Book-7-Study-Canto-7

Book Seven: Canto 7

The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness

Summary

The daily human life in the hermitage goes on as usual. Savitri is her usual gracious self to all. None sees anything new in her.

Though outwardly she speaks and acts as always, there is a great change within her. A vacant consciousness watches from within her; she is impersonal in her movements. Some Nihil, some Mystery seems to act through her. Her mortal ego is no more.

From a distant Vast come messages of light, flashes of thought which flow out in high revealing words when she speaks. Her emptiness becomes a channel for the Inconscient Nature and the Superconscient mystery. Her being is a Centre without circumference. Within her all is still.

One night, as she is sitting by the side of Satyavan who is asleep, a voice begins to speak from her heart and as it speaks all changes. The sense of unreality ceases to be. An experience of a stupendous Truth, an absolute Reality, grows. All becomes conscious, reveals itself as of the Infinite, made of Eternity. This Reality is realised as her own self and the self of all; it is Timeless and Time, Bliss, Love and the Beloved, all-seeing Mind.

Savitri passes beyond Time and Space. She is at once a measureless point and all vastness. She lives in the everlasting. She realises the universe to be a body of the Real, with God for its soul.

She sees the world as living God, the One that is All. She is identified with him in her self. She becomes one with Nature and feels the movements of all in Nature as in herself. She is no more an individual person, she is all in the world. She is spread out in infinity, one with the Whole.

She is the subconscient life that courses in plant creation, she is the mind and heart in man, she climbs as his soul to God. The entire cosmos in Tune and Space flowers in her; she is its foundation.

She rises beyond Time and Space into the Superconscient and moves in Infinity; through her Eternity looks upon Time.

Daily Life Plodding On

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.

Life goes on, in its bare routine in the little hermitage where Savitri dwells. The quiet peace of the ascetic and the ancient beauty of earth-nature continue. Savitri is her old gracious self to all, despite all the changes that she has undergone within.

As if death were not

The Ancient Mother clutched her child to her breast
Pressing her close in her environing arms,
As if earth ever the same could for ever keep
The living spirit and body in her clasp,
As if death were not there nor end nor change.

The ancient Universal Mother holds her child Savitri close to her breast, enfolding her in her arms, as though the earth were ever the same and there was no change or end or death and so she could keep the living spirit and body for ever within her clasp.

None Divines Her State

Accustomed only to read outward signs
None saw aught new in her, none divined her state;
They saw a person where was only God’s vast,
A still being or a mighty nothingness.

To all she was the same perfect Savitri:
A greatness and a sweetness and a light
Poured out from her upon her little world.

Being accustomed to know things only from their outer signs, none sees anything new in Savitri or guesses her inner state. They see only an individual where in fact there is the vast of God, a still being or a formidable nothingness.

To all she is the same perfect Savitri that they have known: a greatness, a sweetness and a light continue to pour out from her upon this little world around her.

Vacant Consciousness

Life showed to all the same familiar face,
Her acts followed the old unaltered round,
She spoke the words that she was wont to speak
And did the things that she had always done.

Her eyes looked out on earth’s unchanging face,
Around her soul’s muteness all moved as of old,
A vacant consciousness watched from within
Empty of all but bare Reality.

To all she appears to be the same as before; her acts move in the same old grooves, her words are the same as those she has always spoken, her doings the same as those she has always done. She looks out on the unchanging face of the earth, and around the muteness of her soul within, all moves in the same way as before.Only her consciousness that watches is different; it is empty of everything; the bare Reality alone remains.

Impersonal Emptiness

There was no will behind the word and act,
No thought formed in her brain to guide the speech:
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.

There is no will to impel her speech or action, no thought in her brain to move her speech. Some impersonal emptiness is there that walks and speaks in her. It looks as though something unfelt, unseen and unknown is guarding her body for its work in the coming future. Or may be it is old Nature that continues to act in her without her active participation.

Miraculous Nihil

Perhaps she bore made conscious in her breast
The miraculous Nihil, origin of our souls
And source and sum of the vast world’s events,
The womb and grave of thought, a cipher of God,
A zero circle of being’s totality.

Perhaps she is carrying in her breast a living Nihil, a miraculous Nothing which is after all the source of our souls, the fount and ultimate of all events of the world, the beginning and the end of thought, God-zero enclosing the totality of being.

Mortal Ego Perishes

It used her speech and acted in her acts,
It was beauty in her limbs, life in her breath;
The original Mystery wore her human face.

Thus was she lost within to separate self;
Her mortal ego perished in God’s night.

This Nihil it is that speaks in her words, acts in her actions, forms the beauty of her limbs, is the very life in her breath; it is the original Mystery bearing her human face.

Thus within herself, Savitri is no more a separate entity. In her, the human ego that is the proof of separativity is dead in the Night of God that has overtaken her.

Ego’s Shell Left

Only a body was left, the ego’s shell
Afloat mid drift and foam of the world-sea,
A sea of dream watched by a motionless sense
In a figure of unreal reality.

The ego is no more, but its shell is still there in the form of the body floating amidst the drifting and effervescing waves of the world-sea, a veritable dream-sea watched by an unmoving sense in a scene that looks real but is in fact unreal.

Original Loneliness

An impersonal foresight could already see,—
In the unthinking knowledge of the spirit
Even now it seemed nigh done, inevitable,—
The individual die, the cosmos pass;
These gone, the transcendental grew a myth,
The Holy Ghost without the Father and Son,
Or, a substratum of what once had been,
Being that never willed to bear a world
Restored to its original loneliness,
Impassive, sole, silent, intangible.

An impersonal advance sight already sees in the spirit’s knowledge — without the process of thinking — the inevitability of the death of the individual, the passing of the cosmos, the transcendental becoming a myth altogether, the Father and Son of the Trinity disappearing leaving only the Holy Ghost; or it foresees the underlying substance of what had once existed, a Being that had borne a world without its will, now restored to its original solitude, sole, silent, impassive, intangible.

High Secrecy

Yet all was not extinct in this deep loss;
The being travelled not towards nothingness.

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
Or waiting beyond the last peak climbed by Thought,—
Unseen itself it sees the struggling world
And prompts our quest, but cares not to be found,—
Out of that distant Vast came a reply.

And yet everything does not become extinct; her being does not pass towards nothingness. There is still some surpassing Secrecy, some Mystery. When she is alone with Satyavan and her unmoving mind becomes one with his searching and striving mind in the hush of the deep and intimate night, she comes face to face with a veiled, mute Truth that is hidden in the silent depths of the heart or waits beyond the highest reach of Thought, unseen yet seeing the struggling world, prompting our quest, without caring to be found.

From out of that far-off Vast comes a reply.

Messages from the unknown

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:
In its might of irresponsible sovereignty
It seized on speech to give those flamings shape,
Made beat the heart of wisdom in a word
And spoke immortal things through mortal lips.

Something unknown, unreached and mysterious from that Vast sends down messages of its supraphysical light and its flashes of superhuman thought across the moveless silence of her mind. In its imperious might it moulds her speech to give expression to those messages, makes each word vibrate with wisdom and through her mortal lips speaks things that are immortal.

Strange Revealings

Or, listening to the sages of the woods,
In question and in answer broke from her
High strange revealings impossible to men,
Something or someone secret and remote
Took hold of her body for his mystic use,
Her mouth was seized to channel ineffable truths,
Knowledge unthinkable found an utterance.

In her converse with the sages of the forest, new unexpected revelations beyond the human range come from her; something or someone hidden and remote possesses her body for his mystic purpose, ineffable truths are spoken through her lips, Knowledge beyond thought finds utterance.

Impassive

Astonished by a new enlightenment,
Invaded by a streak of the Absolute,
They marvelled at her, for she seemed to know
What they had only glimpsed at times afar.

These thoughts were formed not in her listening brain,
Her vacant heart was like a stringless harp;
Impassive the body claimed not its own voice,
But let the luminous greatness through it pass.

The sages gaze on her filled with wonder, astonished by her new enlightenment, struck by a touch of the Absolute in her; for she seems to know what so far they had only half-glimpsed on occasions, distantly.

These thoughts of hers are not formed in her brain that only listens; her heart is vacant of emotions like a harp without strings, is soundless; her body is impassive and does not affirm its speech to be its own; it lets the luminous greatness pass through it without claiming it as its own or interfering with it.

Dual Power acts Still

A dual Power at being’s occult poles
Still acted, nameless and invisible:
Her divine emptiness was their instrument.

Inconscient Nature dealt with the world it had made,
And using still the body’s instruments
Slipped through the conscious void she had become;
The superconscient Mystery through that Void
Missioned its word to touch the thoughts of men.

A dual Power — the inconscient and the superconscient — still acts at the two hidden ends of her being; her divine emptiness becomes their channel. Inconscient Nature, using her body’s instruments gets across to the world through the conscious void that Savitri has become. Similarly, the superconscient Mystery above despatches its message through that Void to touch the thoughts of men around.

Thoughts from Cosmic Breadths

As yet this great impersonal speech was rare.

But now the unmoving wide spiritual space
In which her mind survived tranquil and bare,
Admitted a traveller from the cosmic breadths:
A thought came through draped as an outer voice.

This kind of impersonal speech has been rare so far. Now the wide immobile spiritual space in which survives her mind, tranquil and nude, admits a voyaging thought from the universal atmosphere this thought comes in the form of an external voice.

Circle without Circumference

It called not for the witness of the mind,
It spoke not to the hushed receiving heart;
It came direct to the pure perception’s seat,
An only centre now of consciousness,
If centre could be where all seemed only space;
No more shut in by body’s walls and gates,
Her being a circle without circumference
Already now surpassed all cosmic bounds
And more and more spread into infinity.

This thought does not claim the attention of the mind, nor does it impact on the still, receiving heart; it comes direct to the station of pure perception which is now the only remaining centre of her consciousness — if at all there can be a centre where there seems to be only endless space.

Her being is no more walled in by the body; a circle without a bounding circumference, it has already gone beyond all cosmic boundaries and increasingly spreads over into infinity.

Her being a World

This being was its own unbounded world,
A world without form or feature or circumstance,
It had no ground, no wall, no roof of thought,
Yet saw itself and looked on all around
In a silence motionless and illimitable.

Her being is a limitless world by itself, a world without determining form, feature or circumstance. It has neither a fixed ground nor enclosing walls nor roofing thought; and yet it can perceive itself and see too all around in a still and illimitable silence.

A Still Infinity

There was no person there, no centred mind,
No seat of feeling on which beat events
Or objects wrought and shaped reaction’s stress.

There was no motion in this inner world,
All was a still and even infinity.

In her the Unseen, the Unknown waited his hour.

In her being there is no more a person, no more a focussed mind, no seat of feeling on which events can strike or objects act and provoke reactions. In her inner world there is no movement. All is a still and level infinity.

The Unseen and the Unknown waits for his hour in Savitri.

A Voice Speaks

But now she sat by sleeping Satyavan
Awake within, and the enormous Night
Surrounded her with the Unknowable’s vast.

A voice began to speak from her own heart
That was not hers, yet mastered thought and sense.

One night, Savitri is sitting by the side of Satyavan who is sleeping. She is awake within herself; round her is the huge Night with the vastitude of the Unknowable.

From within her heart a voice begins to speak; the voice is not hers, but it has seized her thought and sense.

All Lives

As it spoke all changed within her and without;
All was, all lived; she felt all being one;
The world of unreality ceased to be:
There was no more a universe built by mind,
Convicted as a structure or a sign;

As the voice speaks, all changes both within and without her.

She feels all creation coming back to life and realises that all being is one existence. What had appeared to be an unreality ceases to be so. What had seemed to be a universe constructed by the mind, no more than a temporary structure or a symbol, is once more felt as real and substantial.

Stupendous Truth

A spirit, a being saw created things
And cast itself into unnumbered forms
And was what it saw and made; all now became
An evidence of one stupendous truth,
A Truth in which negation had no place,
A being and a living consciousness,
A stark and absolute Reality.

A spirit, a being perceives all created things and casts itself into innumerable forms, it becomes what it sees and makes. Everything now testifies to a stupendous Truth in which there is no negation anywhere, the fact of a being, a living consciousness, a sheer and absolute Reality.

Infinite and Eternal

There the unreal could not find a place,
The sense of unreality was slain:
There all was conscious, made of the Infinite,
All had a substance of Eternity.

In this Reality, there can be nothing unreal. The sense of unreality is destroyed. All is conscious, all is a make of the Infinite, the very substance of all is Eternity.

Indecipherable

Yet this was the same Indecipherable;
It seemed to cast from it universe like a dream
Vanishing for ever into an original Void.

But this was no more some vague ubiquitous point
Or a cipher of vastness in unreal Nought.

It was the same but now no more seemed far
To the living clasp of her recovered soul.

And yet this Reality too is as indecipherable as the Negation experienced earlier. It seems to project the universe from itself like a dream that ultimately vanishes into some original Void. But this is no more a vague point that is everywhere or a vast zero in some unreal Nothing. Though indecipherable, it does not seem far to the living clasp of her soul that Savitri has now recovered from the sense of near dissolution that had overcome it earlier.

Reality of Existing Things

It was her self, it was the self of all,
It was the reality of existing things,
It was the consciousness of all that lived
And felt and saw; it was Timelessness and Time,
It was the Bliss of formlessness and form.

It was all Love and the one Beloved’s arms,
It was sight and thought in one all-seeing Mind,
It was joy of being on the peaks of God.

The Absolute that Savitri now experiences is her own self and the self of all, the constituting reality of all that exists; it is the consciousness of all that lives, feels and sees. It is at once Timelessness and Time, the Bliss of formlessness and form. It is all Love and yet the one Beloved folding her in his arms (Love impersonal and the personal Lover). It is sight and thought in one all-perceiving Mind. It is the sheer joy of being on the summits of God-existence.

Beyond time and space

She passed beyond Time into eternity,
Slipped out of space and became the Infinite;
Her being rose into unreachable heights
And found no end of its journey in the Self.

It plunged into the unfathomable deeps
And found no end to the silent mystery
That held all world within one lonely breast,
Yet harboured all creation’s multitudes.

Savitri crosses beyond Time into eternity, beyond space into infinity. Her being rises to heights that are normally unscalable and yet comes to no terminus in its voyage into the Self. It plunges as well into the inner depths and finds no end to the silent mystery that holds the entire world in its single heart and still finds room for all the multitudes of creation.

One Huge Spirit

She was all vastness and one measureless point,
She was a height beyond heights, a depth beyond depths,
She lived in the everlasting and was all
That harbours death and bears the wheeling hours.

All contraries were true in one huge spirit
Surpassing measure, change and circumstance.

She is at once all vastitude and the infinitesimal point without magnitude, a height beyond all heights and a depth beyond all depths. She abides in the permanent and yet is all that contains death and circling time. All contraries find their truth in that one vast Spirit that exceeds all determinations, change and circumstance.

Creator and Lord

An individual, one with cosmic self
In the heart of the Transcendent’s miracle
And the secret of World-personality
Was the creator and the lord of all.

Here is realised the truth of manifestation: an individual, united with the self of the cosmos, in the depth of the Transcendent’s mystery, the hidden base of the world as a Personality of the Divine, is the sole creator and Master of all.

Single Immense Reality

Mind was a single innumerable look
Upon himself and all that he became,
Life was his drama and the Vast a stage,
The universe was his body, God its soul.

All was one single immense reality,
All its innumerable phenomenon.

Of this creator and lord, the mind is a single, multitudinous look upon his being and his manifold becoming. Life is his play and the Vast his stage. The universe is his body and God the soul of this body-universe.

All is seen to be one single huge reality and everything its varied phenomenon.

World as Living God

Her spirit saw the world as living God;
It saw the One and knew that all was He.

She knew him as the Absolute’s self-space,
One with her self and ground of all things here
In which the world wanders seeking for the Truth
Guarded behind its face of ignorance:
She followed him through the march of endless Time.

