Book Seven. The Book of Yoga
Canto I Canto II Canto III Canto IV Canto V Canto VI Canto VII
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Book Seven: Canto II The Parable of the Search for the Soul
Was it to nurse this grief and helplessly await thy doom, that thou earnest to earth ? O spirit, O immortal energy, arise and conquer Time and Death.
Savitri answers:
The Voice replies:
Savitri's heart falls mute; she does not speak. But a Power within her answers: I am thy portion here on earth. Command, I will do thy work.
The Voice replies:
Savitri continues to sit in her motionless pose. She looks into herself and seeks for her soul. The Cosmic past is revealed to her in a series of dream images: the first steps of creation, the soul embodying itself in the body, Matter slowly learning to think, Space filled with seeds of life and the human creature being born in Time. At first a being appears out of an infinite Nought, a Consciousness looks out at the Inconscient vast around, pleasure and pain vibrate in an insensible Void. All looks like the motion of a blind World-Energy working unconsciously shaping a universe out of a veritable Void. Slowly sensibilities gather round a pinpoint of ego; a sentient creature finds its poise. Gradually a formless Consciousness appears, thoughts and feelings stir, repetition forms habit, habit gives the appearance of permanence and a conscious being is built. Behind all our thoughts, hopes and dreams there is a conscious Soul assenting to Nature's acts, leaving the mind to function as its vicegerent. This mind is ever active, tossed about on the sea of Time, buffetted by waves of Life. It knows no silence, thoughts move in it in an endless stream. The senses bring in reports from the outside every moment. Even in sleep there is a rush of activity, though of another kind. This is the little surface of man's life. But within him is locked a mysterious world, Deep within lives a hidden King in the solitude of the spirit, a portion of God. Man is truly a little front of Nature's action. All the opposites in creation are there in him. In his subconscious and unconscious regions he harbours all the dangerous dark forces which at times rise up and besiege his conscious being. This evil Nature can even dislodge the soul that is the real owner of the house. Always, there is a contrary to God threatening God's creation. But there is a Grace that guards, Hands that save. Calm divine eyes regard this human scene. All the possibilities of the world wait in man as the tree in its seed. I iii Past determines his future, his present acts shape his fate. Within him lie the gods and demons that create the moulds in which he grows. Our surface is aware of only a little of its course; a vast subliminal and a dim subconscient are there overpowering in their range and force, Our past is never wholly dead. Something clings and drags back our nature's forward stride. We live in the mind's dubious light and know not the meaning and purpose of the world. Above us is the superconscience, around us is the ignorance, below us is the Inconscience.But this is only the first appearance of the material world. This is not all that we are. On the summits of our being, beyond the thinking mind our greater self of knowledge awaits us. it is a surface light that shines in a truth-conscious Vast; when that Light descends, earth's life will turn divine. That is our real godhead. Behind our surface exterior, there are great nesses hidden in our unseen parts. They project their influences and urge us to move forward. Our soul in its secret chamber seeks for Good, Beauty and God. There is an inner mind that dwells in a larger light, an inner life-self that gives the dynamism to soar to our summits, an inner, subtle physical self which is instinct with a truth-sense of its own, Man was the first creature to lift up his head, look upwards and behold the friendly stars. He saw his unrealised vastnesses and his secret aspiration found articulation. Slowly he grew in vision and power and approached the ranges of the Omniscient and the Omnipotent. He climbed the stairs of evolution and saw the light of the special sun. At long last man is able to ascend to his high source and reach his fount of immortality. From there he calls the Godhead into his mortal life. All this has been done in Savitri by the spirit in her. A portion of the mighty Mother comes into her. She is made the Centre of a wide-drawn scheme to mould humanity into God's own shape, to discover a new world or create one. Earth must transform herself and become the equal of Heaven or Heaven must descend into earth. But for this transmutation to be possible, the Psyche—the inner Soul—must come out of her secrecy and step into the outer nature, assume rulership over its domain of mind, life and body. Savitri sits obedient to the Command from above. Her sight has to break through the veils of inferior nature and ignorance which conceal her-self and find her soul within.
