{"id":3414,"date":"2013-07-13T01:48:15","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3414"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:48:15","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:15","slug":"21-book-three-canto-one-vol-03-savitri-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/01-savitri\/03-savitri-1954\/21-book-three-canto-one-vol-03-savitri-1954","title":{"rendered":"-21_Book_Three_Canto_One.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\nBOOK THREE<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Book of the Divine Mother<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nTHE PURSUIT OF THE UNKNOWABLE<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A<\/font>LL<\/font><\/b> is too little that the world can give:<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Its power and knowledge are the gifts of Time<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd cannot fill the spirit’s sacred thirst.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlthough of One these forms of greatness are<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd by its breath of grace our lives abide,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlthough more near to us than nearness’ self,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt is some utter truth of what we are;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Hidden by its own works it seemed far off,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImpenetrable, occult, voiceless, obscure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Presence was lost by which all things have charm,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Glory lacked of which they are dim signs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe world lived on made empty of its Cause,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike Love when the Beloved’s face is gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe labour to know seemed a vain strife of Mind;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

All knowledge ended in the Unknowable:<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The effort to rule seemed a vain pride of Will;<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A trivial achievement scorned by Time,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll power retired into the Omnipotent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA cave of darkness guards the eternal Light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA silence settled on his striving heart;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Absolved from the voices of the world’s desire,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe turned to the Ineffable’s timeless call.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA Being intimate and unnameable,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 345<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A wide compelling ecstasy and peace<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFelt in himself and all and yet ungrasped,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nApproached and faded from his soul’s pursuit<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs if for ever luring him beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNear, it retreated; far, it called him still.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNothing could satisfy but its delight:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Its absence left the greatest actions dull,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts presence made the smallest seem divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhen it was there, the heart’s abyss was filled;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

But when the uplifting Deity withdrew,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Existence lost its aim in the Inane.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The order of the immemorial planes,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The godlike fullness of the instruments<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Were turned to props for an impermanent scene.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut who that mightiness was he knew not yet.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Impalpable, yet filling all that is,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It made and blotted out a million worlds<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And took and lost a thousand shapes and names.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIt wore the guise of an indiscernible Vast,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Or was a subtle kernel in the soul:<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A distant greatness left it huge and dim,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA mystic closeness shut it sweetly in:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It seemed sometimes a figment or a robe<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd seemed sometimes his own colossal shade.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA giant doubt overshadowed his advance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAcross a neutral all-supporting Void<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhose blankness nursed his lone immortal spirit,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAllured towards some recondite Supreme,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAided, coerced by enigmatic Powers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAspiring and half-sinking and upborne,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInvincibly he ascended without pause.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlways a signless vague Immensity<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 346<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Brooded, without approach, beyond response,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCondemning finite things to nothingness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFronting him with the incommensurable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n,Then to the ascent there came a mighty term:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A height was reached where nothing made could live,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A line where every hope and search must cease<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Neared some intolerant bare Reality,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A zero formed pregnant with boundless change.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

On a dizzy verge where all disguises fail<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And human mind must abdicate in Light<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Or die like a moth in the naked blaze of Truth,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

He stood compelled to a tremendous choice.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

All he had been and all towards which he grew<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Must now be left behind or else transform<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Into a self of That which has no name.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Alone and fronting an intangible Force<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Which offered nothing to the grasp of Thought,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

His spirit faced the adventure of the Inane.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Abandoned by the worlds of form he strove.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A fruitful world-wide Ignorance foundered there;<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Thought’s long far-circling journey touched its close<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And ineffective paused the actor Will.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The symbol modes of being helped no more,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The structures Nescience builds collapsing failed,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And even the spirit that holds the universe<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Fainted in luminous insufficiency.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

In an abysmal lapse of all things built<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Transcending every perishable support<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And joining at last its mighty origin,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The separate self must melt or be reborn<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Into a Truth beyond the mind’s appeal.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

All glory of outline, sweetness of harmony,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 347<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Rejected like a grace of trivial notes,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Expunged from Being’s silence nude, austere,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Died into a fine and blissful Nothingness.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The Demiurges lost their names and forms,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The great schemed worlds that they had planned and wrought<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Passed, taken and abolished one by one.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The universe removed its coloured veil,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And at the unimaginable end  ;..:<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Of the huge riddle of created things<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Appeared the far-seen Godhead of the whole,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

His feet firm-based on Life’s stupendous wings,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Omnipotent or lonely seer of Time,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Inward, inscrutable, with diamond gaze.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Attracted by the unfathomable regard<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The unsolved slow cycles to their fount returned<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

To rise again from that invisible sea.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

All from his puissance born was .now undone,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Nothing remained the cosmic Mind conceives.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Eternity prepared to fade and seemed<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A hue and imposition on the Void,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Space was the fluttering of a dream that sank<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Before its ending into Nothing’s deeps.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The spirit that dies not and the Godhead’s self<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Seemed myths projected from the Unknowable;<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

From It all sprang, in It is called to cease.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut what That was, no thought or sight could tell.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly a formless Form of self was left,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA tenuous ghost of something that had been,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe last experience of a lapsing wave<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBefore it sinks into a bourneless sea,\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs if it kept even on the brink of Nought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts bare feeling of the ocean whence it came.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 348<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A Vastness brooded free from sense of Space,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

An Everlastingness cut off from Time,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A strange sublime unalterable Peace<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Silent rejected from it world and soul.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A stark companionless Reality<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Answered at last to his soul’s passionate search:<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Passionless, wordless, absorbed in its fathomless hush,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nKeeping the mystery none would ever pierce,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt brooded inscrutable and intangible<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFacing him with its dumb tremendous calm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt had no kinship with the universe:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

There was no act, no movement in its Vast:<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Life’s question met by its silence died on her lips,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe world’s effort ceased convicted of ignorance<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFinding no sanction of supernal Light:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There was no mind there with its need to know,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was no heart there with its need to love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll person perished in its namelessness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was no second, it had no partner or peer;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Only itself was real to itself.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A pure existence safe from thought and mood,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A consciousness of unshared immortal bliss,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It dwelt aloof in its bare infinite,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

One and unique, unutterably sole.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A Being formless, featureless and mute<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

That knew itself by its own timeless self,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Aware for ever in its motionless depths,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Uncreating, uncreated and unborn,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The One by whom all live, who lives by none,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

An immeasurable luminous secrecy<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Guarded by the veils of the Unmanifest,<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Above the changing cosmic interlude<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 349<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Abode supreme, immutably the same,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA silent Cause occult, ‘impenetrable,\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInfinite, eternal, unthinkable, alone.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 350<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n

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

  BOOK THREE The Book of the Divine Mother CANTO ONE   THE PURSUIT OF THE UNKNOWABLE   ALL is too little that the world…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-savitri-1954","wpcat-78-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3414","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=3414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}