Aurobindo-9-Savitri-Book -1 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book I The Book of Beginnings-
canto-4-The Secret Knowledge
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's


'Ignorant and weary and invincible,
She seeks through the soul's war and quivering pain
The pure perfection her marred nature needs,
A breath of Godhead on her stone and mire.'
'Outstretching arms to the unconscious Void,
Passionate she prays to invisible forms of Gods
Soliciting from dumb Fate and toiling Time'
'A Joy that drags not sorrow as its shade.'


'All that transpires on earth and all beyond
Are parts of an illimitable plan
The One keeps in his heart and knows alone.'
'Our outward happenings have their seed within, '..
'But who shall pierce into the cryptic gulf
And learn what deep necessity of the soul
Determined casual deed and consequence? '
Acting to 'external scene'we'wonder at the hidden cause'

'Man, still a child in Nature's mighty hands, '
'A struggling ignorance is his wisdom's mate
'When darkness deepens strangling the earth's breast
And man's corporeal mind is the only lamp, '
'A charm and sweetness open life's closed doors'
'The Truth-Light capture Nature by surprise,
'And earth grow unexpectedly divine.'
In Matter shall be lit the spirit's glow, '

'a hyphen must connect Matter and Mind,
The narrow isthmus of the ascending soul:
We must renew the secret bond in things, '
'Reconstitute the perfect word, unite
The Alpha and the Omega in one sound;
Then shall the Spirit and Nature be at 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

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Note: Some more inspiring descriptive linesfrom
Book-1 canto-4

Page51

A vision meets her of supernal Powers
That draw her as if mighty kinsmen lost
Approaching with estranged great luminous gaze.
Then is she moved to all that she is not
And stretches arms to what was never hers.

Page52

Earth's winged chimaeras are Truth's steeds in Heaven,
The impossible God's sign of things to be.
But few can look beyond the present state
Or overleap this matted hedge of sense.

Page53

Our range is fixed within the crowded arc
Of what we observe and touch and thought can guess
And rarely dawns the light of the Unknown
Waking in us the prophet and the seer.
The outward and the immediate are our field,
The dead past is our background and support;
Mind keeps the soul prisoner, we are slaves to our acts;
We cannot free our gaze to reach wisdom's sun.

Page53&54

Only the Immortals on their deathless heights
Dwelling beyond the walls of Time and Space,
Masters of living, free from the bonds of Thought,
Who are overseers of Fate and Chance and Will
And experts of the theorem of world-need,
Can see the Idea, the Might that change Time's course,
Come maned with light from undiscovered worlds,
Hear, while the world toils on with its deep blind heart,
The galloping hooves of the unforeseen event,
Bearing the superhuman Rider, near
And, impassive to earth's din and startled cry,
Return to the silence of the hills of God;

Page55

Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars,
The days become a happy pilgrim march,
Our will a force of the Eternal's power,
And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.

An interregnum in Reality
Cuts off the integral Thought, the total Power;
It circles or stands in a vague interspace,
Doubtful of its beginning and its close,
Or runs upon a road that has no end;

Page56

This is our deepest need to join once more
What now is parted, opposite and twain,
Remote in sovereign spheres that never meet
Or fronting like far poles of Night and Day.