Aurobindo 130 Savitri Book 9
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Nine: The Book of Eternal Night
Canto One: Towards the Black Void
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
And that's how a blessed spirit shines..
'Such seemed he as if one departed came
Wearing the light of a celestial shape
Splendidly alien to the mortal air.'
'Only the spirit knew the spirit still, '
'Between two realms he stood, not wavering,
But fixed in quiet strong expectancy,
Like one who, sightless, listens for a command.'
'Silence battled with silence, vast with vast.
But now the impulse of the Path was felt'
'To touch the confines of the visible world.'
'Luminous he moved away; behind him Death
Went slowly with his noiseless tread, '
'And Savitri moved behind eternal Death,
Her mortal pace was equalled with the god's.'
A war of words to begin 'twixt life and death..
'At first in a blind stress of woods she moved
With strange inhuman paces on the soil,
Journeying as if upon an unseen road.'
'Earth stood aloof, yet near: round her it wove
Its sweetness and its greenness and delight, '
'The silent god grew mighty and remote
In other spaces, and the soul she loved
Lost its consenting nearness to her life.'
'Then flaming from her body's nest alarmed
Her violent spirit soared at Satyavan.'
'From her eyrie streams against the ascending death, '
'A fierce she-eagle threatened in her brood,
Borne on a rush of puissance and a cry,
Outwinging like a mass of golden fire.'.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 131 Savitri Book 9
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Nine: The Book of Eternal Night
Canto One: Towards the Black Void
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Thought, time and death were absent from her grasp:
She knew not self, forgotten was Savitri.'
'Her aim, joy, origin, Satyavan alone.'
'Her sovereign prisoned in her being's core,
He beat there like a rhythmic heart, -herself'
'Around him nameless, infinite she surged,
Her spirit fulfilled in his spirit, rich with all Time, '
'Onward the three still moved in her soul-scene.'
'In voiceless regions they were travellers
Alone in a new world where souls were not,
But only living moods: a strange hushed weird
Country was round them, strange far skies above,
A doubting space where dreaming objects lived
Within themselves their one unchanged idea.'
'Phantasmal between pillared conscious rocks
...Lost their huge sense beyond in giant night.'
'Then, to that chill sere heavy line arrived
Where his feet touched the shadowy marches' brink,
Turning arrested luminous Satyavan
Looked back with his wonderful eyes at Savitri.'
'But Death pealed forth his vast abysmal cry: '
'O mortal, turn back to thy transient kind; Line 336 to
Your transient loves bind not the eternal gods.'Line 361
No Yes, no No to death; But Yes to Thy beautiful words Guru..
'The Woman answered not. Her high nude soul,
Stripped of the girdle of mortality,
Against fixed destiny and the grooves of law
Stood up in its sheer will a primal force.'
'Against midnight's dumb abysses piled in front
A columned shaft of fire and light she rose.'.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
End of Canto One
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 129 Savitri Book 9
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Nine: The Book of Eternal Night
Canto One: Towards the Black Void
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
Ho, look, how bittered the God of Death..
''Thy passionate influence and relax, O slave
Of Nature, changing tool of changeless Law,
Who vainly writh'st rebellion to my yoke,
Thy elemental grasp; weep and forget.'
'weep and forget'...as a common folk does
Did it suit Savitri? no, she pursued..
'Entomb thy passion in its living grave.'
'Leave now the once-loved spirit's abandoned robe:
Pass lonely back to thy vain life on earth.'
How easily said He..but Savitri was exceptional
For she the god-child..and she in Thy words Guru, marvelous
'It ceased, she moved not, and it spoke again, '
'Wilt thou for ever keep thy passionate hold,
Thyself a creature doomed like him to pass,
Denying his soul death's calm and silent rest? '
'Relax thy grasp; this body is earth's and thine,
His spirit now belongs to a greater power.
