Aurobindo 32-Savitri-Book -2 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri
Book II The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto V The Godheads of the Little Life
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's


'A thinking puppet is the mind of life:
Its choice is the work of elemental strengths'
'For none can see the masked ironic troupe
To whom our figure-selves are marionettes,
Our deeds unwitting movements in their grasp,
Our passionate strife an entertainment's scene.'
'Ignorant themselves of their own fount of strength
They play their part in the enormous whole.'

'Agents of darkness imitating light,
Spirits obscure and moving things obscure,
Unwillingly they serve a mightier Power.'
'Tools of the Unknown who use us as their tools, '
'toss the lives of men from hand to hand'
'Against all higher truth their stuff rebels; '
'Inordinate their hold on human hearts,
In all our nature's turns they intervene.'

'These slight illusion-makers with their masks,
Painters of the decor of a dull-hued stage
And nimble scene-shifters of the human play,
Ever are busy with this ill-lit scene.'
Thus they inflict their little pigmy law
And curb the mounting slow uprise of man,
Then his too scanty walk with death they close.
'This is the ephemeral creature's daily life.


As long as the human animal is lord'
'An incurable littleness pursues his days.'
'A gross content prolongs his fallen state;
'Hardship and toil are the heavy price he pays
For the right to live and his last wages death.'
'A sleep that imitates death is his repose.'....

............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 5


Page 162

In this nether life of man drab-hued and dull,
Yet filled with poignant small ignoble things,
The conscious Doll is pushed a hundred ways
And feels the push but not the hands that drive.

Ananke's engines organising Chance,
Channels perverse of a stupendous Will,

Page 163

Insignificant architects of low-built lives
And engineers of interest and desire,
Out of crude earthiness and muddy thrills
And coarse reactions of material nerve
They build our huddled structures of self-will
And the ill-lighted mansions of our thought,
Or with the ego's factories and marts
Surround the beautiful temple of the soul.

Artists minute of the hues of littleness,
They set the mosaic of our comedy
Or plan the trivial tragedy of our days,
Arrange the deed, combine the circumstance
And the fantasia of the moods costume.

These unwise prompters of man's ignorant heart
And tutors of his stumbling speech and will,
Movers of petty wraths and lusts and hates
And changeful thoughts and shallow emotion's starts,

These slight illusion-makers with their masks,
Painters of the decor of a dull-hued stage
And nimble scene-shifters of the human play,
Ever are busy with this ill-lit scene.
Page 164

Ever since consciousness was born on earth,
Life is the same in insect, ape and man,
Its stuff unchanged, its way the common route.

His small successes are failures of the soul,
His little pleasures punctuate frequent griefs: