{"id":2479,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2479"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","slug":"37-canto-four-the-triple-soul-forces-vol-33-34-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/33-34-savitri\/37-canto-four-the-triple-soul-forces-vol-33-34-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-37_Canto Four – The Triple Soul-Forces.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCanto Four <\/font><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Triple Soul-Forces<\/font><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nH<\/font>ERE<\/b> from a low and prone and listless ground<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe passion of the first ascent began;<\/p>\n

A moon-bright face in a sombre cloud of hair,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Woman sat in a pale lustrous robe.<\/p>\n

A rugged and ragged soil was her bare seat,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBeneath her feet a sharp and wounding stone.<\/p>\n

A divine pity on the peaks of the world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA spirit touched by the grief of all that lives,<\/p>\n

She looked out far and saw from inner mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis questionable world of outward things,<\/p>\n

Of false appearances and plausible shapes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis dubious cosmos stretched in the ignorant Void,<\/p>\n

The pangs of earth, the toil and speed of the stars<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the difficult birth and dolorous end of life.<\/p>\n

Accepting the universe as her body of woe,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Mother of the seven sorrows bore<\/p>\n

The seven stabs that pierced her bleeding heart:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe beauty of sadness lingered on her face,<\/p>\n

Her eyes were dim with the ancient stain of tears.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer heart was riven with the world’s agony<\/p>\n

And burdened with the sorrow and struggle in Time,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn anguished music trailed in her rapt voice.<\/p>\n

Absorbed in a deep compassion’s ecstasy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLifting the mild ray of her patient gaze,<\/p>\n

In soft sweet training words slowly she spoke:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.<\/p>\n

To share the suffering of the world I came,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI draw my children’s pangs into my breast.<\/p>\n

I am the nurse of the dolour beneath the stars;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the soul of all who wailing writhe<\/p>\n

Under the ruthless harrow of the Gods.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>503<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

I am woman, nurse and slave and beaten beast;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI tend the hands that gave me cruel blows.<\/p>\n

The hearts that spurned my love and zeal I serve;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the courted queen, the pampered doll,<\/p>\n

I am the giver of the bowl of rice,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the worshipped Angel of the House.<\/p>\n

I am in all that suffers and that cries.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMine is the prayer that climbs in vain from earth,<\/p>\n

I am traversed by my creatures’ agonies,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the spirit in a world of pain.<\/p>\n

The scream of tortured flesh and tortured hearts<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFall’n back on heart and flesh unheard by Heaven<\/p>\n

Has rent with helpless grief and wrath my soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have seen the peasant burning in his hut,<\/p>\n

I have seen the slashed corpse of the slaughtered child,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeard woman’s cry ravished and stripped and haled<\/p>\n

Amid the bayings of the hell-hound mob,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have looked on, I had no power to save.<\/p>\n

I have brought no arm of strength to aid or slay;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGod gave me love, he gave me not his force.<\/p>\n

I have shared the toil of the yoked animal drudge<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPushed by the goad, encouraged by the whip;<\/p>\n

I have shared the fear-filled life of bird and beast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts long hunt for the day’s precarious food,<\/p>\n

Its covert slink and crouch and hungry prowl,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts pain and terror seized by beak and claw.<\/p>\n

I have shared the daily life of common men,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts petty pleasures and its petty cares,<\/p>\n

Its press of troubles and haggard horde of ills,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth’s trail of sorrow hopeless of relief,<\/p>\n

The unwanted tedious labour without joy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the burden of misery and the strokes of fate.<\/p>\n

I have been pity, leaning over pain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the tender smile that heals the wounded heart<\/p>\n

And sympathy making life less hard to bear.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan has felt near my unseen face and hands;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>504<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tI have become the sufferer and his moan,<\/p>\n

I have lain down with the mangled and the slain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have lived with the prisoner in his dungeon cell.<\/p>\n

Heavy on my shoulders weighs the yoke of Time:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNothing refusing of creation’s load,<\/p>\n

I have borne all and know I still must bear:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPerhaps when the world sinks into a last sleep,<\/p>\n

I too may sleep in dumb eternal peace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have borne the calm indifference of Heaven,<\/p>\n

Watched Nature’s cruelty to suffering things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhile God passed silent by nor turned to help.<\/p>\n

Yet have I cried not out against his will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet have I not accused his cosmic Law.<\/p>\n

Only to change this great hard world of pain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA patient prayer has risen from my breast;<\/p>\n

A pallid resignation lights my brow,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWithin me a blind faith and mercy dwell;<\/p>\n

I carry the fire that never can be quenched<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the compassion that supports the suns.<\/p>\n

I am the hope that looks towards my God,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy God who never came to me till now;<\/p>\n

His voice I hear that ever says `I come’:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI know that one day he shall come at last.”<\/p>\n

She ceased, and like an echo from below<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnswering her pathos of divine complaint<\/p>\n

A voice of wrath took up the dire refrain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA growl of thunder or roar of angry beast,<\/p>\n

The beast that crouching growls within man's depths, \u2014<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVoice of a tortured Titan once a God.<\/p>\n

“I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho is nailed on the wide cross of the universe;<\/p>\n

To enjoy my agony God built the earth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy passion he has made his drama’s theme.<\/p>\n

He has sent me naked into his bitter world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd beaten me with his rods of grief and pain<\/p>\n

That I might cry and grovel at his feet<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>505<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And offer him worship with my blood and tears.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am Prometheus under the vulture’s beak,<\/p>\n

Man the discoverer of the undying fire,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the flame he kindled burning like a moth;<\/p>\n

I am the seeker who can never find,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the fighter who can never win,<\/p>\n

I am the runner who never touched his goal:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHell tortures me with the edges of my thought,<\/p>\n

Heaven tortures me with the splendour of my dreams.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat profit have I of my animal birth;<\/p>\n

What profit have I of my human soul?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI toil like the animal, like the animal die.<\/p>\n

I am man the rebel, man the helpless serf;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFate and my fellows cheat me of my wage.<\/p>\n

I loosen with my blood my servitude’s seal<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd shake from my aching neck the oppressor’s knees<\/p>\n

Only to seat new tyrants on my back:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy teachers lesson me in slavery,<\/p>\n

I am shown God’s stamp and my own signature<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUpon the sorry contract of my fate.<\/p>\n

I have loved, but none has loved me since my birth;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy fruit of works is given to other hands.<\/p>\n

All that is left me is my evil thoughts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy sordid quarrel against God and man,<\/p>\n

Envy of the riches that I cannot share,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHate of a happiness that is not mine.<\/p>\n

I know my fate will ever be the same,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is my nature’s work that cannot change:<\/p>\n

I have loved for mine, not for the beloved’s sake,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have lived for myself and not for others’ lives.<\/p>\n

Each in himself is sole by Nature’s law.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo God has made his harsh and dreadful world,<\/p>\n

So has he built the petty heart of man.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly by force and ruse can man survive:<\/p>\n

For pity is a weakness in his breast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis goodness is a laxity in the nerves,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>506<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

His kindness an investment for return,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis altruism is ego’s other face:<\/p>\n

He serves the world that him the world may serve.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf once the Titan’s strength could wake in me,<\/p>\n

If Enceladus from Etna could arise,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI then would reign the master of the world<\/p>\n

And like a god enjoy man’s bliss and pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut God has taken from me the ancient Force.<\/p>\n

There is a dull consent in my sluggish heart,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA fierce satisfaction with my special pangs<\/p>\n

As if they made me taller than my kind;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly by suffering can I excel.<\/p>\n

I am the victim of titanic ills,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the doer of demoniac deeds;<\/p>\n

I was made for evil, evil is my lot;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEvil I must be and by evil live;<\/p>\n

Nought other can I do but be myself;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat Nature made me, that I must remain.<\/p>\n

I suffer and toil and weep; I moan and hate.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Savitri heard the voice, the echo heard<\/p>\n

And turning to her being of pity spoke:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Madonna of suffering, Mother of grief divine,<\/p>\n

Thou art a portion of my soul put forth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo bear the unbearable sorrow of the world.<\/p>\n

Because thou art, men yield not to their doom,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut ask for happiness and strive with fate;<\/p>\n

Because thou art, the wretched still can hope.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut thine is the power to solace, not to save.<\/p>\n

One day I will return, a bringer of strength,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd make thee drink from the Eternal’s cup;<\/p>\n

His streams of force shall triumph in thy limbs<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Wisdom’s calm control thy passionate heart.<\/p>\n

Thy love shall be the bond of humankind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCompassion the bright key of Nature’s acts:<\/p>\n

Misery shall pass abolished from the earth;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe world shall be freed from the anger of the Beast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>507<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

From the cruelty of the Titan and his pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere shall be peace and joy for ever more.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn passed she in her spirit’s upward route.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn ardent grandeur climbed mid ferns and rocks,<\/p>\n

A quiet wind flattered the heart to warmth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA finer perfume breathed from slender trees.<\/p>\n

All beautiful grew, subtle and high and strange.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere on a boulder carved like a huge throne<\/p>\n

A Woman sat in gold and purple sheen,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tArmed with the trident and the thunderbolt,<\/p>\n

Her feet upon a couchant lion’s back.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA formidable smile curved round her lips,<\/p>\n

Heaven-fire laughed in the corners of her eyes;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer body a mass of courage and heavenly strength,<\/p>\n

She menaced the triumph of the nether gods.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA halo of lightnings flamed around her head<\/p>\n

And sovereignty, a great cestus, zoned her robe<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd majesty and victory sat with her<\/p>\n

Guarding in the wide cosmic battlefield<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgainst the flat equality of Death<\/p>\n

And the all-levelling insurgent Night<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe hierarchy of the ordered Powers,<\/p>\n

The high changeless values, the peaked eminences,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe privileged aristocracy of Truth,<\/p>\n

And in the governing Ideal’s sun<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe triumvirate of wisdom, love and bliss<\/p>\n

And the sole autocracy of the absolute Light.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAugust on her seat in the inner world of Mind,<\/p>\n

The Mother of Might looked down on passing things,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tListened to the advancing tread of Time,<\/p>\n

Saw the irresistible wheeling of the suns<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd heard the thunder of the march of God.<\/p>\n

Amid the swaying Forces in their strife<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSovereign was her word of luminous command,<\/p>\n

Her speech like a war-cry rang or a pilgrim chant.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>508<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A charm restoring hope in failing hearts<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAspired the harmony of her puissant voice:<\/p>\n

“O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have come down into the human world<\/p>\n

And the movement watched by an unsleeping Eye<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the dark contrariety of earth’s fate<\/p>\n

And the battle of the bright and sombre Powers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI stand upon earth’s paths of danger and grief<\/p>\n

And help the unfortunate and save the doomed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo the strong I bring the guerdon of their strength,<\/p>\n

To the weak I bring the armour of my force;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo men who long I carry their coveted joy:<\/p>\n

I am fortune justifying the great and wise<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy the sanction of the plaudits of the crowd,<\/p>\n

Then trampling them with the armed heel of fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMy ear is leaned to the cry of the oppressed,<\/p>\n

I topple down the thrones of tyrant kings:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA cry comes from proscribed and hunted lives<\/p>\n

Appealing to me against a pitiless world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA voice of the forsaken and desolate<\/p>\n

And the lone prisoner in his dungeon cell.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMen hail in my coming the Almighty’s force<\/p>\n

Or praise with thankful tears his saviour Grace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI smite the Titan who bestrides the world<\/p>\n

And slay the ogre in his blood-stained den.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,<\/p>\n

And Lakshmi, queen of the fair and fortunate;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI wear the face of Kali when I kill,<\/p>\n

