comes the manifestation of Life on earth, and this life connects itself with the kingdom of the lower and the higher vital worlds of the Spirit. Similarly the mental world when it manifests here on earth gets connected with the worlds of higher Mind and its powers and beings. The Master takes us from these mental realms to the centre of this creation and from there to the realms of the Eternal from where a Truth- world governs the whole movement of the cosmos, waiting for the fulfilment of its purpose here in Time. Man, the mental being, holds within himself the capacity of releasing true divinity of him- self, of the cosmos and of that which is beyond the cosmos. He releases in himself the divine spark and retaining all the instrumentation of his nature widens out into a vast cosmocity of being and of nature. He can even rise to the supra-cosmic, the Transcendent and by an act of supreme surrender bring down into his apparently individual self, the Transcendent being and his Divine Power. This would be possible when his nature rejects the attraction of the lower life of darkness and ignorance, rejects the false puppet self,—the ego, and surrenders its being and nature to the
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Supreme and his Higher nature. It would then be possible to manifest the Divine in life, to establish the victory of the Spirit here in Matter, that is, to create a new humanity which is the intention of the Divine.
Sāvitrī as a poem has many cantos of sustained height of inspiration and the reader should prepare himself to breathe in the rare and high atmosphere on which Sāvitrī moves. There are even in those inspired long passages portions that rise to the heights of the Overmind where the vision and the word fuse. The reader has to make some effort to allow the expression to sink into him instead of trying to understand it with too much mental effort. Take for instance the description of Savitri in the very first canto where we see that "even her humanity was half divine" and to her "her own calamity" was "the private sign" of the evil that is at the root of life. After this, when we come to the second canto, the author again gives us a more detailed description of her personality. The first canto reminds us of her transcendent origin and her contact with the life-situation, but here in the second we have a more detailed and intimate description beginning with:
"Near to earth's wideness, intimate with heaven" upto
"In her he met his own eternity".
Sāvitrī, Book 1, Canto 2.
A quotation from K. D. Sethna will help the reader in forming a correct idea of the character of Savitri:
"The rhythm has an overpowering fidelity to the inner thrill of the experience suggested and symbolised. Here are the figures and values of a superhuman state of consciousness at the very top, breaking upon us in their own stuff and vibrancy through the medium of language. This is not the mind imagining the highest it can beyond itself. This is an overmind actually holding all the magnitudes that are pictured; its vision is from within, composed of its own substance and lit up with its own vast vitality. As a result, the pictures are at once extra-immediate and extra-remote: they make, as A. B. Housman would have said, an impact upon our solar plexus as no mental reflection of mystical realities can, but while convincing us of their living concreteness they dodge our mental apprehension by refusing to yield their meanings easily and to affine themselves to what our thought can size up. To adopt Sri Aurobindo's own turn, the ways of
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thought are overflown, worlds of splendour and calm above the human level are crossed and unborn things reached. Not that everything is difficult to conceive: Sāvitrī's 'magnanimity', 'kindly care' and 'inmost help' reach us through emblems that are not resistant to analysis, though we shall be deprived of a considerable amount of their stimulus unless we use the Eye behind the eye and the Bar behind the ear to sense that the elemental or cosmic analogies and metaphors with their supporting breadth of phrase and sonance are no eloquent exaggerations but are accurately intrinsic to the special nature of Sāvitrī's 'self-giving'. The 'sea of white sincerity' too is within our imaginative grasp and so, again, in this. era of the psycho- analysed subconscious are the gulfs which are 'secrecies of light'. No less steeped in the overmind run the language and rhythm of the lines where they are mentioned and it will be poor justice to them if we did not thrill to the rapturous wideness drowning all thought in the one case and in the other the ecstatic opening of depth beyond depth unsounded by the Freudian intellect, but we are able to adapt ourselves without much strain to the general vision". —(K. D. Sethna)
Some passages, like the one in Book I, Canto 4, page 62, beginning with "The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone" and ending with "our life is a paradox with God. for key" have to be read more than once to allow the vision of the poet to sink into our mind. Its flight takes the consciousness to a higher height than the general level of inspiration of the canto and it would be advisable that reader should read them as he would try to read a revelatory passage of the Upanishads, not that the poetic beauty of these parts is less than the others but the beauty is of a very unusual kind standing on a higher level of consciousness where men are not accustomed to ascend. This small passage of 35 lines gives a perfect poetical rendering of the Transcendent Supreme.
So also the passage on page 64 beginning with "This is a sailor on the flow of time" (Book I, Canto 4) right upto the end of page 66 ending with the lines "And the moms of God have overtaken his night", consisting of about 103 lines is one of the most sustained symbolic and at the same time poetical flight in the whole range of literature. The individual soul here is the sailor and the discoverer. The poet throughout has maintained marvellously the symbol which is at the same time the most perfect metaphor of man's journey through the ocean of Time.
There are other flights like the one we find in Book II, Canto 14 which are difficult at first to grasp because of their sheer vastness
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and the unfamiliarity of the nature of experience described therein. Even if the reader cannot rise to the cosmic vision of the Seer, or rather to the cosmic hearing of the Rishi, it would be possible for him to enter with the aid of his imagination into a region where an echo of the cosmic "murmur" would be audible to him. How rich is the wealth of the cosmic murmur! It is the subtle spiritual sound that rises from the Universe and reaches the ear of the Cosmic Being. And because it is cosmic it is so multitudinously various. It is as if the Master had entered into the heart of the world's soul and listened from there to this "murmur-multitudinous and alone". To him, "all sounds it was in turn, yet still the same". It is to him "a hidden call", "the immortal cry", and it becomes even "a whisper circling round the soul". It rises from the whole of the cosmos like "the yearning of a lone flute"; at times it becomes the crickets' "fiery single note". It is "a jingling silver laugh of anklet bells" carrying with it to the solitary heart the sobbings of a "forgotten sweetness". When the Master hears it as the "tinkling pace of a long caravan" he almost makes us feel the slow march of die cosmic evolution like a slow moving caravan on the paths of Time. Suddenly the cosmos becomes a vast forest and he hears "a vast forest's hymn" rising from it; in another instant, it becomes a "reminder of a temple gong". It carries to the ear of the world-soul "a bee-croon honey- drunk" conveying the ardent ecstasy of universal life. It is the far "anthem of a pilgrim sea". One feels the whole cosmos like the sea moving on a pilgrimage to the Divine with its unceasing anthem. Here, as in the simile of the caravan, we not only see the cosmos but hear its sound and feel its movement. The whole is an inseparable experience.
There are passages where spiritual experiences of exceptional intensity have found expression unequalled in world's literature. Of several such,—the one on page 74 can be taken as typical. As Aswapathy's soul was released from the bonds of Ignorance and rose to the heights of pure Spiritual Being he was suddenly surprised by a powerful Descent from above the mind. This is how it came:
"To meet him bare and pure
A strong Descent leaped down. A Might, a Flame,
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A Beauty half-visible with deathless eyes,
A violent Ecstasy, a Sweetness dire,
Enveloped him with its stupendous limbs
And penetrated nerve and heart and brain
That thrilled and fainted with epiphany";
Sāvitrī, Book1, Canto 5.
and the description that follows upto the end of the page gives one an intense word-picture which is inseparable from the experience described.
In Book III, Canto 4 (page 314), we have Aswapathy's vision of the Supreme Creatrix and her granting of the boon in answer to his passionate plea which is in fact the concentrated and intense expression of the whole of humanity's aspiration for the Divine's descent on earth. And the Voice that arises in response, though contained in 24 lines only, yet is among the most sublime, stirring, gripping and yet consoling utterances in world's poetry. They carry in them the dynamic power of the prophetic vision.
In more than one sense, Sāvitrī can be said to be a poem which "justifies the ways of God to man". It would take us long-because the whole poem is full of them-to try to give a detailed enumeration of this justification. We will only give one or two illustrations. In Book II, Canto 10 dealing with "The kingdoms of Godheads of the Little Mind" he enumerates various mental faculties and not only their limitations but their possibilities and the service they render to the growing soul of humanity. "Logic" and "inventiveness" have their place; then he brings only "imagination" and gives us a picture of its service to man's mental growth. Among the products of imagination is included myth. Now see how myth which has been generally regarded by modern positivist reason as something not only childish and superstitious but even harmful to the growth of man finds its justification on the Master's vision:
"A bright Error fringed the mystery-altar's frieze;
Darkness grew nurse to wisdom's occult sun,
Myth suckled knowledge with her lustrous milk;
The infant passed from dim to radiant breasts."
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 10
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The reader will see here how myth, if at all an error, is a bright Error; its very darkness nurses the growth of spiritual wisdom in man. And the vision brings before us the infant human being—a symbol of infant humanity,—who is being suckled by this dark nurse so that when it grows it will pass—to the radiant realms,—radiant breasts of true spiritual knowledge. And also see how in the lines that follow, we find a true value given to the myths by the divine power that works for the growth of man. There is. also a contrast of the value of reason which has been overestimated by the modem mind:
"Thus worked the Power upon the growing world;
Its subtle craft withheld the full-orbed blaze,
Cherished the soul's childhood and on fictions fed
Far richer in their sweet and nectarous sap
Nourishing its immature divinity
Than the staple or dry straw of Reason's tilth,
Its heaped fodder of innumerable facts,
Plebeian fare on which today we thrive."
There is here not only an explanation of why the divine power at work in the cosmos does not give the full blaze of spiritual knowledge to the infant soul of humanity, but there is also here a true appraisement of reason and its service to the growth of knowledge in man. If poetry is criticism of life, here we find indirectly the criticism of the modem mind's insistence on reason as the only and reliable faculty of knowledge in man. Reason depending upon innumerable accumulation of facts is like grass, while myth and fancy are like milk indispensable to the growing soul, while the dry grass of reason would never nourish the growing, infant man. This and much more is included in the thought-content which accompanies the penetrating vision embodied in these lines.
When he gives us a vision of the mind of man, he makes us see it as an instrument of the Divine Spirit in man. So to him, all the attainments of mind are "on an infant's scale". Mind and life, says the author, are the playthings of this Divine Child. The great divine wisdom that is working behind the cosmos uses this mind in order to "teach the Ignorance". Mind "looked within
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itself but saw not God". Naturally one is surprised,—Why? Because if it is the Divine Spirit that is using the mind as an instrument, the mind should immediately and spontaneously be able to see God. See how the poet justifies the divine wisdom which permits the ignorance to the mind:
"A material interim diplomacy
Denied the truth that transient truths might live
And hid the deity in creed and guess
That the World-Ignorance might grow slowly wise".
The lines that follow make us dearly understand and accept the truth that "only a slow advance the earth can bear".
The range of Sāvitrī is as wide as the cosmos and includes within it conditions pre-existent to the manifestation of the cosmos and ranges of Eternal and Infinite being and Superconscient levels of consciousness that have not yet manifested here on earth. That is to say, it includes unfathomable abyss of darkness of the Nescience mounting gradually to the realms of Eternal Day. There is very often a kind of parallelism between the lower ranges of Darkness and the higher realms of Light. There is, that is to say, what the author calls:
"Against this glory of spiritual states
Their parallels and yet their opposites".
We shall not follow this clue from level to level but just take one only to show how the vision becomes poetically effective in the expression of these opposites; how they move on their own planes, each duplicating something of its opposite. Take Book II, Canto 7, p. 184—"Descent into Night" and Book III, Canto I, "The Pursuit of the Unknowable". The first one contains the description of Night, the most intense form of which is the Nescience, what he calls, "an abysmal Absolute". When Aswapathy descends into this depth of Darkness, he finds that "nothing was left, not even evil face", it was a "formless void", a "threatening waste", a "a sinister loneliness"; there "he faced a sense of death and conscious
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void". The reader would do well to read the description of this extreme of darkness in the original to see for himself how everything that is described contributes to the condensation, an intensification of not only darkness, but horror, repulsion, fear and ultimate extinction in the Dark Void. Now let us compare the opposite parallel of the Unknowable. Aswapathy had there to march:
"across a neutral all-supporting void
whose blankness nursed his lone, immortal spirit",
but it was:—
"always a signless, vague immensity"
"condemning finite things to nothingness",
that is to say,
"a height was reached where nothing made could live".
But this is not the same as "death" or "conscious void". For once our mind asks—"Would not glorious things and things of harmony and beauty and knowledge live there? See what the author says:
"All glory' of outline, sweetness of harmony
Rejected like a grace of trivial notes,
Expunged from Being's Silence, nude, austere
Died into a fine and blissful Nothingness".
"It was a stark, companionless reality"—the other was "a sinister loneliness". Increasing still the unutterable aloneness of the Unknowable, the Master rises to the pitch of supreme expression when he says:—
"Eternity prepared to fade and seemed
A hue and imposition on the Void,
Space was the fluttering of a dream that sank
Before its ending into Nothing's deep."
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The reader will see a kind of parallel opposites which heightens the contrast even when the same words and adjectives are used. Both are voids, but what a difference!
When the whole poem moves on the heights of revelation, inspiration;, illumined mind and never comes down to a lower plane than intuitive sight and expression, it is very difficult to make a choice of passages with special poetical merit. But there are single lines.. double lines, quartets throughout the poem that have a power of poetic beauty which grips our mind and can go on revealing its wealth like a mine. See how the three lines reach an Upanishadic height and grandeur in the intensity of the Vision in "The Heavens of the Ideal"! Aswapathy saw:
"A million lotuses swaying on one stem;
World after coloured and ecstatic world
Climbs towards some far-unseen epiphany".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 12.
Or, for its content of knowledge take the following lines:
"Our human knowledge is a candle burnt
On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth,
Man's virtue, a course-spun ill-fitting dress,
Apparels wooden images of good".
Here we see not only the inadequacy of human knowledge, a candle held out before the sun-light of Truth, but also the insufficiency of man's morality and virtue. What a fine image of virtue as "a coarse and ill-fitting dress" of man's spirit and how the pride of the moralist is crushed when he sees that all his virtue is an apparel of the good which is far from living, for it is only the "wooden image" and not the living Reality to whom it is offered!
There is a realm of sheer beauty which can enrapture the imaginative mind. In Book II, Canto 14, while reaching the level of the world-soul Aswapathy finds that:
"There was a strange spiritual scenery,
A loveliness of lakes and streams and hills,
A flow, a fixity in a soul-space,
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And plains and valleys, stretches of soul-joy,
And gardens that were flower-tracts of the spirit,
Its meditations of tinged reverie.
Air was the breadth of a pure infinite.
A fragrance wandered in a coloured haze
As if the scent and hue of all sweet flowers
Had mingled to copy heaven's atmosphere.
Appealing to the soul and not to the eye
Beauty lived there at home in her own house,
There all was beautiful by its own right
And needed not the splendour of a robe."
An apt symbol clothes a great psychological truth when the Seer sees the life-force in man:
"astray in the echo-caverns of Desire,
It guards the phantoms of a soul's dead hopes
And keeps alive the voice of perished things
Or lingers upon sweet and errant notes
Hunting for pleasure in the heart of pain".
The repetition of the sound in the echo makes the desire soul run from echo to echo in search for an unreality, imposing upon it impossible labour of "hunting for pleasure in the heart of pain".
At times we have a total vision of all the worlds,—the whole cosmos given in a few lines which is one of the marvels of poetical expression:
"He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-manned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable's reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown".
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When we have a description of a. spiritual experience—and there are several dozens of them—we find the language adequate and appropriate to the experience. There are intensities of delight, of power, of ecstasy, of calm-wideness of self, each carrying its authentic atmosphere with the expression. When Aswapathy felt the approach of the supreme Power, the Divine Mother, here is what he felt:
"Spirit and body thrilled identified,
Linked in the grasp of an unspoken joy;
Mind, members, life were merged in ecstasy.
Intoxicated as with nectarous rain
His nature's passioning stretches flowed to her
Flashing with lightnings, mad with luminous wine.
All was a limitless sea that heaved to the moon.
A divinising stream possessed his veins,
His body's cells awoke to spirit sense,
Each nerve became a burning thread of joy:
Tissue and flesh partook beatitude."
The intensity of the experience of Delight and Power and its transforming influence penetrating right upto the physical body is vivid here. If this one gives us an experience of the higher consciousness and its nearness with at! the exaltation that accompanies it, there is another type in which Aswapathy comes down to his physical consciousness from Trance,—after the intense experience on the highest level of his being, where he communicates with the Supreme Power. This is how he felt:
"The warm-lipped sentient soft terrestrial wave,
A quick and many-murmured moan and laugh,
Came gliding in upon white feet of sound.
Unlocked was the deep glory of Silence heart;
The absolute unmoving stillness
Surrendered to the breadth of mortal air,
Dissolving boundlessly the heavens of trance
Collapsed to waking mind."
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The soft wave of the earthly air came like living warm lips, perhaps almost kissed him, and conveyed to him its moan and laugh, many-murmured. At its approach the heart of the supreme Silence in which Aswapathy was abiding unlocked its doors and the heavens of trance were dissolved because the absolute stillness willingly surrendered to the breadth of mortal air and so Aswapathy collapsed to waking mind. It is not that with rare spiritual experiences only the Master gives us peaks of poetical expression, even with very ordinary experiences of life Ills revealing Light is equally effective. Man has believed in the efficacy of prayer for ages or in the inevitable conquest of an Idea or a Will. In four lines, see how he reveals its truth:
"A magic leverage suddenly is caught
That moves the veiled Ineffable's timeless will:
A prayer, a master act, a king idea
Can link man's strength to a transcendent Force."
At times there is a description of perfection which the earth is seeking through the laborious march of evolution. We have several ideals of perfection given us by many philosophers and poets. Here is one which gives the integral vision of the final fulfilment in which the earth,—
"Outstretching arms to the unconscious Void,
Passionate she prays to invisible forms of Gods
Soliciting from dumb Fate and toiling Time
What most she needs, what most exceeds her scope,
A Mind unvisited by illusion's gleams,
A Will expressive of soul's deity,
A Strength not forced to stumble by its speed,
A joy that drags not sorrow as its shade".
Explaining how the life-force in man, his vital being is unable to attain its most constantly pursued aims of absolute knowledge, absolute power, and absolute delight, he affirms that it has a vision
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of gods in heaven, but is able to create here on earth out of mortal elements at first only an ape, and then man, the demi-god. As to the failure of life-force in attaining joy, this is what he says:
"A poignant paradox pursues her dreams:
Her hooded energy moves an ignorant world
To look for a joy her own strong clasp puts off:
In her embrace it cannot turn to its source".
Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 6.
The life-energies that move here in this ignorant world are not really blind but "hooded" and act as if they were blind, and in their search for joy they lay strong clasp upon things with the result that those objects cannot turn in the hard embrace to the delight which is their source. It is thus that life inflicts upon itself by her own blind efforts the joylessness about which she complains, and shuts out the joy she is seeking.
The personality of man is not integrated; in fact, integration of personality is one of the problems of human psychology. The solution proposed in Sāvitrī, for integrating finally the human personality is one that is in keeping with the spiritual ideal of Indian culture. This is what he proposes:
"A Union of the Real with the Unique,
A gaze of the Alone from every face,
The Presence of the Eternal in the hours would make
Whole the fragment-being we are here".
Sāvitrī, Book I Canto 3.
It would require the union of the Individual with the Transcendent, and also the realisation of the One Divine everywhere and the realisation of the Tune-movement as an expression of the Eternal. The first union would replace the ego and consequently remove all the dividing inflictions to which man is subject. The second would harmonise his relations with the surrounding collectivity thus helping the integration of his personality, and the realisation of the universe as the manifestation of the Eternal would make him free from the transitoriness of the movement of time and settle his consciousness in the Eternal,
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In Book II, Canto 3, "The Glory and Fall of Life", life makes her landing on this globe. As a result of the inner pressure of aspiration from matter and the descent of life-force on earth the magnificent panorama of life-manifestation takes place. This is how the earth felt and looked:
"Alive and clad with trees and herbs and flowers
Earth's great brown body smiled towards the skies,
Azure replied to azure in the sea's laugh;
New sentient creatures filled the unseen depths,
Life's glory and swiftness ran in the beauty of beasts,
Man dared and thought and met with his soul the world".
In five lines we get the most complete picture of the outbreak of life-force on earth in innumerable forms.
Speaking about the limitations of reason as an inconclusive instrument of knowledge and action, he gives us a fine image of the utilitarian aspect of its work:
"A bullock yoked in the cart of proven fact,
She drags huge knowledge-bales through Matter's dust
To reach utility's immense bazar".
Sāvitrī, Book II Canto 10.
In one revealing image there is an incomparable picture of the utilitarian action of human reason.
There are passages throughout the poem in which the sympathy and love for humanity find a very vast and intense expression. When Aswapathy realises the presence of the supreme Power, it does not remain a realisation confined to his little personality, for, says the the author, the Divine Power:
"built a golden passage to his heart
Touching through him all longing sentient things"
so that he became a centre for the action of a Higher Power over the whole of humanity. The Divine that he wants man to realise is not one devoid of sympathy and love, for he describes it in his experience as:
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"a Nature throbbing with a Heart divine"—and it was— "a love that bore the cross of pain with joy".
In the same context, he speaks of it as "a burning Love from white spiritual founts". (Sāvitrī, Book III, Canto 2.) It is the Divine Power that commands Aswapathy to continue his labours in the field of life, by telling him:
"Help still humanity's blind and suffering life"
and then, it says further on:
"only one joy, to raise thy kind desire".
Aswapathy standing in the presence of the Supreme Divine Power had grown wide and he found that "his single freedom could not satisfy" his soul that had grown cosmic and so "her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men".
In this vast universal sympathy and compassion the Master is divine and therefore not likely to be easily understood by men whose ideas of compassion and sympathy are very crude.
There are many single lines carrying with them concentrated expression of the poetic vision, and they sink into our mind and go on echoing and re-echoing with wealth of suggestions in our consciousness.
1. "Nature's vision climbs beyond her acts".
2. "Truth is wider, greater than her forms".
3. "Lulled by Time's beats eternity sleeps in us".
4. "Our minds are starters in the race to God".
5. "None lived for himself alone".
6. "Each lived for God in him, and God in all".
7. "The pilgrimage of Nature to the Unknown".
8. "All knowledge was left a questioning ignorance".
9. "She has lured the Eternal into the arms of Time".
10. "He saw a world that is from a world to be".
Sri Aurobindo writing about the spirit and form of "Future
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Poetry" some thirty years back in one of his recently published works, writes:—
* *
"But this new vision will not be as in the old times something hieratically remote, mystic, inward, shielded from the profane, but rather a sight which will endeavour to draw these godheads again to close and familiar intimacy with our earth and embody them not only in the heart of religion and philosophy, not only in the higher flights of thought and art, but also, as far as may be, in the common life and action of man. For in the old days these things were mysteries, which man left to the few, to the initiates and by so leaving them lost sight of them in the end, but the endeavour of this new mind is to reveal, to divulge, and to bring near to our comprehension all mysteries".
"A poetry of this kind need not at all be something high and remote or beautifully delicately tangible, or not that alone, but will make too the highest things near, close and visible, will sing greatly and beautifully of all that we are from outward body to very God and self, of die finite and the infinite, the transient and the Eternal, but with a new reconciling and fusing vision that will make them other to us than they have been when yet tile same. If it wings to the heights, it will not leave the earth unseen below it, but also will not confine itself to earth, but And too other realities and other powers of men and take all the planes of existence for the empire....And then the attempt itself would be a rejuvenating elixir and put the poetic spirit once more in the shining forefront of the powers and guides of the ever progressing soul of humanity. There it will lead in the journey like the Vedic Agni, the fiery giver of the word, the youth, the seer, the beloved and im- mortal' guest, with his honied tongue of ecstasy, the truth-conscious— Rit-Cit, the truth-finder-Ritava—, born as a flame from earth and yet the heavenly messenger of the Immortals". (Future Poetry.)
"The voice of the poet will reveal to us by the inspired rhythmic word the God who is the Self of all things and beings, the Life of the Universe, the Divinity in man, and he will express all the emotion and delight of the endeavour of the human soul, to discover the touch and joy of that Divinity within him in whom he feels the mighty founts of his own being and life and effort and his fullness and unity with all cosmic experience and with Nature and with all creatures", (ibid)
Now after the publication of Sāvitrī, it appears that he was un- consciously (?)—or rather consciously, anticipating his own work and establishing his title as a seer-poet of the future age.
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FROM what we have written about the relationship which —" Sāvitrī bears to Vedic and Upanishadic content and manner, one might perhaps be led to think that Sāvitrī is something very much of the past and may have no bearing to the present age. This will be a "grave mistake because to have similarity of content and manner with the Veda and the Upanisad is not at all to be antiquated or obsolete. These ancient writings deal with perennial problems of life and in that sense they are as modern as the most modernist expression. Besides, Sri Aurobindo in spite of his long retirement from the outside world has not ceased to be constantly in contact with the contemporary living and thinking to which he himself has contributed in no small measure. He has kept himself abreast of all the movements of progress in every line of cultural activity. Sāvitrī dealing with the entire expanse of evolution from the dark Nescience to the supreme levels of the Superconscient covering all problems of fundamental importance touched by the intellect of the man and dealing with every aspect of mystical living, could not naturally be supposed to be shut up in some obsolete and narrow vision, however brilliant it may be, of the past dawns of humanity. As it contains a rich variety of style and subject matter the modem element naturally comes in as a most spontaneous and organic dement. This is as one should expect, because the whole vision of Sāvitrī is not otherworldly; it does not turn away from the life on earth. In the words of Mr. Sethna, Sri Aurobindo "outdoes the ancient scriptures in the aspiration to suffuse and transform earth's life with the golden Immortal the Rishis saw everywhere pressing for manifestation. And in his care to get the acting externals into harmony by some power from within, his concern about the poor unfulfilled trivialities that are divorced from the deep springs of our consciousness, he outdoes also the modernism of Eliot no less than
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Jung". We shall just show from a few quotations how this modem- ism has become an organic part of his creative faculty, so much so that; a reader of Sāvitrī if he wants to enter into the deepest spirit and all the rich overtones and suggestive aura which surrounds the poetical form of expression should have his mind fully alive and '' alert to all die progressive movements of presentday humanity. He will find that the author, at times, not only brings "the sperm and gene" and "plasm and gas" but he also takes images and figures from all over the world and every field of cultural activity to serve his purpose. Even the second world-war-phrase finds a place "behind his vain labour, sweat and blood and tears" reminding us of the famous Churchilian phrase. The unrolling of the cosmic panorama finds an apt image in the Japanese rolls of painting "a kakemono of significant forms". And how far the latest scientific advances have become assimilated in his poetic genius can be seen from the revealing way in which, under the intense flame of inspiration, he utilises this advance of material science to concretise, to objectify a spiritual reality. While speaking about "the Godheads of Little Life", he speaks of Aswapathy having "plunged his gaze into the siege of mist" of the lower vital and then:
"As when a search-light stabs the Night's blind breast
As if revealed to an eye in Nothingness,
All lurking things were torn out of their veils
And held up in his vision's sun-white blaze."
Even relativity of Einstein and De Sitter's researches find an echo in "parent of an expanding universe", (Book II, Canto 5.) and while dealing with the formation of Matter the reader will have to have some familiarity with the latest theory of the electrical constitution of matter. He speaks of:
"An ocean of electrical Energy
Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles
Constructing by their dance this solid scheme,
Its mightiness in the atom shut to rest;
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Masses were forged or feigned and visible shapes;
Light flung the photon's swift revealing spark".
We gave above the effective use of the simile of searchlight. In the same way, television has found its utility in this grand spiritual vision of the Master. While speaking of "the Glory and Fall of Life" (Book II, Canto 3) he introduces us to the beings of the higher vital plane, living in an independent vital world constituted entirely differently from our gross material earth. Says he:
"As through a magic television's glass
Outlined to some magnifying inner eye
They shone like images thrown from a far scene
Too high and glad for mortal lids to seize"
It almost lays bare the process of occult vision by which a man is able to see the subtle worlds. The process of television gives to it not only a great sense of concreteness but of a convincing reality by bringing to the doubting physical mind a process of scientific invention which seems to render the impossible possible. The suggestion is that if television can make distant objects visible and near, why should not there be an inner faculty of sight capable of a similar function with regard to inner worlds? In another context also, (Book II, Canto 7) he speaks of the Dark Beings that "came televisioned from the gulfs of Night". The great Master in his supreme art can turn even the illegal process of smuggling to a divine advantage in his creation. Dealing with "The Paradise of the Life-Gods" (Book II, Canto 9) he speaks of Aswapathy's thrilling experience as follows:
"His earth, dowered with celestial competence,
Harboured a power that needed now no more
To cross the closed customs-line of mind and flesh
And smuggle godhead into humanity."
The revealing vision at times daringly explains to our mind the creation of the physical world from the supra-physical in lines like the following:
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"Proton and photon served the imager Eye
To change things subtle into a physical world".
There is "quantum" and "robot" and "atomic parcellings of the infinite" and "a thinking body from chemic cells", (p. 145). There is even a reference to the breaking up of the atom when he speaks of "The Kingdoms of Godheads of the Little Mind":
"And Nature's plastic and protean change
And, strong by death to slay or to create,
The riven invisible atom's omnipotent force."
While speaking of the higher planes of consciousness above the mind he takes advantage of the scientific image by the spontaneous alchemy of his vision and gives us the convincing line:
"Above in a high breathless stratosphere"
Even the last war and some of the latest means employed by the air-arm have been marvellously woven into the texture of this grand spiritual vision. While speaking of the first breaking of the spiritual dawn, the awakening to the divine possibilities of life, he says:"-
"Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed
Of which our thoughts and hopes are signal flares".
It is the dropping of flares by the fighter-planes at night to light up or indicate the path to the target to the bombers that follow in the dark ignorance of humanity which is like the night. Man's thoughts and hopes have no final importance but are useful only as indications of the way towards which the spirit of man has to move. The whole psychological vision of man's life, its relative importance, and a whole world of suggestion connected with it is here packed in a single line. So also when Aswapathy moves in the high "stratosphere" of the superconscient, he again employs the strategy of the last war to serve his poetic vision. And so concrete and effective is the use!:
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"As far as its self-winged airplanes could fly,
"It reconnoitred vistas of dream fate."
Drawing further the same image he works it out into a vision of the spiritual military operation:
"Apt to conceive, unable to attain,
It drew its concept-maps, and vision-plans
Too large for the architecture of mortal Space."
In some places, there is such a blending of old Vedic image and the one based upon modem scientific advance that one hardly notices the transition. In the same breath he speaks of
"The troglodytes of the subconscious Mind,
Ill-trained slow stammering interpreters"
and
"Mid an obscure occult machinery,
Captured the mystic Morse whose measured lilt
Transmits the messages of the cosmic Force."
(ibid.)
The first part of this refers to the cave-dwelling Panis of the Veda and the latter deals with the mystic Morse code which transmits the messages of the cosmic Force. As for mathematics, there is— "Necessity's logarithmic table" and "the calculus of destiny" and "the recurrent decimal of events" but most staggering is his use of mathematical technique when he succeeds in conveying a spiritual reality, for instance:
Yet all were being's secret integers."
This may be said to be the most mathematical way of saying that each being is a portion of the Divine, and all is the Divine. In his hands "multiplication's sum" becomes "rapturous", and there are "the recurring decimals of eternity".
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There is a film-world or images caught in "imagination's camera". Travelling through "the Kingdom of Little Life" , the awakened eye of the witness consciousness does not see merely the huge waste of material and effort involved in the process '^ of evolution but sees in it "the secret crawl of consciousness to light"...through
"The turbid yeast of nature's passionate change,
Ferment of the soul's creation out of mire".
The awakening of consciousness to Light through the "fertile slime of lust" and sense by the fermentation brought about by the nature's passion to create a soul has been so aptly imaged with the whole world of suggestion of the transformation of one substance into quite another with a set of new undreamt of and intense qualities as a result of chemical process!
He refers to "unprovisioned cheques on the Beyond" signed by man's religion practising fraud upon the credit-bank of Time, and there comes also "cowled fifth-columnist" who comes as "thought's guide'". We come across not only bank and all the multiple activities of modem life in this great epic of the human spirit which deals with the realms of eternal Light as yet unattained by humanity but also with "Inconscient's magic printing-house" where the "formats of the primal Night are torn" and the "stereo- types of ignorance" are "shattered". To the author life is "wide world kindegarten of young souls"!
The quotations we have given are by no means exhaustive but they will serve to show the universal range of the creation which is Sāvitrī. A cosmos of multiple worlds acting and reacting upon the growing consciousness of the earth is seen moving towards planes of consciousness unattained by man and the future destiny of man, the whole life of man with all his multifarious activities is seen in the light of this grand vision. Nothing is left out as unimportant. The most ultramodern elements find their proper place in this complex and integral vision. Sāvitrī, even as a poem, would require its reader, as one can see from the quotations, to have a wide range of acquaintance with the latest advances in almost every branch of human culture.
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PART - TWO
SUMMARY OF BOOK ONE
BOOK one contains five Cantos. It opens with the Symbol-Night which turns into the Symbol-Dawn. It figures the very beginning of the Universe from the Night of Nescience to the awakening of the Dawn of the Spirit. In sublime and cosmic sweeps it covers the whole period of evolution and brings it up to the human stage. It focuses our attention on the fundamental problem of man in the situation of Sāvitrī, the main character of the poem, who is described here in short with her human-divine qualities. We yet know nothing about the life of Savitri on earth. Suddenly we find this human-divine heroine brought face to face with the central problem of man concentrated into "Earth, Love and Doom". Earth represents the masked Infinite that appears as original Nescience. It contains within it the upward drive and the downward drag of the evolutionary movement that has created the cosmos. Love represents in its origin and purity the Divine grace that sacrifices its perfection in order that creation may be saved from the prison of Inconscience. Love therefore is the immortal element in mortals. It maintains some of its original divine glow even when it manifests itself in human life and under human forms. It is a sign I from Heaven in man assuring him of his divine origin and destiny. When it comes from the Divine direct it is the Grace that saves. Doom is the present apparent determinism of Nature trying to perpetuate the rule of Ignorance in mankind. It denies and contradicts man's deepest aspirations and opposes any attempt at self- exceeding. Its chief fulcrum is ego in the human being and desire is its dynamic support. All these forces working in conjunction in the human being give rise to pain and suffering. Sāvitrī is faced with the apparently unchangeable determinism of cosmic nature. , The only support she has was that of the Spirit within her. The a second Canto traces the growth of Sāvitrī's personality, the circumstances that surrounded her and the necessary psychological readjustments and spiritual changes which must be carried out
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within herself if she is to solve the problem of man with which she is faced. In fact, her task amounts to finding out a "magic leverage" in the midst of this vast cosmic prison-house of Ignorance so that man can attain spiritual freedom. Savitri's labour is not so much for herself as for humanity, because her own calamity is to her only a "private sign" of man's general fate. The question she has to face was whether it is possible to break the bounds of human consciousness and go beyond to another state of consciousness higher than the mind. For, only so can man's problem be resolved. She found that she had within herself the Higher consciousness—in her the Divine Mother herself arose when she was preparing to face the danger.
The other three Cantos of the first book describing the Raja Yoga--the Yoga of the King,—contain the kernal of the methods and results of an integral yoga followed by Aswapathy. Man is not in reality what he appears to be,—a mere material phenomenon, — mentalised animal having a physical body. He has from the dawn of history a feeling of something imperishable within him. And there are hidden powers in man which can be awakened to make the realisation of that Self possible by following a certain path of inner discipline called Sādhanā in India.
The powers of his natural instruments—those of knowledge, will etc.—increased in proportion to his devotion to the pursuit of the Infinite, and the concentration of his nature on the task. Man, even in ordinary life, gets many glimpses of something higher than his ordinary self—he hears a voice, or feels a truth, or a sweetness, or a presence in or around him. Aswapathy gradually got acclimatised to higher states of being than the mind; only, he could not retain them for long as the lower parts of his nature were not ready to assimilate the new experience. He had to persuade them to aspire for a higher change. At times he found that a flood of Inspiration came flowing down into him from above. After having risen from the earthly state he not only glimpsed the Infinite but the eternal Light. He knew that there were parts of his nature wedded to the lower consciousness, but he equally knew by personal experience that there were parts in him that had kinship with the Divine. He felt the presence of a witness self within him that saw all, but was attached to nothing. But nothing of this experience
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appears m ordinary life. There only material appearance seems to rule. Man is subject to doubts, and difficulties of his own nature which are the products of a process of slow evolution from original Nescience to some spiritual perfection. His movement towards that perfection can begin by his refusing to accept as final the present limitations of his nature. The first effort at realising the spirit releases man from the ego and enlarges him so that he is able to identify himself with the World-Being. All things here on earth are really symbolic of the One who manifests himself as Many. In order to create a world of complex relations and harmony the One becomes Two and manifests the Many. The Two are the Self and Nature—Nature both lower and higher. Behind the external appearance of ignorance there is the Divine Presence that works in silence.
And yet evolution is not really a process that denies the Light or that intends to perpetuate ignorance. It is a gradual growth towards a supreme knowledge. It is because of this fact that evolution leads, as it is intended to lead, man towards self-transcendence. Aswapathy arrived at the frontiers of knowledge and saw vast realms of the spirit beyond. He knew that the world is an unfinished work,-- a process that is not yet complete. He also felt that the fulfilment of earth lay in her manifesting higher planes of consciousness upon her surface,—by realising perfect Knowledge unerring Will and unflagging Delight. Then he felt sure of a divine presence in and behind the world-process. His own will rose in union with the divine will to fulfil the world purpose. He could not, thereafter, rest content with ordinary life. As a result of his efforts his consciousness rose to higher planes of being. Occasionally he felt a descent of a Higher Power from above. He could then read .the secrets of Nature. He entered into the realm of the Spirit. He becomes by his yoga the representative of the upward aspiring and striving soul of man during aeons of evolution. He acquired all the available knowledge guarded by past traditions and cast his glance toward the future. Though Savitri is born to him as his daughter, yet the poet's affirmation "A world's desire compelled her mortal birth" becomes quite intelligible and clear when we realise the symbolic character of Aswapathy. He carries to the Divine Mother the intense aspiration of the earth and as its representative prays to Her to come down on earth.
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CANTO I
The first Canto is found to be a very difficult by many genuine lovers of poetry. It is so because Sāvitrī is not like ordinary poetry, an aesthetic creation either of the higher vital or refined intellectual being. It is psychic, mystic and spiritual poetry and in the first Canto the sublime dominates. The very concepts and symbols used by the seer are so unfamiliar to the ordinary present-day mentality that one has to acquire a capacity to appreciate this high poetry. It is a question of cultivating taste. It is advisable that the reader should not try to interpret this poetry in terms of its intellectual content. It would be better instead to allow the vision to grow in intensity and clarity in his consciousness. He might find that with the help of this faculty of vision he is able to enter into the spirit of the poem much better than through the doors of dry intellect.
The Symbol-Dawn here is related to the Vedic goddess Dawn— Usha. Some acquaintance with the Vedic Dawn might help the reader to form a correct conception of the Symbol-Dawn of Sāvitrī. The passage quoted here is the translation by Sri Aurobindo of a Vedic hymn.
"She follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond, she is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that are coming,— Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone who was dead. What is her scope when she harmonises with the dawns that shone out before and those that now must shine? She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her illumination she enters into communion with the rest that are to come."
Rig Veda, I. 113. 8-10.
Dawn here symbolises the continuity,—the ever fresh continuity of the process of Time. It is in effect Time-Eternity in contrast to Timeless-Eternity of the Absolute. In his poem "In horis Eternum" Sri Aurobindo calls the sun—"A blazing eye of Time watching the motionless day". For, in the sight of the sun the day is eternal. Ordinarily Dawn stands for life eternal—life ever fresh, life ever beautiful. In Sāvitrī it symbolises the perpetual awakening of the light of consciousness from the Night of Nescience which gives rise to the
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cosmos and awakens in man the aspiration for the Spirit from the normal state of ignorance.
The Night described in the beginning of the first Canto is also symbolic. The poet in a letter has written, "The attempt at mystic spiritual poetry of the kind I am at demands above all a spiritual objectivity, an intense psycho-physical concreteness. That darkness itself is described as a quietude which gives it a subjective spiritual character and brings out the thing symbolised, but the double epithet 'inert black'¹ gives it the needed concreteness so that the quietude ceases to be something abstract and becomes something concrete, objective but still spiritually subjective".
The Night that prevails before the outbreak of the Dawn is the night of darkness which is subjective and indicates the Nescience that reigned before cosmos was created. The condition of darkness described as Night here has a resemblance to the primordial condition described in the Rig Veda in a hymn generally called the Hymn of Creation.
"Then existence was not nor non-existence, the mid world was not nor the ether nor what is beyond. What covered all? Where was it? In whose refuge? What was that ocean dense and deep? Death was not nor immortality nor the knowledge of day and night. That One lived without breath by his self-law, there was nothing else nor aught beyond it. In the beginning Darkness was hidden by darkness, all this was an ocean of inconscience. When universal being was concealed by fragmentation, than by the greatness of its energy That One was born. That moved at first as desire within, which was the primal seed of mind. The seers of Truth discovered the building of being in non-being by will in the heart and by the thought; their ray was extended horizontally; but what was there below, what was there above? There were Casters of the seed, there were Greatnesses: there was self-law below, there was Will above."
Rig Veda X, 129.
The condition described here is pre-existent to Being as well as Non-being. Nor was there "day and night" i.e. time. "In the beginning
¹ "The persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch
Persuaded the inert black quietude
And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God."
Book I, Canto1
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darkness was hidden by darkness"—all this was an ocean of inconscience. That is the Night of Sāvitrī, a condition of Nescience in which nothing had yet emerged—not even matter—and yet everything was there from which the cosmos could emerge.
These quotations are given just to help the reader to enter into the spirit of the first Canto. There is no question of the symbol-Dawn or the Night being derived from the Vedic symbol. It is quoted here in order to bring something similar in spirit and form to help the reader to appreciate Sāvitrī. The creator of Sāvitrī like the Vedic sages sees his symbols and projects them as realities with as much authenticity as the ancient seers did when they embodied their visions and inspirations in the Mantras that came to them with their vibrations of thought, rhythm and language. There is a thread of correspondence and a correlation between the most ancient poets and their expression and the most modem seer and his expression.
"It was the hour before the Gods awake". The time when the poem opens is that when Gods who preside over the various functions of the cosmos had not yet awakened and begun their work. The universe we are living in is a cosmos. But it is so because the Gods carrying out the Fiat of the Omnipotent maintain the laws of the material, the vital and mental worlds. In place of awakened Gods there is seen an all-pervading figure of Night, a dark woman asleep in her "unlit temple of Eternity", who "lay stretched immobile upon Silence' marge". The idea of the temple suggests the presence of the Divine. The poet speaks of this Night as having a "huge foreboding mind". It was her mind that lay "across the path of the divine Event", obstructing the coming of the divine Dawn. The mind of this all-pervading Night seems subject to nightmare and the phenomenon of somnambulism. At first she has a nightmare and she shrinks from the very thought of embarking upon the adventure of "The insoluble mystery of birth and the tardy process of mortality". Even the subconscient mind of this Night is not willing to take up the "mystery of birth" and with it the slow and tedious process of evolution—"the process of mortality". The mind of this Night wanted even to end itself in mere nothingness rather than undertake the task. It is when her mind consents that cosmos can come into being. It is not the "power of fallen boundless self that can take up the task; it is the unfallen Transcendent with His power that can
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do it. Then something undefinable stirs in the depth of her nescience. As a result "repeating for ever the unconscious act" she brings into existence this vast material universe. In the wonderful words of the poet. She
"Cradled the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force
Whose moved creative slumber kindles the suns
And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl."
Our material universe thus came into being by an 'act of somnambulism on the part of this sleeping Night of nescience. In this vast dark Night where only immobility and silence seem to dominate there is an unlimited extension of the sky and the earth is lost in its 'hollow gulfs'. Then all of a sudden a stir is felt; "A nameless movement, an unthought Idea" succeeds in teasing this inconscience of the Night to "wake Ignorance". As a result of the first stirring the subconscious memory is awakened in the mind of this Night. When the memory returned to her she saw that it was not the first awakening to the Dawn on her part. The impulse to wake to a Dawn amounted in her to a feeling that "something" that wished but knew not "how to be",—was active in her. The great stir did not know itself, nor did it find conditions propitious for its full emergence in the midst of this enormous Night. It only awoke in her mind the memory of her past efforts and when she tried to relate her subconscient memory to the stir she found that "There lurked in her an unremembering entity", that was the "Survivor of a slain and buried past".
This surviving entity added its own aspiration to the stirring that the Night was feeling within her. This past personality—if it can be so called—was almost compelled to renew the effort of Self-realization in the new surroundings. When the vast Night almost consented to the birth of the Dawn she felt compelled to fulfil her role of the mother by being "reminded of endless need in things".
The first thing to emerge was the outbreak of the light, a ray of life-consciousness. This outbreak of the light of life was the coming of a "a scout in a reconnaissance from the sun" "to seek for a spirit sole and desolate". This spirit which the light of life was seeking is the same that is spoken of in the beginning as the "fallen boundless self". In seeking for the fallen spirit the ray of light called upon the
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Night to take up "the adventure of consciousness and joy" and it "compelled renewed consent to see and feel". So far, the stir in the heart of the Night has succeeded in contacting the light of Life,— some ray from the Sun, which is the promise of the full awakening of the Dawn. This stir, this aspiration is not merely an ignorant wish or desire. It is also not a running after some phantom of unreality, for, there was a prescience that it would be fulfilled. The birth of this infant aspiration converts the unwitting and sleeping Night who at first is a careless mother into a careful mother of the Universe. It had to make the body, create the needs of life and needs of the soul. This was by no means an easy task. It was as it were re-building of the whole past under new conditions. And this could only be done if the superconscient Transcendent Divine would lead his touch: "All can be done if the God-touch is there". It is this "persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch" of the Divine from above that "persuades the inert black quietude" of this Night to manifest beauty and wonder of which it seemed quite incapable. In fact with the constant and persistent stirring from within there was all along "One lucent corner windowing hidden things" from where a constant stream of Light went on acting upon the impenetrable darkness of the Night. And it is the double action of this constant inflow of Light from above and the inner urge from below that ultimately "Forced the worlds' blind immensity to sight". It is then that the darkness like a robe slipped from the body of this unknown entity and revealed "the reclining body of a God". Behind the mask of the Nescience the body of a God is revealed. To an objection that the description was not applicable to the physical phenomenon of day and night Sri Aurobindo replied as follows:
"I am not writing a scientific treatise, I am selecting certain ideas and impressions to form a symbol of a partial temporary darkness of the Soul and Nature which seems to a temporary feeling of that which is caught in the Night as if it were universal and eternal. One who is lost in that Might does not think of the other half of the earth as full of light, to him all is Night and the earth a forsaken wanderer in an enduring darkness....In the poem I present constantly one partial view of life or another temporarily as if it were the whole in order to give full value to the experience of those who are bound by that view, but if any one charges me with philosophical inconsistency then it only means that he does not understand the technique of the overmind interpretation of life."
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Everything now seems ready for the outbreak of the Dawn. Dawn comes, "a glamour from the unreached transcendences iridescent with the glory of the Unseen". She is "a message from the unknown immortal Light". This passage about Dawn is one of the most vivid, poetically most satisfying and yet symbolically the most revealing passages of Sāvitrī. It is she who brings" the hope of fulfilment, the promise of realisation to the stir, to the struggling aspiration that has been born on earth. It is from the unreached transcendences of the Timeless Eternal that the Light of Dawn breaks through into the darkness of the Night of inconscience. The message is that the un- reached transcendence shall be reached, the glory of the Unseen now unfolded only in the mild ray will one day become the settled splendour of the Supreme, the unknown immortal Light will fulfil its work and establish here on earth the life divine. Dawn here is the beautiful Goddess coming from beyond the realms of darkness and her very first outbreak reveals the nature of the ultimate fulfilment. To a correspondent's criticism that the Dawn was not a continuous picture he wrote:
"I am not here building a long sustained single picture of the Dawn with a single continuous image. I am describing a rapid series of transitions, piling one suggestion upon another. There is first a black quietude, then the perisitent touch, then the first 'beauty and wonder' leading to the magical gate and the 'lucent corner'. Then comes the failing of darkness, the simile used suggesting the rapidity of the change. Thus as a result the change of what was once a rift into a wide luminous gap... Then all changes into a brief perpetual sign, the iridescence, then the blaze and the magnificent aura."
For a short while the full glory of the Divinity is manifested:
"Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed" and
"A lonely splendour from the' invisible goal
Almost was flung on the opaque Inane."
The goddess Dawn stood for a while revealing all the play of light and colours in her first appearance. Almost in the wake of her appearance "A form from far beatitudes seemed to near". The Omniscient Goddess who is "Ambassadress 'twixt eternity and change" found that the conditions in the cosmos were favourable: She "saw
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the spaces ready for her feet". This was the first leaning down of the Divine Grace upon earth for even when Dawn made her first appearance "Earth felt the Imperishable's passage close" and even
"The waking ear of Nature heard her steps
And wideness turned to her its limitless eye,
And, scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile
Kindled to fire the silence of the worlds."
The expression of delight which all the elements of the earth felt at the approach of the Goddess clearly indicates the goal of earth existence. The poet says that even
"On this anguished and precarious field of toil
...the vision and the prophetic gleam
Lit into miracles common meaningless shapes".
The approach of the Divine Goddess is almost the precursor of her descent on earth as Sāvitrī. "The divine afflatus spent, withdrew"— the Omniscient goddess withdrew her steps because her presence and power was "Too perfect to be held by death-bound hearts". Just as the Dawn "buried its seed of grandeur in the hours", so this Divine power of the Imperishable also left behind her a "Sacred yearning lingering in its trace", and a devotion for her. These seeds of her presence would grow with the passage of time and when the conditions would be such that death-bound heart of men would want to be god-bound then the Divine Power would send down on earth one who would break the iron law of ignorance. The short- lived vision of the Divine Mother was, in fact, "the prescience of marvellous birth to come". Finding the conditions of earth incapable of supporting the full blaze of her Divine Glory the Divine Power puts on the mask of Matter and so works out the miracle that her eternity manifests itself "in a beat of time". Beauty, the mystery of the Divine, appears in life. "The excess of beauty natural to godkind" "could not uphold its claim on time-born eyes". Mankind would have to be prepared to look on "the excess of beauty" of god-kind. This slow and difficult work of preparing man for the reception of
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the Divine was left to the passage of time and to the intervention of the Divine Grace in the person of Savitri. As the cosmos came into being by the sacrifice by the Divine's perfection and His descent into the Nescience so the creation of divine life on earth would be possible by the descent of the Divine Power in man helping him to conquer the obstacles and transform his ignorant nature. So, when the Divine Power withdrew to some far off world of her own, there was only the common light of earthly day,—the matter of fact life of man. The slow process of tardy evolution intervened to pursue the ^great task of preparing man for receiving the Divine in life.
Savitri, the princess, also awoke with the rest of mankind, in one of the ordinary dawns in the midst of her own tribe. The appearance of Savitri, after the withdrawal of the Divine Goddess almost suggests the continuity of the work begun by the Goddess Dawn and the Imperishable ambassadress,—Omnipotent power of the Divine. The poet while describing Savitri says "The universal Mother's love was hers".
