The Mother Reads Selections from Savitri by Sri Aurobindo
Book 7. The Book of Yoga
Canto 3. The Entry into the Inner Countries.
Then Savitri surged out of her body’s wall
And stood a little span outside herself
. . .
At the dim portal of the inner life
. . .
A formidable voice cried from within:
“Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die.”
. . .
The Serpent of the threshold hissing rose,
. . .
And trolls and gnomes and goblins scowled and stared
And wild beast roarings thrilled the blood with fear
And menace muttered in a dangerous tongue.
Unshaken her will pressed on the rigid bars:
. . .
Her being entered into the inner worlds.
[pp. 488-489]
* * *
Across a perilous border line she passed
Where life dips into the subconscient dusk
Or struggles from Matter into chaos of mind,
Aswarm with elemental entities
And fluttering shapes of vague half-bodied thought
And crude beginnings of incontinent force.
. . .
This state now threatened, this she pushed from her.
[pp.489-490; 491]
* * *
Approaching loomed a giant head of Life
Ungoverned by mind or soul, subconscient, vast.
[p. 491]
* * *
Then journeying forward through the self’s wide hush
She came into a brilliant ordered Space.
There Life dwelt parked in an armed tranquillity;
A chain was on her strong insurgent heart.
. . .
There one stood forth who bore authority
On an important brow and held a rod;
. . .
His sentences savoured the oracle.
“Traveller or pilgrim of the inner world,
. . .
O aspirant to the perfect way of life,
Here find it; rest from search and live at peace.
[pp. 495; 498]
* * *
Savitri replied casting into his world
Sight’s deep release, the heart’s questioning inner voice.
. . .
“Happy are they who in this chaos of things,
This coming and going of the feet of Time,
Can find the single Truth, the eternal Law:
. . .
Happiest who stand on faith as on a rock.
But I must pass leaving the ended search,
Truth’s rounded outcome firm, immutable
And this harmonic building of world-fact,
This ordered knowledge of apparent things.
Here I can stay not, for I seek my soul.”
[p. 499]
* * *
None answered in that bright contented world,
. . .
But some murmured, passers-by from kindred spheres:
Each by his credo judged the thought she spoke.
“Who then is this who knows not that the soul
Is a least gland or a secretion’s fault
. . .
But others, “Nay, it is her spirit she seeks.
. . .
But none has touched its limits or seen its face.
. . .
Another with mystic and unsatisfied eyes
Who loved his slain belief and mourned its death:
“Is there one left who seeks for a Beyond?
Can still the path be found, opened the gate?”
[pp. 499; 500]
* * *
So she fared on across her silent self.
To a road she came thronged with an ardent crowd
. . .
Guests from the cavern of the secret soul.
. . .
And Savitri mingling in that glorious crowd,
. . .
Longed once to hasten like them to save God’s world;
. . .
Outstretching her hands to stay the throng she cried:
“O happy company of luminous gods,
Reveal, who know, the road that I must tread, —
. . .
To find the birthplace of the occult Fire
And the deep mansion of my secret soul.”
[pp. 500; 501]
* * *
One answered pointing to a silence dim
On a remote extremity of sleep
In some far background of the inner world.
“O Savitri, from thy hidden soul we come.
. . .
Follow the world’s winding highway to its source.
There in the silence few have ever reached,
Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
And the deep cavern of thy secret soul.”
[p. 500]
* * *
Then Savitri following the great winding road
Came where it dwindled into a narrow path
Trod only by rare wounded pilgrim-feet.
A few bright forms emerged from unknown depths
And looked at her with calm immortal eyes.
There was no sound to break the brooding hush;
One felt the silent nearness of the soul.
[pp. 501-502]End of Book 7 Canto 3
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