I trample the corpses of the demon hordes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am charged by God to do his mighty work,<\/p>\n

Uncaring I serve his will who sent me forth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReckless of peril and earthly consequence.<\/p>\n

I reason not of virtue and of sin<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut do the deed he has put into my heart.<\/p>\n

I fear not for the angry frown of Heaven,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI flinch not from the red assault of Hell;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>509<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

I crush the opposition of the gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTread down a million goblin obstacles.<\/p>\n

I guide man to the path of the Divine<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd guard him from the red Wolf and the Snake.<\/p>\n

I set in his mortal hand my heavenly sword<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd put on him the breastplate of the gods.<\/p>\n

I break the ignorant pride of human mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd lead the thought to the wideness of the Truth;<\/p>\n

I rend man’s narrow and successful life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd force his sorrowful eyes to gaze at the sun<\/p>\n

That he may die to earth and live in his soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI know the goal, I know the secret route;<\/p>\n

I have studied the map of the invisible worlds;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am the battle’s head, the journey’s star.<\/p>\n

But the great obstinate world resists my Word,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the crookedness and evil in man’s heart<\/p>\n

Is stronger than Reason, profounder than the Pit,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the malignancy of hostile Powers<\/p>\n

Puts craftily back the clock of destiny<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd mightier seems than the eternal Will.<\/p>\n

The cosmic evil is too deep to unroot,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe cosmic suffering is too vast to heal.<\/p>\n

A few I guide who pass me towards the Light;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA few I save, the mass falls back unsaved;<\/p>\n

A few I help, the many strive and fail.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut my heart I have hardened and I do my work:<\/p>\n

Slowly the light grows greater in the East,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSlowly the world progresses on God’s road.<\/p>\n

His seal is on my task, it cannot fail:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI shall hear the silver swing of heaven’s gates<\/p>\n

When God comes out to meet the soul of the world.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe spoke and from the lower human world<\/p>\n

An answer, a warped echo met her speech;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe voice came through the spaces of the mind<\/p>\n

Of the dwarf-Titan, the deformed chained god<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho strives to master his nature’s rebel stuff<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>510<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And make the universe his instrument.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Ego of this great world of desire<\/p>\n

Claimed earth and the wide heavens for the use<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf man, head of the life it shapes on earth,<\/p>\n

Its representative and conscious soul,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd symbol of evolving light and force<\/p>\n

And vessel of the godhead that must be.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA thinking animal, Nature’s struggling lord,<\/p>\n

Has made of her his nurse and tool and slave<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd pays to her as wage and emolument<\/p>\n

Inescapably by a deep law in things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis heart’s grief and his body’s death and pain:<\/p>\n

His pains are her means to grow, to see and feel;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis death assists her immortality.<\/p>\n

A tool and slave of his own slave and tool,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe praises his free will and his master mind<\/p>\n

And is pushed by her upon her chosen paths;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPossessor he is possessed and, ruler, ruled,<\/p>\n

Her conscious automaton, her desire’s dupe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis soul is her guest, a sovereign mute, inert,<\/p>\n

His body her robot, his life her way to live,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis conscious mind her strong revolted serf.<\/p>\n

The voice rose up and smote some inner sun.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“I am the heir of the forces of the earth,<\/p>\n

Slowly I make good my right to my estate;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA growing godhead in her divinised mud,<\/p>\n

I climb, a claimant to the throne of heaven.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe last-born of the earth I stand the first;<\/p>\n

Her slow millenniums waited for my birth.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlthough I live in Time besieged by Death,<\/p>\n

Precarious owner of my body and soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHoused on a little speck amid the stars,<\/p>\n

For me and my use the universe was made.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImmortal spirit in the perishing clay,<\/p>\n

I am God still unevolved in human form;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven if he is not, he becomes in me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>511<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

The sun and moon are lights upon my path;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAir was invented for my lungs to breathe,<\/p>\n

Conditioned as a wide and wall-less space<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor my winged chariot’s wheels to cleave a road,<\/p>\n