Woman, thy husband suffers.' Savitri
Drew back her heart's force that clasped his body still'
'She rose and stood gathered in lonely strength, '
'The dim and awful godhead rose erect
From his brief stooping to his touch on earth, '
'brief stooping'..oh, very picturesque...
'And, like a dream that wakes out of a dream,
Forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay,
Another luminous Satyavan arose,
Starting upright from the recumbent earth
As if someone over viewless borders stepped
Emerging on the edge of unseen worlds........
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 85 Savitri Book 5
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Five: The Book of Love
Canto Three: Satyavan and Savitri
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'And Savitri, musing still, replied to him:
'Speak more to me, speak more, O Satyavan,
Speak of thyself and all thou art within;
I would know thee as if we had ever lived
Together in the chamber of our souls.
Speak till a light shall come into my heart
And my moved mortal mind shall understand
What all the deathless being in me feels.'
It knows that thou art he my spirit has sought
Amidst earth's thronging visages and forms
Across the golden spaces of my life.'
He answered in elaborate surrender....
'And Satyavan like a replying harp' Line 233 to
'And every bird remember in its cry.'Line 322
To me these verses actually symbolize a plea
A plea of the individual soul to the universal soul...
''O Satyavan, I have heard thee and I know;
I know that thou and only thou art he.'
'A sacrament of joy in treasuring palms
She brought, flower-symbol of her offered life,
Then with raised hands that trembled a little now
At the very closeness that her soul desired,
This bond of sweetness, their bright union's sign,
She laid on the bosom coveted by her love.'
'He led and showed to her her future world,
Love's refuge and corner of happy solitude.'
'Once more she mounted on the carven car'
'She sped swift-reined, swift-hearted but still saw'
'Pace towards a tranquil clearing Satyavan.'
'This now remained with her, her heart's constant scene.'...
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
End of Canto Three
End of Book Five
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 133 Savitri Book 9
'Night felt assailed her heavy sombre reign; '
'The splendour of some bright eternity
Threatened with this faint beam of wandering Truth
Her empire of the everlasting Nought.
Implacable in her intolerant strength
And confident that she alone was true,
She strove to stifle the frail dangerous ray; '
Queen of perseverance was Savitri..
'Aware of an all-negating immensity
She reared her giant head of Nothingness,
Her mouth of darkness swallowing all that is;
She saw in herself the tenebrous Absolute.
But still the light prevailed and still it grew,
And Savitri to her lost self awoke;
Her limbs refused the cold embrace of death, '
Her wakeful spirit of her soul was no more concealed..
'Before her in the stillness of the world
Once more she heard the treading of a god,
And out of the dumb darkness Satyavan,
Her husband, grew into a luminous shade.
Then a sound pealed through that dead monstrous realm:
Vast like the surge in a tired swimmer's ears,
Clamouring, a fatal iron-hearted roar,
Death missioned to the night his lethal call.'
''This is my silent dark immensity, Line 139 to
'Hopest thou still always to last and love? 'Line146
Claimed the Death its territory of Nothingness..
'The Woman answered not. Her spirit refused..'
'But still' 'Death, the dire god, inflicted on her eyes
The immortal calm of his tremendous gaze: ....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
(An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Nine: The Book of Eternal Night
Canto Two: The Journey in Eternal Night
and the Voice of the Darkness
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's)
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 126 Savitri Book 8
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Eight: The Book of Death
Canto Three*: Death in the Forest
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Then Savitri sat under branches wide,
Cool, green against the sun, not the hurt tree
Which his keen axe had cloven, -that she shunned;
But leaned beneath a fortunate kingly trunk
She guarded him in her bosom and strove to soothe
His anguished brow and body with her hands.
All grief and fear were dead within her now
And a great calm had fallen.'
'Griefless and strong she waited like the gods.
But now his sweet familiar hue was changed'
He cried out in a clinging last despair, '
'Savitri, Savitri, O Savitri,
Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die.'
'His cheek pressed down her golden arm. She sought
His mouth still with her living mouth, as if
She could persuade his soul back with her kiss; '
'Then grew aware they were no more alone.'
'Something had come there conscious, vast and dire.
Near her she felt a silent shade immense'
'As if from a Silence without form or name'
The Shadow of a remote uncaring god
Doomed to his Nought the illusory universe, '
'She knew that visible Death was standing there
And Satyavan had passed from her embrace.'....
Reading these this moment a ball of breath
Blocking my life in my throat
Breathless even I grow; and screaming my heart
Prays, pleads, implores sunken in tears
'Save o'Savitri save, Thy true love thine alone
Saved this Earth then in mundane bliss....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
End of Book Eight
End of Part Two
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 150 Savitri Book 10
Stubborn Death was mindless to mind Savitri's plea
''O priestess in Imagination's house,
Persuade first Nature's fixed immutable laws
And make the impossible thy daily work.
How canst thou force to wed two eternal foes? '
'How shall thy will make one the true and false?
Where Matter is all, there Spirit is a dream: '
'The Real with the unreal cannot mate.'
'He who would turn to God, must leave the world;
He who would live in the Spirit, must give up life;
He who has met the Self, renounces self.'
'Two only are the doors of man's escape,
Death of his body Matter's gate to peace,
Death of his soul his last felicity.
In me all take refuge, for I, Death, am God.'
Our questions in Thou mind are answered Guru..
'But Savitri replied to mighty Death:
'My heart is wiser than the Reason's thoughts,
My heart is stronger than thy bonds, O Death.'
Stubborn was Savitri even extra-bold
'It sees and feels the one Heart beat in all,
It feels the high Transcendent's sunlike hands,
It sees the cosmic Spirit at its work;
In the dim Night it lies alone with God.'
'My heart's strength can carry the grief of the universe
And never falter from its luminous track,
Its white tremendous orbit through God's peace.
It can drink up the sea of All-Delight
And never lose the white spiritual touch,
'The calm that broods in the deep Infinite.'.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
(An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Ten: The Book of the Double Twilight
Canto Three - The Debate of Love and Death
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's)
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 153 Savitri Book 10
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Ten: The Book of the Double Twilight
Canto Three - The Debate of Love and Death
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
Oh Death, you sound satanic and not godly..
'For who, being mortal, can dwell glad alone?
Then Satyavan shall glide into the past,
A gentle memory pushed away from thee
By new love and thy children's tender hands,
Till thou shalt wonder if thou lov'dst at all.
Such is the life earth's travail has conceived,
A constant stream that never is the same.'
'But Savitri replied to mighty Death:
'O dark ironic critic of God's work,
'Mine is a heart that worshipped, though forsaken,
The image of the god its love adored; '
'Why dost thou vainly strive with me, O Death, '
'For now at last I know beyond all doubt,
The great stars burn with my unceasing fire'
'Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory; '
'All shall be seized, transcended; there shall kiss
Casting their veils before the marriage fire
The eternal bridegroom and eternal bride.
The heavens accept our broken flights at last.
On our life's prow that breaks the waves of Time
No signal light of hope has gleamed in vain.'
'Thus with armed speech the great opponents strove.'
'Intent upon her silent will she walked'
'But now her spirit's flame of conscient force
Retiring from a sweetness without fruit
Called back her thoughts from speech to sit within
In a deep room in meditation's house.'
'Death walked in front of her and Satyavan,
In the dark front of Death, a failing star.'...
My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
End of Canto Three
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 164 Savitri Book 10
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Ten: The Book of the Double Twilight
Canto Four: The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Who then art thou hiding in human guise?
Thy voice carries the sound of infinity,
Knowledge is with thee, Truth speaks through thy words;
The light of things beyond shines in thy eyes.
'Hast thou God's force to build heaven's values here?
For truth and knowledge are an idle gleam
If Knowledge brings not power to change the world,
If Might comes not to give to Truth her right.'
'O human claimant to immortality,
Reveal thy power, lay bare thy spirit's force,
Then will I give back to thee Satyavan.
