{"id":508,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=508"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:28","slug":"18-boo-k-2-canto-12-the-heavens-of-the-ideal-vol-28-savitri-volume-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/28-savitri-volume-28\/18-boo-k-2-canto-12-the-heavens-of-the-ideal-vol-28-savitri-volume-28","title":{"rendered":"-18_Boo k 2 Canto 12 The Heavens of the Ideal.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n
\n

\nCanto Twelve<\/i> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe Heavens of
\nthe Ideal<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

Always the Ideal beckoned from afar.<\/p>\n

Awakened by the touch of the Unseen,<\/p>\n

Deserting the boundary of things achieved,<\/p>\n

Aspired the strong discoverer, tireless Thought,<\/p>\n

Revealing at each step a luminous world.<\/p>\n

It left known summits for the unknown peaks:<\/p>\n

Impassioned, it sought the lone unrealised<\/span>
\nTruth,<\/p>\n

It longed for the Light that knows not death and birth.<\/p>\n

Each stage of the soul’s remote ascent was built<\/p>\n

Into a constant heaven felt always here.<\/p>\n

At each pace of the journey marvellous<\/span><\/p>\n

A new degree of wonder and of bliss,<\/p>\n

A new rung formed in Being’s mighty stair,<\/p>\n

A great wide step trembling with jewelled<\/span>
\nfire<\/p>\n

As if a burning spirit quivered there<\/p>\n

Upholding with his flame the immortal hope,<\/p>\n

As if a radiant God had given his soul<\/p>\n

That he might feel the tread of pilgrim feet<\/p>\n

Mounting in haste to the Eternal’s<\/span>
\nhouse.<\/p>\n

At either end of each effulgent stair<\/p>\n

The heavens of the ideal Mind were seen<\/p>\n

In a blue lucency<\/span> of dreaming
\nspace<\/p>\n

Like strips of brilliant sky clinging to the moon.<\/p>\n

On one side glimmered hue on floating hue,<\/p>\n

In a glory and
\nsurprise of the seized soul<\/p>\n

And a tremulous rapture of the heart’s insight<\/p>\n

And the spontaneous bliss that beauty gives,<\/p>\n

The lovely kingdoms of the deathless Rose.<\/p>\n

Above the spirit cased in mortal sense<\/p>\n

Are superconscious<\/span> realms of
\nheavenly peace,<\/p>\n

Below, the Inconscient’s<\/span> sullen
\ndim abyss, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 277<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Between, behind our life, the deathless Rose.<\/p>\n

Across the covert air the spirit breathes,<\/p>\n

A body of the cosmic beauty and joy<\/p>\n

Unseen, unguessed<\/span> by the blind
\nsuffering world,<\/p>\n

Climbing from Nature’s deep surrendered heart<\/p>\n

It blooms for ever at the feet of God,<\/p>\n

Fed by life’s sacrificial mysteries.<\/p>\n

Here too its bud is born in human breasts;<\/p>\n

Then by a touch, a presence or a voice<\/p>\n

The world is turned into a temple ground<\/p>\n

And all discloses the unknown Beloved.<\/p>\n

In an outburst of heavenly joy and ease<\/p>\n

Life yields to the divinity within<\/p>\n

And gives the rapture-offering of its all,<\/p>\n

And the soul opens to felicity.<\/p>\n

A bliss is felt that never can wholly cease,<\/p>\n

A sudden mystery of secret Grace<\/p>\n

Flowers goldening<\/span> our earth of red
\ndesire.<\/p>\n

All the high gods who hid their visages<\/p>\n

From the soiled passionate ritual of our hopes,<\/p>\n

Reveal their names and their undying powers.<\/p>\n

A fiery stillness wakes the slumbering cells,<\/p>\n

A passion of the flesh becoming spirit,<\/p>\n

And marvellously<\/span> is fulfilled at
\nlast<\/p>\n

The miracle for which our life was made.<\/p>\n

A flame in a white voiceless cupola<\/p>\n

Is seen and faces of immortal light,<\/p>\n

The radiant limbs that know not birth and death,<\/p>\n

The breasts that suckle the first-born of the Sun,<\/p>\n

The wings that crowd
\nThought’s ardent silences,<\/p>\n

The eyes that look into spiritual Space.<\/p>\n

Our hidden centres<\/span> of celestial
\nforce<\/p>\n

Open like flowers to a heavenly atmosphere;<\/p>\n

Mind pauses thrilled with the supernal Ray,<\/p>\n

And even the transient body then can feel<\/p>\n

Ideal love and flawless happiness <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 278<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