The sea was made for me to swim and sail<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd bear my golden commerce on its back:<\/p>\n

It laughs cloven by my pleasure’s gliding keel,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI laugh at its black stare of fate and death.<\/p>\n

The earth is my floor, the sky my living’s roof.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll was prepared through many a silent age,<\/p>\n

God made experiments with animal shapes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen only when all was ready I was born.<\/p>\n

I was born weak and small and ignorant,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA helpless creature in a difficult world<\/p>\n

Travelling through my brief years with death at my side;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have grown greater than Nature, wiser than God.<\/p>\n

I have made real what she never dreamed,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have seized her powers and harnessed for my work,<\/p>\n

I have shaped her metals and new metals made;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI will make glass and raiment out of milk,<\/p>\n

Make iron velvet, water unbreakable stone,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLike God in his astuce of artist skill,<\/p>\n

Mould from one primal plasm protean forms,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn single Nature multitudinous lives,<\/p>\n

All that imagination can conceive<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn mind intangible, remould anew<\/p>\n

In Matter’s plastic solid and concrete.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNo magic can surpass my magic’s skill.<\/p>\n

There is no miracle I shall not achieve.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat God imperfect left, I will complete,<\/p>\n

Out of a tangled mind and half-made soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis sin and error I will eliminate;<\/p>\n

What he invented not, I shall invent:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe was the first creator, I am the last.<\/p>\n

I have found the atoms from which he built the worlds:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe first tremendous cosmic energy<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>512<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Missioned shall leap to slay my enemy kin,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tExpunge a nation or abolish a race,<\/p>\n

Death’s silence leave where there was laughter and joy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr the fissured invisible shall spend God’s force<\/p>\n

To extend my comforts and expand my wealth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo speed my car which now the lightnings drive<\/p>\n

And turn the engines of my miracles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI will take his means of sorcery from his hands<\/p>\n

And do with them greater wonders than his best.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet through it all I have kept my balanced thought;<\/p>\n

I have studied my being, I have examined the world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have grown a master of the arts of life.<\/p>\n

I have tamed the wild beast, trained to be my friend;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe guards my house, looks up waiting my will.<\/p>\n

I have taught my kind to serve and to obey.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have used the mystery of the cosmic waves<\/p>\n

To see far distance and to hear far words;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have conquered Space and knitted close all earth.<\/p>\n

Soon I shall know the secrets of the Mind;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI play with knowledge and with ignorance<\/p>\n

And sin and virtue my inventions are<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI can transcend or sovereignly use.<\/p>\n

I shall know mystic truths, seize occult powers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI shall slay my enemies with a look or thought,<\/p>\n

I shall sense the unspoken feelings of all hearts<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd see and hear the hidden thoughts of men.<\/p>\n

When earth is mastered, I shall conquer heaven;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe gods shall be my aides or menial folk,<\/p>\n

No wish I harbour unfulfilled shall die:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOmnipotence and omniscience shall be mine.”<\/p>\n

And Savitri heard the voice, the warped echo heard<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd turning to her being of power she spoke:<\/p>\n

“Madonna of might, Mother of works and force,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou art a portion of my soul put forth<\/p>\n

To help mankind and help the travail of Time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBecause thou art in him, man hopes and dares;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

Because thou art, men’s souls can climb the heavens<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd walk like gods in the presence of the Supreme.<\/p>\n

But without wisdom power is like a wind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt can breathe upon the heights and kiss the sky,<\/p>\n

It cannot build the extreme eternal things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou hast given men strength, wisdom thou couldst not give.<\/p>\n

One day I will return, a bringer of light;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen will I give to thee the mirror of God;<\/p>\n

Thou shalt see self and world as by him they are seen<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReflected in the bright pool of thy soul.<\/p>\n

Thy wisdom shall be vast as vast thy power.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen hate shall dwell no more in human hearts,<\/p>\n

And fear and weakness shall desert men’s lives,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe cry of the ego shall be hushed within,<\/p>\n

Its lion roar that claims the world as food,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll shall be might and bliss and happy force.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAscending still her spirit’s upward route<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe came into a high and happy space,<\/p>\n

A wide tower of vision whence all could be seen<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd all was centred in a single view<\/p>\n

As when by distance separate scenes grow one<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd a harmony is made of hues at war.<\/p>\n

The wind was still and fragrance packed the air.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere was a carol of birds and murmur of bees,<\/p>\n

And all that is common and natural and sweet,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet intimately divine to heart and soul.<\/p>\n

A nearness thrilled of the spirit to its source<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd deepest things seemed obvious, close and true.<\/p>\n

Here, living centre of that vision of peace,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Woman sat in clear and crystal light:<\/p>\n

Heaven had unveiled its lustre in her eyes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer feet were moonbeams, her face was a bright sun,<\/p>\n

Her smile could persuade a dead lacerated heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo live again and feel the hands of calm.<\/p>\n

A low music heard became her floating voice:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t“O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.<\/p>\n

I have come down to the wounded desolate earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo heal her pangs and lull her heart to rest<\/p>\n

And lay her head upon the Mother’s lap<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat she may dream of God and know his peace<\/p>\n

And draw the harmony of higher spheres<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto the rhythm of earth’s rude troubled days.<\/p>\n

I show to her the figures of bright gods<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd bring strength and solace to her struggling life;<\/p>\n

High things that now are only words and forms<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI reveal to her in the body of their power.<\/p>\n

I am peace that steals into man’s war-worn breast,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmid the reign of Hell his acts create<\/p>\n

A hostel where Heaven’s messengers can lodge;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am charity with the kindly hands that bless,<\/p>\n

I am silence mid the noisy tramp of life;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am Knowledge poring on her cosmic map.<\/p>\n

In the anomalies of the human heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere Good and Evil are close bedfellows<\/p>\n

And Light is by Darkness dogged at every step,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere his largest knowledge is an ignorance,<\/p>\n

I am the Power that labours towards the best<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd works for God and looks up towards the heights.<\/p>\n

I make even sin and error stepping-stones<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd all experience a long march towards Light.<\/p>\n

Out of the Inconscient I build consciousness,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd lead through death to reach immortal Life.<\/p>\n

Many are God’s forms by which he grows in man;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThey stamp his thoughts and deeds with divinity,<\/p>\n

Uplift the stature of the human clay<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr slowly transmute it into heaven’s gold.<\/p>\n

He is the Good for which men fight and die,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is the war of Right with Titan wrong;<\/p>\n

He is Freedom rising deathless from her pyre;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is Valour guarding still the desperate pass<\/p>\n

Or lone and erect on the shattered barricade<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

Or a sentinel in the dangerous echoing Night.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is the crown of the martyr burned in flame<\/p>\n

And the glad resignation of the saint<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd courage indifferent to the wounds of Time<\/p>\n

And the hero’s might wrestling with death and fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is Wisdom incarnate on a glorious throne<\/p>\n

And the calm autocracy of the sage’s rule.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is the high and solitary Thought<\/p>\n

Aloof above the ignorant multitude:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is the prophet’s voice, the sight of the seer.<\/p>\n

He is Beauty, nectar of the passionate soul,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is the Truth by which the spirit lives.<\/p>\n

He is the riches of the spiritual Vast<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPoured out in healing streams on indigent Life;<\/p>\n

He is Eternity lured from hour to hour,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is infinity in a little space:<\/p>\n

He is immortality in the arms of death.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThese powers I am and at my call they come.<\/p>\n

Thus slowly I lift man’s soul nearer the Light.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut human mind clings to its ignorance<\/p>\n

And to its littleness the human heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd to its right to grief the earthly life.<\/p>\n

Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly when infinity weds the finite’s thought,<\/p>\n

Can man be free from himself and live with God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI bring meanwhile the gods upon the earth;<\/p>\n

I bring back hope to the despairing heart;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI give peace to the humble and the great,<\/p>\n

