Opening Remarks
Man tries to limit the Divine according to his conceptions and experience but the Divine always exceeds all that we can ever think, conceive, understand or experience Him.
Beyond thought and word
But thought nor word can seize eternal Truth:
The whole world lives in a lonely ray of her sun.
The Divine is beyond Thought and Word. A single ray is enough to light up the whole world and fill it with life.
Tying Her down
In our thinking’s close and narrow lamp-lit house
The vanity of our shut mortal mind
Dreams that the chains of thought have made her ours;
But only we play with our own brilliant bonds;
Tying her down, it is ourselves we tie.
Through the Ages human beings have formed several conceptions of the Divine and thereby limit Him within the frame of our narrow mental conceptions. We ignorantly dream that the Divine can ever be completely understood as long as remain shut in the formulas of our limited human mind. What we forget is that by thus limiting the Divine we limit ourselves. Our mental boundaries, the limits of our thoughts and conceptions are not the limits of the Divine Shakti who works in freedom and infinity.
Inspiring boundlessness
In our hypnosis by one luminous point
We see not what small figure of her we hold;
We feel not her inspiring boundlessness,
We share not her immortal liberty.
The Divine Mother comes to free us from all that binds us. But we chose to hug our bonds as if hypnotised by our thoughts of Her. We are inspired not by Her vastness and hence share not Her freedom and immortality that only the vast infinite can enjoy.
Dare to surrender
Thus is it even with the seer and sage;
For still the human limits the divine:
Out of our thoughts we must leap up to sight,
Breathe her divine illimitable air,
Her simple vast supremacy confess,
Dare to surrender to her absolute.
Not only the human thinker and intellectual but also the seer and sages limit Her by their experience. The only way is to go beyond thought and mind and see Her with the inward sight, breath Her infinity, accept Her transcendence beyond all that can ever be known or experienced. Instead of trying to understand and limit and tie Her to our ideas and beliefs, we should give ourself entirely to Her in a gesture of complete surrender.
The timeless Ray
Then the Unmanifest reflects his form
In the still mind as in a living glass;
The timeless Ray descends into our hearts
And we are rapt into eternity.
It is only when we give ourselves entirely to Her and become a child new born in Her that something of Her truth is reflected in the still mind. Then a Ray from Her Light touches our hearts and all thence turns into beauty and delight.
Greater than Her forms
For Truth is wider, greater than her forms.
She will always exceed all the forms that the human mind have given to Her through the Ages.
Herself and infinite
A thousand icons they have made of her
And find her in the idols they adore;
But she remains herself and infinite.
Mankind has created many an images of Her casting Her into human moulds to draw Her close to our humanity. Even if we were to combine all these conceptions together yet something will always escape our understanding and experience for She remains the ever Unknowable and infinite.
Closing Remarks
Thus closes this Canto giving us a passing and hurried glimpse of the Infinite Mother as caught by the spiritual Mind. One has to cross the highest spiritual Mind to discover Her in Her very Home on the grounds of the eternal Spirit.
Closing Remarks for the Canto
In this Canto we see Aswapati crossing towards the last limits of the striving Mind. Here he has already gone beyond the limits of the human mind and entered the spiritual Mind. It is this realm that is often called as ‘Spiritual’ by the seers and yogis who have crossed the human limits. It is the realm of the Higher Consciousness where one discovers new powers and faculties through which one reconnects with creation. Yet it is not here that the last and final reconciliation between World and God or the Creator and the Creation can be found. Aswapati stops not here. He must discover a still greater beyond.
About Savitri | B1C1-10 The Response of Earth (p.5)