Or if the Mighty Mother is with thee,
Show me her face that I may worship her;
'Then can thy dead return to thee and live.'
The prostrate earth perhaps shall lift her gaze
And feel near her the secret body of God'
So Death had none but to surrender it seems..
'Almost it seemed as if in his symbol shape
The world's darkness had consented to Heaven-light'
'A mighty transformation came on her.
A halo of the indwelling Deity,
The Immortal's lustre that had lit her face
And tented its radiance in her body's house,
Overflowing made the air a luminous sea.'
'In a flaming moment of apocalypse
The Incarnation thrust aside its veil.
A little figure in infinity
Yet stood and seemed the Eternal's very house,
As if the world's centre was her very soul
And all wide space was but its outer robe.'.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 186 Savitri Book 12
Like the sun concealed in night resumes light
Thrilled at the sight of the divine lotus
'He murmured with hesitating lips her name,
And vaguely recollecting wonder cried, '
'Whence hast thou brought me captive back, love-chained,
To thee and sunlight's walls, O golden beam
And casket of all sweetness, Savitri,
Godhead and woman, moonlight of my soul? '
'For surely I have travelled in strange worlds
By thee companioned, a pursuing spirit,
Together we have disdained the gates of night.'
'Where now has passed that formidable Shape
Which rose against us, the Spirit of the Void,
Claiming the world for Death and Nothingness,
Denying God and soul? Or was all a dream
Or a vision seen in a spiritual sleep, ...'
'But she replied, 'Our parting was the dream;
'Look round thee and behold, glad and unchanged
Our home, this forest with its thousand cries'
'Only our souls have left Death's night behind,
Changed by a mighty dream's reality,
Illumined by the light of symbol worlds
And the stupendous summit self of things,
And stood at Godhead's gates limitless, free.'
Then filled with the glory of their happiness
They rose and with safe clinging fingers locked
Hung on each other in a silent look.
But he with a new wonder in his heart
And a new flame of worship in his eyes:
'What high change is in thee, O Savitri? ...
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
(An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Twelve: Epilogue
The Return to Earth
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's)
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 90 Savitri Book 6
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Six: The Book of Fate
Canto One: The Word of Fate
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Then cried the sage piercing the mother's heart,
Forcing to steel the will of Savitri,
His words set free the spring of cosmic Fate.'
''The truth thou hast claimed; I give to thee the truth.'Line 531 to
'This day returning Satyavan must die.'Line 588
Fate of Satyavan revealed...
But the queen cried: 'Vain then can be heaven's grace! Line 590 to
A choice less rare may call a happier fate.'Line 608
'But Savitri answered from her violent heart, -
'Once my heart chose and chooses not again...
....I am stronger than death and greater than my fate;
My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me
Helpless against my immortality.
Fate's law may change, but not my spirit's will.'
How determined the words here like Savitri
How determined was Savitri that we still wonder at...
'But in the queen's mind listening her words
Rang like the voice of a self-chosen Doom
Denying every issue of escape.'
'O child, in the magnificence of thy soul..Line 638 to
It greatens slowly into timeless peace.'Line 717
A mother's exemplary advice in Thou colourful words
A mother's caring plea in Thou poetic deliverance...
'But Savitri replied with steadfast eyes: '
'My will is part of the eternal Will, Line 719 to
I have seen the Eternal in a human face.'Line 755
What else could a true love ever be than immortal
And not 'Only to live and love awhile and die.'
'Then none could answer to her words. Silent
They sat and looked into the eyes of Fate.'.........
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
End of Canto One
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 13-Savitri-Book -1
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book I The Book of Beginnings-
Canto V The Yoga of the King:
The Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'The glory he had glimpsed must be his home.
A brighter heavenlier sun must soon illume'
'The body illumined with the indwelling God,
The heart and mind feel one with all that is,
A conscious soul live in a conscious world.'
This, I have an aspiring waver inside..possible?
'His height repelled the lowness of earth's state'
Where'There are thrills of the flesh, but not the soul's desire.'
