Aurobindo-24-Savitri-Book -2

An appreciation on Savitri Book IIThe Book of the Traveller of the Worlds Canto IVThe Kingdoms of the Little Life Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's 'It woke from happy torpor a blind Force Compelling it to sense and seek and feel.' 'A groping consciousness in a voiceless world, A guideless sense was given her for her road; ' 'In her substance of unthinking mute soul-strength That cannot utter what its depths divine, Awoke a blind necessity to know. The chain that bound her she made her instrument; ' 'Inflicting on the body desire and hope, ' 'She brought into Matter's dull tenacity ' 'Her wandering unsure steps, her cry for change.' 'Adorer of a joy without a name, In her obscure cathedral of delight To dim dwarf gods she offers secret rites.' True, a fear-ride on a blindfolded path 'Matter dissatisfies, she turns to Mind; ' 'Only a glimmer sometimes splits mind's sky Justifying the ambiguous providence That makes of night a path to unknown dawns 'A foundling of the Gods she wanders here Like a child-soul left near the gates of Hell Fumbling through fog in search of Paradise.' Truth is rarely cloaked in glittering attire In here Thine word-woven brocade glitters 'On dim confines where Life and Matter meet He wandered among things half-seen, half-guessed, Pursued by ungrasped beginnings and lost ends.' 'Himself was dim to himself, half-felt, obscure, As if in a struggle of the Void to be.' 'This blindfold force could place no thinking step; '... ............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 4 Page 133 An eyeless Power that sees no more its aim, ......Life cast her seed in the body's indolent mould; Alive with her yearning woke the inert cell, In the heart she kindled a fire of passion and need, Amid the deep calm of inanimate things Arose her great voice of toil and prayer and strife. Thought was withheld and nothing now she knew, But all the unknown was hers to feel and clasp. Page 134 Instinct was hers, the chrysalis of Truth, And effort and growth and striving nescience. She conquers earth, her field, then claims the heavens. Page 135 In Nescience began her mighty task, In Ignorance she pursues the unfinished work, For knowledge gropes, but meets not Wisdom's face. Life here was intimate with Death and Night And ate Death's food that she might breathe awhile; She was their inmate and adopted waif. Accepting subconscience, in dumb darkness' reign A sojourner, she hoped not any more. An unhappy face of falsity made true, A contradiction of our divine birth, Indifferent to beauty and to light, Parading she flaunted her animal disgrace Page 135&136 Fallen, glorying in the vileness of her state, The grovel of a strength once half divine, The graceless squalor of her beast desires, The staring visage of her ignorance, The naked body of her poverty. Page 136 A wide unquiet mist of seeking Space, A rayless region swallowed in vague swathes, That seemed, unnamed, unbodied and unhoused, A swaddled visionless and formless mind, Asked for a body to translate its soul. Its prayer denied, it fumbled after thought. Only a crude child-heart cried for toys of bliss, Mind flickered, a disordered infant glow, And random shapeless energies drove towards form And took each wisp-fire for a guiding sun.