Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

CANTO X

THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE LITTLE MIND

Aswapathy had to overpass the higher vital world as he had to reach the very Highest "In whom the world arid self grow true and one". The human journey upward cannot cease till that is reached. So long as the human being remains satisfied within the limits of its vital desires and their satisfaction, so long as "This creature hugs his limits to feel safe", till then he cannot aspire to realise the spiritual Self,

"It could not house the wideness of a soul

Which needed all infinity for its home."

Aswapathy saw before him a road stretching to timelessness, disappearing into a sky, lighted with an unseen light. These higher realms were realms of lucent mind which were quite different from the realms of the vital. The rays of these realms "Parting Life's sentient flow from Thought's self-poise" created a world—a new world—"On a ground reserved for doubt and reasoned guess". It was a meeting-ground of knowledge and ignorance. This mind "only sensed itself and outward things". From the realm of the half conscient animal existence in which the being could not understand nor change either itself or its surroundings "This was the first means of our slow ascent". It is this mind which devises

"...the forms of an ignorant life,

That sees the empiric fact as settled law,

Labours for the hour and not for eternity".

It is the faculty of ordinary reasoning practical mind which man

uses in the very beginning of his spiritual awakening; "It reasons from the half-known to the unknown" and creates its constructions of thought which it, again, abrogates. This mind is like a sage "whose shadow seems to him Self". It moves from detail to detail, depending upon proofs for its knowledge,

"This powerful bondslave of his instruments

Thinks his low station Nature's highest top".

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Thus in the very beginning of human awakening "Our mortal frailty cradles an immortal force".

Above this first awakening of mind was the realm of intelligence which worked behind the outer appearance of Inconscience, half-consciousness and mental consciousness. It seemed to be

"A prototypal deft Intelligence

Half-poised on equal wings of thought and doubt"

working ceaselessly between two hidden ends of existence—the Inconscient and the Super-conscient. It is the operation of this intelligence which acts in the instinctive workings of life and dictates the exact behaviour which we find in matter. Not only does it work separately in matter and life but it also joins the physical with the vital and even goes further to the creation of thought and links I' human consciousness "to the effulgence of a Ray above". In the human mind also it is this intelligence present everywhere that helps man to become conscious not only of himself but also of the workings of this intelligence. As the fundamental and the original truth of Existence is infinite, this intelligence had to divide itself into small parts so that each part could be contained in a thought. But this could not last for ever and could not satisfy the deepest hunger of the being. After some time, powers of the higher realms of consciousness swept down like a wave and brought in their trail ' the operations of certain faculties which

"...looked above and saw the dazzling peaks,

It looked within and woke the sleeping god."

It was imagination with her shining army, "Lifting her beautiful and miraculous head" and freeing the human consciousness from the limitations of sense and reason. Myth was created by this faculty to feed the growing human soul's childhood with a food

"Far richer in their sweet and nectarous sap ;

Nourishing its immature divinity -

Than the staple or dry straw of Reason's tilth,

Its heaped fodder of innumerable facts, ;

Plebeian fare on which today we thrive."

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It was under the action of these faculties that "The Golden Child" born within the heart of man began to think and see.

A mind eager to know everything takes this cosmos like a playhouse and works in it like an infant.

"As one it works who builds a mimic fort

Miraculously stable for a while,

Made of the sands upon a bank of Time,

Mid an occult eternity's shoreless sea."

The knowledge that man has to acquire is not to be acquired from outside. It is already there within us "hid behind our minds". It has in fact fallen asleep and "To evoke, to give it form is Nature's task". This cannot be done hastily because the whole world-ignorance is to be liquidated and "Only a slow advance the earth can bear". At the beginning, this mind considers its ignorance as the measuring rod of all her knowledge and consequently breaks up the unity of all into small fractions. Evidently this mind was not intended to reach the Highest because "A passage she cut through from Night to Light". It was intended to be a search for an ungrasped omniscience.

This search of the human spirit for the Highest knowledge was helped by "A dwarf three-bodied trinity". These three dwarf's were the physical mind, the mind of desire and the reasoning mind. The first of them was

"A pigmy Thought needing to live in bounds

"Absorbed and cabined in external sight".

Everything to it appears to be a habit,—a habit of life, a habit of the world, a habit of the mind. This mind is content with the commonplace

"Abhorring change as an audacious sin,

Distrustful of each new discovery".