'In each success a seed of failure lurks.
He saw the doubtfulness of all things here,
The incertitude of man's proud confident thought,
The transience of the achievements of his force.'
Yes, 'incertitude' of life between birth and death
'And yet a greater destiny may be his,
For the eternal Spirit is his truth.'
'He can re-create himself''and fashion new the world'
'A call was on him from intangible heights;
He dwelt in the wideness of the Eternal's reign.'
'A universal light was in his eyes,
A golden influx flowed through heart and brain;
A Force came down into his mortal limbs,
A current from eternal seas of Bliss;
He felt the invasion and the nameless joy.'
And that, a blessing on the immortal soul
'A lone forerunner of the Godward earth, '
'In the eternal courts of Solitude. '
'In a divine retreat from mortal thought'
'His being towered into pathless heights,
Naked of its vesture of humanity.'
An immortal obligation far from mortal's apprehension..
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 103 Savitri Book 7
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Seven: The Book of Yoga
Canto Three: The Entry into the Inner Countries
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'But to the too satisfied and confident sage
Savitri replied casting into his world'
'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:
Untouched they live by hope and doubt and fear.'
Happy are men anchored on fixed belief
In this uncertain and ambiguous world, '
Or who have planted in the heart's rich soil
One small grain of spiritual certitude.
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.'
'None answered in that bright contented world, '
'But some murmured, passers-by from kindred spheres: '
But others, 'Nay, it is her spirit she seeks.
A splendid shadow of the name of God,
A formless lustre from the Ideal's realm,
The Spirit is the Holy Ghost of Mind;
But none has touched its limbs or seen its face.'
And that none can ever surpass her ism...
... 'she cried: 'O happy company of luminous gods,
Reveal, who know, the road that I must tread, -'
'O Savitri, from thy hidden soul we come.
We are the messengers, the occult gods...
Then Savitri following the great winding road
'....One felt the silent nearness of the soul.'.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
End of Canto Three
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 95 Savitri Book 7
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Seven: The Book of Yoga
Canto Two: The Parable of the Search for the Soul
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'As in the vigilance of the sleepless night'
'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.
Her throbbing heart readying for the attack..
'It seemed to come from inaccessible heights'
'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.'
'Her heart listened to its slow measured beats, '
''Why camest thou to this dumb deathbound earth,
This ignorant life beneath indifferent skies
Tied like a sacrifice on the altar of Time, '
A question to every individual too...
'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
'Is there a God whom any cry can move? '
She too was like a mortal any...
'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? '
'My head bowed with shame before the Eternal's seat, -
His power he kindled in thy body has failed,
His labourer returns, her task undone? '.........
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 48 Savitri Book 2
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Canto Ten: The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'This too must now be overpassed and left,
As all must be until the Highest is gained
In whom the world and self grow true and one:
Till That is reached our journeying cannot cease.'
'This breath of hundred-hued felicity'
'Its endless time-made world outfacing Time,
A little output of God's vast delight.'
Oh, really wonder at the possibility on the Vast Delight...
'A musing spirit looked out on the worlds'
'Passing through clarity to an unseen Light
Large lucent realms of Mind from stillness shone.'
'But first he met a silver-grey expanse'..
'A coalition of uncertainties
There exercised uneasy government'..
'A rendezvous of Knowledge with Ignorance.'
What an important suitability of words..none can deny..
'A mind that hardly saw and slowly found; '
'..looks from soil to sky and sky to soil
But knows not the below nor the beyond, '
'Here are devised the forms of an ignorant life'
'The slow process of a material mind
Which serves the body it should rule and use
And needs to lean upon an erring sense,
Was born in that luminous obscurity.'
'It reasons from the half-known to the unknown, '
'Ever undoing the web that it has spun.'
'At the glow-worm top of these pale glimmer-realms'
'Escaping over a wide and shimmering bridge,
He came into a realm of early Light
'And the regency of a half-risen sun.'...
