Book-7-Study-Canto-5

Book Seven: Canto 5

The Finding of the Soul

Summary
Savitri presses onward. She first finds herself in a night of God. All her light and power fail; the mind, the heart, give up their thoughts and hopes, while Knowledge functions no more. Only her naked self and her yearning remain. God alone is: all else is Darkness.

She moves silently and approaches a wide end. The emptiness breaks, a wave ripples within, and there is a blissful stir. Dawn breaks out followed by Day and in that brilliance Savitri recognises the mystic cavern which is the dwelling of her secret soul. The great rock-doors of the cave appear in an awful dimness.

Two golden serpents are coiled round the lintel; above hovers an Eagle. As Savitri enters, she finds great figures of gods carved in stone; the walls are covered with significant shapes portraying the life-scene of man and beast, the role of the gods, the scheme of the planes and worlds and God’s Movement abroad.

Savitri passes from room to room, she feels her self one with all that she sees and a sealed identity within her awakes. She realises that she herself is the Beloved of the Supreme.

In the last chamber on a golden seat she beholds One who is indescribable but who is obviously the Fount of all.

Again all departs into silent self; all becomes formless, pure and bare. She pushes on through a tunnel in the last rock and emerges into the bright light of a deathless sun. There in a house of flame and light Savitri suddenly meets her secret soul.

A being stands there, the Eternal and the Infinite turned towards Time and the Finite. She is God’s delegate in humanity come to play ball with Time and circumstance. She has put forth a small portion of herself into the region of the heart to labour, to suffer, to grow towards its own Godhead.

Both of these — the secret deity and its human part —, meet here in the chamber of light and flame, look upon each other, know themselves, rush into each other and grow one. The soul of Savitri joins its Oversoul.

Once again Savitri finds herself on the human soil. She finds that the half-opened lotus-bud of her heart has bloomed revealing her secret soul. Her being calls the mighty Mother of the worlds to come down and in a flash a Face, a Form comes down into her heart. The moment its feet touch the quivering bloom of her heart-lotus, a mighty movement rocks the inner space and a flaming serpent rises released from sleep in the Night of the Inconscient. It storms its way upwards, striking all the lotuses — Centres of Consciousness — on its route and setting them vibrating in light and bliss, till it reaches the Eternal’s space in the crown of the head.

The mighty Mother — an image of the original Power — is seated there, armed, her arm lifted in a saviour gesture, a sacred beast prone below her feet.

All in the being of Savitri undergoes a celestial change. The working in each of the Centres, the Lotus-kingdoms, is transformed. Behind all stands her deathless soul casting aside its veil of Ignorance and surrendered in the hands of the World-Mother.

Night of God

Onward she passed seeking the soul’s mystic cave.

At first she stepped into a night of God.

The light was quenched that helps the labouring world,
The power that struggles and stumbles in our life;
This inefficient mind gave up its thoughts,
The striving heart its unavailing hopes.

Savitri goes onward in her search for the secret cave of her soul. At first she finds herself in the supernatural darkness that intervenes before one reaches God.

The light that shines and helps the world in travail is extinguished, so too the power that goes on struggling and stumbling in life. The inadequate mind gives up its rounds of futile thought, the tirelessly striving heart gives up at last its vain hopes.

Knowledge Fails

All Knowledge failed and the Idea’s forms,
And Wisdom screened in awe her lowly head
Feeling a Truth too great for thought or speech,
Formless, ineffable, for ever the same.

An innocent and holy Ignorance
Adored like one who worships formless God
The unseen light she could not claim nor own.

All. Knowledge fails, all forms taken by the Idea fail. Wisdom veils her humble head in awe feeling herselfin the presence of a Truth that is too lofty, beyond the range of thought or speech, formless, inexpressible, immutable. An Ignorance, guileless and pure, adores like one worshipping God without form — a light that is unseen which she can neither claim for herself nor possess.

Purity of Emptiness

In a simple purity of emptiness
Her mind knelt down before the unknowable.

All was abolished save her naked self
And the prostrate yearning of her surrendered heart.

Her mind is denuded of its contents and in that simple purity of vacancy, it kneels down in worship before the Unknowable. All is abolished except her bare self, except the reverent yearning of her surrendered heart.