As in the vigilance
of the sleepless night As Savitri sits sleepless through the slow, heavy night, repressing the grief in her heart and staring at the dumb passage of Time and the hastening approach of Fate, she suddenly hears a call from the summits of her being, a sound that breaks the seals of the Darkness around her.
Above her brows
where will and knowledge meet
It seemed to come
from inaccessible heights A mighty Voice breaks through her vision centre above the eye-brows 1 where is the seat of Will and Knowledge. It seems to belong to supreme heights and yet it is intimately aware of this world, understands the mystery of passing Time and sees in the Cosmic Space the fixed field for the working of the Eternal's Will. ajna -chakra
As the Voice
touched, her body became a stark
Around her body’s
stillness all grew still: At the impact of the Voice, her body stiffens, and she goes into a motionless trance, looking a golden statue, a stone of God luminous with a jewelled lout. An grows still around the stillness of her body; in that silence her heart listens to its own rhythmic beats; her mind becomes empty of thought, hears the Voice and is silent.
“Why camest thou
to this dumb deathbound earth, Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death.” The Voice speaks:O spirit, O immortal energy that thou art, why didst thou come to this dumb and mortal earth, this ignorant life beneath an uncaring heaven, bound and offered as an oblation on the sacrificial altar of Time, if it was only to nurse grief helplessly as thou doest or tearfully await thy doom ? O soul, arise and conquer Time and Death. Summon thy heroic soul that can vanquish these; stay not in thy outer person that feels helpless.
But Savitri’s
heart replied in the dim night: Savitri's heart replies:My strength is no more with me: it is taken away from me and given to Death. The heavens are shut to me; why should I plead with them? Why should I struggle with the inevitable, dumb Fate? Why should I hope and try in vain to save and uplift this ignorant race which hugs its miserable lot and mocks at the Light that comes to save, which again looks upon the Mind as the sole temple of Wisdom, regards its hard summits of reason and its base in the nether inconscience as a rock of safety and an anchor of happy rest?
Is there a God whom any cry can move?
He sits in peace and
leaves the mortal’s strength
What need have I,
what need has Satyavan
Why should I strive
with earth’s unyielding laws Is there really a God whom prayer can move? God sits in peace and leaves man alone in his puny strength which is powerless against the calm, omnipotent Law of God, against the stark Inconscience and the all-powerful hands of Death. What need have I or Satyavan to avoid the black-knit net of death, its dismal door? Why should I call in a mightier Light into this little closed room of life, call a greater Law to intervene in this petty world of man? Why indeed should I battle with the adamant laws of earth-life or ward off the inevitable hour of death?
This surely is best
to pactise with my fate
Then could we lie
inarmed breast upon breast, “It appears best to accept my fate and follow my lover through the night of death to the bright heavens across the dark river 1 that separates the little realms of earth and heaven which are indeed so close. Then both of us could lie in each other's arms, in close embrace, troubled neither by mind nor by heart, forgetting all about this world of man and its passage in time, forgetting also the call of Eternity, forgetting even God.” Vaitarini
The Voice replied: “Is this enough, O spirit?
And what shall thy
soul say when it wakes and knows
Or is this all for
thy being born on earth The Voice replies:O spirit, is that enough? What shall thy soul say when it wakes up from this spell of forget-fullness and realises that the mission for which it came to earth lies unfulfilled ? Surely thy being has taken birth on earth charged with a divine task. It is a companion of Time, a traveller on the path of the gods; can it just pass through this life on earth and leave its old encrusted laws unchanged ? Its mandate is to change them.
Shall there be no
new tables, no new Word,
Cam’st thou not
down to open the doors of Fate, Shall there not be new laws, a new Message? Shall not a new light, greater than the present, come down on earth to free her from her basic state of unconsciousness, to free man's spirit from adamant fate? Host thou not come down from thy heights in the Spirit in order to break open the hard doors of Fate that seem ever closed and to lead man from his narrow path in ignorance to the wide and luminous road of truth that forges through the finite world to the infinite and the eternal ?
Is this then the
report that I must make, “Is this the report that I must make with my head bowed in shame before the throne of the Eternal? Shall I have to say that His power embodied in Savitri has failed, that His servitor returns without doing the work for which she was sent to earth?”
Then Savitri’s heart fell mute, it spoke no word.