Even though Savitri was akin to the eternity from which she came and a stranger to the fields of human life she was human enough to feel desire not as ordinary people do, but "as a sweet alien note". All along, her heart was full of "the anguish of the gods". She found herself in human mould like one imprisoned and she wanted to break the limits that kept her in captivity. Besides this deep and powerful aspiration, this feeling of herself being akin to the divinity she had in her the divine love for all, a universal sympathy that went out constantly to help all men. She gave herself freely to men in an act of inner sympathy so "that heaven might native grow on mortal soil". This sympathy and this love were on her part an inner act and did not take a very dominant outer form. With innate sense of her own Divinity, love and sympathy for all men she found that human nature by which she was surrounded not only did not like to realise the divinity but it was averse to the action of the Divine on itself. The fallen human nature murmurs and protests against the operation of anything that savours of the Divine. In the words of the poet
"It trembles at its naked power of Truth"
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and the return it gives to those great souls that try to save it is the mud that it throws on them. "Its thorns of fallen nature" are its defence "against the saviour hands of grace". Humanity is intolerant of Divinity in its normal state. Savitri had thus the full share of her sorrow and her struggle. She hid her grief in the depths of her heart,—she did not allow her inner suffering to be seen outside. Savitri calm, silent, courageous,—"Apart, living within, all lives she bore". And yet "The Universal Mother's love was hers" and so when the determinism of nature proclaimed the doom of Satyavan it was not for the sake of her personal calamity only that she was moved. For "Her own calamity" was only a "private sign" which indicated the apparently unchangeable determinism of Nature. She took up "the load of an unwitting race". The poet quickly traces the growth of Savitri from childhood to young age and her becoming familiar with the great human problems with a constant and intense experience of pain in her heart. The central crisis of the poem is clearly stated in the very first Canto so that die reader gets interested in Savitri and the problem that faced her. The reader sees "her soul confronting Time and Fate" and is anxious to know the result of her struggle with the blind forces of evolution and Nature that wanted to bring about the predicted death of Satyavan. Is the determinism of Nature final, inevitable, absolute? Is it possible for the human being alone to change or modify the apparently inevitable or categorical determination of cosmic nature? The seer not only puts the problem before us but through his great epic works out the conditions under which it becomes possible for the human being not only to change but to overcome this apparent inevitable determinism of Nature. It is in this spirit that she remained outwardly immobile but gathered force for the great struggle because "This was the day when Satyavan must die".
SOME NOTES ON CANTO I.
I. The Mind of the Night of inconscience lay stretched athwart the path of the Divine Event, Dawn. Silence, immobility, nothingness, state of unlit eternity—these are some of the conditions of that Mind.
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2. "And longed to reach its end in vacant Nought."
end here means "destruction", "ending".
3. "The unconscious act" was repeated by the "Unknown". There was a "will" in it, but it was an "unseeing will";—remark, it is not blind but only "unseeing". There are two things here : (i) "A mute featureless semblance of the unknown", (2) An Ignorant force. Is this, one may ask, the faint beginning of subjectivity and objectivity?
4. This "Ignorant force" is a "Cosmic Drowse"—not an individual force. The very "Slumber" of this force is "creative", for it kindles the suns and "Carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl". The whirling of this force,—the Ignorant force which is slumbering, —is somnambulist. It works in its sleep and yet achieves the ends by adopting the right means.
5. "Its formless stupor without mind or life".
The stupor is the "stupor of space"—The space is in stupor. This "stupor" qualifies the "trance of space".
The earth was only "A shadow spinning through a soulless Void"
From the silence and immobility of the Mind of Night which were the beginning we have now an enormous space, the earth,—a spinning shadow, and the sky.
6. "Gave room for an old tired want unfilled"
Here old means "long standing",—something that was there long ago. It does not mean decrepit.
A stir in the inscrutable darkness awakened the memory of a long standing need.
Not merely a memory, but an "entity" which was "a Survivor of a slain and buried past".
This persistent entity was "Condemned to resume the effort and the pang"—of the movement of evolution from inconscient to consciousness,—from Matter to Spirit.
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In this great stir there was an aspiration for the Light, and Usha, the Dawn, comes in response to this aspiration.
This aspiration was not merely an ignorant wish, or running after a phantom.
7. "And a blank prescience yearned towards distant change",
In the aspiration for the Light by "unshaped consciousness" there was a prescience, but it was a "blank" prescience. That is to say, it was not an exact foreseeing of the future but a sort of feeling that a change would come.
8. The image of the Mother is very beautiful. This Mother- the universal Mother was before now the "heedless mother". But the newly born stir, the vague aspiration "clutched the heedless mother" and the maternal love vaguely awoke in her apparently unconscious breast. She was reminded of the "endless need" of the newly born aspiration.
9. "To seek for a spirit sole and desolate".
Desolate does not mean abandoned by every body, but the subjective feeling of being desolate.
10. "A thought was sown in the unsounded Void"
Unsounded here means "unfathomed, unplumbed".
11. "A hope stole in that hardly dared to be
Amid the Night's forlorn indifference"
Because of the Night's indifference the hope hardly dared to exist.
12. "An errant marvel with no place to live
Into a far-off nook of heaven there came
A slow miraculous gesture's dim appeal."
This errant marvel is something living, not an abstraction. Light
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of consciousness in the nook of heaven was trying to enter this world which was then "alien" to it.
13. "A wandering hand of pale enchanted light"
Enchanted has the double sense of "having beauty and being magical."
14. "One lucent corner windowing bidden things"
Here in the lucent comer the image of the sky is continued.
15. "Outpoured the revelation and the flame."
The revelation here is used in the ordinary sense of manifestation of something not yet manifested.
16. "Dawn built her aura of magnificent hues
And buried its seed of grandeur in the hours."
Here the idea of the Goddess Dawn is dominant, not merely— as some have thought,—that of mere "morning". The unconsciousness that was all over the cosmos was able to feel and see the presence of "A glamour from the unreached transcendences".
Buried the seed—Dawn comes with all the brilliant and vast possibilities from the Beyond, and then she goes away. But her departure is not an exit. She has sown the seeds of grandeur, (which she brought with her) "in the hours". So that they would grow up and fulfil themselves in course of Time. The words "unreached", "unseen", "unknown" suggest the possibility of its being reached, seen and known.
17. "Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed"
Epiphany means manifestation. It was "almost",—and not fully or actually, "disclosed" because the Inconscient was not yet ready. When the Divine omniscient Goddess bent down on the cosmos the ears that were plugged were opened and Nature heard Her
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steps. Even earth's silence was kindled to the fire of divine love and everywhere was felt a movement of consecration, as if a cosmic sacrificial rite was being performed: Earth that was merely "a shadow whirling in the hollow gulf of space"—now "felt the Imperishables' passage dose". There was light and joy everywhere. Everything became a "Consecration", i.e. something dedicated to God.
18. "That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars"
Wrap means "surround" not necessarily conceal.
19. "The high boughs prayed in a revealing sky"
Revealing does not mean only "Shining"—but full of things revealed.
20. "Outspread beneath some large indifferent gaze
Impartial witness to our joy and bale".
it is the indifferent gaze which is the "impartial witness".
Outspread goes with the "Field of toil" in the previous line,— "On this anguished and precarious field of toil".
21. "Here too the vision and prophetic gleam"
Here too emphasises the fact of the gleam producing results not only in the higher regions but down on this earth also where the conditions for its manifestation were not favourable.
22. "Only a little the God-light can stay".
A little means "for a short time or duration".
23. "Spiritual beauty illumining human sight
Lines with its passion and mystery Matter's mask".
Even while the Divine presence withdrew, this beauty in Matter which is his "mask" remained indicating the passion and mystery of spiritual beauty.
Lines means "gives a lining to" or "covers on the inside".
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24. "And squanders eternity on a beat of Time".
Compare Sri Aurobindo's "In horis Eternum".
25. "Too mystic-real for space-tenancy"
The presence of the Dawn and the glory that accompanied it was not unreal. It was mystic-real. This suggests different orders of Reality. The physical is not the only real.
26. "Fluttering-hued"—a fine expressive word coined by the poet. Fluttering indicates movement, a changing movement and hue suggests colour. The movement of "desire" is very nicely indicated by this word—an unsteady movement, constantly changing colour.
27. "Once more the rumour of the speed of Life".
Rumour means "sound", "noise" as in "rumour of the sea".
28. "Its thorns of fallen nature are the defence
It turns against the saviour hands of Grace"
Compare Francis Thomson's "The Hound of heaven".
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CANTO - I
"The gesture must be "Slow Miraculous"—.If it is merely miraculous or merely slow that does not create a picture of the thing as it is, but something quite abstract and ordinary or concrete and ordinary—it is the combination that renders the exact nature of the mystic movement, with the "dimly came" completing it, so that "gesture" is not here a metaphor but a thing actually done.
(Sri Aurobindo)
That darkness itself is described as a quietude which gives it a subjective spiritual character and brings out the thing symbolised, but the double epithet" "inert black "gives it the needed concreteness so that the quietude ceases to be something abstract and becomes something concrete, objective but still spiritually subjective.
Difference between inconscient and ignorance—One would say "even the inconscient stone" but one would not say, as one might, of a child, "the ignorant stone". One must be conscious before one can be ignorant.
Symbolic Vision of Night and Dawn in Savitri, in which there is recorded the conscious adoration of Nature when it feels the passage of the omniscient Goddess of eternal Light.
The epithet "Wide winged" then does not belong to the wind and is not transferred from it, but is proper to the voice of the wind which takes the form of a conscious hum of aspiration and rises ascending from the bosom of the great priest, as might a great winged bird released into the sky, and sinks and rises again, aspires and fails and aspires again on the "altar hills"
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But here the physical night and physical dawn are, as the title of the Canto clearly suggests, a symbol. Here it is a relapse into inconscience broken by a slow and difficult return to consciousness followed by a brief but splendid and prophetic outbreak of spiritual light leaving behind it the "day" of ordinary human consciousness in which the prophecy has to be worked out.
P. 33 L. S)
Ashwapathy's spiritual development consisted of two yogic movements; one a psycho-spiritual transformation and the other, a greater spiritual transformation with an ascent to a supreme power.
Ashwapathy's yoga falls into three parts, I. He is achieving his. own spiritual self-fulfilment as an individual, II. Next, he makes an ascent as a typical representative of the race to win the possibility of discovery and possession of all the planes of consciousness. (Yoga of the King) III. Finally, he aspires no longer for himself but for all, for a universal realisation and new creation. (Book of Divine Mother).
"As if a childlike finger"
"It is not intended that the two images "finger laid" and "clutch" should correspond exactly to each other; for the "void" and the "Mother of the universe" are not the same thing. The "void" is only a mask covering the mother's cheek or face. What the "Void" feels as a clutch is felt by the Mother only as a reminding finger laid on her cheek. It is intended to suggest without saying it that behind the sombre void is the face of a Mother. (P.44 L. S)
"Still dolorously nailed upon a cross
Lest all too soon should change again to bliss"
Book II Canto 8.
These have nothing to do with Christianity or Christ but only with the symbol of the Cross used here to represent a seemingly eternal world-pain. It is not Christ but world-soul which hangs here. (P. 44 L. S)
"as if solicited"—"Solicited" you take as past participle passive. The word "Solicited" is the past tense and the subject
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of this verb is "An errant Marvel"—fourth line—(by parenthesis "Orphaned etc."—)
He should know that "it is somebody who is soliciting with a timid grace and it can't be somebody who is being gracefully solicited.
The line "orphaned" ought to suggest to him at once that it is some orphan who is soliciting and not the other way round;
(1946 L. S. P.45)
In Sāvitrī we find passages which repeat the idea contained in the first Canto. Their repetition is necessary to remind the the reader in a different context about the beginning of the cosmos from apparent Nescience. We give here some passages bearing close resemblance:
"And carries our lives in its Somnambulist whirl."
Book I, Canto I.
"Caught in a blind stone-grip Force worked its plan
And made in sleep this huge mechanical world".
Book II, Canto I.
"Here where our half-lit ignorance skirts the gulfs
On the dumb bosom of the ambiguous earth,
On this anguished and precarious field of toil
Our prostrate soil bore the awakening ray."
"Thus fallen, inconscient, frustrate, dense, inert
Sunk into inanimate and torpid drowse
Earth lay, a drudge of sleep, forced to create"
Book II, Canto l.
"Straining closed eyes of vanished memory,
Like one who searches for a bygone self."
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"There lurked an unremembering entity"
"As if a soul long dead were moved to live"
Book I, Canto l.
"By the subconscient yearning memory
Left from a happiness dead before she was born."
Book II, Canto 2.
"An errant marvel with no place to live" .
"An alien wonder on her senseless breast."
"A fathomless zero occupied the world"
"And like a busy midwife the life-power
Deliver the zero carrier of the All."
Book II, Canto. I.
"A long line of hesitating hue
Like a vague smile tempting the desert heart
Troubled the far rim of life's obscure sleep."
"As in a dark beginning of all things"
"In the crude beginnings of this mortal world"
Book II, Canto 3.
"Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space,
Its formless stupor without mind or life,
A shadow spinning through a soulless Void,
Earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs"
"Life was not nor mind's play nor heart's desire.
When earth was built in the unconscious Void
And nothing was save a material scene,
Identified with sea and sky and stone"
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"A nameless movement, an unthought Idea."
"Teased the Inconscience to wake Ignorance."
An unshaped consciousness desired light
And a blank prescience yearned towards distant change."
"Her young gods yearned for the release of souls
Asleep in objects, vague, inanimate.
In that desolate grandeur, in that beauty bare,
In the deaf stillness, mid the unheeded sounds,
Heavy was the uncommunicated load
Of Godhead in a world that had no needs,"
"The intuitive silence trembling with a name,
They cried to Life to invade the senseless mould
And in brute forms awake divinity."
Book II Canto 3.
"The poised inconscience shaken with a touch,"
"Its message crept through the reluctant hush
Calling the adventure of consciousness and joy."
"Compelled renew ed consent to see and feel.
A thought was sown in the unsounded Void,
A sense was born within the darkness' depths,
A memory quivered in the heart of Time
As if a soul long dead were moved to live."
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"A voice was heard on the mute rolling globe,
A murmur moaned in the unlistening Void.
A being seemed to breathe where once was none:
Something pent up in dead insentient depths,
Denied conscious existence, lost to joy,
Turned as if one asleep since dateless time.
Aware of its own buried reality,
Remembering its forgotten self and right,
It yearned to know, to aspire, to enjoy, to live."
"In the enigma of the darkened Vasts,
In the passion and self-loss of the Infinite
When all was plunged in the negating Void,
Non-Being's night could never have been saved
If Being had not plunged into the dark
Carrying with it its triple mystic cross."
Book II, Canto 4.
"Being became the Void and Conscious-Force
Nescience and walk of blind Energy
And Ecstasy took the figure of world-pain."
"A mass phenomenon of visible shapes
Supported by the silence of the Void
Appeared in the eternal Consciousness
And seemed an outward and insensible world.
There was none there to see and none to feel;
Only the miraculous Inconscient,
A subtle wizard skilled, was at its task.
Inventing ways for magical results,
Managing creation's marvellous device,
Marking mechanically dumb wisdom's points,
Using the unthought inevitable Idea,
It did the works of God's intelligence
Or wrought the will of some supreme Unknown."
Book II, Canto 5.
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The many-patterned ground of all we are."
Book II, Canto 1.
In an architecture of hieratic Space
Circling and mounting towards creation's tops,
At a blue height which never was too high
For warm communion between body and soul,
As far as heaven, as near as thought and hope,
Glimmered the kingdom of a griefless life.
Above him in a new celestial vault
Other than the heavens beheld by mortal eyes,
As on a fretted ceiling of the gods,
An archipelago of laughter and fire,
Swam stars apart in a rippled sea of sky.
On the trouble and the toil they could not share,
On the unhappiness they could not aid,
Impervious to life's suffering, struggle, grief,
Untarnished by its anger, gloom and hate,
Unmoved, untouched, looked down great visioned planes
Blissful forever in their timeless right.
Absorbed in their own beauty and content,
Of their immortal gladness they live sure.
Book II,, Canto 3.
"When nothing was save Matter without soul
And a spiritless hollow was the heart of Time,
Then life first touched the insensible Abyss;
Her pallid beam smote the unfathomed Night
In which God hid himself from his own view."
Book II, Canto 8.
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There is here a similarity to Book I, Canto I with the difference that here in Book II, Canto 8 the poet is giving this portion as a prelude to the rise of Ignorance. In effect, he is explaining how Ignorance and Hostility to the Divine originated.
He continues the description as under:
"In all things she sought their slumbering mystic truth,
The unspoken Word that inspires unconscious forms,
She groped in his deeps for an invisible Law,
Fumbled in the dim subconscient for his mind
And strove to find a way for spirit to be.
But from the Night another answer came.
A seed was in that nether matrix cast,
A dumb unprobed husk of perverted truth,
A cell of an insentien infinite.
A monstrous birth prepared its cosmic form
In Nature's titan embryo. Ignorance."
CANTO II
THE ISSUE
In this Canto Savitri is seen reviewing her past mapped on the canvas of her memory. She saw her childhood, and youth and her love and the doom that was pronounced. She sees the whole course of her evolution: as the poet puts it, "Her witness spirit stood reviewing Time" In her consciousness she especially went through the twelve passionate months she had lived with Satyavan that seemed to have passed almost like a day. This review of her past was necessitated by the impending crisis which created sufficient psychic pres- sure to awaken and call out to the surface the hidden Spirit in herself. But before she was able to do it she passed through a "Supernatural darkness",—which intervenes before man's soul draws nearer to God. "An hour comes when fail all Nature's means" and man's soul is thrown upon the help of God. Savitri was now passing through such an hour. She knew that only the power of the Spirit "can lift the yoke imposed by birth in time' and that her Nature's means comprising of the mind and the vital were impotent against the inexorable law of Death and Fate.
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She had to break up her past by her soul's force because it would only be "a block on the immortal's road". The outer personality of man which is the result of evolution of his soul in ignorance, and which is only a representative of his true Self should be dissolved in order to allow the Self to come forward and act. The Self, being Timeless, is able to act on time and snap the chain of the Law of Karma. The true Self being Eternal and Infinite has power to weigh itself against the Whole universe. Savitri has to face the doom: on one side there is the Law of Karma working in Ignorance, and against it the sovereign right of her Self. This issue in reality, is a world-issue. In trying to solve it Savitri was really solving a world-issue. Thus, "the world unknowing, for the world she stood". She has to meet and challenge "embodied Nothingness", and "Look into the lonely eyes of immortal Death".
The hours of the days during "these twelve months passed like mailed armies going to meet their doom. Savitri felt utterly alone in Spirit. The hills and the forest that surrounded her gave her "deep room for thought and God." It was here that "Love came to her hiding the shadow. Death". The God of Love found the inner make of Savitri's consciousness so pure and so sincere that "in her he met a vastness like his own", "and moved in her as in his natural home". Her nature was not narrow like that of other human beings whose love is egoistic and selfish. "A wide self-giving was her native act", she had a universal "kindly care" and a "deep compassion".
"So deep was her embrace of inmost help,
The whole world could take refuge in her single heart,"
because, "Love in her was wider than the universe". She had "a magnanimity as of sea or sky". She was "a continent of self-diffusing peace". The element of sympathy and universal helpfulness proceeded not so much from the human part of her nature as from the Godlike element which she brought with her:
"Although she leaned to bear the human load,
Her walk kept still the measure of the gods".
Ordinarily, such a sympathy takes the outer forms of altruism or,
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service, etc. But such efforts hardly succeed in removing or curing human suffering or ills. For that, a more radical and a more spiritual remedy is needed. Savitri wants to bring about a radical inner change in man's consciousness in order to cure his ills. She went to the root of man's malady. For her the question was:
"Whether to bear with Ignorance and Death
Or hew the ways of Immortality,
To win or lose the godlike game for man,
Was her soul's issue thrown with Destiny's dice."
Savitri's childhood was divinely protected and when she attained to age felicity was natural to her. But
"There is a darkness in terrestrial things,
That will not suffer long too glad a note."
Soon she found herself face to face with the problem of Satyavan's death. She was eminently fitted for the task because she was not like other men
"...one more pawn who comes destined to be pushed
One slow move forward on a measureless board
In the chess-play of the earth-soul with Doom".
In this material world man seems to be only a pawn in Nature's game, the cosmos appears like a vast prison wherein Ignorance rules with the karmic laws and pain and joy seem to be the inevitable results of its working. Death seems an inevitability and life seems to be under its sway. Thus we see in the world the working of an iron law. This law equally restrains "the Titan in us and the God". Savitri, conscious of her Divinity, defies the authority of this law of Ignorance and wants to assert the sovereign right of the Spirit. She neither brooked any compromise with the earth-law nor did she give way to despair. She would not allow the divine Light in her to be quenched nor would she consent to cancel her commerce with eternity. She felt in her not only the presence of the divine Light but also the drive of the evolutionary force from the
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earth consciousness towards the Supreme. She felt and knew that she had come to do a work, to give a message and the divine Fire that had entered the inconscience was the force with which she was equipped by nature to fulfil her mission.
The idea of a single individual will challenging the cosmic rule of Ignorance seems difficult to grasp. The mind naturally doubts if it is at all possible. How can the feeble individual stand against and overcome the operations of the gigantic cosmic machinery where enormous powers, irresistible forces seem to be working to their decreed ends? And yet, says the Master, it is possible. Even in this dark cosmic prison-house which seems to be hermetically sealed, wherein man seems to be fumbling in vain for a door, or seeking for some mysterious source of help without success, there
Can link man's strength to a transcendent Force.
Then miracle is made the common rule,
One mighty deed can change the course of things;
A lonely thought becomes omnipotent."
Even though externally man seems to be a helpless part of this great cosmic machine and a mere product of the inconscience, yet there is within him something that can change him from a mere instrument, a mere puppet into the Master, into the King. That something is the presence of the Divine in man. Then, the poet says,
"A Godhead stands behind the brute machine."
In the case of Savitri the World-Mother from whom she had descended arose in her and the whole working of the cosmic machine was reversed. She became "a flaming warrior" who
"Smote from Death's visage its dumb absolute
And burst the bounds of consciousness and Time."
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CANTO III
THE YOGA OF THE KING: THE YOGA OF THE SOUL'S RELEASE
"A world's desire compelled her mortal birth."
From the legend we know that Savitri was born to the queen of Aswapathy as the result of a boon by the Goddess Savitri. Here the poet introduces Aswapathy and while explaining the cause of Savitri's birth asserts that her birth was compelled by "a world's desire". Savitri had to take mortal birth in order to meet the intense desire of a whole world. The subsequent portion of the poem up to the end of the third book deals with the vast background which compelled her birth.
Aswapathy's character as a seeker of the Divine and as an adept of the great spiritual and mystic realisation of the past gives us a wonderful picture of man's growth from mental consciousness through various intermediate stages to the Supreme Divine Mother Consciousness.
"The Yoga of the Soul's Release" is the subject of this Canto. Here for the first time it becomes clear that this great epic deals with the spiritual odyssey of the soul. The poet here openly discloses himself as the poet of divine life by beginning in this Canto the song of the soul's liberation. The whole poem becomes the song par excellence of man's growth on earth from the inconscient through the vital and the mental stages to the realms of the Spirit, the realms of the Divine. It is the epic of man's ascent from level to level of consciousness rising from world to world, from peaks of mind to the peaks of the spirit till he reaches the supreme Divine and by his unfailing aspiration invokes the Divine to descend into himself so as to create divine life on earth. But this cannot be so long as human soul is tied like an animal with the triple cord of mental, vital and physical ignorance to the sacrificial post in the vast cosmic sacrifice to be offered as a victim. As long as human consciousness lives in the ego, lives subject to desire, conflict, dualities, suffering and pain, so long he cannot fulfil' the deepest longing and the highest aspiration of his being. He must liberate himself from the bondage of ignorance. The first release comes to man when he can go beyond
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his animal propensities, when he can free himself from the reign of desire and wake up to some ideals in his life. Therefore, we see Aswapathy,—who symbolises man as the Lord of Life,—waking to the higher potentialities of his nature: he is "a thinker and toiler in the ideal's air". It is in his conception and pursuit of higher intellectual, moral and spiritual ideals that man begins to fee! that he is not merely an animal driven by the goad of hunger and thirst and a slave of desires, but that he has come to this earth from some higher spiritual plane,—at least, that there is something in him which is free from the inertia, inconscience, grossness and coarseness of earth nature and is akin to the pure Spirit. Aswapathy felt that he was "a colonist from immortality", and as such he tended to grow towards, or into, the likeness of his spiritual Self. In this intense aspiration to grow into the likeness of spiritual being "his mind was like a fire assailing heaven".
Aswapathy's spiritual growth began by his realising that the external being of man is not the whole of himself. There are hidden "celestial powers" in man, immense spiritual potentialities lie dormant in the human being. There is an immortal ineffable Spirit in man that creates here the forms for his own manifestation. It is that spirit that "in the worm foresees the coming god". It sees the finite that is actual and knows the infinite that is potential and even' certain. It is when man accepts his higher possibilities of spiritual life that he is able to outgrow his present state of ignorance, leave behind him the limited planes of his mental, vital and physical consciousness and rise beyond them. Then, like Aswapathy, he "Arrive on the frontiers of eternity". He who has heard this call of the Beyond is unable to remain satisfied with the ordinary life of ignorance. His heart seems to be smitten by "a beam of the Eternal", and his mind wants to expand into Infinity. When he succeeds in realising his aspiration then the Divine begins to work overtly in him. Then,
"A static Oneness and dynamic Power
descend in him".
Then a different government of his nature begins for the individual. The divine power that descends in him begins to "turn
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this frail mud-engine to heaven-use". The insignificant human being is utilised by the divine for a divine purpose. Aswapathy found then that the whole movement of cosmic evolution which appears on the surface like a purposeless activity of the inconscient is in reality controlled by a secret Craftsman who works from behind the veil of ignorance to realise here "his dreamed magnificence of things to be". He saw that "a. mystery of married Earth and Heaven" was a part of the divine dream. He saw the vision of the divine life on earth and henceforth he became a seer, and he knew that he was here as "a shining Guest of Time" from Eternity. After the vision of the Truth to be realised here Aswapathy's limited mind became boundless, his little ego-self completely disappeared, "The island ego joined its continent". He was liberated from the yoke of the laws of Nature's ignorance,—from the limitations of the intellect. Before him "there gleamed the dawn of a spiritual day".
After this spiritual awakening "Humanity framed his movements less and less". It was no longer possible for him to allow the human elements in him to govern his life, and to accept as final the limitations of human nature. He awoke in himself latent powers, faculties that lay dormant in him—powers of pure perception, intimate vision, and also of spiritual experience. He could know the motives, ideas and wishes in other men and he felt also world thought-streams running into his own mind. He could hear secret voices and the "Word that knows". He came in contact with planes of consciousness other than the consciousness of the earth and contacted beings on occult planes. In fact, his consciousness ceased to be limited in the individual nature, and began to widen out into the cosmic. He voyaged from plane to plane till he came to the end of the world of symbols and signs.
From there he crossed beyond into the world of the Formless where there is no object cognizable either by the sense or by the thought. There he found that the whole world became a single Being which felt everything as its own Self. There
"The Supreme's gaze looked out through human eyes
And saw all things and creatures as itself".
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There "...oneness is the soul of multitude". It was a realm of knowledge in which eternal calm prevails. It is a realm where one experiences boundlessness;
"While there, one can be wider than the world;
While there, one is one's own infinity".
With this experience Aswapathy entered a still Consciousness that sustains all, and a peace that passes all understanding. There he found all contradictions of life resolved, sorrow, pain and conflict ceased, because there the Truth was living its own real life. He, thus, realised the origin of the spirit and established his being in the Infinite and his life upon the Eternal.
When he looked at the world from his new spiritual poise he saw that the world was only "A small result of a stupendous force". But the ordinary instruments of human nature are incapable of supporting these higher states of being. They hanker after their normal littleness, they want to go back to their petty activities. The gravitational pull of the lower consciousness brings down the consciousness from its height and, at times, man sinks even lower than the normal consciousness during such periods of downward movement. But even these periods of spiritual set-backs are utilised by the Divine within for his own work and are made to contribute to man's growth. The lower ignorant nature of man also has got to receive the divine in order to undergo a change, otherwise soul alone would reach its perfection and nature remain imperfect and earth unfulfilled. He found that, at times, the higher consciousness came down like rain from above, sometimes a flood of illumination descended and he could retain the Light for longer periods. During these periods of ascent and descent, his being was integrated in the process and attained complete equality, tranquil purity, serene strength and lasting peace. He also saw that this tranquillity, was not merely a static condition, but a dynamic power which helped the toiling world by its silent working. He saw from the height of his spiritual consciousness a new self-creation
"A transfiguration in the mystic depths,
A happier cosmic working could begin
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And fashion the world-shape in him anew,
God found in Nature, Nature fulfilled in God."
The light of this higher consciousness penetrated his lower consciousness, or the lower parts of his nature. And knowledge used to come to bun by an act of intuition.
Inspiration also came down into him often in silence. The closed Beyond was opened with "A stab of flame". When the light of intuition came, the mind overlapped itself and his spirit pursued knowledge like a hound. The sparks of intuition and lightnings of inspiration led him to and gave the knowledge of the various realms of the Infinite, and though he saw the play of ignorance and chance in the world, he saw also, through the veil, and comprehended, the world-design behind its outer appearance. He saw the logic of the infinite Intelligence working in. the finite ignorance. In fact, he saw the origin of the world as it is in the spirit— the Divine builder in sleep behind the world. Beyond his plane of inspiration, he could glimpse the Overmind.
When inspiration came down into him, it was like a divine messenger coming with its own rhythm. Sometimes like a bliss pouring down, or a wordless thought, an all-seeing ray, or at times the closed Beyond was opend with "a stab of flame". At other times it became an eye that awakes in trance, or he felt as if inspiration was plundering the vast estate of the Superconscient for him. It became a "gleaner of grains" or worked like a "sheaf-binder" gathering up parts of knowledge and making them into a whole. At times it worked as a reporter, or like a hound pursuing knowledge. It opened the vision of the Truth or brought the word of the Supreme. Its action made Aswapathy comprehend the world-design and behind the apparent working of chance he saw the unfolding of a world-idea.
In the light of his spiritual experience he saw the tree of cosmos supported by the Spirit. He knew the original divine Desire that gave rise to this creation. He could then understand the wisdom that permits this long game of evolution and even feel the Love that sanctions these workings. From his height he saw that the energies of the lower nature had many occult and spiritual powers hidden under their ignorant workings which, if awakened, would
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be a very precious acquisition for man. He felt a divine presence and greatness everywhere. This universe became
"...a living movement of the body of God."
The world was a conception and a birth of Spirit in matter from where rose
"The divine Dwarf towered unconquered worlds".
His spirit was the witness-spirit and—
"Existence a divine experiment
And cosmos the soul's opportunity."
All the suppressed powers of the subconscient and the ignorant instruments of Nature began to blossom into manifestation in him.
Thus, was he released from ignorance. Knowledge of the Divine poured upon him from above and world-knowledge welled out from within
"Lonely his days and splendid like the sun's."
All his actions sprang out of Light and all his thoughts referred to the True and the One. He saw other worlds, other forms, other gods, other beings and he deafly experienced that his life had emerged from the Divine. Now, his only work in life was to help mankind by raising it to this higher level and "Feeling earth's smallness with their boundless breadths," and for this
"He drew the energies that transmute an age."
CANTO IV
THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE
This is a long canto describing the climb of human consciousness to the Eternal by resorting to a method of mystic knowledge. It is
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true that here, in the outer aspect of our existence. Life and Mind seem to be the only powers that can and do create their structures of dreams including the ideals of individual and collective perfection. But if the Realty is to be built up here it cannot be done by these powers. It has to be built here by a power as yet unborn which, however, must be born in and must act on life. This can only be if man realises that he is not merely "A death bound littleness.... "There is an immortal Self in man awaiting discovery, there are widenesses and depths possible to man's consciousness of which his surface nature has no knowledge. These powers are there even when man is not conscious of them. There is in him the imperishable Light, Divine splendour, immutable Ecstasy. Man, though outwardly small and insignificant, can rise to those infinite regions of Light, Power and Bliss.
Instead of human consciousness ascending to those higher planes it is also possible that something from those higher planes can descend here into the human consciousness. In such a case man would feel himself possessed by a greater personality than the human, or he would feel the presence of the Master within him. It is then that man opens to a wider inner consciousness and doses himself from the outer and in the depths of his inner consciousness the mind is hushed "...to a bright Omniscient". In that silence of the mind one hears the voice of inspiration. Very often, he gets indications which assure him of an inner Presence unknown to his outer personality. These have been described by the poet as
"A Silence overhead, an inner Voice
A living image seated in the heart".
There is, at times, an unwalled wideness and delight present everywhere and there is even the perception of the shape of our unborn Divinity.
But all these things are not on the surfaces—they are "hidden, subliminal, mystical". The only means by which one comes to know or have true knowledge of them is "An inward turn". Without this inward turn, life, nature, and self seems only accidental, a work of chance without any significance. This world appears "A act of death in which by chance we live". The belief that "Out of the un-
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known we move to the unknown", —a kind of agnostic attitude leaves many questions unanswered in life. For instance, it would not explain why there bums the fire of aspiration in the human heart, why man feels a certainty within him about a Being that is to be known on earth. An observation of Nature shows that Nature seems to be wanting to reach some state of perfection of knowledge, of power, of bliss. She knows full well that she is pursued by Ignorance, Imperfection and Sorrow. But, she has been guarding "The inward urge" from the very dawn of human history. She wants to attain perfection—faith unshakable, love undying, truth based on certitude.
The state of ignorance in the earth consciousness is not altogether shut out from intimations of the Beyond. As already indicated, man has been dreaming of attaining a state of
"A Mind unvisited by illusion's gleams,
A Joy that drags not sorrow as its shade."
Man is absorbed in the outer consciousness. He is busy with his little daily acts in which he finds himself a slave of circumstances; and whenever he makes a movement it is almost always through compulsion of necessity or emergency. We are prisoners of our mind, "slaves of our acts". It is because man completely identifies himself with the external being and die world around him that he remains confined to ignorance. But if he can take his stand on the Spirit, he can have the knowledge of the Reality and the Spirit's working in Time. It is possible for man to become a Prophet and a Seer. It is when man is so confined in his shell of ignorance that Divine begins to descend or gods come down from above and press upon the human consciousness with their full knowledge of world-purpose and the consciousness of their divine might. They drive the course of human events towards the intended purpose and in this process they do not care for the great commotion or disturbance which is caused in humanity. Their impact on the earth consciousness enables man to rise to a higher stage of evolution, and after having accomplished their purpose, leaving a permanent result of their work in life upon earth, they retire to their divine heights, as do
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lightning and thunder on the material plane. Even when their intervention seems to come from above, their action is often in response to the deepest need of the human being, to the most profound aspiration of the earth-consciousness. For
"Above the illusion of hopes that pass,
Behind the appearance and the overt act,
Behind the clock-work chance and vague surmise,
Amid the wrestle of force, the trampling feet,
Across the triumph, fighting and despair,
They watch the Bliss for which earth's heart has cried".
The transcendent Divine that is now masked in the Inconscient will one day mount his throne on earth. He will come unseen and the earth will become unexpectedly divine—"And earth grow un- expectedly divine". Man shall not be asked to believe in an unrealised Divine; because "...belief shall be not till the work is done".
The human consciousness "Moves here in a half-light that seems the whole". In fact, the present condition of man is really an inter- regnum. It is "Far from the original Dusk," and "the final Flame". He has advanced far from the original inconscience and he is yet far from the divine fulfilment. During this intermediate and ignorant stage, the meaning of creation is hidden from the human conscious- ness. It is to him like an unknown script. In the midst of this ignorant condition man feels the need of finding the solution, he feels an aspiration within him for perfection. And, in this task and search he is helped by the great gods who live in their higher planes unaffected by all the difficulties, oppositions, and conflicts of the human being
"Immaculate in self-knowledge and self-power,
Calm they repose on the eternal Will.
They are guardians of the silence of the Truth".
They derive their strength from their entire surrender to the Divine and all their knowledge is acquired by identity. They live beyond evil and good as conceived by man; for, their purpose is to embody and be "Alive to the truth that dwells in God's extremes". In fact, the vision of an Immortal being is not the same as the vision of man,
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for he sees things hidden from the mind of man. As he is in contact with the Eternal, and knows full well the trend of cosmic evolution in Time he waits for the Eternal's hour". Nature in the meantime goes through the process of slow evolution to reach "The crown of conscious Immortality". This she does with the help of the intervention of the Divine from above, for it cannot be done by unaided human effort.
Though, outwardly this world looks like a material world and seems to be governed by mere chance, still from a' more occult and spiritual point of view it would appear that there is a divine governance of the world behind this apparent reign of chaos or chance. And it is really this mighty guidance that can be relied upon to guide man to his highest destiny. All the chasms of ignorance shall be bridged by the gods and the Divine. In the meantime; Nature, the divine worker in the cosmos, carries "...clay images of unborn gods". All that we see here on this earth is really a figure of Transcendent Divine. All lives by Him, his unseen Presence moulds the unconscious clay. This Transcendent One who descended into the Inconscient was there even before the cosmos came into existence. When the process of evolution starts, it is He who creates his innumerable symbols and equates them to the Truth. He, in reality, is the Master and Nature is only his mould. He is the maker and the world he has made. He is the vision and the seer, the actor and the act, the knower and the known, the dreamer and the dream.
"There are Two who are One and play in many worlds".
Knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, pleasure and pain are the dual appearance of that one Reality working out its common purpose through the apparent opposition. The universe is a masquerade and nothing here is utterly what it seems. Here in this world "A part is seen, we take it for the whole". The dual element in nature has divided the functions. On one side is the Soul, the Puruṣa, on the other, there is Nature, Prakṛti. In the actual play of the universe, the Puruṣa has forgotten himself and he consents to do what Nature wants him to do. It seems as if
"He knows her only, he has forgotten himself;
To her he abandons all to make her great."
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He has tried to wed
"...his infinity's peace
To her creative passion's ecstasy."
He, the Puruṣa, "...lies beneath her feet", inert and happy
"His breast he offers for her cosmic dance"
His is the strength that sustains as the basis the entire multiplicity of planes of cosmic nature....The Puruṣa is moved by Nature and seems to be ..."carried by her from Night to deathless Light". He identifies himself completely with Nature and becomes what she wants him to become. During this play of the dual aspect when the Puruṣa remembers his true Self, then. Nature reveals herself as his spiritual mate. But so long as he is not self-conscious. Nature rules him. He
"...gives consent to all that she can wish".
Thus, it comes about that the Transcendent who rules the cosmos after taking his plunge into the Nescience evolves into Matter, then into Life and then Mind; in the Mind he evolves into an ego-centre and becomes
"A luminous individual Power, alone".
"The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone" has called cut his silent power from within himself and has entered into Space and Time and become many.1 He has taken up this mask of imperfection so that ultimately man may rise to the divine nature. Transformation of nature becomes possible because of the presence of the Divine behind the human. As the Divine accepts man's nature with all its imperfections, so is it possible for man to put on the divine nature. In fact, that is the inevitable destiny intended of man. For we are children of God and must become like Him. The key
Compare Chapter VI of "The Mother" by Sri Aurobindo.
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to this divine becoming is hidden, "...and by the Inconscient kept". The identification with Nature is complete in the beginning and continues as long as the Puruṣa does not succeed in establishing a witness-consciousness:
"...the thousandfold enigma has been solved
"In the single light of an all-witnessing Soul."
It is with this attainment of the Purusha-consciousness as the witness that the liberation of the human consciousness can begin.
It looks as if the Puruṣa has entered into an understanding with Prakṛti, Nature, from the very beginning "to follow the course of Time's eternity" with all the vicissitudes of cosmic manifestation. The Puruṣa seems to have a double role to play. He is the explorer, the mariner. He seeks to discover the uncharted ways of nature's will and sounds the depths of her hidden powers. But he also can enter upon the great adventure "to reach unknown harbour-lights in distant climes". He can cross the limits of Nature and go beyond to the unknown seas and lands "steering on the trade-routes of Ignorance"; he can cross over to the Unseen and enter the Unknown,— unseen realms where he sees himself and the world in a new vision. Man feels afterwards that "He is a spirit in an unfinished world",
"A sailor on the Inconscient's fathomless sea,
He voyages through a starry world of thought
On Matter's deck to a spiritual sun."
But till the very end of his journey he does not know the full purpose of his existence here. For "he carries her sealed orders in his breast." He will find out later on whether he goes to
"a blank port in the Unseen"
or "...armed with her fiat, to discover
"A new mind and body in the city of God
And make the finite one with Infinity."
This difficult task seems to be the labour of the whole creation and an unknown, unseen Power seems to have tied man to this destiny
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so that there seems to be no .escape for man from this Herculean labour.
"And never can the mighty traveller rest
And never can the mystic voyage cease,
Till the nescient dusk is lifted from man's soul,
And the morns of God have overtaken his night."
As long as Nature lasts, the soul, the Puruṣa, is also there; for, ''he and she are one". Therefore, ''Her play is real; a Mystery he fulfils'". Why did the Absolute, the Perfect and the Alone tack up this seemingly meaningless venture of plunging Himself into the unfathomable depths of the Nescience it is difficult to say. In the words of the poet, it seems it was
"To evoke a person in the impersonal Void"
"Wake a dumb self in the inconscient depths"
"That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time."
"For this he left his white infinity
And laid on the Spirit the burden of the flesh,
That Godhead's seed might flower in mindless Space."
CANTO V
THE YOGA OF THE KING:
THE YOGA OF THE SPIRIT'S FREEDOM AND GREATNESS
Aswapathy acquired this secret knowledge that had come down by tradition and attained to the freedom of the spirit by cutting the cord of the mind which ties it to the earth. Under the pressure of a powerful aspiration he rose beyond the bounds of Nature so that
"When life had stopped its beats, death broke not in,"
He lived on
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"...when breath and thought were still."
It was then that he was able to get into the hidden chamber where all the secrets of Nature are revealed. He, then, recognised
"...as a just necessity,
Its hard conditions for the mighty work,—
Nature's impossible Herculean toil
The dumb great Mother, Nature,—
"Accepts indomitably to execute
The will to know in an inconscient world,
The will to live under a reign of death,
The thirst for rapture in a heart of flesh,"—
and works through creation
"The mystery of God's covenant with the Night."
He could see behind the outer appearances of Nature the active spiritual motive. God's imperative fiat working out its aim. He saw the divine sanction and
"...the signature and fiery seal
Of Wisdom on the dim Power's hooded work
Who builds in Ignorance the steps of Light."
He, then, could see the utility of reading this cosmic text from within. And, he saw,
"A purpose mingled with the whims of Time,
A meaning met the stumbling pace of Chance
And Fate revealed a chain of seeing will;
"In the Void he saw throned the Omniscience supreme."
When Aswapathy experienced this working of the divine governance he felt a great hope rise in his heart. He had an intense
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aspiration to bring down to earth this greater Divine and spiritual world. He wanted to station himself on the heights of Being and bring down the Light here. He contemplated an entire change in the life on earth when finite man should learn the logic of the Infinite. He could imagine the possibility of a conscious soul living in a conscious world. He saw the spiritual summits like the peaks of a mountain above him and, keeping himself firm on matter's base he looked upon the rest of the Nature as an incomplete and imperfect instrumentation of his spiritual self. After this realisation all the human attainments seemed to him limited, imperfect, and incapable of fulfilling the deepest hopes of man. To him man's thinking power seemed to climb the heights of mind in vain, for, it brings at best "a borrowed light". All human efforts appeared transitory, vain, uncertain. He could see man's sphere as "...a small- ness trying to be great". And yet there is behind man's outer being the Eternal Spirit which is his Truth. For the Self of man, his real spiritual Self, is above nature, above fate.
In order to realise this free Self and its greatness Aswapathy with- drew his consciousness from all that he had been and done and retired into a perfect inner silence, retaining only the consciousness of the witness soul. He felt, in the midst of this Silence, a great call upon him to exceed the limits of human consciousness; an experience of currents of Light, Power and Delight came down upon him from above. This gave him an assurance of the validity of his perception of occult planes of consciousness and also of his having gone beyond the limited earth-nature. He felt that he was "an arrow leaping through eternity"
"Suddenly shot from the tense bow of Time,
A ray returning to its parent sun."
Even though opposed by all the forces of the Inconscient, still, he flew with an intense aspiration
"Questing for God as for a splendid prey,
He mounted burning like a cone of fire."
At last he saw that
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"His spirit mingles with Eternity's heart
And bears the silence of the Infinite."
As he thus rose into the realms of higher consciousness beyond ordinary humanity, he found that a great and strong descent was coming suddenly upon him
"...a Might, a Flame,
A Beauty half-visible with deathless eyes".
This Power and Light penetrated into all the parts of his being and as a result, his soul "...was torn out from its mortality". And he was drawn back from seeking loneliness to a great spiritual Power which was wide and pure. Henceforth his mind became a blank to this Divine Spirit and opened to cosmic widenesses and the sweep of the Transcendent. This experience completely revolutionised his consciousness and its values. Henceforth he seemed to breathe a superhuman air. Thereafter
"The python coils of restricting Law
His individual self became wide as the cosmos,—as the poet says
"The soul and cosmos faced as equal powers."
Henceforward the scope of his consciousness was widened without limits.
Hereafter everything was opened to his view in the vast field of cosmic operations. His natural instruments were heightened in their capacity and the occult powers working in the cosmos began to reveal their hidden processes to him so that they might serve him in the realisation of his divine work. The narrow limits of ordinary human instrumentation serve only to keep the little human being safe against the invasion of the forces of the universe. But man has to grow beyond his limitations if he is to fulfil his highest: destiny. An occult machinery is provided for this transition. The
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mind of man is itself only a "mediator divinity", it is not the final, the highest and the omnipotent instrument. Mind can release many occult forces and powers of matter and of life. It can eves develop many occult and miraculous powers of its own. For instance, it can mould events by its "bare silent will" and "Acts at a distance without hands or feet". Mind can go to the heights and "Call in the Omniscient and Omnipotent".
Mind can exercise its inventive faculty and .bring out all the suppressed possibilities of Matter and Life. It can also become aware of the future, and awaken faculties which appear abnormal in their operation. It is when Mind turns all its faculties to the service of the Spirit that mental movements find their proper place and justification and value in the total field of the divine governance.
There is an occult order which is behind the material and mental order known to man. And it is that unseen and unknown occult world which governs from behind this outer material, vital and mental life. Faculties of the inmost, i.e. subliminal mind disclose the knowledge of the world's mystery. An ascending and a descend- ing order of worlds from Eternity into Time and from Time back to Eternity was thus revealed to Aswapathy. Everything that is imperfect here is found there, behind in the occult, and has its perfect correspondence. Whatever life is seeking here is found there realised. A divine unity was seen, reconciling all the discords of multiplicity. From Matter the evolving cone rose to the peaks of the Spirit, to the supernal regions of the One. Aswapathy saw and entered,—
"Sunbelts of knowledge, moonbelts of delight
"Beyond our indigent corporeal range,
There he could enter, there awhile abide.
A voyager upon uncharted routes,
Fronting the viewless danger of the Unknown,
Adventuring across enormous realms,
He broke into another Space and Time."
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SUMMARY OF BOOK TWO
BOOK OF THE TRAVELLER OF THE WORLDS
THE WORLD-STAIR
ASWAPATHY'S vision was widened beyond the confines of human limits, he could see the whole cosmos as "A limitless movement" that "filled a limitless space". He saw it as a selfcreation of the Unknown without end or pause, revealing the grandeurs of the Infinite. He saw there "The world-shapes that are fancies of its Truth". The chequered fields of experience with their vast and multiple play of knowledge, ignorance, pleasure, pain, etc. he could see and feel that
"Here all experience was a single plan,
The thousandfold expression of the One."
The former objects of his perception also underwent a great transformation. What was before only a limited form became something entirely different:
"Aspects of Being donned world-outline; forms
That open moving doors on things divine"
became familiar to his sight. On that wide plane he came to know all that can be known and all that cannot be known by the human mind and this new knowledge tended to become a permanent part of himself, and his soul's natural environment. He found there everything that the Infinite had manifested and the only thing that was missing — in order to make that world a world of perfection — was:
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"The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute."
From his status beyond the world, he saw the world-pile
"Erect like a mountain chariot of the Gods,
"As if Matter's plinth, and viewless base
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme,
"It swelled upwards but none could see its top".
It rose from the Inconscience to Matter, from there to Life and Mind and thence to the Divine,
"A ladder of delivering ascent,
And rungs that Nature climbs to Deity."
In order to make this ascent possible there was a descent of the Deity into the Inconscience.
"Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme."¹
"Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
The many-patterened ground of all we are."
The diviner parts of man, the spiritual elements that have entered into his formation aspire to join Immortality and the Divinity from
¹ Compare the similar idea in "The Mother"
In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice of the Purusha., but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakṛti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother. The Mother.—VI
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which they have come. Nature has provided him with necessary instrumentation to realise his oneness with the Divine and therefore one day
"This faint and fluid sketch of soul called man
Shall stand out on the background of long Time
A glowing epitome of eternity,
A little point reveal the infinitudes."
Though at first sight it appears as if, some blind force "...made in sleep this huge mechanical world" yet, it is this very matter which hides, behind its inertia, all the rich possibilities of life; mind and spirit. Thus, the universe is a process of mystery and "to live this Mystery out our souls came here". Aswapathy saw that he had travelled alone to this realm of the spirit's Infinity as yet unrealised by man where stillness, light and silence reign. He saw that he was moving up on this vast cosmic stair, mounting heaven after heaven, and yet being drawn more and more upward by some invisible magnet as it were. He saw that he was the sole figure "...on Nature's giant stair" and from there he could not see the end of his movement, though he felt that he was standing on the summit of created things.
THE KINGDOM OF SUBTLE MATTER
Having crossed the boundaries of this gross material cosmos Aswapathy came to a world of subtle material existence where "All shapes are beautiful and all things true". This world of subtle matter is really the origin of our gross earth. In fact it is the "brilliant roof of our descending plane" and it serves to protect the material world from the operation of subtle forces which might be too strong for it. It canalises the glow of the subtle material world for this earth. All attempts at beauty of form which man makes here have their inspiration in this world. There is, on this plane, a union of mind and form; and in 'order to perceive these subtle forms one has to have senses subtler than those
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possessed by man today. It seems as if it were a world where "matter and soul in conscious union meet". After the death of the gross body, the subtle body of man persists which, in fact, existed before the gross was created. On the level of the subtle material being there is a perfection of form and a perfection of expression. On the lower level, this subtle material world "...has dangerous nether planes" and though on the height it is immortal, still, it weaves for us ".. .death's sombre robe". It is from the fall of this subtle matter that "...our denser Matter came". All typal forms which serve as the basis of material forms are preserved in this subtle matter.
It was this plunge of the Divine into the night of the Nescience that created the possibility of evolution from the Inconscient to the Conscient as if
"She must reconstitute from fragments lost,
Re-word from a document complete elsewhere
Her doubtful title to her divine Name".
