Opening Remarks
The law of pain exists upon earth as a fact. Deep inside it is a law of progress and evolution. It is temporary and is meant to be replaced by joy when man learns to evolve consciously.
Earth is packed with pain
This earth is full of labour, packed with pain;
Throes of an endless birth coerce her still;
The centuries end, the ages vainly pass
And yet the Godhead in her is not born.
Our earthly life is full of labour and packed with pain. These are indeed labour pains to compel a new birth. Yet though centuries and the ages seem to vainly pass, the destined Godhead is yet to be born out of man. The divinisation of earthly life is yet to happen.
With pain and labour all creation comes
The ancient Mother faces all with joy,
Calls for the ardent pang, the grandiose thrill;
For with pain and labour all creation comes.
Yet mother Earth faces it all with joy calling upon herself the ardent pang and the grandiose thrill knowing that it is worth pain and labour that all creation comes.
Anguish of the gods
This earth is full of the anguish of the gods;
Ever they travail driven by Time’s goad,
And strive to work out the eternal Will
And shape the life divine in mortal forms.
This earth is full of the labour and anguish of the gods who work to fulfil the Divine Will against all that resists. Pushed by the wheel of Time they strive to shape the life divine in mortal human forms.
Against the world’s ignorance
His will must be worked out in human breasts
Against the Evil that rises from the gulfs,
Against the world’s Ignorance and its obstinate strength,
Against the stumblings of man’s pervert will,
Against the deep folly of his human mind,
Against the blind reluctance of his heart.
The Divine Will has to be worked out in human breasts against the Evil rising from the Inconscient, against the oppositions the world’s ignorance and the forces that strengthen it, against the stumblings due to man’s perversions, against our human mind’s folly, against the blind reluctance of his heart.
Doomed to pain
The spirit is doomed to pain till man is free.
The spirit is doomed to pain until man realises his folly and is freed from the ignorance that presently surrounds and supports his life.
Clamour of battle
There is a clamour of battle, a tramp, a march:
A cry arises like a moaning sea,
A desperate laughter under the blows of death,
A doom of blood and sweat and toil and tears.
Men die that man may live and God be born.
There is the din and noise of battle, a tramp and march and a cry as if rising from a moaning sea. A desperate laughter under the blows of death and a doom filled with blood and sweat and tears. Man die so that humanity may live and God be born amidst our humanity.
Awful Silence
An awful Silence watches tragic Time.
An awful Silence seems to watch the tragedies of Time.
Closing Remarks
Sri Aurobindo is unsparing in portraying our presently earthly life though he always gives us hope for its transmutation into life divine.
About Savitri | B1C1-10 The Response of Earth (p.5)