No Pride of Force

There was no strength in her, no pride of force;
The lofty burning of desire had sunk
Ashamed, a vanity of separate self,
The hope of spiritual greatness fled,
Salvation she asked not nor a heavenly crown:
Humanity seemed now too proud a state.

No strength of her own is left in her, no pride of her own force. Her high flaming desire sinks down, as if ashamed, realising itself to be nothing more than the vanity of a self that presumes to think itself separate. The hope of attaining spiritual greatness flees away. She asks no more for salvation nor a place in heaven; even her state of humanity now jars convicted of pride.

Deep Darkness

Her self was nothing, God alone was all,
Yet God she knew not but only knew he was.

A sacred darkness brooded now within,
The world was a deep darkness great and nude.

She feels that her own self is nowhere, nothing; God alone is everywhere, everything. And yet she realises that she does not know anything of God except that he exists. Within her, a holy darkness broods. Without, the whole world is a deep darkness, great and bare.

Full Void

This Void held more than all the teeming worlds,
This blank felt more than all that Time has borne,
This dark knew dumbly, immensely the Unknown.

But all was formless, voiceless, infinite.

This Void, however, is not an empty Void. It holds in its bosom more than all the crowded worlds do. This blank is not insensible. It feels more than all that has been felt in the entire course of Time. This dark is not bereft of awareness. It knows, knows even the Unknown in a way that is mute and vast. But all here is formless, voiceless, boundless.

She Moves Shadowlike

As might a shadow walk in a shadowy scene,
A small naught passing through a mightier Naught,
A night of person in a bare outline
Crossing a fathomless impersonal Night,
Silent she moved, empty and absolute.

Savitri moves silently, feeling empty and yet absolute, like a shadow moving in a shadowy setting, like a small nothing passing through a huge Nothing, like an individual night in a silhouette crossing an impersonal, measureless Night.

Emptiness Breaks

In endless Time her soul reached a wide end;
The spaceless vast became her spirit’s place.

At last a change approached, the emptiness broke;
A wave rippled within, the world had stirred;
Once more her inner self became her space.

Her soul reaches a wide end in a Time that is felt to be endless. The spaceless vast becomes a place her spirit inhabits.At long last a change comes over; the emptiness gives way. There is the ripple of a movement withinher being; the world has stirred. Once again Savitri lives within her own inner self.

Blissful nearness to goal

There was felt a blissful nearness to the Goal;
Heaven leaned low to kiss the sacred hill,
The air trembled with passion and delight.

A rose of splendour on a tree of dreams,
The face of Dawn out of mooned twilight grew.

There is felt a blissful nearness to the goal. The felicity of heaven leans down to touch the sacred hill of her being. Passion and delight thrill the air. A rosy Dawn emerges out of the silvery twilight of the moon.

Day, Priest of Sacrifice

Day came, priest of a sacrifice of joy
Into the worshipping silence of her world;
He carried a mortal lustre as his robe,
Trailed Heaven like a purple scarf and wore
As his vermilion caste-mark a red sun.

Into this adoring silence of her inner world steps in Day, like the priest of a joyous sacrifice, with lustre for his robe, trailing behind him the glowing sky of Heaven as a purple scarf, with the red sun as his brahmin caste-mark in vermilion on his forehead.a mortal.

Mystic Cavern

As if an old remembered dream come true,
She recognised in her prophetic mind
The imperishable lustre of that sky,
The tremulous sweetness of that happy air
And, covered from mind’s view and life’s approach,
The mystic cavern in the sacred hill
And knew the dwelling of her secret soul.

What at first seemed an old remembered dream is now recognised by Savitri as reality; with her prophetic mind she remembers the immortal lustre of that sky, the vibrating sweetness of that felicitous air; and she recognises the mystic cave in the sacred hill of her being, hidden from the grasp of mind and life, as the home of her secret soul.

Withdrawn and Alone

As if in some Elysian occult depth,
Truth’s last retreat from thought’s profaning touch,
As if in a rock-temple’s solitude hid,
God’s refuge from an ignorant worshipping world,
It lay withdrawn even from life’s inner sense,
Receding from the entangled heart’s desire.