The Nescience dared to do this because there is a great kinship between it and the Divine. There is an attempt at creating perfection from. imperfection which is really the law of evolution. It is because of this that even in ordinary ignorant human life
"Earth's great dull barrier is removed awhile,
"And we grow vessels of creative might."
Ordinarily, man imitates material and vital shapes from the subtle material and vital worlds. As long as he imitates the forms of subtle matter and subtle vital planes he succeeds in giving them some kind of shape in gross matter. But when he tries to embody things beyond the range of the earth-consciousness, beyond this material cosmos,—he finds that the stuff of this earth is too crude and the tools too rude. Even when he succeeds in embodying something of the spirit, with all his effort man is only able to achieve a transient success because of the inherent imperfection of earthly elements which are necessary to give form and body to the divine Spirit.
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And yet, it is possible to embody, even here, a perfect expression of the Divine. The condition is that one must join "a line of the Transcendent" which "meets our road",
"And Joins us to the timeless and the true".
It is then that man gets the "inevitable word"
"The godlike act, the thoughts that never die."
In that state of exaltation, man is surrounded by the 'vast Unknown" and he feels that "A subtle link of union joins all life" and "...all creation is a single chain" i e., man no longer feels that he is left alone "in a closed scheme",—
"Between a driving of inconscient Force
And an incommunicable Absolute."
Unlike our gross earth the world of subtle matter at its height embodies something of the divine perfection of the Infinite. For, there the resistance of the expressive medium is non-existent. There "love and sweetness are the law of life". In fact, we awaken to "A fourth dimension of aesthetic sense where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all". And yet the inmost being in us feels that this is not the highest height of our attainment and that we have not to forget to reach the very highest Divine whose home is far above the realm of subtle matter.
The world of subtle matter which lies behind our material world is full of "fantasy, symmetry and grace". There all movements are natural, pure and simple. There is a perfection which comes by acceptance of limits and within those limits the perfection is '' perfect. But the human soul aspires to reach a deeper spiritual perfection and to such a deep aspiration the world of subtle matter would only be a "brilliant courtyard". Aswapathy, therefore, "left that fine material Paradise" because he had to rise to other higher and greater worlds.
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THE GLORY AND FALL OF LIFE
Having left the limits of the physical mind Aswapathy entered the world of life, the plane of vital being. To this plane belong change, doubt, adventure, toil without repose. Life pursues a goal which seems to recede like a mirage as it is pursued. In fact, this plane of pure life-force was "the manifest incalculable". Here, life could take all shapes and need not remain confined to any fixed form. Life here is fearless and can court disasters and dangers and follow the wake of discovery almost as her law. Life here experiments with everything and nothing ever seems to matter to her. From the smallest worm that crawls to the mighty Titan, she manifests herself and pursues a conquest in the various fields of life. She can also be enamoured of pain and sorrow and can willingly become utterly stricken by grief, she can follow fears, and lusts dogged by dead fatigue. In the midst of this plethora of her activity, in the very depth of life, there is some deep dissatisfaction, for, "every change prolongs the same unease". Something in her wants to go to heaven but, actually, turns towards hell
"Her moods are faces of the Infinite:
Beauty and happiness are her native right,
And endless bliss is her eternal home."
When he went up towards the higher levels of life he found
"As far as heaven, as near as thought and hope,
Glimmered the kingdom of a griefless life."
He saw in the blue expanse of life mounting up to the Infinite, there was no suffering, grief or struggle as in human life, there was no anger, gloom and hate on the heights. Its beings experienced immortal gladness. Though these beings and their state appeared miraculous to mortal eyes, yet, to the inmost being of man they were not something unattainable. It is an unattained but close realm which is immune from the harsh clutch of Death and Time, All
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beings there are living in the "griefless country under purple suns".
To Aswapathy these vital beings and their realms were no longer dreams but realities. This realm of pure Vital Being rose to breathless summit regions where
"Only a miracle's high transfiguring line
Divided life from the formless Infinite".
It is this highest vital plane of being that really gives to man and his life all the brilliant pursuits and victories even of his mental and idealistic life. This drive of life it is in which
"Our human ignorance moves towards the Truth
That Nescience may become omniscient".
Then Aswapathy saw that this high region was also plunging towards nether depths. Thus
"There were vasts of the glory of life's absolutes:
"Before the darkness came and pain and grief were born".
He could see this vast infinite of upper life trying to become its very opposite and bring into existence struggle and sorrow and pain.
But between this high vital heaven and the lower depths there were intermediate regions of life. They were superior to the life as already manifested in matter but possible to life on earth, if earth could become purer and reach out towards the Absolute. They were quite conceivable by life in matter though not easily attainable. Here
"Only to be was a supreme delight,
Life was a happy laughter of the soul
And Joy was king with Love for minister."
Here life obeyed the law spontaneously and joyously. Here service, worship, obedience, faith were spontaneous acts and life willingly surrendered herself to the rule of the mind. As the poet says "Life
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throned with mind, a double majesty". There was no fatigue in its endeavour and "There work was play and play the only work". In fact,
"Life was an eternity of rapture's moods :
Age never came, care, never lined the face."
This life played with danger and sported with elements of nature; it conquered space and created sciences, giving man the mastery of the world. Here life was true to self, it was entirely sincere, without falsehood and crookedness. "There freedom was sole rule and highest law". This life did not require any other guide except "her luminous heart". It was life full of the delight of creative ecstasy.
Aswapathy saw this world of vital bliss and wanted to enter .into its joy. But he found no possibility of entrance into it, as there was no bridge and his own mind was so consituted that for a time it looked to him as if he was looking at
"a bright desirable dream
Conceived in a longing distance by the heart
Of one who walks in the shadow of earth-pain."
To react to such perfect joy, power and creativity is very difficult for the human being, because "a dire duality is our way to be". It was only in the very beginning of the cosmos that there was a complete immersion of Spirit in Matter and the imprisoned spirit had to cry to Life to invade the material realm so that the consciousness might be released from the material sleep. In response to this earnest appeal. Life left her native light and poured her splendour, her sweet- ness and her bliss upon the earth. She stooped down from her home to awaken feeling, hope and thought, to create charm and beauty upon the earth. As a result,
"Life's glory and swiftness ran in the beauty of beasts,
Man dared and thought and met with his soul the world."
But before Life could establish her perfect glory upon the earth "A dark, ambiguous Presence questioned all". So that when Life actually
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manifested herself on earth she could not recall her original happy state and actually accepted the law of the Inconscience and became subject to joy, sorrow, struggle, desire, etc.
"And all her glory into littleness turned
And all her sweetness into a maimed desire.
To feed death with her works is here life's doom".
This was the mysterious change that came over Life when it passed to earth.
THE KINGDOMS OF THE LITTLE LIFE
A life arose as a result of the dolorous meeting of the higher Vital and the Inconscience which was so full of unappeased unrest that it could not allow contentment on this inert, solid, globe of the earth. This plane of the little life has given the law of craving to man. It is because of these formless yearning passions in his heart that man is unable to rest content with his life like the beast, or live happy like the flowers and trees. Man's life has added care, reflection and discontent to itself, and he has become an insatiate seeker. All the original fire and might of pure life is brought down here into the littleness of the material being; and life is feeling here a push, an urge towards unattained conditions. For
"She brought into Matter's dull tenacity
Her anguished claim to her lost sovereign right,
Her tireless search, her vexed uneasy heart,
Her wandering unsure steps, her cry for change."
In her labour to reach the status from which she had fallen, she makes restless moves and runs after transient joys,
"Like a child-soul left near the gates of Hell
Fumbling through fog in search of Paradise".
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This fumbling life-force must follow a slow course of evolution in order to arrive at the salvation of the earth-consciousness. This life-force was very near the night of the Inconscience and accepted death as a condition for its temporary living. It was mainly subconscious in its operations. It was graceless and full of animal desire. It seemed to have forgotten its original glory and felicity. Unable to realise fully its spiritual consciousness; it began to live in a pigmy world of its own which seemed to be a dumb confine of life and matter. It was subject to dull sensations and animal instincts. To Aswapathy this lower aspect of life did not appear as its chief characteristic. He saw in it rather the mighty beginnings of "some tremendous dawn of God"—
"The first writhings of cosmic serpent Force
Uncoiled from the mystic ring of Matter's trance".
The whole purpose of this movement seemed to him to be
"To release the glory of God in Nature's mud"
and behind all this lower play of life-force he felt a mystic Presence that was the
"Creator of this game of ray and shade"
who
"...by the swift vibration of a nerve
Links its mechanic throbs to light and love."
This divine Presence behind the working of the lower vital force drives the course of evolution towards, first, the finite loves and lusts and, then,
"The will to conquer and have, to seize and keep,
To enlarge life's room and scope and pleasure's range,
"A yearning to possess and be possessed,
To enjoy and be enjoyed, to feel, to live."
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Even this was only the first cry of the awakening of the soul when it began to look at the light. If the original Infinite Divine had not sacrificed its state of knowledge, power and bliss, then, the dark night of the Nescience could never have ended into the glory of the dawn of spiritual awakening on earth. For,
"A contradiction founds the base of life:
The eternal, the divine Reality
Has faced itself with its own contraries".
It has created the opposition of the Nescience and the Being, ecstasy and pain and all the play of opposites in life in order to create, at some distant future, the great harmony which would resolve them all.
The next level of vital creation which Aswapathy saw was the vast animal world, a world of primitive pythons "great puissant creatures with a dwarfish brain". They had no complex system of sensations and perceptions. In fact, it was a very primitive organisation of nerves which only fulfilled the very primary functions of life. Even the human beings that lived in that stage
"...worked for the body's wants, they craved no more,
Content to breathe, to feel, to sense, to act".
The human being living in that primitive stage was not troubled by thought or reflection. He lived on the verge of sensation, hunting and enjoying the elements of the earth. He could not probe behind into the purpose of Nature around him, nor into the purpose of his own existence. These human beings grouped themselves into friendly or hostile primitive societies, fighting against one another, almost behaving like herds of animals. They did not think of evolving a culture or improving human life spiritually. They were only busy with "movement and speed and strength" and these "were joy enough". All their knowledge was only sensational. The mind that was developed in this state was only a vital mind incapable of pure mental working.
Aswapathy then saw a third creation which contained the capacity for pure thinking. There arose gradually a seeing power within
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the evolving nature which tried to arrange everything round that inner point of light. The world became more ordered, organised, even under the action of "a restricted clamped intelligence". Its thinking was confined to the visible
"A thought was there that planned, a will that strove,
But for small aims within a narrow scope".
It was the existence of a
"...creature passionate only to survive,
Fettered to puny thoughts with no wide range".
Thus, even though Life had awakened to some of its potentialities,
"It knew not the Immortal in its house".
This life of man did not awaken to the vast possibilities of the Spirit it could not know its own origin or its purpose.
GODHEADS OF THE LITTLE LIFE
Aswapathy saw this empire of little life as "An unhappy comer in eternity". And as he wanted to see this region more clearly
"...he plunged his gaze into the siege of mist
That held this ill-lit straitened continent
"...safe from Truth and Self and Light."
To his vision of knowledge this misty world of lower life became very clear
"As when a search-light stabs the Night's blind breast,
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He saw in that light motley creatures, innumerable in their multitudes, spirits, imps, goblins, genii, all kinds of lower vital beings who were
"Ignorant and dangerous wills but armed with power,
Half-animal, half-god their mood, their shape."
It is these beings who were seen by him to act upon the inner beings of man and to turn them round and round in the inescapable circle of ignorance. For
"To sport with good and evil is their law;
Luring to failure and meaningless success,
All models they corrupt, all measures cheat,
Make knowledge a poison, virtue a patten dull
And lead the endless cycles of desire
Through semblances of sad or happy chance
To an inescapable fatality."
Everything here on earth is enacted under their influence
"Here too these godlings drive our human hearts".
The twilight of human nature is the place they lurk in and they speak to the human being "with the voices of the Night". It is thus that these forces utilise human beings for their purpose and build up structures or constructions which they force upon men leading in the end to blind ignorance. This happens because "reason is used by an irrational Force". Even though man is born on the earth and is of the earth, still, "This earth alone is not our teacher and nurse" because, "The powers of all the" worlds have entrance here". Man is thus very powerfully influenced and moulded not only by the earth and its forces but by life, and vital forces that are subtle and by mental forces and even by forces beyond mind. But it does not
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mean that all the higher planes are very near and easily available to man's ordinary consciousness and the very highest plane of Light, as the poet says, "but now, the Light supreme is far away" and generally "Our conscious life obeys the inconscience's law". This fate lasts so long as man's soul does not attain its freedom. When man awakes to his free Self, then, "Nature steps into the eternal Light", "Then only ends this dream of nether life".
At the outset, he saw that in the Eternal consciousness there appeared something which can be called an infinite vacancy or the miraculous Inconscient. This Inconscient seemed to work with an uncanny intelligence but through mechanical processes in which neither the idea nor the knowledge nor the delight were visible, "Being was an inert substance driven by Force". Out of this state of inconscience, etheric space arose and gave rise to tremendous vibrations. These vibrations seemed to be maintained by "a supreme original Breath". The process of expansion and contraction that went on in this etheric space created "touch and friction", "clash and clasp".
"On the hearth of Space it kindled a viewless Fire
That, scattering worlds as one might scatter seeds,
Whirled out the luminous order of the stars."
The world, rather the cosmos, appeared to be a vast electric ocean full of strange wave-particles, "Constructing by their dance this solid scheme". Man was the witness of this material cosmos who saw "His personal vision as impersonal fact". He saw that gradually in the midst of this great multiplicity of material objects, the original force changed its pose,—the spirit's sleep was stirred and "The Force concealed broke dumbly, slowly out". He found that "A life was born that followed Matter's law". It did not know its aim, its purpose, its fulfilment. Sense and thought make their appearance very slowly. There was in this manifestation of life-force not only an unseen will but a drive towards a new becoming and even there was the feeling of the presence of a secret Self.
"An animal creation crept and ran,
And flew and called between the earth and sky"
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It was a short-lived existence, which these creatures had but they were quite happy to live even though only for a while. From this animal consciousness the human consciousness was moulded and it gave rise to a thinking brain in addition to the apparatus of sensation and feeling. Through man Nature looked at herself and a feeling of wonder seized her in man. Even though man is "moulded a being out of a driven force", still. Nature is not satisfied in him. For "To be what she was not inflamed her hope". And, as a result, in man
"An opening looked up to spheres above
And coloured shadows limned on mortal ground
The passing figures of immortal things".
So, from the higher regions, influences were invited and felt. Man, the mental being, found that he was capable of establishing a contact with the higher than mental level of consciousness. Though these visitations from the greater world were rare, they gave to the human being some idea of his spiritual possibilities. The ordinary life of man was humdrum, occupied with very ordinary needs of physical life and the satisfaction of little desires.
"Man laboured on his little patch of earth
For means to last, to enjoy, to suffer and die."
But yet there was in the midst of all this passing activity, a mighty Witness who lived behind this consciousness, whose glory was hidden and whose wisdom governed from behind this world, who in silence listened to the cry of life and seemed to be waiting for some unrealised greatness of a distant hour.
This great cosmos made of the material world and the world of life seems at first unintelligible, meaningless and enigmatic, mechanical. It is, as if, an exact machine was seen without its use being known. It is, as the poet says, "to this first view of mind, An art and ingenuity without sense". It all looks purposeless. This vast play of transient creatures seems an unfathomable mystery. And yet there is a meaning, a significance, a purpose in Nature. But
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"Inapt to feel the pulse and core of things,
Our reason cannot sound life's mighty sea
And only counts its waves and scans its foam."
Due to this inherent incapacity and imperfection in its very constitution human reason tries to turn this vast cosmos and its course to human ends. But in this endeavour man never succeeds, nor can he ever succeed because his own consciousness is "only a little trickle of the vast cosmic current, his mind, his life and even his body, all derive their sustenance from an infinitesimal flow of current from the vast cosmic mind, cosmic life and cosmic matter. In fact, it is these mighty cosmic forces from the subliminal and dark unknown but powerful forces from the subconscient that govern man's life.
"Our lives translate these subtle intimacies;
All is the commerce of a secret Power."
The vital mind of man, though it may seem its own master, is yet in a very great measure the plaything of vital forces that govern it from behind.
"For none can see the masked ironic troupe
To whom our figure-selves are marionettes".
These forces with their actions and reactions on human life contribute to the total working of the evolutionary movement. The chief function which they fulfil is to keep man occupied with inconsequential acts, to make him restless and pass from stage to stage, and to rebel against all higher truth. In this action they very often succeed because
"Inordinate their hold on human hearts,
In all our nature's turns they intervene."
They create in man the conditions of crude earthiness, self-will, pettiness, his little wraths and lusts. Usually these impulses press upon man in his ignorant condition, and man succumbs to them and becomes their mere tool.
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"Until the piece is done and we pass off
Into a brighter Time and subtler Space."
The action of these forces is to hamper and retard the progress of man towards the higher state to which he has the possibility of reaching.
So long as man is subject to the animality within him and so long as his mental gaze is turned outwards, so long will man's life be subject to "incurable littleness". This action of the life-force is common to the insect, ape and man. The only difference is in the designs and details of the expression of life-force. Even if man succeeds in attaining the small aims of his life, his successes are in fact "failures of the soul". He remains tied to his animal needs, busy with his little desires and "His little hour is spent in little things". He can have at the most some passing glimpse of his possible greatness, knowledge and joy. Some little art, some music, real friendship, delight of Nature, enjoyment of her beauty, these are some of his avenues of touching the higher spheres of life. Even when a greater life dawns on him and wide vistas open out before him, still, he is unable to keep up the tension and even the very best things get reduced to "convention and routine".
"He is satisfied with his common average kind;
Tomorrow's hopes and his old rounds of thought"
And yet it is to be admitted that man is a crown of realised evolution in Nature. But, he is not the final culmination of the whole process. Even now he is marching towards a higher state of consciousness and if man were not a passing condition
"On our road from Matter to eternal Self,
To the Light that made the worlds, the Cause of things"
then, mind would be justified in concluding that Life is merely an accident, an illusion, or a freak and that it is a strange "Inconscience monstrously engendering soul". The existence of the human I being in such a world is much more inexplicable and the mind would only see it as "A pointillage minute of little self". This would be the view of a purely materialistic approach to the cosmos
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bound up within the limits of human reason, "within the circle of sense". The only hope which the philosophic mind or religion can offer to man in this state is the hope of perfection, liberation and bliss in some other higher world after death, but not herein life on earth.
But man's entire knowledge is not contained within the formula of his rational knowledge. There is a deeper self capable of a greater and higher vision. There is also in him the witness-soul that awakens and is capable of attaining "truths unseen", of scanning the Unknown. It is then that life loses its appearance as an accident or a freak and a purpose begins to emerge in the confused play of life, Then, the transient experiences of life get connected with "a wordless inscrutable Power". It becomes conscious of a Light which is the source of all, it searches for One who is a real doer of all works, it seeks for
"The unfelt Self within who is the guide,
The unknown Self above who is the goal."
Nature's labour in the cosmos becomes significant and full of purpose and we see that "A mystic motive drives the stars and suns". The purpose of human life gradually reveals itself and the whole vista of cosmic evolution shows that
"In this passage from a deaf unknowing Force
To struggling consciousness and transient breath
A mighty supernature waits on Time."
The whole world afterwards appears quite different to the view of this Witness; because then he sees it as a movement of man racing towards God and the human souls are seen as "deputed selves of the Supreme". And through all the littleness of the human life, he sees the currents of sweetness, joy, unity, laughter,' happiness, exaltation "A heart of bliss within a world of pain". When the human being awakens to the call of this secret divinity within him then "A door is cut in the mud wall of self" and across the threshold higher powers from beyond the human plane, makers of the divine image here, come down into mankind. Pity and sacrifice, sympathy and
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tenderness manifest themselves in man. Then, man is not satisfied with what he attains, because each part of him desires its absolute—
. "Our thoughts covet the everlasting Light,
Our strength derives from an omnipotent Force,
"Our very senses blindly seek for bliss."
When man has aspired with sufficient force and persistence, then, the Higher Self from above begins to come down like a sea "To fill this image of our transience". Wave after wave of the Higher Consciousness descends upon our mind, our life, and senses and even "The body's tissues thrill apotheosised". When that transformation starts
"This little being of Time, this shadow-soul,
This living dwarf figure-head of darkened spirit
Out of its traffic of petty dreams shall rise."
The human play will be moulded into the image of God and even that which is called the Inconscient shall "Quiver, awake, and shudder with ecstasy". But, in order to achieve this great transformation, the human Spirit must first achieve the ascent.
"The soul must soar sovereign above the form
And climb to summits beyond mind's half-sleep".
Then, only, shall we be able to
"Acquaint our depths with the supernal Ray
And cleave the darkness with the mystic Fire."
Aswapathy made his way through the astral chaos, not knowing whether he was treading on firm soil or shifting sands. He was surrounded on all sides by the huge obstruction of this unlit lower vital world. He felt as if he was travelling in a cave and only light which he had was the flame of his own spirit.
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CANTO VI
THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER LIFE
From the region of the lower vital plane where Aswapathy found the denial of the highest possibilities of man he came up to the kingdoms of the higher vital where he found at least "a dubious hope". There was in this plane of consciousness a possibility of self-finding, a sureness of form, adventure of the mind and choice of the human heart, "And a touch of sure delight in unsure things". In this higher vital world there was always the zest: of achievement, of trial and dream but none of these things ever fulfilled itself. For "To achieve would have destroyed that magic Space". They were worlds of marvels, beauty, wonder, fancy which reflected dimly some great spiritual splendour above. But the life here was only an ineffectual search which never ended in a victory. Everything on this plane allured but nothing satisfied. In fact everything here was
"...unsafe, miraculous and half-true.
It seemed a realm of lives that had no base."
From here he saw a wider horizon with a greater promise. He saw that there was a self-conscious Spirit trying to seek its own self, busy with little fragments of life. Here, for the first time, the secret Spirit could find some expression, though very inadequate for its delight, beauty, truth and absoluteness. It was possible now to have some beginning of knowledge, intuitive sight and "Some passion of the rapturous heart of Love".
The beings or the forces belonging to this symbol vital world "have made landings on our globe". Many human activities are inspired by their impact and infiltration. Nature in her march from the Inconscient to the Unknown in
"Her high procession moves from stage to stage,
A progress leap from sight to greater sight,
A process march from form to ampler form,
A caravan of the inexhaustible."
In this task of unfolding the Infinite she does not seem to be conscious of any aim
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"But labours driven by a nameless Will
That came from some unknowable formless Vast."
It seems that she is attempting
"To catch the boundless in a net of birth,
To cast the spirit into the physical form,
To lend speech and thought to the Ineffable".
And, it must be admitted that she has not altogether failed because, "She has lured die Eternal into the arms of Time". Though the task is not yet fulfilled and she has no self-knowledge nor the knowledge other acts, the process of her working is difficult, i.e. "Insignificant her means, infinite her work"; yet,
"In little finite strokes of mind and sense
And endless truth she endlessly unfolds".
She has a vision of her greatness and of her perfection which with her is a passion and yet this very effort entails pain. It is as the poet says "A rapture and pang, her glory and her curse''. Aswapathy saw this glorious and mighty effort of the vital world.
"A folly and a beauty unspeakable,
A superb madness of the will to live,
A daring, a delirium of delight".
The consciousness of the Knower had not yet awakened in this world. He was still a prisoner of life, though attempting to escape from his prison by leaping "to the summit thought, the summit light". The effort of this world can only be a
"... strain towards some bright extreme:
Its greatness is to seek and to create."
This greater Life-Force is creative. She is the same "on earth, in heaven, in hell". Even in the conditions of earthly evolution where she meets with great difficulties she is compelled by her
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inmost spirit to encounter all the obstacles and make an effort which appears, at first sight, impossible. Even the "Inconscience is her long gigantic pause" and from it she is impelled to create life and death and all the consequences of an imperfect world, and yet:
"Her tortured invisible spirit continues still
To toil though in darkness, to create though with pangs".
For
"She carries crucified God upon her breast."
This vast and splendid life that marches in her procession towards the Infinite through eternal time and unlimited space is a spectacle of such a dazzling glory. Aswapathy saw that
"This world is her long journey through the night,
The suns and planets lamps to light her road,
Our reason is the confidante of her thoughts,
Our senses are her vibrant witnesses."
It seemed to him that life was labouring
"...to replace by realised dreams,
The memory of her lost eternity."
Then, he saw that in this endless march through the veil of ignorance and the night of inconscience, she has been working for her "eternal Lover". It is for this great lover, the Puruṣa, that she has been working so hard, trying all along to "cajole with her small gifts his mightiness". She wants to keep him attached to her under all conditions "Lest from her arms he turn to his formless peace". This is her heart's business "and her clinging care". In spite of this great care, she follows a law of contradiction and, forgetting that She and Puruṣa are eternally related,
"Her will is to shut God into her works
And keep him as her cherished prisoner
That never they may part again in Time",
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In order that his formless peace and timeless eternity may be attracted to a creation in time
"She builds creation like a rainbow bridge, "
Between the original Silence and the Void."
She makes of this mobile universe a snare for the Infinite. Even though her steps appear ignorant there is a knowledge behind which moves them. When the human mind tries to find out the purpose
"...workings riddles prove,
Examined, they grow other than they were,
Explained, they seem yet more inexplicable."
All forms which she creates here are symbolic of some veiled idea. Thus, every act is a symbol with her and the symbol hides a living power. In spite of all her efforts. Nature is yet not successful in carrying out her purpose on this level of the higher vital being. "But what she needed most she cannot build". She finds everything else but misses the Infinite.
Then, Aswapathy found on the levels of the higher vital world, that there was a consciousness, lighted by the truth, but which did not actually hold the truth. There was an idea and the world was based upon that idea. It could have a conception of God. The beings who live upon this higher plane of life are capable of embodying an ideal. They are beings who hear "A voice of unborn things" They feel the need of bringing about a change in life in the image of some higher light and are equipped with great power to achieve their aims. Sometimes they succeed in establishing the rule of some idea and want always to rule their little empire, they want to be kings in their private world. This, to them, is a sufficient field for the exercise of their power. These are beings who are ..."the kinsmen of our earthly race" and "This region borders on our mortal state".
The beings of this higher vital world are cast in "the hero's mould". Even though this is not a region of true and highest divine life, still, there is here a movement towards the light, for
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the first time "An ideal is their leader and their king". These beings aspire to establish a government of some high ideal on earth and in order to do that they themselves try to incarnate the ideal in their daily acts. Their thoughts, their speech, their lives become saturated with the ideal and they mount or ascend into the very god- head who is the presiding power of the ideal. But it is not always the powers of Light and Heaven that they follow, but sometimes the powers of darkness and hell, for
"Warriors of Good, they serve a shining cause,
Or are Evil's soldiers in the pay of Sin."
This is not a world of moral good only. It is a free world of the higher vital where knowledge is always relative and therefore carries with it ignorance as its counter part, "and Sin too there is a divinity". Even Sin can try to establish her domain, look beautiful and splendid and even proclaim her law as the divine. It can even put on the pose of virtue and try to recruit her worshippers. For these beings there is no common lot,
"A mighty victory or a mighty fall,
A throne in heaven or a pit in hell".
These higher vital beings, if they manifest on earth, achieve some- thing and establish a stage in the evolutionary progress. They upset the balance on the material plane where gross things are regarded as more important than the subtle, but they bring in a contrary balance. Because to them "The gross weighs less, the subtle counts for more". It is on this level that the possibility of contact and interchange between two beings arid a relation,—a mental, an emotional, even a vital and nervous relation is actualised which, for the first time, draws beings together and creates the possibility of collective life. For
There beat a throb of living interchange:
Being felt being even when afar
And consciousness replied to consciousness."
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And yet, this interchange and relation was not "the ultimate oneness". Because yet "There was a separateness of soul from soul". It is very true that the Inconscience was left far behind, but,
"The miracle of the Superconscient still
Unknown, self-wrapped, unfelt, unknowable,"
was yet far off. It looked down upon all of them from above. These higher vital beings were by no means highest in the rung of the ladder of creation. They were of a middle world, having
"A darkness under them, a bright Void above,
Uncertain they lived in a great climbing space".
They did not know yet the full purpose of creation nor did they know themselves. Even Aswapathy when he was there "Himself he grew a riddle to himself" and "As symbols he saw all and sought their sense".
He followed the great track of this higher life-force which appeared like a perilous adventure without an end. He could not envisage any purpose on the wide steps of this life-force for he saw that it was far away from the materiality of earth, and as it went further. from the earth it seemed to be pulled by some other unknown force towards which it moved "Ever she circled towards some far-off Light". But, the source of this Light was neither visible nor clear and everything on this plane appeared to be a puzzle, the solution of which he did not know.
"A thousand baffling faces of the Truth
Locked at him from her forms with unknown eyes".
Life was multi-coloured, immense, full of possibilities of unalloyed bliss, beauty and love. It was full of fantasy, pomp and play. Her craft was rich and delicate. She had a mysterious will which acted upon all who came in contact with her, and yet the mind of this power was not satisfied. Her heart was unable to capture the one beloved. She was
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"An exiled goddess building mimic heavens,
A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun."
Thus, trying to probe the depth and the secret of this vital plane, he was nearing a Spirit whose "passive presence was her nature's strength". But he could not see this spirit outwardly. It was only occasionally that there was a vague feeling of such a Presence and then
"He saw a half-blind chained divinity
Bewildered by the world in which he moved".
Sometimes by an act of sheer intuition he felt the direction of this "life-force" and could comprehend, the landmarks it had created in course of time. But, again, this clarity was lost in the "many- toned marvel of her chant" and the Puruṣa was attracted to several directions at the same time. Thus, "He loses himself in her but wins her not". This spirit that is hidden, and is trying to decipher the meaning and purpose of life, finds that it is baffled and
"...the Word of Life is hidden in its script,
The chant of Life has lost its divine note."
There is plenty of thrill in her, ravishments of mind and sense abound, but snatches of real felicity are brief and rare. The Self entangled in this maze is
"A wanderer of forlorn despairing routes,
Forsaken cries to a forgotten bliss."
Because he has gone
"Astray in the echo caverns of Desire,
"Or lingers upon sweet and errant notes
Hunting for pleasure in the heart of pain."
And yet even this transient experience of life is supported by an all-pervading element of joy so that creatures find delight in the
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mere act of living "Even grief has joy hidden beneath its roots" because "nothing is truly vain the One has made". This all-pervading joy of the divine Presence in things gives glory and rapture to this passing phenomenon of life. So long as the Spirit is en- tangled in and attached to this imperfect expression of its ultimate purpose it is unable to awaken to the highest and eternal world except, perhaps as an occasional murmur. Very rarely, some blissful voice or beauty's touch recalls the strength and sweetness which are not to be found in their purity on this plane, yet exist somewhere on a higher plane of being.
Even though the outer mind of this vital force has forgotten the. purpose for which it exists, still, "Her depths remember what she came to do". It was to effect a total transformation, "To create her Creator here was her heart's conceit". It was to "marry with a sky of calm a sea of bliss". But this vision of Nature seems to go be- yond the reach of her actions. For instance, she sees the possibilities of the life of gods in her vision but in actuality she succeeds in creating "A demi-god emerging from an ape". The secret energies of Nature act in such a way in this ignorant world that by their own action, sometimes by their very strong action, they put off or render impossible the very attainment of their objective. For instance, she holds the spirit so tight "In her embrace" that "it cannot turn to its source". Even her thinking is weighed down by the inertia of the Nescience and as a result "A sense of limit haunts her masteries" and "nowhere is assured content or peace". Aswapathy, as the observer, tried to see if there was a way of escape out of the movement of this vital plane and he saw that there was no gate of escape so long as the being was imprisoned in it.
"Our being must move eternally through Time;
Death helps us not, vain is the hope to cease;
A secret Will compels us to endure.
Our life's repose is in the Infinite;
It cannot end, its end is Life supreme."
The process of birth and death is only a passage and the human Spirit is carried from birth to birth and even after giving up the body the spirit can continue to act. This plane of the vital was
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always filled with "busy murmur", it was always "a stir" and it strove to escape from its ''long monotone", "And made new things that soon were like the old.
The mind here was cheated with the idea of change and it became busy with invention, production, interchange, economic progress, etc. This kind of progress never led to any real perfection and therefore whatever it achieved was always relative. One scheme was followed by another scheme, ideas were brief-lived and even when a declaration was made of finality, it was found that it was "a world made ever anew, never complete" and it always "piled... half-attempts on lost attempts". It considers fragments as wholes. And, in the vast imperfect activity of this vital plane, existence seems quite purposeless, full of opposites and driven by necessity. It appears only as "A futile and recurring sum of souls" and still life goes on not because Acre is no aim but because
"There quivers still within her breast and ours
A glory that was once and is no more".
This dream of perfection is not something alien to the spirit of Life because
"This knowledge in oar bidden parts we keep;
Awake to a vague mystery's appeal,
We meet a deep unseen Reality
Far truer than the world's face of present Truth".
We are always pursued by the idea of some great Kingdom of Perfection lost by us. At present our life is a march to a victory never won and yet the aspiration and hope never end or wane. Man in the midst of his utmost difficulty still retains his aspiration and the faith in an ultimate and utter peace. He intensely believes in the coming down of a Divinity from above and hopes that
"One day he shall lift his beauty's dreadful veil,
Impose delight on the world's beating heart
And bear his secret body of light and bliss,"
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When the highest fulfilment has been attained, will there be then a complete rest—a cessation from all activity?
"Or there repose and action are the same
In the deep breast of God's supreme delight."
It would not be necessary then to strive for peace and bliss for they would be self-existent and action would be
"...A ripple in the Infinite
And birth a gesture of Eternity."
In that state of the divine Existence where human contraries are reconciled in a supreme self-existent harmony, it would be possible for the earth to attain her dream. For
"Then God could be visible here, here take a shape;
Disclosed would be the Spirit's identity;
Life would reveal her true immortal face."
But till this consummation is attained this endless game of life, its ever circling wheel of action would go on spinning. Till then it appears that
"An error of the gods has made the world,
Or indifferent the Eternal watches Time."
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CANTO VII
DESCENT INTO NIGHT
Aswapathy tried to find the cause of the failure of this higher vital world. He peered into the darkness that was below and tried to locate there the cause, if any. Suddenly, "The veil was rent that covers Nature's depths" and there
"He saw the fount of the world's lasting pain
And the mouth of the black pit of Ignorance",
This region was located there "where dies subjective Space". It was the region of the Nescience where everything that is present in life is turned into its opposite with almost an equal imperativeness. For instance, there was a Power, there was a Presence and there was what might be called Doom which was the opposite of Destiny. There was a mind also which, instead of serving truth, corrupted it with her own formula and everything there was consequently "overcast with error, grief and pain". It was this mind of the Nescient that "Effaced the signposts of Life's pilgrimage" and instead "Erected its bronze pylons of misrule". Under its influence, even the very best became dangerous and harmful. Due to. this universal presence of evil and falsehood everything "bore black fruit of suffering, death and bale". Seeds of evil and falsehood seemed to be scattered everywhere. Here even though he saw some brighter side of life, some truth, some love, some friendship and beauty, he also could not help seeing the anguish and "A breath of disillusion and decadence" that was in store for all life. And even the truths that were once living became dead and yet people were cherishing the putrid corpses of those dead truths. There were fear and lust everywhere and the spontaneous good of the soul was "Replaced by a manufactured virtue and vice" so that the evil that was present was only "a relief from spurious good". Thus, in this dark region
"All glory of life dimmed tarnished into a doubt,
All beauty ended in an aging face;
All power was dubbed a tyranny cursed by God
And Truth a fiction needed by the mind;
The chase of joy was now a tired hunt;
All knowledge was left a questioning Ignorance."
In this region of darkness he saw many beings embodying dangerous propensities full of menace. Even Aswapathy saw that
"...ominous beings passed him on the road
Whose very gaze was a calamity".
There were also charming and sweet faces but full of dangers, "Faces that raised alluring lips and eyes" but their beauty was "like a snare".
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These beings who were themselves in this dark imprisonment did not even realise they were prisoners. This contact with the dark world gave Aswapathy some knowledge of its constitution. But he felt that there was yet something more to be known and so he followed the track of these forces of ignorance "Returning to the Night from which they came". It was a region which was "A borderland between the world and hell" where all could enter but none could stay for long. This was the world of pretence and falsehood and yet "nothing would confess its own pretence". It was a world of deception where nothing could be relied upon, for, there
"Joy nurtured tears and good an evil proved,
"Love ended early in hate, delight killed with pain,
Truth into falsity grew and death ruled life."
It all seemed to be the work of an evil power which was clothed in light and put on the appearance of a helping angel.
"He deceived with wisdom, with virtue slew the soul
And led to perdition by the heavenward path.
A lavish sense he gave of power and joy."
It was such a deceptive power that it used logic to convince man's mind and made the false seem true. Very often, this being spoke in the name of God himself. But all who lived in this atmosphere "lived for themselves alone". Under the garb of outer friendship and good-will, there lay treachery and hate. Behind the apparent safety all round, there lurked fear and danger everywhere. Everyone a/as cautious and yet caution did not pay. There was no place of safety and everybody had to be on the alert the whole time. In spite of so much mutual distrust and animosity, they all combined in their opposition to the mind that "sought some higher good". They would not tolerate any one or any idea that would contradict "The settled anarchy" of their state.
After some time, with a keener gaze, Aswapathy saw that there was a capital but no State. It was a city
"Founded upon a soil that knew not Light.
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"There Ego was lord upon his peacock seat
And falsehood sat by him, his mate and queen".
These two, falsehood and ego, usurped the place of truth and God. Everything here was founded upon force "And licence stalked prating of order and right". There was no true freedom, no harmony, no tolerance anywhere for these beings and "Power and utility were their Truth and Right". The weaker went to the wall and the stronger "did what in others they would persecute". Even though they v/ere themselves sinful, they stoned a neighbour caught in sin. They persecuted every faith that did not agree with theirs "And founded unity upon fraud and force". They cherished no ideals and considered spiritual seeking as a self-deception "or mad chimera" or "hypocrite's fake". In this anarchical state, "A lie was there the truth and truth a lie". While passing through this region Aswapathy found it necessary to protect himself by uttering the divine Name, for, this region is full of deceptive dangers where the pilgrim of truth might receive a treacherous blow that "might cast him prostrate" and "pin to unholy soil". The power of evil can make the pilgrim of truth fall as a casualty and he might permanently lose his goal. Only those who keep God in their hearts and put on the armour of courage, with the sword of faith in their bands, can hope to come out successful and safe from this dangerous region. Such men would be alert with
"The hand ready to smite, the eye to scout,
Casting a javelin regard in front,
Heroes and soldiers of the army of Light".
But this was not the deepest depth of the darkness of the Nescience. There was a worse reign below, evil's extreme to which he now turned his gaze. It was a region of such pitchy darkness that the "Eye could not see but only the soul feel". It was, as it were, a region where there were situated the "savage slums of Night". There were squalid huts "Neighbouring proud palaces of perverted Power". There were "inhuman quarters and demoniac wards". And he saw that here life had fallen into the lowest depth of degradation, obscuration and deformation, while Life tried to attract and
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allure the Spirit to her degraded state in order to perpetrate "Epics of horror and grim majesty". This darkest region was one which
"In booths of sin and night-repairs of vice
"And sordid imaginations etched in flesh,
Turned lust into a decorative art".
Everything was twisted out of' its natural form, everything was exaggerated and here life "made vileness great and sublimated filth". '
"All Nature pulled out of her frame and base
Was twisted into an unnatural pose".
Agony, hatred and torture tried to work as their opposites. The mental being here turned itself into an animal and entered the pit of mire in order to disport itself,
"Thence bubbling rose sullying the upper air,
The filth and festering secrets of the Abyss:
This it called positive fact and real life."
This was the region which might rightly be called hell.
It was not a region without population. The beings of this region took delight in everything perverted and even though they looked y human in appearance they were really subhuman in all their tendencies "lower than the lowest reptile's crawl". They installed in the seat of power insolence capable of an orgy of violence, ruling every- thing by sheer force. It put down free thought and started her own slogans of falsehood as its substitute. Fear and weakness became so rampant that men subjected themselves to them without thought of resistance. It tried to fill the world with
"its hard and shameless clamour...
And threatening all who dared to listen to truth"
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it tried to keep on its false empire of the abyss.
Aswapathy like
"A lone discoverer in these menacing realms
Guarded like termite cities from the sun,"
passed from the dark abyss to the nethermost region of the Nescience where "He walked between wide banks of failing eve". He was lonely and it was dangerous to be lonely. He felt a possible attack upon his mind and saw that he was face to face with "a sense of death and conscious Void". And yet it was not pure inertia; for he felt that there was a life here but a hostile life. As he went further down into the abyss a
"...solitude wrapped him in its voiceless folds.
All vanished suddenly like a thought expunged".
And nothing was left now "not even an evil face". Now "He was alone with the grey python Night". This nameless Nothing threatened to annihilate everything "That it might be for ever nude and sole". Aswapathy was caught into the jaws of this python, he was almost attracted by the giant's mouth and by the darkness which was grim. He felt then a cold sensation, a chill in his heart and he almost entered me state of death, "life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath". He felt that his body was being licked up by "a tenebrous tongue". Existence, hope, belief, memory, all disappeared, leaving behind "A nameless and unutterable fear". He felt as if the whole sea of the Inconscient was approaching him to be swallowed as a victim. "A lifeless vacancy was now his breast". But he outlived all these trials and found that that which was Self in him was still there.
"Then peace returned and the soul's sovereign gaze
To the blank horror a calm Light replied".
The godhead in Aswapathy was awake "And faced the pain and danger of the world".
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CANTOVIII
WORLD OF FALSEHOOD, THE MOTHER OF EVIL AND THE
SONS OF DARKNESS
When Aswapathy saw the heart of the Night he found that there was a spiritless blank eternity where the eternal truth was denied and it was hoped to continue the anarchy of darkness. There was only a brute principle of life without the revealing presence of divine Light, Evil and pain acting in this brute life gave rise to demoniac powers which were
"World-egos racked with lust and thought and will,
Vast minds and lives without a spirit within".
They were in fact embodiments of dark ideas which were responsible for the creation of man's hell. This hell was
"...the gate of a false Infinite,
An eternity of disastrous absolutes".
It denied all true things because it was the power of the Inconscience. Thought became an instrument of perversity and even Good
"...a faithless gardener of God,
Watered with virtue the world's upas-tree".
He saw some vague, illimitable power sitting on Death and trying to subject everything to the one fate.
In the very beginning when the Inconscience reigned, life first touched the "insensible Abyss". The greatest difficulty then was to prepare a way for the Spirit to manifest itself. Life, in its first contact with the Inconscient, could not create in the inconscient matter the right form for the manifestation of the Spirit. It tried "But from the Night another answer came". Because there was the seal in the Inconscient itself,—
"In Nature's titan embryo. Ignorance."
which
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"Lifted its ominous head against the stars;
Overshadowing earth with its huge body of Doom
It chilled the heavens with the menace of a face.
A nameless Power, a shadowy Will arose
Immense and alien to our universe."
This life that emerged from the Inconscience introduced an element of disharmony into the original cosmic. Will and bound it to struggle and vicissitudes. It introduced error and, consequently, slowed down the process of evolution and made man dependent upon his external sense in preference to his natural instincts. The divine Presence in man's heart was also obscured. This life was afraid of the birth of the soul in man and, to prevent it, it resorted to all kinds of tricks and methods. Sometimes this life suddenly attacks, at other times, she captivates her victims. It. even happens at times that
"The. self of life yields up its instruments
To Titan and demoniac agencies"
in which case man's thoughts are guided by these forces and his faith is destroyed by them. Man becomes completely their subject and all the chances of his spiritual evolution are lost. Such beings have no soul "and only a mind and body live to die" in their case.
Ignorance shields many terrible, enormous powers which are 'Haters of light, intolerent of peace". They imitate the divine; Presence in the heart while shutting its doors to the Divine completely and they keep out by the. Law "his tireless Grace". They always intervene in the passage of Light from above; "Wherever the. Gods act, they intervene". Generally they occupy all the, seats of power and influence in humanity and proclaim eternal laws as falsehoods. They even occupy "The world's shrines" and establish themselves as the ruler of this world. They assume Divinity unto themselves they desire to guide and rule mankind. Even they happen "to serve by enmity the cosmic scheme". They take refuge in the dark- ness of Ignorance and protect themselves in "sunless privacy" of their "forts of gloom". There, under the shadow of creative Death "The giant. sons of Darkness sit and plan". They plan the tragic drama that may come to be enacted on the earth's stage. All who would
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raise fallen mankind come under their dangerous attacks. Aswapathy also had to pass through this realm, for, "None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell".
So Aswapathy made his way through this realm
"Peopled by souls who never had tasted bliss,
Ignorant like men born blind who know not light,"
challenging the forces that lived there. As he probed deeper into this world of pain, he found a world of agony and people taking wicked joy in cruelty. Life itself here was a long punishment, the body was "a field of torment", heart was hard and mind without joy. Tranquillity was unknown. Only jealousy, spite, hate and lust continued to work upon men and lead them to their tragic sorrows. The human soul caught into the net of these forces was obliged "To worship a black pitiless image of Power". It had to be thankful to this God of Power for everything that was done however cruel and inhuman it may be,—even for the greatest cruelty perpetrated,
"Cities uprooted, blasted human homes,
Burned writhen bodies, the bombshell's massacre."
They had to invoke the blessings of God. This they thought was a divine action. In fact these dark forces wanted to command the Divine and not to obey Him. Hatred was like an all-pervading element in this region "Burning the soul with its malignant rays". Even physical objects seemed to emanate these lower impulses from them because they seem to give back what they had received. It was not that the beings on this plane were unconscious,—they were conscious but they were all perverse. Aswapathy tried to understand and to know the heart of this Hell. He wanted to understand its root and cause and when the heart of Hell was opened he could hear its goblin voices that misguided, enchanted and ambushed the traveller to the Light. He suffered all the sorrows of this hell and went through all the bitter experiences,—"He drank her poison draughts till none was left". He narrowly escaped the danger of losing his own Self and succeeded in saving himself, because "He treasured between his hands his flickering soul". While passing through this region, even
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though thought had ceased and sense had failed, "his soul still saw and knew". He sounded further the mystery of this dark and bottomless world and by an act of sheer identity with the very deepest spirit that was behind this Nescience he stood at the very entrance of the Subconscient and. saw that the Being that was there though acting unconsciously, was in reality carrying out ? cosmic will. He saw that a secret divine Hand, an invisible hand of Light, was guiding it.
"He saw in Night the Eternal's shadowy veil,
Knew death for a cellar of the house of life
In destruction felt Creation's hasty pace,
And hell as a short cut to Heaven's gates."
When he had realised this great underlying truth, then, the whole aspect of the Night changed and the mechanical iron-rule of ignorance was expunged. The law that bound the soul to ignorance was can celled and quite another message began to be written on the cosmic page. The forms of earth became vessels of the Divine, Inconscience ceased to be and
"a paean song of the free Infinite,
And the Name, foundation of eternity"
was heard, "And the message of the superconscient Fire". Life became pure on earth/'The infernal Gleam died" "Night opened and vanished like a gulf of dream". Then, on this earth "Division ceased to be, for God was there". Thus, at last, "Matter and Spirit mingled and were one".
CANTO IX
THE PARADISE OF THE LIFE-GODS
From the realm of dark gloom, Aswapathy came out into a felicitous daylight. Here life was subject to divine command, assured of its own bliss, without fear or grief "And unalarmed by the breath of fleeting Time". It was at ease here and secure in its joy and universal love. There was ceaseless radiance all round and even the elements
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that touched the senses were full of delight. This world was like "the World -Magician's glass" embodying all the beauty and bliss and gladness far more intense than what can be possibly experienced on earth. In this region were "Rapt dreaming cities of Gandharva kings". There was constant heavenly music chanting the glory of Eternal love. There were the heavens of vital gods where beauty is native to the mould, peace and love and strength are always there; mounting desires, divine pleasures, high dreams were natural to this world—
"In that Paradise of perfect heart and sense
No lower note could break the endless charm"
of the sweetness that was there. The energies that played there were not afraid of their own bliss. The whole constitution of Aswapathy's life-mould was changed and "His earth, dowered with celestial competence" did not require to "smuggle godhead into humanity" across the customs-line of mind and flesh; for, it had now become strong enough to aspire for an unlimited capacity for bliss and
"It drew from sight and sound spiritual power,
Made sense a road to reach the Intangible:
"Made body a nectar-cup of the Absolute."
When he had so changed his vital-mould he found that
And laid its hand upon the body of Time."
This coming down of Eternity in Time might look to us only a little gift
"But measureless to life its gain of joy;
All the untold Beyond is mirrored there.
A giant drop of Bliss unknowable
Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became
A fiery ocean of felicity".
He saw that here "Immortality captured Time and carried Life".
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CANTO X
THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE LITTLE MIND
Aswapathy had to overpass the higher vital world as he had to reach the very Highest "In whom the world arid self grow true and one". The human journey upward cannot cease till that is reached. So long as the human being remains satisfied within the limits of its vital desires and their satisfaction, so long as "This creature hugs his limits to feel safe", till then he cannot aspire to realise the spiritual Self,
"It could not house the wideness of a soul
Which needed all infinity for its home."
Aswapathy saw before him a road stretching to timelessness, disappearing into a sky, lighted with an unseen light. These higher realms were realms of lucent mind which were quite different from the realms of the vital. The rays of these realms "Parting Life's sentient flow from Thought's self-poise" created a world—a new world—"On a ground reserved for doubt and reasoned guess". It was a meeting-ground of knowledge and ignorance. This mind "only sensed itself and outward things". From the realm of the half conscient animal existence in which the being could not understand nor change either itself or its surroundings "This was the first means of our slow ascent". It is this mind which devises
"...the forms of an ignorant life,
That sees the empiric fact as settled law,
Labours for the hour and not for eternity".
It is the faculty of ordinary reasoning practical mind which man
uses in the very beginning of his spiritual awakening; "It reasons from the half-known to the unknown" and creates its constructions of thought which it, again, abrogates. This mind is like a sage "whose shadow seems to him Self". It moves from detail to detail, depending upon proofs for its knowledge,
"This powerful bondslave of his instruments
Thinks his low station Nature's highest top".
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Thus in the very beginning of human awakening "Our mortal frailty cradles an immortal force".
Above this first awakening of mind was the realm of intelligence which worked behind the outer appearance of Inconscience, half-consciousness and mental consciousness. It seemed to be
"A prototypal deft Intelligence
Half-poised on equal wings of thought and doubt"
working ceaselessly between two hidden ends of existence—the Inconscient and the Super-conscient. It is the operation of this intelligence which acts in the instinctive workings of life and dictates the exact behaviour which we find in matter. Not only does it work separately in matter and life but it also joins the physical with the vital and even goes further to the creation of thought and links I' human consciousness "to the effulgence of a Ray above". In the human mind also it is this intelligence present everywhere that helps man to become conscious not only of himself but also of the workings of this intelligence. As the fundamental and the original truth of Existence is infinite, this intelligence had to divide itself into small parts so that each part could be contained in a thought. But this could not last for ever and could not satisfy the deepest hunger of the being. After some time, powers of the higher realms of consciousness swept down like a wave and brought in their trail ' the operations of certain faculties which
"...looked above and saw the dazzling peaks,
It looked within and woke the sleeping god."