Savitri’s spirit perceives the world to be living God. It sees the One Real and knows that all is He. She realises Him, the One that is All, as the self-extension of the Absolute. He is one with her own soul, He is the base of all things, all movements through which this world wanders searching for the Truth which stands guarded behind its mask of Ignorance.

She follows Him through the march of eternal Time.

She inhabits the Vastness

All Nature’s happenings were events in her,
The heart-beats of the cosmos were her own,
All beings thought and felt and moved in her;
She inhabited the vastness of the world,
Its distances were her nature’s boundaries,
Its closenesses her own life’s intimacies.

Savitri is identified with all Nature.

All happenings in Nature are felt as events in her own self, the rhythms of the cosmos are her own; all beings are realised as thinking, feeling and moving in her. She dwells spread out in the vastness of the world; its distances are her own boundaries, its closenesses are the intimacies of her own life.

One and Multitudinous

Her mind became familiar with its mind,
Its body was her body’s larger frame
In which she lived and knew herself in it
One, multitudinous in its multitudes.

She was a single being, yet all things;

Her mind is in communion with the mind of the world. Its body is only a larger form of her own body, an extension in which she lives as the one unique and yet as the various many. She is a single being and still she is all things.

She is all The World

The world was her spirit’s wide circumference,
The thoughts of others were her intimates,
Their feelings close to her universal heart,
Their bodies her many bodies kin to her;
She was no more herself but all the world.

The whole world is but the large circumference of her spirit; the thoughts of others are known to her, the feelings of others are close to her world-wide heart, even their bodies are her own diverse bodies.Savitri is no longer her separate individual self; she is the whole world.

Infinity Her Natural Home

Out of the infinitudes all came to her,
Into the infinitudes sentient she spread,
Infinity was her own natural home.

Nowhere she dwelt, her spirit was everywhere,
The distant constellations wheeled round her;
Earth saw her born, all worlds were her colonies,
The greater worlds of life and mind were hers;
All Nature reproduced her in its lines,
Its movements were large copies of her own.

All flows towards her from the infinitudes, she spreads out consciously into the infinitudes; infinity becomes her natural home. She dwells nowhere in particular for her spirit is everywhere. The far-off constellations revolve around her. The earth witnesses her new birth; all the worlds are her domains; even the greater worlds of life and mind are hers. All Nature manifests Savitri; its movements are larger replicas of her own movements.

Immense Identity

She was the single self of all these selves,
She was in them and they were all in her.

This first was an immense identity
In which her own identity was lost:
What seemed herself was an image of the Whole.

She is the one self of all the selves in the universe; she lives in them and they in her. At first this is realized as an immense identity in which her own individual identity is lost. What appears to be herself is only an image of the Whole, not anything separately self-existent.

Subconscient Life Ascending

She was a subconscient life of tree and flower,
The outbreak of the honied buds of spring;
She burned in the passion and splendour of the rose,
She was the red heart of the passion flower,
The dream-white of the lotus in its pool.

Out of subconscient life she climbed to mind,
She was thought and the passion of the world’s heart,
She was the godhead hid in the heart of man,
She was the climbing of his soul to God.

She is aflow as the subconscient life in the plant creation, in its beauty and splendour, in its purity and intensity. From the subconscient life-levels she ascends to the mental levels: she becomes the thought, the passion of the world’s heart.

She is also the veiled godhead — the soul-person — in the heart of man and she it is that climbs in his soul to God.

Infinity and Eternity

The cosmos flowered in her, she was its bed.

She was Time and the dreams of God in Time;
She was Space and the wideness of his days.

From this she rose where Time and Space were not;
The superconscient was her native air,
Infinity was her movement’s natural space;
Eternity looked out from her on Time.

She becomes the bed on which the whole cosmos flowers. She is Time and the pourings of God in Time; she is Space and the extensions of God in his becomings.

From this too she rises into a state beyond Time and Space. She breathes the air of the superconscient; the whole infinity is the natural space for her movement. She becomes one with Eternity and through her Eternity looks upon Time.