And shed my grace on the foolish and the wise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved.<\/p>\n

Then Love shall at last unwounded tread earth’s soil;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan’s mind shall admit the sovereignty of Truth<\/p>\n

And body bear the immense descent of God.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe spoke and from the ignorant nether plane<\/p>\n

A cry, a warped echo naked and shuddering came.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA voice of the sense-shackled human mind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>516<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Carried its proud complaint of godlike power<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHedged by the limits of a mortal’s thoughts,<\/p>\n

Bound in the chains of earthly ignorance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImprisoned in his body and his brain<\/p>\n

The mortal cannot see God’s mighty whole,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr share in his vast and deep identity<\/p>\n

Who stands unguessed within our ignorant hearts<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd knows all things because he is one with all.<\/p>\n

Man only sees the cosmic surfaces.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen wondering what may lie hid from the sense<\/p>\n

A little way he delves to depths below:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut soon he stops, he cannot reach life’s core<\/p>\n

Or commune with the throbbing heart of things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe sees the naked body of the Truth<\/p>\n

Though often baffled by her endless garbs,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut cannot look upon her soul within.<\/p>\n

Then, furious for a knowledge absolute,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe tears all details out and stabs and digs:<\/p>\n

Only the shape’s contents he holds for use;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe spirit escapes or dies beneath his knife.<\/p>\n

He sees as a blank stretch, a giant waste<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe crowding riches of infinity.<\/p>\n

The finite he has made his central field,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts plan dissects, masters its processes,<\/p>\n

That which moves all is hidden from his gaze,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis poring eyes miss the unseen behind.<\/p>\n

He has the blind man’s subtle unerring touch<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr the slow traveller’s sight of distant scenes;<\/p>\n

The soul’s revealing contacts are not his.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet is he visited by intuitive light<\/p>\n

And inspiration comes from the Unknown;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut only reason and sense he feels as sure,<\/p>\n

They only are his trusted witnesses.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThus is he baulked, his splendid effort vain;<\/p>\n

His knowledge scans bright pebbles on the shore<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf the huge ocean of his ignorance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

Yet grandiose were the accents of that cry,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA cosmic pathos trembled in its tone.<\/p>\n

“I am the mind of God’s great ignorant world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAscending to knowledge by the steps he made;<\/p>\n

I am the all-discovering Thought of man.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am a god fettered by Matter and sense,<\/p>\n

An animal prisoned in a fence of thorns,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA beast of labour asking for his food,<\/p>\n

A smith tied to his anvil and his forge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet have I loosened the cord, enlarged my room.<\/p>\n

I have mapped the heavens and analysed the stars,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDescribed their orbits through the grooves of Space,<\/p>\n

Measured the miles that separate the suns,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tComputed their longevity in Time.<\/p>\n

I have delved into earth’s bowels and torn out<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe riches guarded by her dull brown soil.<\/p>\n

I have classed the changes of her stony crust<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd of her biography discovered the dates,<\/p>\n

Rescued the pages of all Nature’s plan.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe tree of evolution I have sketched,<\/p>\n

Each branch and twig and leaf in its own place,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the embryo tracked the history of forms,<\/p>\n

And the genealogy framed of all that lives.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have detected plasm and cell and gene,<\/p>\n

The protozoa traced, man’s ancestors,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe humble originals from whom he rose;<\/p>\n

I know how he was born and how he dies:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly what end he serves I know not yet<\/p>\n

Or if there is aim at all or any end<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr push of rich creative purposeful joy<\/p>\n

In the wide works of the terrestrial power.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have caught her intricate processes, none is left:<\/p>\n

Her huge machinery is in my hands;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have seized the cosmic energies for my use.<\/p>\n

I have pored on her infinitesimal elements<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd her invisible atoms have unmasked:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>518<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

All Matter is a book I have perused;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly some pages now are left to read.<\/p>\n

I have seen the ways of life, the paths of mind;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI have studied the methods of the ant and ape<\/p>\n