It does not want to take up any risks for greater attainment or enjoyment. To it, external fact is the only truth and "Only what sense can grasp seems absolute". It is the conventional mind fixed in its groove

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that wants to conserve and guard everything that is old; it is like a watch-dog that barks at every unfamiliar light. This mind makes safe the first step of evolution by strengthening the physical and the material basis, so that "Even in change is treasured changelessness". Thus in the cosmos

"The Energy acts, the stable is its seal:

On Shiva's breast is stayed the enormous dance".

The next dwarf "a hunchback rider of die red Wild-Ass" who tries to eat at the being's heart,—-"Thence sprang the burning vision of Desire". It is a force that wears a thousand shapes and burns in every breast "And uses for muddy ends Its brilliant Force". It is a huge chameleon changing its colour every moment—

"Hungry, it stared from a mottled bough of life,

To .snap up insect joys, its favourite food".

It was all the rime making claims upon the cosmos, yet, all the time it was unknowingly approaching "the hidden Something that is All". "A brilliant instability was its mark", and "It thought all true that flattered its own hopes". It was full of fancy, trying to imagine brilliant satisfaction of its impulses,—

"An eager spring to seize and to possess

Unguided by reason or the seeing soul

Was its first natural motion and its last".

In this attempt, this mind wasted all the life force and never succeeded in attaining the impossible, It took to adventure and in spite of failures it could not be persuaded to give it up because, "Attempt, not victory, was the charm of life". This power also served the growth of man by cultivating the power of the Infinite that was within him. It gave him free realm to exercise his creative fancy whose "passion caught what calm intelligence missed". It was a mind that was trying to see in the light but was yet blinking and '"Ignorance was its field, the unknown its prize".

The third was the greatest of the three. It arrived from the plane of thought into this world of chance. This was reason which was

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"the squat godhead artisan". She was "Armed with her lens and measuring-rod and probe" and looked at this objective universe and tried to make something out of it. She was impatient of enigma and the unknown; she did not like lawlessness and uniqueness; "She strove to reduce to rules the mystic world". In reality, she knew nothing but hoped to know everything. She was

"Ignorant of all but her own seeking mind

To save the world from Ignorance she came."

She tried to reduce man's deepest aspirations into hard and fast constructions which act rather as its steel frame prisons and very soon reduce men to the lifeless mechanic existence. "For the world seen she weaves a world conceived". Like maps hung in schools, she forces wide truth into a narrow scheme. In all her operations she retains the limitations of mind in which every act of know- ledge is accompanied by a doubt. She has to go on constantly changing her knowledge and this constant change is called progress by her.

This work of reason is an inconclusive play and, in fact, reason is used as a tool by every strong idea. She is like an advocate who accepts every brief and being open to all thoughts she is unable to know. In the process of argumentation on which she depends for finding the truth, she cannot arrive at the truth, because it is a fight which can go on for ever without leading to a result—"Absolute her judgments seem but none is sure". Whatever temporary truth she formulates "Time cancels all her verdicts in appeal". Even though the knowledge she acquires appears to our little mind the highest light, in reality, "Its rays are a lantern's lustres in the Night". She is not a master of truth, rather, she is

"A master and slave of stark phenomenon

"A bullock yoked in the cart of proven fact,

She drags huge knowledge-bales through Matter's dust

To reach utility's immense bazaar".

She refuses to accept as true what is not perceptible by the senses and consequently her view of cosmos is materialistic, giving her no

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clue to the problem of the origin of the cosmos and its purpose. Its conclusion about the cosmos is that the energy which has expanded itself in the form of the universe will ultimately contract itself and,

"Then ends this mighty and unmeaning toil,

The Void is left bare, vacant as before."

After this confident conclusion about the wherefore of the cosmos, it is faced suddenly with unseen things, "A lightning from the undiscovered Truth" startles her eyes and creates ''a gulf between the Real and the Known". Thus, after its self-complacent conclusion about the ultimate of the cosmos, "Once more we face the blank Unknowable". It is then seen by her that all her explanations really explained nothing and that even "Matter was an incident in being's flow". What is called law was only a habit of blind force. This want of finality subjects human life to a tremendous uncertainty, and reason cannot solve man's problems because she is not allowed to impose on mankind her materialistic and mechanical view of the cosmos. If allowed, she would "In society build a just exact machine" and rule the cosmos with the help of science and logic. This can only happen if the deepest spirit in man falls asleep permanently. Then only can man remain content and in peace with this rule of reason.

