Aurobindo 54 Savitri Book 2 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto Twelve: The Heavens of the Ideal
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

'Always the Ideal beckoned from afar.'
'Awakened by the touch of the Unseen,
'Aspired the strong discoverer, tireless Thought,
Revealing at each step a luminous world.'
'Across the covert air the spirit breathes, '
'Climbing from Nature's deep surrendered heart
It blooms for ever at the feet of God,
Fed by life's sacrificial mysteries.'

'Our hidden centres of celestial force
Open like flowers to a heavenly atmosphere;
Mind pauses thrilled with the supernal Ray, '
This in high realms touches immortal kind;
'There is the secrecy of the House of Flame, '
'The rapt idealism of heavenly sense; '
'Here upon earth are early awakenings,
Moments that tremble in an air divine, '

'On the other side of the eternal stairs
The mighty kingdoms of the deathless Flame
Aspired to reach the Being's absolutes.'
'Once kindled, never can its flamings cease.'
'Its worlds are steps of an ascending Force: '
'They point above themselves with index peaks
Through a pale-sapphire ether of god-mind
'Towards some gold Infinite's apocalypse.'

'He through the Ideal's kingdoms moved at will,
Accepted their beauty and their greatness bore,
But passed nor stayed beneath their splendour's rule.'
'Onward he passed to a diviner sphere:
There, joined in a common greatness, light and bliss,
All high and beautiful and desirable powers'

............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
===============================================

Note: Some more inspiring, descriptive and
informative lines from Book 2 Canto 12

Page 277

Each stage of the soul's remote ascent was built
Into a constant heaven felt always here.


A new rung formed in Being's mighty stair,
A great wide step trembling with jewelled fire
As if a burning spirit quivered there
Upholding with his flame the immortal hope,
As if a radiant God had given his soul
That he might feel the tread of pilgrim feet
Mounting in haste to the Eternal's house.

At either end of each effulgent stair
The heavens of the ideal Mind were seen
In a blue lucency of dreaming Space
Like strips of brilliant sky clinging to the moon.

On one side glimmered hue on floating hue,
A glory of sunrise breaking on the soul,

Page 277&278

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.

Page 279

Time's sun-flowers' gaze at gold Eternity:

A million lotuses swaying on one stem,
World after coloured and ecstatic world
Climbs towards some far unseen epiphany.

Out of the sorrow and darkness of the world,
Out of the depths where life and thought are tombed,
Lonely mounts up to heaven the deathless Flame.

Page 279&280

A fire along the mystic paths of earth,
It rises through the mortal's hemisphere,
Till borne by runners of the Day and Dusk
It enters the occult eternal Light
And clambers whitening to the invisible Throne.

Page 280

A thunder rolling mid the hills of God,
Tireless, severe is their tremendous Voice:
Exceeding us, to exceed ourselves they call
And bid us rise incessantly above.

Our human knowledge is a candle burnt
On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth;
Man's virtue, a coarse-spun ill-fitting dress,
Apparels wooden images of Good;

Page 281

A glorious shining Angel of the Way
Presented to the seeking of the soul
.....................................
Perfection's key, passport to Paradise.

End of Book 2-Canto 12