{"id":3429,"date":"2013-07-13T01:48:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3429"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:48:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:23","slug":"09-book-two-canto-four-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\/09-book-two-canto-four-vol-03-savitri-1954","title":{"rendered":"-09_Book_Two_Canto_Four.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
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CANTO FOUR<\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

THE KINGDOMS OF THE LITTLE LIFE<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A<\/font> QUIVERING<\/font><\/b> trepidant uncertain world<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Born from that dolorous meeting and eclipse<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAppeared in the emptiness where her feet had trod,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA quick obscurity, a seeking stir.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was a writhing of half-conscious force<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHardly awakened from inconscient sleep<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd tied to an instinct-driven Ignorance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo find itself and find its hold on things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInheritor of poverty and loss,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAssailed by memories that fled when seized,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHaunted by a forgotten uplifting hope,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt strove with a blindness as of groping hands<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo fill the aching and disastrous gap<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBetween earth-pain and the bliss from which Life fell.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA world that ever seeks for something missed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHunting for a joy that earth has failed to keep,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nToo near to our gates its unappeased unrest<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor peace to live on the inert solid globe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt has joined its hunger to the hunger of earth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt has given the law of craving to our lives,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt has made our spirit’s need a fathomless gulf.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn Influence entered mortal night and day,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA shadow overcast the time-born race,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 149<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

In the troubled stream where leaps a blind heart-pulse<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the nerve-beat of feeling wakes in sense<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDividing Matter’s sleep from conscious Mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere strayed a call that knew not why it came.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA Power beyond earth’s scope has touched the earth;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The repose that might have been can be no more,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA formless yearning passions in man’s heart,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA cry is in his blood for happier things:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Else could he roam on a free sunlit soil<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWith the childlike pain-forgetting mind of beasts<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr live happy, unmoved, like flowers and trees.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Might that came upon the earth to bless<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHas stayed on earth to suffer and aspire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe infant laugh that rang through time is hushed:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Man’s natural joy of life is overcast<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd sorrow is his nurse of destiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe animal’s thoughtless joy is left behind,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCare and reflection burden his daily walk:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

He has risen to greatness and to discontent,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe is awake to the Invisible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInsatiate seeker, he has all to learn:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

He has exhausted now life’s surface acts,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHis being’s hidden realms remain to explore.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe becomes a mind, he becomes a spirit and self;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In his fragile tenement he grows Nature’s lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn him Matter wakes from its long obscure trance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn him earth feels the Godhead drawing near.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn eyeless Power that sees no more its aim,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA restless hungry energy of Will,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLife cast her seed in the body’s indolent mould;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It woke from happy torpor a blind Force<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCompelling it to sense and seek and feel.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 150<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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In the enormous labour of the Void<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPerturbing with her dreams the vast routine<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd dead roll of a slumbering universe<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe mighty prisoner struggled for release.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlive with her yearning woke the inert cell,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the heart she kindled a fire of passion and need,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAmid the deep calm of inanimate things<\/span><\/p>\n

\nArose her great voice of toil and prayer and strife.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA groping consciousness in a voiceless world,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA guideless sense was given her for her road,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThought was withheld and nothing now she knew<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut all the unknown was hers to feel and clasp.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nObeying the push of unborn things towards birth<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Out of her seal of insentient life she broke:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In her substance of unthinking mute soul-strength<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That cannot utter what its depths divine,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Awoke a blind necessity to know.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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The chain that bound her she made her instrument;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Instinct was hers, the chrysalis of Truth,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And effort and growth and striving nescience.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Inflicting on the body desire and hope,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Imposing on inconscience consciousness<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She brought into Matter’s dull tenacity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her anguished claim to her lost sovereign right,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her tireless search, her vexed uneasy heart,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her wandering unsure steps, her cry for change.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Adorer of a joy without a name,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In her obscure cathedral of delight<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To dim dwarf gods she offers secret rites.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But vain unending is the sacrifice,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The priest an ignorant mage who only makes<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Futile mutations in the altar’s plan<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 151<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And casts blind hopes into a powerless flame.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nA burden of transient gains weighs down her steps<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And hardly under that load can she advance,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But the hours cry to her, she travels on<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Passing from thought to thought, from want to want;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Her greatest progress is a deepened need.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMatter dissatisfies, she turns to Mind;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

She conquers earth, her field, then claims the heavens.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInsensible, breaking the work she has done<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe stumbling ages over her labour pass,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd still no great transforming light came down<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd no revealing rapture touched her fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly a glimmer sometimes splits mind’s sky<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJustifying the ambiguous providence<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat makes of night a path to unknown dawns<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr a dark clue to some diviner state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn Nescience began her mighty task,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn Ignorance she pursues the unfinished work;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

For Knowledge gropes, but meets not Wisdom’s face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAscending slowly with unconscious steps,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA foundling of the gods she wanders here<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike a child-soul left near the gates of Hell<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFumbling through fog in search of Paradise.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIn this slow ascension he must follow her pace<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven from her faint and dim subconscious start:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

So only can earth’s last salvation come.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

For so only could he know the obscure cause<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Of all that holds us back and baffles God<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the jail-delivery of the imprisoned soul.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAlong swift paths of fall through dangerous gates<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

He chanced into a grey obscurity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 152<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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Teeming with instincts from the mindless gulfs<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat pushed to wear a form and win a place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLife here was intimate with Death and Night<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd ate Death’s food that she might breathe awhile;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

She was their inmate and adopted waif.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Accepting subconscience, in dumb darkness’ reign<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A sojourner, she hoped not any more.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

There far away from Truth and luminous thought<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

He saw the original seat, the separate birth<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Of the dethroned, deformed and suffering Power.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An unhappy face of falsity made true,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A contradiction of our divine birth,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Indifferent to beauty and to light,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Parading she flaunted her animal disgrace<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Unhelped by camouflage, brutal and bare,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An authentic image recognised and signed<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Of her outcast force exiled from heaven and hope,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Fallen, glorying in the vileness of her state,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The grovel of a strength once half divine,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The graceless squalor of her beast desires,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The staring visage of her ignorance,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The naked body of her poverty.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Here first she crawled out from her cabin of mud<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Where she had lain inconscient, rigid, mute:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Its narrowness and torpor held her still,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA darkness clung to her uneffaced by Light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere neared no touch redeeming from above:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The upward look was alien to her sight,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nForgotten the fearless godhead of her walk;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Renounced was the glory and felicity,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The adventure in the dangerous fields of Time:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Hardly she availed, wallowing, to bear and live.<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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\n

\n

A wide unquiet mist of seeking space,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA rayless region swallowed in vague swathes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat seemed, unnamed, unbodied and unhoused,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA swaddled visionless and formless mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAsked for a body to translate its soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts prayer denied, it fumbled after thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs yet not powered to think, hardly to live,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt opened into a weird and pigmy world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere this unhappy magic had its source.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn dim confines where Life and Matter meet<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe wandered among things half-seen, half-guessed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPursued by ungrasped beginnings and lost ends.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere life was born but died before it could live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was no solid ground, no constant drift,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly some flame of mindless Will had power.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHimself was dim to himself, half-felt, obscure,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs if in a struggle of the Void to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn strange domains where all was living sense<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut mastering thought was not nor cause nor rule,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly a crude child-heart cried for toys of bliss,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMind flickered, a disordered infant-glow,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd random shapeless energies drove towards form<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd took each wisp-fire for a guiding sun.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis blindfold force could place no thinking step;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Asking for light she followed darkness’ clue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn inconscient Power groped towards consciousness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMatter smitten by Matter glimmered to sense,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBlind contacts, slow reactions beat out sparks<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf instinct from a cloaked subliminal bed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSensations crowded, dumb substitutes for thought,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPerception answered Nature’s waking blows<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut still was a mechanical response,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
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A jerk, a leap, a start in Nature’s dream,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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And rude unchastened impulses jostling ran<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Heedless of every motion but their own<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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And, darkling, clashed with darker than themselves,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Free in a world of settled anarchy.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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The need to exist, the instinct to survive<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Engrossed the tense precarious moment’s will<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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And an unseeing desire felt out for food.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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The gusts of Nature were the only law,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Force wrestled with force but no result remained:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Only were achieved a nescient grasp and drive<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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And feelings and instincts knowing not their source,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Sense-pleasures and sense-pangs soon caught, soon lost,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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And the brute motion of unthinking lives.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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It was a vain unnecessary world<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Whose will to be brought poor and sad results<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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And meaningless suffering and a grey unease.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Nothing seemed worth the labour to become.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