It was imagination with her shining army, "Lifting her beautiful and miraculous head" and freeing the human consciousness from the limitations of sense and reason. Myth was created by this faculty to feed the growing human soul's childhood with a food
"Far richer in their sweet and nectarous sap ;
Nourishing its immature divinity -
Its heaped fodder of innumerable facts, ;
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It was under the action of these faculties that "The Golden Child" born within the heart of man began to think and see.
A mind eager to know everything takes this cosmos like a playhouse and works in it like an infant.
"As one it works who builds a mimic fort
Miraculously stable for a while,
Made of the sands upon a bank of Time,
Mid an occult eternity's shoreless sea."
The knowledge that man has to acquire is not to be acquired from outside. It is already there within us "hid behind our minds". It has in fact fallen asleep and "To evoke, to give it form is Nature's task". This cannot be done hastily because the whole world-ignorance is to be liquidated and "Only a slow advance the earth can bear". At the beginning, this mind considers its ignorance as the measuring rod of all her knowledge and consequently breaks up the unity of all into small fractions. Evidently this mind was not intended to reach the Highest because "A passage she cut through from Night to Light". It was intended to be a search for an ungrasped omniscience.
This search of the human spirit for the Highest knowledge was helped by "A dwarf three-bodied trinity". These three dwarf's were the physical mind, the mind of desire and the reasoning mind. The first of them was
"A pigmy Thought needing to live in bounds
"Absorbed and cabined in external sight".
Everything to it appears to be a habit,—a habit of life, a habit of the world, a habit of the mind. This mind is content with the commonplace
"Abhorring change as an audacious sin,
Distrustful of each new discovery".
It does not want to take up any risks for greater attainment or enjoyment. To it, external fact is the only truth and "Only what sense can grasp seems absolute". It is the conventional mind fixed in its groove
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that wants to conserve and guard everything that is old; it is like a watch-dog that barks at every unfamiliar light. This mind makes safe the first step of evolution by strengthening the physical and the material basis, so that "Even in change is treasured changelessness". Thus in the cosmos
"The Energy acts, the stable is its seal:
On Shiva's breast is stayed the enormous dance".
The next dwarf "a hunchback rider of die red Wild-Ass" who tries to eat at the being's heart,—-"Thence sprang the burning vision of Desire". It is a force that wears a thousand shapes and burns in every breast "And uses for muddy ends Its brilliant Force". It is a huge chameleon changing its colour every moment—
"Hungry, it stared from a mottled bough of life,
To .snap up insect joys, its favourite food".
It was all the rime making claims upon the cosmos, yet, all the time it was unknowingly approaching "the hidden Something that is All". "A brilliant instability was its mark", and "It thought all true that flattered its own hopes". It was full of fancy, trying to imagine brilliant satisfaction of its impulses,—
"An eager spring to seize and to possess
Unguided by reason or the seeing soul
Was its first natural motion and its last".
In this attempt, this mind wasted all the life force and never succeeded in attaining the impossible, It took to adventure and in spite of failures it could not be persuaded to give it up because, "Attempt, not victory, was the charm of life". This power also served the growth of man by cultivating the power of the Infinite that was within him. It gave him free realm to exercise his creative fancy whose "passion caught what calm intelligence missed". It was a mind that was trying to see in the light but was yet blinking and '"Ignorance was its field, the unknown its prize".
The third was the greatest of the three. It arrived from the plane of thought into this world of chance. This was reason which was
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"the squat godhead artisan". She was "Armed with her lens and measuring-rod and probe" and looked at this objective universe and tried to make something out of it. She was impatient of enigma and the unknown; she did not like lawlessness and uniqueness; "She strove to reduce to rules the mystic world". In reality, she knew nothing but hoped to know everything. She was
"Ignorant of all but her own seeking mind
To save the world from Ignorance she came."
She tried to reduce man's deepest aspirations into hard and fast constructions which act rather as its steel frame prisons and very soon reduce men to the lifeless mechanic existence. "For the world seen she weaves a world conceived". Like maps hung in schools, she forces wide truth into a narrow scheme. In all her operations she retains the limitations of mind in which every act of know- ledge is accompanied by a doubt. She has to go on constantly changing her knowledge and this constant change is called progress by her.
This work of reason is an inconclusive play and, in fact, reason is used as a tool by every strong idea. She is like an advocate who accepts every brief and being open to all thoughts she is unable to know. In the process of argumentation on which she depends for finding the truth, she cannot arrive at the truth, because it is a fight which can go on for ever without leading to a result—"Absolute her judgments seem but none is sure". Whatever temporary truth she formulates "Time cancels all her verdicts in appeal". Even though the knowledge she acquires appears to our little mind the highest light, in reality, "Its rays are a lantern's lustres in the Night". She is not a master of truth, rather, she is
"A master and slave of stark phenomenon
To reach utility's immense bazaar".
She refuses to accept as true what is not perceptible by the senses and consequently her view of cosmos is materialistic, giving her no
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clue to the problem of the origin of the cosmos and its purpose. Its conclusion about the cosmos is that the energy which has expanded itself in the form of the universe will ultimately contract itself and,
"Then ends this mighty and unmeaning toil,
The Void is left bare, vacant as before."
After this confident conclusion about the wherefore of the cosmos, it is faced suddenly with unseen things, "A lightning from the undiscovered Truth" startles her eyes and creates ''a gulf between the Real and the Known". Thus, after its self-complacent conclusion about the ultimate of the cosmos, "Once more we face the blank Unknowable". It is then seen by her that all her explanations really explained nothing and that even "Matter was an incident in being's flow". What is called law was only a habit of blind force. This want of finality subjects human life to a tremendous uncertainty, and reason cannot solve man's problems because she is not allowed to impose on mankind her materialistic and mechanical view of the cosmos. If allowed, she would "In society build a just exact machine" and rule the cosmos with the help of science and logic. This can only happen if the deepest spirit in man falls asleep permanently. Then only can man remain content and in peace with this rule of reason.
But there is a higher realm of the rising Sun where greater knowledge predominates. What is mixed here and deformed is found there pure and whole. From the point of view of this higher power of knowledge, reason is only a half search and passage and the little mind of man is to it like a child, its
"Desire is a child-heart's cry craving for bliss,
Our reason only a toys' artificer".
In spite of the division to which human mind is obliged to reduce the whole and the one Truth yet there persists in his consciousness an aspiration that one day the highest truth will be known and the face of the divine Reality burn through the mask.
"Even now great thoughts are here that walk alone:
"In an investiture of intuitive light".
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One day, in the wake of this higher intuitive knowledge will come
"On lustrous seas from the still rapt Alone
To illumine the deep heart of self and things.
A timeless knowledge it shall bring to Mind,
Its aim to life, to Ignorance its close".
He saw that above this human mind there was a region of bright Light from where two demons looked down on .the whole scene, one was "huge high-winged Life-Thought" and the other "A pure Thought-Mind". These two in their combination would make it possible for man to break the limits of his humanity and arrive at a supernal Light.
CANTO XI
THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER MIND
Even though Aswapathy reached the limits of cosmos ordinarily attainable by man, he saw that creation did not stop with these regions. Just as the mind is wider than the brain it uses, so the spirit is greater than the instruments in which it manifests itself. And, really speaking, the spirit is not a product of mind, rather, self- existent knowledge inherent in the Self is really the origin of mind. He now arrived at a region
"Where Thought leaned on a Vision beyond thought,
And shaped a world from the Unthinkable".
These were planes where "The splendours of ideal Mind were seen". These planes create unrealised possibilities far beyond the ken of the expanding universe and they overtop "the ceiling of life's soar". This region intervenes between the divine and the human and it is "Its mights that bridge the gulf twixt man and God". It is the light of these planes that fights against Ignorance and Death. It is in this region that living gods dwell, each trying to build a world in his own right. There knowledge is certain, joy and powers spontaneous. Though these planes are of a different constitution from that of man
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"But since our secret selves are next of kin,
A breath of unattained divinity
Visits the imperfect earth on which we toil;
"A thought comes down from the ideal worlds
And moves us to new-model even here
Some image of their greatness and appeal
"A faith in things that are not and must be
Lives comrade of this world's delight and pain,
The child of the secret soul's forbidden desire".
It is then that the human life on earth participates in the immortality of the spirit and
"We move by the rapid impulse of a will,
That scorns the tardy trudge of mortal Time."
In our origin, we belong to that higher divine world but having dropped into the night of material ignorance we have for the timebeing forfeited our rights and we are self-exiled from our own divine home. Yet,
"Amidst earth's mist and fog and mud and stone
It still remembers its exalted sphere".
But till this memory returns man is completely identified with the life in the body, with his desires and his mind. But, when this memory becomes active he claims once more his imperial right and becomes "Heir to delight and immortality". All the ideals which man dreams of on earth, his dreams of perfection, have all their fully realised counterpart in those higher planes. And it is from there that, in reality, "Immortal footfalls in mind's corridors sound". Human souls can climb to those regions and become in the highest sense, the Manīsī , the Thinker, who enters the immortal's air where there is perfect rhythmic calm and joy. There knowledge precedes action and even matter is a conscious substance. "And Will is a conscious chariot of the Gods". It is a region of constant wisdom, happiness and joy and at its height
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"On meditation's mounting edge of trance
Great stairs of thought climbed up to unborn heights
Where Time's last ridges touch eternity's skies
And Nature speaks to the spirit's absolute."
This thought-world was a triple realm. The first was above bright ethereal skies of mind of man,
"But chough immortal, mighty and divine,
The first realms were close and kin to human mind".
There is an interchange between the beings of that plane and humanity and it is possible for human beings to mount upwards, and for the divine beings to descend here into humanity. Looked at from afar, they seemed like imaginary symbols but when they approached nearer they were seen to be "Gods and living Presences". Their forces stand behind Nature and support her. They support matter, life and mind and in obedience to the divine command create this complex world
"Where the infant spirit learns through mind and sense
To read the letters of the cosmic script
"And search for the secret meaning of the whole."
The million-sided movement of the one Reality was subjected by these forces of knowledge to the limitation of time, space and form and to all the exactness that is necessary for a material manifestation.
Above this region of higher mind stood a race of beings in whose eyes
"A light of liberating Knowledge shone,
"They lived in the mind and knew truth from within".
They could pierce behind outer appearances of things and contact the Reality which eludes the human sense and the narrow human mind. These are
"High architects of possibility
And engineers of the impossible".
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They penetrate the subliminal mind of the cosmos or of the higher power and bring from there the intended potentialities.
"Tracing the curve of a transcendent Power,
They framed the cabbala of the cosmic Law".
They permeate all the forces of nature and forge their ends under the mask of necessity and chance. From the chaotic moods of the Infinite and the Invisible, they derive the calculus of destiny. To the physical mind of man, this deeper and higher aspect of the working of gods is not known. All the living elements that enter into the constitution of the cosmos lose their inmost significance; robbed of their wonder, they become mechanical and drab to the physical mind. This spontaneous movement of higher consciousness was reduced to the proportions of the human mind so that it would understand it. But, in rendering it knowable to man, the miracle, the charm and the mystery, were lost. Men found many truths but not the one Truth that matters. Knowledge of many things did not lead to the knowledge of the essential "And the Transcendent kept its secrecy".
Aswapathy ascended the wide summits of the triple stairs where
"Bare steps climbed up like glowing rocks of gold
Burning their way to a pure absolute sky."
There were here very few kings of thought whose thoughts are partners in the vast control over this world
"A great all-ruling consciousness is there
And Mind unwitting serves a higher Power".
This plane of consciousness is a channel for the operation of that higher power and from that height it is seen that a wisdom knows and guides this world. It rules chance, determines necessity and arranges fate. To it, "Even Nature's ignorance is Truth's instrument". All the struggles of human ego cannot divert the course of this power and everything that it has decreed works out inevitably towards the intended aim. It makes possible the ascent "from the
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plasm to immortality". This greater truth of that higher plane is not normal to the human mind and it is the knowledge and power of forces of that plane that arrange the movement of upward evolution here and make it inevitable. When the human mind attains to this plane, then, all its wisdom stops; because, it feels itself complete
"For nothing more was left to think or knew;
In a spiritual zero it sat throned
And took its vast silence for the Ineffable."
This play of the gods on the higher levels of the mind made possible the descent of the immortal life in time. They have captured truth and want to establish her worship and empire in the world. This Power of Truth, Parā śakti, that is above these higher planes of the mind can become the mental nature in man, serving him as his consort and companion. Man can have a relation of subjection and mastery with her and through all his dealings with her he can experience a throbbing delight. For, in effect, she is not what she seems to be. She is from the immortal and divine heights and the Puruṣa and herself can mutually create each other in image of the transcendent Truth which they both represent here. "She made earth her home, for whom heaven was too small". And yet, all that the earth can afford, all that the life can create, all that the thought can envisage would not be able to seize her Eternal Truth. The whole cosmos lives in a lonely ray of her sun. It is a vanity of the human mind that dreams that the narrow chains of its thought can bind her—
"But only we play with our own brilliant bonds;
Tying her down, it is ourselves we tie."
Being hypnotised by our personality we become oblivious of her boundlessness and
"We share not her immortal liberty.
Thus is it even with the seer and sage;
For still the human limits the divine".
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It is when man goes completely above the plane of mind and establishes himself in the realm of the supreme Sight, when he completely surrenders himself to the absolute power, that
"The timeless Ray descends into our hearts
And we are rapt into eternity."
Let the human mind always remember that it cannot grasp the whole truth in the hollow of its hands
"For Truth is wider, greater than her forms.
A thousand icons they have made of her
"But she remains herself and infinite."
CANTO XII
THE HEAVENS OF THE IDEAL
Aswapathy found that beyond the line of things achieved by man there always was an ideal beckoning from afar, carrying in itself the touch of the Unseen. It was a tireless thought in him that always wanted to discover the Unknown, to achieve the unattained. Behind this search of tireless thought, there is a longing for a Truth infinite and absolute; and each step of the endeavour becomes a new rung in the ladder of human ascent. This flame of aspiration in his heart seemed to be supported by the flame of Spirit which maintained this immortal hope. He saw from afar on one side the blue heavens of the ideal mind and on the other side;
"The lovely kingdoms of the deathless Rose.
Above the spirit cased in mortal sense
Are superconscious realms of heavenly peace,
Below, the Inconscient's sullen dim abyss,
Between, behind our life, the deathless Rose."
Behind the outer appearance of this ignorant and suffering world, unseen by it, "blooms for ever at the feet of God" and "Here too its bud is born in human breast". When the bud of Rose blooms in thehuman heart,
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Then life becomes a rapture-offering full of bliss, carrying in it the secret divine grace and revealing even in life the working of immortal divine powers. Then the individual feels fulfilled in life. At its summit this realm touches the regions of this Immortals. On those immortal planes are all the elements of human perfection in their entirety. It is "the House of Flame" where the divine thoughts and golden bliss, a strange combination of fire and sweetness and all other joys even of mortal life are present but transmuted by the touch of the Immortal. From the regions of earth there is a movement to reach this House of Flame,
"Tune's sun-flowers' gaze at gold Eternity:
"A million lotuses swaying on one stem,
Climbs towards some far unseen epiphany."
There was another side of this eternal staircase where
"Out of the sorrow and the darkness of the world,
"Lonely mounts up to heaven the deathless Flame".
In the depth of darkness of humanity, this Flame burns upwards and humanity itself is "its house of sacrifice". Slowly it mounts to the invisible throne ascending plane after plane, going even beyond the realms of the ideals to the "Heights of the grandeur of Truth's ageless ray". But the effort to support this aspiration of a constant higher ascent is too much for the human being to maintain constantly. Human heart, mind and nerves cannot support this tremendous effort
"Only the Eternal's strength in us can dare
To attempt the immense adventure of that climb
And the sacrifice of all we cherish here."
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Through all his efforts man is trying to approximate this inmost dream of his perfection. Man feels—
"Happy the worlds that have not felt our fall,
Where Will is one with Truth and Good with Power".
It is this perfect divine spiritual nature which is reflected in the transparent mirror of Self of the individual who then becomes heir and co-sharer of divinity.
Aswapathy moved beyond this kingdom of the ideals and did not want to stay there permanently because "All there was an intense but partial light". Each idea thought itself absolute there and wanted to mould the whole world into its image. It wanted to make therefore "a world where it could reign alone". This light can only be a guiding angel on the way to the Infinite and the Divine for the traveller of spiritual path. He. was not tempted by their per- suasion because he was dreaming of a state where all the differences between the ideals would not only be forgotten but reconciled and they would all "Become a single multitudinous whole". The destiny of the traveller is the immutable and inviolate Truth of the Eternal.
"On the wide spirit height where all are one".
CANTO XIII
IN THE SELF OF MIND
Going beyond the kingdoms of the ideal world, Aswapathy came to a region "Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice". But he did not answer the million calls, the endless questions, nor did he answer the eager hopes that were directed towards it. It appeared as if the hierarchy of the worlds paused here. And, there Aswapathy
"...stood on a wide arc of summit Space
Alone with an enormous Self of Mind
"Omnipotent, immobile and aloof,
In the world which sprang from it, it took no part".
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This Self of mind was a cause of everything but it was only a witness.
"It acted not but bore all thoughts and deeds,
The witness Lord of Nature's myriad acts".
This witness Lord was also a consenter. The origin of creation is in the silence of the Divine where "A seeing Self and potent Energy met". The Self is thus the "Spectator of a drama self-conceived". As it is a world created out of himself,—in fact, a world which he himself has become,—he naturally understands it and knows it. And this Self could always remain the Self in perfect silence and unbroken peace. It knows the cosmic whole. By a mysterious act of Providence, this self-knowledge was denied to the self and an effort was imposed upon the instruments of nature to acquire the knowledge of the Self. There "A doubt corroded even the means to think". Distrust of the power of mind arose and all knowledge acquired by it turned out to be undependable frauds "Or assets valueless in Truth's treasury". This state of ignorance which reigned in the cosmos gave rise to knowledge which was acquired under the conditions of division and therefore even though what it saw was real but its sight was untrue. The fault lay in the vision. All the ideas which it got were like transient clouds and
"The magic hut of built-up certitudes
Made out of glittering dust and bright moonshine
In which it shrines its image of the Real,
Collapsed into the Nescience whence it rose."
The human "mind is a house haunted by the slain past"; dead ideas mummified, that are ghosts of Truth generally fill the human mind. The whole view of existence is subjected to a tremendous doubt, because, to the human instruments of knowledge it appears like a lotus-leaf in the pool of cosmic Nescience. This Self of mind is like a veil, it is an idol, not the living body of God. It can afford the experience of deep peace but cannot embody the nameless Force, because
"Our sweet and mighty Mother was not there
Who gathers to her bosom her children's lives".
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The rapture of the Infinite, the passion of god-ecstasy proceeding from the boundless heart of love was lacking. For a greater satisfaction of the spiritual hunger of man, a greater spirit than the self of mind is required. Standing on the great vacancy on the summit of abstract firmament of thought, he saw life below, its strife and end- less labour, surging like a great ocean. On the breast of that enormous ocean, everything that is manifested in the cosmos was seen moving, jostling, rising, sinking, rising again and falling into a mystic void, into death. This whole creation reposed upon "the dim Inconscient's dumb incertitude". Two firmaments, one of Darkness and the other of Light, faced each other, offering themselves for the movement of the Spirit. In it the spirit moved in spirals and cycles of acts and thoughts and yet it was no more than its original Self. It seemed as if "to be was a prison, extinction the escape".
CANTO XIV
THE WORLD-SOUL
In response to his seeking for an escape, Aswapathy saw in the background of mind-space a brilliant opening. It extended into the Unknown like "A well; a tunnel of the depths of God". There he felt
"As one drawn to his lost spiritual home
Feels now the closeness of a waiting love,
"He travelled led by a mysterious sound."
This Sound was all sounds yet had the character of sameness. At times it rose high with enthusiasm and delight, at other times, it sank into a whisper going round and round; again, at times, it appeared like the yearning of a lonely flute. It also became a single note like a cricket's. It even became like the jingling of anklet bells. It also became like the tinkling heard from a long caravan from afar. At other rimes it was solemn like the temple gong or like a bee-croon heard in slumberous noon, or like "the far anthem of a pilgrim sea". There was unearthly incense and the feeling of the approach of the invisible Beloved and the possibility of changing the world with the beauty of a smile. Aswapathy found that this was
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"An hour eternal in the heart of Time.
The silent soul of all the world was there".
It was "A single Person who was himself and all" and. he was "Trans- forming all experience to delight". This world-soul
"led things evil towards their secret good,
It turned racked falsehood into happy truth".
From this world-Soul proceeds each new birth of the Eternal and it is "A flame that cancels death in mortal things". Aswapathy found that everything in the cosmos had grown familiar and kindred because "The intimacy of God was everywhere" i e., there was no veil, no barrier dividing consciousness from consciousness, being from being. He felt "A sense of universal harmonies", and "eternity of truth and beauty and good and joy made one". From this centre all finite life seemed to proceed and he saw that "A formless spirit became the soul of form".
This was a plane "of sheer soul-stuff". There was no thought but knowledge was there by "a moved identity". There was a direct communication between consciousness and consciousness and life was not there present as life "but an impassioned force". It was a subtle and spiritual power. There was no physical body there, because body was not needed. The soul itself was its own deathless form. The knowledge derived of things was by their soul and not their shape. Everything there was beautiful by its own birthright. On this plane "world and self were one reality".
There he saw beings that had lived on earth once in a state of silent internatal trance, in the condition of spiritual sleep. They had gone beyond the realms of birth and death into the world's deep soul, "All now was gathered into pregnant rest". They underwent the transformation of their person and nature and created their own future from this plane. And "They waited for the adventure of new life" It is the persistent personality of the Spirit that assumes various names and forms and passes through a series of births. When it is born in life on earth, it
"...learns by experience what the spirit knew,
Till it can see its truth alive and God."
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He discovered that he had come to the centre of creation from where with a starring point of silence, all spiritual personalities—psychic beings— remould their purpose "Recast their nature, and reform their shape". After the period of recouping and rest on this plane they
"Resume their place in the process of the Gods
Until their work in cosmic Time is done."
"Here was the fashioning chamber of the worlds". Aswapathy's soul passed on towards the end which ever begins again, approaching through a stillness to the source of all things, human and divine.
"There he beheld in their mighty union's poise
The figure of the deathless Two-in-One,
A single being in two bodies clasped,
A diarchy of two united souls,
"Their trance of bliss sustain the mobile world."
Behind this dual image, he saw the figure of the supreme Power who "guards the austere approach to the Alone". She is the Supreme Creatrix of the world
"Above them all she stands supporting all,
The sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled
Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask".
His own spirit was made a vessel of Her force and Aswapathy felt a passionate will and "outstretched to her his folded hands of prayer". Then the supreme Mother, in her grace, uncovered to him half of her face. Aswapathy was overwhelmed by the light and bliss, by the sweetness and power and
"Drunk with a deep golden spiritual wine,
He cast from the rent stillness of his soul
A cry of adoration and desire
"He fell down at her feet unconscious, prone,"
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CANTO XV
THE KINGDOMS OF THE GREATER KNOWLEDGE
Aswapathy came "Out of the timeless depths where he had sunk" and "He heard once more the slow tread of the hours". He had now gone beyond the witness Self and his universe and entered into a realm of boundless silences. He aspired to understand and hear the voice that created the worlds.
"A light was round him wide and absolute,
A diamond purity of eternal sight".
There he experienced sheer being living in its own peace, content with only being, full of bliss. There was no nature now.
"It was a plane of undetermined spirit
"A lonely station of Omniscience,
A diving-board of the Eternal's power".
Here was no knowledge by thought because it was beyond thought. But it was the knowledge by which the knower is known. It was "The Love in which the Beloved and the Lover are one". There were a thousand roads in that infinite realm leading towards eternity and having gone beyond the realm of the knowable he gazed with an immeasurable outlook which was "one with self's inlook into its own pure vasts". He saw the miraculous content of knowledge, power and delight of this stupendous All and "Its inexhaustible acts in a timeless Time". Here on this plane of radiant Self, which was multiple of one Self, he found that the spirit was not hidden from its own view and all consciousness was oceanic happiness, "and all creation is an act of light". Then out of the neutral silence of his soul he was called to a vision that climbs beyond the reach of time.
"He moved through regions of transcendent Truth
Inward, immense, innumerably one,"
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He was completely freed from the limitations of mind and Time's triple dividing step baffled him no more and he saw Time in a "single wide regard". There was a universal beauty sheltered behind all forms which rendered commonplace things into wonders of beauty. Here he climbed
"On peaks where Silence listens with still heart
To the rhythmic meters of the rolling worlds,"
and here
"He served the sessions of the triple fire."
Freed from the bondage of death and sleep, he mounted beyond the seas of cosmic mind and "trod along extinction's narrow edge" and "The belt he reached of the unchanging Truth". Beings were seen whose wings fold around created space. "The sun-eyed Guardians and the golden Sphinx" he saw there. There was "A wisdom waiting on Omniscience" in silence and complete passivity. It did not judge nor measure nor try to know "But listened for the all-seeing Thought". Aswapathy had reached the top of all that can be known and the heavens of light and the abyss of darkness revealed their truth to him. Only the ultimate mystery was left to be known. But still on the plane on which he stood there was a complex play of infinity and eternity "A million energies joined and were the One".
It was a realm where no untruth can come "Where all are different and all is one". There "The Person in the World-Spirit anchored rode". He was
"An immortal point of power, a block of poise
In a cosmicity's wide formless surge".
He was re-born in this infinite kingdom of the spirit "And grew in the wisdom of the timeless Child". Henceforward ' '
"He thought and felt in all,...
He communed with the Incommunicable,"
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"The Gods conversed with him behind Life's veil".
Thus,
"He scanned the secrets of the Overmind,
He bore the rapture of the Oversoul.
"He linked creation to the Eternal's sphere,
His finite parts approached their absolutes,
His actions framed the movements of the Gods,
His will took up the reins of cosmic Force."
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SUMMARY OF BOOK THREE
THE BOOK OF THE DIVINE MOTHER
THE PURSUIT OF THE UNKNOWABLE
THE whole experience of life in the world as it is today can give — something. But, it is too little and "cannot fill the spirit's sacred thirst." Something seems to be missing which is badly wanted to make life perfect. In the absence of that something all other things acquired by man lose their significance. To Aswapathy came that experience—
"The labour to know seemed a vain strife of Mind,
All knowledge ended in the Unknowable:
The effort to rule seemed a vain pride of Will".
Thus, finding the pursuits of life insipid, he found that there was a peace and silence which settled in him, occasionally calling him to reach to something impalpable, something beyond, which yet filled his whole being.
"Near, it retreated; far, it called him still.
When that was absent it left
"...the greatest actions dull,
Its presence made the smallest seem divine."
Its absence made existence lose its aim and it turned existence into an impermanent scene. But he did not know the nature of this impalpable Reality. His attitude towards it varied according to his experience and culminated, at times, in doubt in his physical mind.
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At times it was an indescribable Vast "Or was a subtle kernel in the soul:" at other times, it was a distant greatness or a mystic closeness, while at other times, it appeared an unreal thing like the shadow. At times, he was subjected to corroding doubts. But, in spite of all doubts, he went on ascending higher and higher towards this vague Immensity condemning the finite things of the world to nothingness. Then, all of a sudden, he came to a height where nothing could live that belonged to this world. He seemed to approach a sheer Reality where
"All he had been and all towards which he grew
Must now be left behind or else transform
Into a self of That which has no name."
He had to lay all his humanness behind and identify himself with that Nameless. It was something which thought could not grasp, and will could not touch. All the instruments of his nature Which "Nescience builds collapsing failed." Even the cosmic Self fainted in this vastness and it was such that
"The separate self must melt or be reborn
Into a Truth beyond the mind's appeal."
All names and forms completely disappeared and all the systems of the world disappeared one by one. The whole universe appeared like a veil and behind that was seen the transcendent Divine with "his feet firm-based on Life's stupendous wings." The movement of eternal Time returned to His timeless eternity and nothing of the cosmic mind's conception remained. Everything seemed to be "A hue and imposition on the Void".
There
"A Vastness brooded free from sense of Space,
And Everlastingness cut off from Time".
The peace and silence of this vastness rejected the world and the soul from itself. Some stark Reality alone remained
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"Facing him with its dumb tremendous calm.
It had no kinship with the universe".
There was no act, no movement in it,
"There was no second, it had no partner or peer".
It was, in fact, itself
"A pure existence safe from thought and mood".
It was—
"Uncreating, uncreated and unborn,
The One by whom all live, who lives by none,
"Guarded by the veils of the Unmanifest".
It was
"A silent Cause occult, impenetrable,—
Infinite, eternal, unthinkable, alone."
THE ADORATION OF THE DIVINE MOTHER
"A stillness absolute, incommunicable,
Meets the sheer self-discovery of the soul,"
And this stillness "makes unreal all that mind has known". But it does not mean that everything made is unreal.
"A high and black negation is not all,
A huge extinction is not God's last word".
In this state when only the Inconceivable is left
"Thought falls from us, we cease from joy and grief;
The ego is dead; we are free from being and care,
We have done with birth and death and work and fate."
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This would indicate that the state of consciousness now reached leaves no function for the self. Should then the self cease from existence, i.e., merge into the Ineffable? The poet asks the question "But where hast thou thrown self's mission and self's power?" Because, according to the Poet,
"Escape brings not the victory and the crown!
Something thou cam'st to do from the Unknown,"
And that work is not done. Not only that but the world goes on and
"Only the everlasting No has neared
"But where is the Lover's everlasting Yes?"
It is the fulfilment of life on earth where a reconciliation between delight and silence, passion and beauty, between life's opposites has to be effected. The possibility of such a fulfilment is a truth "at the mystic fount of Life." Even when the shadow of ignorance is removed the mystery of God's manifestation in the cosmos remains. The riddle of this world which is like an unfinished play is not solved. People have taken this state of white eternity of the Being as the last secret of the cosmos. But it was, really speaking, the first entrance into the realm of timelessness which would be a beginning of his discovery .of :God.
"There is a zero sign of the Supreme;
Nature left nude and still uncovers God."
This zero is not a void without content nor is the Nature an illusive manifestation without a mystery behind it.
This silence of the Divine is not without power. For "in absolute silence sleeps an absolute Power." And, if that can be awakened, it can also awaken the human soul, "and in the ray reveal the parent sun." Even as Aswapathy stood on the verge of this absolute silence, he found that
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"Across the silence of the ultimate Calm,"
The Presence he yearned for suddenly drew close.
"Out of a marvellous Transcendence' core,
"Someone came infinite and absolute."
It was the presence of the divine Mother and she "Took to her breast Nature and world and soul."
The vacancy and the silence disappeared and the brilliant lustre showed a golden passage that led to his heart,
"Touching through him all longing sentient things;
A moment's sweetness of the All-Beautiful
Cancelled the vanity of the cosmic whirl."
"A Nature throbbing with a Heart divine
Was felt in the unconscious universe".
It was this Beauty and this Presence that "justified the labour of the suns." He found that "A Mother Might brooded upon the world." She was
"The Mother of all godheads and all strengths
Who, mediatrix, binds earth to the Supreme."
Then, the riddle of the world was solved for him and Nescience was killed. There was hidden, but all the same present, a wisdom, a word, a love and "a Life from beyond grew conqueror here of Death." Error, falsehood and wrong were no longer found to be necessary for the world. A divine fulfilment on earth was seen as possible because of the help of this divine power of Grace. She was "the magnet of our difficult ascent." She was the light of all lights, the origin of all power and delight. "All Nature dumbly calls to her alone" and "All here shall be one day her sweetness's home." The effort of man for knowledge, the strivings of his
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passion—all human effort in fact,—are directed towards this divine Power. It is through her that man will realise his unity with all beings and the fulfilment of divine life on earth. Aswapathy knew this "in a thunder-flash of God" and all his limbs were filled with joy of eternity. For "once seen, his heart acknowledged only her." Now, "Only a hunger of infinite bliss was left" in him.
Just as after long preparation a seed breaks out "so flashing out of the Timeless leaped the worlds". The delight that he thus received into himself was too vast for him. Even his widened heart could not contain it. His single freedom could not satisfy him. And so "Her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men." But this work cannot be done by human effort alone. It is too high an adventure for human effort. "A vast surrender was his only strength." Aswapathy resorted to this act of surrender in order to
"Bring into life's closed room the Immortal's air
And fill the finite with the Infinite."
Henceforth all other aims ceased to appeal to him. He only longed to bring down her presence and power into his heart and mind and body.
"Only he yearned to call for ever down
Her healing touch of love and truth and joy
Into darkness of the suffering world;
His soul was freed and given to her alone."
THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRIT AND THE NEW CREATION
Aswapathy had yet to perform a greater deed.
"A Strength he sought that was not yet on earth,
Help from a Power too great for mortal will,
The Light of a Truth now only seen afar".
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Looking to the constitution of human nature he felt a great resistance from the inconscience and
"The stubborn mute rejection in Life's depths,
The ignorant No in the origin of things."
There was silence above which appeared to be neutral and on the other side there was this rejection and contradiction of all that was high in the very nature of the world. Even in his own being there were earthly elements which kept their kinship with the ignorance and the inconscience and
"A shadowy unity with a vanished past
Treasured in an old world-frame was lurking there".
Over and above this pull from the past there were other difficulties also which he had to encounter.
"...old ideal voices wandering moaned
And pleaded for a heavenly leniency
To the gracious imperfections of our earth".
There were also instincts taking refuge in the subconscious and revolts in his nature that had not yet taken shape.
Aswapathy resolved to detect and exile from his nature all these imperfections. Yet, as he went on working he found that
"...the Inconscient too is infinite;
The more its abysses we insist to sound,
The more it stretches, stretches endlessly".
In order to make himself fit for the reception of this great Power, Aswapathy "tore desire up from its bleeding roots" so that the divine Power may take its place. The aspiration in him was to bring a divine harmony into the whole of life and to make this earth "an empire of the immanent Divine." Not merely his self but even his nature parts became universalised and in their tremendous universality they "Included every soul and mind in his." The joys
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and sorrows of others became his and a universal sympathy arose in his nature. He became oceanic or like the earth in his wide universal sympathy.
"There was no cleavage between soul and soul,
There was no barrier between world and God".
He experienced the One consciousness which has made the world and his. separate existence as an individuality could not last any longer. But this did not mean that he either ceased to exist or ceased to act. Because
"His nature grew a movement of the All,
itself to find that all was He,
His soul was a delegation of the All
That turned from itself to join the one Supreme".
After thus transcending the human formula, he widened out into a universal nature
"Awaiting the ascent beyond the world,
Awaiting the Descent the world to save".
During this interval of waiting all his personal efforts ceased and he passed into an omnipotent peace, and realised the immortality of life. He then felt that he was in the grasp of an unseen Transcendent power that dominated not only his being but his nature also.
After that he was driven by a divine breath into still higher regions of being
".. .past not-self and self and selflessness".
In that region there is no duality of love and hate, good and evil, fate and chance and true and false. These things there "Find no access, no cause, no right to live." It being the realm of perfect harmony there could be no conflict between thought and thought, truth and truth, and right and right. The vast cosmic labour goes
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on in perfect calm of the cosmic nature and the all-sustaining and all-causing Witness looks at it from its eternal altitudes and shoreless self. In reality, this power has a mind too vast to be bound by thought and "A Life too boundless for the play in space." Aswapathy by identification became the unborn Self that never dies. He waited in silence in this state of infinity for the ultimate voice of the Transcendent.
Then, suddenly, a downward look came to him "as if a sea exploring its own depths". The infinity which he was became "A living Oneness" and it went on widening till Aswapathy found that he had become one with innumerable multitudes. In that living Oneness, a love, a bliss, a light, a power clasped all into its embrace "for worlds were many, but the Self was one". It was from this central knowledge that Aswapathy now acted. This knowledge
"...was now made a cosmos' seed:
This seed was cased in the safety of the Light,
It needed not a sheath of Ignorance."
Thus, the cosmos that was to arise from the seed of this self- knowledge was a world of Light, safe in its knowledge, not requiring the covering sheath of Ignorance as this ignorant creation of ours. In the very midst of this world, Aswapathy saw that "A new and marvellous creation rose." In that world of truth and knowledge all were joined indissolubly to the Supreme. Each individual remained unique but experienced all life as his own. In fact, each one "Recognised in himself the universe". The individual was in fact
"A splendid centre of infinity's whirl
Pushed to its zenith's height, its last expanse,
Felt the divinity of its own self-bliss
Repeated in its numberless other selves."
There in that true world
"None was apart, none lived for himself alone,
Each lived for God in him and God in all".
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Therefore it was not a world where everything was reduced to sameness. For "There Oneness was not tied to monotone". There struggle was not necessary for the growth of the individual, for, he was moved to manifest the Divine spontaneously by the Light.
"There was no sob of suffering anywhere,
Experience ran from point to point of joy:
Bliss was the pure undying truth of things.
All Nature was a conscious front of God".
In this vision of the new universe he found "A grand orchestra of spiritual powers" producing a deep harmonised oneness which was immeasurable and he saw himself as one point of that vast ocean "a ripple on a single sea of peace". He experienced in himself "The bliss of a myriad myriads who are one".
This state was not a state of chaotic unity or indistinguishable vagueness. There was a lucent hierarchy. Each one was attuned to the right law and in the spiritual interchange of life he "suffered no diminution by the gift;
"Profiteers of a mystic interchange
They grew by what they took and what they gave".
There was a perfect reconciliation between the uniqueness of the individual and the oneness of the universal. For
"The Sole in its solitude yearned towards the All
And the Many turned to look back at the One."
Great spiritual powers of the Timeless came pouring through time in works of ageless might. In this world "the eternal Goddess moved in her cosmic house
"Sporting with God as a Mother with her child:
To him the universe was her bosom of love,
His toys were the immortal verities."
It was a new world in which there was no opposition between thought and will, between eternity and time. Life was an unwearied sport. The supreme Divine Mother
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Untired of sameness and untired of change,
Endlessly she unrolled her moving act,
A mystery drama of divine delight".
In this play even Matter became an expression of the Spirit capable of harbouring knowledge, consciousness and delight. The material body could be "made a bright pedestal for felicity." Thus, matter would be so transformed that it would be plastic to the Light of the spirit and time would be
"...Eternity's transparent robe."
Aswapathy saw two negations. One, "a world that feels not its inhabiting Self", i.e., he found matter which constitutes this cosmic manifestation rejecting the spirit. Second, he found "A spirit ignorant of the world it made". The world is searching to know its why and wherefore and the Self is struggling to emerge, to know and to rule. But the whole course of this cosmic manifestation which seems irrational appeared to be governed by three powers
"In the beginning an unknowing Force,
In the middle an embodied striving soul,
In its end a silent spirit denying life."
This dark world of Matter is unwilling to let go its hold on spirit because it is afraid lest escaping from the prison-house of matter it should merge into the Unknowable, leaving "unfulfilled the world's miraculous fate." For, the world has a fate, a better future than the present condition of ignorance and suffering. For, one day will
"The Superconscient conscious grow on earth,
The Eternal's wonders join the dance of Time."
Aswapathy also participated in the vision of the world's fulfilment and "he saw a world that is from a world to be." He looked at the actual from the potential and the inevitable. Even his body from that consciousness appeared like some foreign shape.
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Now, to Aswapathy, the Self and Eternity alone became real and everything else receded into the background and became dim. But "then memory climbed to him from the striving planes" and he remembered the cry of the subconscient world, its aspiration reaching up to him. For, after all, even in the inconscient world there is a unity, so that Aswapathy saw the process of his conscious descent into the ignorance and inconscience and its purpose. It was
"To share the labour of an errant Power
Which by division hopes to find the One."
Such a self-finding would bring about a transformation in human nature so that all the elements of its imperfection would attain their corresponding divine elements of perfection. So, Aswapathy became conscious of two states of his own—
"Two beings he was, one wide and free above,
One struggling, bound, intense, its portion here."
The second self of his lay
"Far down below him like a lamp in night;
Abandoned it lay, alone, imperishable".
And this being though living in the midst of the world
"It looked up to the heights it could not see;
It yearned from the longing depths it could not leave."
His being refused to attain "the calm that lives for calm alone" and he also refused "the austere joy which none can share." His soul from its depths "to her, it turned for whom it willed to be." All his other parts of nature felt a kind of satisfaction in the calm in which he found himself; but, this spark of divinity that was in him refused f6 be satisfied with anything less than the divine transformation.
"Consenting to the slow deliberate Power
Which tolerates the world's error and its grief,"
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this being had patience enough to wait for eternity for its fulfilment. An appeal to the divine Mother was now made by this fiery being that was embedded in ignorance. It had refused to give up its aspiration and refused to accept failure in spite of all opposite appearances.
"It persevered through life's huge emptiness
Amid the blank denials of the world."
It made an appeal to the Divine Mother and
"...waited for the fiat of the Word
That comes through the still self from the Supreme."
THE VISION AND THE BOON
In response to his cry Aswapathy felt a great presence "a boundless Heart was near his longing heart," and he felt a great exaltation and delight overpowering his members. Even the physical being was thrilled by the influence of the Presence. He saw in that state a face, flame-pure, with a large forehead and eyelids that indicated wisdom, and lips that spoke immortal words. It spoke to Aswapathy
"What thou hast won is thine, but ask no more.
"My fire and sweetness are the cause of life."
but
"Awake not the immeasurable descent,
Speak not my secret name to hostile Time;
Man is too weak to bear the Infinite's weight."
It asked Aswapathy to leave the divine Power to work in its own way towards the fulfilment of man and his destiny. And it told him
"I ask thee not to merge thy heart of flame
In the Immobile's wide uncaring bliss"
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It commanded him not to be "lost in the Alone." It asked him—
"How shall thy mighty spirit brook repose
While Death is still unconquered on the earth
And Time a field of suffering and pain?"
It asked him to live for "the slow-paced omniscient purpose." It urged him to "accept the difficulty and godlike toil." For, the solution of the riddle lies in the human being. Though man is a product of the higher consciousness descended on earth still he has not yet adequate power to change the whole cosmos and nature. Being subject to darkness, he is
"A nomad of the far mysterious Life,
In the wide ways a little spark of God."
In his present state in the world man is subjected to darkness and opposed by hostile forces. He is subject to the law of division and duality on which he depends for his working and progress. He cannot at present attain to knowledge, he can only fabricate "signs of the Real in Ignorance." He asks for freedom but needs to live in bondage, "he has need of darkness to perceive some light." In his life, he actually obeys the Inconscient which he has come to rule. His mind, his life and all his other natural instruments are not capable of attaining the highest spiritual knowledge and perfection because of their inherent defects. And, yet, in man's imperfect state there is a godhead struggling. And the real leader of the course of human evolution is God himself behind the apparent veil of ignorance. Therefore, we need not despair of man.
"His failure is not failure whom God leads;
"And how shall the end be vain when God is guide?"
In spite of the resistance of the flesh, the vital and the mind, the Light ultimately leads man and he is able to look up to, or have a vision of superhuman peaks.
"A borrower of Supernature's gold,
He paves his road to Immortality."
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This way to the supreme is to be attained through man's worship of high ideals in his life, which prepares him for the Highest. There is the ideal of love, of beauty, of goodness., of intellectual knowledge. There is also the promising fact of inspiration and intuition coming down into his consciousness. The higher divine Power told Aswapathy
"Leave not the light to die the ages bore,
Help still humanity's blind and suffering life.:
"Let not the impatient Titan drive thy heart,
Ask not the imperfect fruit, the partial prize.
Only one boon, to greaten thy spirit, demand;
Only one joy, to raise thy kind, desire.
Above blind fate and the antagonist powers
Moveless there stands a high unchanging Will;
To its omnipotence leave thy work's result.
All things shall change in God's transfiguring hour."
Aswapathy replied
"How shall I rest content with mortal days
"I who have seen behind the cosmic mask
The glory and the beauty of thy face?"
How long, he said, was the human spirit to suffer the pangs of ignorance and death,
"We who are vessels of a deathless Force
And builders of the godhead of the race?"
How long are we to suffer the pangs of human ignorance? And if I am to do thy work in the world, if I am to work in these conditions of immensity of darkness, how is it that I do not see thy gleam in the midst of the darkness? Time passes, changes take place, man thinks he progresses but still nothing really gets done.
"Where in the greyness is thy coming's ray?
Where is the thunder of thy victory's wings?"
For, as yet,
"All we have done is ever still to do.
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'The new-born ages perish like the old".
Thus in the midst of darkness our human struggle goes on and
"Annulled, frustrated, spent, we still survive.
In anguish we labour that from us may rise
A larger-seeing man with nobler heart,
A golden vessel of the incarnate Truth."
The pace and the movement of the Infinite is slow. And
"All life is fixed in an ascending scale
And adamantine is the evolving Law".
Therefore Aswapathy's heart became impatient because he was also feeling that man as he is today, "this compromise between the beast and God,—is not the crown of thy miraculous world." In this movement of intense aspiration he saw from the Timeless the works of Time, even those that were to come in future. He saw a giant destructive dance of Shiva and great cataclysm overtaking the world. And the whole earth was full of fire and death. The battle cry raged over the whole earth and there was alarm and fear everywhere. And in that great state of destruction, Aswapathy said,
"I saw the Omnipotent's flaming pioneers
Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life
Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth;
Forerunners of the Divine multitude
"The architects of immortality."
Having seen those divine beings come to the fallen human spheres he felt that they were quite a different race of men from those that lived before them. In spite of this help that came down in the form of higher beings that incarnate themselves upon earth, still, the burden is too heavy
"Heavy unchanged weighs still the imperfect world;
"Heavy and long are the years our labour counts
And still the seals are firm upon man's soul".
Therefore, in the highest intensity of his aspiration, he appealed to the divine Mother Savitri thus:
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"O Bliss who ever dwellst deep hid within
While men seek thee outside and never find,
"Incarnate the white passion of thy force,
Mission to earth some living form of thee.
.
"Let thy infinity in one body live,
All-Knowledge wrap one mind in seas of light,
All-Love throb single in one human heart.
Immortal, treading the earth with mortal feet
All heaven's beauty crowd in earthly limbs!"
He appealed to her to unlock the doors of Fato by one great act
And he heard in reply
One shall descend and break the iron Law,
Change Nature's doom by the lone Spirit's power."
She promised the descent of a limitless mind, "a sweet and violent heart of ardent calms" moved by the passion of the gods, embodying all mights and greatnesses She said
"Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth,
"A seed shall be sown in Death's tremendous hour,
A branch of heaven transplant to human soil;
Nature shall overleap her mortal step;
Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will."
Slowly, the splendour vanished. Only the echo of the message in the form of delight in his heart remained. The music was slowly hushed and the spirit of Aswapathy heard the moan and laugh of the earth which "Came gliding in upon white feet of sound." Then the Abso- lute's stillness into which he had risen surrendered itself to the mortal air and he slowly collapsed into his waking state of human mind. Slowly he regained his familiarity with the material world and resumed his labours towards the spiritual perfection of man which he knew was his destiny.
"The Lord of Life resumed his mighty rounds
In the scant field of the ambiguous globe,"
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'SAVITRI' VOL II - AN OUTLINE
THE Second volume of' Savitri' is divided into two parts, the first consisting of Book IV to Book VIII, and the second consisting of Book IX to Book XII. The longest is Book VII, the Book of Yoga. These two parts take up the thread of the story where we have left it in the first book. It begins with the birth of Savitri, her growth, and her quest for eternal love. She goes out on her quest, and meets Satyavan and they fall in love. Book V ends here. When Savitri returns after her quest, she finds her father and mother in company of the great sage Narada who comes to knew about her choice of Satyavan and gives utterance to a warning—in the words of the author, he gives the word of 'fate',—declaring that Satyavan must die after one year. In spite of his warning Savitri persists in her choice, affirms her will and challenges Fate. The heart of her mother, the queen, being human, is pierced by the hardness of Fate, and its inscrutability. The whole of Book VII is taken up by the one year of Savitri's life in the hermitage of Satyavan. In this book, we have 7 cantos and each one leads us step by step to the transformation that came over Savitri, changing her from a sensitive, noble and strong woman, subject to pain, to a being conscious of the cosmic plan and the divine purpose culminating into a trans- formed being, whose every part of nature gradually ceased to be human and became divine. The graded process of transformation has been very well brought out in each canto till she becomes a divine being working through her human mould. It is when she is armed with self-knowledge and the knowledge of her mission in life that the date of Satyavan's death arrives.
The third part begins after the death of Satyavan and Book IX describes the journey of Savitri, Satyavan and Death through the eternal Night of the Inconscient. In Book X, they come out through the double twilight and in Book XI they enter the everlasting Day after leaving Death behind. In Book XII, they return to earth to fulfil their mission.
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This part of the story pertaining to Part II and III of Savitri may be found comparatively easy by the general reader, because the situations and problems dealt with are more or less familiar to all men. Pain, its fundamental cause and real cure, the idea of a governing Fate—Ananke,—and the relation of these with the human soul and with the ultimate Reality—these are questions that have occupied the human mind from the very beginning.
Another reason for their appeal to the reader lies in the nature of the subject matter of Book IV and V, wherein the birth and growth of Savitri and her going out in quest of a partner form a kind of narrative portion. The meeting of Savitri and Satyavan furnishes a scene of unequalled spiritual height and intensity in the treatment of love. Almost immediately after Savitri has declared her choice of Satyavan as her partner the dramatic anticlimax follows in the form of the word of Fate uttered by Narada. The situation leaves no room for a breathing interval of mere human happiness to the couple. They cannot afford to pass through the stage of attachment or the play of emotions and passions. Savitri has to plunge straight from the choice of love into the fierce struggle against Fate. The foreknowledge, of Fate prevents Savitri from any slackening of her will,—or from her being drowned in the ordinary life of vital emotions which play so great a part in human love. The situation takes a grim turn at the very moment of the greatest human joy. The psychological tension gives the sense of concreteness to the whole effort of Savitri, and endows their relation with a sense of spiritual reality. The issues involved are so great and serious —in fact dangerous and of cosmic import, and all the protagonists in it are conscious about them.
The queen, representing the ordinary human nature, questions Narad, "the man divine", about the why and wherefore of pain. This question raises the problem of reconciling a God all-knowing, merciful, and also Omnipotent with the creation, existence and continuance of suffering and pain.
Narad explains to the queen that there are two sides to this problem: one seen from the human and the other from the Divine's point of view. The law of pain is really part of the duality which
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is essential for evolution and even for growth of man. "Pain is the cry of Darkness to the Light". It is pain that goads man to invoke the help of the Divine, to seek his intervention and to create a possibility for the power of the Divine to act in life. As to the origin of pain Narad says that it is the inevitable consequence of Ignorance: "Where Ignorance is, suffering too must come". Pain results from an incapacity to bear outer contacts but there can be a change, in or a development of this capacity. The answer to the question whether pain is a permanent law of this world, is found in this possibility of developing a consciousness and power that can return the reaction of joy instead of pain to all contacts. The very fact that man never feels pain as something normal to him shows that already the Divinity within him is active even from behind the veil. Pain is used by the Divine as a hammer from without to shape the human, being to his purpose.
To the question, how did pain enter the scheme of this universe Narad replies that it is the soul's own choice, a free determination of the Divine. It was the lure of the adventure, the delight of the hazards of the unknown that tempted the Divine to undertake the process of evolution in time. The individual soul, a spark of the Divine, chooses its own field of growth which includes pain as an element. Pain is an indispensable part of the process which will disappear when its utility is over.
From one point of view "Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men to greatness",—from another point of view it is a perversion of the original Delight and a sign that "a secret God" is present in man's heart even though "denied by life".
But at present pain is a stark necessity, so much so that even world-saviours and divine incarnations who come to help mankind have to accept it if they wish to change earth-nature. They don't suffer, like other mortals, ignorantly. They suffer pain voluntarily, with understanding and knowledge. They identify themselves with the world, they carry the suffering world in their heart. Sri Aurobindo says, that the world-saviour "is the victim of his own sacrifice".
To the question: Is Fate then all? Has the Soul no freedom? Narad replies that Fate is nothing else but Truth working out in life. Fate is not merely an event or an operation determined inexorably
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by some Divine Power or Powers. Fate is really the movement driving towards the goal which the Spirit has set before itself. Pain and joy are only incidents on the way to the goal of the Truth. Narad affirms the divinity in Savitri and the Fate of Satyavan and almost says that in spite of her being an incarnation there is need for her to undergo pain. Greater issues than personal are at stake and without committing himself Narad advises the queen not to intervene in Savitri's choice, but to leave her to her Self and Fate. She is equal to her task.
A world-saviour may come even now. There are indications to show that many souls have taken birth now with a special mission to participate in the great work of building a new world. Savitri is one of the master-builders of this new world. She is ready and deter- mined to take up her mission which requires her to oppose Death. Narad exhorts the queen not to interfere in the execution of Savitri's will because human values have no place in its working.
YOGA OF SAVITRI
As Savitri's birth was in response to a "world's desire" for solving the problem of Ignorance and Death she is offered the problem in the most acute form—the fated death of Satyavan. Thus Savitri's yoga from the beginning has a very pressing and practical character. Her problem is to bring down the Divine Power in herself and in nature to conquer Death.
At first Savitri remains sad and resigned, for, she sees that her heart and mind cannot find any solution for her problem. The ordinary powers of Nature in man—the mind, the heart, the will etc.— have no power to solve this problem. So she merely controlled her nature and remained resigned to Fate. The instruments of man's nature are in fact only secondary powers and the senses of man only draw him outwards. The real power in man is his Soul, his inner divine Being, the Antarātman. This Soul, the true Divine Entity, must come to the front in nature and govern it.
In her mood of resignation Savitri suddenly heard a Voice from the heights of her being calling her to rise to her mission and she found a Power within her replying to the Voice. She then obeyed the Power that had awakened within her and knowing that it was her
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Soul She wanted to find it. She withdrew within herself and had to pass first through a plane where unrestrained life-force, the lower vital force, was having a free play of sensations. She remained a witness all through taking care not to identify herself with any movement and saved herself by repeating the divine Name. Then She came to a plane where the life-force was chained and mind was trying to govern life. She found all these powers unsatisfactory, all of them in need of her divine help and transformation. Seeking her soul she passed further through another zone where she met three universal Energies or Powers: The Mother of Sorrows, the Power of unlimited psychic sympathy and love, the Madonna of Might, the power of Right, maintaining the reign of Law in the world, the Mother of Light, —the power of mental or intellecutal—knowledge. Each of these had a deformation of its working reflected in human nature. Each of these powers declared to Savitri that she herself was her secret Soul. Savitri, on her part, accepted the identity but partially. She saw that each of them fulfilled an important function in life. But she also saw that each of them was imperfect and lacked some element. For example, the Mother of Sorrows had infinite power of love but she had not the divine Strength to prevent cruelty and violence. The Mother of Might had power and was helpful in keeping up the upward movement of evolution in life but she lacked knowledge. Savitri promises to bring on her return from her divine Soul that element of perfection which each power lacks so as to establish a harmonious and divine working in Nature.
Then moving through a mysterious passage she found her Soul. She also met the two negations: negation of her personality on the basis that the Absolute was the only Reality and therefore her fulfilment lay in merging in the Absolute, or the negation of her individual living because of the Impersonal, for everything that the person has got is derived from the Universal. In either case. Death refuses to accept any truth in her personality, and tries to persuade her to reject it.
Then a greater Voice spoke from above Savitri, from the Transcendent Self assuring her of the truth of the person. After that Savitri saw "the world as living God". It is at this stage that she became calm and ready to face Death.
After she meets Death Savitri's sadhana and her mission became
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one. As one who has to solve the problem of Death Savitri, the power of Transcendent Divine born on earth, descends into the Abyss of Eternal Night, the abyss of Death. She does not enter it as a human being; no human being can ever enter it. She enters it without fear, without grief, with calm power. She discovered that there was nothing real there. There was negation all round,—from the negation of being to that of all ideals, negation of God, except the God of destruction, or an aloof and indifferent God who leaves the management of the world to Death. For a time, Savitri was lost in it "like a golden lamp in darkness." She went through the immense self-torture of dissolution but ultimately got back the memory of herself. Then she recovered her Self and realised her Self as eternal without birth. Death tries to convince her of the futility and impossibility of all ideals given to man by the gods. It even argues that the only God is the one who devours life,— the God of punishment and destruction. Savitri affirms her inherent right to immortality and Love and her knowledge of God as Will and Love. It is her God who can remake the world of Death. In fact Death admits it has no existence—if it had it would not be Death—apart from Savitri's calling him into being to wrestle with her. Death then argues that even if there was a God—as Savitri affirms there is—then He would be eternally alone and indifferent. And so Savitri should attempt to realise such a God and become the One and not love Satyavan, for, love is not of the nature of Divinity. Savitri affirms that true knowledge includes love and that without love knowledge cannot be complete. It is the Transcendent Divine, the Supreme, who bears the world. Love is an eternal power of the Divine.
Savitri's progress takes her through the darkest Night to the reign of the Double Twilight. She affirms her eternal Being, her immortality and her right to divine Love.
Death finding negation ineffective resorts to refusal and opposition. Savitri sees no real negation; she finds that "the great Negation was the Real's face", and "the Inconscient is the superconscient's sleep". But progress from the Negation to the Real is gradual, it is a movement from the Inconscient to the superconscient. At every step Death denies the higher possibility—this denial with an affirmation of the Inconscient as the only Real constitutes Death.
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When Savitri wakes into the Twilight,—not to the full Day-light of knowledge—She finds everything around her vague and unsettled. Death confronts her there and argues that all high ideals are results of material .reactions, results of the Inconscient. The Inconscient alone is real. There is nothing high or spiritual about her love which is only a result of movement in the inconscient cell, it ends in the dust. Everything including Mind comes out of Matter. All mental ideals are the malady of the Mind. Death is the end of all. It denies as impossible, unreal and even imaginary, any other eternity than that of Death.
Savitri replies to Death that man is dealing with an unfinished world. And yet, an overall long-range view of the world indicates an upward movement of evolution throughout time—with natural ups and downs,—and shows a self-existent Delight originating and supporting the cosmic effort from behind. Earth begins with mud but the end is sky. Man undergoing the process of evolution is a transitional being, he need not remain eternally the worm or the animal that he appears to be.
Death then takes up another strain of denial. It asks Savitri to look at the earth-life wherein nothing endures, nothing is permanent. Even the very best things are temporary, evanescent. Nature and her laws remain constant but man is only a transient being, a slave of, Nature. The world has remained the same through the ages. If there is Self one can only realise it by rejecting Nature.
Savitri refuses to seek an individual escape and declares that the freedom she seeks is for all, that the world is not cut off from God, since it is He who supports it by his infinite Love. Death argues and tries to pursuade Savitri that earth i& too petty for God—even if there is God!
Against that Savitri affirms that earth has been the chosen place for a "wager wonderful", for a divine game. Even if the laws of the world seem fixed and unchanging, the upward movement continues in life, the Godward ascent also. Death is nothing but the shadow of the Inconscient which God drags behind him as He moves upwards from Matter. Man has already been contacting powers beyond Mind, —Intuition, Vision, Overmind. At the end of the debate Savitri reveals her Divinity to Death and his body is eaten up by her Light. Then She and Satyavan break out into everlasting Day.
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Savitri has not merely to overcome the negation, refusal and opposition of Death based upon the Inconscient, She has also to avoid the temptation of partial and exclusive Light promising individual attainment. That is a task more difficult than that of rejecting Darkness. A partial Light holds out a justification which it is difficult to see through. It also means the exercise of a free choice for the soul. Everything was at first transfigured including Death and Night. For such a transfiguration she found "all Nature's struggle was its easy price". Death was transfigured into Love. Virat, Hiranya Garbha, Chaitanya Ghana, Anand—the four aspects of the Reality worked harmoniously in the everlasting Day.
She was offered the choice of abandoning the vexed world and ascending alone to the blissful home of the spirit. She refused to climb the everlasting Day for herself because she aspired to bring the Light to the earth. She therefore prays for the life of Satyavan to fulfil her mission on earth. She is questioned by the Voice: The capacity of the earth and the aspiration of man, would they permit the transformation of man's Nature? Man is in love with his ignorance. She is even told that it might be better to leave the change to the slow evolutionary process. Why not merge into the Eternal? She resists the offer saying she and Satyavan are both pledged to raise the world to God, to bring God down to the world. Since it is the Divine who has made the earth, earth must make in her God. She was asked to rise to her Tuneless Self, then only could she know the Divine Plan.
Then once more a choice was given to Savitri,—to choose Eternity, Silence, withdrawal, solitude of Rapture. But Savitri only asked for Divine peace and calm in the midst of earthly time, she asked for oneness in many hearts, instead of withdrawal, she prayed for divine Energy to hold all creatures in her mother's arms. In place of solitude of rapture she asked for the Divine Sweetness for Earth and man. She receives the Divine's assent and blessing to her choice and the promise of fulfilment of her mission which is equally the Divine's own.
Then from their Seat of Eternity, where only the light of Truth reigns and love Divine is the motive force, Savitri and Satyavan look at the world into which they have descended and plan for the realisation of the Truth on the plane of earth. They work in the field of Time from their seat in Eternity.
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The yoga of Ashwapathy is thus fulfilled by and in the yoga of Savitri: the yoga of liberation, vision and Ascent by the Yoga of Descent and Transformation. Life on earth is crowned by life Divine.
ASHWAPATHY'S YOGA
Ashwapathy's Yoga starts by the release of his soul from the bondage and limitations of the body, life and mind, the apparent being of man. He feels within him a spiritual being, and also experiences new faculties and states of consciousness beyond mind as a result of his upward effort. He ascends from his mere human status, expands out of his ego-personality, grows wider and awakens in him the working of new powers of nature. He leaves not only the ego- limit but the earth consciousness and journeys to other planes, below and above, sees them and their working and their effect on the earth consciousness. All along he remains the witness—the detached observer. He acquires the knowledge of the constitution of man and that of the universe.
Maintaining throughout his status of the witness and therefore of a wide impersonality, Ashwapathy sees the Vision of the Truth in which "Existence is a divine experiment" and "cosmos is soul's opportunity". He saw in the Vision that only by bringing down a higher Power than the Mind can man realise his divine destiny.
He sees the dual aspect of Purusha and Prakriti—Self and Nature —working throughout the universe and he found that behind the duality, which to the outer view, wears the aspect of an opposition and even conflict, a purpose, is working out. He comes to know the cosmos as the result of the working of the Absolute, the Perfect and the Alone,—the three (fundamental aspects of the Supreme. In the actual dynamis it is the working out of the Absolute, the Perfect, and the Immune,—the Immune being the Divine immanent in each being and object untouched by the imperfections of nature. He saw that it is the Divine that has assumed human nature and the purpose of man's life is to put on the Divine Nature.
This work cannot be done by man alone; a higher Power must come, or must be brought down. The effort to bring down such a Power can only be done by "an inward turn" in man. No external method could succeed,
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He also saw that the solution of man's problem does not lie either in an escape from life and nature into the Spirit, or in his merging in the Infinite. The solution lies in a new creation on earth based on the Reality, not on the mind or on any other power. Ashwapathy gathered hope and aspiration in his heart for this great work.
He experienced the ascent of his own being to spiritual heights beyond Mind and also the descent of the higher Power into himself. He remained a witness maintaining complete silence. He saw the resistance of the inconscient Nature and the alternate movement of ascent and descent. The resistance was due to Nature not being ready for a radical change.
He knew by an inner experience that the Self is something greater than the instruments of nature—mind, life and body, that the Self is Eternal and Infinite. Even Nature has many powers hidden behind her outer appearance which can be brought to the surface and developed. In his voyage over the cosmic planes he at last came to the Cosmic Being and from there saw the possibility of transcending the Cosmos.
He realised his oneness with the Transcendent Divine. Then he looked down on the depth of his own being and saw the need and the possibility of a new creation on earth in which "each lived for God in him and God in all". He saw that it was possible to reconcile thought and will, time and Eternity. He felt that the Supreme is not merely a status but a transcendent Person, a Mother-Might, a Heart that attracted all. He tore desire from its bleeding roots and when he was free then instruments of his nature began to acquire cosmic range, his nature tended to become universal. A powerful aspiration rose in his heart to unite with the Supreme. He got the vision of the divine Mother and he pleaded before her for humanity. He prayed for a boon of divine Grace to help humanity to overcome Ignorance and Death. The divine Mother gave him the assurance that a Divine being, her own emanation, would be born on earth. Savitri was that incarnation of the divine Grace.
The yoga of Ashwapathy and that of Savitri need not be thought , of in contrast to each other, though doubtless a difference in the stress of the yogic movement is seen in both. In fact, the two together can be seen as one integral movement. It can be said, for instance, that the yoga of Savitri is the yoga of Transformation. But Ashwapathy also attains a kind—degree—of transformation which Sri Aurobindo
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calls psycho-Spiritual. The Transformation, in case of Savitri, is triple: The Psychic, the Spiritual, the Supramental. Ashwapathy's yoga may be called the yoga of Ascent mainly, and that of the Vision of Reality in its triple States: the Individual, the Universal, the Transcendent. He ascends from the mind to planes above and reaches the Transcendent; whereas Savitri awakens the Soul in her and brings down the infinite power of the Divine Consciousness in herself and in her nature. Savitri brings about the change in Nature which is necessary to secure Victory over Death. Ashwapathy maintains throughout the position of the witness, Savitri carries out the Divine dynamis. Ahswapathy sees the Vision of the Supreme, Savitri brings down the Fire. Both pursue the yoga not for an individual but for a universal fulfilment. Both of them strive to change what seems to be the established law of the cosmos by bringing down a Higher Power than mind into the earth consciousness and earth nature.
Savitri's yoga and her life mission become one when she descends into the abyss of Darkness, and Death. Thereafter her work—a very difficult one—consists in rejecting the negations of the Inconscient and in affirming her soul's resolve. It is well known to yogis that very often the yoga is not so much endangered by frontal attacks of the powers of Darkness as by their subterranean undermining influence, false or half true logic, deceiving music or apparent solicitude for the so-called Truth. It is remarkable that the negations of Death take two contrary forms—negation of any true ideal, as all is inert Inconscient or its result and denial of any achievement on earth—on the ground of impermanence of everything earthly. Death seems to leave the human soul in a cruel dilemma. Equally remarkable appears Savitri's choice after attaining the Everlasting Day—the region of Light and Truth. She could have chosen what Sri Aurobindo calls "negative Eternity", or the Non-being aspect of the Reality—whether as Inactive Infinite or Silent Being, or indifferent God or One without a second. It is here that most of the aspirants lose grip of their seeking. They get enamoured of the partial Light, or, baffled by the vastness of the universal problem, fall into the choice of an individual attainment, leaving the human problem unsolved. True solution, if any, must be here on earth and for all men. In maintaining the sincerity
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of her pursuit, the largeness of her aim, constancy of the will, indomitable faith and unfailing energy Savitri is unique. We find at the end that her choice turns out to be the choice of the Supreme in her. Aswapathy creates the possibility for the descent of the higher Power, Savitri incarnates the power and effectuates the transformation.
II. OVERHEAD PLANES AND AESTHESIS
Sanskrit poetics, Rasa Shastra, takes note of literary creations from higher levels of consciousness beyond Mind: Overhead creations like the Veda, the Upanishads, the Gita and the two great epics—Ramayana and Maha Bharata—were put outside the scope of ordinary aesthetics. Aesthetics are limited to the normal range of human consciousness; they deal with the mental and vital consciousness i.e. with ideas, emotions, imagination, sensation, feelings, desires, passions etc. No mental standards or values could be laid down for "revealed" creations: they were considered above all mental judgments. Bhavabhuti, the famous Sanskrit dramatist, describing the nature of overhead or revealed poetry says —"It is utterance at whose heels the meaning runs"—"Vācam arthonudhāvati"—i.e. it is inspired utterance and not intellectually thought out speech. The same poet defines poetry as "the immortal manifestation of the soul" "Amṛtām ātmanah kalām".
Sri Aurobindo pleads that as poetry is bound to evolve beyond mental consciousness our aesthesis also correspondingly should evolve; "an evolutionary ascent of all the activities of mind and life is not impossible" (Letters). The importance of the planes of consciousness beyond Mind for spiritual realisation is well known in India, but their dynamic nature and their importance to the life of man was not known. Now that Humanity is passing through a crucial stage in its evolution the need for clarifying the functions and powers of the Overhead consciousness is all the more urgent. Sri Aurobindo shows that all the Overhead planes are not to be classed together, —there are gradations:
"These gradations may be summarily described as a series of sublimations of the consciousness through Higher Mind, Illumined
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Mind and Intuition into Overmind and beyond it; there is a succession of self-transmutations at the summit of which lies the Supermind or Divine Gnosis".
—Life Divine.
Some of these gradations act in a way that might suggest a mental operation; Sri Aurobindo warns against the error—
"They are not merely methods, way of knowing, or faculty or power of cognition; they are domains of being, grades of the substance and energy of the Spiritual being, fields of existence which are each a level of the universal Consciousness-Force constituting and organising itself into a higher status."—Life Divine.
"In the descent of these higher grades upon us it is this greater light, force, essence of being and consciousness, energy of delight that enter into mind, life, body, change and repair their diminished and diluted and incapable substance, convert it into its own higher and stronger dynamis of spirit and intrinsic form and force of reality."
But because they are higher grades and more forceful it does not mean that they succeed immediately in the human consciousness in which they descend:— "these higher forces are not in their descent immediately all-powerful as they would naturally be in their own plane of action and in their own medium. In the evolution in Matter they have to enter into a foreign and inferior medium and work upon it, meet with unreceptiveness or blind refusal of the Ignorance, experience the negation and obstruction of the Inconscience".
So that "there is a ready formed power of resistance which opposes or minimises the effects of the descending Light, a resistance which may amount to a refusal, a rejection of the Light, or take the shape of an attempt to impair, subdue, ingeniously modify or adapt or perversely deform the Light in order to suit it to the preconceived ideas of the Ignorance".
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Each of the Overhead powers has well-defined functions and capacities including that of aesthetic creation. These creations already exist on the planes above Mind; the poet's task consists in bringing them down or allowing them to descend into his consciousness. There are active and passive methods of reception. All great poetry may be said to be such a direct reception—sometimes mixed with the stuff of the poet's nature. Sri Aurobindo says that now is the time when the seat of creation may be raised from the receiving mind of the poets to any of the overhead planes. The problem is to open, if possible, consciously, to these higher planes, establish a contact, and receive without mixture of the lower nature the Overhead creation. As he wrote in one of his letters it is a question of establishing the right kind of silence in the mind that can receive the Word coming from above the Mind. In fact, the overhead consciousness makes available to man a higher than mental instrumentation, the highest being Supermind. As Supermind is too high for the human being to attain at one bound efforts have to be made to stabilise the stages, the gradations that lead to it. Poetic creation coming down from these higher planes would give rise to a new Overhead aesthesis.
It may appear as if these levels of consciousness above Mind are "mystical", because they have been so regarded in the past. Sri Aurobindo shows that not only are they not mystical for the modem mind, but that these powers have been acting intermittently in man's consciousness through out the ages. Man has been,—may be unconsciously—familiar with them in his artistic creations. These faculties of the Overhead planes,—Inspiration, Intuition and Revelation,—are known to man; the Greeks knew about them, so did the ancient Indians. "Kavi"—the word that came in classical times to mean "a poet" signified in the Veda "a seer",—one who had the vision of Truth,—"Krānta Darśana".
We will take up these overhead powers one by one and give Sri Aurobindo's description of their working.
I. THE HIGHER MIND.
"The poetic intelligence is quite different; it is the mind and its vision moving on the wings of imagination akin to the intellect proper but lifted above it. The Higher Mind is a spiritual plane, this is not."—Letters, Vol. III
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"In the Higher Mind we are aware of a sealike downpour of masses of a spontaneous knowledge which assumes the nature of Thought but has a different character from the process of thought to which we are accustomed".—Life Divine.
"The Higher Mind is the first plane where one becomes aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees things through an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight—not illumined by any of the intense or upper lights but as in a large strong and clear daylight".—Letters, Vol. III.
To the question; how does the Higher Mind differ from the ordinary Mind, he replies:—"it is an automatic and spontaneous knowledge from a Higher Mind that seems to be in possession of Truth and not (as the ordinary Mind is), in search of hidden and withheld realities".—Life Divine.
Besides, "it has a cosmic character, not the stamp of an individual thinking".—Life Divine.
He makes it further clear: "If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth—an image which in this experience becomes a reality,— we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine".—Life Divine.
"This higher consciousness is a knowledge formulating itself on a basis of self-existent all-awareness and manifesting some part of its integrality, a harmony of its significances put into thought-form".-—Life Divine.
The Higher Mind has "clarity of spiritual intelligence and tranquil daylight".
One characteristic of the Higher Mind is "totality of truth-seeing at a single view".—Life Divine.
As an example of poetry that proceeds from the Higher Mind may be cited the following:—
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"Solitary thinkings such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain"
Keats
II. ILLUMINED MIND
"Beyond this Truth-Thought (i.e. Higher Mind) we can distinguish a greater illumination instinct with an increased power and intensity and driving force, a luminosity of. nature of Truth- Sight with thought formation as a minor and dependent activity."
Illumined-Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of Spiritual light. It has "an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power bleaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment... a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very usually envelops this action".—Life Divine.
When the Illumined Mind sends down its workings then "There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous 'enthusiasmos' of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation".
— Life Divine.
If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth—we may compare the energy of the Illumined Mind to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming Sun-Stuff"—Life Divine.
The "Illumined-Mind does not work primarily by thought, but by vision; thought is only a subordinate movement expressive of sight"
"The perceptual power of the inner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptional power of thought".
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"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth- Sight and Truth-Light, and its seeing and seizing power" —Life Divine.
"The outflow of the Illumined Mind comes in a flood brilliant with revealing words or a light of crowding images, sometimes surcharged with its burden of revelations, sometimes with a luminous sweep"—Letters on Savitri.
"The poetry of the Illumined Mind is usually full of play of lights and colours, brilliant and striking in phrase, for illumination makes the Truth vivid,—it acts usually by aluminous rush.... Illumined Mind sometimes gets rid of its trappings, but even then it always keeps a sort of lustrousness of robe which is its characteristic".-—Life, Literature, Yoga.
Examples of poetry from the Illumined Mind:—
1. "Plumbless inaudible waves of Shining Sleep"
2. "I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright,
And around beneath it. Time, in hours, days, years
Driven by the spheres, "
Like a vast shadow moved in which the world
And all her train were hurled.
(Vaughan)
III. INTUITION
"Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition. For though we have applied that word to ...a Supra-intellectual way of knowing, yet what we actually know as Intuition is only a special movement of Self-existent knowledge"—Life Divine.
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Intuition gives dose perception—it "is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself".
Intuition is identity, "concealed or slumbering" which remembers or conveys its contents.
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a' superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us".—Life Divine.
Intuitive mentality "would normally be forced to undergo a mixture with the inferior stuff of consciousness already evolved".
Intuitive intelligence "is keen and luminous enough to penetrate and modify, but not large and whole enough to swallow up into itself and abolish the mass of the Ignorance and Inconscience."
—Life Divine,
"But on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical"—its rays are not separated but "massed together in a play of waves of what might be called a sea or mass of stable lightnings."
"Intuition has a fourfold power. A power of revelatory truth- seeing, a power of inspiration or truth-hearing, a power of Truth- touch or immediate seizing of significance,... a power of true and automatic discrimination of the orderly and exact relation of truth to truth".—Life Divine.
"The Intuition is usually a lightning flash showing up a single spot or plot of ground or scene with an entire and miraculous completeness of vision to the surprised ecstasy of the inner eye; its rhythm has a decisive inevitable sound which leaves nothing essential unheard, but very commonly is embodied in a single stroke".
—Letters on Savitri.
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"The poetry of Intuition may have play of colour and bright lights, but it does not depend upon them—it may be quite bare, it tells by a sort of close, intimacy with the Truth, an inward expression of it."—Life, Literature and Yoga.
Examples of poetry from the Intuitive level:
1. "Withdrawn in a lost attitude of prayer".
2. "The mute unshadowed spaces of her mind"
IV. OVERMIND
"At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth- Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Over- soul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality". It "connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance".
"The Overmind is not strictly a transcendental consciousness— that epithet would more accurately apply to the supramental and the Sachchidananda Consciousness—though it looks up to the transcendental and may receive something from it and though it does transcend the ordinary human mind and in its full and native self-power, when it does not lean down and become part of mind, is superconscient to us. It is more properly a cosmic consciousness, even the very base of the cosmic as we perceive, understand and feel it. It stands behind every particular in the cosmos and is the source of all our mental, vital or physical actualities and possibilities which are diminished and degraded derivations and variations from it".—
Letters on Savitri.
"In its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Super-
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mind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance."—Life Divine.
"If we regard the Powers of the Reality as so many Godheads, we can say that the Overmind releases a million Godheads into action, each empowered to create its own world, each world capable of relation, communication and interplay with others".
"Overmind Consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision".—Life Divine.
"Even to what is discordant it gives a place in the system of cosmic concordances—discords become a part of a vast harmony therefore of beauty. It feels Oneness, sympathy, love for all—sees the face of the Divine everywhere".—Life Divine.
"The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit".—Life Divine.
"Overmind is a creator of truths, not of illusions or falsehoods: what is worked out in any given overmental energism or movement is the truth of the Aspect, Power, Idea, Force, Delight which is liberated into independent action, the truth of the consequences of its reality in that independence".—Life Divine.
Overmind "is concerned predominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality".—Life Divine.
"In the Overmind we have the first firm foundation of the experience of universal beauty, a universal love, a universal delight".
"Overmind, has...greater aesthesis and when it sees objects, it sees in them what the mind cannot see".—Letters Vol III.
"As yet there is no Overmind language created by Overmind, used by Overmind beings"—Letters Vol. III.
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"Overmind has to take mind, life and Matter as its medium and field, work under their dominant condition, accept their fundamental law and method".—-Letters Vol. III.
"Overmind has to use a language which has been made by mind, not by itself". "It can only strain and intensify this medium as much as possible for its own uses, but not change this fundamental or characteristically mental law and method".
—Letters III.
"It has to observe them and do what it can to heighten, deepen and enlarge.
"It is still more difficult to say anything very tangible about Overmind aesthesis. What happens at present is that something comes down and accepts to work under the law of the mind and with a mixture of the mind and it must be judged by the laws and standards of the mind. It brings in new tones, new colours, new elements, but it does not change radically as yet the stuff of the consciousness with which we labour".—Letters on Savitri.
"If we look carefully and subtly at things we may see that the greatest lines or passages in the world's literature have the Overmind touch or power. They bring with them an atmosphere, a profound and extraordinary light, an amplitude of wing which, if the Overmind would not only intervene but descend, seize wholly and transform, would be the first glimpse of a poetry, higher, larger, deeper and more consistently absolute than any which the human past has been able to give us. An evolutionary ascent of all the activities of mind and life is not impossible."
—Letters Vol. III.
Some examples of Overmind poetry,—or poetry carrying the Overmind touch:
I.
"The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep—"
WORDSWORTH
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"In the last line there is something of the Overmind substance expressed not directly but through the highest intuitive consciousness, and because it is not direct the Overmind rhythm is absent"
SRI AUROBINDO
II.
"Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone"
or Milton's
"Those thoughts that wander through eternity"
III. "We can feel perhaps the spirit of the universe feeling and hearing, it may be said, the vast oceanic stillness and the cry of the cuckoo
"Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides"
or it may enter again into Vyasa's
"A void and dreadful forest ringing with the cricket's cry"
"Vanam pratibhayam śūnyam jhillikāgaṇanināditam."
or remember its call to the soul of man "Anityam asukham lokam imām prāpya bhajaswa mām."
"Thou who hast come to this transient and unhappy world, love and worship Me"—Letters Vol. III.
We close this section with a longish quotation from Savitri (Book I Canto 2) which describes Savitri in whom the God of Love found "his perfect shrine"—
All in her pointed to a nobler kind.
Near to earth's wideness, intimate with heaven,
Exalted and swift her young large-visioned spirit
Voyaging through worlds of splendour and of calm
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Overflew the ways of Thought to unborn things.
Ardent was her self-poised unstumbling will;
Her mind; a sea of white sincerity,
Passionate in flow, bad not a turbid wave.
As in a mystic and dynamic dance
A priestess of immaculate ecstasies
Inspired and ruled from Truth's revealing vault
Moves in some prophet cavern of the gods,
A heart of silence in the hands of joy
Inhabited with rich creative beats
A body like a parable of dawn
That seemd a niche for veiled divinity
Or golden temple door to things beyond.
Immortal rhythms swayed in her time-born steps,
Her look, her smile awoke celestial sense
Even in earth-stuff, and their intense delight
Poured a supernal beauty on men's lives.
A wide self-giving was her native act;
A magnanimity as of sea or sky
Enveloped with its greatness all that came
And gave a sense as of a greatened world:
Her kindly care was a sweet temperate sun,
Her high passion a blue heaven's equipoise.
As might a soul fly like a hunted bird,
Escaping with tired wings from a world of storms,
And a quiet reach like a remembered breast,
In a haven of safety and splendid soft repose
One could drink life back in streams of honey-fire,
Recover the lost habit of happiness,
Feel her bright nature's glorious ambiance,
And preen joy in her warmth and colour's rule.
A deep compassion, a hushed sanctuary,
Her inward help unbarred a gate in heaven;
Love in her was wider than the universe,
The whole world could take refuge in her single heart.
The great unsatisfied godhead here could dwell:
Vacant of the dwarf self's imprisoned air
Her mood could harbour his sublimer breath
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Spiritual that can make all things divine.
For even her gulfs were secrecies of light.
At once she was the stillness and the word,
A continent of self-diffusing peace,
An ocean of untrembling virgin fire:
The strength, the silence of the gods were hers.
In her he found a vastness like his own,
His high warm subtle ether he refound
And moved in her as in his natural home.
In her he met his own eternity".
"This passage is, I believe, what I might call the Overmind Intuition at work expressing itself in something like its own rhythm and language. It is difficult to say about one's own poetry, but I think I have succeeded here and in some other passages later on in catching that very difficult note; in separate lines or briefer passages (i.e. a few lines at a time) I think it comes in not unoften."
Letters on Savitri,
Another example of Overmind poetry may be cited from Sri Aurobindo:—
"Arms taking to a voiceless supreme delight,
Life that meets the Eternal with close breast,
An unwalled mind dissolved in the Infinite,
Force one with unimaginable rest?."
Life Heavens.
"What is prominent in (this) poem is a certain calm, deep and intense spiritual emotion taken up by the spiritual vision that sees exactly the state or experience and gives it its exact revelatory words. It is an Overmind vision and experience and condition that is given a full power of expression by the word and the rhythm—there is a success in 'emobodying' them or at least the sight and emotion of them which gives the lines their force".
Life, Literature and Yoga.
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SUMMARY OF BOOK FOUR
CANTO ONE
THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF THE FLAME
The frenzied earth followed the course of her movement "around a Light she must not dare to touch". In this swing of the inconscient earth Life was born and a finite world of thought and action also whirled "across the immobile trance of the Infinite". In the vast silence that ran with her "she communed with the mystic heart in space", "amid the ambiguous stillness of the stars". The earth "moved towards some undisclosed event." "Day after day sped by like coloured spokes" and "the seasons drew in linked significant dance". The alterations of the seasons were like the rhythmic pageant of dancers. Summer came with "his pomp of violent noons" and "stamped his tyranny of torrid light". It was followed by Rain-tide that tore the wings of heat and "startled with lightnings air's unquiet drowse", "Or from the gold eye of her paramour "covered with packed cloud-veils the earth's brown face". Thunder and lighting proclaimed the reign of the tempest. All over there was "A surge and hiss and onset of huge rain". Then came "Throngs of wind-faces, rustlings of wind-feet" followed by after-rain effects." "Day a half darkness wore as its dull dress." Light looked into dawn's tarnished glass and met "its own face there, twin to half-lit night's." "Earth was a quagmire, heaven a dismal block". The vagaries of the clouds brought a faint ray of hope of light but it soon failed and was brief-lived. Another heavy down pour of shower "And a subsiding mutter left all still".
Then the mood of the earth changed, and there was response and smile of sunlight. Then "a calmness neared as of the approach of God." Space found a dream loitering in its mind and from the inmost depth of being an aspiration for a "heavenlier height" and an adoration for "an unseen sun" went forth. The three seasons
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passed watching for a "flame that lurked in luminous depths". Autumn came with "the glory of her moons" and "winter and Dew-time laid their calm cool hands on Nature's bosom" which was "still in a half sleep".
Then spring came—"an ardent lover," he "leaped through leaves and caught the earth-bride in his eager clasp." His advent was a fire of irised hues". It is the spring whose arrival renews the secret touch of the Trancendent's sphere. In that touch which guards "unchanged by death and Time" "the answer of our hearts to Nature's charm and keeps for ever new, yet still the same, the throb that ever wakes to the old delight" "and beauty and rapture and the joy to live". The divine thrill that made the world thus keeps ever renewing itself. Spring made the body of the earth "beautiful with his kiss." All over the world delight ran in sounds, colours, forms, fragrances, the very breath of spring "was a warm summons to delight". A vast cadence "revealed in beauty" was abroad insistent on the "rapture-thrill in life".
"The life of the enchanted globe became
A storm of sweetness and of light and songs,
A revel of colour and of ecstasy,
hymn of rays, a litany of cries:
"A sacrifice of perfume filled the hours"
Even the ordinary phenomena became transformed
"The sunlight was a great god's golden smile.
All Nature was at beauty's festival."
Thus, when the earth was fall of yearning in spring an answer came to her from "a greatness from our other countries." Savitri was born, "A lamp was lit, a sacred image made." She was born as a "mediatrix" "bridging the gulf between man's mind and God's". She consciously descended into human birth from the celestial source "and wept not fallen to mortality". She looked on everything with "large tranquil eyes" and "took again her divine unfinished task". "For since upon this blind and whirling globe" Matter gave rise to
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Life and compelled the Inconscient to feel and see, ever since... "in Infinity's silence woke a word"
"A Mother wisdom works in Nature's breast
To pour delight on the heart of toil and want
"And make dumb Matter Conscious of its God"
Even through the course of slow evolution this Mother-wisdom
"...keeps her will that hopes to divinise clay"
Though her effort has not yet succeeded her will is undaunted, for
"Time cannot weary her nor the Void subdue,
The ages have not made her passion less"
This power is the supreme Power of the Divine and therefore she is
"One who has all infinity to waste".
She tackles the seemingly impossible task of transformation of the material being into the Divine. In Savitri's case it was the inner spiritual being that formed her body, it was like "the glowing arc of a charmed unseen whole". Very soon the link between her soul and physical form grew sure. She appeared like one who came to found a greater race than the human. Though outwardly she lived among men her inner soul lived in communion with the diviner planes of being and apart. She was like a strange bird that lives content on its own tree of fruited bough secluded from all others or flies to its own divine heights alone. Her days in childhood passed like a procession of delight, singing their way. As the first outbreak of life tries to reach the skies in its rapture and has no outward communication with the world that surrounds it yet it has an occult and inborn unity with all (that surrounds it) and grows with all, so grew Savitri. All phenomena which strike us only as merely physical have in reality behind them occult presences and psychological reactions as well. There are Presences of spirits
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behind forests, rivers and trees, who feel and act from behind. In Savitri's inner being this kind of transmutation of all actions took place on a much higher level. Even when she stooped to ordinary acts "Her spirit kept the stature of the gods" and "was not lost in Matter's reign." She saw and sensed Subtle, Occult forms and Presences around to which ordinary human beings are blind and therefore her acts were profound and symbolic of another power. Her sight, her brain were flooded by another Light, and therefore her eyes saw the world with another vision. All objects were to her living and not inert or inconscient, and she heard occult messages conveyed by the touch of outward things. To Savitri "Nothing was alien or inanimate. Nothing without its meaning or its call".
She represented a further step in the journey of consciousness towards Light, She had outgrown the mental consciousness and hers was "A mind of light, a life of rhythmic force".
"A body instinct with hidden divinity": thus Savitri grew up "an image of the coming god." As she advanced towards adolescence her mind came forward more and more to acquire the knowledge of this human scene. From her mind and eyes a different Spirit looked at the field of human life which was its field of action. Her mind assumed a light and her will a power which were to work in and upon life. She had a noble power of wisdom which turned its light towards mortal life. She silently loved all and kept her inner world of bliss to herself without speaking or without giving any sign of it to others. Though "many high gods dwelt" in her nature she was perfectly harmonious and was "immense and various like a universe". Her body seemed to be made to transparent divine Light full of charm and happy peace, of murmurs of divine leaves responding to the tread of the Gods.
CANTO TWO
THE GROWTH OF THE FLAME
THE land of Madra where Savitri lived was full of mountains — and "plains and giant rivers". It had besides "spiritual bush" which swallowed the din of life, it had an atmosphere of high
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thoughts and was "Filled with the mightiest works of God and man". "And beauty, grace and grandeur had their home" there.
Subtle influences worked in that land. Savitri like a magnet attracted divine powers in that atmosphere. The knowledge of the thinker and the seer was there and "earth's brooding wisdom spoke" to Savitri's still breast. It led her from heights of thought "to dive into the cosmic vastnesses". The actions of mortal man were heightened into cultural expression in art and beauty. Ethics refined their senses to make them capable of reaching the invisible Beyond. Savitri absorbed all these cultural influences. She released her spirit by the wisdom so attained, she used thought in order to reach the sun of Truth. Her free spirit communicated with other men and she used her nature for the expression of the Ineffable or for the creation of forms which would bring Light to men.
She mastered all the arts—fine and plastic.
"Sculpture and painting concentrated sense
Upon an inner vision's motionless verge
Revealed a figure of the invisible,
Unveiled all Nature's meaning in a form,
Or caught into a body the Divine."
Music expressed "celestial yearnings", and song absorbed the heart "linking the human with the Cosmic cry". She mastered "the world-interpreting movements of the dance" which mould "idea and mood to a rhythmic sway and posture." "Poems in largeness cast like moving worlds" lifted "the human word near to the god's". Crafts and sciences of reading the future also she knew. All attempts by man to make this earth "a stepping-stone to conquer heaven", to know the unknowable, were mastered by her.
Savitri entered into human relationships with men around her, —though her circle was small, and selected. She was anxious to "make them one with God and world and her". But very few men responded to her call. Among those who could respond there were very few who felt the divinity that was in her. There were some who felt that she had some hidden splendour but they were prisoners of their own human nature, they found her too quick, too great,—and "their nature weary grew of things too great".
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She was pushing towards aims inconceivable to men and so men found it very' difficult to follow her. But they became her satellities and could not go away from her, Some felt towards her "turbid human love" and were partly disappointed but could not resist her attraction for, she was their support. Her contact opened them to the "new diviner air", to a "freer, happier world". There were some who opened their consciousness spontaneously to her like "flowers answering to the sun". They gave themselves to her and "asked no more". Infact, she became to them their Soul, their divine being. For such men she was the guide who held their hands and chose their path. Such self-surrender is not, as is sometimes falsely alleged, an act of servile dependence, but over and above fulfilling the being it gave to the devotee "faith" and "joy" to be hers". There were others who were torn between "wonder and revolt" in their relation with Savitri,—one part wondered and adored her while another wanted to revolt against her. They were "Possessed by her" and were "striving to possess" her. They embraced the bonds of which they complained and "murmured at a yoke they would have wept to lose". Hers was the "yoke of her beauty and her love". Some pursued her with blind desires only and could not bear the "Divinity so close"; they wanted to monopolise her "sweetness meant for all". Thus Savitri could be "a friend and yet too great wholly to know"; she was "close to their bosom, yet divine and far".
It was clear therefore that she had no "equal", no "mate", no one who could be "comrade of her soul, her other self". Of all the relations which she entered into with men "only her earthly surface bore their charge". But all along "her greater self lived sole, unclaimed, within". More than man she felt Nature nearer to her soul —the animals, the birds, the trees, the flowers gave simple response to her. But so far as men were concerned, "too great was her demand, too pure her force". Her world even then was small; only, after some time her name went abroad among men. But she was to them some one far away "like lightning playing with a fallen day", "Earth- nature bound in the sense-life's narrow make" drew back from her.
"Whoever is too great must lonely live,
Adored he walks in mighty solitude:
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Vain is his labour to create his kins,
His only comrade is the Strength within"
Savitri dwelt alone "until her hour of fate".
CANTO THREE
THE CALL TO THE QUEST
The dawn that came today was, to all outward appearance, like all other dawns and yet it seemed it was a new creation, it had not the ordinary but "a greater sunlight" and "happier skies". It was "burdened with beauty." On that day "an ancient longing struck again new roots". The air seemed to drink deep some desire unfulfilled, the very trees trembled in the winds,—the Coīl struck that age-old "love-note untired".
On such a day King Aswapathy listened through the morning ray to other subtle sounds that meet the inner ear. There, in the subtle, Nature's inmost movements could be known. He heard earth's wordless hymn to the Ineffable rising "from the ardent heart of the cosmic Void". He also could hear the voice of unborn, divine Powers. He heard the rising of yearning for "perfect life on earth for men", aspiration for assured knowledge and "shadowless bliss". Man aspires for "truth embodied" here on Earth and "godhead divinising mortal forms". Ashwapathy heard a voice addressed to the human being:
"How long will you tread the circling tracks of mind"
Around your little self and petty things"
You were not meant to be, "a changeless littleness", nor a "vain repetition".
"Out of the Immortal's substance you were made".
At present the divine potentialities in you are hidden,—
"Almighty powers are shut in Nature cells".
Even though at present his higher, diviner powers are not active, man will one day awaken to them, he will wake to his divinity, to
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eternity. To those who are the authors of this transformation is given the task of crossing "the dangerous spaces of the soul", "and touch the mighty Mother stark awake", "and meet the Omnipotent in this house of flesh". Even on earth "Immortal Powers sweep flaming past your doors" and thought, trumpets call you to exceed yourself. But very few "dare aspire". In fact, Earth's "force and will exceed her form and fate". The earth looks up only to man for the fulfilment of her future. But very few rise to her expectation. In most men the fire burns dim and "invisible Grandeur sits unworshipped there".
Why is it like that? Because man is in love with his ignorance which is the father of "his pain". Man has lost contact with his inner soul, his inner voice. Intimations from the depth of his being come to him in vain. All uptil now—poets, seers, prophets— have failed. "Heaven's flaming lights descend and back return". "Eternity speaks, none understands its word".
The screen of the mind is a little lifted but the resistance of the Inconscient blocks the way and "The gods are still too few in mortal forms".
As Aswapathy listened to these words, Savitri came to him, a goddess in human form. She was "bright moved torch of incense and of flame". He saw her with the inner vision, through the depths of the being. She appeared to him as
"The strange significant icon of a Power
Renewing its inscrutable descent
Into a human figure of its works.
"A godhead sculptured on a wall of thought,
Mirrored in the flowing hours and dimly shrined
In Matter as in a cathedral cave".
"Immortal met immortal in their gaze".
Aswapathy
"...saw through the familiar cherished limbs
The great and unknown spirit born his child."
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Then he addressed Savitri as "traveller of eternity", and told her: "A mighty Presence still defends thy frame". You will find one among men who will discover thy "message of heavenly strength and bliss". He told her:
"Depart, where love and destiny call your charm".
"Venture through the deep world to find thy mate".
There 's no need of outer guidance for thee as the One who is in thee will guide thee aright and he who is thy "second self" will also approach thee. Then after your union you will be like harps in perfect unison "discovering new notes of the eternal theme". "One force" will move you, "One light" will guide you and then "Hand in strong hand confront Heaven's question, life". When you have thus brought down perfection in life, you will then ascend and "meet a greater God, thyself beyond Time". It was by Aswapathy's address to her that Savitri became outwardly conscious of her divine mission. Its action on her was like that of a Mantra that sinks into consciousness slowly and then comes back to die surface consciousness. The aspirant then "feels a Wideness and becomes a Power". From that day Savitri became free from "accustomed scenes" because to her they were now "an ended play". She felt that "the secrets of an unseen world were close".
Thus the day ended and "night lit the watch-fires of eternity". When the dawn came Savitri had already gone, and "The palace woke to its own emptiness".
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SHRI A. B. PURANI
26th May 1894 - 11th December 1965
THE QUEST
Savitri set out on her quest and as she had to pass through many strange lands her attention was drawn to the outer aspects of the country. Thus a "deeper consciousness" came to the surface in her and she found that those lands were known .to her, that in the past she had lived in many countries and so each country to her was her own. This memory and feeling became intense "Till the whole destiny of mankind was hers".
As she passed through the countries, landscapes, rivers, plains came her way and they seemed to recur in her memory. On the way many men she met whom she recognised as comrades. "All was a part of old forgotten selves". Even the quest did not seem to be her first quest; for
"She seemed to her remembering witness soul
To trace again a journey often made."
Higher and diviner Powers also acted to bring about all the outer circumstances of her work. Man believes that many of his acts and thoughts are without significance. But "nothing we think or do is void or vain". "We reap the fruit of our forgotten deeds" because we get back the "energy loosed" from us and it "holds its course".
"The shadowy keepers of our deathless past
Have made our fate the child of our own acts"
Man generally does not realise this and therefore with his extroverted view he thinks that all that happens is a working of "a mechanic Force". But in fact all these are "instruments" of a Supreme Will and an "all-seeing Eye" is watching over them. Savitri was fully conscious of this higher working on the heights of her being; her higher self knew everything and arranged every detail. It was "a way prepared by an unerring Guide"
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In the beginning her path lay through populous cities, big marts, large dries with "pillared assembly halls". Big temples came in the way "hewn as if by exiled gods—To imitate their lost eternity." She rested in palaces of Kings on her way and then passed through "hamlet and village" "That,...keep their old repeated course". Then she came to free spaces "Not yet perturbed by human joys and fears". These wide spaces were not yet filled with cares. There were large uncultivated tracts and "wind-stirred grass-lands winking in the sun". Here time seemed to pass slowly, leisurely. In the solitude of these places one could not only feel calm but hear "The rhythm of...wordless Thought", and "inarticulate voice of earth." Here one could feel the "mute" love of mother earth, and perceive her soul,—find her living. Man's spirit could find release in these spaces. s Happily for man earth yet guards such austere regions, musing s depths, lonely reaches, rapture haunts, her woods, fields, plains, "alone with the cry of birds and hue of flowers". This wildness of Nature is lit by moons and by stars and visited by dark unfathomable Night.
Earth called very few men to share in her peace and solitude. " Kings after strenuous life retired into these places living happily "with birds and beasts and flowers". Others plunged deeper; they merged into "ever-living Bliss" in their inmost being. They heard some profound Voice and saw an "all-revealing Light". They arrived at the experience of the One in All through boundless love. They attained a wide witness status and could commune with the Supreme. Ascetics also lived in these solitary places having renounced every-thing, they lived "in tranquil heights of self" only waiting for the "Infinites' behest to end". Others there were who tried to attain harmony with the Universal Will. These men were surrounded by disciples. Seekers brought the thirst of the Spirit to these quiet holymen and found purity and peace which they needed. The sages lived for the sake of God and "Sowing in young minds immortal thoughts they lived," they were comrades of the cosmic Force. "Their speech, their silence was a help to earth". There were some who went into solitude to silence their thought and waited for the birth of Light. They attained intuitive knowledge. Some wanted to get rid of their personality, of their thoughts altogether. They
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ended by attaining "...a motionless ocean of impersonal Power" Others wished to become comrades of the everlasting Will and they surveyed the plan of Time in past and future. Some were like birds who soared from earth and disappeared into a bright and featureless Vast. A few attained the status of the Silent Witness towards the world while some helped the world by their world indifference.
Savitri passed through these hermitages and also in some of them
"She rested drawing round her like a cloak
Its spirit of patient muse and potent prayer".
At times, she found in the atmosphere some spiritual force and stopped her chariot and felt the impress of the souls left by ancient seers. She experienced the kinship of eternal calm.
"But morn broke in reminding her other quest
And from low rustic couch or mat she rose"
She again passed through great solitary tracks where
"...mountains in their anchorite solitude,
The forests with their multitudinous chant"
were crossed and she passed through "dreaming plains", "indolent expanses", "huddled hills" lifting their heads to hunt the sky, desolate summits, woods and deserts.
But she did not find the object of her quest.
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SUMMARY OF BOOK FIVE
THE DESTINED MEETING PLACE
"But now the destined spot and hour were dose." Unknowingly man's "acts interpret an omniscient Force"; and so, even when a man acts blindly something behind arranges the necessary circumstance The place and time for each event are thus pre-determined in knowledge, though they seem to be brought about by blind choice.
The place had a "soft and delicate air", it was a "world of free and green delight". The time was when spring and summer seemed to be lying together "disputing with laughter who should rule".
Savitri felt within her the "coming change". It was a place where in the landscape "a crowd of mountainous heads assailed the sky" and "earth prostrate lay beneath their feet of stone". In the valley "below there crouched a dream of emarald woods", streams of water ran, and cool and perfumed breeze "faltered among flowers". White cranes, peacocks and parrots "jewelled soil and tree." Doves moaned and drakes swam in pools. Earth was in love with Heaven there was music, blooms, riot of scents and hues. In that wonderful place
"Magician of her rapt felicities,
Blithe, sensuous-hearted careless and divine,
Life ran or hid in her delightful rooms";
All over Nature there was calm and peace. "Life had not learned its discord with its aim" at that place.
It was at such a place that
"A stranger on the sorrowful roads of Time,
under the yoke of death and fate,
A sacrificant of the bliss and pain of the spheres,
Love in the wilderness met Savitri.
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SATYAVAN
Savitri remembered every detail of this occasion—the road, the wilderness, the "morning like a lustrous seer" and the "titan murmur of the endless woods".