But holding back her
troubled rebel heart, Savitri's heart falls silent; it speaks no word. But a Power within her, holding hack her rebellious heart, sudden, erect and strong, calm like a hill, rising beyond the seas of human ignorance, its unshakable peak towering above the agitated mind, answers the still Voice.
“I am thy portion
here charged with thy work, O great and immortal Voice, I am a portion of thee here charged with thy work. Thou art myself ever stationed above; speak thou to my depths, command me, for I am here only to do thy will.
The Voice replied:
“Remember why thou cam’st: The Voice replies:Remember the purpose for which thou host come to the earth. Seek out thy soul, recover thy self which is lost to thy sight. In thy depths lies the truth that explains all; seek that in silence. Then proceed to change thy mortal nature into divine nature.
Open God’s door, enter into his trance.
Cast Thought from
thee, that nimble ape of Light: Open the closed door of God, enter into his state of consciousness. Throw away thought from thee. It is only a clever imitation of Light. Then will the mighty Silence of God invade thy mind and still the brain. In that hush thou shalt awake within to the vast Truth of God, know it and see it.
Cast from thee sense
that veils thy spirit’s sight: Cast away also the veil of sense that obstructs the direct sight of thy spirit. Then in the wide vacancy of thy mind—emptied of thought and sense—thou shalt behold the Eternal manifest in the world, recognise him in every voice heard by thy soul, feel his unique touch in every contact in the world. So through all things you will feel his embrace.
Conquer thy heart’s
throbs, let thy heart beat in God: Free thy heart from thy emotions; let it beat only in the rhythm of God. Thy nature shall be the powerful instrument for his workings; thy voice shall carry the force of his creative Word. Then—when all this is done—thou shalt embody my force and with it overcome Death.
Then Savitri by her
doomed husband sat,
In the black night
the wrath of storm swept by,
Impassive mid the
movement and the cry, Savitri continues to sit by the side of her husband who is under sentence of death. Motionless as a statue, she sits lit up with the brilliance of her inner sun. Amidst the sweep of the storm, the crash of thunder and pouring of rain, she sits impassive, untouched by all the movement and the cry around her, a witness of the passing thoughts of the mind and the moods of life; she looks into herself and searches for her soul.
A dream disclosed to
her the cosmic past, A dream-vision reveals to her the past of the cosmos, the hidden seed and occult origins, the vague beginnings of the world-movement and its fate. A symbolic imagery lights up the hidden truth and pictures to her the meaning and significance of the World.
In the indeterminate
formlessness of Self The first mysterious steps of creation are taken in the featureless formlessness of the Self. The form of the body, a dwelling-place for the soul, is made. Matter slowly develops the faculty of thinking and the individual grows. Savitri sees all Space crowded with the seeds of life and she sees man appear gradually in time.
At first appeared a
dim half-neutral tide At first there appears a dim inchoate movement of being coming out of an infinite Non-Being. A Consciousness peers at the extended inconscient Vast and sensations of pleasure and pain begin to stir in that insensible Void.
All was the deed of
a blind World-Energy: All is the working of a blind 1,•orkl-wide, world-shaping Energy. The Energy is not conscious of her actions, but goes on working, building up a universe out of an infinite Void.
In fragmentary
beings she grew aware: This Energy slowly becomes self-aware in several fragmented formations. Chaotic movements of little sensibilities gather round a small, pin-head ego. And in this ego the sentient creature finds its poise. Based upon this ego, the creature moves and lives as an animate and thinking being. The ego is the point provided by Nature for the centralisation of all movements in flux; the being forms itself around this Centre.
On a dim ocean of
subconscient life On the obscure ocean of subeonscient life there awakes slowly a vague surface consciousness: there is a flow of passing thoughts and feelings: a froth of memories hardens and becomes a solid crust of habit in sense and thought, the base of articulate individuality. Habits repeating themselves constantly give the appearance of permanence.
Mind nascent
laboured out a mutable form,
A conscious being
was by this labour made;
It felt a godhead in
its fragile house; The infant mind shapes with difficulty a form which, however, s not stable; it erects a moving tenement on the shifting sands of life, a floating island upon the surface of a bottomless sea. A conscious being is produced by all this labour. It looks around upon its uneven field of experience and growth on this fresh, wonderful but dangerous earth. Relying upon the apparent eternity of Matter it hopes to survive all threats to its life in a short-lived body. It feels the presence of a godhead in its brittle easement: it gazes upon the blue firmament of the sky and dreams of immortality.
