Aurobindo 46 Savitri Book 2 Poem by Indira Renganathan

Aurobindo 46 Savitri Book 2



The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds Canto Eight: The
World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil
and the Sons of Darkness
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's


'Thus was the dire antagonist Energy born'
'Arresting the passion of the climbing soul,
She forced on life a slow and faltering pace; '
'Oppressing the God-spark within the soul
She forces back to the beast the human fall.'
'Incalculable are her strength and ruse; '
'Oppressing the God-spark...'very truthful..
Third eye shut in submersion of mayic ocean..

'This is the tragedy of the inner death
When forfeited is the divine element
And only a mind and body live to die.'
'Always the dark Adventurers seem to win; '
'The world's shrines they have occupied, usurped its thrones.'
'Night is their refuge and strategic base.'
'No wandering ray of Heaven can enter there.'
Nocturnal deeds in ostentatious culture....

'Armoured, protected by their lethal masks,
As in a studio of creative Death
The giant sons of Darkness sit and plan'..
What a marvelous portrayal of the present trend..
'The drama of the earth, their tragic stage.'
'None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.'
'This too the traveller of the worlds must dare.'
This..a Beware-Beat on the pang of each human heart...

'Thought ceased, sense failed, his soul still saw and knew.'
'Arousing consciousness in things inert,
He imposed upon dark atom and dumb mass
The diamond script of the Imperishable
'The infernal Gleam died and could slay no more.'
'Matter and spirit mingled and were one.'...

............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 8

Page 224


The tortuous line of her deceiving mind
The Gods see not and man is impotent;

Even Good she makes a hook to drag to Hell.
For her the world runs to its agony.

Often the pilgrim on the Eternal's road
Ill-lit from clouds by the pale moon of Mind,
Or in devious byways wandering alone,
Or lost in deserts where no path is seen,
Falls overpowered by her lion leap,
A conquered captive under her dreadful paws.

Intoxicated by a burning breath
And amorous grown of a destroying mouth,
Once a companion of the sacred Fire,
The mortal perishes to God and Light,
An Adversary governs heart and brain,
A Nature hostile to the Mother-Force.

A cowled fifth-columnist is now thought's guide;
His subtle defeatist murmur slays the faith


Page 225

Offspring of the gulfs, agents of the shadowy Force,
Haters of light, intolerant of peace,
Aping to the thought the shining Friend and Guide,
Opposing in the heart the eternal Will,
They veil the occult uplifting Harmonist.

The doors of God they have locked with keys of creed
And shut out by the Law his tireless Grace.
Along all Nature's lines they have set their posts
And intercept the caravans of Light;

A yoke is laid upon the world's dim heart;
Masked are its beats from the supernal Bliss,
And the closed peripheries of brilliant Mind
Block the fine entries of celestial Fire.

Page 226

In the vacant precincts of the sacred Fire,
In front of the reredos in the mystic rite
Facing the dim velamen none can pierce,
Intones his solemn hymn the mitred priest
Invoking their dreadful presence in his breast:

He chants the syllables of the magic text
And summons the unseen communion's act,
While twixt the incense and the muttered prayer
All the fierce bale with which the world is racked
Is mixed in the foaming chalice of man's heart
And poured to them like sacramental wine.

Against the sword of Flame, the luminous Eye,
Bastioned they live in massive forts of gloom,
Calm and secure in sunless privacy:

Page 227

A warrior in the dateless duel's strife,
He entered into dumb despairing Night
Challenging the darkness with his luminous soul.

Ignorant like men born blind who know not light,
They could equate worst ill with highest good,

A dire administration's penal code
Making of grief and pain the common law,

An act was passed to chastise happiness;
Laughter and pleasure were banned as deadly sins:

Page 227&228

There thought and life were a long punishment,
The breath a burden and all hope a scourge,
The body a field of torment, a massed unease;

Page 228

A hard sombre heart, a harsh unsmiling mind
Rejected happiness like a cloying sweet;

Tranquillity was a tedium and ennui:
Only by suffering life grew colourful;
It needed the spice of pain, the salt of tears.


To watch the drama of infelicity,
The writhing of creatures under the harrow of doom
And sorrow's tragic gaze into the night
And horror and the hammering heart of fear
Were the ingredients in Time's heavy cup
That pleased and helped to enjoy its bitter taste.

The dry gnarled trees stood up like dying men
Stiffened into a pose of agony,

And from each window peered an ominous priest
Chanting Te Deums for slaughter's crowning grace,
Uprooted cities, blasted human homes,
Burned writhen bodies, the bombshell's massacre.

Page 229

It was a world of sorrow and of hate,
Sorrow with hatred for its lonely joy,
Hatred with others' sorrow as its feast;

A bitter rictus curled the suffering mouth;
A tragic cruelty saw its ominous chance.
Hate was the black archangel of that realm

Page 230

Companionless he roamed through desolate ways
Where the red Wolf waits by the fordless stream
And Death's black eagles scream to the precipice,
And met the hounds of bale who hunt men's hearts
Baying across the veldts of Destiny,

Pinned to the black inertia of our base
He treasured between his hands his flickering soul.

Page 231

Into the abysmal secrecy he came
Where darkness peers from her mattress, grey and nude,

Page 232

He imposed upon dark atom and dumb mass
The diamond script of the Imperishable,
..........
A paean-song of the free Infinite
..................
The lyric of the love that waits through Time
And the mystic volume of the Book of Bliss
And the message of the superconscient Fire.

Hell split across its huge abrupt facade
As if a magic building were undone,
Night opened and vanished like a gulf of dream.

There poured a wide intimate and blissful Dawn;

The soul lit the conscious body with its ray,
Matter and spirit mingled and were one.

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