There were groves with strange flowers and boughs that sheltered a hermitage where the breeze ran over "grasses pranked with green and gold". Voices seem to call her, and as the one sign of "human and secret tread" she saw "a single path" shooting into the "bosom of vast life" of Nature. Following her gaze along the road she saw Satyavan against the "forest verge"
"Inset twixt green relief and golden ray."
He was standing "erect and lofty like a spear of God". With noble brow, "joy of life was on his open face", his "head touched with light", "his body was a lover's and a king's." He came to live in this forest retreat driven by adverse fate ''to meet the ancient Mother in her groves".
Living in this forest Satyavan had become a foster child of beauty and solitude. He was a veda-knower, he had entered into and realised the spiritual significance of Nature—the "stream and wood" had taught him many truths, "voices of the sun and star and flame" had also instructed him. Even the birds and animals had given him knowledge. His mind was open to the infinite mind of Nature.
On that particular day Satyavan had turned from his "accustomed paths" almost under the "spell of destiny". At first, Savitri saw him with the usual impersonal look with which she used to observe and keep in her delightful memory the joys of Nature—the "sky and flower and hill and star" and phenomena of Nature.
Savitri was absorbed in looking at the beauty of the colourful landscape, and even when she saw Satyavan she saw him like the other ordinary objects of Nature.
She might have passed on in her chariot, but the God in her touched her conscious soul and then "her vision settled, caught and all was changed". To her closer view he appeared as "the genius of the spot"; "a king of life outlined in delicate air." Suddenly her heart looked at Satyavan and she saw something quite different. "A mystic tumult from her depths arose;"
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"Hailed, smitten erect like one who dreamed at ease,
Life ran to gaze from every gate of sense".
She was intensely moved—"Her soul flung wide its doors to this new sun".
"An alchemy worked, the transmutation came;
The missioned face had wrought the Master's spell."
Savitri's heart cried out to Satyavan and so
"Hooves trampling fast, wheels largely stumbling ceased".
Then "Satyavan looked out from his soul's doors" while he heard her musical voice he also "endured the haunting miracle of a perfect face." He was overwhelmed by attraction, "He turned to the vision like a sea to the moon", and he soon saw that "his life was taken into another's life."
When he approached Savitri then "Gaze met dose gaze and clung in sight's embrace".
Savitri recognised in Satyavan
"Comrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul."
"Lids known through many lives, large frames of love."
Satyavan met in Savitri's gaze "a promise and a presence and a fire", aeonic dreams "made in material shape his very own".
Thus
"In these great spirits now incarnate here
Love brought down power out of eternity
To make of life his new undying base."
Men come together, not casually or by chance, but because of past affinity. "The soul can recognise the answering soul," even though time may intervene before the recognition becomes a fact.
"There is a power within that knows beyond our knowings;
"To live, to love are signs of infinite things,
Love is a glory from eternity's spheres."
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Even though lower elements of human nature debase and mock at it, still, love is a divine power by which "all can change".
Love is like a bud in the human being, it opens slowly; or it is like a somnambulist child wandering about seeking himself in many forms and at last it sees a sign,—often insignificant,—which is sufficient to awaken it. It "wakes blindly to a voice, a look, a touch, the meaning of a face." Love by its mystical power "in earth's alphabet finds a God-like sense", a divine significance. In the purest form of love "all strives to enforce the unity all is." Rare is such pure love, rarer one who can hold it pure in himself.
The meeting of Savitri and Satyavan was not an accidental or a haphazard event. It was the culmination of a long series of lives,— it "summed the drift of numberless births." These two
"Lovers met upon their different paths".
"Travellers across the limitless plains of Time."
And then "The mist was torn that lay between two lives." They "wove affinity in a silent gaze" and then
"An hour began, the matrix of new Time",—their union was the beginning of a new age, a new creation upon earth.
SATYAVAN AND SAVITRI
Even though they seemed to meet casually their inmost souls grew conscious of their past affinity and intimate relation,—"so utter the recognition in the deeps". Satyavan spoke first to Savitri inquiring about her name and inviting her to descend from the car. "O Sunlight moulded like a golden maid"! "How art thou named among the sons of men?" I feel you are not entirely of this earth, "for more than earth speaks to me from thy soul". I have known divine powers behind the veil of earth-forms,—powers behind dawns, the sun-light, the moon, the stars, marching "on their long sentinel routes pointing their spears through the infinitudes". I have heard strange voices, seen the Apsaras bathing in the pools, wood-nymphs peering through leaves, powers rushing with the winds. You can be one such heavenly being:: but
"Much rather would my thoughts rejoice to know".
"That mortal sweetness smiles between thy lips"
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If you can feel our human affections, if you can love to look upon our earth, feel fatigue like us, and taste earthly food then "Descend, let thy journey cease,
"Come down to us". Inviting her to the sylvan hermitage surrounded by silence and full of soft music he said
"Bare, simple is the sylvan hermit-life";
"Yet is it clad with the jewelry of earth."
"Apparelled are the moms in gold and green,
Sunlight and shadow tapestry the walls
To make a testing chamber fit for thee."
Savitri paused for some time and then in reply told her name and asked his name and the reason why he was in a hermitage rather than in a royal city.
In reply Satyavan told her the story of his father's loss of kingdom due to his blindness and added how "he sojourns in two solitudes, within and in the solemn rustle of the woods". I have lived contented in this forest because "not yet of thee aware". I have here my kingdom of Nature which is "of a nobler kind." Frankness of earth, intimacy of "infant God" I have enjoyed. Earth and sky are our "close belongings" and I have fully enjoyed and possessed them. Besides, I have seen another subtler world behind this external one —the animals running wildly gave me glimpses of beings moving swiftly, the herds of deer running "became a song of evening", the king-fisher I perceived as some eternal eye, "mountains and trees stood there like thoughts from God". Butterflies, birds etc., made quite another impression than the ordinary creatures on my consciousness,
"The peacock scattering on the breeze his moons,"
"Painted my memory like a frescoed wall." Thus, in all Nature
"I felt a covert touch, I heard a call,
But could not clasp the body of my God",
"Or hold between my hands the World-Mother's feet".
I met many men but I found them so limited! "Each lived in himself and for himself alone". I sat with the sages and in meditation "I
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glimpsed the presence of the One in all". But Matter remained unfulfilled, its end was Death. So far as the physical being is concerned man's life is based on the Inconscient, which gives rise to Ignorance and its only fate is to return to the Void.
"But thou hast come and all will surely change:"
"My Matter shall evade the Inconscient's trance
My body like my spirit shall be free
It shall escape from Death and Ignorance:"
Thus Satyavan unconsciously denned Savitri's mission. Savitri was so happy to hear him speak that she asked him to continue his sweet speech till ,
"My moved mortal mind shall understand
What all the deathless being in me feels."
Satyavan like a replying harp spoke to her: "the lightning flash of love reveals" so many things about which I would like to tell you. Even the brief contact with you has "reshaped my life". I lived like other men uptill now: "to think and act was all, to enjoy and breathe". And yet I had always a vague feeling that man was capable of attaining something great, "something that life is not and yet must be". I tried to find the solution of life's problem with the light of "thought". I could make a philosophy of the Reality but it was always something I could not live up to. It limited the. infinite Truth in narrow forms; it only made "a mental scheme of a mechanic Power". Even a plunge into the occult only deepened the mystery, I tried to follow "Beauty and Art",
"But form cannot unveil the indwelling Power",
"Only it throws its symbols at our hearts". Thus
"...when I found the Self, I lost the world,
My other selves I lost and the body of God,
The link of the finite with the Infinite.
But now the goldlink comes to me with thy feet
"For now another realm draws near with thee"
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"A strange new world swims to me in thy gaze
Approaching like a star from unknown heavens".
Everything is changed now—even "air, soil and stream", a "sun- light grows a shadow of thy hue".
Satyavan then invited Savitri to come nearer to him:
"0 my bright beauty's princess, Savitri,
By my delight and thy own joy compelled
Enter my life, thy chamber and thy shrine".
Savitri's "fathomless soul" came to her sight and "looked at him from her eyes". Savitri made a very brief but effective reply:
"O Satyavan, I have heard thee and I know,
I know that thou and only thou art he."
Then she descended from the car "with a soft and faltering haste" and she gathered flowers which she deftly wove into a "candid garland set with simple forms
"Profound in perfume and immersed in hue", they made "The bloom of their purity and passion one". Thus "She brought, flower-symbol of her offered life," and laid the garland on "the bosom coveted by her love". She bowed and touched his feet with worshipping hands
"She made her life his world for him to tread
And made her body room for his delight".
Satyavan accepted her offering, "he gathered all Savitri into his clasp." This intense delight was "a first sweet summary of delight to come".
"As when a soul is merging into God
To live in Him for ever and know His joy,
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Her consciousness was a wave of him alone
And all her separate self was lost in his."
Thus they were both "lost awhile" in each other, "then drawing back from their long ecstasy's trance", they
"Came into a new self and a new world"
"The world" henceforth, "was but their twin self-finding's scene", "Or their own wedded being's vaster frame". Satyavan and Savitri "The united Two began a greater age". Then "one human moment was eternal made".
Afterwards Satyavan led her to the hermitage, "her future world". There she saw "the thatch that covered the life of Satyavan", "her heart's future home".
Then Savitri told Satyavan that she would go to her father and come back to him; "my heart will stay here" she said. She then mounted her chariot and sped back towards Madra. All along the way the memory of her "soul's temple and home" remained with her, as "her heart's constant scene".
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SUMMARY OF BOOK SIX
THE WORD OF FATE
Narad, the sage, from Paradise came chanting through the air "bordering the mortal's plane". He came attracted by the golden summar-earth that lay like a bowl "tilted upon a table of the Gods" He came from happy paths of the immortals "to a world of toil and quest and grief and hope", of death and life. From Mind he passed to Matter. He passed through a sea of ether and then through "primal air", from there he went through the "creative fire" and saw its triple power "to build and form". "He beheld the cosmic Being at his task" and "the eternal labour of the Gods".
Then a change of mood came over Narad:
"A rapture and a pathos moved his voice". Uptil now his theme was adoration of the Supreme. But now he did not sing "of light that never wanes", of unity of being, "everlasting bliss", and "deathless love". He sang of Ignorance and Fate. "He sang the Inconscient and its secret self" working blindly and yet bringing definite results. He chanted of the "darkness yearning towards the eternal Light".
"And Love that broods within the dim abyss
"He sang of the Truth that cries from Night's blind deeps"
and "of the glory and marvel still to be born".
Narad, who had conquered the immortal's seat "came down to men on earth, the Man divine". He came down like lightning "where arose King Aswapathy's palace to the winds."
He was welcomed by the King and Queen. For one hour they talked while Narad spoke of "the toils of men and what the gods strive for", "the marvel and mystery of pain". "He sang to them
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of the lotus-heart of love" which "sleeps veiled by apparent things". One day that love will bloom "in the garden of the Spouse", "when she is seized by her discovered lord."
Even as he was singing Savitri arrived and "her radiant tread glimmered across the floor". She was not the same Savitri now, she was changed by the halo of Love like
"One carrying the sanction of the gods
To her love and its luminous eternity"
Savitri noticed the presence of Narad with his "fiery sweetness".
Narad flung "on her his vast immortal look".
The speech of Narad here is one of the rarest poetical passages in world's literature. It has chiselled classicism of the Greeks, and romanticism rarely equalled in its exuberance and intensity and colour. And yet it is convincingly real. It is the yogic vision revealing a picture of absolute Beauty perceived impersonally and yet with an intensity not possible to a personal view. It is rich, it throbs with life, and is overflowing with delight. Beauty is revealed here in its most impersonal and universal aspect, in its utmost intensity. This once for all shatters the current notion that yogic consciousness is divorced from a sense and perception of Beauty.
Narad says: "Who is this that comes, the bride, the flame-born' with lights flashing about her? "From what green glimmer of glades, bringest thou this glory of enchanted eyes"? There are in Nature expanses, hills and woods where felicity reigns undisturbed. "There hast thou paused", "thou hast not drunk from an earthly cup" but hast wondered through "brighter countries than man's eyes can bear". Thou hast been in the Gandhamadan mountain sporting divinely, "and in god-haunts thy human footsteps strayed. Thy mortal bosom quivered with god-speech." And what kind of divine melody "still surprised thou nearest?"
"The empty roses of thy hands are filled
Only with their own beauty and the thrill
of a remembered clasp".
Thus Narad discerns in his yogic vision the truth of Savitri's experience and expresses it in terms of exquisite beauty.
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Then he sees another aspect: "Thou hast not spoken with the kings of pain", never known pain. Thou seemest always to feel life like music, like a song,—harmonious, rapid, grand. "Thou livest in thy inner bliss" undisturbed by pain. Thou art like a silver deer "O ruby-eyed and snow-winged dove!", flitting m the unwounded beauty of thy soul. Thou hast come to this world "where hardly love and beauty can live safe"—"Thyself a being dangerously great". Thou hast lived safe in thy dreams "leaving doom asleep" and thou couldst have a very happy earthly life "if for all time doom could be left to sleep".
Narad "spoke but held his knowledge back from words". But in the non-committal words of Narad Aswapathy had "marked the dubious close" and "an ominous shadow felt behind his words". So he answered him with guarded speech: from what you say I am led to believe that Savitri would have a god-like life as she has divine elements in her inner being. In this world hardly a being is able to keep up the heavenly note, the joy and the light. "Behold this image cast by light and love
"...a pillared ripple of gold !
Her body like a brimmed pitcher of delight
"Dream-made illumined mirrors are her eyes"
"Even as her body, such is she within".
Then he requested Narad to give his blessings so that Savitri's joy would last and pain would not throw its bronze note in her days: behold her and give her your blessings that this fair child shall pour nectar of a sorrowless life around her and "heal with her bliss the tired breast of earth". Her dawns are "like jewelled leaves of light; so casts she her felicity on men." He said "Doom surely will see her pass and say no word". But such a good fortune is rare in human life, the Mother of the World is careless and the fire of suffering tests even great souls. He at last requested Narad: "Once let unwounded pass a mortal life."
"But Narad answered not; silent he sat". He evaded answering and diverted the topic by asking: On what high mission did Savitri
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go? Aswapathy replied: She had gone to "find her lord". Then he turned to Savitri and asked:
"Virgin who comes and perfected by joy
"Whom hast thou chosen kingliest among men?"
Savitri calmly replied:
"The son of Dyumatsena, Satyavan
I have met on the wild forest's lonely verge
My father, I have chosen. This is done."
The king saw a heavy shadow float above the name but it was chased by a sudden and stupendous Light. He approved of her choice saying it would all end well, whether good or evil in appearance ultimately the Good would triumph. Through contraries of Nature we draw near to God. Then Narad might have spoken but the King intervened and asked him not to give "the dire ordeal that foreknowledge brings". Men are not like the Gods; their life is full of trials and difficulties. "To light one step in front is all his hope." If thou canst loose her grip—the grip of Fate—then only speak.
But "Narad answered not the king".
Now the queen raised her voice: As your arrival coincides with the chance of a happy married life
"Let the speech benign of griefless spheres".
"Confirm this blithe conjunction of two stars."
There is no reason for not rejoicing nor any for inviting fear. Bless their union and push away the ominous shadow from their days. Man is already a frail being, his heart "dares not be too happy Upon earth". If you really think that their union is doomed to suffer "then also speak", so that "we may turn aside" and rescue our lives from it.
Narad answered: what help can foreknowledge render to men who are driven by Fate? "Safe doors cry opening near" but "the
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doomed pass on"—they do not see the doors of escape. The knowledge of the future to such ignorant men "is an added pain". Fate has fixed everything. Man is an unconscious being, he moves compelled by forces he does not know.
"None can refuse what the stark force demands
No cry or prayer can turn her from her path".
Narad spoke as one who knows not grief.
The queen—"as a common man beneath the load... breathes his pain",—spoke in ignorant words: what doom took the form of Satyavan and attracted Savitri? Is he an enemy from the past? "The gods make use of our forgotten deeds". Man himself is the creator of his doom—it is love that makes him suffer the most. There are other elements that compel us to suffer; our own sympathy increases the range of our suffering—"our sympathies become our tortures". I am able to bear my own suffering, but the suffering of others gives me unbearable pain.
"We are not as the gods who know not grief
"We keep the ache of breasts that breathe no more
"We have sorrow for a greatness passed away
And feel the touch of tears in mortal things".
She requested Narad to speak out, if there was the doom; suspense is worse than suffering. "To know is best, however hard to bear".
Then Narad spoke setting free destiny in that hour, "piercing the mother's heart", "forcing to steel the will of Savitri." Satyavan whom Savitri has chosen is marvellous,
"His figure is the front of Nature's march,
His single being excels the works of Time". He is
"A living knot of golden Paradise
"A star of splendour or a rose of bliss".
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In him Soul and Nature are perfectly balanced. There is in him an aspiration for the immortals air. He is a "godhead quarried from the stones of life."
But there is an adverse Fate,
"Twelve swift-winged months are given to him and her;
This day returning Satyavan must die."
The queen then complained to Narad that the Grace of Heaven, in that case, would be in vain. If the Divine showers grace with one hand and smites the human being with the other then I would reject both of them.
She then addressed Savitri: Go forth, O Savitri! and "choose once again". Do not plead that you have made a choice "for death has made it vain."
Savitri calmly but firmly replied:
"Once my heart chose and chooses not again."
It is like a Truth once uttered which always remains and "sounds immortally" "in the memory of Time."
"My heart has sealed its troth to Satyavan.
"Its seal nor Fate nor Death nor Time dissolve.
"Fates law may change, but not my spirit's will."
But the queen thought that Savitri was ignorantly denying every avenue of escape and fixing her own doom. She said to Savitri "O child, in the magnificence of thy soul" "thou lendest eternity to a mortal hope". In this world that is constantly changing there is no lover and no friend. Everything in life is passing. Someone comes into our life, plays his part and departs. But nothing really happens to our souls, they join and separate according to the need of the great Dancer. Man has only the capacity to call, he can only aspire for
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"an unseized bliss." But when he attains the bliss, when the hope is fulfilled the charm melts away, the heavenly music ceases. Would you follow the uncontrolled passion of your mood and defy the Law? "Only the gods can speak what now thou speakest". But thou art human, "think not like a god." Calm reason alone must be your guide, neither the furious march of the giant to capture heaven, nor the fall into the abyss of Hell is proper to the human being. "The middle path is made for thinking man." Love can be eternal not on earth but only on the higher levels of being.' In life one has to march slowly towards timeless peace. ,
But Savitri replied:
"My will is part of the eternal will
"My strength is not the titan's, it is God's.
"My spirit has glimpsed the glory for which it came."
"I will have joy only in union with Satyavari."
Compared to that joy "the riches of a thousand fortunate years, are a poverty".
"I shall walk with him like gods in Paradise.
" If for a year, that year is all my life"
"...I know now why my spirit came on earth
And who I am and who he is I love.
I have looked at him from my immortal Self,
I have seen God smile at me in Satyavan,
I have seen the Eternal in a human face."
After that none could say anything:
"Silent they sat and looked into the eyes of Fate."
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THE WAY OF FATE AND THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
The great problem "why pain at all in a world created by God" is represented here in the actual situation of life, and Narad, the Man divine, answers these questions and suggests correct attitude to be taken with regards to pain. The presence of Ignorance and pain can no more keep out the possibility of man attaining knowledge and delight than the existence of night prove that the sun does not exist. The divine Presence is behind the outer appearances, it is behind each one's heart. Through chequered experiences of life—of pleasure and pain—man marches towards the birth of divinity in life.
Even world-saviours have to suffer pain in order to help mankind. The reason is that there is an adversary Force which opposes any move towards Light. Escape from the world of pain would not solve the problem. The Light must descend into the Inconscient which is the basis of Ignorance and therefore of pain.
Such a world-saviour may come and he would bring the Light down into the Inconscient and then only the law of Pain will end.
Pain and suffering help men to grow towards God. They have their divine utility in the scheme of life. Man should patiently bear pain if it comes but he should not invite it.
Also he should follow the way of ordinary Nature which takes him through joy and sorrow—and not follow the Titan's way which is dangerous.
Rightly seen pain, joy and indifference are only garbs of universal Delight.
As to the origin of pain: Man himself has created his pain. The original Absolute Consciousness felt attracted by a negative Absolute and so the descent came, then duality and the world was created.
Aswapathy then asks whether the divine Power that is in Savitri is capable of controlling Fate., Narad says that with the higher Truth everything that happens here on earth is foreseen. Man sees with his limited Mind and therefore cannot see. It is true Satyavan must die; but death is not the end. The Fate of the Spirit is not the events but the goal and the path he chooses. The Fate of the
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Spirit is to march from Matter to Spirit. Many great spirits have worked at this goal and of these Savitri is a master builder.
Then Narad asked the Queen not to interfere with the Savitri's decision, nor to take it in the ordinary human way. It is an issue too big for such human feelings and should be left to God. So saying Narad disappeared.
In the previous Canto Narad's word of Fate seemed to fix the doom of Satyavan and Savitri affirmed her choice: two affirmations stand opposing each other: Fate on one side, the soul's divine choice' on the other. But the Fate is not unchallenged by the world; one voice, over and above Savitri's soul, from the silence "questioned changeless destiny." It is the queen who felt the leaden, inevitable hand of Fate and her quietude was disturbed. She became, for the time being, the voice of human grief: "She bore the common lot of men," "Passionate like sorrow questioning heaven" she spoke. She brought in her utterance the full burden of suffering that is in the world's dumb heart: "By what pitiless adverse Necessity", "by what random accident or governed Chance", came "the dire mystery of grief and pain?" Is God who created the world, cruel? or is there some antidivine power that thwarts the work of God? How did this duality, these pairs of opposites,—pleasure and pain.; good and evil etc.,—gain first entry into human life? The animals though inferior to men have a frank simplicity and are not subject to this kind of suffering. But man has lost the instinct, has twisted his being and created duality and is subject to suffering. The very birth of man is "in pain and with a cry". Even though birth of life is welcomed by earth, still life on earth is precarious. Our very bodies are an engine cunningly made and superior in many ways but the body is at the same time very vulnerable. Diseases, "purveyors of death and torturers of life", enter the body and we, human beings, "make our own enemies our guests". Even Ids mind which is free from physical ailments, "suffers lamed by the world's disharmony"
"And the unloveliness of human things."
Man is like a "fort besieged", "a marvel missed," "An ill-armed warrior facing dreadful odds", an "imperfect worker", "an ignorant judge of problems Ignorance made." Even when life tries to fly
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high,—"Its heaven-ward flights reach closed and keyless gates." Whatever man does is always inflicted by this duality, he is not able to attain perfection. He does not know from where his actions spring —his "fount of action", comes from some darkness. Many of his actions are subconscious in their origin. Man's past history is "a growing register of calamities." History of man is full of "man's follies and man's crimes." There are countless ills of Nature around him, but over and above them, "the centuries pile" "upon the countless crowd of Nature's ills." Man makes wars, brings ruin and massacre. In his frenzy he destroys what beauty and grandeur he has created: "An idiot hour destroys what centuries made." Man sows misery with his own hands and reaps the results: "He walks by his own choice into hell's trap", "Nothing has been learnt from time and its history". Man's life "is an episode in a meaningless tale". Why and wherefore are we here?—This is an unanswered question.
If man is really divine in his origin and his destiny is to return to his divinity then from where comes this present state of imperfection and suffering? "Whence rose the strange and sterile interlude", "lasting in vain through interminable Time?" Does all this suffering and travail lead to anything? Is there any significance of this suffering? "What need had the soul of ignorance and tears ?" And "What power forced the immortal spirit to birth", or, who "persuaded it to fall from bliss?" why at all this "will to live"? If there is no Spirit, then "What hard impersonal Necessity compels the vain toil of brief living things?" If the explanation is that all this is an illusion then where is the security for the human soul? Also, "where begins and ends Illusion's reign?" Or, is it really that soul is only a dream and the Eternal a mere fiction?
To the Queen Narad made reply by putting a counter question: Was then the sun a dream because there is night?,"—just as behind the dark veil of the night the sun is hidden; so is the Eternal secret here in life and its appearances:
"Hidden in the mortals heart the Eternal lives"
"He lives secret in the chamber of thy soul."
A veil hides Him, so you do not see, or feel or hear the divine Guest. You speak only from your human mind and therefore, ignorantly:
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for Thought is "a light of Ignorance". You can see the world but cannot know the meaning of God in the world. '
"Thy mind's light hides from thee the eternal's thought"
"Its brilliant curtain hides from thee God's face."
As to suffering—"Where ignorance is, there suffering too must come." "Thy grief is a cry of darkness to the Light." "Pain is the hammer of the gods to break" "a dead resistance in the mortal's heart." It is this suffering that makes possible man's ascension to divine heights. The whole earth-consciousness is, as it were, in birth- pang to deliver the divine Being: "and yet the godhead in her is not born". Before that great event takes place all the gods and human beings have to work hard to bring it about: "with pain and labour all creation comes." Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing man "to greatness" and "an inspired labour chisels with heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould." Sometimes, when the outer being seems to suffer the inner spirit takes delight as it feels that suffering leads it to its goal.
Besides, it is not only ordinary mortals who suffer pain, even the great spirits who come to "save the race must share its pain." For example Christ, "The Son of God, born as a Son of man", who came to save mankind "has drunk the bitter cup" and by his suffering "he has opened the doors of his undying peace".
"His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death
Hewn, quartered on the scaffold as he falls
His crucified voice proclaims 'I, I am God.'
'Yes, all is God,' peals back Heaven's deathless call
When God's messenger comes to help the world
"He too must bear the pang that he would heal;
"How shall he cure the ills he never felt?"
Even if there be no outward participation in the world's suffering still "he carries the suffering world in his own breast". "A siege, a
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combat is his inner life", because he has to meet "an ancient adversary Force". 'In the fight against the antidivine Force "the weeping of the centuries visits his eyes", "the poison of the world has stained his throat". "He is the victim of his own sacrifice", because he voluntarily invites suffering—"he dies that the world may be new-born and live."
There is in human nature a secret enmity to the Divine that impedes Gods' work on earth. "Till it is slain peace is forbidden on earth." Man is, in a way, an instrument of those hostile forces: "forces intangible besiege", "thoughts not our own," "touches from alien realms" come to man. This adversary Force hides from man "the straight immortal path". It twists everything divine and turns it into evil.
"It is the origin of our suffering here."
"It binds earth to calamity and pain."
"This hidden foe lodged in the human breast
Man must overcome or miss his higher fate.
This is the inner war without escape."
The task of the world-redeemer is hard because "the world itself becomes his adversary." "His enemies are beings he came to save." why is this so? Because "This world is in love with its own ignorance," "It gives the cross in payment for the crown".
There is an easier and a sun-lit path to God. But few can tread that path. Even if a few souls can escape from ignorance the world cannot be saved.
"Escape, however high, redeems not life
''Escape cannot uplift the abandoned race.
Or bring to victory and the reign of God."
The labour to bring the Light into life has to be continued till the adversary Force is "stain in its own home," "And Light invades the world's inconscient base."
There is hope for mankind, for, "One yet may come armoured, invincible" and "the ineffable planes already have felt 1-ds tread." "He has seized life's hands, "he has mastered his own heart." "He
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too must grapple with the riddling sphinx." He has known the constitution of Matter and the laws of its workings, the lower life
"He must call light into its dark abysms
"He must enter the eternity of Night
And know God's darkness as he knows his Sun."
And
"for this he must go down into the pit"
"For this he must invade the dolorous Vasts."
When he comes out victorious then the "secret Law of each thing is fulfilled."
"Then shall be ended here the Law of Pain," and then even
"The body's self taste immortality".
Narad addresses the human being:
"O, Mortal! bear this great world's law of pain
"Turn towards high Truth, aspire to love and peace".
"Make of thy daily way a pilgrimage." You progress towards God through your small joys and griefs. The Titan's way is not good for man. "Heavenward he clambers on a stair of storms". He does not rely on the Divine's help. He wants to grab everything, he wants to make "his own estate of the earth's air and light". He wants to dominate over all. He inflicts suffering on himself and on others. He resorts to hurry, riot, excess, hate and violence in order to be equal to the Divine. And the Divine to him is only Power. He feels his own strength by pain of others. He wants to "stamp his single figure on the world." "He sees his little self as very God."
"Take not that stride, O growing soul of man !
"O mortal, bear, but ask not for the stroke.
Too soon will grief and anguish find thee out."
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And yet in spite of all the limitations of thy nature the Divine that is within thy heart is thy spirit's goal. It is the imprisoned Divinity in thee that make thee feel pain.
"Pain is the signature of the Ignorance.
Attesting the secret god denied by life:
"Until life finds him pain can never end."
It is Bliss that is the secret self of all that lives, "even pain and grief are garbs of world-delight". It is the inability of the separated little self to bear the "world's tremendous touch" that translates itself into pain. Indifference, pain and joy are a triple disguise of bliss. By the strength of the Spirit within thee thou wilt attain the divine goal— the calm and the bliss.
As to the origin of pain and the question who created pain? Narad makes the following reply:
"Thou art thyself the author of thy pain." Originally the spirit was in the state of perfection. It became "curious of a shadow thrown by Truth." It sensed "a negative infinity" which became the ground for Nature's ignorant birth of Matter, unconsciousness and from it Mind rose. Thus,
"The eternal Consciousness became the home
Of some unsouled almighty Inconscient".
This was the result of the Silent One turning to manifestation, the Immortal turning towards mortality. The lure to it was the hazards of the adventure: the "music of ruin", "savour of pity", "gamble of love", "toil and battle", "the vast incertitude", "strange meetings on the roads of Ignorance", "solitary greatness"—were some of the elements that called it from "its too safe eternity".
As a result of this choice of the lure of adventure "a huge descent began, a giant fall". "For what the spirit sees, creates a truth"; the vision of the Spirit is charged with the power of self-realisation. Thus "a Thought that leaped from the Timeless" can become "a cyclic movement in eternal Time." Thus came from a "blind tremendous choice"
"This great perplexed and discontented world".
"This haunt of Ignorance, this home of Pain."
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Here in our world "A vast disguise conceals the Eternal's bliss."
Aswapathy then asked Narad: "Is then" the spirit bound to be governed by "an outward world?" "Is there no remedy within?" I had thought that a "mighty Power" had come down with Savitri: "Is not that Power the high compeer of Fate?"
To his question Narad did not give a straight reply. He said Nothing is accidental or casual in this world. Everything is determined above—"foreseen above".
..."But of this high script
"How shall my voice convince the mind of earth?"
It is the superior wisdom of the Divine that rejects the mortal's prayers dictated by his ignorant desires and hopes. It is true, "a greatness in thy daughter's soul resides." But even she "must cross on stones of suffering to its goal". She has got to go through suffering. Man is unable to see the integral, infinite Truth because he is a limited being. He looks at the Reality through the veil of Thought which cuts the boundless Truth in sky-strips and "every strip he takes for all the heavens." Man does not feel this a living universe,— it is mechanical, driven by chance or Necessity. Even when he perceives a law at work, it is to him a lifeless law—not a living heart. But the Self is there, behind the machine. If man could identify his nature with God's, if he could surrender to God their all can change here. Then can "the mind of man receive God's light"
"It is decreed that Satyavan must die;
The hour is fixed, chosen the fatal stroke."
But "What else shall be is written in her soul." The determination of Fate goes up to the death of Satyavan but Narad does not see any Fate beyond. He implies—and makes it explicit later on to the queen—that Savitri is the Power that can determine Fate. "Fate is Truth working out in Ignorance". Man is free in spite of Fate, in the sense that he can accept or reject his Fate, for, "doom is not a close." The events of life, happy or otherwise, "are not thy fete". "Thy goal, the road thou choosest are thy fate." In this sense "fate is a long sacrifice to the gods" till they have made "thee one with the indwelling God". Thus Fate is intimately connected
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.with the destiny of man. "Thy spirit's Fate is a battle and cease- less march",—"a passage from Matter into timeless Self." In this long battle man has to pass through—in fact, mankind has passed through—many vicissitudes: he goes forward alone and separated, he marches on earthly plains, fights on dangerous fronts, has to effect slow retreats, make frontal assaults, hold on forts, fight with the odds in lonely posts, keep watch in camps at night, wait for the tardy trumpet of the dawn.
Thus "Through peril and through triumph and through fall", through "green lanes" and "desert sands" of life
"Led by its nomad vanguard's signal fires,
Marches the army of the waylost God".
Man, the waylost God, marches towards his goal through all these. He will have to continue his march and battle till he "forces the last passes of the Ignorance", "till climbing the mute summit of the world,
"He stands upon the splendour-peaks of God." "In vain thou mournst that Satyavan must die", because "His death is a begin- ning of greater life".
"Death is the spirit's opportunity." There is a purpose behind the, working of this world, "And love and death conspire towards one great end". Many great souls have contributed to make possible the realisation of the goal. "And of its master-builders he is one."
Narad then addressed the Queen: do not try to change the secret will, do not bring in your human tears between Savitri and the Fate. She. feels her "single will and God's as one" She is armed and alone ready to face her Fate.
"Her lonely strength facing the universe,
Affronting fate, asks not man's help nor god's".
When she is prepared to meet her Fate, there is no use your interfering, for, "sometimes one life is charged with earth's destiny". "Alone she is equal to her mighty task". Do not intervene in a strife "too great for thee."
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"As a star, uncompanioned, moves in heaven
Unastonished by the immensities of space,
Travelling infinity by its own light,
The great are strongest when they stand alone."
Narad says: "The soul that can live alone with itself meets God". Savitri may have to stand alone "carrying the human hope in a heart left sole".
"To conquer or fail on a last desperate verge.
"Where all is won or all is lost for man."
She may be the one who is destined to carry out some great spiritual change for man. Narad here actually says:
"For this the silent Force came missioned down;
In her the conscious Will took human shape"
Savitri no longer is a woman—she is the embodiment of that silent Force and conscious Will on earth. Therefore, says Narad, "leave her to her mighty self and Fate".
So saying Narad disappeared "like a receding star" and yet
"A high and far imperishable voice"
"Chanted the anthem of eternal love."
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SUMMARY OF BOOK SEVEN
THE JOY OF UNION, THE ORDEAL OF THE FORE-KNOWLEDGE OF DEATH AND THE HEART'S GRIEF
Whatever happens to man it is Fate that leads "the blind will" "towards an unknown goal". The parentage of what happens to man is "in his secret soul". Even what is suffering to us,—"our ordeal,"—"is the hidden spirit's choice".
What Savitri's heart had chosen was all being fulfilled. Once more she left her own country, Madra, and travelled to Shalwa hermitage. As she travelled not only the country but even "the past receded and the future neared". She left behind all familiar places, relations and friends. From populous city she came to live in "primeval loneliness" with only the voices of birds and beasts. The escort that accompanied Savitri gave her in charge of the blind King, Dyumthsena and the Queen. The escort parted from Savitri unwillingly with a heart "heavy with sorrow."
There in the hermitage Savitri commenced a new life altogether. She put "behind that was once her life" and welcomed the future. "Priceless she deemed her joy" which she derived from Satyavan's company, because it was "so close to death". In the new surroundings everything, at first, was like an ideal dream to Savitri, She felt the hermitage like heaven, everything there was smiling—"there was a chanting in the casual wind".
"There was glory in the least sun beam;
Night was a nestling darkness or a moon-lit deep
Day was a purple pageant and a hymn,"
Satyavan's absence "was a dream of memory
His presence was the empire of a god".
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Their meeting was the "rushing of two spirits to be one
A burning of two bodies in one flame".
But the season underwent a change. Clouds began to appear in the clear sky, "storm became the forest's titan voice", sobbing winds after the rains sighed, thunder clashes were also noticed and sorrow seemed muttering all the night. Savitri's mood also underwent a change: "The grief of all the world came near to her". She remembered the Fate of Satyavan, "And fear laid hands upon her mortal heart" "Grief came, a passionate stranger to her gate". It could not find entrance when Savitri was with Satyavan. But she could not avoid grief because "her deepest grief from sweetest gulfs arose". The more intense experience of love made her feel more sad when she remembered the Fate of Satyavan. Thus Savitri passed her days "feeding sorrow and terror with her heart" for now these feelings were "among her bosom's guests". When she looked at the future she found blank night and the ignorant and smiling world go happily by,—she "wondered at the careless lives of men". These two worlds were quite apart,—she in knowledge, the world indifferent. She fully realised "the fragile happiness" of "mortal love".
Savitri, though intensely in grief, continued her daily routine of work—this work was a mask. During this period her true being was veiled from her, she had occassional glimpses of it but not the presence. She controlled her mind and heart and continued to act normally in the daily round of her works. In her own country a princess, she became a willing and "diligent serf of all", and did not spare "the labour of broom and jar and well". She did all the menial work of the household. Even in her lowly "acts a strange divinity shone". She lifted these "common acts by love".
All love was hers and its one heavenly cord
Bound all to all with her as golden tie".
But when she felt grief all these actions seemed meaningless to her,—"a round mechanical and void". Internally she was vigilant and passionate about saving Satyavan's life, keeping watch over him at night while he slept, praying for him. As she had the fear of his
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death in her heart every time she would implore him, inwardly, to give more and more of his precious love for she knew they would have to part soon.
But she never expressed her fear or grief to any one. She bore -her grief alone. Satyavan even without being told intuitively half understood or felt her need and gave her as much of his time as he could spare from his daily duties. But Savitri's need was infinite. If she felt happy in his presence his absence increased her agony thousand-fold: "She saw the desert of her coming days". She could easily die and follow Satyavan to the beyond but she could not think of it, "for those sad parents still would need her here".
"To help the empty remnant of their day".
And they grew in union so close that they became inseparable from each other: even when Satyavan went alone to the forest it seemed to Savitri that she was all along with him,—"as if in herself he moved"
"Grief, fear became the food of mighty love."
Thus the year seemed to come to a close,—clouds and thunder were in the sky, the sun was hidden. "So her grief's heavy sky shut in her heart".
"A still self hid behind but gave no light". Savitri seemed to feel all the movements of human love, fear and grief specially due to her foreknowledge of his doom. This reveals the working of the human aspect of Savitri.
THE PARABLE OF THE SEARCH FOR THE SOUL
Savitri heard the "dumb tread of Time" and also "the approach of ever-nearing Fate". Then she heard a call from her true Being: "A mighty Voice invaded mortal space". It came from the height but was intimate and near. As she heard the Voice her mind became
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quiet: "Why earnest thou to this dumb death bound earth,...O spirit, O immortal energy"!
"If 'twas to nurse grief in a helpless heart
"Arise, 0 soul, and vanquish Time and Death."
Savitri's heart replied: "My strength is taken from me and given to Death", why should I raise my hands in supplication to Heavens when they are shut? Why should I hope in vain to "uplift an ignorant race"
"Who hug their lot and mock the saviour Light?
This makes it once more clear that Savitri's mission was not an individual attainment but a work for the race, for humanity.) She further asks: "Is there a God whom any cry can move"? This is the attitude of ignorant human mind when faced with Fate; Here Savitri voices it with all its intensity. I would rather submit to "earth's unyielding laws" and "follow close behind my lover's steps" to the beyond. There, we can have eternal joy of union in heaven.
The Voice replied: "Is this enough?, "what shall thy Soul say when it wakes and knows" that "the work was left undone for which it came?" Would you forget your mission and "leave unchanged the old dusty laws" of this world? Did you not come to open the golden road from finite things to eternity?
Savitri's heart then fell mute, and "A Power within her answered the still Voice:
"I am thy portion here charged with thy work,
Speak to my depths, 0 great and deathless Voice;
Command, for I am here to do thy will."
The Voice replied:
"Remember why thou cam'st:
Find out thy soul, recover thy hid self,
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"Then mortal nature change to the divine
"Cast Thought from thee, that nimble ape of Light" The voice advised her to cast away her sense—
"...let thy heart beat in God
"Then shalt thou harbour my force and conquer Death."
Savitri followed the instructions of the Voice and sitting by her husband's side she "looked into herself and sought her soul".
She tried to correlate herself to the cosmos and find out the past. There in the indeterminate formlessness of Self she saw that "Matter learned to think and person grew". Life and Mind were formed, With Life. and Mind pleasure and pain as experience came. And yet all this seemed the work of a blind world-Energy. Man seemed only "A chaos of little sensibilities"
"Gathered round a small ego's pin-point head".
A "living personality" was not evolved and this mental person "felt a godhead in its fragile house" and "dreamed immortality".
This Mind which is the minister of the Self now acts as the King. But this mind is driven by life-force—"This mind. no silence knows". It is always disturbed, receiving messages from the external world through the senses. It also receives mental messages. Even in sleep it is disturbed.
The human being then flies into the mental plane "in imagination's car" and is able to conceive "ideals". But this mental being is not the true Self of man; true Self is hidden and lives within. Human nature holds within itself both the divine and the undivine powers:
"Careless guardian of his nature's powers".
"Man harbours dangerous forces in his house".
These lower powers "can act in his acts, infest his thought and life". They can even take possession of the human being and act violently in it and they can "break through the soul's stillness with a noise and cry". "Man's lower nature hides these awful guests."
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Sometimes these lower forces break out into the open in the collective life of man. Then they let loose blood-lust and "the will to slay", "and fill with horror and carnage God's fair world". Pain, destruction, calamity are then abroad: "Creation rocks and tremble top and base". All over the world there is "a momentary Evil's almightiness". But that does not mean that the world is delivered over to them. "There is a guardian power, there are Hands that save" humanity.
Man harbours all possibilities—of good and evil—within him. The past lives in him and the future is preparing in the present. Mind of man goes on working and creating its own moulds but at last it is some other will—a divine power—that works out the "intricate plan". It waits for its time and circumstances. Man is not what he appears to be on the surface of his consciousness: "A vast subliminal is man's measureless part". Like the ice-berg much of man's being is hidden below the surface—in the subliminal. Tendencies and movements rejected from the surface or from outer life persist in "our unconscious selves": "Old thoughts, old longings, dead passions live again".
"An old self lurks with new self we are;
"The old rejected nature still survives,
"in dim tunnels of the world's being and ours".
Very often,
"Our dead selves come to slay our living soul".
Thus seen, man is not a free being he thinks himself to be.
"Above us dwells a superconscient god
Around us is a vast of ignorance
Lit by the uncertain ray of human mind,
Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute".
But that is only the first self-view of Matter. There is a greater Self of knowledge waiting for us: "It shall descend and make earth's life divine". Summits of man's being are divine; there Eternity
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and Divinity are his birth right. We can feel the presence of this true self in us:
"One speaks within. Light comes to us from above". Even in the imperfect life, subject to ignorance, man seeks Good and Beauty, God and Truth. There is in us a greater Life-Being. Man put his consciousness on the surface and has succeeded in mastering Nature partially by his Mind. Thus he "grew towards an unseen heaven of thought and dream". Man is now able to take his stand on the mind and gaze above; "He calls the Godhead into his mortal life".
Savitri's inmost soul had achieved all this behind her surface consciousness and she found that she came to mankind to discover or create "a new world".
"Earth must transform herself, and equal Heaven" or "Heaven descend into earth's mortal state". That is the destiny of man on earth.
"But for such vast spiritual change to be,
The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil
And step into common nature's crowded rooms
And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life".
Savitri sat obedient to the high command of her higher Self and felt compelled "to find her soul".
THE ENTRY INTO THE INNER COUNTRIES
From the din and noise of her mind, Savitri entered her deep consciousness, and she experienced "emptiness",—her "Self" became a "blank". When she was in her mind she knew that she was a human being living in a limited material world. But 'she did not take her "surface person for the soul".
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As she was proceeding towards her soul, a voice spoke: "For man thou seekst, not for thyself alone". The spiritual attainment was not to be for her a personal achievement, but a work for the race, for mankind. It is only when the Divine "puts on mortal ignorance" that he "can help man to grow into the God". Alan is the disguise of the cosmic Divine. Savitri is asked to accept human limitations so as to transform human nature.
In her journey towards her soul Savitri separated herself from the body and looked at the inner depths of her being. She found that the dim portal was barred. She knocked and pressed against the gate. A formidable voice cried out
"Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die."
"The Serpent of the threshold" that was guarding the entrance of the inner worlds, "hissing rose". But Savitri had no fear, her will remained "unshaken" and so her being "entered into the inner worlds". She had some difficulty in forcing her way "through body to the soul". In the inner world where she entered "all was there but nothing in its place". It was all a region of the vague Inconscient. As she progressed towards her soul she "broke into a form of things". She came to a plane of being where things had begun to take "form"—and, were no longer vague and amorphous. This world was the sense-world where the senses could grasp the forms. Yet even here—in the sense-world—"all was still confused." "Soul was not there but only cries of life." All along sounds, visions, feelings, centred round ego—"a rally without key of common will", surrounded her. This chaotic condition of impulses could go on for ever. "This was the sense's instinct void of soul".
In the absence of mind life-force cannot do much, it remains only "a chaos of disordered impulses" "in which no light can come, no joy, no peace".
Savitri pushed away this state from her; she gathered her will from the crowd of impulses and fixed it "upon the saviour Name". "Then all grew still and empty;"—all the sense-impulses disappeared, and "she was free". She experienced peace.
But now a greater danger faced her,—"the physical mind". It released "a torrent of the speed of Life", "it drowned its banks, a
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mountain of climbing waves". This great flood demanded "God's submission to chainless Force".
It filled the earth with its primitive-impulses, "the honey-sweet poison-wine of lust and death", and felt it as "celestial". "It dared the force that slays, the joys that hurt". It brought about a surging of the opposite powers into the being,—ascent and sinking, tenderness and hate, laughter and tears, fears and joys, ecstasy and despair, These were the movements of the Life-force, ''full of ardour". They had their higher movements full of mixture. For example, one could enter here into "the valley of the wondering Gleam", intermediate zone of the vital being full of deceit and danger because of the false light it shows. Those who are attracted by this "wandering Gleam" are agents of life-force, not its masters. This current of Life-force flowed past Savitri like "a clamour of waters". Savitri stood unmoved, she did not plunge in the vain waves. It passed, "her spirit was mute and free".
Then travelling farther into the hush she came to Life-force that was chained, "Tamed to the modesty of a measured pace". She was now "A royalty without freedom". Reason had come in and tried to govern life. Now she lived within "laws", there was no freedom of the Spirit. Even thought was cut into a system or "rivetted to Matter". Life was made to move on "safe and level path." When reason had succeeded in its task it arrived at limited perfection.
"Action and thought cemented made a wall
Of small ideas limiting the soul".
Even religion was narrowed down to conventional worship.
Savitri travelled beyond this region and came to the "quiet country of fixed mind." She saw some one standing at the entrance, it was a commanding personality. She told Savitri:—you are a fortunate being to reach our brilliant air. Here you will find the perfect way of life. This mental region is the "home of cosmic certainty." "Here is the truth. God's harmony is here." She asked Savitri to remain in this realm.
Savitri replied: those who "can find the single Truth, the eternal Law" are happy indeed. If men can live anchored in fixed belief
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they would be really happy. But I must pass leaving this "ordered knowledge of apparent thing" which the mind gives, because "I seek my soul".
The being on the plane of mind said:—the Soul, the Spirit cannot be known,—nobody has ever known it. Mind is the parent of the Soul. Mind is the "sole creator of the apparent world". How can there be any one who seeks to go beyond mind?
Savitri saw the crowd of the powers of mind and was strongly attracted by them. But she controlled herself. She knew she must discover her soul, because "Only who save themselves can others save." The only way to save others was to find her soul and save herself.
She then cried out to the powers that had assembled asking them to reveal "the birthplace of the occult Fire".
Only-one of them answered: "0 Savitri!, from thy hidden soul, we come". "Follow the world's winding highway to its source."
"There in the silence" "thou shall see Fire burning" and "the deep cavern of they secret soul."
Savitri moved and felt the nearness of her soul.
CANTO FOUR
THE TRIPLE SOUL-FORCES.
Savitri began the ascent towards her soul. She came across a Woman with "moon-bright face" "in a pale lustrous robe". She was sitting on a rugged soil with "sharp and wounding stones" beneath her feet. She was "divine pity", a "spirit touched by the grief of all that lives". She was the Mother of seven sorrows. Her eyes were "dim with" the ancient stain of tears. "She had" beauty of sadness on her face. She spoke to Savitri:—
"O Savitri, I am thy secret soul".
"To share the suffering of the world I came."
She then recounted to Savitri the various forms in which she works in the world:
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"I am woman, nurse and slave and beaten beast.
"...the courted queen, the pampered doll
"I am in all that suffers and that cries".
Her spirit has witnessed and is even now witnessing, all the suffering of humanity.
"I have seen the peasant burning in his hut,
I have seen the slashed corpse of the slaughtered child,
Heard woman's cry ravished and stripped and haled
Amid the bayings of the hell-hound mob".
Not only in human life but in the life of animals, of all living creatures' she has known the suffering:
"I have shared the toil of the yoked animal drudge
"I have shared the fear-filled life of bird and beast,
"Its pain and terror seized by beak and claw".
In all walks of life the "tedious labour without joy" she has experienced. Her mission is to manifest pity and "sympathy making life less hard to bear".
The suffering of this power manifested as woman is endless. Heaven has been indifferent and Nature cruel, and yet she has not complained, she has only prayed: "A patient prayer has risen from my breast". She is resigned in her suffering and has a blind faith in her heart.
"I carry the fire that never can be quenched".
"And the compassion that supports the suns."
She has an assurance from the Divine who says to her "I come". She says to Savitri: "I know that one day he shall come at last".
As she stopped "a voice of wrath took up the refrain". It was the voice of the being in man that complains against the suffering of humanity and yet who at the same time seems almost to enjoy his suffering. He seems to take a perverse delight in his sorrow. The
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voice said: "I am the Man of Sorrows". I am he "who is nailed on the wide cross of the universe". He complains against God and voices his defiance and revolt against him, because of the injustice done to him.
"I am the seeker who can never find,
I am the fighter who can never win,
I am the runner who never touched his goal".
The eternal toil and effort without success is the character of this Man of Sorrows who is widely prevalent in humanity: "I toil like the animal, like the animal die." This type is also known in History. "I am man the rebel, man the helpless serf". He has thus the double and contradictory aspect. Even when he succeeds in loosening his "servitude's seal" he gets "new tyrants" on his back in place of the old ones he destroys. He labours and others enjoy the fruit of his toil. So he is left alone with his evil thoughts, for he has always a "quarrel against God and man", he has "envy of riches that" he "cannot share", hatred of other peoples' happiness. This type does not believe in pity or goodness or kindness. It always thinks that these things are "an investment for .return." Even "altruism is ego's other face." "He serves the world that him the world may serve." This spirit consents to his own sufferings: "There is a dull consent in my sluggish heart", "a fierce satisfaction with my special pangs", and a feeling that "only by suffering can I excel." When he is in revolt he does "demoniac deeds." His feeling is: "I was made for evil, evil is my lot". He thus confirms himself into his low state and effectively bars any chance of change in his being. He even justifies his condition by saying it is my nature and nature cannot be changed.
Savitri gave no reply to this being that had closed its doors against any transformation. She rather addressed the woman—The "Madonna of suffering," who had faith in the advent of God and in the consequent transformation: Thou art a universal aspect of my divine being put forth to bear the "unbearable sorrow of the. world." It is thy presence that saves man from despair and gives him hope.