But there is a higher realm of the rising Sun where greater knowledge predominates. What is mixed here and deformed is found there pure and whole. From the point of view of this higher power of knowledge, reason is only a half search and passage and the little mind of man is to it like a child, its

"Desire is a child-heart's cry craving for bliss,

Our reason only a toys' artificer".

In spite of the division to which human mind is obliged to reduce the whole and the one Truth yet there persists in his consciousness an aspiration that one day the highest truth will be known and the face of the divine Reality burn through the mask.

"Even now great thoughts are here that walk alone:

"In an investiture of intuitive light".

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One day, in the wake of this higher intuitive knowledge will come

"On lustrous seas from the still rapt Alone

To illumine the deep heart of self and things.

A timeless knowledge it shall bring to Mind,

Its aim to life, to Ignorance its close".

He saw that above this human mind there was a region of bright Light from where two demons looked down on .the whole scene, one was "huge high-winged Life-Thought" and the other "A pure Thought-Mind". These two in their combination would make it possible for man to break the limits of his humanity and arrive at a supernal Light.

CANTO XI

THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER MIND

Even though Aswapathy reached the limits of cosmos ordinarily attainable by man, he saw that creation did not stop with these regions. Just as the mind is wider than the brain it uses, so the spirit is greater than the instruments in which it manifests itself. And, really speaking, the spirit is not a product of mind, rather, self- existent knowledge inherent in the Self is really the origin of mind. He now arrived at a region

"Where Thought leaned on a Vision beyond thought,

And shaped a world from the Unthinkable".

These were planes where "The splendours of ideal Mind were seen". These planes create unrealised possibilities far beyond the ken of the expanding universe and they overtop "the ceiling of life's soar". This region intervenes between the divine and the human and it is "Its mights that bridge the gulf twixt man and God". It is the light of these planes that fights against Ignorance and Death. It is in this region that living gods dwell, each trying to build a world in his own right. There knowledge is certain, joy and powers spontaneous. Though these planes are of a different constitution from that of man

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"But since our secret selves are next of kin,

A breath of unattained divinity

Visits the imperfect earth on which we toil;

"A thought comes down from the ideal worlds

And moves us to new-model even here

Some image of their greatness and appeal

"A faith in things that are not and must be

Lives comrade of this world's delight and pain,

The child of the secret soul's forbidden desire".

It is then that the human life on earth participates in the immortality of the spirit and

"We move by the rapid impulse of a will,

That scorns the tardy trudge of mortal Time."

In our origin, we belong to that higher divine world but having dropped into the night of material ignorance we have for the timebeing forfeited our rights and we are self-exiled from our own divine home. Yet,

"Amidst earth's mist and fog and mud and stone

It still remembers its exalted sphere".

But till this memory returns man is completely identified with the life in the body, with his desires and his mind. But, when this memory becomes active he claims once more his imperial right and becomes "Heir to delight and immortality". All the ideals which man dreams of on earth, his dreams of perfection, have all their fully realised counterpart in those higher planes. And it is from there that, in reality, "Immortal footfalls in mind's corridors sound". Human souls can climb to those regions and become in the highest sense, the Manīsī , the Thinker, who enters the immortal's air where there is perfect rhythmic calm and joy. There knowledge precedes action and even matter is a conscious substance. "And Will is a conscious chariot of the Gods". It is a region of constant wisdom, happiness and joy and at its height

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"On meditation's mounting edge of trance

Great stairs of thought climbed up to unborn heights

Where Time's last ridges touch eternity's skies

And Nature speaks to the spirit's absolute."

This thought-world was a triple realm. The first was above bright ethereal skies of mind of man,

"But chough immortal, mighty and divine,

The first realms were close and kin to human mind".

There is an interchange between the beings of that plane and humanity and it is possible for human beings to mount upwards, and for the divine beings to descend here into humanity. Looked at from afar, they seemed like imaginary symbols but when they approached nearer they were seen to be "Gods and living Presences". Their forces stand behind Nature and support her. They support matter, life and mind and in obedience to the divine command create this complex world

"Where the infant spirit learns through mind and sense

To read the letters of the cosmic script

"And search for the secret meaning of the whole."

