{"id":2480,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2480"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:54","slug":"33-canto-two-the-way-of-fate-and-the-problem-of-pain-vol-33-34-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/33-34-savitri\/33-canto-two-the-way-of-fate-and-the-problem-of-pain-vol-33-34-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-33_Canto Two – The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n<\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain<\/font><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nA<\/font> SILENCE<\/b> sealed the irrevocable decree,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe word of Fate that fell from heavenly lips<\/p>\n

Fixing a doom no power could ever reverse<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnless heaven’s will itself could change its course.<\/p>\n

Or so it seemed: yet from the silence rose<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne voice that questioned changeless destiny,<\/p>\n

A will that strove against the immutable Will.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA mother’s heart had heard the fateful speech<\/p>\n

That rang like a sanction to the call of death<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd came like a chill close to life and hope.<\/p>\n

Yet hope sank down like an extinguished fire.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe felt the leaden inevitable hand<\/p>\n

Invade the secrecy of her guarded soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd smite with sudden pain its still content<\/p>\n

And the empire of her hard-won quietude.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwhile she fell to the level of human mind,<\/p>\n

A field of mortal grief and Nature’s law;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe shared, she bore the common lot of men<\/p>\n

And felt what common hearts endure in Time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVoicing earth’s question to the inscrutable power<\/p>\n

The queen now turned to the still immobile seer:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAssailed by the discontent in Nature’s depths,<\/p>\n

Partner in the agony of dumb driven things<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd all the misery, all the ignorant cry,<\/p>\n

Passionate like sorrow questioning heaven she spoke.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLending her speech to the surface soul on earth<\/p>\n

She uttered the suffering in the world’s dumb heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd man’s revolt against his ignorant fate.<\/p>\n

“O seer, in the earth’s strange twi-natured life<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy what pitiless adverse Necessity<\/p>\n

Or what cold freak of a Creator’s will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>437<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

By what random accident or governed Chance<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat shaped a rule out of fortuitous steps,<\/p>\n

Made destiny from an hour’s emotion, came<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto the unreadable mystery of Time<\/p>\n

The direr mystery of grief and pain?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIs it thy God who made this cruel law?<\/p>\n

Or some disastrous Power has marred his work<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd he stands helpless to defend or save?<\/p>\n

A fatal seed was sown in life’s false start<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen evil twinned with good on earthly soil.<\/p>\n

Then first appeared the malady of mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts pang of thought, its quest for the aim of life.<\/p>\n

It twisted into forms of good and ill<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe frank simplicity of the animal’s acts;<\/p>\n

It turned the straight path hewn by the body’s gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFollowed the zigzag of the uncertain course<\/p>\n

Of life that wanders seeking for its aim<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the pale starlight falling from thought’s skies,<\/p>\n

Its guides the unsure idea, the wavering will.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLost was the instinct’s safe identity<\/p>\n

With the arrow-point of being’s inmost sight,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMarred the sure steps of Nature’s simple walk<\/p>\n

And truth and freedom in the growing soul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of some ageless innocence and peace,<\/p>\n

Privilege of souls not yet betrayed to birth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCast down to suffer on this hard dangerous earth<\/p>\n

Our life was born in pain and with a cry.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlthough earth-nature welcomes heaven’s breath<\/p>\n

Inspiring Matter with the will to live,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA thousand ills assail the mortal’s hours<\/p>\n

And wear away the natural joy of life;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur bodies are an engine cunningly made,<\/p>\n

But for all its parts as cunningly are planned,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tContrived ingeniously with demon skill,<\/p>\n

Its apt inevitable heritage<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOf mortal danger and peculiar pain,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>438<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Its payment of the tax of Time and Fate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts way to suffer and its way to die.<\/p>\n

This is the ransom of our high estate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe sign and stamp of our humanity.<\/p>\n

A grisly company of maladies<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCome, licensed lodgers, into man’s bodily house,<\/p>\n

Purveyors of death and torturers of life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the malignant hollows of the world,<\/p>\n

In its subconscient cavern-passages<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmbushed they lie waiting their hour to leap,<\/p>\n

Surrounding with danger the sieged city of life:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAdmitted into the citadel of man’s days<\/p>\n

They mine his force and maim or suddenly kill.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOurselves within us lethal forces nurse;<\/p>\n

We make of our own enemies our guests:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of their holes like beasts they creep and gnaw<\/p>\n

The chords of the divine musician’s lyre<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTill frayed and thin the music dies away<\/p>\n

Or crashing snaps with a last tragic note.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll that we are is like a fort beset:<\/p>\n

All that we strive to be alters like a dream<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the grey sleep of Matter’s ignorance.<\/p>\n

Mind suffers lamed by the world’s disharmony<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the unloveliness of human things.<\/p>\n

A treasure misspent or cheaply, fruitlessly sold<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the bazaar of a blind destiny,<\/p>\n

A gift of priceless value from Time’s gods<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLost or mislaid in an uncaring world,<\/p>\n

Life is a marvel missed, an art gone wry;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA seeker in a dark and obscure place,<\/p>\n

An ill-armed warrior facing dreadful odds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn imperfect worker given a baffling task,<\/p>\n

An ignorant judge of problems Ignorance made,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts heavenward flights reach closed and keyless gates,<\/p>\n

Its glorious outbursts peter out in mire.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn Nature’s gifts to man a curse was laid:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>439<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

All walks inarmed by its own opposites,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tError is the comrade of our mortal thought<\/p>\n

And falsehood lurks in the deep bosom of truth,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSin poisons with its vivid flowers of joy<\/p>\n

Or leaves a red scar burnt across the soul;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVirtue is a grey bondage and a gaol.<\/p>\n

At every step is laid for us a snare.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlien to reason and the spirit’s light,<\/p>\n

Our fount of action from a darkness wells;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn ignorance and nescience are our roots.<\/p>\n

A growing register of calamities<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIs the past’s account, the future’s book of Fate:<\/p>\n

The centuries pile man’s follies and man’s crimes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUpon the countless crowd of Nature’s ills;<\/p>\n

As if the world’s stone load was not enough,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA crop of miseries obstinately is sown<\/p>\n

By his own hand in the furrows of the gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe vast increasing tragic harvest reaped<\/p>\n

From old misdeeds buried by oblivious Time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe walks by his own choice into Hell’s trap;<\/p>\n

This mortal creature is his own worst foe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis science is an artificer of doom;<\/p>\n

He ransacks earth for means to harm his kind;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe slays his happiness and others’ good.<\/p>\n

Nothing has he learned from Time and its history;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven as of old in the raw youth of Time,<\/p>\n

When Earth ignorant ran on the highways of Fate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOld forms of evil cling to the world’s soul:<\/p>\n

War making nought the sweet smiling calm of life,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBattle and rapine, ruin and massacre<\/p>\n

Are still the fierce pastimes of man’s warring tribes;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn idiot hour destroys what centuries made,<\/p>\n

His wanton rage or frenzied hate lays low<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe beauty and greatness by his genius wrought<\/p>\n

And the mighty output of a nation’s toil.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll he has achieved he drags to the precipice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>440<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

His grandeur he turns to an epic of doom and fall;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis littleness crawls content through squalor and mud,<\/p>\n

He calls heaven’s retribution on his head<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd wallows in his self-made misery.<\/p>\n

A part author of the cosmic tragedy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis will conspires with death and time and fate.<\/p>\n

His brief appearance on the enigmaed earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEver recurs but brings no high result<\/p>\n

To this wanderer through the aeon-rings of God<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat shut his life in their vast longevity.<\/p>\n

His soul’s wide search and ever returning hopes<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPursue the useless orbit of their course<\/p>\n

In a vain repetition of lost toils<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross a track of soon forgotten lives.<\/p>\n

All is an episode in a meaningless tale.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhy is it all and wherefore are we here?<\/p>\n

If to some being of eternal bliss<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is our spirit’s destiny to return<\/p>\n

Or some still impersonal height of endless calm,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSince That we are and out of That we came,<\/p>\n

Whence rose the strange and sterile interlude<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLasting in vain through interminable Time?<\/p>\n

Who willed to form or feign a universe<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the cold and endless emptiness of Space?<\/p>\n

Or if these beings must be and their brief lives,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat need had the soul of ignorance and tears?<\/p>\n

Whence rose the call for sorrow and for pain?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr all came helplessly without a cause?<\/p>\n

What power forced the immortal spirit to birth?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe eternal witness once of eternity,<\/p>\n

A deathless sojourner mid transient scenes,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe camps in life’s half-lit obscurity<\/p>\n

Amid the debris of his thoughts and dreams.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr who persuaded it to fall from bliss<\/p>\n

And forfeit its immortal privilege?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho laid on it the ceaseless will to live<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>441<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A wanderer in this beautiful, sorrowful world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd bear its load of joy and grief and love?<\/p>\n

Or if no being watches the works of Time,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat hard impersonal Necessity<\/p>\n

Compels the vain toil of brief living things?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA great Illusion then has built the stars.<\/p>\n

But where then is the soul’s security,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts poise in this circling of unreal suns?<\/p>\n

Or else it is a wanderer from its home<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWho strayed into a blind alley of Time and chance<\/p>\n

And finds no issue from a meaningless world.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr where begins and ends Illusion’s reign?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the soul we feel is only a dream,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEternal self a fiction sensed in trance.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen after a silence Narad made reply:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTuning his lips to earthly sound he spoke,<\/p>\n

And something now of the deep sense of fate<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWeighted the fragile hints of mortal speech.<\/p>\n

His forehead shone with vision solemnised,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTurned to a tablet of supernal thoughts<\/p>\n

As if characters of an unwritten tongue<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHad left in its breadth the inscriptions of the gods.<\/p>\n

Bare in that light Time toiled, his unseen works<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDetected; the broad-flung far-seeing schemes<\/p>\n

Unfinished which his aeoned flight unrolls<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWere mapped already in that world-wide look.<\/p>\n

“Was then the sun a dream because there is night?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHidden in the mortal’s heart the Eternal lives:<\/p>\n

He lives secret in the chamber of thy soul,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Light shines there nor pain nor grief can cross.<\/p>\n

A darkness stands between thyself and him,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou canst not hear or feel the marvellous Guest,<\/p>\n

Thou canst not see the beatific sun.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO queen, thy thought is a light of the Ignorance,<\/p>\n

Its brilliant curtain hides from thee God’s face.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>442<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

It illumes a world born from the Inconscience<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut hides the Immortal’s meaning in the world.<\/p>\n

Thy mind’s light hides from thee the Eternal’s thought,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy heart’s hopes hide from thee the Eternal’s will,<\/p>\n

Earth’s joys shut from thee the Immortal’s bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThence rose the need of a dark intruding god,<\/p>\n

The world’s dread teacher, the creator, pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere Ignorance is, there suffering too must come;<\/p>\n

Thy grief is a cry of darkness to the Light;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPain was the first-born of the Inconscience<\/p>\n

Which was thy body’s dumb original base;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlready slept there pain’s subconscient shape:<\/p>\n

A shadow in a shadowy tenebrous womb,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTill life shall move, it waits to wake and be.<\/p>\n

In one caul with joy came forth the dreadful Power.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn life’s breast it was born hiding its twin;<\/p>\n

But pain came first, then only joy could be.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPain ploughed the first hard ground of the world-drowse.<\/p>\n

By pain a spirit started from the clod,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy pain Life stirred in the subliminal deep.<\/p>\n

Interned, submerged, hidden in Matter’s trance<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwoke to itself the dreamer, sleeping Mind;<\/p>\n

It made a visible realm out of its dreams,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt drew its shapes from the subconscient depths,<\/p>\n

Then turned to look upon the world it had made.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy pain and joy, the bright and tenebrous twins,<\/p>\n

The inanimate world perceived its sentient soul,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tElse had the Inconscient never suffered change.<\/p>\n

Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA dead resistance in the mortal’s heart,<\/p>\n

His slow inertia as of living stone.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf the heart were not forced to want and weep,<\/p>\n

His soul would have lain down content, at ease,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd never thought to exceed the human start<\/p>\n

And never learned to climb towards the Sun.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis earth is full of labour, packed with pain;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>443<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Throes of an endless birth coerce her still;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe centuries end, the ages vainly pass<\/p>\n

And yet the Godhead in her is not born.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe ancient Mother faces all with joy,<\/p>\n

Calls for the ardent pang, the grandiose thrill;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor with pain and labour all creation comes.<\/p>\n

This earth is full of the anguish of the gods;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEver they travail driven by Time’s goad,<\/p>\n

And strive to work out the eternal Will<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd shape the life divine in mortal forms.<\/p>\n

His will must be worked out in human breasts<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgainst the Evil that rises from the gulfs,<\/p>\n

Against the world’s Ignorance and its obstinate strength,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgainst the stumblings of man’s pervert will,<\/p>\n

Against the deep folly of his human mind,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAgainst the blind reluctance of his heart.<\/p>\n

The spirit is doomed to pain till man is free.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is a clamour of battle, a tramp, a march:<\/p>\n

A cry arises like a moaning sea,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA desperate laughter under the blows of death,<\/p>\n

A doom of blood and sweat and toil and tears.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMen die that man may live and God be born.<\/p>\n

An awful Silence watches tragic Time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men<\/p>\n

To greatness: an inspired labour chisels<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWith heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould.<\/p>\n

Implacable in the passion of their will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLifting the hammers of titanic toil<\/p>\n

The demiurges of the universe work;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThey shape with giant strokes their own; their sons<\/p>\n

Are marked with their enormous stamp of fire.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlthough the shaping god’s tremendous touch<\/p>\n

Is torture unbearable to mortal nerves,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe fiery spirit grows in strength within<\/p>\n

And feels a joy in every titan pang.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe who would save himself lives bare and calm;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>444<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tHe who would save the race must share its pain:<\/p>\n

This he shall know who obeys that grandiose urge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Great who came to save this suffering world<\/p>\n

And rescue out of Time’s shadow and the Law,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMust pass beneath the yoke of grief and pain;<\/p>\n

They are caught by the Wheel that they had hoped to break,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn their shoulders they must bear man’s load of fate.<\/p>\n

Heaven’s riches they bring, their sufferings count the price<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr they pay the gift of knowledge with their lives.<\/p>\n

The Son of God born as the Son of man<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHas drunk the bitter cup, owned Godhead’s debt,<\/p>\n

The debt the Eternal owes to the fallen kind<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis will has bound to death and struggling life<\/p>\n

That yearns in vain for rest and endless peace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow is the debt paid, wiped off the original score.<\/p>\n

The Eternal suffers in a human form,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has signed salvation’s testament with his blood:<\/p>\n

He has opened the doors of his undying peace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Deity compensates the creature’s claim,<\/p>\n

The Creator bears the law of pain and death;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA retribution smites the incarnate God.<\/p>\n

His love has paved the mortal’s road to Heaven:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has given his life and light to balance here<\/p>\n

The dark account of mortal ignorance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is finished, the dread mysterious sacrifice,<\/p>\n

Offered by God’s martyred body for the world;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGethsemane and Calvary are his lot,<\/p>\n

He carries the cross on which man’s soul is nailed;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis escort is the curses of the crowd;<\/p>\n

Insult and jeer are his right’s acknowledgment;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTwo thieves slain with him mock his mighty death.<\/p>\n

He has trod with bleeding brow the Saviour’s way.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe who has found his identity with God<\/p>\n

Pays with the body’s death his soul’s vast light.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis knowledge immortal triumphs by his death.<\/p>\n

Hewn, quartered on the scaffold as he falls,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>445<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

His crucified voice proclaims, `I, I am God;’<\/p>\n

`Yes, all is God,’ peals back Heaven’s deathless call.<\/p>\n

The seed of Godhead sleeps in mortal hearts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe flower of Godhead grows on the world-tree:<\/p>\n

All shall discover God in self and things.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut when God’s messenger comes to help the world<\/p>\n

And lead the soul of earth to higher things,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe too must carry the yoke he came to unloose;<\/p>\n

He too must bear the pang that he would heal:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tExempt and unafflicted by earth’s fate,<\/p>\n

How shall he cure the ills he never felt?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe covers the world’s agony with his calm;<\/p>\n

But though to the outward eye no sign appears<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd peace is given to our torn human hearts,<\/p>\n

The struggle is there and paid the unseen price;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe fire, the strife, the wrestle are within.<\/p>\n

He carries the suffering world in his own breast;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts sins weigh on his thoughts, its grief is his:<\/p>\n

Earth’s ancient load lies heavy on his soul;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNight and its powers beleaguer his tardy steps,<\/p>\n

The Titan adversary’s clutch he bears;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis march is a battle and a pilgrimage.<\/p>\n

Life’s evil smites, he is stricken with the world’s pain:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA million wounds gape in his secret heart.<\/p>\n

He journeys sleepless through an unending night;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAntagonist forces crowd across his path;<\/p>\n

A siege, a combat is his inner life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven worse may be the cost, direr the pain:<\/p>\n

His large identity and all-harbouring love<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShall bring the cosmic anguish into his depths,<\/p>\n

The sorrow of all living things shall come<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd knock at his doors and live within his house;<\/p>\n

A dreadful cord of sympathy can tie<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll suffering into his single grief and make<\/p>\n

All agony in all the worlds his own.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe meets an ancient adversary Force,<\/p>\n

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He is lashed with the whips that tear the world’s worn heart;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe weeping of the centuries visits his eyes:<\/p>\n

He wears the blood-glued fiery Centaur shirt,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe poison of the world has stained his throat.<\/p>\n

In the market-place of Matter’s capital<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAmidst the chafferings of the affair called life<\/p>\n

He is tied to the stake of a perennial Fire;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe burns on an unseen original verge<\/p>\n

That Matter may be turned to spirit stuff:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe is the victim in his own sacrifice.<\/p>\n

The Immortal bound to earth’s mortality<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAppearing and perishing on the roads of Time<\/p>\n

Creates God’s moment by eternity’s beats.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe dies that the world may be new-born and live.<\/p>\n

Even if he escapes the fiercest fires,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven if the world breaks not in, a drowning sea,<\/p>\n

Only by hard sacrifice is high heaven earned:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe must face the fight, the pang who would conquer Hell.<\/p>\n

A dark concealed hostility is lodged<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the human depths, in the hidden heart of Time<\/p>\n

That claims the right to change and mar God’s work.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA secret enmity ambushes the world’s march;<\/p>\n

It leaves a mark on thought and speech and act:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt stamps stain and defect on all things done;<\/p>\n

Till it is slain peace is forbidden on earth.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is no visible foe, but the unseen<\/p>\n

Is round us, forces intangible besiege,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTouches from alien realms, thoughts not our own<\/p>\n

Overtake us and compel the erring heart;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur lives are caught in an ambiguous net.<\/p>\n

An adversary Force was born of old:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInvader of the life of mortal man,<\/p>\n

It hides from him the straight immortal path.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA power came in to veil the eternal Light,<\/p>\n

A power opposed to the eternal will<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDiverts the messages of the infallible Word,<\/p>\n

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Contorts the contours of the cosmic plan:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA whisper lures to evil the human heart,<\/p>\n

It seals up wisdom’s eyes, the soul’s regard,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is the origin of our suffering here,<\/p>\n

It binds earth to calamity and pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis all must conquer who would bring down God’s peace.<\/p>\n

This hidden foe lodged in the human breast<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan must overcome or miss his higher fate.<\/p>\n

This is the inner war without escape.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task;<\/p>\n

The world itself becomes his adversary,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThose he would save are his antagonists:<\/p>\n

This world is in love with its own ignorance,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts darkness turns away from the saviour light,<\/p>\n

It gives the cross in payment for the crown.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis work is a trickle of splendour in a long night;<\/p>\n

He sees the long march of Time, the little won;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA few are saved, the rest strive on and fail:<\/p>\n

A Sun has passed, on earth Night’s shadow falls.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYes, there are happy ways near to God’s sun;<\/p>\n

But few are they who tread the sunlit path;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly the pure in soul can walk in light.<\/p>\n

An exit is shown, a road of hard escape<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFrom the sorrow and the darkness and the chain;<\/p>\n

But how shall a few escaped release the world?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe human mass lingers beneath the yoke.<\/p>\n

Escape, however high, redeems not life,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLife that is left behind on a fallen earth.<\/p>\n

Escape cannot uplift the abandoned race<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr bring to it victory and the reign of God.<\/p>\n

A greater power must come, a larger light.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlthough Light grows on earth and Night recedes,<\/p>\n

Yet till the evil is slain in its own home<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Light invades the world’s inconscient base<\/p>\n

And perished has the adversary Force,<\/p>\n

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He still must labour on, his work half done.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne yet may come armoured, invincible;<\/p>\n

His will immobile meets the mobile hour;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe world’s blows cannot bend that victor head;<\/p>\n

Calm and sure are his steps in the growing Night;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe goal recedes, he hurries not his pace,<\/p>\n

He turns not to high voices in the night;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe asks no aid from the inferior gods;<\/p>\n

His eyes are fixed on his immutable aim.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan turns aside or chooses easier paths;<\/p>\n

He keeps to the one high and difficult road<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat sole can climb to the Eternal’s peaks;<\/p>\n

The ineffable planes already have felt his tread;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has made heaven and earth his instruments,<\/p>\n

But the limits fall from him of earth and heaven;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTheir law he transcends but uses as his means.<\/p>\n

He has seized life’s hands, he has mastered his own heart.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe feints of Nature mislead not his sight,<\/p>\n

Inflexible his look towards Truth’s far end;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFate’s deaf resistance cannot break his will.<\/p>\n

In the dreadful passages, the fatal paths,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInvulnerable his soul, his heart unslain,<\/p>\n

He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Nature’s ambushes and the world’s attacks.<\/p>\n

His spirit’s stature transcending pain and bliss,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe fronts evil and good with calm and equal eyes.<\/p>\n

He too must grapple with the riddling Sphinx<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd plunge into her long obscurity.<\/p>\n

He has broken into the Inconscient’s depths<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat veil themselves even from their own regard:<\/p>\n

He has seen God’s slumber shape these magic worlds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has watched the dumb God fashioning Matter’s frame,<\/p>\n

Dreaming the dreams of its unknowing sleep,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd watched the unconscious Force that built the stars.<\/p>\n

He has learned the Inconscient’s workings and its law,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts incoherent thoughts and rigid acts,<\/p>\n

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Its hazard wastes of impulse and idea,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe chaos of its mechanic frequencies,<\/p>\n

Its random calls, its whispers falsely true,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMisleaders of the hooded listening soul.<\/p>\n

All things come to its ear but nothing abides;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll rose from the silence, all goes back to its hush.<\/p>\n

Its somnolence founded the universe,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts obscure waking makes the world seem vain.<\/p>\n

Arisen from Nothingness and towards Nothingness turned,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts dark and potent nescience was earth’s start;<\/p>\n

It is the waste stuff from which all was made;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto its deeps creation can collapse.<\/p>\n

Its opposition clogs the march of the soul,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is the mother of our ignorance.<\/p>\n

He must call light into its dark abysms,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tElse never can Truth conquer Matter’s sleep<\/p>\n

And all earth look into the eyes of God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll things obscure his knowledge must relume,<\/p>\n

All things perverse his power must unknot:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe must pass to the other shore of falsehood’s sea,<\/p>\n

He must enter the world’s dark to bring there light.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe heart of evil must be bared to his eyes,<\/p>\n

He must learn its cosmic dark necessity,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts right and its dire roots in Nature’s soil.<\/p>\n

He must know the thought that moves the demon act<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd justifies the Titan’s erring pride<\/p>\n

And the falsehood lurking in earth’s crooked dreams:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe must enter the eternity of Night<\/p>\n

And know God’s darkness as he knows his Sun.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor this he must go down into the pit,<\/p>\n

For this he must invade the dolorous Vasts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImperishable and wise and infinite,<\/p>\n

He still must travel Hell the world to save.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInto the eternal Light he shall emerge<\/p>\n

On borders of the meeting of all worlds;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere on the verge of Nature’s summit steps<\/p>\n

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The secret Law of each thing is fulfilled,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll contraries heal their long dissidence.<\/p>\n

There meet and clasp the eternal opposites,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere pain becomes a violent fiery joy;<\/p>\n

Evil turns back to its original good,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd sorrow lies upon the breasts of Bliss:<\/p>\n

She has learned to weep glad tears of happiness;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer gaze is charged with a wistful ecstasy.<\/p>\n

Then shall be ended here the Law of Pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth shall be made a home of Heaven’s light,<\/p>\n

A seer heaven-born shall lodge in human breasts;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe superconscient beam shall touch men’s eyes<\/p>\n

And the truth-conscious world come down to earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInvading Matter with the Spirit’s ray,<\/p>\n

Awaking its silence to immortal thoughts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwaking the dumb heart to the living Word.<\/p>\n

This mortal life shall house Eternity’s bliss,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe body’s self taste immortality.<\/p>\n

Then shall the world-redeemer’s task be done.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Till then must life carry its seed of death<\/p>\n

And sorrow’s plaint be heard in the slow Night.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO mortal, bear this great world’s law of pain,<\/p>\n

In thy hard passage through a suffering world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLean for thy soul’s support on Heaven’s strength,<\/p>\n

Turn towards high Truth, aspire to love and peace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA little bliss is lent thee from above,<\/p>\n

A touch divine upon thy human days.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMake of thy daily way a pilgrimage,<\/p>\n

For through small joys and griefs thou mov’st towards God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHaste not towards Godhead on a dangerous road,<\/p>\n

Open not thy doorways to a nameless Power,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tClimb not to Godhead by the Titan’s road.<\/p>\n

Against the Law he pits his single will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross its way he throws his pride of might.<\/p>\n

Heavenward he clambers on a stair of storms<\/p>\n

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Aspiring to live near the deathless sun.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe strives with a giant strength to wrest by force<\/p>\n

From life and Nature the immortals’ right;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe takes by storm the world and fate and heaven.<\/p>\n

He comes not to the high World-maker’s seat,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe waits not for the outstretched hand of God<\/p>\n

To raise him out of his mortality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll he would make his own, leave nothing free,<\/p>\n

Stretching his small self to cope with the infinite.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tObstructing the gods’ open ways he makes<\/p>\n

His own estate of the earth’s air and light;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA monopolist of the world-energy,<\/p>\n

He dominates the life of common men.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis pain and others’ pain he makes his means:<\/p>\n

On death and suffering he builds his throne.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the hurry and clangour of his acts of might,<\/p>\n

In a riot and excess of fame and shame,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy his magnitudes of hate and violence,<\/p>\n

By the quaking of the world beneath his tread<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe matches himself against the Eternal’s calm<\/p>\n

And feels in himself the greatness of a god:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPower is his image of celestial self.<\/p>\n

The Titan’s heart is a sea of fire and force;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe exults in the death of things and ruin and fall,<\/p>\n

He feeds his strength with his own and others’ pain;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the world’s pathos and passion he takes delight,<\/p>\n

His pride, his might call for the struggle and pang.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe glories in the sufferings of the flesh<\/p>\n

And covers the stigmata with the Stoic’s name.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis eyes blinded and visionless stare at the sun,<\/p>\n

The seeker’s Sight receding from his heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCan find no more the light of eternity;<\/p>\n

He sees the beyond as an emptiness void of soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd takes his night for a dark infinite.<\/p>\n

His nature magnifies the unreal’s blank<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd sees in Nought the sole reality:<\/p>\n

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He would stamp his single figure on the world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tObsess the world’s rumours with his single name.<\/p>\n

His moments centre the vast universe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe sees his little self as very God.<\/p>\n

His little `I’ has swallowed the whole world,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis ego has stretched into infinity.<\/p>\n

His mind, a beat in original Nothingness,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCiphers his thought on a slate of hourless Time.<\/p>\n

He builds on a mighty vacancy of soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA huge philosophy of Nothingness.<\/p>\n

In him Nirvana lives and speaks and acts<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tImpossibly creating a universe.<\/p>\n

An eternal zero is his formless self,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis spirit the void impersonal absolute.<\/p>\n

Take not that stride, O growing soul of man;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCast not thy self into that night of God.<\/p>\n

The soul suffering is not eternity’s key,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr ransom by sorrow heaven’s demand on life.<\/p>\n

O mortal, bear, but ask not for the stroke,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tToo soon will grief and anguish find thee out.<\/p>\n

Too enormous is that venture for thy will;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly in limits can man’s strength be safe;<\/p>\n

Yet is infinity thy spirit’s goal;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts bliss is there behind the world’s face of tears.<\/p>\n

A power is in thee that thou knowest not;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou art a vessel of the imprisoned spark.<\/p>\n

It seeks relief from Time’s envelopment,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd while thou shutst it in, the seal is pain:<\/p>\n

Bliss is the Godhead’s crown, eternal, free,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnburdened by life’s blind mystery of pain:<\/p>\n

Pain is the signature of the Ignorance<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAttesting the secret god denied by life:<\/p>\n

Until life finds him pain can never end.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm is self’s victory overcoming fate.<\/p>\n

Bear; thou shalt find at last thy road to bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBliss is the secret stuff of all that lives,<\/p>\n

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Even pain and grief are garbs of world-delight,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt hides behind thy sorrow and thy cry.<\/p>\n

Because thy strength is a part and not God’s whole,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBecause afflicted by the little self<\/p>\n

Thy consciousness forgets to be divine<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs it walks in the vague penumbra of the flesh<\/p>\n

And cannot bear the world’s tremendous touch,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou criest out and sayst that there is pain.<\/p>\n

Indifference, pain and joy, a triple disguise,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAttire of the rapturous Dancer in the ways,<\/p>\n

Withhold from thee the body of God’s bliss.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy spirit’s strength shall make thee one with God,<\/p>\n

Thy agony shall change to ecstasy,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIndifference deepen into infinity’s calm<\/p>\n

And joy laugh nude on the peaks of the Absolute.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O mortal who complainst of death and fate,<\/p>\n

Accuse none of the harms thyself hast called;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis troubled world thou hast chosen for thy home,<\/p>\n

Thou art thyself the author of thy pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnce in the immortal boundlessness of Self,<\/p>\n

In a vast of Truth and Consciousness and Light<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe soul looked out from its felicity.<\/p>\n

It felt the Spirit’s interminable bliss,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt knew itself deathless, timeless, spaceless, one,<\/p>\n

It saw the Eternal, lived in the Infinite.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen, curious of a shadow thrown by Truth,<\/p>\n

It strained towards some otherness of self,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt was drawn to an unknown Face peering through night.<\/p>\n

It sensed a negative infinity,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA void supernal whose immense excess<\/p>\n

Imitating God and everlasting Time<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOffered a ground for Nature’s adverse birth<\/p>\n

And Matter’s rigid hard unconsciousness<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHarbouring the brilliance of a transient soul<\/p>\n

That lights up birth and death and ignorant life.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tA Mind arose that stared at Nothingness<\/p>\n

Till figures formed of what could never be;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt housed the contrary of all that is.<\/p>\n

A Nought appeared as Being’s huge sealed cause,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts dumb support in a blank infinite,<\/p>\n

In whose abysm spirit must disappear:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA darkened Nature lived and held the seed<\/p>\n

Of Spirit hidden and feigning not to be.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEternal Consciousness became a freak<\/p>\n

Of an unsouled almighty Inconscient<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd, breathed no more as spirit’s native air,<\/p>\n

Bliss was an incident of a mortal hour,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA stranger in the insentient universe.<\/p>\n

As one drawn by the grandeur of the Void<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe soul attracted leaned to the Abyss:<\/p>\n

It longed for the adventure of Ignorance<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd the marvel and surprise of the Unknown<\/p>\n

And the endless possibility that lurked<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the womb of Chaos and in Nothing’s gulf<\/p>\n

Or looked from the unfathomed eyes of Chance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt tired of its unchanging happiness,<\/p>\n

It turned away from immortality:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt was drawn to hazard’s call and danger’s charm,<\/p>\n

It yearned to the pathos of grief, the drama of pain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPerdition’s peril, the wounded bare escape,<\/p>\n

The music of ruin and its glamour and crash,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe savour of pity and the gamble of love<\/p>\n

And passion and the ambiguous face of Fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA world of hard endeavour and difficult toil,<\/p>\n

And battle on extinction’s perilous verge,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA clash of forces, a vast incertitude,<\/p>\n

The joy of creation out of Nothingness,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStrange meetings on the roads of Ignorance<\/p>\n

And the companionship of half-known souls<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr the solitary greatness and lonely force<\/p>\n

Of a separate being conquering its world,<\/p>\n

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Called it from its too safe eternity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA huge descent began, a giant fall:<\/p>\n

For what the spirit sees, creates a truth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd what the soul imagines is made a world.<\/p>\n

A Thought that leaped from the Timeless can become,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIndicator of cosmic consequence<\/p>\n

And the itinerary of the gods,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA cyclic movement in eternal Time.<\/p>\n

Thus came, born from a blind tremendous choice,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis great perplexed and discontented world,<\/p>\n

This haunt of Ignorance, this home of Pain:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere are pitched desire’s tents, grief’s headquarters.<\/p>\n

A vast disguise conceals the Eternal’s bliss.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen Aswapati answered to the seer:<\/p>\n

“Is then the spirit ruled by an outward world?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO seer, is there no remedy within?<\/p>\n

But what is Fate if not the spirit’s will<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAfter long time fulfilled by cosmic Force?<\/p>\n

I deemed a mighty Power had come with her;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIs not that Power the high compeer of Fate?”<\/p>\n

But Narad answered covering truth with truth:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“O Aswapati, random seem the ways<\/p>\n

Along whose banks your footsteps stray or run<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn casual hours or moments of the gods,<\/p>\n

Yet your least stumblings are foreseen above.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tInfallibly the curves of life are drawn<\/p>\n

Following the stream of Time through the unknown;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThey are led by a clue the calm immortals keep.<\/p>\n

This blazoned hieroglyph of prophet morns<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA meaning more sublime in symbols writes<\/p>\n

Than sealed Thought wakes to, but of this high script<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHow shall my voice convince the mind of earth?<\/p>\n

Heaven’s wiser love rejects the mortal’s prayer;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnblinded by the breath of his desire,<\/p>\n

Unclouded by the mists of fear and hope,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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It bends above the strife of love with death;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt keeps for her her privilege of pain.<\/p>\n

A greatness in thy daughter’s soul resides<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat can transform herself and all around<\/p>\n

But must cross on stones of suffering to its goal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlthough designed like a nectar cup of heaven,<\/p>\n

Of heavenly ether made she sought this air,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe too must share the human need of grief<\/p>\n

And all her cause of joy transmute to pain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe mind of mortal man is led by words,<\/p>\n

His sight retires behind the walls of Thought<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd looks out only through half-opened doors.<\/p>\n

He cuts the boundless Truth into sky-strips<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd every strip he takes for all the heavens.<\/p>\n

He stares at infinite possibility<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd gives to the plastic Vast the name of Chance;<\/p>\n

He sees the long results of an all-wise Force<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPlanning a sequence of steps in endless Time<\/p>\n

But in its links imagines a senseless chain<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr the dead hand of cold Necessity;<\/p>\n

He answers not to the mystic Mother’s heart,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMisses the ardent heavings of her breast<\/p>\n

And feels cold rigid limbs of lifeless Law.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe will of the Timeless working out in Time<\/p>\n

In the free absolute steps of cosmic Truth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe thinks a dead machine or unconscious Fate.<\/p>\n

A Magician’s formulas have made Matter’s laws<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd while they last, all things by them are bound;<\/p>\n

But the spirit’s consent is needed for each act<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd Freedom walks in the same pace with Law.<\/p>\n

All here can change if the Magician choose.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf human will could be made one with God’s,<\/p>\n

If human thought could echo the thoughts of God,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan might be all-knowing and omnipotent;<\/p>\n

But now he walks in Nature’s doubtful ray.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet can the mind of man receive God’s light,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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The force of man can be driven by God’s force,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen is he a miracle doing miracles.<\/p>\n

For only so can he be Nature’s king.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is decreed and Satyavan must die;<\/p>\n

The hour is fixed, chosen the fatal stroke.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat else shall be is written in her soul<\/p>\n

But till the hour reveals the fateful script,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe writing waits illegible and mute.<\/p>\n

Fate is Truth working out in Ignorance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO King, thy fate is a transaction done<\/p>\n

At every hour between Nature and thy soul<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWith God for its foreseeing arbiter.<\/p>\n

Fate is a balance drawn in Destiny’s book.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan can accept his fate, he can refuse.<\/p>\n

Even if the One maintains the unseen decree<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe writes thy refusal in thy credit page:<\/p>\n

For doom is not a close, a mystic seal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tArisen from the tragic crash of life,<\/p>\n

Arisen from the body’s torture and death,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe spirit rises mightier by defeat;<\/p>\n

Its godlike wings grow wider with each fall.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts splendid failures sum to victory.<\/p>\n

O man, the events that meet thee on thy road,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThough they smite thy body and soul with joy and grief,<\/p>\n

Are not thy fate, \u2014 they touch thee awhile and pass;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven death can cut not short thy spirit’s walk:<\/p>\n

Thy goal, the road thou choosest are thy fate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOn the altar throwing thy thoughts, thy heart, thy works,<\/p>\n

Thy fate is a long sacrifice to the gods<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTill they have opened to thee thy secret self<\/p>\n

And made thee one with the indwelling God.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tO soul, intruder in Nature’s ignorance,<\/p>\n

Armed traveller to the unseen supernal heights,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThy spirit’s fate is a battle and ceaseless march<\/p>\n

Against invisible opponent Powers,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA passage from Matter into timeless self.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

Adventurer through blind unforeseeing Time,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA forced advance through a long line of lives,<\/p>\n

It pushes its spearhead through the centuries.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAcross the dust and mire of the earthly plain,<\/p>\n

On many guarded lines and dangerous fronts,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn dire assaults, in wounded slow retreats,<\/p>\n

Holding the ideal’s ringed and battered fort<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOr fighting against odds in lonely posts,<\/p>\n

Or camped in night around the bivouac’s fires<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAwaiting the tardy trumpets of the dawn,<\/p>\n

In hunger and in plenty and in pain,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThrough peril and through triumph and through fall,<\/p>\n

Through life’s green lanes and over her desert sands,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUp the bald moor, along the sunlit ridge,<\/p>\n

In serried columns with a straggling rear<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLed by its nomad vanguard’s signal fires,<\/p>\n

Marches the army of the waylost god.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThen late the joy ineffable is felt,<\/p>\n

Then he remembers his forgotten self;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe has refound the skies from which he fell.<\/p>\n

At length his front’s indomitable line<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForces the last passes of the Ignorance:<\/p>\n

Advancing beyond Nature’s last known bounds,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tReconnoitring the formidable unknown,<\/p>\n

Beyond the landmarks of things visible,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt mounts through a miraculous upper air<\/p>\n

Till climbing the mute summit of the world<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe stands upon the splendour-peaks of God.<\/p>\n

In vain thou mournst that Satyavan must die;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHis death is a beginning of greater life,<\/p>\n

Death is the spirit’s opportunity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA vast intention has brought two souls close<\/p>\n

And love and death conspire towards one great end.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor out of danger and pain heaven-bliss shall come,<\/p>\n

Time’s unforeseen event, God’s secret plan.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis world was not built with random bricks of Chance,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

A blind god is not destiny’s architect;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA conscious power has drawn the plan of life,<\/p>\n

There is a meaning in each curve and line.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is an architecture high and grand<\/p>\n

By many named and nameless masons built<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn which unseeing hands obey the Unseen,<\/p>\n

And of its master-builders she is one.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Queen, strive no more to change the secret will;<\/p>\n

Time’s accidents are steps in its vast scheme.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBring not thy brief and helpless human tears<\/p>\n

Across the fathomless moments of a heart<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat knows its single will and God’s as one:<\/p>\n

It can embrace its hostile destiny;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt sits apart with grief and facing death,<\/p>\n

Affronting adverse fate armed and alone.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn this enormous world standing apart<\/p>\n

In the mightiness of her silent spirit’s will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the passion of her soul of sacrifice<\/p>\n

Her lonely strength facing the universe,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAffronting fate, asks not man’s help nor god’s:<\/p>\n

Sometimes one life is charged with earth’s destiny,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt cries not for succour from the time-bound powers.<\/p>\n

Alone she is equal to her mighty task.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIntervene not in a strife too great for thee,<\/p>\n

A struggle too deep for mortal thought to sound,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts question to this Nature’s rigid bounds<\/p>\n

When the soul fronts nude of garbs the infinite,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIts too vast theme of a lonely mortal will<\/p>\n

Pacing the silence of eternity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs a star, uncompanioned, moves in heaven<\/p>\n

Unastonished by the immensities of Space,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTravelling infinity by its own light,<\/p>\n

The great are strongest when they stand alone.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA God-given might of being is their force,<\/p>\n

A ray from self’s solitude of light the guide;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe soul that can live alone with itself meets God;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

Its lonely universe is their rendezvous.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA day may come when she must stand unhelped<\/p>\n

On a dangerous brink of the world’s doom and hers,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCarrying the world’s future on her lonely breast,<\/p>\n

Carrying the human hope in a heart left sole<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo conquer or fail on a last desperate verge,<\/p>\n

Alone with death and close to extinction’s edge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHer single greatness in that last dire scene<\/p>\n

Must cross alone a perilous bridge in Time<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd reach an apex of world-destiny<\/p>\n

Where all is won or all is lost for man.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn that tremendous silence lone and lost<\/p>\n

Of a deciding hour in the world’s fate,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn her soul’s climbing beyond mortal time<\/p>\n

When she stands sole with Death or sole with God<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tApart upon a silent desperate brink,<\/p>\n

Alone with her self and death and destiny<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs on some verge between Time and Timelessness<\/p>\n

When being must end or life rebuild its base,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlone she must conquer or alone must fall.<\/p>\n

No human aid can reach her in that hour,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNo armoured god stand shining at her side.<\/p>\n

Cry not to heaven, for she alone can save.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor this the silent Force came missioned down;<\/p>\n

In her the conscious Will took human shape:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShe only can save herself and save the world.<\/p>\n

O queen, stand back from that stupendous scene,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCome not between her and her hour of Fate.<\/p>\n

Her hour must come and none can intervene:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThink not to turn her from her heaven-sent task,<\/p>\n

Strive not to save her from her own high will.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThou hast no place in that tremendous strife;<\/p>\n

Thy love and longing are not arbiters there;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLeave the world’s fate and her to God’s sole guard.<\/p>\n

Even if he seems to leave her to her lone strength,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven though all falters and falls and sees an end<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>461<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

And the heart fails and only are death and night,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGod-given her strength can battle against doom<\/p>\n

Even on a brink where Death alone seems close<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd no human strength can hinder or can help.<\/p>\n

Think not to intercede with the hidden Will,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIntrude not twixt her spirit and its force<\/p>\n

But leave her to her mighty self and Fate.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe spoke and ceased and left the earthly scene.<\/p>\n

Away from the strife and suffering on our globe,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe turned towards his far-off blissful home.<\/p>\n

A brilliant arrow pointing straight to heaven,<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe luminous body of the ethereal seer<\/p>\n

Assailed the purple glory of the noon<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd disappeared like a receding star<\/p>\n

Vanishing into the light of the Unseen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut still a cry was heard in the infinite,<\/p>\n

And still to the listening soul on mortal earth<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA high and far imperishable voice<\/p>\n

Chanted the anthem of eternal love.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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

END OF<\/font>
\n\t\t\tBOOK<\/font> SIX<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 <\/font>462<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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

  Canto Two   The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain   A SILENCE sealed the irrevocable decree, The word of Fate that…<\/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-2480","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\/2480","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=2480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}