Aurobindo 56 Savitri Book 2 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto Fourteen: The World-Soul
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

' A covert answer to his seeking came.'
'Away from the unsatisfied surface world
'It fled into the bosom of the unknown,
A well, a tunnel of the depths of God.'
'Into a passage dim and tremulous
That clasped him in from day and night's pursuit,
He travelled led by a mysterious sound.'
'A hidden call to unforeseen delight'

'It led to rapture back the truant heart.'
'It sank to a whisper circling round the soul.'
'A jingling silver laugh of anklet bells
Travelled the roads of a solitary heart; '
'Into a wonderful bodiless realm he came, '
'A single Person who was himself and all
And cherished Nature's sweet and dangerous throbs
Transfigured into beats divine and pure.'

'It healed the bitter cruelties of earth,
Transforming all experience to delight; '
'Its power was to reveal divinity.'
'A flame that cancels death in mortal things.'
'The intimacy of God was everywhere, '
All there was soul or made of sheer soul-stuff;
'Body was not there, for bodies were needed not,
The soul itself was its own deathless form'

'Alone between tremendous Presences'
'His soul passed on, a single conscious power,
'Behind them in a morning dusk One stood'
Overwhelmed by her implacable light and bliss, '
'Tossed towards the shores of her ocean-ecstasy, '
'He fell down at her feet unconscious, prone.'

............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 14


Page 289

In a far shimmering background of Mind-Space
A glowing mouth was seen, a luminous shaft;
A recluse gate it seemed, musing on joy,
A veiled retreat and escape to mystery.

As if a beckoning finger of secrecy
Outstretched into a crystal mood of air,
Pointing at him from some near hidden depth,
As if a message from the world's deep soul,
An intimation of a lurking joy
That flowed out from a cup of brooding bliss,
There shimmered stealing out into the Mind
A mute and quivering ecstasy of light,
A passion and delicacy of roseate fire.

Page 290

The immortal cry ravished the captive ear.
Then, lowering its imperious mystery,
It sank to a whisper circling round the soul.


It seemed the yearning of a lonely flute
That roamed along the shores of memory
And filled the eyes with tears of longing joy.

A cricket's rash and fiery single note,
It marked with shrill melody night's moonless hush
And beat upon a nerve of mystic sleep
Its high insistent magical reveille.

Or from a far harmonious distance heard
The tinkling pace of a long caravan
It seemed at times, or a vast forest's hymn,
The solemn reminder of a temple gong,
A bee-croon honey-drunk in summer isles
Ardent with ecstasy in a slumbrous noon,
Or the far anthem of a pilgrim sea.

An incense floated in the quivering air,
A mystic happiness trembled in the breast
As if the invisible Beloved had come

Page291

Infinite, coeval with the mind of God,
It bore within itself a seed, a flame,
A seed from which the Eternal is new-born,
A flame that cancels death in mortal things.

A fire of passion burned in spirit-depths,
A constant touch of sweetness linked all hearts,
The throb of one adoration's single bliss
In a rapt ether of undying love.

Here was the welling core of finite life;
A formless spirit became the soul of form.

Page 292

As when one walks in sleep through luminous dreams
And, conscious, knows the truth their figures mean,
Here where reality was its own dream,
He knew things by their soul and not their shape:

As those who have lived long made one in love
Need word nor sign for heart's reply to heart,
He met and communed without bar of speech
With beings unveiled by a material frame.

Page 293

A fragrance wandered in a coloured haze
As if the scent and hue of all sweet flowers
Had mingled to copy heaven's atmosphere.

Page 295

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,
Seated absorbed in deep creative joy;
Their trance of bliss sustained the mobile world.

The ages are the footfalls of her tread,
Their happenings the figure of her thoughts,
And all creation is her endless act.
His spirit was made a vessel of her force;

Page 296&297

Mute in the fathomless passion of his will
He outstretched to her his folded hands of prayer.
Then in a sovereign answer to his heart
A gesture came as of worlds thrown away,
And from her raiment's lustrous mystery raised
One arm half-parted the eternal veil.
A light appeared still and imperishable.
Attracted to the large and luminous depths
Of the ravishing enigma of her eyes,
He saw the mystic outline of a face.


Page 297

Overwhelmed by her implacable light and bliss,
An atom of her illimitable self
Mastered by the honey and lightning of her power,
Tossed towards the shores of her ocean-ecstasy,
Drunk with a deep golden spiritual wine,
He cast from the rent stillness of his soul
A cry of adoration and desire
And the surrender of his boundless mind
And the self-giving of his silent heart.
He fell down at her feet unconscious, prone.


End of Book 2-Canto 14