A conscious soul in
the Inconscient’s world In this world based upon Inconscience, hidden behind all our thoughts, hopes and dreams is a conscious soul. This soul is the Master, who, however, indifferently consents to the rule of Nature. Consequently, the mind which is but a representative of this soul becomes apparently the king, the ruler; in reality, of course, it is subject to Nature.
In his floating
house upon the sea of Time This regent in his floating house is ever at work, without respite; he is a puppet of the circumstances that are thrown up in time he is driven by events; from moment to moment he is lashed by the whip of the imperious wants of life and pulled by the several confusing calls of the world.
This mind no silence
knows nor dreamless sleep, The mind does not know silence nor can it sleep undisturbed by dreams, It is in constant movement—a movement that turns round and round—and thoughts go on passing incessantly through its brain that passively listens. It toils like a machine unable to stop its activity.
Into the body’s
many-storeyed rooms
All is a
hundred-toned murmur and babble and stir, Intimations from this dreaming mind pour profusely and endlessly into the varied structures of the body, crowding its chambers of multiple functions. Everywhere there is a stir and a confused murmur of many voices, there are hasty movements in all directions, a perpetual hurry and cry.
The hurried servant
senses answer apace The servant senses are ever in a hurry attending to calls from the outside world, admitting life's visitors, reporting each contact, answering innumerable queries, registering intimations from other communicating minds, carrying on their huge interchange in this innumerable and multiple world.
Even in the tracts
of sleep is scant repose; Even in sleep there is hardly any rest. The regent mind parodies, as it were, the movements of waking life in strange subconscient dreams; he wanders off in higher realms of symbolic imagery. He is occupied in filling nights with unsubstantial visions, vague forms and their moving shapes. Only for a brief moment he reposes in the silent self within.
Adventuring into
infinite mind-space This regent mind soars freely into the inner mental regions on the wings of thought or travels in the car of imagination. crossing the globe, traversing the stars, visiting subtler worlds. It encounters the gods on the wonder-summits of life, communicates with Heaven and also dabbles in Hell.
This is the little surface of man’s life.
He is this and he is
all the universe; Such is man's little life. But it is so only on the surface. In truth man is much more; below the surface he is as wide as the universe. He ascends to the summits of the Unseen, he plunges into the depths of the Abyss of the universe. Within him is locked up a whole world of mystery—a world not normally seen or fathomed.
Unknown to himself
lives a hidden king Unknown to the outer man, there lives in the large inner chambers, behind picturesque veils, the hidden King; a great enjoyer of the unseen felicities of the spirit, he thrives upon the honey of solitude. Like a god without a name in an inaccessible temple, in the sanctum sanctorum of the inmost soul, he guards the hidden mysteries of his being behind the gates of unawareness or concealed in the subterranean chambers of inconscient sleep.
The immaculate
Divine All-Wonderful Man in the world’s life works out the dreams of God. The unsullied All-wonderful Divine casts the glory and light of his self-creation in boundless Time into the white purity of the soul of man which reflects as in a pure mirror the splendour and radiance of the Divine. That is how man works out the dreams of the creative God.
But all is there,
even God’s opposites;
Indeed, all is in
man not only the glories of God but even their contraries. Man is but
a small front for the workings of Nature, an articulate and thinking
figure of a hidden Force.
All she reveals in
him that is in her,
Man’s house of
life holds not the gods alone: Nature reveals in man all that is in her—her glories as well as her darknesses. Man houses in himself not the bright gods alone, but also hidden Shadows, dark Powers which dwell in his sub-conscious and unconscious regions. They are the powerful and dominating occupants of the obscure world in him.
A careless guardian
of his nature’s powers,
The Titan and the
Fury and the Djinn Man is a careless guardian of the powers of his nature. He harbours dangerous forces in his being; in the depths of his subconscient lie captive the Titan, the Fury and the Diinn-forces of extraordinary strength and intellect, of intense anger and vengeance, of supernaturally immediate effectuation. The animal in him lies low in this nether region. Mutterings and murmurings rise from their semi-dormant states
Insurgent sometimes
raises its huge head At times the fearful visages of these hostile principals,—the mystery of dark and depraved regions,—lurking in the sub-conscious and unconscious belts of the being raise their heads in rebellion against the rule of the higher man.
The dreadful powers
held down within his depths All the dreadful powers suppressed in the lower depths of man's being, rush up and either gain his ear and influence him or wholly dominate over him. Rising to their full stature they occupy his entire physical being: they act through his activities, they fill his thinking and living.
Inferno surges into
the human air
Grey forces like a
thin miasma creep A veritable hell is let loose on the scene and it fouls everything with its pervading breath. Through inadvertent openings and gaps in the fortress of man, obscure and foreign elements creep in with their infectious stuff. taint the fair hues of the regions of his upper mind where he normally lives his elegantly ordered existence and leave behind an offensive odour of sin and death.
Not only rise in him
perverse drifts of thought Perverse winds of thought blow in him intangible influences gain ground. And what is more, awful presences and shapes appear. These huge forms and faces rise at times unbidden from the lower unconscious levels of man's being to his surface consciousness where he becomes aware of them and can deal with them. But there are other times when these perverse forces are actually summoned by man for some brief passionate work. But the work over, they cannot be dismissed easily for they acquire a legitimate claim on him and insist on continuing their activity. Once aroused from their sleep, they can no longer be chained down.
Afflicting the
daylight and alarming night, These forms and faces, these dreadful, terror-striking inhabitants of the dark regions below, invade man's conscious parts at their will. During daytime they cause distress, but at night they make positive inroads and become dangerous. They climb up from the nether darkness into the God-given light above and attack all light.
All they have
touched or seen they make their own, These unwelcome visitants appropriate to themselves whatever they see or touch. They dwell in the subterranean regions of nature, crowd the passages of the mind, interfere with the processes of thought and contemplation, invade the silences of the soul with their noises and cries. Or they summon the denizens of the still lower regions of the abyss and precipitate hidden instincts into forbidden orgies of wild pleasure and mirth; they stir up the wild demoniac laughter of these unruly elements and with their riot and revel throw life into utter disorder.
Impotent to quell
his terrible prisoners
He is bound and
forced, a victim of the play, And man, the owner of the house sits helpless and appalled unable to control his own dreadful prisoners. His very house is no more his. lie is bound, compelled to be a victim of their nefarious play. Or, he is enticed and foolishly joins in their mad revels.
His nature’s
dangerous forces have arisen
Aroused from the
darkness where they crouched in the depths, The dangerous forces of his nature have broken out of control and enjoy a rebel's holiday. The master of the house is helpless. From the obscure regions where they lay dormant, concealed from view, they have been aroused; they cannot be held down any longer. These foul impulses of his own lower nature are now his defiant rulers.
Once quelled or
wearing specious names and vests Man’s lower nature hides these awful guests. Their vast contagion grips sometimes man’s world. An awful insurgence overpowers man’s soul. Now no more under subjugation, these hellish elements, demon powers, hold sway under spurious labels and names. Man's lower nature is full of these hidden elements, At times their vast contagion infects man's world. His soul is overpowered by their organised rising.
In house and house
the huge uprising grows; This massive uprising spreads from man to man. Armies from hell are let loose to carry out their nefarious work, From every opening they break into the earth-life with their lust for blood and will to kill and they altogether fill this fair world of God with horror and slaughter.
Death and his
hunters stop a victim earth; Death and his agents stride upon the helpless earth. The Angel of Death does not leave a single house unsmitten. Dreadful laughter derides the pain of the world; slaughter and torture grin at Heaven sure of their ascendency. All becomes the prey of the force of destruction let loose. The whole creation shakes with fear.
This evil Nature
housed in human hearts This evil Nature in man is in truth foreign to him it is a dangerous guest; for this guest dislodges its host—the human soul that gives quarter to it. It expells the owner and occupies the house. Man has to be careful not to let any of these elements enter his being under whatever plea or provocation. They always have a tendency to occupy more and more of his being, supplant all that is good in him, all that derives from the soul, and ultimately displace the soul itself from its throne.
An opposite potency
contradicting God,
It imitates the
Godhead it denies,
A Manichean creator
and destroyer, A potent Power contradicting God, a might of Evil irresistible for the moment, has crossed the straight path of Nature's course, This opponent imitates the Godhead which it has come to negate, assumes his shape and appearance, This is the Power of opposition that sets itself against God, it has the power both to create and destroy; it creates what God destroys and destroys what God creates. It can abolish man and stamp out his creation.
But there is a
guardian power, there are Hands that save, But this is not allowed to happen. For there is a Grace that presides, a greater Power that guards, there are Divine Hands that save man. Calm, divine eyes always regard the human scene; in that look is the strength that protects and sustains.
All the world’s
possibilities in man Man epitomises the universe. In him are waiting all the possibilities that seek for actualisation in the world. They are potent in him as the tree is in its seed. His past is not dead: it continues to live in his habits, inclinations, turns of nature. It impels the formation of his future. What he does at present also determines his future fate.
The unborn gods hide in his house of Life.
The daemons of the
unknown overshadow his mind His mind creates around him its universe. The creative Powers that are not yet manifest remain concealed in man's being. These deities of the subtler planes loom over his mind and release their dreams into vibrant moulds of thoughts i.e., his thoughts are formed by the impulsions of these gods. According to these moulds is the world that the mind proceeds to build. And, indeed, man lives in the universe that his mind creates around him.
All that has been
renews in him its birth,
Issuing in deeds it
scores on the roads of the world, What has taken place does not pass away. It renews itself in a cryptic form in man. All that is to take place in the future is also there pre-cast in the depths of his being—the soul. It effectuates itself into action during the course of his life in the world, leaving hints of the hidden plans of the gods which, however, the interpreting power of the mind can hardly understand.
In strange
directions runs the intricate plan;
And the far
intention of some ordering Will The plan of the gods is intricate, it spreads in unexpected directions, its goal is concealed from the reach of human sight. There is throughout a higher Will that orders things' according to an inherent truth; or there is a self-regulating purposive order that masks itself in the workings of what looks like an arbitrary Chance. This Intention finds the right rhythm and the right time for the effectuation of things. The Self-Existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.— Isa Upanishad 8.
Our surface watched
in vain by reason’s gaze,
Only a little of us
foresees its steps, Human reason looks in vain upon the surfaces of life for clues. These surfaces are constantly barged into by elements from regions unseen: they only serve to register inexplicable happenings in Time and unexpected, uncaused turns and leaps of life. Only a little part of us is conscious, knows where it is moving, only a little part has a will and a purpose in its movement.
A vast subliminal is man’s measureless part. The dim subconscient is his cavern base.
Abolished vainly in
the walks of Time A vast subliminal being is there in man and that is not limited, not measurable. And there is his obscure subconscient past which forms the hidden foundation of his life. We think an experience passes with the passage of time and we dismiss it; but it does not die, it lives on in our unconscious selves in the form of subtle influences. These samskaras, tendencies and inclinations rooted in the past determine to a great extent the formation of the future.
Thus all is an
inevitable chain
The unremembering
hours repeat the old acts, Thus the past, the present, the future form a continuous, unbroken chain of experience in time. Even then, events appear as if they were accidents, a series of unexpected, unconnected happenings. It is a misleading appearance. In fact. even though we do not remember them, the old actions repeat themselves through the impulses generated by them. The past that is apparently over still clings to the ankles of the developing future and repeatedly pulls backwards the advancing steps of the incessantly self-renewing nature.
Or from its buried
corpse old ghosts arise, From the past taken for dead and buried in the sands of time, old ghosts spring up; old thoughts, old desires, spent passions come to life again and repeat themselves in sleep or impel man, even in his waking condition, to speech that is involuntary, precipitate him into actions that are sudden and overwhelm his ruling reason and his presiding will which are helpless against them.
An old self lurks in
the new self we are; Nothing that has been once alive in our experience is entirely dead. Something of the old always survives in the new self that we are constantly becoming. The old reveals itself through persistent habits. From the dark regions of the subconscient, things are carried up through the nerve-channels; the subconscious mind does not stop them, the usual sentinels of vigilance and discrimination are lax there; the blind instinctive memory also admits them because of their familiarity. Thus does the whole gang of them, though relegated to the past and dismissed by the conscious mind. re-enter surreptitiously.
In dim tunnels of
the world’s being and in ours The old rejected nature survives and continues in the subterranean regions of the being of the world and of ourselves. Rejected and forgotten thoughts rise up in dreams, their movements suppressed in the waking mind are released here. Everything has an air of permanence.
Irresistible are
Nature’s sequences: Our dead selves come to slay our living soul. The ordered movements of Nature will not be interrupted or broken. Once a cause is admitted, its results cannot be cut off; in one form or another they will show themselves. We may renounce the sins for which we were responsible, but the seeds of those sins still sprout from the hidden soil where they were thrown. Repeatedly do we come up against the evil we have cast away from ourselves. Our past doings, our personalities shaped by those doings, are never wholly dead; they stage come-backs to defeat and slay our present, living soul.
A portion of us
lives in present Time, Only a portion of our being participates in our present life. A large part of it is rooted and blindly moves in the obscurity of the inconscience below; more is spread out behind the veil in the subliminal. Projected from both these realms of our existence, our surface being lives in the unsteady light of the mind, struggles to know and control the problematic world around, whose purpose and meaning are concealed from its vision.
Above us dwells a
superconscient god Thus what is revealed of us is but precious little. Above us is the superconscience covered in its transcendent light; around is the sea of Ignorance lit up here and there by the unsure ray of our mental intelligence; below is spread out the dormant and obscure region of the Inconscience.
But this is only
Matter’s first self-view, This is not all we are or all our world.
Our greater self of
knowledge waits for us, It shall descend and make earth’s life divine. However, all this is only the first view when Matter looks at itself; it is a gradation in the cosmic Ignorance. This is not the whole truth of ourselves or of the world.There is a greater self of Knowledge that Vijnanamaya purusha of the Taittiriya Upanishad. awaits us; it is a supreme light that ever shines in a vast region where all is truth-consciousness? That Knowledge-Self sees from altitudes of being that are beyond the farthest ranges of our thinking mind; it moves in a free and radiant plane that transcends terrestrial life. When that will descend here on earth—as it surely shall—our life here will be transmuted into a divine life. Satyam,ritam,brihat,the Truth, the Right, the Vast of the Veda.
Truth made the world, not a blind Nature-Force.
For here are not our
large diviner heights; This world of ours has not, indeed, been made by a blind mechanical Force of Nature as it would appear at first sight. It has been created by Truth. There are larger heights of our existence which are divine; they are not revealed here in our present conditions of Ignorance. There on the blazing summits of the superconscient can be had the glorious vision of God Himself.
There is our aspect
of eternity, There on the summits is that part of us that is eternal, not subject to time and death. That part, that self, is our divine being that ever regards things immortal, joys in its transcendence of death and time and is radiant in its natural state of immortality, light and bliss.
Our larger being
sits behind cryptic walls: Behind our limited surface being, behind its unseen walls, extends our inner, larger being. Hidden in our inner parts are intensities of power and consciousness that await the right conditions to come forward and manifest in external life. That is why we are aware, at times, of receiving help from deep within ourselves—from the Gods dwelling within; there speaks a Guidance from within, there comes a Light from above.
Our soul from its
mysterious chamber acts;
It seeks for Good
and Beauty and for God; Our soul, seated in its secret chambers within, is active. It exerts itself, its influence presses on our heart and mind, our feelings and thinkings, and drives them to exceed their limited, mortal formations. The soul seeks for Goodness, Beauty and God even in conditions that are the veryopposite. Due to its pressure we are urged to look beyond the walls of our limiting ego-self and perceive our larger unbounded self, to glimpse half-revealed vastitudes of Being through the eyes of the world, to search for abiding Truth behind the fleeting appearances in the universe.
Our inner Mind
dwells in a larger light, The mind with which we normally function is not the whole Mind. It is only the outer mind on the surface. There is an inner Mind which lives in a larger, wider light; its radiance regards us through veiled openings. By its action our faculties grow luminous and Wisdom dawns on the horizons of our mental being. When this Wisdom emerges into the realm of our senses which are turned outward, we begin to look upwards—not outwards—and behold the Sun of Knowledge above the mental skies,
A mighty life-self
with its inner powers Similarly what we call our life is only a small portion, a fragment, of the mighty surge of life that supports and sustains from below and behind. It is vibrant with inner powers that are irresistible and it organises itself around our inner self. It is this inner vital that gives momentum to our movements and enables us to soar beyond the domains of physical Matter.
Our body’s subtle
self is throned within Even our physical body—so obviously limited in its capacities and range—has a subtler self behind the exterior surface. This subtle-physical is a veiled field of visions and dreams that come true on the physical plane afterwards—dreams that are truly bright transcriptions or impressions of the musings of God.
In the prone obscure
beginnings of the race
He stood erect, a
Godlike form and force In the obscure and earth-bound beginnings of the human race, man first had a bent- figure resembling that of the ape. Gradually this hunchbacked body straightened up and its posture became erect, it acquired the form and force of a god. From his earth-born eyes, the thoughts of the soul within looked out. These eyes were no longer directed towards the ground but looked proudly upwards and around.
Man stood erect, he
wore the thinker’s brow: From the original bent position of the apelike figure, man stood erect. The thinker in him came into action. He looked up at the skies and saw the friendly stars above. A vision of beauty, of a slow transforming change emerging from out of the temple of light in the heart came and took shape in a pure, radiant dream-state.
He saw his being’s
unrealised vastnesses,
Out of the dim
recesses of the self He perceived the vastnesses of his being still. to be realised; he aspired to grow and articulated the urge of the awakening half-god within to come into his own. From out of the veiled regions of his inner self the unseen seeker in him emerged into the open.Vision, aspiration, seeking took keen shape.
He heard the far and
touched the intangible, His subtle senses awoke and he heard what is beyond the physical hearing, touched what is physically not sensible, looked into the realms of the future and the unseen beyond physical vision; he was able to use new powers which the ordinary creatures of earth cannot handle. What is impossible for the normal physical nature became a plaything for him. He could grasp something of the thought of the omniscient Consciousness. He made liberal use of the processes of the supernal omnipotent Power.
Thus man in his
little house made of earth’s dust
At last climbing a
long and narrow stair Thus did man on this little globe, which is but a speck in the Infinite, encased in a weak and transient physical body, grow towards the unseen heights of thought and dream, gazing into the expanding horizons of his mind. He climbed the long, narrow stair of evolution and arriving at a high summit-the only creature to do so—beheld the light of a spiritual sun in the firmament.
Aspiring he
transcends his earthly self; By aspiring to rise above his earthly state, he goes beyond it. His soul reveals itself in its innate largeness and rising above the bondage of mortal things, he stations himself in the vastitude of his soul; he moves and lives in a spiritual dimension pure and free from the clamps of mortality, as in the high air above the earth-atmosphere.
A lost end of far
lines of divinity, At first man moved far away from Divinity. Then by means of a slender linking thread of aspiration he climbs back to his Source and reaches his original fount of immortality. From there he calls the answering Godhead into his mortal life on earth.
All this the spirit
concealed had done in her: The veiled Spirit had effected all these developments in Savitri. An emanation of the mighty Mother descended into her as into its own human part. Savitri was made the centre of a wide-planned scheme conceived in the force of a far-reaching Idea to build humanity in the mould of God, to lead this blind struggling world to eternal light, to discover or create a wholly new world.
Earth must transform
herself and equal Heaven
But for such vast
spiritual change to be, The Earth must change, transform herself so as to become an equal of Heaven. Or Heaven itself must descend into Earth's mortal state and transform her. Such a capital spiritual change, however, can be effected only on the one condition that the divine entity within, the Psyche, must emerge out of the Veil that covers her, take her stand in the outer, active nature and occupy and govern all movements of mind, life and body. The psychic self must come forward and take complete control of the outer nature and personality.
Obedient to a high
command she sat:
The inferior nature
born into ignorance Savitri sits in meditation in obedience to a command from above. In that state, time, life and death become mere passing incidents obstructing in their passage her inner sight that needs to break through the veils of nature and set free the divine soul—a portion of God—imprisoned in the blind mortal man. The lower nature born of ignorance still occupies a large space in her being; it hides her inner self and has to be set aside in order to find her real soul.
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