"But thine is the power to solace, not to save,
One day I will return, a bringer of strength
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Then "Misery shall pass abolished from earth".
The anger of the Beast, the Man of Sorrows, shall also disappear. The world will then be free from "the cruelty of the titan and his pain".
"There shall be peace and joy for ever more."
Then Savitri went forward "in her upward route". There she came to a Woman in gold and purple sheen, sitting "on a boulder carved like a huge throne".
"Armed with the trident and the thunderbolt," she was royal in her mien with majesty and victory. She was the Mother of Might. In a voice like a war-cry or a pilgrim chant she said "0 Savitri, I am thy secret soul". In the human world she is keeping watch over "the battle of the bright and sombre Powers". She works to "help the unfortunate and save the doomed." She responds to the "cry of the oppressed", she topples down "the thrones of tyrant kings".
"I smite the Titan who bestrides the world.
"I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,
And Laxmi, queen of the fair and fortunate."
But she, the Mother of Might, finds that her efforts are not successful in leading man to God:
"The cosmic evil is too deep to unroot:
The cosmic suffering is too vast to heal."
She is able to help only a few. She has faith that ultimately she will not fail, because, "His seal is on my task." Her mission would be fulfilled "When God comes out to meet the soul of the world".
When Mother of Might had finished the voice of the Dwarf-Titan was heard. It was the cry of the "Ego of this great world of desire" that "claimed earth and wide heavens for the use of man". It is the aspect of man as the "thinking animal" who is a tool and slave of Nature. He believes that he is the possessor and the ruler but in reality "he is possessed and, ruler, ruled". He is Nature's
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conscious automaton. He said: "I climb, a claimant to the throne of heaven".
"For me and my use the universe was made", the Sun, the Stars, the air are all for my use. When I was bom I was small and weak but now "I have grown greater than Nature, wiser than God." I have seized Nature's powers and I create new and magical things which Nature could never do. "What God imperfect left, I will complete." I have mastered the world of Matter, I am its King now.
I am also mastering the secrets of Life and "Soon I shall know the secrets of the Mind". I shall even acquire occult powers. "When earth is mastered, I shall conquer heaven".
Savitri did not reply to this voice but turned to Mother of Might:
"Thou art a portion of my soul put forth"
"To help mankind and help the travail of Time"
It is because of you that man dares and can climb to heaven. But "Thou hast given men strength, wisdom thou couldst not give."
"One day I will return, a bringer of light." Then you will be able to see the self and world as they are seen by God.
Savitri ascended higher in her "spirit's upward route". She came to " A wide tower of vision whence all could be seen". Here "A Woman sat in clear and crystal light", with heavenly lustre in her eyes, sunlight face and moon-beam feet. She said: "0 Savitri, I am thy secret soul". I heal the pangs of the earth and lull its heart to peace. I create ideals for man, I reveal God to man. "I am peace,...! am charity"'...'! am silence,...I am Knowledge". When man's mind is divided between good and evil "I am the Power that labours towards the best". All forms of the Good, the Right, of freedom, valour, sacrifices, martyrdom, of Truth and Beauty—all these I am. My work has not entirely succeeded because "human mind dings to its ignorance", and the earthly life of man to "its right to grief." If man consents to my working I can save the world.
Then Savitri heard the "voice of the sense-shakled human mind" its limitation is that it cannot know the whole of the Infinite and so all mental knowledge remains incomplete. This mind can give man the forms but not the soul, or Truth behind the forms, It can know the external but not the noumenal, the real. It knows
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the process but "That which moves all" is hidden from its gaze. It said:
"I am the all-discovering Thought of man
I am a god fettered by Matter and sense
An animal prisoned in a fence of thorns."
Even though I have mastered Matter yet I do not know the secret of Matter and energy. When mind progresses all my knowledge is contradicted. All that I know is only "reasoned guess'. Soul seems a "speculation or a dream" and it is doubtful if the world at all exists. I would like to remain confined to the limits of safety, I would like to remain human for "Human I am, human let me remain".
This mind of man does not want to accept any higher possibility, any spiritual destiny for man:
"To think that God lives hidden in the clay
And that eternal Truth can dwell in Time
"This wizard Gods may dream, not thinking men." Savitri turned to the spirit and said:
"Thou art a portion of my soul put forth
To raise the spirit to its forgotten heights."
Because of thee "soul draws near to God" and "love grows in spite of hate". She also gave a warning to her:
"But not by showering heaven's golden rain,
Upon the intellect's hard and rocky soil
Can the tree of Paradise flower on earthly ground."
The reason for this is that in the Mind "only a bright shadow of God can come." When I return with the Divine then life will attain perfection.
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CANTO FIVE
THE FINDING OF THE SOUL
As Savitri ascended further she found a dark region, "a night of God"—as distinguished from the darkness of the lower regions. This was a region where there was no mind/no light, no heart, no knowledge—"A sacred darkness brooded now within". It was "formless, voiceless, infinite". It was in fact, "simple purity of emptiness". She felt only two things within her: a self and a prostrate yearning. She had no ambition, no personal strength for attainment. In this darkness "Silent she moved". "At last a change approached, the emptiness broke". She found a wide space, where the air was happy and the Dawn seemed to have risen there. It was a region which may be called "Truth's last retreat."
She "found herself amid great figures of gods." All the life-scenes of man and his evolution from the animal were depicted on the walls there and were as it were the background. The gods who were there were endeavouring to ascend "to the abiding and eternal in their climb." These gods were "executive figures of Cosmic self" and they came from the Infinite Sat-Chit and Ananda—infinite Being,—consciousness—and delight—"the triune being who is all and one"
"And yet is no one but himself apart".
Savitri knew all this "not by some thought" but "by the self", by identity. She passed from room to room of the soul and felt one with everything.
"She knew herself Beloved of the Supreme:
"Mother was she of Beauty and Delight,
The Word in Brahma's vast creating clasp,
"The Master and the Mother of all lives
"And Krishna and Radha for ever entwined in bliss".
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There she arrived in the last chamber where "one Sat"
"A Sun of which all knowledge is a beam
A Greatness without whom no life could be".
Savitri then passed through a tunnel and came "where there shone a deathless Sun," "a house all made of flame." In the living Fire she met wide eyes—"Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes". It was
"The Spirit's conscious representative".
"Comrade of the universe, the Transcendent's ray",
It was the deepest truth of the individual, one with the universal Being and a projection of the Transcendent. Earth's bliss and grief this Being her soul—welcomed with a smile. This Being, "knows the toil of mind and life". It is this soul that "puts forth a small portion of herself"
"A being no bigger than the thumb of man
Into a hidden region of the heart
To face the pang and to forget the bliss".
This projected part of the soul is the human personality in Nature which we see acting in life. It is supported by the "unwounded and immortal self" from behind. The soul gives the human being the power to live and act.
Savitri's human personality in her upward ascent met here her true Being, "the secret Deity". "They rushed into each other and grew one".
Then Savitri came back to her human surroundings: She was "human upon earthly soil" in the night, in "rain-swept woods" in the "rude cottage". The subtle, divine world withdrew from her.
She sat "in the deep lotus home" in her own natural being— "on concentration's marble seat", "calling the mighty Mother of the worlds" to descend into her, "to make this earthly tenement her house". The divine Mother descended into her heart and there was "a mighty movement" when the higher Power touched her heart-centre. "A naming serpent rose released from sleep". Then
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every centre of her being, from top to bottom, became "surcharged with Light aid Bliss" as the Serpent-power climbed mightily and stormily upwards.
"Then at the crown it Joined the Eternal's space. Thus throughout the string of forts that guards the human being from world contacts the high Power brought about a great change. In Savitri "all underwent a high celestial change," "powers and divinities burst flaming forth."
"In the country of the lotus of the head
"In the castle of the lotus twixt of the brows
"In the passage of the lotus of the throat
"A glad uplift and a new working came."
Then a transformation of nature followed in which "every act" of Savitri "became an act of God." In her heart "all the emotions gave themselves to God". Her vital being was tamed "to do a work of God on earthly soil." In the body "a firm ground was made for Heaven's descending might." Thus the entire human part of Savitri became harmonious.
Once Nature's veil is removed then "a Light comes down into the Ignorance".
"Then sin and virtue leave the cosmic lists" because, "Our words become the natural speech of Truth."
"Each thought is a ripple on the sea of Light."
Then the mind lifts a cry of victory:
"O Soul, my soul, we have created Heaven
Within we have found the kingdom here of God."
In this way
"A first perfection's stage is reached at last
Out of the weed and stone of our nature's stuff—
A temple is shaped where the high gods could live".
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This attainment of perfection is the promise for all mankind:
"One man's perfection still can save the world" because by such an attainment
"A camp of God is pitched in human time."
CANTO SIX
NIRVANA AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE ALL-NEGATING ABSOLUTE
After Savitri discovered her soul her "life was glad" for "she found herself". The influence of this inner perfection was felt around her,—"into her outward scene". The result was that
"Even the smallest meanest work became"
A sweet or glad and glorious sacrament,
An offering to the self of the great world
Or a service to the One in each and all."
Around Satyavan she now saw "the cyclic roundure of a sovereign life" instead of "fate's dark and lethal orb". She and Satyavan were now always together, "now no longer in these great wild woods" only but always and everywhere. Even when they were separated by physical space they were together,
"Body to body near, soul near to soul"
"Inseparable like the earth and sky".
Once when Savitri was sitting and making her "joy a bridge twixt earth and heaven" "an abyss yawned suddenly beneath her heart". Then "a formless Dread with shapeless endless wings" "enveloped the heavens and possessed the earth". It wanted to "end the fable of the joy of life". That which thus arose was "a consciousness of being without its joy," 'out of some sullen monstrous vast arisen," "imagined by some blind regardless self". Savitri heard in her heart words "that made unreal the world and all life meant".
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The abyss said: there is no soul, no personality,—"hope not to be happy in a world of pain". Do not try "to burden with bliss the silent still Supreme." "I am Death," "I am Kali," "I am Maya" and the universe is my cheat", for "only the blank Eternal can be true".
"All else is shadow and flash in Mind's bright glass.
"...from vain existence cease."
Savitri found "her inner world laid waste" and "a barren silence weighed upon her heart" because all her efforts at perfection were negatived by this voice. It reduced the world to an illusion. "Then from the heights a greater Voice came down". It was "the voice of Light after the voice of Night". It asked Savitri to hide her kingdom of Heaven within herself. It said: "not for self alone the self is won": it is not for thy own self that thou hast to win the self. Do not be content "with one conquered realm": there are many more fields to be won for the Divine. "Adventure all to make the whole world thine"
"Accept to be small and human on the earth
"That man may find his utter self in God".
You have not come to the earth for an individual achievement: you have not come to life to be merely "one door in the Ignorance opened upon Light". You have come "to aid a blind and suffering mortal race".
"To open to Light eyes that could not see.,
"If thou wouldst save the toiling universe,
The vast universal suffering feel as thine.
"The day-bringer must walk in darkest night."
By such sharing of the world's pain her divinity would not suffer or diminish for, "God must be born on earth and be as man", "that man being human may grow even as God."
In order to be able to realise this Cosmic unity, the being who
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would attempt it should grow into a supracosmic consciousness: such a one must be "wider than the universe" and "know itself older than the birth of Time". To the view of such a being, "the world's destruction" would be a "small transient storm" "in the calm infinity it has become." As to the solution of the question, how did the bondage come to the Transcendent the answer is you will know it when you withdraw your being from the world: "be God's void" then you will be "one with God's bare reality," "and the miraculous world he has become." You will also know "the diviner miracle still to be". Then only can complete transformation take place and Matter will be "the spirit's willing bride".
Savitri then became a witness "aloof and standing back detached and calm". Then she could see the movements of Nature and know the forces behind them,—"prompter's voice", "animal instincts", impulses, passions. She also could see the birth of "Thought". The human mind appeared like a "gramophone's disc" unrolling, almost mechanically, "a reproduction's film" indicating what is stored up from the past. There came "thought-sounds" and "soundless words" to the human mind, "These were but counters in mind's symbol game." All seemed "a list of signs, a cipher and a code." Very often mental stuff is born in the subtle or comes from outside. This is the ordinary thought-movement.
Then lower forces were also seen, "they speak direct" to the inner mind" of man. Great thoughts, ideals, come to man from far, enter the human brain and find expression in life. Savitri's mind had ceased to be an individual centre, it had become universal: "the great world's thoughts were part of her own thoughts". Thus, "the unseen grew visible and audible" to Savitri. She knew that
"...man evolving to divinest heights
"Colloques still with the animal and the Djinn."
In the arrangement of universal Nature there are no abrupt breaks, but "the high meets the low, all is a single plan".
Ordinarily, Mind is only "a dynamic small machine producing ceaselessly till it wears out". Very often man is not the creator of the thoughts that he expresses:
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"Often our thoughts are finished cosmic wares,"
they come to man ready-made and then pass through the subconscient and are "then issued in Time's mart as private make". Alan is not free in the movements of his nature: "Our tasks are given, we are but instruments".
"Nothing is all our own that we create". The material for everything that man creates is furnished by Nature. "The Power that acts in us is not our force". Even the greatest man receives either the word, or form or charm, the glory and grace "from a stupendous Fire". It is, as it were, a "sample from the laboratory of God" is given to man "wrapt in golden coverings". It may be an Intuition or an Inspiration. Even though man's ego claims the world for its use
"Man is a dynamo for the cosmic work". It may be asked: if Nature does everything and if man is only an instrument, what is the contribution of man to the cosmic work? The Master says that "Only his soul's acceptance is his own," soul has the freedom to accept or reject the movement of higher or lower Nature that is presented before it. Man has either to be "freed man—or God's slave".
In truth "Our consciousness is- cosmic" and our "mind is only a means and body a tool." Man can be free and even rise above the cosmos and survey the world. Savitri attained this freedom, became silent and then she willed the whole world to be dedicated "to God's timeless calm". Her mind and life became quiet. Even in the peace which she attained she could see that all the elements of old nature were present, only they were inactive. "All was suppressed but nothing yet expunged." Those old movements could return and disturb the calm. She found that some "Thoughts" were surging up in her being. When she tried to trace their origin she found that they did not come from "human Time". They were children of cosmic Nature, and like boats they sailed from the far wide expanse and with "easy access reached the inner ear." while pursuing the place of their origin Savitri "saw a spiritual immensity" "pervading and encompassing, the world-space". The cosmic Thoughts came from there. When they entered Savitri's inner being they "met a barring will"—"a blow of Force", and "sank vanishing in the immensity".
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All then became silent in her, "a silent spirit pervaded silent Space".
"In that absolute stillness" she met an all-negating Void which "claimed...sovereign right" "to cancel Nature and deny the soul". In that Void the world appeared a dream, and her soul something impersonal,—only a name. Sense was not able to act in the all", negating Void, therefore, there was no "form", but only "A sheer self-sight", a "self-seeing", a self-view. Events .could not provoke it into action; there was no response to external touches of Nature. Savitri acted, thought and felt impersonally: "there was no person there behind the act." Nature continued to work by the force of old habit. She upheld the action but did not participate in it. The only active power in her seemed to be that of "pure perception".
Everything became unreal in that experience, only, "a hollow physical shell persisted still."
The world was only "a cosmic film of scenes and images.." The universe was a "design sketched on a silent mind" and it assumed the appearance of solidity "by constant beats of visionary sight." Sky was "an illusion of the eyes," men were "mobile puppets", unsubstantial or like moving pictures.
The One alone was real, it was free from Time, name and form. It was like an Omnipresent point.
"Pure of dimensions, unfixed, invisible
Accentuating its sole. eternity." It was
"an endless No to all that seems to be".
"An endless Yes to things ever unconceived.
"An eternal zero or untotalled Aught
"The world is but a spark-burst from its light"
"All objects glimmerings of the Bodiless
That disappear from Mind when That is seen."
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"A formless liberation came" to Savitri: she found that
"Once sepulchred alive in brain and flesh
She was no more a Person in a world,
She had escaped into infinity."
In that state "she shared the Superconscient's high retreat" "There was no temptation of the joy to be"—the delight of Existence was not there.
CANTO SEVEN
Savitri's daily life went on plodding as usual. She was living in the supreme Mother's consciousness but nobody knew anything about her inner condition. "They saw a person where was only God's vast". All people found her "the same perfect Savitri." To all she spoke the same words, she did the same acts yet "there was no will" behind the word and act. Perhaps, it was the Nihil that acted in her, because "her mortal ego perished in God's night." She saw within her "the individual die, the cosmos pass".
"These gone, the Transcendent grew a myth." Yet there was a secrecy. Out of the Vast replies came to her questionings, sometimes in the assembly of sages she received inspired word. It seemed as if the inconscient Nature and superconscient mystery—a dual Power—, at two different poles, acted in her.
Now the Transcendent seemed to begin to act in and through her. She was sitting by Satyavan when a Voice began to speak and it changed every thing for her: she found that "all was" and "all lived", everything had a real existence and real life,—the world was no longer non-existent—unreal. "She felt all being one", "there was no more a universe built by mind". At the basis of all was "a spirit" that "cast itself into unnumbered forms". All was a Truth now "in which negation had no place". There "all was conscious," "all had a substance of Eternity". The Reality in the Transcendent "was her self, it was the self of all". The Reality "was Timelessness and Time", "it was the Bliss of formlessness and form". In short "it was joy of being on the peaks of God",—the delight of self- existence of the Divine.
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Savitri "passed beyond Time into eternity"
"She was all vastness and one measureless point".
Her being one with the Universal did not prevent her from being an individual because even that individuality was a "measureless point".
"All contraries were true in one huge spirit.
"An individual, one with cosmic self
In the heart of the Transcendent's miracle
Her spirit saw the world as living God;
"It saw the One and knew that all was He.
"All Nature's happenings were events in her:
"She was no more herself but all the world."
She felt that
"Nowhere she dwelt, her spirit was everywhere".
The distant constellations wheeled round her
"what seemed herself was an image of the Whole.
"The Cosmos flowered in her, she was its bed".
Thus now:
"The superconscient was her native air,
Infinity was her movement's natural space;
Eternity looked out from her on Time."
Savitri had gone not only beyond Ignorance and found her Soul but that Soul was Cosmic, it was also Supracosmic—Transcendent. She lived in it and so was beyond Time and space—and yet was omnipresent in Time and space.
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SUMMARY OF BOOK EIGHT
DEATH IN THE FOREST
SAVITRI gazed on her "sleeping husband" and felt like one who is about to die. She relived her life in that short time.
"The whole year in a swift and eddying race
"Of memories swept through her and fled away
Into the irrecoverable past."
She got up and bowed down to the goddess "carved by Satyavan upon a forest stone". Then she went to Satyavan's "pale mother, queen". She spoke to her with great composure so as not to allow her to perceive "a dire foreknowledge of the grief to come". She said to the queen: I have lived one year with Satyavan on the edge of the green forest in this hermitage but I have not gone "into the silences" of the forest. A strong desire has "seized all my heart to go with Satyavan" into the forest. "Release me now".
The queen answered "Do as thy wise mind desires". Then Savitri accompanied Satyavan "with linked hands" into the beauty and grandeur and majestic silence of the forest. Satyavan walked beside her "full of joy" "because she moved with him". "He showed her all the forest's riches",—flowers, creepers, birds. Savitri listened deeply to "The voice that soon would cease". She did not give attention to the sense of what he spoke: "Of death, not life she thought". Her heart was moaning with anguish at every step and she looked round to see if there was the dim and dreadful god of Death anywhere near.
Satyavan stopped now; he wanted to finish the work of cutting wood first so as to be able to wander freely with Savitri afterwards.
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Savitri, "wordless but near", watched Satyavan. "Her life was now in seconds, not in hours". But Satyavan, quite unconscious of Fate, "wielded a joyous axe". He sang and "sometimes paused to cry to her sweet speech of love and mockery tenderer than love". Savitri "like a pantheress leaped upon his words." Then Satyavan felt "the violent and hungry hounds of pain" in his body "biting as they passed". Then he felt a little relief. But "now the great Woodsman hewed at him and his labour ceased". He called out to Savitri who clasped him. Then he said: I feel a pang in my head and heart similar to that which the tree must feel when it is sundered.
"Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lap
And guard me with thy hands from evil fate:
Perhaps because thou touchest, death may pass."
Then Savitri avoided the tree which Satyavan had cloven and sat under another tree trying to soothe "his anguished brow and body with her hands." She felt no grief or fear; a great calm descended on her.
Then the colour of Satyavan changed into "tarnished greyness". Once before the light of life faded completely he cried out: "Savitri, 0 Savitri" "Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die".
Even as Savitri kissed him Satyavan died.
Then she found that they were not alone: "Something had come there conscious, vast and dire". There was all round an awful hush.
"As if from a Silence without form or name,
The Shadow of a remote uncaring god"
to his Naught illusory universe"
And its limitation of eternity", had come there and
"She knew that visible Death was standing there
"And Satyavan had passed from her embrace".
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SUMMARY OF BOOK NINE
THE BOOK OF ETERNAL NIGHT
TOWARDS THE BLACK VOID
So Savitri was "left alone in the huge wood", "her husband's corps on her forsaken breast". She did not weep, nor did she rise to face the dreadful god of Death. She felt "as if her mind had died with Satyavan". She elapsed closely the lifeless form of Satyavan. Then suddenly a change came over her—as it happens sometimes to the human soul—the veil was torn and then "the thinker is no more, only the spirit sees" and "all is known". "Then a calm Power seated above our brows is seen". It is "immobile", "it moves Nature, looks on life". "Then all this living mortal clay"
"Is seized and in a swift and fiery flood
Of touches shaped by a Harmonist unseen".
Immortal yearnings, high will, leap down on man. All this happened to Savitri "in a moment's depth". She remembered everything of her past "where she had worked in her lone mind" and created her human self, "a power projected into cosmic space". She saw that she was "the passionate instrument of an unmoved Power". This Higher Power descended into Savitri and "she was changed". She found herself covered with "immortal wings" of the Power. It entered the lotus in her head and stood above her "omnipotent", "calm, immobile, mute".
All trace of humanity in Savitri was, as it were, slain by Death. "The young divinity in her...filled with celestial strength her mortal part". She calmly laid the body of Satyavan and "sole she rose"
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"to meet the dreadful god". It was, as it were, to resume her work begun long ago in the past that she found herself there in the presence of the god of Death, "a limitless denial of all being, that wore the terror and wonder of a shape". It "bore the deep pity" in its eyes; it was "refuge of creatures from their anguish and world-pain". It calmly watched "life", the writhing serpent. Cycles of history had passed, stars had dissolved and this God of Death had looked on with "unchanging gaze." The two—woman and universal God—opposed each other. Then "a sad and formidable voice arose". "Unclasp...thy passionate influence and relax, 0 slave of Nature,...thy elemental grasp; weep and forget. Entomb thy passion in its living grave....Pass lonely back to thy vain life on earth."
But Savitri moved not. Then it spoke again: You are "a creature, doomed like him to pass", will you then deny Satyavan's soul calm and silent rest for ever? "relax...thy grasp; thy husband suffers."
Savitri drew back her heart's force and she rose and stood gathered for action. It was not she, the human person, who acted, she left it to "her spirit above". Then Death leaned over and touched the earth and Savitri saw that "another luminous Satyavan arose", "forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay". He stood between Savitri and Death. It had no resemblance to the physical body of Satyavan but "the spirit knew the spirit still". He stood "like one who, sightless, listens for a command". The three powers stood in silence. Then "the impulse of the Path was felt",—the impulse to move came to them. Satyavan moved, "behind him Death" "with noiseless tread...and Savitri behind eternal Death" moved, "into the perilous silences beyond".
At first Savitri moved in a blind tangled wood and she seemed to move on earth but on its top, with thick obstacles of boughs of trees and leaves around her. But she felt the subtle physical body a burden. "Earth stood aloof, yet near". Then gradually the true Being in her freed itself from the earth atmosphere, and "into a deep and unfamiliar air" "they seemed to enlarge away"—away from the control of earth. It seemed as if Satyavan and Death would escape now. Then her "spirit soared at Satyavan" flaming from her body's nest—like "a fierce she-eagle." Her spirit separated itself from the body and the physical body fell into a trance. Now she
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was not human Savitri; there was no Sun or earth, "All was the violent ocean of a will" "Where lived.. .her aim, joy, origin, Satyavan alone". He was thus imprisoned in her heart, "a treasure saved from the collapse of space." Savitri surged around him nameless and in- finite. It seemed "as if Love's deathless moment had been found, —A pearl within eternity's white shell".
Then her mind arose out of that ocean and the three moved onward in the soul-scene. They were the only travellers in this new world "where souls were not," "but only living moods." Everything in this country was weired including a "road which like fear hastening towards that of which it has most terror" passed through rocks and was lost in a giant night. Then they arrived at a heavy line and Satyavan looked back with his wonderful eyes on Savitri. Then death pealed forth a cry: "0 mortal, turn back to thy transient kind, aspire not to accompany Death to his home, as if thy breath could live where Time must die". Thy mind-born passion is not heaven's strength. "Only in human limits man lives safe." "Armed vainly with the Idea's borrowed might" do not dare to outstep mortal bounds. "0 sleeper dreaming of divinity", "impermanent creatures, sorrowful foam of Time"
"Your transient loves bind not the eternal gods."
But Savitri, the Woman answered not, her nude soul stood up in its sheer will, a primal force. "Lone in the silence" "a columned shaft of fire and light she rose."
THE JOURNEY IN ETERNAL NIGHT AND THE VOICE
OF THE DARKNESS
They stood on the dreadful edge of Night. In front of them "were glooms like shadowy wings". Beyond them was the hungry Night. In that sombre darkness Savitri's "flame-bright Spirit...burned like a torch-fire from a windowed room" "against the darkness' sombre breast". Savitri led the way. They moved in the "inky ground" of Night with "swimming action and a drifting march"; they went
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"slipping, gliding on". Time—past, present and future—dissolved. "They seemed to move" and yet were still, they felt they were "not conscious forms". "A mystery of terrors' boundlessness" surrounded her, and "a shapeless throat devoured her" into its shadowy mass. In impenetrable dread hung round the cage of sense,—dread of something unknown in the Night. The mind renounced the effort to live and its dream of action. "In the smothering stress of this stupendous Nought mind could not think, breath could not breathe, the soul could not remember or feel itself". To all that claims to be here Truth, and God, self, rapture. Love, Knowledge there came in that Nought the eternal "No". Savitri disappeared in it like a golden lamp in gloom, "there was no course, no path, no end or goal". The region was only "black unknowing Waste" or eddy of winds assembled by Chance. Death was not there, nor Satyavan. There was a silent gulf between her and Satyavan. She felt "even from herself cast out, from love remote". She travelled long hours "on the corpse of life"—"lost in a blindness of extinguished souls".
But Savitri lived in spite of death. She got tired of monotonous self-torture of pain. Then a faint gleam of memory flickered—"a memory that wished to live again". The whole darkness shrank back from this gleam as though it "felt all light a cruel pain", "and suffered from the pale approach of hope". In spite of the resistance of the Night "the light prevailed and still it grew". Savitri awoke to her lost self and she saw Satyavan grow "into a luminous shade".
Then death missioned to the Night his call: "This is the home of everlasting Night... Entombing the vanity of life's desires". In this nude emptiness can you hope to last and love?
But Savitri did not answer. She refused the very voice of Night that claimed to know and of "Death that thought." She knew that she was eternal without birth. Death looked at her and said: as you have survived the void you have won the "sorrowful victory" to live for a little while without Satyavan. After all, what are you going to gain from the eternal Goddess? Nothing but the prolongation of this dream of existence. Man is "a fragile miracle of thinking clay" and "armed with illusions" he "walks, the child of Time". "God" "heavens" etc., are only his imaginations. It is the mind of man that creates all these unreal images, and "the incurable unrest"
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Man is subject to Ignorance and yet he has die courage which is met by death. So, you should return to earth and live normally. Do not hope to win back Satyavan. I can give gifts to thee "to soothe thy wounded life". '
Savitri spoke: "I bow not to thee; 0 huge mask of Death!...Conscious of immortality I walk". I come to thy gates "a victor spirit" "not as a suppliant." I do not seek minor concessions like the weak. "Mine is the labour of the battling gods". I therefore demand whatever Satyavan "desired" and did not have during his life.
"Death bowed...in scornful cold assent" and said: "I yield" to his father "Kingdom and power and friends and greatness lost". And "The sensuous solace of the light" I give to his eyes. Go back "to thy small permitted sphere."
Savitri answered: I was thy equal spirit born. I am immortal in my mortality. My soul can meet the stone eyes of Law and Fate with its living fire. Give me back Satyavan to do with him my spirit's burning will. "I will bear with him the ancient Mother's load", "I will follow with him earth's path that leads to God." "Wherever thou leadst his soul I shall pursue".
Universal death cried out: You forget that you are mortal. I have created all things, I destroy them. I have stamped ,life with my impress, the life that devours. I compel man to sin that I may punish him, I goad him to desire and then I scourge him with grief and despair. Depart in peace without taking the risk of awakening the Furies.
But Savitri answered meeting scorn with scorn:—"who is this God imagined by thy Night.. .Who made for vanity the brilliant stars ? My God is Will" and he triumphs, "My God is Love and sweetly suffers all." "Love's golden wings have power to fan thy void" I "shall remake thy universe, 0 Death".
Then Death made answer to the human soul: You are attracted by the body's lure of bliss, and a sense of "vain oneness seeking to embrace the brilliant idol of a fugitive hour". And what are you? a dream of brief emotions, glittering thoughts, a sparkling ferment in life's sunlit mire. Against the eternal witnesses would you claim immortality? Death only is eternal. "I, Death, am He; there is no Other God". Everything is born from me, lives by me and returns
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to me. The world is created by me with the inconscient Force. I am the refuge of thy soul. Gods are only "my imaginations and my moods" reflected in man. Your soul is also myself. I am nobody—"Only thy thought gave a figure to my void" "because,... Thou calledst me to wrestle with thy soul,
"I have assumed a face, a form, a voice."
Even if one grants that there is a being witnessing all, how will it help thy passionate desire? It is the One that lives for ever. There is no Satyavan and there is no Savitri.
There is no love in the One, nor Time, nor space. It has no name, no form. If you desire immortality, live in thyself alone, forget the man thou lovest.
Savitri replied: "0 Death, who reasonest, I reason not" "Reason that scans and breaks but cannot build" "or builds in vain because she doubts her work".
"I am, I love, I see, I act, I will."
Death replied: You should also "know". "Knowing, thou shall cease to love," and "cease to will" "consenting to the impermanence of things".
Savitri replied "When I have loved for ever, I shall know." "I know that knowledge is a vast embrace." It is the "calm Transcendent" who "bears the world". He is "the veiled Inhabitant, the silent Lord." "My coming to life was a wave from God." "Man was born...with a mind and heart to conquer thee".
Then "Gliding half-seen on their unearthly path" "in the dimness moved the three".
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SUMMARY OF BOOK TEN
THE BOOK OF DOUBLE TWILIGHT
THE DREAM TWILIGHT OF THE IDEAL
IN the black dream there was no change nor even any hope of change, —all was darkness. It was "positive Non-Being's purposeless Vast." Savitri there was like "an ineffectual beam of suffering light". The will-to-be seemed there "the original sin" for which Savitri must atone. The greatest sin was to think that being "made of dust" she could equal heaven, to claim "to be a living fire of God", to harbour "the will to be immortal and divine". In that region of darkness "a great Negation was the Real's face.
"Prohibiting the vain process of Time."
Thus it seemed non-being must last for ever and Savitri had lived there "for ever empty of bliss." "But Maya is a veil of the Absolute"
"A Truth occult has made this mighty world:
The Eternal's wisdom and self-knowledge act
In ignorant Mind and in the body's steps.
The Inconscient is the Superconscients' sleep."
In life
"All here is a mystery of contraries:
Darkness a magic of self-hidden light,
Suffering some secret rapture's tragic mask
And death an instrument of perpetual life."
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Really speaking
"Death is a stair, a door, a stumbling stride
The soul must take to cross from birth to birth".
Although we are ignorant, "Night is not our beginning nor our end". We come to her from a supernal Light, "by Light we live and to Light we go." Savitri's being in the Darkness was like a "faint infiltration" that "drilled the blind deaf mass." That feeble beam "changed into a glimmering sight"
"That housed the phantom of an aureate Sun
Whose orb pupilled the eye of Nothingness."
Then the Inconscient grew conscious and Night began to think. The Darkness paled and drew apart on account of the attack of Light "till only a few black remnants stained that Ray."
Death "fled down a grey slope of Time."
There was now "a morning twilight of the gods" There is then a passion of new birth, coloured visions fly across the lids, thoughts fashion the ideal worlds. Savitri slipped into this twilight. She saw "vague fields", vague pastures, vague trees—a material world but not yet of our gross Matter. There were forms but subtly elusive. These "fugitive beings" and "elusive shapes" were "the natural inhabitants of that world." "But nothing there was fixed or stayed for long" and "beauty evaded settled line and form." But there was repetition of the same movement and that created "the sense of an enduring world". There was unearthly beauty, bliss and thrill that, though momentary, were far sweeter than any earth has known. The raptures of creation on earth—in life—last too long, their formations are absolute, they "win immortality by perfect form." They are too dear, too great, too meaningful.
"Here vision fled back from the sight alarmed,
And sound sought refuge from the ear's surprise".
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Everything in this fair realm was "heavenly strange." Savitri walked in this "illusion of a mystic space" feeling "bodiless touches," hearing sweet voices. There were repetitions of things but no fulfilment: "Thus all could last, yet nothing ever be." Satyavan seemed to her the centre of charm in this realm. Savitri, a comrade of the Ray and Mist and Flame, seemed only a "thought mid floating thoughts" and moved in this vague and beautiful world for a while. The spirit above saw everything and lived for its transcendent task.
THE GOSPEL OF DEATH AND VANITY OF THE IDEAL
An inexorable voice was heard:—
This vague world you have now seen is one from which thy "yearnings came". It is a dream-world and it is from there that the ideal is formed by the human being. But it is not based upon any Reality.
"The ideal dwells not in heaven, nor on the earth,
A bright delirium of man's ardour of hope
Drunk with the wine of its own phantasy."
It is "thy mortal longing" that "made for thee a soul". Love is nothing but "a passion of thy yearning cells," your mind only "dreams awhile that it has found its mate". It is the animal passion in you, "a beast of prey" and you dream that this beast "is immortal and a god." The effort on the part of man to persuade "the insensible Abyss" "to lend eternity to perishing things" is vain. Besides, the ideal cannot be realised in life; it lives only in the abstract world: it shines in man's heart "rejected by his life". Ideal is the "aerial statue of the nude Idea"; it stirs man to create an image of divine things in life. But only a coloured reflection falls on man's act—the ideal always fails to realise itself in life. Men "hide their littleness with the divine Name". Earth only is there. Even if Heaven and Truth exist they cannot come down to unhappy earth. Even "the Avatars have lived and died in vain":
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"Vain was the sage's thought, the prophet's voice;
In vain is seen the shining upward Way."
"Earth lies unchanged", "She loves her fall" and no Omnipotence can erase her mortal imperfections. This love you feel is nothing else but a sacred legend and immortal myth. It is only the physical yearning that passes and the world is as before. "A thrill in its yearning makes it seem divine", makes you feel as if it is "A cord tying thee to eternity". Love is brief and frail. "If Satyavan had lived, love would have died." You would have lost your love for him! It is true that love raises the human being to a divine height but even in the purest love "the snake is there and the worm in the heart of the rose." "A word, a moment's act can slay the god." "Love cannot live by heavenly food alone."
"Only on sap of earth can it survive." Love can be a victim of treason and wrath. Even "dull indifference" can replace its "fire", or there remains an "outward and uneasy union". Generally it ends by being a struggle between two egos who get disillusioned. Death saves you from this predicament and it also saves Satyavan. What is the use of calling him "back to the treacheries of earth" and "poor petty life of animal Man"? "Renounce,... thy passionate nature in the bosom profound of... Nothingness" and be at rest. Forget all human aspirations and be calm.
Savitri replied to the Dark Power: Your music is dangerous, your falsehood is mingled with sad strains of truth. But "my love is not a craving of the flesh";
"It came to me from God, to God returns." Even in the degraded forms of love, generally found in life, one finds "a whisper of divinity". One day I shall behold my great sweet world.
"Put off the dire disguises of the gods,
Unveil from terror and disrobe from sin."
We have met and known each other since the world began.
Savitri then commanded Death "Advance,... Beyond the phantom beauty of this world"
"For of its citizens I am not one.
I cherish God the Fire, not God the Dream."
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But Death once more replied to her:—Passionate words have no content of knowledge in them. "Vain is thy longing to build heaven on earth." Mind, persuades the human being to ascend to higher levels but this "Mind...walks lamely on the earth," it cannot control the tumultuous senses. Mind creates the idea of your soul. But body and life are subjected to laws of matter. "If Matter fails, all crumbling cracks and falls." But what is Matter is not known. It is "an appearance and a symbol and a nought". It appears fixed but that is only the "cover of a captive's motion's swirl". Matter is "a stable-seeming movement without change," and yet the "change k arrives and the last change is death". If you see the stuff of which you and the world are made then Inconscient will be found to be the foundation. By some movement within it consciousness I began till mind could watch its acts and "imagine a soul within." When there was only unconsciousness I could create this world by Necessity and by Nature. From ether and fire, atom and gas, the universe was created. Man was created by the chemical plasm. Then Thought came and spoiled the harmony. Mind that is "seeking ignorance" wants to find soul, a god.
"But where is room for soul or place for God
In the brute immensity of a machine?" .
Your consciousness, interposed between the upper and the lower Void "reflects the world around".
"In the distorting mirror of Ignorance", you are asking for immortality but for imperfect man it will be a punishment, an eternal pain. Wisdom, knowledge, love in spite of their appearance to the contrary have no basis in anything except Matter,—the Inconscient. If they are from the higher regions they have no significance for earth. All that man is and does is a dream. Everything that man is and does depends upon Matter—and "these children of Matter into Matter die." Even this Matter is nothing but Energy and energy means motion in Nothingness. Ideal's unsubstantial colours cannot be painted on "earth's vermillion blur." "The Ideal is a malady of thy mind"—and like all human things the ideal must share the human imperfection. Accept, therefore, life as is given to you, submit to Fate, suffer what you
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have to, then at last my long calm night will silence your heart in everlasting sleep.
THE DEBATE OF THE LOVE AND DEATH
Savitri answered Death: You have "woven the ignorant Mind into a screen." You are a sophist and take delight in "the sorrow of the world". "A lying reality is falsehood's crown and a perverted truth her richest gem." Thou speakest Truth "but Truth that slays. I answer to thee with the Truth that saves". The Divine, a traveller, made of Matter's world his starting-point: God covered his face in Matter, "infinity wore a boundless zero's form, eternity became a blank spiritual Vast". "The Timeless took its ground in emptiness" so "that the spirit might adventure into Time." The spirit built a Thought in Nothingness. Matter was made the body of the Bodiless and slumbering Life breathed in Matter. Mind lay asleep in subconscient Life and became active in conscious Life. The waking mind gave rise to the Thinker: Man became a reasoning animal: he measured the universe, opposed his fate, conquered and used the laws. He became master of his environment. Now he hopes to become a demi god. He now "sees the vast descending might of God."
"0 Death, thou lookst on an unfinished world", it is not sure of its road and therefore thou "sayest God is not and all is vain". But man is an infant today, shall he never grow? "In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks". So, in man's imperfect state the Divine is hidden.
"In God concealed the world began to be,
Tardily it travels towards manifest God;
Our imperfection towards perfection toils":
"the infinite holds the finite in its arms", "Time travels towards revealed eternity". We feel the presence of the Divine in all. The Sun is a blaze of his glory—the sky is his glory. The stars, the trees, the blue sea, the rivulet are all murmurs "from infinitesimal dust." This vast universe is His play and ''yet no play but the deep scheme of a transcendent Wisdom finding "ways to meet her Lord
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in the shadow and the Night." In the world
"His knowledge he disguised as Ignorance,
His Good he sowed in Evil's monstrous bed,
Made error a door by which Truth could enter in,
His plant of bliss watered with Sorrow's tears."
Through all the vicissitudes man has moved towards the Divine: All blundered and straggled towards the one Divine." Man began with very imperfect idea of divinity and there was plenty of mixtures of animality in his divinity. Wisdom, virtue and such other things have also failed to be without faults. Reason has sounded the shallow depths and caught small fish but the great truths escape her as they live in the depths. Man's mortal vision peers with ignorant eyes: His knowledge leans on error, he worships false gods, or is a fanatic, or he doubts every truth he finds, "a sceptic facing Light with adamant No", or cynic stamping out God in man.
In spite of all these the "Light is there." It slowly grows. Then larger dawns arrive, knowledge progresses in man. From beyond Mind visionary sight, inspirations come to man. A spirit within "hears the Word to which our hearts were deaf." "Thus all is raised to meet a dazzling Sun".
The mask of death "has covered the Eternal's face" and "The Bliss that made the world has fallen asleep",—it forgot itself completely and so Death and Ignorance govern the mortal world. The bliss is still there in Nature, in the charm of the earth, though the divine Inhabitant is veiled. It is the creatrix Bliss that has become sorrow:
"She comes to our hearts and bodies and our lives".
"Wearing a hard and cruel mask of pain".
Man takes a perverse delight in suffering and grief. So much has man become ignorant that even Saints and sages have dreaded this Bliss, which is "God's sweetest sign." Puritanical outlook has advocated the avoidance of pleasure. And "yet every creature hunts for happiness," it works hard to have "some fragment or some broken shard of bliss". Man sacrifices even "eternity.. .for a moment's bliss".
A sweet delight supports all being—a hidden "Bliss is at the root
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of things". The objects of this universe—"are carved cups of World Delight"—the Sun, the moon, the winds, stars, the birds, trees and flowers, all express this delight. "Even in this labour and dolour of Ignorance" "in spite of death and evil circumstance", "a joy to be" persists. This joy pervades all actions of man—good or bad. There is "a taste in tears and torture of broken hearts"—man derives per- verse pleasure in these experiences. "In life's nectar of sweetness and its bitter wine" this delight lingers. From the outward and the sensual man probes deeper and in thought and art finds delight. But the "perfect crown" of wisdom and joy is beyond the earth and is "meant for delivered earth".
Immortal bliss at last climbs to the summits of consciousness above mind and there like a "great heaven-bird on a motionless sea is poised her winged ardour of creative joy on the still deep of the Eternal's peace." It is for this great delight that the world is created, —for this the spirit descended into the Inconscient. "Our earth starts from mud and ends in sky." When the transfiguration comes then "all is new-felt in God", and then Night and death would end, because "when unity is won, when strife is lost"
"And all is known and all is clasped by Love
Who would turn back to ignorance and pain?
Savitri said: I have already "triumphed over thee," 0 Death, within;
"My whole being is filled with Love".
"My love eternal sits throned on God's calm;
For Love must soar beyond the very heavens
"It must change its human ways to ways divine."
"Love human must be transformed and become divine.
"...not for my heart's sweet poignancy
Nor for my happy body's bliss alone
I have claimed from thee the living Satyavan,
But for his work and mine, our sacred charge."
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"For I the Woman am the force of God,
He the Eternal's delegate sole in man.
My will is greater than thy law, O Death;
"Our love is the heavenly seal of the Supreme."
"For Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven,
Love is the far Transcendents' angel here;
Love is man's lien on the Absolute."
Death replied: You have hired mind to make for you a fine cover for your passion. But it is no use adding magic colours to the drab realities of life which are physical and material. How can "two-legged worm, man, be divine?
"Put off mind-painted masks:
The animal be, the worm that Nature meant."
Savitri replied: "Yes, I am human. Yet shall man by me,... Trample thee down to reach the immortal heights",—"my humanity is a mask of God".
Death cried out: You are living in imagination; how can you force two eternal enemies to join? For example: "Where Matter is all, there Spirit is a dream"
"If all are the Spirit, Matter is a lie,
"The Real with the unreal cannot mate.
He who would turn to God must leave the world;
and even
"Sages exploring the world-ocean's vasts,
Have found extinction the sole harbour safe."
Savitri replied "my heart is wiser than the Reason's thoughts", —"it sees and feels the one Heart beat in all." "My heart's strength can carry the grief of the universe" "and never falter from its luminous track", "its white tremendous orbit through God's peace."
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Death asked Savitri to show her strength and freedom from his laws. But Savitri answered she would find joys that were common to her and Satyavan.
Death asked Savitri to demand anything for her own self which he would grant. But restoration of Satyavan was against hard laws. But Savitri insisted on her only choice: "Nothing I claim but Satyavan alone." Death then promised Savitri: "Whatever once the living Satyavan desired in his heart for Savitri" that I give. But Savitri refused the offer and also refused to return to 'earth".
Death replied: Do you think that all joy depends upon one man? One easily forgets grief in life and the object of love changes "like waves to a swimmer upon infinite seas". But Savitri insisted on her choice which was the result of her feeling "eternal truth in transient things." Death asked Savitri to return to earth and try:
You will soon find other men equally lovable. Mortal being cannot dwell glad alone. Satyavan will then become only a memory. That is life—"A constant stream that never is the same."
Savitri replied: I and Satyavan have loved each other from eternity. The secrets of the gods are plain to me,—you will not be able to deceive me. Everything,—even life and death,—is only fuel for my unceasing fire. I shall certainly reach the goal and get back Satyavan.
Then her words spread into infinite space and became precursors. of a future change in humanity. Savitri called back her thoughts and concentrated all her force within. The three journeyed onward "companioned by the glimmering mists"! But everything began to flee faster before Savitri's clearness of soul.
THE DREAM TWILIGHT OF THE EARTHLY REAL
A SLOPE that sank downward came and the ideal air was lost, thought fell towards lower levels, to some hard and crude reality. The atmosphere became duller in colour; Savitri felt heavy and she saw minarets and towers, toiling multitudes "A savage din of labour" and "monotonous hum of thoughts and acts that ever were the same." She also saw fragments—"phantoms of human thought
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and baffled hopes," "philosophies and disciplines and laws", "constructions of the Titan and the worm." "Revelation and delivering words, emptied of their mission and their strength to save", voices of prophets, and creeds, "ideals, systems, sciences, poems, crafts", —each that claimed to be eternal in its hour—went by her. There were ascetics, lonely seers on mountain summits or on river banks seeking heaven's rest or spirit's peace. There were sages who "in bodies motionless" sat. Perhaps that was also a dream. All that had been in the past was there
"Because of joy in the anguish of pursuit
"The rolling cycles passed and came again"
"Brought the same toils"
"Forms ever new and ever old"
—"the long appalling revolutions of the world."
The voice arose once more: behold these figures and these motions and see how hope which man harbours is an "incurable malady," "where Nature changes not, man cannot change". Man has .got to obey Nature. The human race is moving in "ever wheeling cycles". Mind is limited, cramped, even when it can fly man "sinks back to his native soil." Prayers are vain, even when he calls the incommunicable gohead to be the lover of his lovely soul he is imparting his own will to the Immobile. "Hope not to call God down into his life", "there is no house for him in hurrying Time". There is no aim in Matter's world, there is "only a will to be". The lives of men, his works, his creeds that cannot save themselves perishing "in the strangling hands of the years", philosophies that solve no problem, sciences "omnipotent in vain"—that cannot tell what the things are or "why they came", politics and revolutions convulsing mankind "only to paint in new colours an old face"—"where leads the march, whither the pilgrimage?"
"If Mind is all, renounce the hope of bliss
If mind is all, renounce the hope of Truth
For Mind can never touch the body of Truth
"Mind is a tissue woven of light and shade
Where right and wrong have sewn their mingled parts,"
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It is only by renouncing life and mind that Self can be attained. If there is a God he is indifferent to man's destiny. He does not require man's love. Do not dream of changing this world and its eternal law of ignorance and pain. If there is heaven where there is no grief you should seek joy there after leaving the earth. "If thou art Spirit and Nature is thy robe" then cast off thy garb, turn only to God,—"forgetting Love, forgetting Satyavan".
Savitri answered Death: You can offer your boons to tired spirits, "hearts that could not bear the wounds of Time". "Let those who were tied to body and to mind" tear off those bonds. "...Thy boons are great since thou art He".
But how shall I who house the mighty Mother's violent force seek such a peace? The world is
"A language mispronounced, misspelt, yet true".
"The world is not cut off from Truth and God".
"Man's soul crosses through thee to Paradise". Heaven's sun and its light force their way through death and night. "How sayst thou Truth can never light the human mind" when from the meaningless Void creation arose, from a bodiless Force Matter was born, and green delight could break into emerald leaves, "and Thought seize the grey matter of the brain?" Why should not unknown powers emerge from Nature?
"Even now hints of a luminous Truth like stars arise" in the ignorant mind of man. If the door of the inner chamber of man "is even a little ajar" what can prevent "God from stealing in"? "Already God is near, the Truth is close". "I live in the glory of the Infinite...The Ineffable is now my household mate," "But standing on Eternity's luminous brink I have discovered that the world was He": Then Savitri makes dear to Death her mission:
"I am a deputy of the aspiring world,
My spirit's liberty I ask for all."
Death then spoke but its voice was that of one oppressed. "Disdainful, weary and compassionate" its sound seemed like life's. But it was life "Toiling for ever and achieving nought." Life has played long "with Fate and Chance and Time" and has assured
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itself of the game's vanity, it is "crushed by its load of ignorance and doubt". As knowledge increases so do ignorance and doubt. The earth-mind therefore sinks in despair. But could one say that nothing has been done? Some great thing has been done, some Light, some Power "delivered from the huge Inconscient's grasp" has come to stay.
The voice said to Savitri: "Because thou hast the wisdom that transcends
"Both veil of forms and the contempt of forms,
Arise delivered by the seeing gods."
The spirits who have "too much love" are violators of God. The wise are tranquil, the great hills that rise towards unreached sky are silent. But "how all shakes when the gods tread too near!" "If strength from heaven surprised the imperfect earth" time would stumble. Gods keep their power veiled. "Be still and tardy in the slow wise world", respect the established laws.
Savitri replied "if changeless Law is all" then vain is the hope of the soul. The world moves on to the new and the unknown. If constantly the restraint was not overcome in life there would be no meaning in the great travail. The law, fixed and immutable, is good for the animal but not for man. If I am Divine then "I claim from Tune my will's eternity,
"God from his moments."
Death replied: Why should the Divine stoop to these petty works of transient earth? Did you tread "the gods beneath thy feet only to win poor shreds of earthly life"?
Savitri replied "I run where his sweet and dreadful voice commands, "and I am driven by the reins of God." "Wherefore did he build my mortal form" "if not to achieve, to flower in me, to love". "Easy the heavens were to build for God." "Earth was his difficult matter". It is greatness to create Gods there on earth. What kind of liberty has the soul if it cannot kiss the bonds which the Lover winds round it? Free soul really "laughs in his rich constraints, most bound, most free".