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 187 Savitri Book 12
Like a new born celestial, look there
The way Satyavan comprehends Savitri...
'What high change is in thee, O Savitri? Bright
Ever thou wast, a goddess still and pure,
Yet dearer to me by thy sweet human parts
Earth gave thee making thee yet more divine.'
'A statue of silence in my templed spirit,
A yearning godhead and a golden bride.'
'But now thou seemst almost too high and great
For mortal worship; Time lies below thy feet
And the whole world seems only a part of thee,
Thy presence the hushed heaven I inhabit, '
'Hast thou not taken my heart to treasure it
In the secure environment of thy breast?
Awakened from the silence and the sleep,
I have consented for thy sake to be.'
'By thee I have greatened my mortal arc of life,
But now far heavens, unmapped infinitudes
Thou hast brought me, thy illimitable gift!
If to fill these thou lift thy sacred flight,
My human earth will still demand thy bliss.
Make still my life through thee a song of joy
And all my silence wide and deep with thee.'
And that is the ilk of divine love..
'All now is changed, yet all is still the same.
Lo, we have looked upon the face of God,
Our life has opened with divinity.
We have borne identity with the Supreme
And known his meaning in our mortal lives.'
An epoch fresh and divine new began...
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
(An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Twelve: Epilogue
The Return to Earth
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's)
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Aurobindo 148 Savitri Book 10
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Ten: The Book of the Double Twilight
Canto Three - The Debate of Love and Death
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
Arduous her efforts along the dark road was heroic
Her venturous word-war against Death was valorous
'O Death, not for my heart's sweet poignancy
Nor for my happy body's bliss alone
I have claimed from thee the living Satyavan,
But for his work and mine, our sacred charge.
Our lives are God's messengers beneath the stars; '
What a clever talk from Savitri to Death..
'To dwell under death's shadow they have come
Tempting God's light to earth for the ignorant race,
His love to fill the hollow in men's hearts,
His bliss to heal the unhappiness of the world.
For I, the woman, am the force of God,
He the Eternal's delegate soul in man.
My will is greater than thy law, O Death;
My love is stronger than the bonds of Fate: '
'Our love is the heavenly seal of the Supreme.
I guard that seal against thy rending hands.
Love must not cease to live upon the earth;
For Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven,
Love is the far Transcendent's angel here;
Love is man's lien on the Absolute.'
Her determination was heaven-high
So were her words godly nectarous
'But to the woman Death the god replied,
With the ironic laughter of his voice
Discouraging the labour of the stars: '
Death is Inconscience and Inconscience is dark
Dark is Death and his shadowy job and to Savitri
His soundless voice even was dark.....
My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 86 Savitri Book 6
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Six: The Book of Fate
Canto One: The Word of Fate
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'In silent bounds bordering the mortal's plane
Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.'
'Across an intangible border of soul-space
He passed from Mind into material things'
'He felt a sap of life, a sap of death; '
Also a making of a new destiny by Savitri...
'He saw the eternal labour of the Gods,
And looked upon the life of beasts and men.'
'A change now fell upon the singer's mood,
A rapture and a pathos moved his voice; '
'He sang no more the deathless heart of Love,
His chant was a hymn of Ignorance and Fate.'
'He who has conquered the Immortals' seats,
Came down to men on earth the Man divine.'
'Looked out from luminous cloud and, strangely limned,
His face, a beautiful mask of antique joy,
Appearing in light descended where arose
King Aswapati's palace to the winds'
'There welcomed him the sage and thoughtful king, '
'Queen-browed, the human mother of Savitri.'
'He sang to them of the lotus-heart of love
With all its thousand luminous buds of truth, '
'Even as he sang and rapture stole through earth-time
And caught the heavens, came with a call of hooves,
As of her swift heart hastening, Savitri; '
'She stood before her mighty father's throne'
'He cried to her, 'Who is this that comes, the bride, '
Goes on in thou words still more.................
