Aurobindo 91 Savitri Book 6 Poem by Indira Renganathan

An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Six:The Book of Fate
Canto Two:The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's


'Voicing earth's question to the inscrutable power
The queen now turned to the still immobile seer: '
'Passionate like sorrow questioning heaven she spoke.'
'O seer, in the earth's strange twi-natured life Line 29 to
Eternal self a fiction sensed in trance.'Line 189
Why, how, what, where, when..all so many times
Spouting in agonised gush on a 'Who' to the seer..
She's a human mother though Aswapati's queen..

'Then after a silence Narad made reply: '
'Was then the sun a dream because there is night? Line202 to...
.....Thus came, born from a blind tremendous choice,
This great perplexed and discontented world,
This haunt of Ignorance, this home of Pain:
There are pitched desire's tents, grief's headquarters.
A vast disguise conceals the Eternal's bliss.'Line 688
On pain and relief an authentic discourse by Narada...

Nothing but just to go by your words is all in all
'Haste not towards Godhead on a dangerous road,
Open not thy doorways to a nameless Power,
Climb not to Godhead by the Titan's road.'
'Too enormous is that venture for thy will;
Only in limits can man's strength be safe;
Yet is infinity thy spirit's goal;
Its bliss is there behind the world's face of tears.

'Is then the spirit ruled by an outward world?
O seer, is there no remedy within?
But what is Fate if not the spirit's will
After long time fulfilled by cosmic Force?
I deemed a mighty Power had come with her;
Is not that Power the high compeer of Fate? '.....

............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 6 Canto 2

Page 437

Partner in the agony of dumb driven things
And all the misery, all the ignorant cry,
Passionate like sorrow questioning heaven she spoke.

Page 437&438

"O seer, in the earth's strange twi-natured life
By what pitiless adverse Necessity
Or what cold freak of a Creator's will,
By what random accident or governed Chance
That shaped a rule out of fortuitous steps,
Made destiny from an hour's emotion, came
Into the unreadable mystery of Time
The direr mystery of grief and pain?
Is it thy God who made this cruel law?

Page 438&439

Our bodies are an engine cunningly made,
But for all its parts as cunningly are planned,
Contrived ingeniously with demon skill,
Its apt inevitable heritage
Of mortal danger and peculiar pain,
Its payment of the tax of Time and Fate,
Its way to suffer and its way to die.
This is the ransom of our high estate,
The sign and stamp of our humanity.

Page 439

Life is a marvel missed, an art gone wry;

Page 440

All walks inarmed by its own opposites,
Error is the comrade of our mortal thought
And falsehood lurks in the deep bosom of truth,
Sin poisons with its vivid flowers of joy
Or leaves a red scar burnt across the soul;
Virtue is a grey bondage and a gaol.
At every step is laid for us a snare.


When Earth ignorant ran on the highways of Fate,
Old forms of evil cling to the world's soul:
War making nought the sweet smiling calm of life,
Battle and rapine, ruin and massacre
Are still the fierce pastimes of man's warring tribes;
An idiot hour destroys what centuries made,

Page 443

Pain was the first-born of the Inconscience
Which was thy body's dumb original base;
Already slept there pain's subconscient shape:
A shadow in a shadowy tenebrous womb,
Till life shall move, it waits to wake and be.

Pain ploughed the first hard ground of the world-drowse.
By pain a spirit started from the clod,
By pain Life stirred in the subliminal deep.

Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break
A dead resistance in the mortal's heart,
His slow inertia as of living stone.

Page 444

Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men
To greatness: an inspired labour chisels
With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould.

He who would save himself lives bare and calm;


Page 445

He who would save the race must share its pain:
This he shall know who obeys that grandiose urge.

The Eternal suffers in a human form,
He has signed salvation's testament with his blood:
He has opened the doors of his undying peace.

He who has found his identity with God
Pays with the body's death his soul's vast light.

Page 446

The seed of Godhead sleeps in mortal hearts,
The flower of Godhead grows on the world-tree:

Page 447

In the market-place of Matter's capital
Amidst the chafferings of the affair called life
He is tied to the stake of a perennial Fire;


The Immortal bound to earth's mortality
Appearing and perishing on the roads of Time
Creates God's moment by eternity's beats.
He dies that the world may be new-born and live.

Page 448

A whisper lures to evil the human heart,
It seals up wisdom's eyes, the soul's regard,
It is the origin of our suffering here,
It binds earth to calamity and pain.
This all must conquer who would bring down God's peace.

A Sun has passed, on earth Night's shadow falls.
Yes, there are happy ways near to God's sun;
But few are they who tread the sunlit path;
Only the pure in soul can walk in light.


Page 451

Earth shall be made a home of Heaven's light,
A seer heaven-born shall lodge in human breasts;

A little bliss is lent thee from above,
A touch divine upon thy human days.

Make of thy daily way a pilgrimage,
For through small joys and griefs thou mov'st towards God.
Haste not towards Godhead on a dangerous road,
Open not thy doorways to a nameless Power,
Climb not to Godhead by the Titan's road.

Page 451&452

Heavenward he clambers on a stair of storms
Aspiring to live near the deathless sun.

Page 453

His little `I' has swallowed the whole world,
His ego has stretched into infinity.
His mind, a beat in original Nothingness,
Ciphers his thought on a slate of hourless Time.

Too enormous is that venture for thy will;
Only in limits can man's strength be safe;
Yet is infinity thy spirit's goal;
Its bliss is there behind the world's face of tears.

A power is in thee that thou knowest not;
Thou art a vessel of the imprisoned spark.
It seeks relief from Time's envelopment,
And while thou shutst it in, the seal is pain:
Bliss is the Godhead's crown, eternal, free,
Unburdened by life's blind mystery of pain:
Pain is the signature of the Ignorance
Attesting the secret god denied by life:

Page 454

Indifference, pain and joy, a triple disguise,
Attire of the rapturous Dancer in the ways,
Withhold from thee the body of God's bliss.

"O mortal who complainst of death and fate,
Accuse none of the harms thyself hast called;

Page 455

As one drawn by the grandeur of the Void
The soul attracted leaned to the Abyss: