{"id":2466,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:49","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2466"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:49","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:49","slug":"36-canto-three-the-entry-into-the-inner-countries-vol-33-34-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/33-34-savitri\/36-canto-three-the-entry-into-the-inner-countries-vol-33-34-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-36_Canto Three – The Entry into the Inner Countries.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n<\/p>\n

\nCanto Three <\/font><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Entry into the Inner Countries<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/font>A<\/font>T FIRST<\/font><\/b> out of the busy hum of mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if from a loud thronged market into a cave<\/p>\n

By an inward moment’s magic she had come.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA stark hushed emptiness became her self:<\/p>\n

Her mind unvisited by the voice of thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStared at a void deep’s dumb infinity.<\/p>\n

Her heights receded, her depths behind her closed;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll fled away from her and left her blank.<\/p>\n

But when she came back to her self of thought,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnce more she was a human thing on earth,<\/p>\n

A lump of Matter, a house of closed sight,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mind compelled to think out ignorance,<\/p>\n

A life-force pressed into a camp of works<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the material world her limiting field.<\/p>\n

Amazed like one unknowing she sought her way<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of the tangle of man’s ignorant past<\/p>\n

That took the surface person for the soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen a Voice spoke that dwelt on secret heights:<\/p>\n

“For man thou seekst, not for thyself alone.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly if God assumes the human mind<\/p>\n

And puts on mortal ignorance for his cloak<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd makes himself the Dwarf with triple stride,<\/p>\n

Can he help man to grow into the God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs man disguised the cosmic Greatness works<\/p>\n

And finds the mystic inaccessible gate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd opens the Immortal’s golden door.<\/p>\n

Man, human, follows in God’s human steps.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAccepting his darkness thou must bring to him light,<\/p>\n

Accepting his sorrow thou must bring to him bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn Matter’s body find thy heaven-born soul.”<\/p>\n

Then Savitri surged out of her body’s wall<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>488<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And stood a little span outside herself<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd looked into her subtle being’s depths<\/p>\n

And in its heart as in a lotus-bud<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDivined her secret and mysterious soul.<\/p>\n

At the dim portal of the inner life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat bars out from our depths the body’s mind<\/p>\n

And all that lives but by the body’s breath,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe knocked and pressed against the ebony gate.<\/p>\n

The living portal groaned with sullen hinge:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeavily reluctant it complained inert<\/p>\n

Against the tyranny of the spirit’s touch.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA formidable voice cried from within:<\/p>\n

“Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA dreadful murmur rose like a dim sea;<\/p>\n

The Serpent of the threshold hissing rose,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA fatal guardian hood with monstrous coils,<\/p>\n

The hounds of darkness growled with jaws agape,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd trolls and gnomes and goblins scowled and stared<\/p>\n

And wild beast roarings thrilled the blood with fear<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd menace muttered in a dangerous tongue.<\/p>\n

Unshaken her will pressed on the rigid bars:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe gate swung wide with a protesting jar,<\/p>\n

The opponent Powers withdrew their dreadful guard;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer being entered into the inner worlds.<\/p>\n

In a narrow passage, the subconscient’s gate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe breathed with difficulty and pain and strove<\/p>\n

To find the inner self concealed in sense.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto a dense of subtle Matter packed,<\/p>\n

A cavity filled with a blind mass of power,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn opposition of misleading gleams,<\/p>\n

A heavy barrier of unseeing sight,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe forced her way through body to the soul.<\/p>\n

Across a perilous border line she passed<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere Life dips into the subconscient dusk<\/p>\n

Or struggles from Matter into chaos of mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAswarm with elemental entities<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>489<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And fluttering shapes of vague half-bodied thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd crude beginnings of incontinent force.<\/p>\n

At first a difficult narrowness was there,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA press of uncertain powers and drifting wills;<\/p>\n

For all was there but nothing in its place.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt times an opening came, a door was forced;<\/p>\n

She crossed through spaces of a secret self<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd trod in passages of inner Time.<\/p>\n

At last she broke into a form of things,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA start of finiteness, a world of sense:<\/p>\n

But all was still confused, nothing self-found.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSoul was not there but only cries of life.<\/p>\n

A thronged and clamorous air environed her.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA horde of sounds defied significance,<\/p>\n

A dissonant clash of cries and contrary calls;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mob of visions broke across the sight,<\/p>\n

A jostled sequence lacking sense and suite,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFeelings pushed through a packed and burdened heart,<\/p>\n

Each forced its separate inconsequent way<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut cared for nothing but its ego’s drive.<\/p>\n

A rally without key of common will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThought stared at thought and pulled at the taut brain<\/p>\n

As if to pluck the reason from its seat<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd cast its corpse into life’s wayside drain;<\/p>\n

So might forgotten lie in Nature’s mud<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAbandoned the slain sentinel of the soul.<\/p>\n

So could life’s power shake from it mind’s rule,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNature renounce the spirit’s government<\/p>\n

And the bare elemental energies<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMake of the sense a glory of boundless joy,<\/p>\n

A splendour of ecstatic anarchy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA revel mighty and mad of utter bliss.<\/p>\n

This was the sense’s instinct void of soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr when the soul sleeps hidden void of power,<\/p>\n

But now the vital godhead wakes within<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd lifts the life with the Supernal’s touch.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>490<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

But how shall come the glory and the flame<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf mind is cast away into the abyss?<\/p>\n

For body without mind has not the light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe rapture of spirit sense, the joy of life;<\/p>\n

All then becomes subconscient, tenebrous,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInconscience puts its seal on Nature’s page<\/p>\n

Or else a mad disorder whirls the brain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPosting along a ravaged nature’s roads,<\/p>\n

A chaos of disordered impulses<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn which no light can come, no joy, no peace.<\/p>\n

This state now threatened, this she pushed from her.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs if in a long endless tossing street<\/p>\n

One driven mid a trampling hurrying crowd<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHour after hour she trod without release<\/p>\n

Holding by her will the senseless meute at bay;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of the dreadful press she dragged her will<\/p>\n

And fixed her thought upon the saviour Name;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen all grew still and empty; she was free.<\/p>\n

A large deliverance came, a vast calm space.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwhile she moved through a blank tranquillity<\/p>\n

Of naked Light from an invisible sun,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA void that was a bodiless happiness,<\/p>\n

A blissful vacuum of nameless peace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut now a mightier danger’s front drew near:<\/p>\n

The press of bodily mind, the Inconscient’s brood<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf aimless thought and will had fallen from her.<\/p>\n

Approaching loomed a giant head of Life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUngoverned by mind or soul, subconscient, vast.<\/p>\n

It tossed all power into a single drive,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt made its power a might of dangerous seas.<\/p>\n

Into the stillness of her silent self,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto the whiteness of its muse of Space<\/p>\n

A spate, a torrent of the speed of Life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBroke like a wind-lashed driven mob of waves<\/p>\n

Racing on a pale floor of summer sand;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt drowned its banks, a mountain of climbing waves.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>491<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Enormous was its vast and passionate voice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt cried to her listening spirit as it ran,<\/p>\n

Demanding God’s submission to chainless Force.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA deaf force calling to a status dumb,<\/p>\n

A thousand voices in a muted Vast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt claimed the heart’s support for its clutch at joy,<\/p>\n

For its need to act the witness Soul’s consent,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor its lust of power her neutral being’s seal.<\/p>\n

Into the wideness of her watching self<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt brought a grandiose gust of the Breath of Life;<\/p>\n

Its torrent carried the world’s hopes and fears,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll life’s, all Nature’s dissatisfied hungry cry,<\/p>\n

And the longing all eternity cannot fill.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt called to the mountain secrecies of the soul<\/p>\n

And the miracle of the never-dying fire,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt spoke to some first inexpressible ecstasy<\/p>\n

Hidden in the creative beat of Life;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of the nether unseen deeps it tore<\/p>\n

Its lure and magic of disordered bliss,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto earth-light poured its maze of tangled charm<\/p>\n

And heady draught of Nature’s primitive joy<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the fire and mystery of forbidden delight<\/p>\n

Drunk from the world-libido’s bottomless well,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the honey-sweet poison-wine of lust and death,<\/p>\n

But dreamed a vintage of glory of life’s gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd felt as celestial rapture’s golden sting.<\/p>\n

The cycles of the infinity of desire<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the mystique that made an unrealised world<\/p>\n

Wider than the known and closer than the unknown<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn which hunt for ever the hounds of mind and life,<\/p>\n

Tempted a deep dissatisfied urge within<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo long for the unfulfilled and ever far<\/p>\n

And make this life upon a limiting earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA climb towards summits vanishing in the void,<\/p>\n

A search for the glory of the impossible.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt dreamed of that which never has been known,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>492<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

It grasped at that which never has been won,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt chased into an Elysian memory<\/p>\n

The charms that flee from the heart’s soon lost delight;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt dared the force that slays, the joys that hurt,<\/p>\n

The imaged shape of unaccomplished things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the summons to a Circean transmuting dance<\/p>\n

And passion’s tenancy of the courts of love<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the wild Beast’s ramp and romp with Beauty and Life.<\/p>\n

It brought its cry and surge of opposite powers,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts moments of the touch of luminous planes,<\/p>\n

Its flame-ascensions and sky-pitched vast attempts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts fiery towers of dream built on the winds,<\/p>\n

Its sinkings towards the darkness and the abyss,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts honey of tenderness, its sharp wine of hate,<\/p>\n

Its changes of sun and cloud, of laughter and tears,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts bottomless danger-pits and swallowing gulfs,<\/p>\n

Its fear and joy and ecstasy and despair,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts occult wizardries, its simple lines<\/p>\n

And great communions and uplifting moves,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts faith in heaven, its intercourse with hell.<\/p>\n

These powers were not blunt with the dead weight of earth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThey gave ambrosia’s taste and poison’s sting.<\/p>\n

There was an ardour in the gaze of Life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat saw heaven blue in the grey air of Night:<\/p>\n

The impulses godward soared on passion’s wings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMind’s quick-paced thoughts floated from their high necks,<\/p>\n

A glowing splendour as of an irised mane,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA parure of pure intuition’s light;<\/p>\n

Its flame-foot gallop they could imitate:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMind’s voices mimicked inspiration’s stress,<\/p>\n

Its ictus of infallibility,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts speed and lightning heaven-leap of the Gods.<\/p>\n

A trenchant blade that shore the nets of doubt,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts sword of discernment seemed almost divine.<\/p>\n

Yet all that knowledge was a borrowed sun’s;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe forms that came were not heaven’s native births:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>493<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

An inner voice could speak the unreal’s Word;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts puissance dangerous and absolute<\/p>\n

Could mingle poison with the wine of God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn these high shining backs falsehood could ride;<\/p>\n

Truth lay with delight in error’s passionate arms<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGliding downstream in a blithe gilded barge:<\/p>\n

She edged her ray with a magnificent lie.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere in Life’s nether realms all contraries meet;<\/p>\n

Truth stares and does her works with bandaged eyes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Ignorance is Wisdom’s patron here:<\/p>\n

Those galloping hooves in their enthusiast speed<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCould bear to a dangerous intermediate zone<\/p>\n

Where Death walks wearing a robe of deathless Life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr they enter the valley of the wandering Gleam<\/p>\n

Whence, captives or victims of the specious Ray,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSouls trapped in that region never can escape.<\/p>\n

Agents, not masters, they serve Life’s desires<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tToiling for ever in the snare of Time.<\/p>\n

Their bodies born out of some Nihil’s womb<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEnsnare the spirit in the moment’s dreams,<\/p>\n

Then perish vomiting the immortal soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of Matter’s belly into the sink of Nought.<\/p>\n

Yet some uncaught, unslain, can warily pass<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCarrying Truth’s image in the sheltered heart,<\/p>\n

Pluck Knowledge out of error’s screening grip,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBreak paths through the blind walls of little self,<\/p>\n

Then travel on to reach a greater life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll this streamed past her and seemed to her vision’s sight<\/p>\n

As if around a high and voiceless isle<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA clamour of waters from far unknown hills<\/p>\n

Swallowed its narrow banks in crowding waves<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd made a hungry world of white wild foam:<\/p>\n

Hastening, a dragon with a million feet,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts foam and cry a drunken giant’s din,<\/p>\n

Tossing a mane of Darkness into God’s sky,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt ebbed receding into a distant roar.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>494<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tThen smiled again a large and tranquil air:<\/p>\n

Blue heaven, green earth, partners of Beauty’s reign,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLived as of old, companions in happiness;<\/p>\n

And in the world’s heart laughed the joy of life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll now was still, the soil shone dry and pure.<\/p>\n

Through it all she moved not, plunged not in the vain waves.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of the vastness of the silent self<\/p>\n

Life’s clamour fled; her spirit was mute and free.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen journeying forward through the self’s wide hush<\/p>\n

She came into a brilliant ordered Space.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere Life dwelt parked in an armed tranquillity;<\/p>\n

A chain was on her strong insurgent heart.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTamed to the modesty of a measured pace,<\/p>\n

She kept no more her vehement stride and rush;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe had lost the careless majesty of her muse<\/p>\n

And the ample grandeur of her regal force;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCurbed were her mighty pomps, her splendid waste,<\/p>\n

Sobered the revels of her bacchant play,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCut down were her squanderings in desire’s bazaar,<\/p>\n

Coerced her despot will, her fancy’s dance,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA cold stolidity bound the riot of sense.<\/p>\n

A royalty without freedom was her lot;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe sovereign throned obeyed her ministers:<\/p>\n

Her servants mind and sense governed her house:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer spirit’s bounds they cast in rigid lines<\/p>\n

And guarding with a phalanx of armoured rules<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe reason’s balanced reign, kept order and peace.<\/p>\n

Her will lived closed in adamant walls of law,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCoerced was her force by chains that feigned to adorn,<\/p>\n

Imagination was prisoned in a fort,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer wanton and licentious favourite;<\/p>\n

Reality’s poise and reason’s symmetry<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWere set in its place sentinelled by marshalled facts,<\/p>\n

They gave to the soul for throne a bench of Law,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor kingdom a small world of rule and line:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>495<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

The ages’ wisdom, shrivelled to scholiast lines,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShrank patterned into a copy-book device.<\/p>\n

The Spirit’s almighty freedom was not here:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA schoolman mind had captured life’s large space,<\/p>\n

But chose to live in bare and paltry rooms<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tParked off from the too vast dangerous universe,<\/p>\n

Fearing to lose its soul in the infinite.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven the Idea’s ample sweep was cut<\/p>\n

Into a system, chained to fixed pillars of thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr rivetted to Matter’s solid ground:<\/p>\n

Or else the soul was lost in its own heights:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tObeying the Ideal’s high-browed law<\/p>\n

Thought based a throne on unsubstantial air<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDisdaining earth’s flat triviality:<\/p>\n

It barred reality out to live in its dreams.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr all stepped into a systemed universe:<\/p>\n

Life’s empire was a managed continent,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts thoughts an army ranked and disciplined;<\/p>\n

Uniformed they kept the logic of their fixed place<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt the bidding of the trained centurion mind.<\/p>\n

Or each stepped into its station like a star<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr marched through fixed and constellated heavens<\/p>\n

Or kept its feudal rank among its peers<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the sky’s unchanging cosmic hierarchy.<\/p>\n

Or like a high-bred maiden with chaste eyes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForbidden to walk unveiled the public ways,<\/p>\n

She must in close secluded chambers move,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer feeling in cloisters live or gardened paths.<\/p>\n

Life was consigned to a safe level path,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt dared not tempt the great and difficult heights<\/p>\n

Or climb to be neighbour to a lonely star<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr skirt the danger of the precipice<\/p>\n

Or tempt the foam-curled breakers’ perilous laugh,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAdventure’s lyrist, danger’s amateur,<\/p>\n

Or into her chamber call some flaming god,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr leave the world’s bounds and where no limits are<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>496<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Meet with the heart’s passion the Adorable<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr set the world ablaze with the inner Fire.<\/p>\n

A chastened epithet in the prose of life,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe must fill with colour just her sanctioned space,<\/p>\n

Not break out of the cabin of the idea<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNor trespass into rhythms too high or vast.<\/p>\n

Even when it soared into ideal air,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThought’s flight lost not itself in heaven’s blue:<\/p>\n

It drew upon the skies a patterned flower<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf disciplined beauty and harmonic light.<\/p>\n

A temperate vigilant spirit governed life:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts acts were tools of the considering thought,<\/p>\n

Too cold to take fire and set the world ablaze,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr the careful reason’s diplomatic moves<\/p>\n

Testing the means to a prefigured end,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr at the highest pitch some calm Will’s plan<\/p>\n

Or a strategy of some High Command within<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo conquer the secret treasures of the gods<\/p>\n

Or win for a masked king some glorious world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot a reflex of the spontaneous self,<\/p>\n

An index of the being and its moods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA winging of conscious spirit, a sacrament<\/p>\n

Of life’s communion with the still Supreme<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr its pure movement on the Eternal’s road.<\/p>\n

Or else for the body of some high Idea<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA house was built with too close-fitting bricks;<\/p>\n

Action and thought cemented made a wall<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf small ideals limiting the soul.<\/p>\n

Even meditation mused on a narrow seat;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd worship turned to an exclusive God,<\/p>\n

To the Universal in a chapel prayed<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhose doors were shut against the universe;<\/p>\n

Or kneeled to the bodiless Impersonal<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mind shut to the cry and fire of love:<\/p>\n

A rational religion dried the heart.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt planned a smooth life’s acts with ethics’ rule<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>497<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Or offered a cold and flameless sacrifice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe sacred Book lay on its sanctified desk<\/p>\n

Wrapped in interpretation’s silken strings:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA credo sealed up its spiritual sense.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere was a quiet country of fixed mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere life no more was all nor passion’s voice;<\/p>\n

The cry of sense had sunk into a hush.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSoul was not there nor spirit but mind alone;<\/p>\n

Mind claimed to be the spirit and the soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe spirit saw itself as form of mind,<\/p>\n

Lost itself in the glory of the thought,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA light that made invisible the sun.<\/p>\n

Into a firm and settled space she came<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere all was still and all things kept their place.<\/p>\n

Each found what it had sought and knew its aim.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll had a final last stability.<\/p>\n

There one stood forth who bore authority<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn an important brow and held a rod;<\/p>\n

Command was incarnate in his gesture and tone;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTradition’s petrified wisdom carved his speech,<\/p>\n

His sentences savoured the oracle.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Traveller or pilgrim of the inner world,<\/p>\n

Fortunate art thou to reach our brilliant air<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFlaming with thought’s supreme finality.<\/p>\n

O aspirant to the perfect way of life,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere find it; rest from search and live at peace.<\/p>\n

Ours is the home of cosmic certainty.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere is the truth, God’s harmony is here.<\/p>\n

Register thy name in the book of the elite,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAdmitted by the sanction of the few,<\/p>\n

Adopt thy station of knowledge, thy post in mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy ticket of order draw in Life’s bureau<\/p>\n

And praise thy fate that made thee one of ours.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll here, docketed and tied, the mind can know,<\/p>\n

All schemed by law that God permits to life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>498<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

This is the end and there is no beyond.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere is the safety of the ultimate wall,<\/p>\n

Here is the clarity of the sword of Light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere is the victory of a single Truth,<\/p>\n

Here burns the diamond of flawless bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA favourite of Heaven and Nature live.”<\/p>\n

But to the too satisfied and confident sage<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSavitri replied casting into his world<\/p>\n

Sight’s deep release, the heart’s questioning inner voice:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor here the heart spoke not, only clear daylight<\/p>\n

Of intellect reigned here, limiting, cold, precise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Happy are they who in this chaos of things,<\/p>\n

This coming and going of the feet of Time,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCan find the single Truth, the eternal Law:<\/p>\n

Untouched they live by hope and doubt and fear.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHappy are men anchored on fixed belief<\/p>\n

In this uncertain and ambiguous world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr who have planted in the heart’s rich soil<\/p>\n

One small grain of spiritual certitude.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHappiest who stand on faith as on a rock.<\/p>\n

But I must pass leaving the ended search,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTruth’s rounded outcome firm, immutable<\/p>\n

And this harmonic building of world-fact,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis ordered knowledge of apparent things.<\/p>\n

Here I can stay not, for I seek my soul.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNone answered in that bright contented world,<\/p>\n

Or only turned on their accustomed way<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAstonished to hear questioning in that air<\/p>\n

Or thoughts that could still turn to the Beyond.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut some murmured, passers-by from kindred spheres:<\/p>\n