And laughter of the heart’s sweetness and delight<\/p>\n

Freed from the rude and tragic hold of Time,<\/p>\n

And beauty and the rhythmic feet of the hours.<\/p>\n

This in high realms touches immortal kind;<\/p>\n

What here is in the bud has blossomed there.<\/p>\n

There is the secrecy of the House of Flame,<\/p>\n

The blaze of Godlike thought and golden bliss,<\/p>\n

The rapt idealism of heavenly sense;<\/p>\n

There are the wonderful voices, the sun-laugh,<\/p>\n

A gurgling eddy in rivers of God’s joy,<\/p>\n

And the mysteried<\/span> vineyards of the
\ngold moon-wine,<\/p>\n

All the fire and sweetness of which hardly here<\/p>\n

A brilliant shadow visits mortal life.<\/p>\n

Although are witnessed there the joys of Time,<\/p>\n

Pressed on the bosom the Immortal’s touch is felt,<\/p>\n

Heard are the flutings of the Infinite.<\/p>\n

Here upon earth are early awakenings,<\/p>\n

Moments that tremble in an air divine,<\/p>\n

And grown upon the yearning of her soil<\/p>\n

Time’s sunflowers gaze at gold Eternity:<\/p>\n

There are the imperishable beatitudes.<\/p>\n

A million lotuses swaying on one stem,<\/p>\n

World after coloured<\/span> and ecstatic
\nworld<\/p>\n

Climbs towards some far unseen epiphany.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the eternal stairs<\/p>\n

The mighty kingdoms of the deathless Flame<\/p>\n

Aspired to reach the Being’s absolutes.<\/p>\n

Out of the sorrow and darkness of the world,<\/p>\n

Out of the depths where life and thought are tombed<\/span>,<\/p>\n

Lonely mounts up to heaven the deathless Flame.<\/p>\n

In a veiled Nature’s hallowed secrecies<\/p>\n

It burns for ever on the altar Mind,<\/p>\n

Its priests the souls of dedicated gods,<\/p>\n

Humanity its house of sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Once kindled never can its flamings<\/span>
\ncease.<\/p>\n

A fire along the mystic paths of earth, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 279<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

