{"id":3382,"date":"2013-07-13T01:47:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3382"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:47:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:57","slug":"20-book-2-canto-13-in-the-self-of-mind-vol-01-savitri-1950","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/01-savitri\/01-savitri-1950\/20-book-2-canto-13-in-the-self-of-mind-vol-01-savitri-1950","title":{"rendered":"-20_ Book 2 Canto 13 In The Self of Mind.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n

<\/p>\n

CANTO THIRTEEN<\/font> <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tIN THE SELF OF MIND<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t <\/td>\n\n

\n
\nAT last there came a bare indifferent sky<\/P><\/p>\n

Where
\nSilence listened to the cosmic Voice,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

But
\nanswered nothing to a million calls,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

The
\nsoul's endless question met with no response.<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

An
\nabrupt conclusion ended eager hopes,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

A deep
\ncessation in a mighty calm,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

A
\nfinis-line on the last page of thought<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

And a
\nmargin and a blank of wordless peace.<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

There
\npaused the climbing hierarchy of worlds.<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

He stood
\non a wide arc of summit Space<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Alone
\nwith an enormous Self of Mind<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Which
\nheld all life in a comer of its vasts.<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

\nOmnipotent, immobile and aloof,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

In the
\nworld which sprang from it, it took no part: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nIt gave no heed to the paeans of victory, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIt was indifferent to its own defeats, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIt heard the cry of grief and made no sign, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nImpartial fell its gaze on evil and good, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIt saw destruction come and did not move. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAn equal Cause of things, a lonely Seer <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd Master of its multitude of forms, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIt acted not but bore all thoughts and deeds, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe witness Lord of Nature's myriad acts <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nConsenting to the movements of her Force. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nHis mind reflected this vast quietism. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThis witness hush is the Thinker's secret base: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nHidden in silent depths the word is formed,<\/P><\/p>\n

From
\nhidden silences the act is born<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Into the
\nvoiceful mind, the labouring world,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

In
\nsecrecy wraps the seed the Eternal sows <\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 258<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nSilence, file mystic birthplace of the soul. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIn God's supreme withdrawn and timeless hush <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA seeing Self and potent Energy met; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Silence knew itself and thought took form: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nSelf-made from the dual power creation rose.<\/P><\/p>\n

In the
\nstill self he lived and it in him,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Its mute
\nimmemorable listening depths,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Its
\nvastness and its stillness were his own; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nOne being with it he grew wide, powerful, free. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAs one who builds his own imagined scenes <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd loses not himself in what he sees, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nSpectator of a drama self-conceived, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nHe looked on the world and watched its motive thoughts <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWith the burden of luminous prophecy in their eyes, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIts forces with their feet of wind and fire <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nArisen from the dumbness in his soul. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAll now he seemed to understand and know; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nDesire came not nor any gust of will,<\/P><\/p>\n

The
\ngreat perturbed inquirer lost his task; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nNothing was asked nor wanted any more.<\/P><\/p>\n

There he
\ncould stay, the Self, the Silence won: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nHis soul had peace, it knew the cosmic Whole. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThen suddenly a luminous finger fell <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOn all things seen or touched or heard or felt <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd showed his mind that nothing could be known; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThat must be reached from which all knowledge comes. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe sceptic Ray disrupted all that seems <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd smote at the very roots of thought and sense. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIn a universe of Nescience they have grown, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAspiring towards a superconscient Sun, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nPlaying in shine and rain from heavenlier skies <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThey never can win however high their reach <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOr overpass however keen their probe. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA doubt corroded even the means to think, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nDistrust was thrown upon Mind's instruments; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAll that it takes for reality's shining coin,<\/P><\/p>\n

Proved
\nfact, fixed inference,'deduction clear,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Firm
\ntheory, assured significance,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Appeared
\nas frauds upon Time's credit bank<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Or
\nassets valueless in Truth's treasury.\n<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page 259<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nAn Ignorance on an uneasy throne <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nTravestied with a fortuitous sovereignty <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA figure of knowledge garbed in dubious words <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd tinsel thought-forms brightly inadequate. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA labourer in the dark dazzled by half-light, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWhat it knew was an image in a broken glass, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWhat it saw was real but its sight untrue. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAll the ideas in its vast repertory <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWere like the mutterings of a transient cloud <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThat spent itself in sound and left no trace. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA frail house hanging in uncertain air, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe thin ingenious web round which it moves, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nPut out awhile on the tree of the universe, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd gathered up into itself again, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWas only a trap to catch life's insect food, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWinged thoughts that flutter fragile in brief light <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nBut dead, once captured in fixed forms of mind, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAims puny but looming large in man's small scale, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nFlickers, of imagination's brilliant gauze <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd cobweb-wrapped beliefs alive no more. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe magic hut of built-up certitudes <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nMade out of glittering dust and bright moonshine <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIn which it shrines its image of the Real, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nCollapsed into the Nescience whence it rose. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOnly a gleam was there of symbol facts <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThat shroud the mystery lurking in their glow, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd falsehoods based on hidden realities <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nBy which they live until they fall from Time. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOur mind is a house haunted by the slain past, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIdeas soon mummified, ghosts of old truths, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nGod's spontaneities tied with formal strings <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd packed into drawers of reason's trim bureau, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA grave of great lost opportunities, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOr an office for misuse of soul and life <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd all the waste man makes of heaven's gifts <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd all his squanderings of Nature's store, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA stage for the comedy of Ignorance. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe world seemed a long aeonic failure's scene: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAll sterile grew, no base was left secure.<\/P><\/p>\n

Assailed
\nby the edge of the convicting beam <\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage 260<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nThe builder Reason lost her confidence <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIn the successful sleight and turn of thought <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThat makes the soul the prisoner of a phrase. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIts highest wisdom was a brilliant guess, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIts mighty structured science of the worlds <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA passing light on being's surfaces. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThere was nothing there but a schema drawn by sense, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA substitute for eternal mysteries, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA scrawl figure of reality, a plan <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd elevation by the architect Word <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nImposed upon the semblances of Time. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nExistence' self was shadowed by a doubt; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAlmost it seemed a lotus-leaf afloat <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOn. a nude pool of cosmic Nothingness. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThis great spectator and creator Mind <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWas only some half-seeing's delegate, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA veil that hung between the soul and Light, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAn idol, not the living body of God. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nEven the still spirit that looks upon its works <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWas some pale front of the Unknowable; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA shadow seemed the wide and witness Self, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIts liberation and immobile calm <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA void recoil of being from Time-made things, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nNot the self-vision of Eternity. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nDeep peace was there, but not the nameless Force: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOur sweet and mighty Mother was not there <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nWho gathers to her bosom her children's lives, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nHer clasp that takes the world into her arms <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIn the fathomless rapture of the Infinite, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Bliss that is creation's splendid grain <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOr the white passion of God-ecstasy <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThat laughs in the blaze of the boundless heart of Love. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA greater Spirit than the Self of Mind <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nMust answer to the questioning of his soul. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nFor here was no firm clue and no sure road; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nHigh-climbing pathways closed in the unknown; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAn artist sight constructed the Beyond<\/P><\/p>\n

In
\ncontrary patterns and conflicting hues; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nA part-experience fragmented the Whole.<\/P><\/p>\n

He
\nlooked above, but all was blank and still; <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage 261<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nA sapphire firmament of abstract Thought <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nEscaped into a formless Vacancy. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nHe looked below, but all was dark and mute. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA noise was heard, between, of thought and prayer, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA strife, a labour without end or pause, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA vain and ignorant seeking raised its voice. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA rumour and a movement and a call, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA foaming mass, a cry innumerable <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nRolled ever upon the ocean surge of Life <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAlong the coasts of mortal Ignorance. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOn its unstable and enormous breast <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nBeings and forces, forms, ideas like waves <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nJostled for figure and supremacy, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd rose and sank and rose again in Time, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd at the bottom of the sleepless stir, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA Nothingness parent of the struggling worlds, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nA huge creator Death, a mystic Void, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nFor ever sustaining the irrational cry, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nFor ever excluding the supernal Word, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nMotionless, refusing question and response, <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nReposed beneath the voices and the march <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe dim Inconscient's dumb incertitude. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nTwo firmaments of darkness and of light <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nOpposed their limits to the spirit's walk; <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nIt moved veiled in from Self's infinity<\/P><\/p>\n

In a
\nworld of beings and momentary events<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Where
\nall must die to live and live to die.<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Immortal
\nby renewed mortality,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

It
\nwandered in the spiral of its acts<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Or ran
\naround the cycles of its thought,<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

Yet was
\nno more than its original self<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

And knew
\nno more than when it first began.<\/p>\n

<\/P><\/p>\n

To be
\nwas a prison, extinction the escape. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n  <\/P><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tEND OF CANTO THIRTEEN<\/span><\/font><\/P><\/p>\n

\n

\nPage 262<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CANTO THIRTEEN   IN THE SELF OF MIND     AT last there came a bare indifferent sky Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-savitri-1950","wpcat-77-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382","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=3382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}