This mystic cave lies beyond the grasp of life’s inner sense; and it retreats from the desire of the entangled heart, just as truth in her last retreat from the defiling touch of thought hides itself in some secret depths of heaven, just as God taking refuge from the worship offered by an ignorant world hides himself in some lonely temple hewn from a rock.

Rock-Doors

A marvellous brooding twilight met the eyes
And a holy stillness held that voiceless space.

An awful dimness wrapped the great rock-doors
Carved in the massive stone of Matter’s trance.

Two golden serpents round the lintel curled,
Enveloping it with their pure and dreadful strength,
Looked out with wisdom’s deep and luminous eyes.

A wondrous meditative twilight spreads over the scene; a sacred stillness pervades that silent space. The great rock-doors of the cave are hewn in the massive stone of Matter in trance. Round the lintel of the entrance are two golden serpents — luminous divine energies — enveloping it with their pure and formidable strength, looking out with their eyes of wisdom, deep and lustrous.

Eagle Above

An eagle covered it with wide conquering wings.

Flames of self-lost immobile reverie,
Doves crowded the grey musing cornices
Like sculptured postures of white-bosomed peace.

Above, an eagle (of omniscience) hovers with its wide, triumphant wings. The atmosphere is charged with flames of self-lost immobile reverie. Doves crowd the grey meditative cornices like sculptured figures of pure white-bosomed peace.

Gods

Across the threshold’s sleep she entered in
And found herself amid great figures of gods
Conscious in stone and living without breath,
Watching with fixed regard the soul of man,
Executive figures of the cosmic self,
World-symbols of immutable potency.

Savitri crosses the silent threshold and finds herself amidst figures of gods, conscious though in stone, living though without breath. They watch with a steady gaze the soul of man — gods who are the effectuating figures of the self of the cosmos, world-wide symbols of unchanging force.

Gods and Planes

On the walls covered with significant shapes
Looked at her the life-scene of man and beast
And the high meaning of the life of gods,
The power and necessity of these numberless worlds
And faces of beings and stretches of world-space
Spoke the succinct and inexhaustible
Hieratic message of the climbing planes.

The walls are filled with significant designs and from there gaze at her portraits of the life of men and beasts and the high role of the life of the gods. The power and necessity of the innumerable worlds, the faces of the teeming beings and the stretches of world-space, shown there all convey the concise, endless, intercessory role of the rising planes in creation. They are all parts of one tremendous scheme.

God’s Extension

In their immensitude signing infinity
They were the extension of the self of God
And housed, impassively receiving all,
His figures and his small and mighty acts
And his passion and his birth and life and death
And his return to immortality.

It is shown how in their immensitude signifying infinity these planes are really the self-extension of the Being of God, how they contain — receiving all equally, impassively — God’s forms and his acts, both great and small, his passion, his birth, his life and death and his return to his own Immortality.

Climb to the Eternal

To the abiding and eternal is their climb,
To the pure existence everywhere the same,
To the sheer consciousness and the absolute force
And the unimaginable and formless bliss,
To the mirth in Time and the timeless mystery
Of the triune being who is all and one
And yet is no one but himself apart.

All these planes — and the world-movements in them — climb to the one Reality that is abiding and eternal, to the pure existence, to the pure consciousness, to the absolute force, to the matchless, ineffable and formless bliss, to the play of Delight in Time and to the mystery beyond Time of the Sat-Chit-Ananda, the triune being who is all and one, and yet who is really no one else but himself alone and apart — transcendent.

The mystery is that having created all that exists with a part of himself, he yet remains whole.

Nearness of the Soul

There was no step of breathing men, no sound,
Only the living nearness of the soul.

Yet all the worlds and God himself were there,
For every symbol was a reality
And brought the Presence which had given it life.

There is no step of breathing men, no sound of any kind; only a living nearness of the soul is felt. But on that account it is not a vacancy. All the worlds and God himself are there, for every symbol there is living, it throbs with the reality of which it is a representation; it brings the Presence that has made it living.

She knows all by the self

All this she saw and inly felt and knew
Not by some thought of mind but by the self.

A light not born of sun or moon nor fire,
A light that dwelt within and saw within
Shedding an intimate visibility,
Made secrecy more revealing than the word:
Our sight and sense are a fallible gaze and touch
And only the spirit’s vision is wholly true.

Savitri sees all this, feels it from within and knows it all by her self — not by mental thinking. There is an inner light that sees within — not the light of the sun or moon or fire — and that light makes things visible in an inner, intimate way; it makes secrecy that is silent reveal more than the expressive word ever does.

Indeed, our physical sight and sense are fallible; the gaze of this sight and the touch of this sense are liable to error. But not so the vision of the spirit: that is always and entirely true.

Identity Awakes

As thus she passed in that mysterious place
Through room and room, through door and rock-hewn door,
She felt herself made one with all she saw.

A sealed identity within her woke;

As Savitri thus walks into that mysterious realm, crossing door after door hewn out of rock, passing through room after room, she feels herself become one with all that she sees. An identity that was hitherto dormant now wakes in her.

She knows Herself

She knew herself the Beloved of the Supreme:
These Gods and Goddesses were he and she:
The Mother was she of Beauty and Delight,
The Word in Brahma’s vast creating clasp,
The World-Puissance on almighty Shiva’s lap,—
The Master and the Mother of all lives
Watching the worlds their twin regard had made,
And Krishna and Radha for ever entwined in bliss,
The Adorer and Adored self-lost and one.

Savitri realises that she is the Spouse, the Beloved of the Supreme Lord; all the Gods and Goddesses are emanations of him or her; she is the mother of all Beauty and Bliss, she is the potent Word of Brahma the all-creator, she is the World-Shakti of Shiva the all powerful; he and she are the Master and the Mother of all, ever watching the worlds that were made by their twin creative gaze; he and she are Krishna, the Lord of Delight and Radha, the embodiment of Love divine, for ever clasped in bliss, the Adored and the Adorer both lost in each other and become one.

Last Chamber

In the last chamber on a golden seat
One sat whose shape no vision could define,
Only one felt the world’s unattainable fount,
A Power of which she was a straying Force,
An invisible Beauty, goal of the world’s desire,
A Sun of which all knowledge is a beam,
A Greatness without whom no life could be.

In the last chamber there sits on a golden seat one whose form no sight can determine; Savitri only feels this unreachable Source of the world; she feels it as a Power of which she herself is but a wandering emanation, as an unseen Beauty which is the goal of the world’s desire, as a Sun of which all known knowledge is but a ray, as a Greatness that supports all life

Secret Soul

Thence all departed into silent self,
And all became formless and pure and bare.

Then through a tunnel dug in the last rock
She came out where there shone a deathless sun.

A house was there all made of flame and light
And crossing a wall of doorless living fire
There suddenly she met her secret soul.

Thereafter all fades away into silent self; all becomes formless, pure, bare.

Through a tunnel-passage dug in the last rock Savitri emerges into the open where shines a deathless sun. There, there is a house made entirely of flame • and light. Savitri crosses a wall of living fire without doors and suddenly finds herself face to face with her secret soul.

A being Immortal

A being stood immortal in transience,
Deathless dallying with momentary things,
In whose wide eyes of tranquil happiness
Which pity and sorrow could not abrogate
Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes:

A being stands, immortal in a general transience; deathless, she plays with mortal things. Through her wide eyes of serene happiness unaffected by pity and sorrow, Infinity turns to look at finite forms.

Play with time and circumstance

Observer of the silent steps of the hours
And the passing scenes of the Everlasting’s play,
In the mystery of its selecting will,
In the Divine Comedy a participant,
The Spirit’s conscious representative,
God’s delegate in our humanity,
Comrade of the universe, the Transcendent’s ray,
She had come into the mortal body’s room
To play at ball with Time and Circumstance.

She observes the silent tread of Time and the passing scenes of the everlasting play; she shares in the mystery of the determining Will, participates in the Comedy of the Divine Play; she is a conscious representative of the Spirit, God’s delegate in our humanity, friend and companion of the Universe, ray of the Transcendent; she has come into the small dwelling of the mortal body to play, as it were, with fleeting Time and changing Circumstance.

Joy her master movement

A joy in the world her master movement here,
The passion of the game lighted her eyes:
A smile on her lips welcomed earth’s bliss and grief,
A laugh was her return to pleasure and pain.

All things she saw as a masquerade of Truth
Disguised in the costumes of Ignorance,
Crossing the years to immortality:
All she could front with the strong spirit’s peace.

Her master movement here is to take joy in the world; her eyes are bright with the intensity of this game. For all the bliss and grief of life on earth, she has a smile on her lips; she welcomes both. Her reaction to pleasure and pain is one of laughter. She perceives all things as a show put on by Truth disguised in the garments of Ignorance while she is crossing stretches of Time to Immortality. She is able to face all with the unperturbed peace of the strong spirit.

Thumbsize Being

But since she knows the toil of mind and life
As a mother feels and shares her children’s lives,
She 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,
To share the suffering and endure earth’s wounds
And labour mid the labour of the stars.

She is aware of the struggle of mind and life in this onward course even as a mother feels and shares her children’s lives, and she puts out a small portion of herself — a being of the size of the thumbs — into the hidden chamber of the heart, in order to face and bear the pangs of life and forgetting her original nature of bliss, to share the suffering and endure earth’s wounds and participate in the incessant labour of the universe.angushthamatram (Katha Upanishad). Man is able to go through all because this small portion of the Divine Spirit, the soul, is within him.

Soul Participates

This in us laughs and weeps, suffers the stroke,
Exults in victory, struggles for the crown,
Identified with the mind and body and life,
It takes on itself their anguish and defeat,
Bleeds with Fate’s whips and hangs upon the cross,
Yet is the unwounded and immortal self
Supporting the actor on the human scene.

This soul in us joys and suffers, exults in victory, strives for the highest. It identifies itself with the mind, life and body and bears all their pangs, anguish and defeat, bleeds with the strokes of fate and hangs upon the Cross of suffering imposed by Ignorance. All the while the soul that thus acts on the stage of the human life is supported by the deeper unscarred, immortal self.

Source of only Strength

Through this she sends us her glory and her powers,
Pushes to wisdom’s heights, through misery’s gulfs;
She gives us strength to do our daily task
And sympathy that partakes of others’ grief
And the little strength we have to help our race,
We who must fill the roll of the universe
Acting itself out in a slight human shape
And on our shoulders carry the struggling world.

Through this portion projected in us, the secret Spirit pours into us her glory and her powers and raises us from the gulfs of misery and suffering towards the heights of wisdom; through it she gives us the strength wherewith we can accomplish our daily tasks, the sympathy wherewith we can share the grief of others, the little capacity wherewith we can help our fellow men. And all this we have to do because we have to play our part in this drama in which the puny human form acts the role of the huge universe and we, humans, carry the struggling world on our shoulders.

Human portion of divinity

This is in us the godhead small and marred;
In this human portion of divinity
She seats the greatness of the Soul in Time
To uplift from light to light, from power to power,
Till on a heavenly peak it stands, a king.

This is our soul, the small and marred godhead in us. In this portion of divinity projected in the human being, the Spirit lodges the greatness of the divine Soul manifesting in Time to uplift the striving human soul from lesser light to greater light, from lesser power to greater power, till it reaches and stands as a king upon a divine peak.

Held up by an unseen Hand

In body weak, in its heart an invincible might,
It climbs stumbling, held up by an unseen hand,
A toiling spirit in a mortal shape.

The human soul is frail in its body but carries an unconquerable strength in its heart. In its struggling climb to the heights, this striving spirit in a mortal, human shape is upheld by the unseen hand of God.

Both become One

Here in this chamber of flame and light they met;
They looked upon each other, knew themselves,
The secret deity and its human part,
The calm immortal and the struggling soul.

Then with a magic transformation’s speed
They rushed into each other and grew one.

In this chamber of flame and light meet the divine, presiding Soul — the secret Deity — and the striving human soul of Savitri, one calm and immortal, the other — its human part — struggling. They gaze at each other and both come to know who they are. Then with the speed of a magical transformation, both the divine and the human portion rush into each other and become one.

Her Secret Soul

Once more she was human upon earthly soil
In the muttering night amid the rain-swept woods
And the rude cottage where she sat in trance:
That subtle world withdrew deeply within
Behind the sun-veil of the inner sight.

