Savitri-study-Book-7-Canto-3

Book Seven: Canto 3

The Entry Into The Inner Countries

Summary
By an inward movement, Savitri enters into a hushed stillness away from the busy hum of the mind. All is blank. She seeks her way farther and hears a Voice: “Thou seekest for man, not for thy self alone. Unless God assumes humanity he cannot save man. Thou must accept man's darkness to bring Light to him, his sorrow to bring Bliss to him. For that purpose, find firs, thy heaven-born soul in thy material body.”

Savitri surges out of the physical body, stands. a little outside of it. looks into the depths of tier subtle being and there in its heart divines her secret soul. She knocks and presses against the door that guards the inner life; there is a loud cry from within asking her to go back to earth lest she be tortured and put to death.

A dreadful movement rises up. The guardian Serpent at the threshold rises hissing, hounds of darkness growl, strange little beings of varied shapes scoul and stare, wild animal roarings fill the air with terror. All around is menace. Still. unshaken, she presses on the bars of the gate and the gate opens with a protesting jar. The opposing Powers withdraw.

She enters the inner worlds Through the portals of the subconscient that is suffocating, she enters the region of subtle Matter and forces her way through the body to the soul.

At first it is all chaos; life is struggling to emerge from Matter into some incipient mind. Nothing is formed, all is drifting, uncertain. After a while, during which she walks into the corridors of inner Time, she breaks out into a realm of forms, of the beginnings -of finiteness, of the world of the senses: but the soul is not there. All is the clamour, of life. Voices, visions, movements abound, but without any directing will. Life's power attempts to pull down reason from its seat so that it could reign unfettered in its sense-world.

Savitri pushes away this threatened state and goes on through this dark dangerous passage fixing her thought on the saviour Name. Then comes a deliverance. All grows still. empty, She moves through a blank tranquillity—a vacuum of nameless peace.

Slowly another danger arises on the horizon. A giant head of Life with an uncontrolled Force looms ahead. Like a turbulent sea it breaks into the stillness of her self and floods her being with its lust for power, its cry of hunger. Drunk from the well of the world-libido, it seeks for the primitive joy of Nature. It dreams of the glory of the life gods and cycles of Desire rise in this infinity. This ardour of Life is not blunted by the weight of the earth and as this Force of Life rises upwards, there is the glow of the mind of Life, the vital mind imitating the light of intuition and its infallibility. But it is a borrowed light mingled with falsehood and error.

In these nether realms of Life all kinds of contraries are mixed up. Truth and error, Wisdom and Ignorance, Death and Life are all mingled in: this valley of fleeting Gleams. Souls trapped in this region become agents of Life's desires, not their masters. Some, however, warily pass across and reach a greater life.

All this streams past Savitri's vision; the storm and the roar subside and she breathes once again a free and tranquil air.

She journeys on and steps into a brilliant. ordered Space where Life is tamed and under control, her will and fancy curbed. Mind and sense govern the Life-Force. Reason dominates with its rule of symmetrv. The soul is enthroned on a bench of law.

Wisdom is reduced to formula, The ample sweep of Idea is cut into a System and fixed to pillars of thought or clamped to the ground of Matter. The soul is lost in its heights. Thought revels in its abstractions. Life's empire is forced into a scheme of Reason; its course is confined to a safe level path. It no more dares to adventure, to soar too high or set the world afire.

Under this dispensation of Reason, thought cannot fly too high or vast: life-movements are severely cabined; they are directed by a careful reason or some calm will towards some chosen objective. Life-activity is not a spontaneous projection of the inner being. The soul is walled in by limited ideas. Meditation, worship, religion—all of these are narrowed and mentalised. Ethics is brought in to rule life and Knowledge covered over by creed.

There comes the country of the Thought-Mind, where there is an air of final stability. There she is greeted by a being of imposing self-importance who welcomes her to that land of thought's finality and urges her to rest there where alone she can find the perfection and certainty she is seeking for. But Savitri perceives that all there is only a limiting, orderly reign of the intellect and declines to stay in that realm of apparent Knowledge. She must proceed to find her soul.

Some are astonished to hear such questions; some scoff at her talk of 'soul' which they consider to be but a small gland or a freak of secretion. Some pity her ignorance in mistaking the Spirit to be other than a creation of the Mind. One, however, with mystic and unsatisfied eyes, still remembering his old unsuccessful quest, wonders that there is still someone who seeks for a Beyond.

Savitri goes on across her silent self. She comes to a road thronged with a luminous company of gods, goddesses and beings rushing towards the world to save it. She asks them the road which she must tread to reach the birthplace of the Mystic Fire, the abode of her secret soul. One of them replies to her that they all come from her own hidden soul, they are the occult gods who help men in their struggles. He asks her to follow the world's winding highway to its source where she will find in deep, unfrequented Silence the Fire and the silent soul she is searching for.

Savitri follows the direction and enters a brooding hush where is felt the silent nearness of the soul.

Hushed Emptiness

At first out of the busy hum of mind
As if from a loud thronged market into a cave
By an inward moment’s magic she had come,
A stark hushed emptiness became her self:
Her mind unvisited by the voice of thought
Stared at a void deep’s dumb infinity.

By an inward-going process Savitri leaves the busy, humming region of the active mind and enters within—like one withdrawing from a hectic market thoroughfare into a solitary, silent cave. There she finds in a sheer, still emptiness her inner self. Her mind, no longer crossed by the sound of thought, stares at the mute infinity of a profound void.

Once more a Human Thing

Her heights receded, her depths behind her closed;
All fled away from her and left her blank.

But when she came back to her self of thought,
Once more she was a human thing on earth,
A lump of Matter, a house of closed sight,
A mind compelled to think out ignorance,
A life-force pressed into a camp of works
And the material world her limiting field.

Her consciousness rises to greater heights, goes within into deeper depths. Everything disappears, she is left without thought, without feeling—blank.

However, when she returns to her thinking self, she is once again a human being of the earth:a form of Matter, a house without windows, a mind compelled to think and move in ignorance, a life-energy directed into a vortex of activity with the material world forming her limited field.

A Voice Speaks

Amazed like one unknowing she sought her way
Out of the tangle of man’s ignorant past
That took the surface person for the soul.

Then a Voice spoke that dwelt on secret heights:

Human ignorance mistakes the surface being for the soul, the real self that is deep within. Savitri leaves that confused web of human heritage and seeks her way within wondering like one who knows not the path.

Then from the secret heights of her being a Voice speaks:

God must Assume Humanity

“For man thou seekst, not for thyself alone.

Only if God assumes the human mind
And puts on mortal ignorance for his cloak
And makes himself the Dwarf with triple stride,
Can he help man to grow into the God.

Thou art not seeking here for thyself alone, but for all men, for man.To help man grow into God. God himself must assume the human form; he must accept the instrumentation of the human mind, put on the cloak of mortal ignorance and reduce himself to the puny stature of Vamana, the Dwarf-Man Avatar, expanding and covering in his three steps all existence,—the worlds of Physical earth, Life-regions and the Mental-heavens

Cosmic Greatness Disguised as Man

As man disguised the cosmic Greatness works
And finds the mystic inaccessible gate
And opens the Immortal’s golden door.

Man human follows in God’s human steps.

Accepting his darkness thou must bring to him light,
Accepting his sorrow thou must bring to him bliss.

In Matter’s body find thy heaven-born soul.”

“The Divine Greatness specially manifest in the Cosmos, the Avatar, works under the disguise of the human form. It finds the secret gate inaccessible to mortals and opens the golden door of the Immortal.

The human being, man, follows in the path laid by the Divine in its human form and gait. Thou must accept the darkness of man before thou canst bring him light, accept his sorrow before thou canst bring him bliss. Thou halt to bear his burden before thou canst relieve man of his heavy lot.

Discover thy soul, divinely born, in this body formed of Matter.”

Savitri Surges.out of her Body

Then Savitri surged out of her body’s wall
And stood a little span outside herself
And looked into her subtle being’s depths
And in its heart as in a lotus-bud
Divined her secret and mysterious soul.

Then Savitri breaks out of the physical barriers of her body, stations herself a little above it and gazes into the depths .of her subtle being behind the physical body. And she intuits the seat of her secret and unfathomed soul to be in the centre, in the lotus bud, of the subtle being.

Dim Portal of Inner Life

At the dim portal of the inner life
That bars out from our depths the body’s mind
And all that lives but by the body’s breath,
She knocked and pressed against the ebony gate.

The living portal groaned with sullen hinge:
Heavily reluctant it complained inert
Against the tyranny of the spirit’s touch.

There is an obscure door at the entrance of the inner regions of the being which bars the physical mind and all else that is physical e.g. the gross senses from entry into our depths. Savitri knocks and presses against this hard, dark gate and the live doorway groans with its unyielding hinge: it is obstinately reluctant to be disturbed in its inertness and complains against the compulsion to open by the pressure of the spirit that Savitri brings to bear upon it.

Formidable Threat

A formidable voice cried from within:
“Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die.”

A dreadful murmur rose like a dim sea;

A mighty and dreadful voice cries from within: “O creature of earth, turn back’ otherwise thou shalt be tortured, torn and left to die.”

A fearful murmur as of a dark sea rises up.

Serpent Rises Hissing

The Serpent of the threshold hissing rose,
A fatal guardian hood with monstrous coils,
The hounds of darkness growled with jaws agape,
And trolls and gnomes and goblins scowled and stared
And wild beast roarings thrilled the blood with fear
And menace muttered in a dangerous tongue.

The guardian Power at the threshold of the interior, the deadly Serpent of unearthly hood and huge coils, rises hissing; the hounds of the nether darkness growl with open mouths; all the little subtler entities and elements that dwell there unseen scowl at this intrusion and stare; the hidden beast in the subconscient roars and spreads alarm; there is an atmosphere of audible menace and danger.

Opponent Powers Withdraw

Unshaken her will pressed on the rigid bars:
The gate swung wide with a protesting jar,
The opponent Powers withdrew their dreadful guard;
Her being entered into the inner worlds.

Savitri is not shaken. Resolutely she pushes the rigid bars of the gate which then swings wide albeit with a loud jar of protest, The opponent Powers withdraw their fierce guard. The passage being opened, Savitri's being enters the inner worlds.

Forces her way to the Soul

In a narrow passage, the subconscient’s gate,
She breathed with difficulty and pain and strove
To find the inner self concealed in sense.

Into a dense of subtle Matter packed,
A cavity filled with a blind mass of power,
An opposition of misleading gleams,
A heavy barrier of unseeing sight,
She forced her way through body to the soul.

While passing through the narrow passage of the gate of the subconscient, Savitri has difficulty even in breathing and is full of pain, yet she strives to get at the inner self behind the outer senses. A mass of blind power is stored in the heaviness of subtle Matter; misguiding flashes act in opposition, there is a strong and thick barrier where sight refuses to see. Through all these deformations of power, light and sight in the body she forces her way to the soul.

Perilous Border

Across a perilous border line she passed
Where life dips into the subconscient dusk
Or struggles from Matter into chaos of mind,
Aswarm with elemental entities
And fluttering shapes of vague half-bodied thought
And crude beginnings of incontinent force.

She crosses a dangerous border line where life enters the obscurity of the subconscient or struggles from Matter into the chaotic low levels of the mind crowded with elemental entities and quivering shapes of half-formed thoughts and the raw beginnings of uncontrolled force.

Spaces of Inner Self

At first a difficult narrowness was there,
A press of uncertain powers and drifting wills;
For all was there but nothing in its place.

At times an opening came, a door was forced;
She crossed through spaces of a secret self
And trod in passages of inner Time.

Initially she finds a narrowness difficult to negotiate; there is a pressing of powers that are not sure of themselves, of wills that are not steady but drifting. Indeed all is there around, but nothing is in its right place. All is in chaos.

At times there comes an opening and she forces open a door; she crosses through the corridors of a secret self and walks in the passages of a Time that pertains to the inner realms (different from the Time of the outer world).

Clamorous Air

At last she broke into a form of things,
A start of finiteness, a world of sense:
But all was still confused, nothing self-found.

Soul was not there but only cries of life.

A thronged and clamorous air environed her.

At last she steps into a realm of forms, where distinct finitising of things begins, a world cognisable by sense. But vet, all is confused, nothing is distinct and standing by itself. There is no soul there; there are only sounds and cries of life.

She is surrounded by a crowded and 'agitated air.

Dissonant Clash

A horde of sounds defied significance,
A dissonant clash of cries and contrary calls;
A mob of visions broke across the sight,
A jostled sequence lacking sense and suite,
Feelings pushed through a packed and burdened heart,
Each forced its separate inconsequent way
But cared for nothing but its ego’s drive.

There is a medley of sounds without meaning, a confused jumble and clash of cries and opposing calls, a crowd of visions, a disorderly scene with neither sense nor sequence. There is a rush of feelings through a crowded and loaded heart, each forcing its own, separate, disconnected way raring for nothing else but its ego-impulse.

Rally without common will

A rally without key of common will,
Thought stared at thought and pulled at the taut brain
As if to pluck the reason from its seat
And cast its corpse into life’s wayside drain;
So might forgotten lie in Nature’s mud
Abandoned the slain sentinel of the soul.

There is a crowd of thoughts with no coordinating will; each thought looks askance at another and pulls at the strained brain as if to drag down the reason from its secure seat, muffle and throw it away into the roadside drain thus would reason—the watchful sentinel of the soul—lie slain and forgotten in Nature's mire.

Shakes Off Mind's Rule

So could life’s power shake from it mind’s rule,
Nature renounce the spirit’s government
And the bare elemental energies
Make of the sense a glory of boundless joy,
A splendour of ecstatic anarchy,
A revel mighty and mad of utter bliss.

Once the reason is overthrown, the life-power could be free from the rule of the mind, Nature break away from the regulation of the Spirit, the raw elemental energies turn sense into an orgy of unbounded joy, a dazzling play of blissful disorder, a reckless and irresistible indulgence of mad ecstasy.

Vital Godhead Wakes

This was the sense’s instinct void of soul
Or when the soul sleeps hidden void of power,
But now the vital godhead wakes within
And lifts the life with the supernal’s touch.

Such is the instinctive turn of the sense when it is not informed by the soul or when the soul lies dormant in its secrecy without dynamism. But there is the vital self within which wakes up and lifts life with the touch of a higher spirit.

No Light without Mind

But how shall come the glory and the flame
If mind is cast away into the abyss?

For body without mind has not the light,
The rapture of spirit sense, the joy of life;

Still, if the mind be not there, if the mind were thrown away, how can there come the glory and the upward flame of enlightened, aspiring life? For without the mind to illumine and guide it, the body will remain without light, without the articulate joy of life, without the ecstasy of the spirit-informed sense.

Mad Disorder

All then becomes subconscient, tenebrous,
Inconscience puts its seal on Nature’s page
Or else a mad disorder whirls the brain
Posting along a ravaged nature’s roads,
A chaos of disordered impulses
In which no light can come, no joy, no peace.

Then all becomes subconscious, dark; Inconscience reigns. A wild disorder racks the brain with a chaos of jostling, disparate impulses rushing through the natural being, shutting out all light, all joy, all peace.

Hour After Hour She Treads

This state now threatened, this she pushed from her.

As if in a long endless tossing street
One driven mid a trampling hurrying crowd
Hour after hour she trod without release,
Holding by her will the senseless meute at bay;
Out of the dreadful press she dragged her will
And fixed her thought upon the saviour Name;
Then all grew still and empty; she was free.

A large deliverance came, a vast calm space.

Such a state now threatens to engulf Savitri, but she pushes it away from her. Like one driven amid a hurrying crowd on a long road she goes on and on, compelling by her strong will the brute hounds to stay at a distance from her; she forces her will into action in spite of all that terrible compression and fixes her thought upon the Divine Name. Then suddenly comes a change. All becomes still and empty. She is free. There is a large freedom, a Nast calm peace.

Blank Tranquillity

Awhile she moved through a blank tranquillity
Of naked Light from an invisible sun,
A void that was a bodiless happiness,
A blissful vacuum of nameless peace.

For a while she moves on through tracts of blank tranquillity; there pours down a direct light from a sun that is, however, not visible. It is a void full of vague happiness, a blissful vaccum of an undefinable peace.

Giant Head of Life

But now a mightier danger’s front drew near:
The press of bodily mind, the Inconscient’s brood
Of aimless thought and will had fallen from her.

Approaching loomed a giant head of Life
Ungoverned by mind or soul, subconscient, vast.

The pulls and pressures of the physical mind, pointless thought and aimless will—elements issuing from the Inconscient—have fallen away from her. But a more formidable danger approaches. A giant head of Life appears on the scene; it is not controlled by the mind or the soul: it is subconscient, vast.

Torrent of Life

It tossed all power into a single drive,
It made its power a might of dangerous seas.

Into the stillness of her silent self,
Into the whiteness of its muse of Space
A spate, a torrent of the speed of Life
Broke like a wind-lashed driven mob of waves
Racing on a pale floor of summer sand;
It drowned its banks, a mountain of climbing waves.

This life concentrates all its strength into a single blow as powerful as the might of perilous seas. It flings itself with the speed of a torrent to invade the stillness of her silent self, musing in pure white space. It is as furious in its attack as wind-driven waves rising like mountains and crashing on the summer sand.

Enormous Clamour

Enormous was its vast and passionate voice.

It cried to her listening spirit as it ran,
Demanding God’s submission to chainless Force.

A deaf force calling to a status dumb,
A thousand voices in a muted Vast,
It claimed the heart’s support for its clutch at joy,
For its need to act the witness soul’s consent,
For its lust of power her neutral being’s seal.

The voice of Life is all pervading and clamorous in its cry to the spirit of Savitri demanding the surrender of God to its unbound Force. It will not submit to the rule of God.

This force is lost in its own movement and works and it cries aloud in an inarticulate vast domain. It clutches at joy and claims the heart's support for it; it has an innate urge and need to act and it claims the consent of the witnessing soul for it; it lusts for more and more power and seeks the sanction of Savitri's inner being that is neutral, uninvolved.

Gust of Breath of Life

Into the wideness of her watching self
It brought a grandiose gust of the Breath of Life;
Its torrent carried the world’s hopes and fears,
All life’s, all Nature’s dissatisfied hungry cry,
And the longing all eternity cannot fill:

This Life-Force brings a mighty gust of the Breath of Life into the wide spaces of Savitri's witnessing self; its powerful torrent carries with it the hopes and fears of the entire world, the restless hungry cry of all Nature, all Life; its longing is such that all eternity cannot satisfy it.

Its Call

It called to the mountain secrecies of the soul
And the miracle of the never-dying fire,
It spoke to some first inexpressible ecstasy
Hidden in the creative beat of Life;

The call of this surging Life-Force strives to reach the unseen Lights of the soul and the mystic flame of the undying aspiration. It communicates with the ineffable ecstasy that beats secretly in the creative rhythms of life.

From World-Libido

Out of the nether unseen deeps it tore
Its lure and magic of disordered bliss,
Into earth-light poured its maze of tangled charm
And heady draught of Nature’s primitive joy
And the fire and mystery of forbidden delight
Drunk from the world-libido’s bottomless well,
And the honey-sweet poison-wine of lust and death,
But dreamed a vintage of glory of life’s gods,
And felt as celestial rapture’s golden sting.

From out of the nether hidden depths, the torrent of Life pours its alluring contents of chaotic bliss into the earth region: the intoxicating wine of the primitive joy of Nature, the intensities and mysteries of the delights (forbidden by the awakened consciousness.) drunk from the bottomless world-desire, and the outwardly sweet but intrinsically poisonous draught of lust and death. It dreams of and reaches out to the headier wine of the life-gods and feels the extremes of rapture bordering on pain as something celestial.

Seeking for the Unfulfille

The cycles of the infinity of desire
And the mystique that made an unrealised world
Wider than the known and closer than the unknown
In which hunt for ever the hounds of mind and life,
Tempted a deep dissatisfied urge within
To long for the unfulfilled and ever far
And make this life upon a limiting earth
A climb towards summits vanishing in the void,
A search for the glory of the impossible.

The unending cycles of boundless desire and a secret sense of conviction that points to an unrealised world and makes it larger than the world that is known and more intimate than those unknown realms in which the forces of mind and life are ever amuck, draw out a deep dissatisfied urge from within to reach out for what is unfulfilled and far away, to make of life on this limiting earth a climbing towards altitudes that stretch into the Void, an incessant search for the glory of what looks impossible now.

Striving for the Ungrasped

It dreamed of that which never has been known,
It grasped at that which never has been won,
It chased into an Elysian memory
The charms that flee from the heart’s soon lost delight;

This Force of Life dreams of what has not been known and realised, clutches at what has not been secured so far, it pursues the memory of the charms of the short-lived delights of the heart. The memory of such a state pushes it on to try to actualise it.

Dares the Force that Slays

It dared the force that slays, the joys that hurt,
The imaged shape of unaccomplished things
And the summons to a Circean transmuting dance
And passion’s tenancy of the courts of love
And the wild Beast’s ramp and romp with Beauty and Life.

It takes on the force that could kill, embraces the joys that hurt, tries to formulate things that are still not accomplished, responds to the call of an alluring fast-changing dance of disintegration, participates in the passionate intensities of love and the varied play of the uncontrolled Animal with Beauty and Life.

Flame-Ascension

It brought its cry and surge of opposite powers,
Its moments of the touch of luminous planes,
Its flame-ascensions and sky-pitched vast attempts,
Its fiery towers of dream built on the winds,

This movement of the vital Force brings with it the clamour and the clang of contrary powers, it touches at times the hem of luminous planes above, it soars high and throws itself wide into the vasts of the skies, it builds flaming dream-towers in its speeding course.

Contraries

Its sinkings towards the darkness and the abyss,
Its honey of tenderness, its sharp wine of hate,
Its changes of sun and cloud, of laughter and tears,
Its bottomless danger pits and swallowing gulfs,
Its fear and joy and ecstasy and despair,
Its occult wizardries, its simple lines
And great communions and uplifting moves,
Its faith in heaven, its intercourse with hell.

This mighty life-movement has its plunges into the nether dark regions, its sweetness of tender feeling, its sting of hatred, its rapid turnabouts of brightness and obscurity, of cheer and depression, its endless pits of danger and engulfing vasts, its changing moods of fear and joy, ecstasy and despair, its involved, magical movements as well as its direct, simple acts, its intimacies with greater Verities, its large uplifting actions, its perception and faith in the high felicities of the heavens above, its natural inclination towards and sorties into the hells below.

Godward Impulses

These powers were not blunt with the dead weight of earth,
They gave ambrosia’s taste and poison’s sting.

There was an ardour in the gaze of Life
That saw heaven blue in the grey air of Night:
The impulses godward soared on passion’s wings.

These powers of Life are not blunted with the petrified weight of this physical base, the earth. They carry the exhilaration of the drink of the gods as well as the deadly sting of poison. There is an intensity in the powerful gaze of Life that discovers the splendid blue of heaven in the pervading greyness of Night. It has its godward impulses that soar high on the wings of its irresistible passion.

Vital Mind

Mind’s quick-paced thoughts floated from their high necks
A glowing splendour as of an irised mane,
A parure of pure intuition’s light;
Its flame-foot gallop they could imitate:
Mind’s voices mimicked inspiration’s stress,
Its ictus of infallibility,
Its speed and lightning heaven-leap of the Gods.

Then come the fast-moving thoughts of the vital mind—with a brilliant glow resembling the light of pure intuition. They can imitate the flashing movements of intuition. The voices of this mind try to pass off as inspiration with its stress of infallibility—the right inspiration being always infallible its speed and its godlike. heavenly leap towards the truth.

Not Genuine

A trenchant blade that shore the nets of doubt,
Its sword of discernment seemed almost divine.

Yet all that knowledge was a borrowed sun’s;
The forms that came were not heaven’s native births:
Its puissance dangerous and absolute
Could mingle poison with the wine of God.

Further this mind displays a keen discerning power that cuts across all maze of doubt and seems to be almost divine.

But all this display is not the light of the original Sun of Knowledge; it is an imitative light from a questionable source with forms far from genuine. Its power is strong and dangerous, capable of adding deadly poison to the exhilarating wine of God, cleverly mixing fatal falsehood with the inspiring truth of God.

Truth in Error's Arms

On these high shining backs falsehood could ride;
Truth lay with delight in error’s passionate arms
Gliding downstream in a blithe gilded barge:
She edged her ray with a magnificent lie.

Such are the high glittering movements on which falsehood rides. Truth sports with error in delight and slides downwards in attractive formations. Truth allows her light to be surrounded by an imposing falsehood.

Life's nether realms

Here in Life’s nether realms all contraries meet;
Truth stares and does her works with bandaged eyes,
And Ignorance is Wisdom’s patron here.

Those galloping hooves in their enthusiast speed
Could bear to a dangerous intermediate zone
Where Death walks wearing a robe of deathless Life.

Here in the nether domains of Life all opposites come together. Truth works blindly as if there were a bandage over her eyes while wisdom exists only under the sufferance of Ignorance. The speeding energies of Life may rush one into a perilous intermediate zone where Death stalks under the guise of immortal Life.

Valley of Wandering Gleam

Or they enter the valley of the wandering Gleam
Whence, captives or victims of the specious Ray,
Souls trapped in that region never can escape.

Agents, not masters, they serve Life’s desires
Toiling for ever in the snare of Time.

Or these Life-energies may enter the Valley of the wandering Gleam where souls are misled by a false light and get trapped without escape. These souls are not masters but slaves of Life's desires and for ever they toil for them in the net of Time.

Spirit Ensnared

Their bodies born out of some Nihil’s womb
Ensnare the spirit in the moment’s dreams,
Then perish vomiting the immortal soul
Out of Matter’s belly into the sink of Nought.

The bodies of these souls are born of the womb of some Nothing and they entrap the spirit in passing dreams of the moment. Then they die ejecting the immortal soul out of its encasement of Matter into a pit of Nil.

Some Reach a Greater Life

Yet some uncaught, unslain can warily pass
Carrying Truth’s image in their sheltered heart,
Pluck Knowledge out of error’s screening grip,
Break paths through the blind walls of little self,
Then travel on to reach a greater life.

Still, some souls can with care pass through these dangerous regions without being arrested or slain, for they carry some emanation or image of Truth in their guarded heart. They can separate and pluck Knowledge from the covering hold of error, open up paths through the limiting and blind walls of the little self, and then journey further on to reach the domains of a larger, greater Life.

Clamour of Waters

All this streamed past her and seemed to her vision’s sight
As if around a high and voiceless isle
A clamour of waters from far unknown hills,
Swallowed its narrow banks in crowding waves
And made a hungry world of white wild foam:

All this flows past Savitri and it seems to her inner sight as if around a high mute island a torrent of waters from unknown hills afar overflows its narrow banks with its rushing waves and throws up a hungry world of white wild foam.

Foam and Cry

Hastening, a dragon with a million feet,
Its foam and cry, a drunken giant’s din,
Tossing a mane of Darkness into God’s sky,
It ebbed receding into a distant roar;

This huge tide throwing up wave after wave of gleaming foam shouts aloud like a drunken giant and tosses up a mane of Darkness, as it were, into the skies above and then ebbs away, its roar receding into a distance.

Happy Joy of Life

Then smiled again a large and tranquil air:
Blue heaven, green earth, partners of Beauty’s reign,
Lived as of old, companions in happiness;
And in the world’s heart laughed the joy of life.

Once again smiles a wide and tranquil air. Beauty reigns with her companions of blue heaven and green earth, radiantly happy as before. The world's heart is full of laughter and the joy of life.

All Still

All now was still, the soil shone dry and pure.

Through it all she moved not, plunged not in the vain waves.

Out of the vastness of the silent self
Life’s clamour fled; her spirit was mute and free.

All now is still; the terrain is bright, dry and pure.

Throughout all this violent disturbance. Savitri has not plunged into the vainly repetitive waves. She has not moved out of the vastitude of her silent self. The loud clang and din of Life dies away. Her spirit continues to be silent and free.

Reason-Ordered Space

Then journeying forward through the self’s wide hush
She came into a brilliant ordered Space.

There Life dwelt parked in an armed tranquillity;
A chain was on her strong insurgent heart.

Savitri presses forward through the wide stillness of her self and steps into a radiantly bright region where all is set in an ordered manner. Here Life dwells housed in a well guarded quietude; a chain is put, as it were, on her rebellious spirit.

The rule of Reason has begun.

Tamed Life

Tamed to the modesty of a measured pace,
She kept no more her vehement stride and rush;
She had lost the careless majesty of her muse
And the ample grandeur of her regal force;
Curbed were her mighty pomps, her splendid waste,
Sobered the revels of her bacchant play,
Cut down were her squanderings in desire’s bazaar,
Coerced her despot will, her fancy’s dance,
A cold stolidity bound the riot of sense.

Life's wild pace is brought under a measured control; she no more runs about with her usual vehemence and rush. The free sway of her musings and the large grandeur of her royal force are no more there, Her imposing displays, hey splendid wastes are under check; her drunken frolics are sobered down, Her reckless self-spendings in pursuit of desires are reduced. Her imperious will is reined in, so also the play of her fancy. The wild activity of her senses is tied up in a kind of immovable immobility.

Bound in Rigid Lines

Her spirit’s bounds they cast in rigid lines.

A royalty without freedom was her lot;
The sovereign throned obeyed her ministers:
Her servants mind and sense governed her house
And guarded with a phalanx of armoured rules
The reason’s balanced reign, kept order and peace.

The spirit of life is bound in rigid limits. She is still sovereign, but she has no real freedom of action; the monarch is obliged to obey the ministers. Even mind and sense—originally her servants—govern her house, guard with their own systems of hard rules and regulations the balanced reign of reason; they keep order and peace in this region.

Bench of Law for Throne

Her will lived closed in adamant walls of law,
Coerced was her force by chains that feigned to adorn,
Imagination was prisoned in a fort,
Her wanton and licentious favourite;
Reality’s poise and reason’s symmetry
Were set in its place sentinelled by marshalled facts,
They gave to the soul for throne a bench of Law,
For kingdom a small world of rule and line:
The ages’ wisdom, shrivelled to scholiast lines,
Shrank patterned into a copy-book device.

Life's will is circumscribed by rigid laws, her force kept tinder check by cords seemingly decorative. Imagination which is the favourite indulgence of Life is imprisoned. The status of reality and the symmetrical order of reason are established in their place under the watchful eye of proven facts. The soul is enthroned on the narrow bench of law, with a small world patterned by rule and line for its kingdom. The wisdom of the ages is substituted by a cut and dried system at the hands of the commentator, and reduced to a codified text-book tabulation.

Schoolman Mind

The Spirit’s almighty freedom was not here:
A schoolman mind had captured life’s large space,
But chose to live in bare and paltry rooms
Parked off from the too vast dangerous universe,
Fearing to lose its soul in the infinite.

The all-powerful freedom of the Spirit is not here: The small mind addicted to system and petty orderliness has taken possession of the vaster domains of life; though these spaces are large this mind constricts itself in bare and tiny rooms. This it does to fortify itself from the vast universe around so that it may not run the danger of losing its entity in the widenesses of the universe.

Ideas' Sweep Cut

Even the Idea’s ample sweep was cut
Into a system, chained to fixed pillars of thought
Or rivetted to Matter’s solid ground:
Or else the soul was lost in its own heights:
Obeying the Ideal’s highbrowed law
Thought based a throne on unsubstantial air
Disdaining earth’s flat triviality:
It barred reality out to live in its dreams.

Even the Idea is forced to limit its natural wide range; it is cut down to fit into a system, tied to fixed formulations of thought or rivetted to the physical bases of Matter. Or the soul is lost in itself on its altitudes. Following the pull of the Ideal towards the abstract, Thought dwells in an unsubstantial air looking down on the concrete earth as something trivial and dull; it shuts itself from reality in order to be free to luxuriate in its own dreams.

Systemed Universe

Or all stepped into a systemed universe:
Life’s empire was a managed continent,
Its thoughts an army ranked and disciplined;
Uniformed they kept the logic of their fixed place
At the bidding of the trained centurion mind.

Everything is contained in a systematised scheme. The large and free domain of life is placed under firm management; life's thoughts are serried together in an order and a sequence according to fixed logic enforced by the disciplinarian mind.

Unchanging Hierarchy

Or each stepped into its station like a star
Or marched through fixed and constellated heavens
Or kept its feudal rank among its peers
In the sky’s unchanging cosmic hierarchy.

Or each thought takes its position, lone and shining by itself; or it moves through an ordered and organised system; or it holds itself in its special status in the general unchanging set-up of the cosmos.

Life Constrained

Or like a highbred maiden with chaste eyes
Forbidden to walk unveiled the public ways,
She must in close secluded chambers move,
Her feeling in cloisters live or gardened paths.

Life is here obliged to be restrained in her movements. She can no more rush about in her primitive freelance ways. He• movements must not be too obvious, her feelings must stay concealed or flow into cultivated, elegant channels.

Life Consigned to Safe Path

Life was consigned to a safe level path,
It dared not tempt the great and difficult heights
Or climb to be neighbour to a lonely star
Or skirt the danger of the precipice
Or tempt the foam-curled breakers’ perilous laugh,
Adventure’s lyrist, danger’s amateur,
Or into her chamber call some flaming god,
Or leave the world’s bounds and where no limits are,
Meet with the heart’s passion the Adorable
Or set the world ablaze with the inner Fire.

Life is assigned a well-bid out course without risk. She no more attempts to scale difficult altitudes nor shoots up to companion a lonely star in the skies; nor does she dare the danger of the precipice nor brave the dangerous waves of the sea. Life no more sings the paens of adventure nor experiments with danger. She no longer seeks the companionship of some flaming god. She does not go beyond the safe hounds of the worlds nor seek with passion the Face of the Adorable Lord in the infinite vasts. Neither does she fire the world with the intensity of her inner flame.

Chastened Life

A chastened epithet in the prose of life,
She must fill with colour just her sanctioned space,
Not break out of the cabin of the idea
Nor trespass into rhythms too high or vast.

Life has now a more subdued, mellowed part to play in a less colourful world. She is allotted a limited space within which alone she can display her characteristic hues. She is confined to the ruling Idea and cannot break out of it; she is not allowed to foray into realms that are considered either too high or too vast for her assigned role.

Ught's Flight Controlled

Even when it soared into ideal air,
Thought’s flight lost not itself in heaven’s blue:
It drew upon the skies a patterned flower
Of disciplined beauty and harmonic light.

Thought itself cannot soar too high; even when it touches the domains of the Ideal, it cannot lose itself in the purity of those heavens. All it can do is to draw a fine picture of elegance and balanced composition on the skies of the abstract.

Vigilant Spirit Governs

A temperate vigilant spirit governed life:
Its acts were tools of the considering thought,
Too cold to take fire and set the world ablaze,
Or the careful reason’s diplomatic moves
Testing the means to a prefigured end,
Or at the highest pitch some calm Will’s plan
Or a strategy of some High Command within
To conquer the secret treasures of the gods
Or win for a masked king some glorious world,

A restrained and watchful spirit governs life. Its acts are the result of deliberating thought and hence lack the animation to fire the world. Its movements are the calculated moves of the careful reason experimenting with ways and means to arrive at a chosen goal. Even at their highest, these movements are part of a plan of some calm unseen Will or the strategy of some Ruler within to capture the secret powers of the gods or win for a veiled monarch some world of glory.

Not an Index of the being

Not a reflex of the spontaneous self,
An index of the being and its moods,
A winging of conscious spirit, a sacrament
Of life’s communion with the still Supreme
Or its pure movement on the Eternal’s road.

Its movements are not spontaneous like those of the self nor are they an index of the being and its moods; nor are they the soaring of the conscious spirit, nor an act of worship of life in communion with the still calm Supreme; nor are they a natural and pure movement of life on the path of the Eternal.

Wall of small Ideals

Or else for the body of some high Idea
A house was built with too close-fitting bricks;
Action and thought cemented made a wall
Of small ideals limiting the soul.

Or reason builds here a narrow and rigid construction for some high Idea to live in. Both action and thought work to raise a circumscribing wall of small, petty ideals around the soul.

Exclusive Worship

Even meditation mused on a narrow seat;
And worship turned to an exclusive God,
To the Universal in a chapel prayed
Whose doors were shut against the universe:
Or kneeled to the bodiless Impersonal
A mind shut to the cry and fire of love:

Even meditation is not a wide and spontaneous movement it is a contemplation from a small, narrow base. Worship itself is directed to an exclusive—not an all-inclusive—God. Prayers are offered to the Universal Spirit in a chapel, whose doors, however, are closed to the wide universe. Or a mind impervious to the call and pa.ion of love kneels in prayer to a cold, formless Impersonal.

Rational Religion

A rational religion dried the heart.

It planned a smooth life’s acts with ethics’ rule
Or offered a cold and flameless sacrifice.

The sacred Book lay on its sanctified desk
Wrapped in interpretation’s silken strings:
A credo sealed up its spiritual sense.

Religion is rationalised, shaped and governed by reason; so done, it dries up all the emotional and psychic movements of the heart.

It seeks to govern smoothly all the movements of life with the rule of Ethics. The sacrifice it offers to God is cold and lacks the fire of aspiration. Its Scripture, the Book of Wisdom lies shut in the decorative wrappings of interpretation; its spiritual meaning is hidden and sealed in creed—the truth is covered by beliefs and opinions organised into a system.

Thought-Mind

Here was a quiet country of fixed mind,
Here life no more was all nor passion’s voice;
A cry of sense had sunk into a hush.

Soul was not there nor spirit, but mind alone;
Mind claimed to be the spirit and the soul.

Further Savitri enters another space—the quiet realm of the thought-mind. Here life is no longer dominant nor the cry of passion. The clamour of the senses has sunk into a hush. Neither the individual soul nor the spirit is here; only the mind exists. And mind claims to be the sole reality—the soul and the spirit of all.

Glory of thought

The spirit saw itself as form of mind,
Lost itself in the glory of the thought,
A light that made invisible the sun.

Here the mind is not seen as a poise of the spirit. Instead the spirit sees itself as a form taken by the mind. The spirit loses itself in the splendour of the thought that reigns supreme in this region. But this thought is a light that obscures and covers the true sun of Knowledge.

Last Stability

Into a firm and settled space she came
Where all was still and all things kept their place.

Each found what it had sought and knew its aim.

All had a final last stability.

Savitri has come into a region of settled and ordered space. Everything is still, each keeps to its allotted place. Each has found what it has searched for and knows as its goal, There is an air of achieved stability about the whole region.

Alternate version:This narrowed life's pedestrian thought and will Debauched into la little continent spaceWhere soul was not nor spirit thinking mindLaboured content with small finalities.It seemed to it the lop of being's areAnd the last circle of the quest of life.It was a paradise for thought's crowned easeWhere nothing more was left to find or know,A tabernacle of wise contented life.

This constricted and dulled life-movement breaks into a small domain where neither soul not spirit is. only the thinking mind is at work satisfied with its small certainties. To this mind, this state appears to be the highest possible status of the being, the final phase of the quest of life. It is a paradise of the felicities of thought, with nothing more left to seek or to know, a writable abode of wise, contented existence.

A being Speaks

There one stood forth who bore authority
On an important brow and held a rod;
Command was incarnate in his gesture and tone;
Tradition’s petrified wisdom carved his speech,
His sentences savoured the oracle.

Here a being with an air of authority and self-importance comes forward and begins to speak. His speech is instinct with the spirit and tone of command it is cast into the mould of the hardened wisdom of tradition. His words have the authority and finality of an oracle.

Thoughts Finality

“Traveller or pilgrim of the inner world,
Fortunate art thou to reach our brilliant air
Flaming with thought’s supreme finality.

O aspirant to the perfect way of life,
Here find it; rest from search and live at peace.

Ours is the home of cosmic certainty.

O traveller or pilgrim to the inner world, thou art indeed fortunate to arrive into our bright kingdom radiant with the final certitude of thought. O aspirant to the perfect way of life, here is that perfect way. Cease from thy searchings and rest here in peace. This is the home of cosmic certainty where all is finally known.

We the Elite

Here is the truth, God’s harmony is here.

Register thy name in the book of the elite,
Admitted by the sanction of the few,
Adopt thy station of knowledge, thy post in mind,
Thy ticket of order draw in Life’s bureau
And praise thy fate that made thee one of ours.

The truth is here; God's harmony is here. Here are the elite of creation, be thou one of these; seek the sanction of the elect and choose thy order of knowledge, thy assignation in this domain of the mind. Take the needed authorisation from life's bureau here. Thank thy fate for making thee one of us—a rare privilege.

This is the End

All here, docketed and tied, the mind can know,
All schemed by law that God permits to life.

This is the end and there is no beyond.

Here is the safety of the ultimate wall,
Here is the clarity of the sword of Light,
Here is the victory of a single Truth,
Here burns the diamond of flawless bliss.

A favourite of Heaven and Nature live.”

Here the mind can easily know everything as all is labelled and arranged. All that is manifest by God in life is here filled into a scheme of law. This is the final station, there is nothing beyond. Here is the safety of the last protecting wall, here the clarity of vision brought about by the bright sword of Light, here the conquest by a single Truth—all others being eliminated. Here shines bright the flawless diamond of bliss.

Live thou here, the chosen of both Heaven and Earth-Nature.

Reign of Intellect

But to the too satisfied and confident sage
Savitri replied casting into his world
Sight’s deep release, the heart’s questioning inner voice.

For here the heart spoke not, only clear daylight
Of intellect reigned here, limiting, cold, precise.

Replying to this too complacent sage, Savitri casts into his world her liberating sight and the inner voice of her heart questioning everything that is taken for granted. For here the warmth of the heart is not articulate; all is a reign of clear, bright intellect, cold, exact, limited.

Single Truth in this Chaos

“Happy are they who in this chaos of things,
This coming and going of the feet of Time,
Can find the single Truth, the eternal Law:
Untouched they live by hope and doubt and fear.

Indeed, they are blessed who in all the chaos of the world, amidst the incessant activities of Time, can find the unique Truth, the unchanging Law. They can live unaffected by doubt or hope or fear of any kind,

Faith as a Rock

Happy are men anchored on fixed belief
In this uncertain and ambiguous world,
Or who have planted in the heart’s rich soil
One small grain of spiritual certitude.

Happiest who stand on faith as on a rock.

This is a world of uncertainty, of doubtful meaning. Those who can find and attach themselves to a fixed belief are happy; so too are those who have succeeded in planting even a small seed of spiritual certitude in the fertile soil of the heart. And happiest are they who have a faith as unshakable as a rock to stand upon.

I Seek My Soul

But I must pass leaving the ended search,
Truth’s rounded outcome firm, immutable
And this harmonic building of world-fact,
This ordered knowledge of apparent things.

Here I can stay not, for I seek my soul.”

But I cannot accept the intellect's elegant and harmonious construction of the world's significance as the final answer to the search for Truth. This ordered knowledge relates only to the appearance of things; I cannot be content with it. I am in search of my soul, the core of my being.

Silence and Murmur

None answered in that bright contented world,
Or only turned on their accustomed way
Astonished to hear questioning in that air
Or thoughts that could still turn to the Beyond.

But some murmured, passers-by from kindred spheres:
Each by his credo judged the thought she spoke.

None answers Savitri in that radiant, contented world. Some just turn for a moment while on their accustomed path, surprised that anyone can question in that air of finality or have thoughts that can still conceive of a Beyond and turn to it. Some, however, coming from similar realms, passing through this kingdom, murmur, each one judging her words according to his system of beliefs.

Soul, a Gland

“Who then is this who knows not that the soul
Is a least gland or a secretion’s fault
Disquieting the sane government of the mind,
Disordering the function of the brain,
Or a yearning lodged in Nature’s mortal house
Or dream whispered in man’s cave of hollow thought
Who would prolong his brief unhappy term
Or cling to living in a sea of death?”

“Who is this person who does not know that the soul is only a small gland or a freak of secretion, upsetting the orderly rule of the mind, interfering with the normal activity of the brain? Who does not know that it is only a hope and longing in the mortal embodiment of Nature, just a dream-whisper caught in man's chamber of hollow thought? Who wants to prolong his brief unhappy life-span or to cling to life in this expanse of death?”

Spirit, a Splendid Shadow

But others, “Nay, it is her spirit she seeks.

A splendid shadow of the name of God,
A formless lustre from the Ideal’s realm,
The Spirit is the Holy Ghost of Mind;
But none has touched its limits or seen its face.

Some, however, remark: She seeks her spirit which is but a splendid shadow of the name of God—so unsubstantial it is an unformed ray from the domains of the Ideal. It is said that the spirit is the Holy Ghost, the divine essence of the mind, but who has seen how far it extends? Who has actually looked into its face?

Mind, Sole Creator

Each soul is the great Father’s crucified Son,
Mind is that soul’s one parent, its conscious cause,
The ground on which trembles a brief passing light,
Mind, sole creator of the apparent world.

All that is here is part of our own self;
Our minds have made the world in which we live.”

True, each soul is the son of the great Father, suffering on the cross of life. But the parent of that soul is the Mind. Mind is the conscious origin of the soul, the base on which quivers a brief passing light that they call the soul. Indeed. Mind is the sole creator of this apparent world, All that is here in the universe is part of our Thought-Being. It is our minds that have created the world in which we dwell.

Still. a beyond

Another with mystic and unsatisfied eyes
Who loved his slain belief and mourned its death:
“Is there one left who seeks for a Beyond?

Can still the path be found, opened the gate?”

Remarks another passer-by with mystic eyes and unsatisfied look, who still remembers with love his belief in the Soul and Spirit, the belief that has been killed and whose death he mourns:Is there still someone left in the world who seeks for a Beyond! Can the path to it be yet found? Can that gate he opened again?

Messengers of the Subliminal

So she fared on across her silent self.

To a road she came thronged with an ardent crowd
Who sped brilliant fire-footed, sun-light eyed,
Pressing to reach the world’s mysterious wall,
And pass through masked doorways into outer mind
Where the Light comes not nor the mystic voice,
Messengers from our subliminal greatnesses,
Guests from the cavern of the secret soul.

Savitri advances across the spaces of her silent self. She arrives at a road thronged with an eager crowd rushing with brilliant speed, their feet glowing with fire, their eyes bright with sunlight. They are pressing to reach the yet unseen boundary of the world; they pass through veiled doorways into the realm of the outer mind where the inner Light does not come nor the psychic voice reach. They are all the messengers, emanations from our subliminal vasts, guests issuing from the cave of the secret soul. They are coming out from within to enter the outer world.

Varied Host

Into dim spiritual somnolence they break
Or shed wide wonder on our waking self,
Ideas that haunt us with their radiant tread,
Dreams that are hints of unborn Reality,
Strange goddesses with deep-pooled magical eyes,
Strong wind-haired gods carrying harps of hope,
Great moon-hued visions gliding through gold air,
Aspiration’s sun-dream head and star-carved limbs,
Emotions making common hearts sublime.

They break into the spiritual passage between the states of sleep and waking or look on with wide wonder on our waking state of being. They are a mixed assortment: ideas that pursue us with their bright footsteps dreams that are pre-monitary and significant; goddesses with enchanting eyes; hope-giving gods of strength with wind-like hair; grand visions of bliss floating through luminous air; soaring aspiration with the dreamt-of sun for its head and the stars for its limbs—so high is its range, emotions that turn even common hearts sublime by their movements.

Savitri Mingles with Them

And Savitri mingling in that glorious crowd,
Yearning to the spiritual light they bore,
Longed once to hasten like them to save God’s world;
But she reined back the high passion in her heart:
She knew that first she must discover her soul.

Only who save themselves can others save.

It is a radiant and glorious company. Savitri is attracted by the spiritual light they carry and mingles with them. She is seized by a longing, like them, to rush out to the world and save it from its pain and suffering. But she holds herself back from this noble impulse; she knows that she has first got to discover her soul and draw strength from it before she is able to achieve anything effective.Only those who have saved themselves are in a position to save others.

Her Eyes in Different Direction

In contrary sense she faced life’s riddling truth;
They carrying the light to suffering men
Hurried with eager feet to the outer world;
Her eyes were turned towards the eternal source.

Savitri faces the riddle of the truth of life in a direction that is opposite to the one taken by that host. They are hurrying eagerly to the temporal, outer world carrying with them light and solace to its suffering men. But Savitri's eyes are turned inwards, towards the eternal Source of all.

Reveal the Path

Outstretching her hands to stay the throng she cried:
“O happy company of luminous gods,
Reveal, who know, the road that I must tread,—
For surely that bright quarter is your home,—
To find the birthplace of the occult Fire
And the deep mansion of my secret soul.”

Savitri stretches out her hands to stay the advancing crowd and says to them: “O happy host of luminous gods, reveal to me the road that I must take to find the Source of the unseen Fire that creates All and the deep abode of my secret soul, for surely that luminous realm is your home and you know the path.

Occult Gods

One answered pointing to a silence dim
On a remote extremity of sleep
In some far background of the inner world.

“O Savitri, from thy hidden soul we come.

We are the messengers, the occult gods
Who help men’s drab and heavy ignorant lives
To wake to beauty and the wonder of things
Touching them with glory and divinity;
In evil we light the deathless flame of good
And hold the torch of knowledge on ignorant roads;
We are thy will and all men’s will towards Light.

One of them speaks, pointing to a dim silence on a far-off edge of sleep in some distant background of the inner world:

O Savitri, we come from thy own hidden soul. We are the messengers of the Spirit, the unseen gods; it is we who help men lost in their dry and ignorant rounds of life to awake to beauty and wonder by touching them with glory and divinity; we light the immortal flame of good in the midst of evil and kindle the light of Knowledge on the paths of ignorance. Indeed, we are thy will and the will of all men turned towards the Eternal Light.

Follow the Winding Highway

O human copy and disguise of God
Who seekst the deity thou keepest hid
And livest by the Truth thou hast not known,
Follow the world’s winding highway to its source.

There in the silence few have ever reached,
Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
And the deep cavern of thy secret soul.”

O Savitri who art a human representation and disguise of God, who searches'. for the Deity that thou bearest hidden in thyself, who livest spontaneously by the Truth that thou bast not known with thy mind, follow the long, winding highway of the world to its source. There in the Silence that few have ever reached, thou shalt see the Fire thou seekest, burning on the bare stone, thou shalt find the deep hidden cave of thy secret soul.

Silent Nearness of the Soul

Then Savitri following the great winding road
Came where it dwindled into a narrow path
Trod only by rare wounded pilgrim-feet.

A few bright forms emerged from unknown depths
And looked at her with calm immortal eyes.

There was no sound to break the brooding hush;
One felt the silent nearness of the soul.

Then Savitri follows that winding road and reaches there where the road peters into a narrow hard path walked upon only by those rare pilgrims who do not care if their feet are hurt on the way.

A few luminous forms come up from unknown depths and look at her with calm, immortal eyes.

There is here no sound to break the silence that broods all over. Here one feels the silent nearness of the soul.