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Death replied: whatever may be the Divinity that you are the iron rampart with which gods fence their camp in space cannot be broken by your "heart's ephemeral passion." "Even God himself obeys the Laws he made; the Law abides and never can it change". You have. seen a Light which none else has seen and you know that it is Truth, But what is Truth? Who can find her form amid so many sense-images, guesses of the mind, and incertitudes of knowledge? Which is the voice of Truth "amid the thousand cries" "that cross the listening brain and cheat the soul?" The two elements, —one positive and the other negative,—are constantly at work in the world: e.g. man is at once animal and god—the aspiring animal, the frustrate God. Man cannot become a God, cannot depend on ideas and when he tries to stand on reason he finds that reason stands upon a plank of doubt. Show me the body of the living Truth and I will obey and worship her; then I will give thee back thy Satyavan. "No magic Truth can bring the dead to Life".
When Savitri spoke her "mortality disappeared" and her Goddess-self grew visible: 0 Death, thou too art God and yet not He, but only his black shadow on the path
"As leaving the Night he takes the upward Way
And drags with him its clinging inconscient Force."
"All contraries are aspects of God's face".
Darkness below, a fathomless Light above,
"In Light are joined, but sundered by severing Mind". But they are two contraries needed for his great world-task. God's offence against human reason is this: that being Absolute he lodges in the relative world of Time; being omnipotent, he sports with chance and Fate; being spirit, he becomes Matter—he is animal, human and divine. As the Universal he is all,—as Transcendent he is none; and yet "There is a purpose in each stumble and fall." Even though to the outer view it seems that Matter is all and man's being is only a bubble on the ocean of Time still "the soul grows concealed within its house." Man studies life and thinks about its goal. "At last he wakes into spiritual mind."—There, in the spiritual mind—out of the narrow scope of finite thought—man glimpses eternity, touches the infinite and feels the universe as his
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larger self—and "in the heart's cave speaks secretly with God." A few have risen to the higher "air and bathe in its immense intuitive Ray,"—they live on the plane of Intuition. On the summits of Mind there are altitudes exposed to the lustre of Infinity. Man can visit those planes but as yet he cannot live there. There is Cosmic Thought of which man's mind is only a portion. But this is not the highest height possible to man. The consciousness can climb still higher and there "all becomes a blaze of sight,"—one sees the Truth. One can even rise to Revelation's sun-bright eyes. One hears the Word,—the voice of Inspiration. One can even ascend higher into the cosmic empire of the Overmind.
"Time's buffer state bordering Eternity", From there each God builds his own nature's world. There "all Time is one body. Space is a single book". The transcendent Mother sits above this Overmind holding the eternal Child upon her knees—the growing Divinity in the world. It is from there that the glory sometimes seen on earth comes and the perfection born from eternity.
"Calls to it the perfection born in Time."
The immortal Supermind lives above in its Truth-realm. There on the Supramental planes every movement is Truth—inspired and then it is possible for the soul of man to "sip the honey wine of Eternity" in the moments. The Transcendent becomes Many and the Immobile universal stands behind each daily act.
But who can show thee Truth's glorious face? Human words can only shadow her. If you could touch the supreme Truth you would "grow suddenly wise and cease to be"
"If our souls could see and love and clasp God's Truth,
Its infinite radiance would seize our hearts,
Our being in God's image be remade
And earthly life become the life divine."
Death made its last reply to Savitri:—
If Truth is transcendent of life what bridge can cross the gulf between her and the world she has made? who can bring Truth
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down to men? Have you got that strength? You have knowledge and Light but have you the Power—''the strength to conquer Time and Death?" Truth and knowledge are an ideal dream.
"If Knowledge brings not power to change the world,
If Might comes not to give to Truth her right.
"Reveal thy power, lay bare thy spirit's force
Then will I give back to thee Satyavan."
or if you are the supreme Mother show me her face. "Let death- less eyes look into the eyes of Death". Then thy dead can return to life and earth feel near the secret body of God.
Savitri looked at Death, and answered not.
"A mighty transformation came on her :
A halo of indwelling Deity,
The Immortal's lustre... Overflowing made the air a
luminous sea.
In a flaming moment of apocalypse
The Incarnation thrust aside its veil".
The Power descended into the centres of the body. She waited for the Word to come from the Infinite:
"I hail thee almighty and victorious Death"
"O Void! that makest room for all to be,"
"Consuming the cold remnants of the suns"
"Thou art my shadow and my instrument."
It is you who "...force the soul of man to struggle for Light."
"Live, Death, awhile, be still my instrument."
But now,...stand aside, and "Release the soul of the world called Satyavan".
Death was unwilling to obey her command and so he stood against Savitri.
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"His being like a huge fort of darkness towered,
Around it her life grew, an ocean's siege.
"Awhile the Shade survived".
Then
"A pressure of intolerable force
Weighed on his unbowed head and stubborn breast;
Light like a burning tongue licked up his thoughts
"He called to his strength, but it refused his call
His body was eaten by light".
The Shadow then disappeared vanishing into the Void.
"And Satyavan and Savitri were alone."
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SUMMARY OF BOOK ELEVEN
THE BOOK OF EVERLASTING DAY
THE ETERNAL DAY: THE SOUL'S CHOICE AND
SUPREME CONSUMMATION
NOW God's everlasting day surrounded Savitri: She lived in the finite fronts of Infinity—they were ever new to an everlasting sight. Delights, grandeur, powers, scenes, forms—all came from the eternal Source. Night was impossible there. It was "a march of universal power in Time" harbouring a cosmic rapture in endless figuring of the spirit. Of all that was there "eternity was the substance and the source". All occult planes were seen and found active: "seven immortal earths", ''homes of the blest", pastures of eternal calm. Even the earth-nature changed and "felt the breath of peace" Air and matter were transformed: other earths were seen and other beings. There lived children of God's day in a happiness never lost, —glad eternity's blissful multitude. There were voices musical, birds singing, and with coloured plumage, breeze full of fragrance, flowers with laughing eyes. In every guise one embraced the God- head. "What would be suffering on earth was fiery bliss." On this plane of the Eternal Day "rapture was a common incident", "limbs were trembling densities of soul". Higher up great forms of deities sat. Beings with bright bodies, tracing the movement of delight, Apsaras and Gandharvas were there; "immortal figures and illumined brows", the great forefathers of the human race moved in that splendour. The world of Light went higher and higher: "Worlds of an infinite reach crowned Nature's stir." "On a wide living base of wordless calm"
"All was a potent and a lucid joy.
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"There Time dwelt with Eternity as one;"
"Immense felicity joined rapt repose."
She found that only one Omnipresent Reality was working in the universe. And even
"One whom her soul had faced as Death and Night
"A sum of all sweetness gathered into his limbs".
formidable shape was transfigured. Night was transformed into a wonderful face. Then Savitri found that for such a rich transformation.
"All Nature's struggle was its easy price."
"The universe and its agony seemed worthwhile."
There was no torment under the stars, no evil, no hate. All perversions were changed into their original true forms. All was freedom and bliss. Death was transfigured into Love. It became a fourfold Being Virat, who lights his camp-fires in the suns,
"And the Star-entangled ether is his hold"
"Expressed himself with Matter for his speech." It is he who "In the current of the blood makes flow the soul." He has Will and Intelligence which work effectively without mind.
In him the Golden child shadows his form: this is Hiranya Garbha, "author of thoughts and dream," "He is the leader on the inner roads"; "His is the vision and the prophecy," "He is the carrier of the hidden fire". This is the second spirit.
A third spirit stood behind, "A mass of superconscience closed in light," "creator of things in his all-knowing sleep". "The omniscient Ray is shut behind his lids," "He is the Wisdom that comes not by thought," "Because he is there the Inconscient does its work", "He is the centre of the circle of God." "His slumber is an Almightiness in things." When he is awake "he is the Eternal and Supreme".
The fourth spirit is "the brooding bliss of the Infinite" which is above. Here the Bliss that made the world in its body lived. All forms of Love, Delight and Beauty were there.
All these four powers worked harmoniously in that embodied Light.
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Then a voice rose from the heart.
You have unlocked the avenues of the spirit's sight, and entered the divine planes. You have attained a vision beyond Time and beyond Death, "my tunnel which I drive through life."
"To reach my unseen distances of bliss". "I am the beauty of the unveiled Ray" drawing the pilgrim-soul of earth.
I am Ecstasy. They who have looked on me shall grieve no more. Two powers born from one original ecstasy walk near but are parted in the life of man: One leans to earth, the other yearns to the skies:
"Heaven in its rapture dreams of perfect earth."
"Earth in its sorrow dreams of perfect heaven."
The two shall join and be one. Attend that moment—but mean- while you two—Savitri and Satyavan,—shall serve the dual law making division your means of happy oneness.
But if you want to abandon the vexed world—you have to cross to the Beyond, casting off your sympathy with mortal hearts. You can ascend into the blissful home and live there as the gods "who care not for the world".
Savitri's eye smiled as she said:
"I climb not to thy everlasting Day,
"Even as I have shunned thy eternal Night.
"Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls;
Earth is the heroic spirit's battlefield,
"Thy servitudes on earth are greater, King,
Than all the glorious liberties of heaven."
I know all the glories of the perfect life of heaven. But "a heavier tread is mine". I am on earth "where the gods and demons battle in night". I am there '"to dare the impossible," "in me immortal love" aspires to embrace mankind. "Imperfect is the joy not shared by all."
"Oh to spread forth, oh to encircle and seize
"More hearts till love in us has filled thy world"
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"Take not the warrior with his blow unstruck." "Weld us to one in thy strong smithy of life." Savitri then pleads with the Voice to continue their union:
"I know that I can lift man's soul to God."
"I know that he can bring the Immortal down."
Her mission is to raise man's soul to the divine and his power is to bring down the Immortal in life. There is a divine sanction to our works: "Our will labours permitted by thy will".
The godhead replied: How would it be that earth-nature—human nature—would rise while the earth would unchanged? Heaven's light may visit the mind of earth, but earth remains earth subject to her ignorance, suffering and evil. Earth can have only "fragments of a star-lost gleam". She can have only "careless visits of the gods." She can have "high glimpses, not the lasting sight". On earth Heaven's call is rare, rarer the heart that heeds," "the doors of light are sealed to common mind". Man hardly responds to greater things except in the hour of stress, or when raised by some strong hand. Men slide back to the mud from which they climbed. They take delight in the mud which is their natural element. They want to be "common." It is also good that each creature is bound by its nature because "if this were easily disturbed, it would break"
"The settled balance of created things."
The call of the Divine is there in men and things
"But the Inconscient lies at the world's grey back
And draws to its breast of Night and Death and sleep".
The Nescience like a fond ignorant mother keeps her child tied to her apron strings.
Man is the key to unlock the conscious door—But his mind is limited. "He is barred out from his own inner depths".
O Eager Savitri! leave to time's tardy pace, to its "imperfect light, the earthly race." All shall be done in the long act of time. Rise to the sphere of the Eternal and live in Timeless Eternity and infinite Power. "Melt, Lightning, into thy invisible flame". Leave the limit
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that divides you and Satyavan: "Receive him into boundless Savitri." "Lose thyself into infinite Satyavan."
But Savitri answered: my soul and his are indissolubly linked to raise the world to God, to bring God down to the world,—to change earthly life to life divine. "I keep my will to save the world and man". "If thou and I are true, the world is true". "Since God has made earth, earth must make in her God". If man cannot outgrow his present limitation then a greater race than man must appear from man.
The God answered: "thou art the force by which I made the worlds. But you know the world-plan and the tardy process of Time. Do not lead the spirit in an ignorant world to dare too soon the adventure of the Light, the danger of the Infinite. If you do not want to wait for Time and God then do your work and force your will on Fate. .
But this is not the plane where Fate is fixed; for that you must rise upon a ladder to greater worlds where no world can be. The summit of Mind, greater Life-plane, or subtle Matter are only mediating links—they are not originating planes. If you want to deliver man and earth then, on the spiritual height, "discover the truth of God and man and world", "ascend...into thy timeless self".
"Choose destiny's curve and stamp thy will on Time." Then the heaven-worlds disappeared in spiritual light. Savitri heard the eternal Thought. She lived then as
"A rapture and a being and a force
"Bearing the eternity of every spirit
Bearing the burden of universal love
A wonderful mother of unnumbered souls."
A voice was heard. Chose now an immense extinction in Eternity. Silently the woman's heart replied: Give me the boon to keep thy peace and thy calm within me in the roar and ruin of wild Time.
The eternal cry rose a second time: Wide open are the gates, pass into silence if you like.
There was a world-destroying pause: Savitri heard a million creatures cry to her.
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The woman's nature spoke: Give me thy Oneness O Lord! in many approaching hearts.
A third time the call was heard: I give you the refuge of my wings, my power withdrawn looks forth above the "whirling of the world".
There was a sob from Nature in response. The woman's heart passionately replied: Give me thy energy, O Lord, to seize on woman and man,
"To take all things and creatures in their grief
And gather them into a mother's arms".
For the last time a sound was heard: I open to thee wide Solitude of rapture of my bliss.
The woman yearningly replied: Give me thy embrace which rends the living knot of pain, "thy joy, 0 Lord, in which all creatures breathe,
"Thy sweetness give me for earth and men."
Then a blissful cry arose: "I have spoken in thy voice."
"My will is thine, what thou hast chosen I choose
All thou hast asked I give to earth and men
"Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will
"I lay may hands upon thy soul of flame
I yoke thee to my power of work in Time
"Now will I do in thee my marvellous works"
"...thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light
"Men shall be lit with the Eternal's ray
Living for me, by me, in me they shall live.
"I will possess in thee my universe,
The universe find all I am in thee.
"Thou. shalt respond to me from every nerve".
From every where in every aspect and every object thou shalt see and know Me and
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"My eye shall look upon thee from the sun".
And Thou "shalt not shrink from any brothel soul.
Thou shalt be attracted helplessly to all.
"All that thou hast, shall be for other's bliss
I will pour delight from thee as from a jar,
"I will use thee as my sword and as my lyre".
It is my hidden presence that has led you uptill now,
"Who hunts and seizes me, my captive grows;
"O Word, cry out the immortal litany:
Built is the golden tower, the flame-child born,
Descend to life..., O Satyavan! O luminous Savitri!"
I send you forth,
"Bringing down God to the insentient glow,
Lifting earth-beings to immortality.
He is my soul that climbs from nescient Night
"He is my soul that gropes out of the beast
"To reach humanity's heights of lucent thought,
And the vicinity of Truths sublime".
"O Savitri, thou art my spirit's Power." You will show to men my glory in their ignorant life.
There are great things concealed in God's Beyond. Now Mind is all, it is the leader of the human race. But there are greater destinies and Mind is not the last summit of human ascent:
"There is a fire on the apex of the worlds,
There is a house of the Eternal's Light"
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A few shall glimpse that great Truth and
"Ascending out of the limiting breadths of mind,
They shall discover the world's huge design
And step into the Truth, the Right, the Vast.
"These are high forerunners, the heads of Time
"The first-born of a new supernal race.
The incarnate dual Power shall open God's door,
Eternal supermind touch earthly Time".
Then man will realise divine life:
"The Eternal's truth shall mould his thoughts and acts.
"All then shall change" —and "Light shall invade darkness of its base.
"All earth shall be the Spirit's manifest home
"An unerring Hand shall shape event and act."
Man shall forget to consent to mortality; the spirit shall be the master of his world, and Nature shall reverse her action's rule. Even if man should refuse his fate and hostile power cling to its reign, even then,
"The hour must come of the Transcendent's will
"The end of Death, the death of Ignorance" must also come.
But for that Truth must descend on earth and man must aspire to the Eternal's light.
Even that will happen, and when Superman is born then matter's world will be transformed and even dumb earth will become a sentinent force. The Summit of the Spirit and the base of Nature will know each ether as one deity.
"Even humanity will awaken to the deepest self.
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"The frontiers of the Ignorance shall recede
"More and more souls shall enter into light" and even flesh and nerves grow capable of a strange ethereal joy.
Savitri's soul sank like a star amidst laughter of unearthly voices —pursuing her was the face of a youth. Then it changed and grew a woman's face dark and beautiful. In the headlong fall—held like a bird in a child's satisfied hands—she kept within her heart the soul of Satyavan drawn down inextricably in that mighty lapse. Then she felt the "fearful rapidities of downward bliss." "A hospitable softness drew her in" and "she was buried in a mother's breast".
But in place of the silence of the Gods that had passed there was earth with its ecstasy and a laughter and a cry: "Over wide earth brooded the infinite bliss".
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EPILOGUE
SUMMARY OF BOOK TWELVE
RETURN TO EARTH
SAVITRI found herself in the forest where nature was all joy. She felt Satyavan's living body and again "Human she was once more, earth's Savitri".
And yet she was not now the same. She had a power in her that was too great for earth. The whole wide world clung to her for delight,
"Created for her rapt embrace of love"
She then turned round to recover old threads of life on earth. She cast her look upon Satyavan's face "not yearning now" but "There was in her no desire but a quiet rapture, a vast security. Then Satyavan awoke. He found her eyes waiting for his, and felt her hands. Then in wonder he cried :-
"Whence hast thou brought me captive back, love-chained,
To thee and sun light's walls, O golden beam
And casket of all sweetness, Savitri".
"....surely I have travelled in strange worlds
By thee companioned." "Together we have disdained the gates of night
I have turned away from the celestial joy".
Where is the formidable shape that rose again us? or was it all a dream?
Savitri replied : "Our parting was a dream". Look round, here is our home - this forest and the trees and birds. Then they rose and hung on each other in a silent look. Then Satyavan with anew flame of worship in his eyes said : what high change has taken place in thee!
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You were always bright and pure but you were dearer to me by the sweet human parts which earth gave you. But now you seem almost too high for mortal worship. "Time lies below thy feet
"And the whole world seems a part of thee
"By thee I have greatened my mortal arc of life
But...now thou hast brought me thy illimitable
gift" of heaven's unmapped infinitudes.
Savitri replied :
"All now is changed, yet all is still the same"
"We have looked upon the face of God", "we have borne identity with the Supreme" "and known his meaning in our mortal lives". But nothing is lost of mortal love's delight because "heaven's touch fulfils but cancels not our earth". I am the same Savitri, "the sovereign and the slave of thy desire" "thou art my world" - and "the god I adore". Now the world is given back to us and it is now known - "a playing ground and dwelling house of God" "who hides himself in bird and beast and man"
"Sweetly to find himself again by love."
Let us now go back because evening is coming :
"Let us give joy to all, for joy is ours".
Our spirits came not for ourselves alone, into life but "to lead man's soul towards Truth and God we are born." Then she closed her arms about him and for a while they stood entwined. "Then hand in hand they left the solemn place" for their sylvan home. Then "day and night leaned to each other's arms".
Then they heard a great sound - sound of human beings, many voices and sound of many feet and at last they saw "the brilliant strenuous crowded life of man." It was a brilliant crowd with torches in their hands - there were priests, strong warriors with
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steeds. In front King Dyumathsena walked with his restored sight. By his side was the queen with anxious face. Her eyes were the first to find out the two. The parents embraced them. Then Dyumathsena said chiding Satyavan:
The Gods have been gracious to me. Today my eye-sight and Kingdom came back to me seeking. "But where wast thou? "What danger kept thee for the darkening woods?" Then he turned to Savitri and said: , .
It was not like thyself, Savitri: "Who ledst not back thy husband to our arms"
Satyavan replied: It is all her fault she is the cause of all!
"Behold, at noon leaving this house of clay
I wandered in far off eternities,
Yet still, a captive in her golden hands,
I tread your little hillock called green earth
And in the moments of your transient sun
Live glad among the busy works of men."
Then a priest and a sage spoke: what light, what power revealed opens for us by thee a happier age?
Savitri replied:
"That to feel love and oneness is to live
"Is all the truth I know or seek",
Then murmur and movement and tread of men broke the night's solitude—
Then the moon in her stillness "nursed a greater dawn."
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SRI AUROBINDO ON SAVITRI
APPENDIX I
Relevant Quotations from letters throwing light on the history of Savitri and its quality.
"Savitri was originally written many years ago before the Mother came, as a narrative poem in two parts. Part I Earth and Part II Beyond (these two parts are still extant in the scheme, each of four Books—or rather Part II consisted of three books and an epilogue).
Twelve books to an epic is a classical superstition, but new Savitri may extend to ten Books—if much is added in the final revision it may be even twelve. The first Book has been lengthening and lengthening out....As for the second Part, I have not touched it yet. There was no climbing of planes there in the first version —rather Savitri moved through the worlds of Night, of Twilight, of Day—all of course in a spiritual sense—and ended by calling down the power of the Highest Worlds of Sachchidananda. I had no idea of what the supramental World could be like at that time, so it could not enter into the scheme...."
(Letter 1936)
"The poem was originally written from a lower level, a mixture perhaps of the inner mind, psychic, poetic intelligence, sublimised vital, afterwards with the Higher Mind, often illumined and intuitivised, intervening.... Moreover there have been several successive revisions each trying to lift the general level higher and higher towards a possible Overmind poetry. As it now stands there
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is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence, or vital towards them.... It is only occasionally that it is pure Higher Mind—a mixture of the Intuitive or Illumined is usually there......"
- Letters on "Savitri"—1936
"...I do not work at the poem once a week, I have other things to do. Once a month perhaps, I look at the new form of the first Book and make such changes as inspiration points out to me—so that nothing shall fall below the minimum height which I have fixed for it"
—Life, Literature and Yoga—letter 31
"The poems come as a stream beginning at the first line and ending at the \3St....Savitri is a work by itself unlike all the others. I made some eight or ten recasts of it originally under the old insufficient inspiration. Afterwards I am altogether rewriting it, concentrating on the first Book and working on it over and over again with the hope that every line may be of a perfect perfection—but I have hardly any time now for such work". —Letters on "Savitri"—1934
"Moreover if it is really new in kind, it may employ a new technique, not perhaps absolutely new, but new in some or many of its elements: in that case old rules and canons and standards may be quite inapplicable;... We have to see whether what is essential to poetry is there and how far the new technique justifies itself by new beauty and perfection, and a certain freedom of mind from old conventions is necessary if our judgment is to be valid or rightly objective."
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..."if I have not poetical genius, at least I can claim a sufficient, if not an infinite capacity for painstaking: that I have sufficiently shown by my long labour on Savitri.... Since it was not a labour in the ordinary sense,...! may describe it as an infinite capacity for waiting and listening for the true inspiration and rejecting all that fell short of it, however good it might seem form a lower standard .until I got that which I felt to be absolutely right."
VII
"There may still be a place for a poetry which seeks to enlarge the field of poetic creation and find for inner spiritual life of man and his now occult or mystical knowledge and experience of the whole hidden range of his and the world's being, not a comer and a limited expression such as it had in the past, but a wide space and as manifold and integral an expression of the boundless and innumerable riches that lie hidden and unexplored as if kept apart under the direct gaze of the Infinite as has been found in the past of man's surface and finite view and experience of himself and...it as best he can with a limited mind and senses. The door that has been shut to all but a few may open; the kingdom of the Spirit may be established not only in man's inner being but in his life and his works. Poetry also may have its share in that revolution and become part of the spiritual empire."
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APPENDIX II
SAVITRI'S APPEARANCE
Savitri is admittedly a divine Incarnation and some people may find her too etherial or symbolic. In order to show how the Master has solved this difficult problem it is interesting to study Savitri's appearance and the description of her inner state in different situations.
Though the first Canto gives Savitri's detailed description, sequentially it should come third or fourth. The very first prophetic description is given on the occasion of the boon to Aswapathy by the Divine Mother. It is her description before the birth.
The appendix begins with that description. Then in order of time comes the vision which Aswapathy sees when Savitri approaches him in the palace. It is one which shows how the subtle sight can work independently of the physical appearance. The third description is that by Narad when she returns after her choice of Satyavan. It is the vision of a Divine Man. The fourth occasion is when she prepares herself to meet Death—on the last day. It is the one with which the book opens.
.The last occasion is when Savitri actually faces Death and unveils her Divinity.
The reader will see that Aswapathy sees her as some unknown divine soul full of immense spiritual possibilities. He awakens in her the sense of those vast possibilities. She goes in search of her partner. When Narad sees her on her return after the choice he finds in her the exuberance of beauty, and delight due to the fulfilment of Love. But his description of Savitri is one of the most wonderful feats of poetic inspiration giving voice to Overmental sight. It is one of the most impassioned and yet impersonal descriptions.
The description of Savitri on the last day before she faces Death is suffused with strains cosmic pathos mingled with the grandeur
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of Divine Grace. It has sufficient elements to make her human and yet it is her divinity that dominates. As Sri Aurobindo himself wrote it contains the Overmental intuition at its highest.
The occasion when Savitri faces Death furnishes the reader another view of Savitri as an Incarnation. The reader will note the difference in the physical detail as well in psychological elements on each occasion.
PROPHETIC VISION
"A limitless Mind that can contain the world,
A sweet and violent heart of ardent calms
Moved by the passions of the gods shall come.
All mights and greatnesses shall join in her;
Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth,
Delight shall sleep in the cloud-net of her hair
And in her body as on his homing tree
Immortal Love shall beat his glorious wings.
A music of griefless things shall weave her charm;
The harps of the Perfect shall attune her voice,
The streams of Heaven shall murmur in her laugh,
Her lips shall be the honeycombs of God,
Her limbs his golden jars of ecstasy,
Her breasts the rapture-flowers of Paradise.
She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom,
Strength shall be with her like a conqueror's sword
And from her eyes the Eternal's bliss shall gaze.
A seed shall be sown in Death's tremendous hour,
Nature shall over leap her mortal step;
Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will!"
(P. 314 Vol. I)
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ASWAPATHY SEES SAVITRI
"Approached through sun-bright spaces Savitri.
Advancing amid tall heaven-pillaring trees,
Apparelled in her flickering-coloured robe,
She seemed burning towards the eternal realms
A bright moved torch of incense arid of flame
That from the sky-roofed temple-soil of earth
pilgrim hand lifts in an invisible shrine.
There came the gift of a revealing hour:
He saw through depths that reinterpret all,
Limited not now by the dull body's eyes,
New-found through an arch of clear discovery,
This intimation of the world's delight,
This wonder of the divine Artist's make
Carved like a nectar-cup for thirsty gods,
This breathing Scripture of the Eternal's joy,
This net of sweetness woven of aureate fire.
Transformed the delicate image-face became
A deeper Nature's self-revealing sign,
A gold-leaf palimpsest of sacred births,
A grave world-symbol chiselled out of life.
Her brow, a copy of clear unstained heavens,
Was meditation's pedestal and defence,
The very room and smile of musing Space,
Its brooding line infinity's symbol curve.
Amid her tresses' cloudy multitude
The long eyes shadowed as by wings of Night
Under that moon-gold forehead's dreaming breadth
Were seas of love and thought that held the world,
Marvelling at life and earth they saw truths far.
A deathless meaning filled her mortal limbs,
As in a golden vase's poignant line
They seemed to carry the rhythmic sob of bliss .
Of earth's mute adoration towards heaven
Released in beauty's cry of living form
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Towards the perfection of eternal things.
Transparent grown the ephemeral living dress
Bared the expressive deity to his view.
Escaped from surface sight and mortal sense
The seizing harmony of its shapes became
The strange significant icon of a Power
Into a human figure of its works
That stood out in life's bold abrupt relief
On the soil of the evolving universe,
A godhead sculptured on a wall of thought,
In Matter as in a cathedral cave.
Annulled were the transient values of the mind,
The body's sense renounced its earthly look,
Immortal met immortal in their gaze.
Awaked from the close spell of daily use
That hides soul-truth with the outward form's disguise,
He saw through the familiar cherished limbs
{Vol. II, p. 24) III
NARAD SEES SAVITRI
"Her radiant tread glimmered across the floor.
A happy wonder in her fathomless gaze,
Changed by the halo of her love she came;
Her eyes rich with a shining mist of joy
As one who comes from a heavenly embassy
Discharging the proud mission of her heart,
One carrying the sanction of the gods
To her love and its luminous eternity
She stood before her mighty father's throne
And, eager for beauty on discovered earth
Transformed and new in her heart's miracle-light,
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Saw like a rose of marvel, worshipping,
The fiery sweetness of the son of Heaven.
He flung on her his vast immortal look;
His inner gaze surrounded her with its light
And reining back knowledge from his immortal lips
He cried to her, "Who is this that comes, the bride,
The flame-born, and round her illumined head
Pouring their lights her hymeneal pomps
Move flashing about her? From - what green glimmer
of glades
Retreating into dewy silences
Or half-seen verge of waters moon-betrayed
Bringst thou this glory of enchanted eyes?
Earth has gold-hued expanses, shadowy hills
That cowl their dreaming phantom heads in night,"
And guarded in a cloistral joy of woods,
Screened banks sink down into felicity
Seized by the curved incessant yearning hands
And ripple-passion of the up-gazing stream:
Amid cool-lipped murmurs of its pure embrace
They lose their souls on beds of trembling reeds.
And all these are mysterious presences
In which some spirit's immortal bliss is felt,
And they betray the earth-born heart to joy.
There hast thou paused, and marvelling borne eyes
Unknown, or heard a voice that forced thy life
To strain its rapture through thy listening soul?
Or, if my thought could trust this shimmering gaze,
It would say: thou hast not drunk from an earthly cup,
But stepping through azure curtains of the morn
Thou wast surrounded on a magic verge
In brighter countries than man's eyes can bear.
Assailed by trooping voices of delight
And seized mid a sunlit glamour of the boughs
In faery woods, led down the gleaming slopes
Of Gandhamadan where the Apsaras roam,
Thy limbs have shared the sports which none has seen,
And in god-haunts thy human footsteps strayed,
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Thy mortal bosom quivered with god-speech
And thy soul answered to a Word unknown.
What feet of gods, what ravishing flutes of heaven
Have thrilled high melodies round, from near and far
Approaching through the soft and revelling air,
Which still surprised thou hearest? They have fed
Thy silence on some red strange-ecstasised fruit
And thou hast trod the dim moon-peaks of bliss.
Reveal, O winged with light, whence thou hast flown
Hastening bright-hued through the green-tangled earth,
Thy body rhythmical with the spring-bird's call.
The empty roses of thy hands are filled
Of a remembered clasp, and in thee glows
A heavenly jar, thy firm deep-honied heart,
New-brimming with a sweet and nectarous wine.
Thou hast not spoken with the kings of pain.
Life's perilous music rings yet to thy ear
Far-melodied, rapid, grand, a Centaur's song,
Or soft as water plashing mid the hills,
Or mighty as a great chant of many winds.
Moon-bright thou livest in thy inner bliss.
Thou comest like a silver deer through groves
Of coral flowers and buds of glowing dreams,
Or fleest like a wind-goddess through leaves,
Or roamest, O ruby-eyed and snow-winged dove,
Flitting through thickest of thy pure desires
In the unwounded beauty of thy soul.
These things are only images to thy earth,
But truest truth of that which in thee sleeps.
For such is thy spirit, a sister of the gods,
Thy earthly body lovely to the eyes,
And thou art kin in joy to heaven's sons.
O thou who hast come to this great perilous world
Now only seen through the splendour of thy dreams,
Where hardly love and beauty can live safe,
Thyself a being dangerously great,
A soul alone in a golden house of thought
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Has lived walled in by the safety of thy dreams.
On heights of happiness leaving doom asleep
Who hunts unseen the unconscious lives of men,
If thy heart could live locked in the ideal's gold,
As high, as happy might thy waking be!
If for all time doom could be left to sleep!"
(Vol. II pp 65,66,68)
SAVITRI BEFORE FACING DEATH
"And Savitri too awoke among these tribes
That hastened to join the brilliant Summoner's chant
And, lured by the beauty of the apparent ways,
Acclaimed their portion of ephemeral joy.
Akin to the eternity whence she came,
No part she took in this small happiness;
A mighty stranger in the human field,
The embodied Guest within made no response.
The call that wakes the leap of human mind,
Its chequered eager motion of pursuit,
Its fluttering-hued illusion of desire,
Visited her heart like a sweet alien note.
Time's message of brief light was not for her.
In her there was the anguish of the gods
Imprisoned in our transient human mould,
The deathless conquered by the death of things.
A vaster Nature's joy had once been hers,
But long could keep not its gold heavenly hue
Or stand upon this brittle earthly base.
A narrow movement on Time's deep abysm,
Life's fragile littleness denied the power,
The proud and conscious wideness and the bliss
She had brought with her into the human form,
The calm delight that weds one soul to all,
The key to the flaming doors of ecstasy.
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Earth's grain that needs the sap of pleasure and tears
Rejected the undying rapture's boon:
Offered to the daughter of infinity
Her passion-flower of love and doom she gave.
In vain now seemed the splendid sacrifice.
A prodigal of her rich divinity,
Her self and all she was she had lent to men,
Hoping her greater being to implant
That heaven might native grow on mortal soil.
Too unlike the world she came to help and save,
Her greatness weighed upon its ignorant breast,
And from its deep chasms welled a dire return,
A portion of its sorrow, struggle, fall.
To live with grief, to confront death on her road,—
The mortal's lot became the Immortal's share.
Thus trapped in the gin of earthly destinies,
Awaiting her ordeal's hour abode,
Outcast from her inborn felicity,
Accepting life's obscure terrestrial robe,
Hiding herself even from those she loved,
The godhead greater by a human fate.
A dark foreknowledge separated her
From all of whom she was the star and stay,
Too great to impart the peril and the pain,
In her torn depths she kept the grief to come,
As one who watching over men left blind
Takes up the load of an unwitting race,
Harbouring a foe whom with her heart she must feed,
Unknown her act, unknown the doom she faced,
Unhelped she must foresee and dread and dare.
Even in this moment of her soul's despair,
In its grim rendezvous with death and fear,
No cry broke from her lips, no call for aid;
She told the secret of her woe to none:
Calm was her face and courage kept her mute.
Yet only her outward self suffered and strove;
Even her humanity was half divine;
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Her spirit opened to the Spirit in all,
Her nature felt all Nature as its own.
Apart, living within, all lives she bore;
Aloof, she carried in herself the world:
Her dread was one with the great cosmic dread,
Her strength was founded on the cosmic mights;
The universal Mother's love was hers.
Against the evil at life's afflicted roots,
Her own calamity its private sign,
Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword.
A solitary mind, a world-wide heart,
To the lone Immortal's unshared work she rose.
At first life grieved not in her burdened breast:
On the lap of earth's original somnolence
Inert, released into forgetfulness
Prone it reposed, unconscious on mind's verge,
Obtuse and tranquil like the stone and star.
In a deep cleft of silence twixt two realms
She lay remote from grief, unsawn by care,
Nothing recalling of the sorrow here.
Then a slow faint remembrance shadowlike moved,
And sighing she laid her hand upon her bosom
And recognised the close and lingering ache,
Deep, quiet, old, made natural to its place,
But knew not why it was there nor whence it came.
The Power that kindles mind was still withdrawn:
Heavy, unwilling were life's servitors
Like workers with no wages of delight;
Sullen, the torch of sense refused to burn;
The unassisted brain found not its past.
Only a vague earth-nature held the frame.
But now she stirred, her life shared the cosmic load.
At the summons of her body's voiceless call
Her strong far-winging spirit travelled back,
Back to the yoke of ignorance and fate,
Back to the labour and stress of mortal days,
Lighting a pathway through strange symbol dreams
Across the ebbing of the seas of sleep.
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Her house of Nature felt an unseen sway,
Illumined swiftly were life's darkened rooms,
And memory's casements opened on the hours
And the tired feet of thought approached her doors.
All came back to her: Earth and Love and Doom,
The ancient disputants, encircled her
Like giant figures wrestling in the night:
The godheads from the dim Inconscient born
Awoke to struggle and the pang divine,
And in the shadow of her naming heart,
At the sombre centre of the dire debate,
A guardian of the unconsoled abyss
Inheriting the long agony of the globe,
A stone-still figure of high and godlike Pain
Stared into space with fixed regardless eyes
That saw grief's timeless depths but not life's goal.
Afflicted by his harsh divinity,
Bound to his throne, he waited unappeased
The daily oblation of her unwept tears.
All the fierce question of man's hours relieved.
The sacrifice of suffering and desire
Earth offers to the immortal Ecstasy
Began again beneath the eternal Hand.
Awake she endured the moments' serried march
And looked on this green smiling dangerous world,
And heard the ignorant cry of living things.
Amid the trivial sounds, the unchanging scene
Her soul arose confronting Time and Fate.
Immobile in herself, she gathered force.
This was the day when Satyavan must die."
Vol. I pp-7-13
SAVITRI FACING DEATH
"And Savitri looked on Death and answered not.
Almost it seemed as if in his symbol shape
Page 381
The world's darkness had consented to Heaven-light
And God needed no more the Inconscient's screen.
A mighty transformation came on her.
A halo of the indwelling Deity,
The Immortal's lustre that had lit her face
And tented its radiance in her body's house,
Overflowing made the air a luminous sea.
The Incarnation thrust aside its veil.
A little figure in infinity
Yet stood and seemed the Eternal's very house,
As if the world's centre was her very soul
all wide space was but its outer robe.
A curve of the calm hauteur of far heaven
Descending into earth's humility,
Her forehead's span vaulted the Omniscient's gaze,
Her eyes were two stars that watched the universe.
The Power that from her being's summit reigned,
The Presence chambered in lotus secrecy,
Came down and held the centre in her brow
Where the mind's Lord in his control-room sits;
There throned on concentration's native seat
He opens that third mysterious eye in man,
The Unseen's eye that looks at the unseen,
When Light with a golden ecstasy fills his brain
And the Eternal's wisdom drives his choice
And eternal Will seizes the mortal's will.
It stirred in the lotus of her throat of song,
And in her speech throbbed the immortal Word,
Her life sounded with the steps of the World-Soul
Moving in harmony with the cosmic Thought.
As glides God's sun into the mystic cave
Where hides his light from the pursuing gods,
It glided into the lotus of her heart
And woke in it the Force that alters Fate.
It poured into a navel's lotus depth,
Lodged in the little life-nature's narrow home,
On the body's longings grew heaven-rapture's flower
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And made desire a pure celestial flame,
Broke into the cave where coiled World-Energy sleeps
And smote the thousand-hooded serpent Force
That blazing towered and clasped the World-Self above,
Joined Matter's dumbness to the Spirit's hush
And filled earth's acts with the Spirit's silent power.
Thus changed she waited for the Word to speak.
Eternity looked into the eyes of Death. .
And Darkness saw God's living Reality."
Vol. II p. 291
Page 383
APPENDIX III
SAVITRI VOL. II
"Then Spring, an ardent lover, leaped through leaves".
—Book IV, Canto I.
Compare: Tagore's song to the "Spring". "Hetâ sapane Shyam dekhâdile boneri kinâre".
"To see her was a summons to adore,
To be near her drew a high communion's force."
—Book IV, Canto 2.
Compare: Four aspects of the Mother—"Mother" Ch. VI.
"This transient earthly being if he wills
Can fit his acts to a transcendent scheme". —Book IV, Canto .3
Compare: "A magic leverage suddenly is caught,
Can link man's strength to a transcendent Force''
—Book I, Canto 2.
Compare: "May the divine doors swing open wide, that increase the Truth." —Rig Veda I 13. 6 and 48. 15)
"All time-made difference they overcame"
—Book IV, Canto 4.
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Compare: (a) Gita's description of "the sage with an equal vision"
"Samadarshin"
(b) "They reached the one self in all through boundless love" —Book IV, Canto 4.
"Their speech, their silence was a help to earth"
Compare: "His spirit's stillness helped the toiling world."
—Book I, Canto 3.
"On the dumb bosom of this oblivious globe
Although as unknown beings we seem to meet,
Our lives are not aliens nor as strangers join,
Moved to each other by a causeless force"
—Book V, Canto 2.
Compare: Bhababhuti's: "Some inner purpose, indescribable, brings objects" together (in life)
Book VI Canto I: The beginning describes the descent of Narad from Immortal's world to this earth (1-30 Lines)
The Naishadhiya Charitam, a classical Sanskrit epic, by Magha opens with the description of descent of Narad from heaven. The student who is interested may compare these two to find for himself the difference between poetry which is from Overhead inspiration and one that rises from imaginative intellect.
"He sang of the Truth that cries from Night's blind deeps,"
—Book VI, Canto I.
Compare: "Arise from the yearning that sobs in Nature's abyss"
—Rose of God
Page 385
"To light one step in front is all his hope"
Compare: "One step enough for me"—Cardinal Newman
"Our sympathies become our tortures"
Compare: "To each his suffering all are men
Condemned alike to groan
The feeling for another's suffering
The unfilling for his own"—Thomas Moore.
"His march is a battle and a pilgrimage"
Book VI, Canto 2.
Compare: the Vedic idea of sacrifice as Adhwara, "a pilgrim— sacrifice", and also a battle with the powers of Darkness.
"He who has found his identity with God
Pays with the body's death his soul's vast light"
—Book VI, Canto 2.
Compare: "He who would save the world must be one with the world,
All suffering things contain in his heart's space
And bear the grief and joy of all that lives.
His soul must be wider than the universe
And feel eternity as its very stuff,
Rejecting the moment's personality,
Know itself older than the birth of Time,
Creation an incident in its consciousness,
Arcturus and Belphegore grains of fire
Circling in a comer of its boundless self,
The world's destruction a small transient storm
In the calm infinity it has become".
—Book I, Canto 6.
Page 386
Compare also: "He who would the bring heavens here
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way."
—God's Labour.
"It gives the cross in payment for the crown"
Book VI, Canto 2,
Compare: "The cross their payment for the crown they gave"
—Book I, Canto I.
"For this he must go down into the pit,
For this he must invade the dolorous Vasts"
Compare: Passage cited above: A God's labour; and this quotation from a letter:
"As for the Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods, to surmount mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody else in the Ashram or outside, far more difficult conditions, battles to fight, wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and forest, hostile masses to conquer—work such as I am certain none else had to do before us. For the leader of the way in a work like ours has not only to bring down or represent and embody the Divine, but to represent too the ascending element in humanity and to bear the burden of humanity to the full and experience, not in a mere play or Lila but in grim earnest, all the obstruction, difficulty, opposition, baffled, hampered and only slowly victorious labour which are possible on die path".
—Letters of Sri Aurobindo
"Heaven's wiser love rejects the mortal's prayer"
Page 387
Compare: Tagore's :
"My desires are many and my cry is pitiful
But ever didst thou save me by hard refusals"
—Gitanjali.
"Lingering some days upon the forest verge
Like men who lengthen out departure's pain,
"Unwilling to see for the last time a face
Heavy with the sorrow of a coming day
"They parted from her with pain-fraught burdened hearts
As forced by inescapable fate we part
From one whom we shall never see again,"
—Book VII, Canto I.
Compare: "Who ever left the warm precincts of the cheerful day
Nor cast one .longing lingering look behind"
—T. Grey.
"Only if God assumes the human mind
And puts on mortal ignorance for his cloak
And makes himself the Dwarf with triple stride,
Can he help man to grow into the God".
—Book VII, Canto 3.
Compare: The Indian mythological story of Vaman—the Dwarf —the Incarnation of Vishnu, the All pervading Divine, and
his three steps that covered Earth, Mid region and Heaven—or Matter, Life and Mind.
"It dared the force that slays, the joys that hurt,"
Compare: "Chased the delights that wound" —Ahana P. 163
"angel of the House"—suggests a book of poetry by
Coventry Petmore.
Page 388
"A tool and slave of his own slave and tool,
He praises his free will and his master mind
And is pushed by her upon her chosen paths;
Possessor he is possessed and, ruler, ruled,
Her conscious automaton, her desire's dupe".
—Book VII, Canto 4.
Compare: GITA:—actions are being done by qualities of Nature on all sides yet the soul bewildered by ego believes "I am the
doer".
also:— "It is the self-nature that dominates".
"God made experiments with animal shapes"
Compare: A similar idea in the Upanishad.
"Many are God's forms by which he grows in man";
Compare: Gita; "As men approach Me so I accept them to my love"
Gita 4.11.
"He is the Good for which men fight and die"
beginning with this line up to:—
"These powers I am and at my call they come"
—Bock VII, Canto 4.
Compare: This passage with the "Vibhuti Yoga" of the Gita.
"My great philosophies are a reasoned guess,
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"All is a speculation or a dream:
In the end the world itself becomes a doubt:"
Compare: AHANA: "Truths? or thought's structures bridging the vacancy mute and unsounded"
"In a frozen grandeur lone and desolate
Call me not to die the great eternal Death,
Left naked of my own humanity
In the chill vast of the spirit's boundlessness".
—Book VI I, Canto 4.
Compare: AHANA; Cold are the rivers of peace and their banks are
leafless and lonely.
also: "Art thou not weary of only the stars in their solemn
muster,
Sky-hung the chill bare plateaus and peaks where the
eagle rejoices
In the inhuman height of his nesting, solitude's voices
Making the heart of the silence lonelier?
—Ahana.
"Or his soul dream shut in sainthood's brilliant cell
Where only a bright shadow of God can come".
Compare for a similar idea Isha Upanishad:
"A denser darkness they (enter) who get entangled in Vidya alone"
"And found herself amid great figures of gods
Conscious in stone and living without breath,
Compare: "That One lived without breath by its self-law"
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"She came out where there shone a deathless sun"
—Book VII, Canto 5.
Compare: "My spirit a vast sun of deathless light"
Transformation by Sri Aurobindo
Into a hidden region of the heart"
Compare: "The Purusha, the inner Self, no larger than the size of a man's thumb, stands in the centre of our self; he is the
master of the past and the present.
—Kathopanishad VI, 17; 12.
"Even the smallest meanest work become
A sweet or glad and glorious sacrament"
—Book VII, Canto 6
Compare: Its absence left the greatest actions dull,
Its presence made the smallest seem divine
—Book III, Canto I
"Thou shalt look into the eyes of the Unknown,"
Compare: "Invading the secret clasp of the Silence and crimson Fire
Thou frontest eyes in a timeless Face"
—Bird of Fire by Sri Aurobindo
"In that absolute stillness bare and formidable
There was glimpsed an all-negating Void supreme
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"A blank pure consciousness had replaced the mind.
Her spirit seemed the substance of a name,
The world a pictured symbol drawn on self,
A dream of images:...
Compare: "Nirvana" a poem by Sri Aurobindo.
also: "It watched the figure of the cosmic game,
But the thought and inner life in forms seemed dead
"A hollow physical shell persisted still.
All seemed a brilliant shadow of itself,
A cosmic film of scenes and images:
The enduring mass and outline of the hills
Was a design sketched on a silent mind
And held to tremulous false solidity
By constant beats of visionary sight;
Compare this with "Nirvana" and also with Herbert Read's "Mutation of the Phoenix"
"Yet how persuade a mind that the thing seen
And has elsewhere no materiality?
------------------------------------
Our world is invisible till vision
Makes a finite reflection
Light bums the world in the focus of an eye.
The eye is all:
"This only could justify the labour of sight,
But sight could not define for it a form;
Compare: Kena: "That which sees not by the eye but by which the sight is able to see'.
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That disappear from Mind when That is seen.
—Book VI I Canto 6
Compare: Rig Veda: "When It is approached by Thought it vanishes"
Rig Veda I.
"Or she might wake into God's quietude
Beyond the cosmic day and cosmic night
And rest appeased in his white eternity
Compare: "...the rapture-white foam-vest of the waters of Eternity"
Bird of Fire
"As if Love's deathless moment had been found,
A pearl within eternity's white shell.
Compare: C. Day Lewis:
"As lovers count for luck
Their own heart-beats and believe
In the forest of time they pluck
Eternity's single leaf"
"The Poet”
"In every heart is hidden the myriad One"
—Book IX, Canto 2
Compare: "Vasudeva is all that is" Gita
The passage beginning with "Here in the seat of Darkness mute and lone", upto "Till only a few black remnants stained that Ray"
—Book X, Canto I
Book X Canto I may be compared with Book I Canto I in its main substance. The Dawn there in the first canto is symbol-Dawn.
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The hour was "before the Gods awake". Here, we have a "morning twilight of the gods".
"A Mother's eyes are on them and her arms
Stretched out in love desire her revel sons".
—Book X, Canto 2
Compare: "Mother" by Sri Aurobindo.
"Inconscient in the still inconscient Void"
Compare: "In the beginning Darkness was hidden by darkness"
Rig Veda, X. 120. 1-5
"For something on its nescient breast was born
Condemned to see and know, to feel and love,"
Compare: "Intervening in a mindless universe,
Its message crept through the reluctant hush
"Calling the adventure of consciousness and joy
And; conquering Nature's disillusioned breast,
Compelled renewed consent to see and feel."
—Book I, Canto I
"Infinite wore a boundless zero's form
—Book X, Canto 3
Compare: "A fathomless zero occupied the world".
"A soul in God's tremendous Void was lit,
A secret labouring glow of nascent fire.
"Infant and dim the eternal Mights awoke.
In inert Matter breathed a slumbering Life,
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"In waking Life it stretched its giant limbs
To shake from it the torpor of its drowse,"
The whole idea is a sort of succint account of evolution upto Mind and "Now through Mind's windows stares the dead-god"
"A blaze of his sovereign glory is the sun,
A glory is the gold and glimmering moon."
Compare: Vibhuti Yoga of the Gita.
"A hidden Bliss is at die root of things.
A mute Delight regards Time's countless works:
"This universe an old enchantment guards;
Its objects are carved cups of World-Delight"
Compare: From Delight all these beings are born, by Delight they live, to Delight they return."
Taittiriya III 6
Lines beginning with "The All-Wonderful has packed heaven with his dreams", have something of the suggestion of the Vibhuti Yoga of the Gita.
"In me are the Nameless and the secret Name"
Compare: "Passion-flower of the Nameless, bud of the mystical Name".
Rose of God
"Where leads the march, whither the pilgrimage?
—Book X, Canto 4
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Compare: Tagore's Balaka: "Not here, not here—where elsewhere other where?"
"Because thou knowest the wisdom that transcends
Both veil of forms and the contempt of forms,"
Compare: Isha: "One who knows both knowledge and Ignorance— by ignorance crosses over Death and by knowledge attains—enjoys —immortality".
"In a flaming moment of apocalypse
The Incarnation thrust aside its veil"
Compare: the 'Visva Rupa'—Vision of the cosmic form Chapter XI Gita.
Lines beginning with "The lowest of these earths was still a heaven" Book XI, Canto I and describing the subtle earth are comparable in substance to the sonnet "The other Earths". At any rate the two might help the reader to enter into the spirit of both.
"Heaven's call is rare, rarer .the heart that heeds,"
—Book XI, Canto I
Compare: "Among thousands of men a rare one tries for perfection"
Gita VII 3
"All shall be done by the long act of Time"
Compare: "All things shall change in God's transfiguring hour"
—Book III, Canto 4
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"An energy of the triune Infinite,
In a measureless Reality she dwelt,
A rapture and a being and a force,
This is the power of Sat, Chit, Ananda.
"Living for me, by me, in me they shall live".
Compare: Gita 12-8; 9, 34; l0, 9
"And step into the Truth, the Right, the Vast."
—Book XI Canto I
Compare: "Satyam, Ritam, Brihat" Atharva Veda
"All earth shall be the Spirit's manifest home"
Compare: "All this is for habitation by the Lord" Isha
The difference is "Manifest home" in Savitri
"In Nature's fixed inevitable course
Decreed since the beginning of the worlds
In the deep essence of created things"
Compare: "The Self-existent who becomes everywhere has ordered perfectly all things from years sempiternal" Isha 8
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