But now the half-opened lotus bud of her heart
Had bloomed and stood disclosed to the earthly ray;
In an image shone revealed her secret soul.

Once more Savitri finds herself back in her normal human state. The subtle world which had opened itself to her in trance has retired within behind the bright curtain of the inner sight.

However, the lotus bud of her heart which was normally half-open has now fully bloomed, is visible and in it her secret soul stands revealed.

Deep Lotus Home

There was no wall severing the soul and mind,
No mystic fence guarding from the claims of life.

In its deep lotus home her being sat
As if on concentration’s marble seat,
Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds
To make this earthly tenement her house.

No more is there the wall separating the soul from the mind, no more the inner fence guarding the soul from the calls of life. Her being is seen sitting alone in its deep lotus-home in the heart, concentrated, calling the mighty Mother of the universe to come down and make of this earthly body her home.

A Living Image Comes Down

As in a flash from a supernal light,
A living image of the original Power,
A face, a form came down into her heart
And made of it its temple and pure abode.

And in response to her call, like a flash from a heavenly light, a living image of the original Power from above, a face, a form comes down into her heart and uses it as its own temple, its own pure home.

Flaming Serpent

But when its feet had touched the quivering bloom,
A mighty movement rocked the inner space
As if a world were shaken and found its soul
Out of the Inconscient’s soulless mindless Night:
A flaming serpent rose released from sleep.

The moment the feet of this descending Force touch the vibrating lotus bloom, a mighty movement issues and rocks the inner space; it is as if a world is shaken awake and finds its real being, the soul. Aroused from its sleep, a fiery serpent rises up out of the soulless, mindless dark night of the Inconscient.

Joins Eternal’s Space

It rose billowing its coils and stood erect
And climbing mightily stormily on its way
It touched her centres with its flaming mouth:
As if a fiery kiss had broken their sleep,
They bloomed and laughed surcharged with light and bliss;
Then at the crown it joined the Eternal’s space.

Unwinding its coils the serpent swiftly rises spreading out its coils and stands erect; then it storms its way upwards. In its climb it touches the various centres (of consciousness) on the way with its flaming mouth. And as if suddenly awakened from their sleep by a fiery kiss, the lotuses of these centres burst into joyous bloom surcharged with light and bliss; then the serpent reaches the centre at the top of the head and enters the abode of the Eternal there.

The Kundalini reaches the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled Lotus.

String of Forts

It held together the mystic stream which joins
The viewless summits with the unseen depths,
The string of forts that make the frail defence
Safeguarding us against the enormous world.

Our lines of self-expression in its Vast,

This serpent-power holds together the entire spread of consciousness which joins the unseen depths of the ubconscience to the heights of the superconscience beyond sight. The course it travels is marked by several centres of concentration, the lotuses, from the base in the lower end of the spine to the top in the crown of the head; these centres are the several knots, gran-this, that regulate the flow of divine energies; they are so many strongholds of power, forts as it were, safeguarding the individual against the constant invasion of the universal Forces, preserving the individual lines of manifestation in the vastitudes of the cosmos.

Mighty Mother

An image sat of the original Power
Wearing the mighty Mother’s form and face.

Armed, bearer of the weapon and the sign
Whose occult might no magic can imitate,
Manifold yet one she sat, a guardian force:
A saviour gesture stretched her lifted arm,
And symbol of some native cosmic strength,
A sacred beast lay prone below her feet,
A silent flame-eyed mass of living force.

Savitri beholds sitting in the heart an image of the Primal Power with the form and face of the mighty Mother. She is armed — she bears the weapon and the symbol whose hidden power cannot be imitated by any magic; she is manifold in her manifestation, yet she is one. There she sits, a Force guarding all. Her arm is uplifted in the celebrated gesture of saving, of protection. Below her feet lies the sacred lion, symbolising some innate cosmic strength, a silent, gathered, flaming mass of living Force.

High Celestial Change

All underwent a high celestial change:
Breaking the black Inconscient’s blind mute wall,
Effacing the circles of the Ignorance,
Powers and divinities burst flaming forth;
Each part of the being trembling with delight
Lay overwhelmed with tides of happiness
And saw her hand in every circumstance
And felt her touch in every limb and cell:

All undergoes a high, heavenly change.

