Savitri Speaks to Her Higher Self, pp. 474-475 (SH 243)

Savitri Class in Hindi with Alok Pandey
Savitri Book Seven: The Book of Yoga, Canto Two: The Parable of the Search for the Soul

A parable is a story illustrating a deeper spiritual truth. Here, the Master is revealing to us profound truths through Savitri’s moment of crisis. In this critical hour of Destiny, Savitri is awake searching for the meaning of her life, speaking to her own higher Self.

As in the vigilance of the sleepless night
Through the slow heavy-footed silent hours,
Repressing in her bosom its load of grief,
She sat staring at the dumb tread of Time
And the approach of ever-nearing Fate,
A summons from her being’s summit came,
A sound, a call that broke the seals of Night.

Above her brows where will and knowledge meet
A mighty Voice invaded mortal space.
It seemed to come from inaccessible heights
And yet was intimate with all the world
And knew the meaning of the steps of Time
And saw eternal destiny’s changeless scene
Filling the far prospect of the cosmic gaze.

As the Voice touched, her body became a stark
And rigid golden statue of motionless trance,
A stone of God lit by an amethyst soul.
Around her body’s stillness all grew still:
Her heart listened to its slow measured beats,
Her mind renouncing thought heard and was mute:

“Why camest thou to this dumb deathbound earth,
This ignorant life beneath indifferent skies
Tied like a sacrifice on the altar of Time,
O spirit, O immortal energy,
If ’twas to nurse grief in a helpless heart
Or with hard tearless eyes await thy doom?
Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death.”

But Savitri’s heart replied in the dim night:
“My strength is taken from me and given to Death.
Why should I lift my hands to the shut heavens
Or struggle with mute inevitable Fate
Or hope in vain to uplift an ignorant race
Who hug their lot and mock the saviour Light
And see in Mind wisdom’s sole tabernacle,
In its harsh peak and its inconscient base
A rock of safety and an anchor of sleep?

Is there a God whom any cry can move?
He sits in peace and leaves the mortal’s strength
Impotent against his calm omnipotent Law
And Inconscience and the almighty hands of Death.

What need have I, what need has Satyavan
To avoid the black-meshed net, the dismal door,
Or call a mightier Light into life’s closed room,
A greater Law into man’s little world?
Why should I strive with earth’s unyielding laws
Or stave off death’s inevitable hour?

This surely is best to pactise with my fate
And follow close behind my lover’s steps
And pass through night from twilight to the sun
Across the tenebrous river that divides
The adjoining parishes of earth and heaven.
Then could we lie inarmed breast upon breast,
Untroubled by thought, untroubled by our hearts,
Forgetting man and life and time and its hours,
Forgetting eternity’s call, forgetting God.”

The Voice replied: “Is this enough, O spirit?
And what shall thy soul say when it wakes and knows
The work was left undone for which it came?

[Savitri: 474 – 475]

---

(line breaks are added to emphasize separate movements)