Each by his credo judged the thought she spoke.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Who then is this who knows not that the soul<\/p>\n

Is a least gland or a secretion’s fault<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDisquieting the sane government of the mind,<\/p>\n

Disordering the function of the brain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr a yearning lodged in Nature’s mortal house<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>499<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Or dream whispered in man’s cave of hollow thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho would prolong his brief unhappy term<\/p>\n

Or cling to living in a sea of death?”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut others, “Nay, it is her spirit she seeks.<\/p>\n

A splendid shadow of the name of God,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA formless lustre from the Ideal’s realm,<\/p>\n

The Spirit is the Holy Ghost of Mind;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut none has touched its limbs or seen its face.<\/p>\n

Each soul is the great Father’s crucified Son,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMind is that soul’s one parent, its conscious cause,<\/p>\n

The ground on which trembles a brief passing light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMind, sole creator of the apparent world.<\/p>\n

All that is here is part of our own self;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur minds have made the world in which we live.”<\/p>\n

Another with mystic and unsatisfied eyes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho loved his slain belief and mourned its death,<\/p>\n

“Is there one left who seeks for a Beyond?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCan still the path be found, opened the gate?”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo she fared on across her silent self.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo a road she came thronged with an ardent crowd<\/p>\n

Who sped brilliant, fire-footed, sunlight-eyed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPressing to reach the world’s mysterious wall,<\/p>\n

And pass through masked doorways into outer mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere the Light comes not nor the mystic voice,<\/p>\n

Messengers from our subliminal greatnesses,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGuests from the cavern of the secret soul.<\/p>\n

Into dim spiritual somnolence they break<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr shed wide wonder on our waking self,<\/p>\n

Ideas that haunt us with their radiant tread,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDreams that are hints of unborn Reality,<\/p>\n

Strange goddesses with deep-pooled magical eyes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStrong wind-haired gods carrying the harps of hope,<\/p>\n

Great moon-hued visions gliding through gold air,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAspiration’s sun-dream head and star-carved limbs,<\/p>\n

Emotions making common hearts sublime.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>500<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And Savitri mingling in that glorious crowd,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYearning to the spiritual light they bore,<\/p>\n

Longed once to hasten like them to save God’s world;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut she reined back the high passion in her heart;<\/p>\n

She knew that first she must discover her soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly who save themselves can others save.<\/p>\n

In contrary sense she faced life’s riddling truth:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThey carrying the light to suffering men<\/p>\n

Hurried with eager feet to the outer world;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer eyes were turned towards the eternal source.<\/p>\n

Outstretching her hands to stay the throng she cried:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O happy company of luminous gods,<\/p>\n

Reveal, who know, the road that I must tread, \u2014<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor surely that bright quarter is your home, \u2014<\/p>\n

To find the birthplace of the occult Fire<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the deep mansion of my secret soul.”<\/p>\n

One answered pointing to a silence dim<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn a remote extremity of sleep<\/p>\n

In some far background of the inner world.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O Savitri, from thy hidden soul we come.<\/p>\n

We are the messengers, the occult gods<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho help men’s drab and heavy ignorant lives<\/p>\n

To wake to beauty and the wonder of things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTouching them with glory and divinity;<\/p>\n

In evil we light the deathless flame of good<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd hold the torch of knowledge on ignorant roads;<\/p>\n

We are thy will and all men’s will towards Light.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO human copy and disguise of God<\/p>\n

Who seekst the deity thou keepest hid<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd livest by the Truth thou hast not known,<\/p>\n

Follow the world’s winding highway to its source.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere in the silence few have ever reached,<\/p>\n

Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the deep cavern of thy secret soul.”<\/p>\n

Then Savitri following the great winding road<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCame where it dwindled into a narrow path<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>501<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Trod only by rare wounded pilgrim feet.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA few bright forms emerged from unknown depths<\/p>\n

And looked at her with calm immortal eyes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere was no sound to break the brooding hush;<\/p>\n

One felt the silent nearness of the soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEND OF<\/font>
\n\t\t\tCANTO<\/font> THREE<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>502<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Canto Three   The Entry into the Inner Countries   AT FIRST out of the busy hum of mind As if from a loud…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-33-34-savitri","wpcat-50-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}