It rises through the mortal’s hemisphere,<\/p>\n

Till borne by runners of the Day and Dusk<\/p>\n

It enters the occult eternal Light<\/p>\n

And clambers whitening to the invisible Throne.<\/p>\n

Its worlds are steps of an ascending Force:<\/p>\n

A dream of giant contours, titan lines,<\/p>\n

Homes of unfallen<\/span> and illumined
\nMight,<\/p>\n

Heavens of unchanging Good pure and unborn,<\/p>\n

Heights of the grandeur of Truth’s ageless ray,<\/p>\n

As in a symbol sky they start to view<\/p>\n

And call our souls into a vaster air.<\/p>\n

On their summits they bear up the sleepless Flame;<\/p>\n

Dreaming of a mysterious Beyond,<\/p>\n

Transcendent of the paths of Fate and Time,<\/p>\n

They point above themselves with index peaks<\/p>\n

Through a pale-sapphire ether of
\nGod-mind<\/p>\n

Towards some gold Infinite’s<\/span>
\napocalypse.<\/p>\n

A thunder rolling mid the hills of God,<\/p>\n

Tireless, severe is their tremendous Voice:<\/p>\n

Exceeding us, to exceed ourselves they call<\/p>\n

And bid us rise incessantly above.<\/p>\n

Far from our eager reach those summits live,<\/p>\n

Too lofty for our mortal strength and height,<\/p>\n

Hardly in a dire ecstasy of toil<\/p>\n

Climbed by the spirit’s naked athlete will.<\/p>\n

Austere, intolerant they claim from us<\/p>\n

Efforts too lasting for our mortal nerve<\/p>\n

Our hearts cannot cleave to nor our flesh support;<\/p>\n

Only the Eternal’s<\/span> strength in us
\ncan dare<\/p>\n

To attempt the immense adventure of that climb<\/p>\n

And the sacrifice of all we cherish here.<\/p>\n

Our human knowledge is a candle burnt<\/p>\n

On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth;<\/p>\n

Man’s virtue, a coarse-spun ill-fitting dress,<\/p>\n

Apparels wooden images of Good;<\/p>\n

Passionate and blinded, bleeding, stained with mire <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 280<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

His energy stumbles towards a deathless Force.<\/p>\n

An imperfection dogs our highest strength;<\/p>\n

Portions and pale reflections are our share.<\/p>\n

Happy the worlds that have not felt our fall,<\/p>\n

Where Will is one with Truth and Good with Power;<\/p>\n

Impoverished not by earth-mind’s indigence,<\/p>\n

They keep God’s natural breath of mightiness,<\/p>\n

His bare spontaneous swift intensities;<\/p>\n

There is his great transparent mirror, Self,<\/p>\n

And there his sovereign autarchy of bliss<\/p>\n

In which immortal natures have their part,<\/p>\n

Heirs and co-sharers<\/span> of divinity.<\/p>\n

He through the Ideal’s kingdoms moved at will,<\/p>\n

Accepted their beauty and their greatness bore,<\/p>\n

Partook of the glories of their wonder fields,<\/p>\n

But passed nor stayed beneath their splendour’s<\/span>
\nrule.<\/p>\n

All there was an intense but partial light.<\/p>\n

In each a seraph-winged high-browed Idea<\/p>\n

United all knowledge by one master thought,<\/p>\n

Persuaded all action to one golden sense,<\/p>\n

All powers subjected to a single power<\/p>\n

And made a world where it could reign alone,<\/p>\n

An absolute idea’s perfect home.<\/p>\n

Insignia of their victory and their faith,<\/p>\n

They offered to the Traveller at their gates<\/p>\n

A quenchless flame or an unfading flower,<\/p>\n

Emblem of a high kingdom’s privilege.<\/p>\n

A glorious shining Angel of the Way<\/p>\n

Presented to the seeking of the soul<\/p>\n

The sweetness and the might of an idea,<\/p>\n

Each deemed Truth’s intimate fount and summit force,<\/p>\n

The heart of the meaning of the universe,<\/p>\n

Perfection’s key, passport to Paradise.<\/p>\n

Yet were there regions where these absolutes met<\/p>\n

And made a circle of bliss with married hands;<\/p>\n

Light stood embraced by light, fire wedded fire, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 281<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

But none in the other would his body lose<\/p>\n

To find his soul in the world’s single Soul,<\/p>\n

A multiplied rapture of infinity.<\/p>\n

Onward he passed to a diviner sphere:<\/p>\n

There, joined in a common greatness, light and bliss,<\/p>\n

All high and beautiful and desirable powers<\/p>\n

Forgetting their difference and their separate reign<\/p>\n

Become a single multitudinous whole.<\/p>\n

Above the parting of the roads of Time,<\/p>\n

Above the Silence and its thousandfold<\/span>
\nWord,<\/p>\n

In the immutable and inviolate Truth<\/p>\n

For ever united and inseparable,<\/p>\n

The radiant children of Eternity dwell<\/p>\n

On the wide spirit height where all are one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

End of Canto Twelve <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 282<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n

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

  Canto Twelve    The Heavens of the Ideal    Always the Ideal beckoned from afar. Awakened by the touch of the Unseen, Deserting the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-28-savitri-volume-28","wpcat-10-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","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=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}