Aurobindo 108 Savitri Book 7 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Seven:The Book of Yoga
Canto Four: The Triple Soul-Forces
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

'Man only sees the cosmic surfaces.
Then wondering what may lie hid from the sense
A little way he delves to depths below:
But soon he stops, he cannot reach life's core
Or commune with the throbbing heart of things.'
'He has the blind man's subtle unerring touch
Or the slow traveller's sight of distant scenes; '
'The soul's revealing contacts are not his.'

'But only reason and sense he feels as sure,
They only are his trusted witnesses.'
'His knowledge scans bright pebbles on the shore
Of the huge ocean of his ignorance.'
'Yet grandiose were the accents of that cry,
A cosmic pathos trembled in its tone.'
'I am the mind of God's great ignorant world Line 536 to
This wizard gods may dream, not thinking men.'Line 624..

His all capability of exploring and discovering
Man's self defining in Thou superb words..
'Only what end he serves I know not yet
Or if there is aim at all or any end
Or push of rich creative purposeful joy
In the wide works of the terrestrial power.'
His incapability of knowing the ends
In between where he is..Thou words, Thee exemplify

'And Savitri heard the voice, the warped answer heard'
'Thou art a portion of my self put forth
To raise the spirit to its forgotten heights
And wake the soul by touches of the heavens.'
'One day I will return, His hand in mine, '
'There shall be light and peace in all the worlds.'

............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 7 Canto 4

Page 517

He sees the naked body of the Truth
Though often baffled by her endless garbs,
But cannot look upon her soul within.
Then, furious for a knowledge absolute,
He tears all details out and stabs and digs:
Only the shape's contents he holds for use;
The spirit escapes or dies beneath his knife.
He sees as a blank stretch, a giant waste
The crowding riches of infinity.
The finite he has made his central field,
Its plan dissects, masters its processes,
That which moves all is hidden from his gaze,
His poring eyes miss the unseen behind.

Page 519

A mystery is this mighty Nature's birth;
A mystery is the elusive stream of mind,
A mystery the protean freak of life.
What I have learned, Chance leaps to contradict;
What I have built is seized and torn by Fate.

In the end the world itself becomes a doubt:
The infinitesimal's jest mocks mass and shape,
A laugh peals from the infinite's finite mask.
Perhaps the world is an error of our sight,
A trick repeated in each flash of sense,
An unreal mind hallucinates the soul
With a stress-vision of false reality,
Or a dance of Maya veils the void Unborn.

Page 520

In a frozen grandeur lone and desolate
Call me not to die the great eternal death,
Left naked of my own humanity
In the chill vast of the spirit's boundlessness.


Because thou art, the soul draws near to God;
Because thou art, love grows in spite of hate
And knowledge walks unslain in the pit of Night.


End of Book-7 Canto-4