Aurobindo-19-Savitri-Book -2 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book IIThe Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto IIThe Kingdom of Subtle Matter
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

'This fallen world became a nurse of souls
Inhabited by concealed divinity.'
...'fallen, inconscient, frustrate, dense, inert,
Sunk into inanimate and torpid drowse...'
'This mire must harbour the orchid and the rose,
From her blind unwilling substance must emerge
A beauty that belongs to happier spheres.'
Who will deny a wish so such blossomy

'A life living hardly in a field of death
Its portion claims of immortality; '
'A mighty kinship is this daring's cause.'
'Even in the littleness of our mortal state, ..'
'A brilliant passage for the infallible Flame
Is driven through gross walls of nerve and brain, ..'
'Earth's great dull barrier is removed awhile, ..'
'And we grow vessels of creative might.'

'The enthusiasm of a divine surprise
Pervades our life, a mystic stir is felt,
A joyful anguish trembles in our limbs;
A dream of beauty dances through the heart,
A thought from the eternal Mind draws near,
Intimations cast from the Invisible
Awaking from Infinity's sleep come down,
Symbols of That which never yet was made.'

'Only when we have climbed above ourselves,
A line of the Transcendent meets our road
And joins us to the timeless and the true; '
The Spirit's greatness is our timeless source
And it shall be our crown in endless Time.
A vast Unknown is round us and within;

............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May there so, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused there so be knowledge and fortune

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Note: Some more inspiring descriptive and
informative lines from Book 2 canto 2

Page 107

Sunk into inanimate and torpid drowse
Earth lay, a drudge of sleep, forced to create
By a subconscient yearning memory
Left from a happiness dead before she was born,
An alien wonder on her senseless breast.

This is the destiny bequeathed to her,
As if a slain god left a golden trust
To a blind force and an imprisoned soul.

A residue her sole inheritance,
All things she carries in her shapeless dust.

Page 108

All we attempt in this imperfect world,
Looks forward or looks back beyond Time's gloss
To its pure idea and firm inviolate type
In an absolute creation's flawless skill.

To seize the absolute in shapes that pass,
To fix the eternal's touch in time-made things,
This is the law of all perfection here.

Page 109

Earth's eyes half-see, her forces half-create;
Her rarest works are copies of heaven's art.

Here is man's ignorant divining mind,
His genius born from an inconscient soil.
To copy on earth's copies is his art.

Page 110

A ripple of light and glory wraps the brain,
And travelling down the moment's vanishing route
The figures of eternity arrive.

The Ineffable shall find a secret voice,
The Imperishable burn through Matter's screen
Making this mortal body godhead's robe.

All things are wrapped in the dynamic One:
A subtle link of union joins all life.
Thus all creation is a single chain:

Page 111

There are brighter earths and wider heavens than ours.
There are realms where Being broods in its own depths;

A finer substance in a subtler mould
Embodies the divinity earth but dreams;
Its strength can overtake joy's running feet;

Page 112

A Nature lifted by a larger breath,
Plastic and passive to the all-shaping Fire,
Answers the flaming Godhead's casual touch:

A communion of spiritual entities,
A genius of creative Immanence,
Makes all creation deeply intimate:

A fourth dimension of aesthetic sense
Where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all,
To the cosmic wideness re-aligns our souls.

Page 113

A veil is kept, something is still held back,
Lest, captives of the beauty and the joy,
Our souls forget to the Highest to aspire.

Each rhythm is kin to its environment,
Each line is perfect and inevitable,
Each object faultlessly built for charm and use.
All is enamoured of its own delight.

Page 114

In a supremeness bound to its own plan
Where all was finished and no widths were left,
No space for shadows of the immeasurable,
No room for the incalculable's surprise,
A captive of its own beauty and ecstasy,
In a magic circle wrought the enchanted Might.

End of Book 2 - Canto 2