And the behaviour learned of man and worm.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf God is at work, his secrets I have found.<\/p>\n

But still the Cause of things is left in doubt,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTheir truth flees from pursuit into a void;<\/p>\n

When all has been explained nothing is known.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat chose the process, whence the Power sprang<\/p>\n

I know not and perhaps shall never know.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mystery is this mighty Nature’s birth;<\/p>\n

A mystery is the elusive stream of mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mystery the protean freak of life.<\/p>\n

What I have learned, Chance leaps to contradict;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat I have built is seized and torn by Fate.<\/p>\n

I can foresee the acts of Matter’s force,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut not the march of the destiny of man:<\/p>\n

He is driven upon paths he did not choose,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe falls trampled underneath the rolling wheels.<\/p>\n

My great philosophies are a reasoned guess;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe mystic heavens that claim the human soul<\/p>\n

Are a charlatanism of the imagining brain:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll is a speculation or a dream.<\/p>\n

In the end the world itself becomes a doubt:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe infinitesimal’s jest mocks mass and shape,<\/p>\n

A laugh peals from the infinite’s finite mask.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPerhaps the world is an error of our sight,<\/p>\n

A trick repeated in each flash of sense,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn unreal mind hallucinates the soul<\/p>\n

With a stress-vision of false reality,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr a dance of Maya veils the void Unborn.<\/p>\n

Even if a greater consciousness I could reach,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat profit is it then for Thought to win<\/p>\n

A Real which is for ever ineffable<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr hunt to its lair the bodiless Self or make<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

The Unknowable the target of the soul?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNay, let me work within my mortal bounds,<\/p>\n

Not live beyond life nor think beyond the mind;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur smallness saves us from the Infinite.<\/p>\n

In a frozen grandeur lone and desolate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCall me not to die the great eternal death,<\/p>\n

Left naked of my own humanity<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the chill vast of the spirit’s boundlessness.<\/p>\n

Each creature by its nature’s limits lives,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd how can one evade his native fate?<\/p>\n

Human I am, human let me remain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTill in the Inconscient I fall dumb and sleep.<\/p>\n

A high insanity, a chimaera is this,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo think that God lives hidden in the clay<\/p>\n

And that eternal Truth can dwell in Time,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd call to her to save our self and world.<\/p>\n

How can man grow immortal and divine<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTransmuting the very stuff of which he is made?<\/p>\n

This wizard gods may dream, not thinking men.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Savitri heard the voice, the warped answer heard<\/p>\n

And turning to her being of light she spoke:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Madonna of light, Mother of joy and peace,<\/p>\n

Thou art a portion of my self put forth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo raise the spirit to its forgotten heights<\/p>\n

And wake the soul by touches of the heavens.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBecause thou art, the soul draws near to God;<\/p>\n

Because thou art, love grows in spite of hate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd knowledge walks unslain in the pit of Night.<\/p>\n

But not by showering heaven’s golden rain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUpon the intellect’s hard and rocky soil<\/p>\n

Can the tree of Paradise flower on earthly ground<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the Bird of Paradise sit upon life’s boughs<\/p>\n

And the winds of Paradise visit mortal air.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven if thou rain down intuition’s rays,<\/p>\n

The mind of man will think it earth’s own gleam,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis spirit by spiritual ego sink,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>520<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Or his soul dream shut in sainthood’s brilliant cell<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere only a bright shadow of God can come.<\/p>\n

His hunger for the eternal thou must nurse<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd fill his yearning heart with heaven’s fire<\/p>\n

And bring God down into his body and life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne day I will return, His hand in mine,<\/p>\n

And thou shalt see the face of the Absolute.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen shall the holy marriage be achieved,<\/p>\n

Then shall the divine family be born.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere shall be light and peace in all the worlds.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>521<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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  Canto Four   The Triple Soul-Forces   HERE from a low and prone and listless ground The passion of the first ascent began; A…<\/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-2479","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\/2479","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=2479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}