But judged not so his spirit’s wakened eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs shines a solitary witness star  <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat burns apart. Light’s lonely sentinel,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the drift and teeming of a mindless Night,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA single thinker in an aimless world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAwaiting some tremendous dawn of God,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe saw the purpose in the works of Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven in that aimlessness a work was done<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPregnant with magic will and change divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe first writhings of the cosmic serpent Force<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUncoiled from the mystic ring of Matter’s trance;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It raised its head in the warm air of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt could not cast off yet Night’s stiffening sleep<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 155<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nOr wear as yet mind’s wonder-flecks and streaks,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Put on its jewelled hood the crown of soul<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or stand erect in the blaze of spirit’s sun.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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As yet were only seen foulness and force,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The secret crawl of consciousness to light<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Through a fertile slime of lust and battening sense,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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Beneath the body’s crust of thickened self<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

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A tardy fervent working in the dark,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe turbid yeast of Nature’s passionate change,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Ferment of the soul’s creation out of mire.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nA heavenly process donned this grey disguise,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A fallen ignorance in its covert night<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nLaboured to achieve its dumb unseemly work,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A camouflage of the Inconscient’s need<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTo release the glory of God in Nature’s mud.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

His sight, spiritual in embodying orbs,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Could pierce through the grey phosphorescent haze<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And scan the secrets of the shifting flux<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That animates these mute and solid cells<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd leads the thought and longing of the flesh<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And the keen lust and hunger of its will.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This too he tracked along its hidden stream<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And traced its acts to a miraculous fount.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A mystic Presence none can probe nor rule,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Creator of this game of ray and shade<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In this sweet and bitter paradoxical life,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Asks from the body the soul’s intimacies<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And by the swift vibration of a nerve<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Links its mechanic throbs to light and love.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It summons the spirit’s sleeping memories<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Up from subconscient depths beneath Time’s foam;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Oblivious of their flame of happy truth,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 156<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Arriving with heavy eyes that hardly see,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey come disguised as feelings and desires,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike weeds upon the surface float awhile<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd rise and sink on a somnambulist tide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImpure, degraded though her motions are,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlways a heaven-truth broods in life’s deeps;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

In our obscurest members burns that fire.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A touch of God’s rapture in creation’s acts,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A lost remembrance of felicity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Lurks still in the dumb roots of death and birth,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The world’s senseless beauty mirrors God’s delight.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That rapture’s smile is secret everywhere,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It flows in the wind’s breath, in the tree’s sap,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Its hued magnificence blooms in leaves and flowers.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

When life broke through its half-drowse in the plant<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That feels and suffers but cannot move or cry,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In beast and in winged bird and thinking man<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It made of the heart’s rhythm its music’s beat;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It forced the unconscious tissues to awake<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And ask for happiness and earn the pang<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And thrill with pleasure and laughter of brief delight,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And quiver with pain and crave for ecstasy.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Imperative, voiceless, ill-understood,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Too far from light, too close to being’s core,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Born strangely in Time from the eternal Bliss,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It presses on heart's core and vibrant
\nnerve, <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Its sharp self-seeking tears our consciousness;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Our pain and pleasure have that sting for cause;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Instinct with it, but blind to its true joy<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The soul’s desire leaps out towards passing things.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All Nature’s longing drive none can resist,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Comes surging through the blood and quickened sense;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 157<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

An ecstasy of the infinite is her cause.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It turns in us to finite loves and lusts,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe will to conquer and have, to seize and keep,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To enlarge life’s room and scope and pleasure’s range,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To battle and overcome and make one’s own,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The hope to mix one’s joy with other’s joy,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A yearning to possess and be possessed,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To enjoy and be enjoyed, to feel, to live.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Here was its early brief attempt to be,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Its rapid end of momentary delight<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Whose stamp of failure haunts all ignorant life.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Inflicting still its habit on the cells<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The phantom of a dark and evil start<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Ghostlike pursues all that we dream and do.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Although on earth are firm established lives,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A working of habit or a sense of law,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A steady repetition in the flux,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Yet are its roots of will ever the same;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

These passions are the stuff of which we are made.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This was the first cry of the awaking world.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It clings around us still and clamps the god.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Even when reason is born and soul takes form,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In beast and reptile and in thinking man<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It lasts and is the fount of all their life.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This too was needed that breath and living might be.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The spirit in a finite ignorant world<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Must rescue so its prisoned consciousness<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Forced out in little jets at quivering points<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

From the Inconscient’s sealed infinitude.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Then slowly it gathers mass, looks up at Light.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This Nature lives tied to her origin,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A clutch of nether force is on her still;<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 158<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Out of unconscious depths her instincts leap;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

A neighbour is her life to insentient Nought.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnder this law an ignorant world was made.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In the enigma of the darkened Vasts,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the passion and self-loss of the Infinite<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhen all was plunged in the negating Void,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNon-Being’s night could never have been saved<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIf Being had not plunged into the dark<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCarrying with it its triple mystic cross.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInvoking in world-time the timeless truth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBliss changed to sorrow, knowledge made ignorant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGod’s force turned into a child’s helplessness<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCan bring down heaven by their sacrifice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA contradiction founds the base of life:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The eternal, the divine Reality<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHas faced itself with its own contraries;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Being became the Void and Conscious-Force<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNescience and walk of a blind Energy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd Ecstasy took the figure of world-pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a mysterious dispensation’s law<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA Wisdom that prepares its far-off ends<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPlanned so to start her slow aeonic game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA blindfold search and wrestle and fumbling clasp<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf a half-seen Nature and a hidden Soul,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA game of hide and seek in twilit rooms,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA play of love and hate and fear and hope<\/span><\/p>\n

\nContinues in the nursery of mind<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts hard and heavy romp of self-born twins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt last the struggling Energy can emerge<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd meet the voiceless Being in wider fields;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Then can they see and speak and, breast to breast,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a larger consciousness, a clearer light,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 159<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

The Two embrace and strive and each know each<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRegarding closer now the playmate’s face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven in these formless ceilings he could feel<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMatter’s response to an infant stir of soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn Nature he saw the mighty Spirit concealed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWatched the weak birth of a tremendous Force,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPursued the riddle of Godhead’s tentative pace,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeard the faint rhythms of a great unborn Muse.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Then came a fierier breath of waking life,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd there arose from the dim gulf of things<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe strange creations of a thinking sense,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nExistences half-real and half-dream.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA life was there that hoped not to survive:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Beings were born who perished without trace,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Events that were a formless drama’s limbs<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And actions driven by a blind creature will.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A seeking Power found out its road to form,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Patterns were built of love and joy and pain<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And symbol figures for the moods of Life.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An insect hedonism fluttered and crawled<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And basked in a sunlit Nature’s surface thrills,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And dragon raptures, python agonies<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nCrawled in the marsh and mire and licked the sun.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Huge armoured strengths shook the frail quaking ground,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Great puissant creatures with a dwarfish brain,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And pigmy tribes imposed their small life-drift.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In a dwarf model of humanity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Nature now launched the extreme experience<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And master-point of her design’s caprice,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Luminous result of her half-conscious climb<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

On rungs twixt her sublimities and grotesques<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 160<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

To massive from infinitesimal shapes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo a subtle balancing of body and soul,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo an order of intelligent littleness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAround him in the moment-beats of Time<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe kingdom of the animal self arose,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere deed is all and mind is still half-born<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the heart obeys a dumb unseen control.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Force that works by the light of Ignorance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer animal experiment began,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCrowding with conscious creatures her world-scheme,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut to the outward only were they alive,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly they replied to touches and surfaces<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd to the prick of need that drove their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA body that knew not its own soul within,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere lived and longed, had wrath and joy and grief;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A mind was there that met the objective world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs if a stranger or enemy at its door:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Its thoughts were kneaded by the shocks of sense;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

It captured not the spirit in the form,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt entered not the heart of what it saw;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It looked not for the power behind the act,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt studied not the hidden motive in things<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNor strove to find the meaning of it all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBeings were there who wore a human form;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Absorbed they lived in the passion of the scene,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut knew not who they were or why they lived:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Life had for them no aim save Nature’s joy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the stimulus and delight of outer things;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

They worked for the body’s wants, they craved no more,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nContent to breathe, to feel, to sense, to act,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIdentified with the spirit’s outward shell.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe veiled spectator watching from their depths<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 161<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Fixed not his inward eye upon himself<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNor turned to find the author of the plot,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe saw the drama only and the stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was no brooding stress of deeper sense,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe burden of reflection was not borne:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Mind looked on Nature with unknowing eyes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAdored her boons and feared her monstrous strokes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt pondered not on the magic of her laws,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt thirsted not for the secret wells of Truth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut made a register of crowding facts<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd strung sensations on a vivid thread:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It hunted and it fled and sniffed the winds,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr slothed inert in sunshine and soft air:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It sought the engrossing contacts of the world,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut only to feed the surface sense with bliss.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese felt life’s quiver in the outward touch,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey could not feel behind the touch the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo guard their form of self from Nature’s harm,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo enjoy and to survive was all their care.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe narrow horizon of their days was filled<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWith things and creatures that could help and hurt;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The world’s values hung upon their little self.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Isolated, cramped in the vast unknown,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTo save their small lives from surrounding Death<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They made a tiny circle of defence<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Against the siege of the huge universe:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

They preyed upon the world and were its prey,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut never dreamed to conquer and be free,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nObeying the World-Power’s hints and firm taboos<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA scanty part they drew from her rich store,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was no conscious code and no life-plan:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The patterns of thinking of a little group<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 162<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Fixed a traditional behaviour’s law.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Ignorant of soul save as a wraith within,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Tied to a mechanism of unchanging lives<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And to a dull usual sense and feeling’s beat,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They turned in grooves of animal desire.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In walls of stone fenced round they worked and warred,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Did by a banded selfishness a small good<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or wrought a dreadful wrong and cruel pain<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

On sentient lives and thought they did no ill.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Ardent from the sack of happy peaceful homes<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And gorged with slaughter, plunder, rape and fire,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They made of human selves their helpless prey,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A drove of captives led to lifelong woe<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or torture a spectacle made and holiday,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Mocking or thrilled by their torn victim’s pangs;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Admiring themselves as titans and as gods<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Proudly they sang their high and glorious deeds<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And praised their victory and their splendid force.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An animal in the instinctive herd<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Pushed by life impulses, forced by common needs,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Each in his own kind saw his ego’s glass,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All served the aim and action of the pack.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Those like himself, by blood or custom kin,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To him were parts of his life, his adjunct selves,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

His personal nebula’s constituent stars,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Satellite companions of his solar I.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A master of his life’s environment,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A leader of a huddled human mass<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Herding for safety on a dangerous earth<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

He gathered them round him as if minor Powers<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To make a common front against the world,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or, weak and sole on an indifferent earth,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 163<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

As a fortress for his undefended heart,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or else to heal his body’s loneliness.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In others than his kind he sensed a foe,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An alien unlike force to shun and fear,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A stranger and adversary to hate and slay.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or he lived as lives the solitary brute,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

At war with all he bore his single fate.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAbsorbed in the present act, the fleeting days,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nNone thought to look beyond the hour’s gains,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nOr dreamed to make this earth a fairer world,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or felt some touch divine surprise his heart.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The gladness that the fugitive moment gave,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe desire grasped, the bliss, the experience won,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Movement and speed and strength were joy enough<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd bodily longings shared and quarrel and play,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd tears and laughter and the need called love.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In war and clasp these life-wants joined the All-Life,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Wrestlings of a divided unity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Inflicting mutual grief and happiness<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In ignorance of the Self for ever one.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Arming its creatures with delight and hope<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A half-awakened Nescience struggled there<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTo know by sight and touch the outside of things.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nInstinct was formed, in memory’s crowded sleep<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The past lived on as in a bottomless sea:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Inverting into half-thought the quickened sense<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nShe felt around for truth with fumbling hands,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nClutched to her the little she could reach and seize<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And put aside in her subconscient cave.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nSo must the dim being grow in light and force<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And rise to his higher destiny at last,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Look up to God and round at the universe,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 164<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And learn by failure and progress by fall<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And battle with environment and doom,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

By suffering discover his deep soul<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And by possession grow to his own vasts.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Half-way she stopped and found her faith no more.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Still nothing was achieved but to begin,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Yet finished seemed the circle of her force,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only she had beaten our sparks of ignorance,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only the life could think and not the mind,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only the sense could feel and not the soul,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only was lit some heat of the flame of Life,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Some joy to be, some rapturous leaps of sense.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All was an impetus of half-conscious Force,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A spirit sprawling drowned in dense life-foam,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A vague self grasping at the shape of things.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Behind all moved seeking for vessels to hold<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A first raw vintage of the grapes of God,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

On earth’s mud a spilth of the supernal Bliss,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Intoxicating the stupefied soul and mind<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A heady wine of rapture dark and crude,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Dim, uncast yet into spiritual form,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Obscure inhabitant of the world’s blind core,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An unborn godhead’s will, a mute desire.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

A third creation now revealed its face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA mould of body’s early mind was made.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA glint of light kindled the obscure World-Force;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It dowered a driven world with the seeing Idea<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd armed the act with Thought’s dynamic point:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A small thinking being watched the works of Time.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A difficult evolution from below<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Called a masked intervention from above;<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 165<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Else this great, blind inconscient universe<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCould never have disclosed its hidden mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr even in blinkers worked in beast and man<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Intelligence that devised the cosmic scheme.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt first he saw a dim obscure mind-power<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMoving concealed by Matter and dumb life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA current thin, it streamed in life’s vast flow<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTossing and drifting under a drifting sky<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAmid the surge and glimmering tremulous wash,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nReleased in splash of sense and feeling’s waves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the deep midst of an unconscious world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts huddled waves and foam of consciousness ran<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPressing and eddying through a narrow strait,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCarrying experience in its crowded pace.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt flowed emerging into upper light<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFrom the deep pool of its subliminal birth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo reach some high existence still unknown.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was no thinking self, aim there was none:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

All was unrecognised stress and seekings vague.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only to the unstable surface rose<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Sensations, stabs and edges of desire<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And passion’s leaps and brief emotion’s cries,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A casual colloquy of flesh with flesh,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A murmur of heart to longing wordless heart,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Glimmerings of knowledge with no shape of thought<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd jets of subconscious will or hunger’s pulls.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All was dim sparkle on a foaming top:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

It whirled around a drifting shadow-self<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn an inconscient flood of Force in Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen came the pressure of a seeing Power<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat drew all into a dancing turbid mass<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCircling around a single luminous point,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 166<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Centre of reference in a conscious field,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Figure of a unitary Light within.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It lit the impulse of the half-sentient flood,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Even an illusion gave of fixity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As if a sea could serve as a firm soil.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That strange observing Power imposed its sight.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It forced on flux a limit and a shape,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It gave its stream a lower narrow bank,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Drew lines to snare the spirit’s formlessness.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It fashioned the life-mind of bird and beast,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The answer of the reptile and the fish,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The primitive pattern or the thoughts of man.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A finite movement of the Infinite<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Came winging its way through a wide air of Time;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A march of Knowledge moved in Nescience<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And guarded in the form a separate soul.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Its right to be immortal it reserved,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But built a wall against the siege of death<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And threw a hook to clutch eternity.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A thinking entity appeared in Space.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A little ordered world broke into view<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Where being had prison-room for act and sight,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A floor to walk, a clear but scanty range.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An instrument-personality was born,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And a restricted clamped intelligence<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Consented to restrain in narrow bounds<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Its seeking, it tied the thought to visible
\nthings, <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Prohibiting the adventure of the Unseen<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And the soul’s tread through unknown infinities.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A reflex reason. Nature-habit’s glass<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Illumined life to know and fix its field,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Accepting a dangerous ignorant brevity<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 167<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And the inconclusive purpose of its walk,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And profit by the hour’s precarious chance<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the allotted boundaries of its fate.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A little joy and knowledge satisfied<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This little being tied into a knot<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And hung on a bulge of its environment,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A little curve cut off in measureless Space,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A little span of life in all vast Time.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A thought was there that planned, a will that strove,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But for small aims within a narrow scope,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Wasting unmeasured toil on transient things.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It knew itself a creature of the mud,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It asked no larger law, no loftier air;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

It had no inward look, no upward gaze.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA backward scholar on logic’s rickety bench<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIndoctrinated by the erring sense,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt took appearance for the face of God,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor casual lights the marching of the suns,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor heaven a starry strip of doubtful blue,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAspects of being feigned to be the whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was a voice of busy interchange,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA market-place of trivial thoughts and acts:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A life soon spent, a mind the body’s slave<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Here seemed the brilliant crown of Nature’s works,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And tiny egos took the world as means<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To sate awhile dwarf lusts and brief desires,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn a death-closed passage saw life’s start and end<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As though a blind alley were creation’s sign,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As if for this the soul had coveted birth<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the wonderland of a self-creating world<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And the opportunities of cosmic Space.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This creature passionate only to survive,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 168<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Fettered to puny thoughts with no wide range<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd to the body’s needs and pangs and joys,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis fire growing by its fuel’s death,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIncreased by what it seized and made its own:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It gathered and grew and gave itself to none.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only it hoped for greatness in its den<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd pleasure and victory in small fields of power<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd conquest of life-room for self and kin,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An animal limited by its feeding-space.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It knew not the Immortal in its house,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It had no greater deeper cause to live.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In limits only it was powerful;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Acute to capture truth for outward use,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts knowledge was the body’s instrument,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAbsorbed in the little works of its prison-house<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt turned around the same unchanging points<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the same circle of interest and desire,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut thought itself the master of its jail.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlthough for action, not for wisdom made,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThought was its apex or its gutter’s rim:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It saw an image of the external world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd saw its surface self, but knew no more.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of a slow confused embroiled self-search<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMind grew to a clarity cut out, precise,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA gleam enclosed in a stone ignorance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn this bound thinking’s narrow leadership<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTied to the soil, inspired by common things,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAttached to a confined familiar world,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAmid the multitude of her motived plots,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe changing actors and her million masks,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLife was a play monotonously the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere were no vast perspectives of the spirit,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 169<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

No swift invasions of unknown delight,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

No golden distances of wide release.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This petty state resembled our human days<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But fixed to eternity of changeless type,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A moment’s movement doomed to last through Time.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nExistence bridge-like spanned the inconscient gulfs,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A half-illumined building in a mist<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Which from a void of Form arose to sight<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And jutted out into a void of Soul.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A little light in a great darkness born,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nLife knew not where it went nor whence it came.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Around all floated still the nescient haze.<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 170<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n

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

  CANTO FOUR   THE KINGDOMS OF THE LITTLE LIFE   A QUIVERING trepidant uncertain world Born from that dolorous meeting and eclipse Appeared in…<\/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-3429","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\/3429","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=3429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}