Many Powers and divinities burst forth from their hidden place breaking the blind dumb wall of the dark inconscient, wiping out the enveloping rounds of Ignorance. Each part of her being vibrates with delight, is overwhelmed with waves of happiness, perceives the hand of the mighty Mother in every circumstance, feels her touch in every limb and cell.

A glad clear harmony marked their truth’s outline ,Re-set the balance and measures of the world.

The limited view, thought and sense of the human mind are replaced by the vaster thoughts and movements of the immortal. Everything acquires a fresh, diviner significance. There is no more the jarring conflict among the many things in the world; all forms are now seen in the truth of their happy harmony; the balance and measures of things in the world are re-set in accord with their truth of harmony.

Shape Reveals

Each shape showed its occult design, unveiled
God’s meaning in it for which it was made
And the vivid splendour of his artist thought.

Each form reveals the hidden design behind it, shows the meaning, the purpose for which God the creator has brought it into being, unveils the splendour of his creative, artist thought.

Form no more conceals the divine Idea that en-souls it.

Every Act an Act of God

A channel of the mighty Mother’s choice,
The immortal’s will took into its calm control
Our blind or erring government of life;
A loose republic once of wants and needs,
Then bowed to the uncertain sovereign mind,
Life now obeyed to a diviner rule
And every act became an act of God.

The immortal’s will which is an instrument of the choice of the mighty Mother of All takes into its calm control the human, blind erring, government of life; as a result, what was an unorganised life in which men in ignorance were absorbed in seeking their individual wants and needs, a life which submitted itself to the rule of the sovereign but unsure mind, now ceases to be thus regulated and puts itself under a diviner rule, and every act turns into an act of God.

Love in the Heart

In the kingdom of the lotus of the heart
Love chanting its pure hymeneal hymn
Made life and body mirrors of sacred joy
And all the emotions gave themselves to God.

Love flowers in its purity in the region of the heart-lotus (anahata of twelve petals); the Centre of emotions, and fills life and the physical body with a sacred, causeless joy. All the emotions turn away from their absorption in the lower ranges of life and flow towards God.

Ambitions Tamed

In the navel lotus’s broad imperial range
Its proud ambitions and its master lusts
Were tamed into instruments of a great calm sway
To do a work of God on earthly soil.

In the domain of the navel-lotus (nabhipadma or manipura), the Centre of vital ambitions and powerful desires, the disorganised life’s proud ambitions and governing lusts are brought under control and transformed into the instruments of a great, calm rule in order to serve God on earth.

Dwarf desires changed

In the narrow nether centres’ petty parts
Its childish game of daily dwarf desires
Was changed into a sweet and boisterous play,
A romp of little gods with life in Time.

In the narrow region of the abdominal lotus (svadhisthana of six petals), the Centre of lower vital movements, the little daily round of petty desires is replaced by the lively and happy play of the little gods with life in the field of Time.

Firm Ground for Descending Might

In the deep place where once the Serpent slept,
There came a grip on Matter’s giant powers
For large utilities in life’s little space;
A firm ground was made for Heaven’s descending might.

Still deeper in the region of the basal lotus (muladhara of four petals, the Centre of physical energies), where the primal Power, the Kundalini, was coiled up before, a firm control is secured on the giant powers of Matter for ample utilisation in the narrow field of life. A firm base is prepared for the Power descending from Heaven above.

Harmony of Soul

Behind all reigned her sovereign deathless soul:
Casting aside its veil of Ignorance,
Allied to gods and cosmic beings and powers
It built the harmony of its human state;
Surrendered into the great World-Mother’s hands
Only she obeyed her sole supreme behest
In the enigma of the Inconscient’s world.

Behind all these changed movements at the different Centres of Consciousness reigns sovereignly Savitri’s immortal soul. In conjunction with the gods and other cosmic agents, it harmonises the various elements of its human embodiment.

Savitri surrenders herself into the hands of the great World-Mother and follows only her supreme Will in the perplexing maze of the Inconscient’s world.

Secret Soul Supports All

A secret soul behind supporting all
Is master and witness of our ignorant life,
Admits the Person’s look and Nature’s role.

But once the hidden doors are flung apart
Then the veiled king steps out in Nature’s front;
A Light comes down into the Ignorance,
Its heavy painful knot loosens its grasp:
The mind becomes a mastered instrument
And life a hue and figure of the soul.

All happy grows towards knowledge and towards bliss.

Supporting all our movements is our secret soul that is behind; it is the witness and ultimate master of an ignorant life; it admits the determining regard of the Divine Person in our life and makes it possible for Nature to play its allotted role.

This it does from behind, unseen. But once the concealed doors are opened, this veiled king comes out and faces Nature; a Light from above comes down into the prevailing Ignorance and as a result, the hard, painful knot of that Ignorance in nature gets loosened, the unruly mind comes under control and becomes an obedient instrument of the soul. Life acquires the hue and figure of the ruling soul; its character and pattern reflect the soul.

Everything turns into a happy, felicitous growth towards increasing knowledge and bliss.

Divine Puissance

A divine Puissance then takes Nature’s place
And pushes the movements of our body and mind;
Possessor of our passionate hopes and dreams,
The beloved despot of our thoughts and acts,
She streams into us with her unbound force,
Into mortal limbs the Immortal’s rapture and power.

In the place of the force of Nature in Ignorance, a divine Shakti, Consciousness-Power, begins to act and impel the movements of our body and mind. She assumes full control of our thoughts and acts, holds our intense hopes and dreams, flows into us with her unlimited force and pours into our mortal limbs the Immortal’s bliss and power.

Inner, Law of Beauty

An inner law of beauty shapes our lives;
Our words become the natural speech of Truth,
Each thought is a ripple on a sea of Light.

Then sin and virtue leave the cosmic lists;
They struggle no more in our delivered hearts:
Our acts chime with God’s simple natural good
Or serve the rule of a supernal Right.

An inner — not the outer, superficial law of beauty begins to form our lives; our words express the Truth spontaneously and effortlessly. Each thought is a movement of the Light of Knowledge. The struggle of sin and virtue ceases in our hearts and they are left behind. Our acts come into harmony with that simple and natural good that is of God, shivam, they form a part of the workings of a divine Right, ritam.

Moods Unlovely Hide

All moods unlovely, evil and untrue
Forsake their stations in fierce disarray
And hide their shame in the subconscient’s dusk;
Then lifts the mind a cry of victory:

All moods and movements that are ugly, evil and false flee in confusion and hide themselves in the semi-darknesses of the subconscient parts. Then the mind thinks that the victory is won and it proclaims:

Cry of Victory

“O soul, my soul, we have created Heaven,
Within we have found the kingdom here of God,
His fortress built in a loud ignorant world.

Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light,
We have turned space into a gulf of peace
And made the body a capitol of bliss.

What more, what more, if more must still be done?”

"O soul, together we have created Heaven, realized here within ourselves the Kingdom of God. We have built his impregnable fortress in the very midst of this clamorous ignorant world. Now our life is safe between the two rivers of Light, that of the divine Puissance and that of the delivered soul. All space is filled by us with Peace, the whole body made a temple of Bliss.

What more is left? What more can be left?"

First Perfection’s Stage

In the slow process of the evolving spirit,
In the brief stade between a death and birth
A first perfection’s stage is reached at last;
Out of the wood and stone of our nature’s stuff
A temple is shaped where the high gods could live.

Actually what has been achieved is only the first stage in the perfection that is in the making

In the slow process of the evolution of the spirit, in the brief interval between birth and death, one phase in perfection is completed. From out of the raw material of Nature, its wood and stone, a veritable temple has been built in which the high gods could now live.

A Camp of God is Pitched

Even if the struggling world is left outside
One man’s perfection still can save the world.

There is won a new proximity to the skies,
A first betrothal of the Earth to Heaven,
A deep concordat between Truth and Life:
A camp of God is pitched in human time.

Even though the rest of the world is still left outside in its struggle, a single man’s perfection can still help to save that world. His perfection has its inevitable beneficial results in the world. A fresh nearness to the summits of the Spirit is won; Earth and Heaven are united for the first time; Truth and Life come to a profound understanding. The camp of the Eternal has been set in human Time.

Contraries come to a first harmonisation in the perfection of even a single man.