...............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 125 Savitri Book 8
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Eight: The Book of Death
Canto Three*: Death in the Forest
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Then the doomed husband and the woman who knew
Went with linked hands into that solemn world'
Beside her Satyavan walked full of joy
Because she moved with him through his green haunts:
He showed her all the forest's riches, flowers
Innumerable of every odour and hue'
'But little dwelt her mind upon their sense;
Of death, not life she thought or life's lone end.'
'Love in her bosom hurt with the jagged edges
Of anguish moaned at every step with pain
Crying, 'Now, now perhaps his voice will cease
For ever.'Even by some vague touch oppressed
Sometimes her eyes looked round as if their orbs
Might see the dim and dreadful god's approach.
'But Satyavan had paused. He meant to finish
His labour here that happy, linked, uncaring'
'She like a pantheress leaped upon his words
And carried them into her cavern heart.
But as he worked, his doom upon him came.
The violent and hungry hounds of pain
Travelled through his body biting as they passed
Silently, and all his suffering breath besieged
Strove to rend life's strong heart-cords and be free.
'She came to him in silent anguish and clasped, '
'And he cried to her, 'Savitri, a pang
Cleaves through my head and breast as if the axe
Were piercing it and not the living branch.'
'Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lap
And guard me with thy hands from evil fate:
Perhaps because thou touchest, death may pass.'...
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 141 Savitri Book 10
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Ten: The Book of the Double Twilight
Canto Two: The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Thus is the ideal falsified in man's world;
Trivial or sombre, disillusion comes,
Life's harsh reality stares at the soul:
Heaven's hour adjourned flees into bodiless Time.
Death saves thee from this and saves Satyavan:
He now is safe, delivered from himself;
He travels to silence and felicity.
Call him not back to the treacheries of earth'
But Savitri replied to the dark Power:
'A dangerous music now thou findst, O Death, Line 201 to
I cherish God the Fire, not God the Dream.'Line 280
'But I forbid thy voice to slay my soul.
My love is not a hunger of the heart,
My love is not a craving of the flesh;
It came to me from God, to God returns.'
An honest reply true to Savitri's godly love
'A breath is felt from the eternal spheres.
Allowed by Heaven and wonderful to man
A sweet fire-rhythm of passion chants to love.
There is a hope in its wild infinite cry; '
It rings with callings from forgotten heights,
And when its strains are hushed to high-winged souls
In their empyrean, its burning breath
Survives beyond, the rapturous core of suns'...
'One who came love and lover and beloved
Eternal, built himself a wondrous field
And wove the measures of a marvellous dance.'
'He named himself for me, grew Satyavan.'
'For we were man and woman from the first,
The twin souls born from one undying fire.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aurobindo 122 Savitri Book 7
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Seven: The Book of Yoga
Canto Seven: The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit
and the Cosmic Consciousness
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'In the little hermitage in the forest's heart,
In the sunlight and the moonlight and the dark
The daily human life went plodding on
Even as before with its small unchanging works
And its spare outward body of routine
And happy quiet of ascetic peace.
The old beauty smiled of the terrestrial scene;
She too was her old gracious self to men.'
'Accustomed only to read outward signs
None saw aught new in her, none divined her state; '
'To all she was the same perfect Savitri: '
'An impersonal emptiness walked and spoke in her,
Something perhaps unfelt, unseen, unknown
Guarded the body for its future work,
Or Nature moved in her old stream of force.'
A preparatory mind alert inside...
'Thus was she lost within to separate self;
Her mortal ego perished in God's night.'
'There was some high surpassing Secrecy,
And when she sat alone with Satyavan,
Her moveless mind with his that searched and strove,
In the hush of the profound and intimate night
She turned to the face of a veiled voiceless Truth
Hid in the dumb recesses of the heart
'Something unknown, unreached, inscrutable
Sent down the messages of its bodiless Light,
Cast lightning flashes of a thought not ours
Crossing the immobile silence of her mind: '
If it is not the told mythology
'What's next? ' is my curiosity.........
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!