Aurobindo 40-Savitri-Book -2 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri
Book II The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto VI The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

'In that intense domain of intimacy
Objects dwell as companions of the soul; '
'In all who have risen to a greater Life,
A voice of unborn things whispers to the ear,
To their eyes visited by some high sunlight
Aspiration shows the image of a crown:
To work out a seed that she has thrown within,
To achieve her power in them her creatures live.'

'This was transition-line and starting-point,
A first immigration into heavenliness,
For all who cross into that brilliant sphere:
This wider world our greater movements gives,
Its strong formations build our growing selves;
'There is a knowledge in the heart of sleep
And Nature comes to them as a conscious force.'
An ideal is their leader and their king:

'Her worshippers proclaim her sacred right'.
'At Wisdom's altar they are kings and priests
Or their life a sacrifice to an idol of Power.'
'There Matter is soul's result and not its cause.'
'This world's apparent sensible design
Looks vibrant back to some interior might.'
'Powers here subliminal that act unseen
Came out in front uncovering their face.'

'The unseen was felt and jostled visible shapes.'
'In the communion of two meeting minds
Thought looked at thought and had no need of speech;
Emotion clasped emotion in two hearts,
They felt each other's thrill in the flesh and nerves'
'As when two houses burn and fire joins fire: '...

............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 6


Page 183

The body's actions are a minor script,
The surface rendering of a life within.

All forces are Life's retinue in that world
And thought and body as her handmaids move.
The universal widenesses give her room:

Page 184

To achieve her power in them her creatures live.
Each is a greatness growing towards the heights
Or from his inner centre oceans out;
In circling ripples of concentric power
They swallow, glutted, their environment.
Even of that largeness many a cabin make;

There is kept grandeur's store, the hero's mould;
The soul is the watchful builder of its fate;

Page 185

Aspiring to the monarchy of the sun
They call in Truth for their high government,

Or to the truth of Darkness they subscribe;
Whether for Heaven or Hell they must wage war:

Warriors of Good, they serve a shining cause
Or are Evil's soldiers in the pay of Sin.
For evil and good an equal tenure keep
Wherever Knowledge is Ignorance's twin.

A red-tiaraed Falsehood they revere,
Worship the shadow of a crooked God,
Admit the black Idea that twists the brain
Or lie with the harlot Power that slays the soul.

A mighty victory or a mighty fall,
A throne in heaven or a pit in hell,
The dual Energy they have justified
And marked their souls with her tremendous seal:

Whatever Fate may do to them they have earned;
Something they have done, something they have been, they live.

As quivers with the thought the expressive word,
As yearns the act with the passion of the soul

Page 186&187

Hate grappled hate and love broke in on love,
Will wrestled with will on mind's invisible ground;
Others' sensations passing through like waves
Left quivering the subtle body's frame,
Their anger rushed galloping in brute attack,
A charge of trampling hooves on shaken soil;
One felt another's grief invade the breast,
Another's joy exulting ran through the blood:
Hearts could draw close through distance, voices near
That spoke upon the shore of alien seas.
There beat a throb of living interchange: