Aurobindo 49 Savitri Book 2 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Two:The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto Ten:The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's

'Out of its rays our mind's full orb was born.'
'A bodiless energy put on Matter's robe;
Proton and photon served the imager Eye
To change things subtle into a physical world
And the invisible appeared as shape
And the impalpable was felt as mass:
'Magic of percept joined with concept's art
And lent to each object an interpreting name: '

'Even a greater miracle was done.
The mediating light linked body's power,
To the effulgence of a Ray above.'
'Still Knowledge could not come and firmly grasp
This huge invention seen as a universe.'
'None the true body found, its soul seemed dead:
None had the inner look which sees Truth's whole;
All glorified the glittering substitute.'

'Then from the secret heights a wave swept down,
A brilliant chaos of rebel light arose;
It looked above and saw the dazzling peaks,
It looked within and woke the sleeping god.'
'Thus worked the Power upon the growing world; '
'Its subtle craft withheld the full-orbed blaze, '
'Thus streamed down from the realm of early Light
Ethereal thinkings into Matter's world; '

'In those bright realms are Mind's first forward steps.'
'It looked within itself but saw not God.'
'Earth all perceives through doubtful images, '
'In her own realm she stumbles not nor fails,
But moves in boundaries of subtle power
Across which mind can step towards the sun.'


............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 10

Page 241

A prototypal deft Intelligence
Half-poised on equal wings of thought and doubt
Toiled ceaselessly twixt being's hidden ends.
33 A Secrecy breathed in life's moving act;
A covert nurse of Nature's miracles,
It shaped life's wonders out of Matter's mud:

A robot exact and serviceable and false
Displaced the spirit's finer view of things:
A polished engine did the work of a god.


Page 242&243

Imagination called her shining squads
That venture into undiscovered scenes
Where all the marvels lurk none yet has known:

Lifting her beautiful and miraculous head,
She conspired with inspiration's sister brood
To fill thought's skies with glimmering nebulae.
A bright Error fringed the mystery-altar's frieze;
Darkness grew nurse to wisdom's occult sun,
Myth suckled knowledge with her lustrous milk;
The infant passed from dim to radiant breasts.

Page 243

Its gold-horned herds trooped into earth's cave-heart.

Its morning rays illume our twilight's eyes,
Its young formations move the mind of earth
To labour and to dream and new-create,
To feel beauty's touch and know the world and self:
The Golden Child began to think and see.

Ardent and golden-gleamed with sunrise fires,
Alert it lives upon invention's verge.

Yet all it does is on an infant's scale,
As if the cosmos were a nursery game,
Mind, life the playthings of a Titan's babe.

62 As one it works who builds a mimic fort
Miraculously stable for a while,
Made of the sands upon a bank of Time
Mid an occult eternity's shoreless sea.

Page 244

For knowledge comes not to us as a guest
Called into our chamber from the outer world;

A friend and inmate of our secret self,
It hid behind our minds and fell asleep
And slowly wakes beneath the blows of life;

This was the imbroglio made by sovereign Mind
Looking from a gleam-ridge into the Night
In her first tamperings with Inconscience:
Its alien dusk baffles her luminous eyes;