The million-sided movement of the one Reality was subjected by these forces of knowledge to the limitation of time, space and form and to all the exactness that is necessary for a material manifestation.

Above this region of higher mind stood a race of beings in whose eyes

"A light of liberating Knowledge shone,

"They lived in the mind and knew truth from within".

They could pierce behind outer appearances of things and contact the Reality which eludes the human sense and the narrow human mind. These are

"High architects of possibility

And engineers of the impossible".

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They penetrate the subliminal mind of the cosmos or of the higher power and bring from there the intended potentialities.

"Tracing the curve of a transcendent Power,

They framed the cabbala of the cosmic Law".

They permeate all the forces of nature and forge their ends under the mask of necessity and chance. From the chaotic moods of the Infinite and the Invisible, they derive the calculus of destiny. To the physical mind of man, this deeper and higher aspect of the working of gods is not known. All the living elements that enter into the constitution of the cosmos lose their inmost significance; robbed of their wonder, they become mechanical and drab to the physical mind. This spontaneous movement of higher consciousness was reduced to the proportions of the human mind so that it would understand it. But, in rendering it knowable to man, the miracle, the charm and the mystery, were lost. Men found many truths but not the one Truth that matters. Knowledge of many things did not lead to the knowledge of the essential "And the Transcendent kept its secrecy".

Aswapathy ascended the wide summits of the triple stairs where

"Bare steps climbed up like glowing rocks of gold

Burning their way to a pure absolute sky."

There were here very few kings of thought whose thoughts are partners in the vast control over this world

"A great all-ruling consciousness is there

And Mind unwitting serves a higher Power".

This plane of consciousness is a channel for the operation of that higher power and from that height it is seen that a wisdom knows and guides this world. It rules chance, determines necessity and arranges fate. To it, "Even Nature's ignorance is Truth's instrument". All the struggles of human ego cannot divert the course of this power and everything that it has decreed works out inevitably towards the intended aim. It makes possible the ascent "from the

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plasm to immortality". This greater truth of that higher plane is not normal to the human mind and it is the knowledge and power of forces of that plane that arrange the movement of upward evolution here and make it inevitable. When the human mind attains to this plane, then, all its wisdom stops; because, it feels itself complete

"For nothing more was left to think or knew;

In a spiritual zero it sat throned

And took its vast silence for the Ineffable."

This play of the gods on the higher levels of the mind made possible the descent of the immortal life in time. They have captured truth and want to establish her worship and empire in the world. This Power of Truth, Parā śakti, that is above these higher planes of the mind can become the mental nature in man, serving him as his consort and companion. Man can have a relation of subjection and mastery with her and through all his dealings with her he can experience a throbbing delight. For, in effect, she is not what she seems to be. She is from the immortal and divine heights and the Puruṣa and herself can mutually create each other in image of the transcendent Truth which they both represent here. "She made earth her home, for whom heaven was too small". And yet, all that the earth can afford, all that the life can create, all that the thought can envisage would not be able to seize her Eternal Truth. The whole cosmos lives in a lonely ray of her sun. It is a vanity of the human mind that dreams that the narrow chains of its thought can bind her—

"But only we play with our own brilliant bonds;

Tying her down, it is ourselves we tie."

Being hypnotised by our personality we become oblivious of her boundlessness and

"We share not her immortal liberty.

Thus is it even with the seer and sage;

For still the human limits the divine".

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It is when man goes completely above the plane of mind and establishes himself in the realm of the supreme Sight, when he completely surrenders himself to the absolute power, that

"The timeless Ray descends into our hearts

And we are rapt into eternity."

Let the human mind always remember that it cannot grasp the whole truth in the hollow of its hands

"For Truth is wider, greater than her forms.

A thousand icons they have made of her

"But she remains herself and infinite."

CANTO XII

THE HEAVENS OF THE IDEAL

Aswapathy found that beyond the line of things achieved by man there always was an ideal beckoning from afar, carrying in itself the touch of the Unseen. It was a tireless thought in him that always wanted to discover the Unknown, to achieve the unattained. Behind this search of tireless thought, there is a longing for a Truth infinite and absolute; and each step of the endeavour becomes a new rung in the ladder of human ascent. This flame of aspiration in his heart seemed to be supported by the flame of Spirit which maintained this immortal hope. He saw from afar on one side the blue heavens of the ideal mind and on the other side;

"The lovely kingdoms of the deathless Rose.

Above the spirit cased in mortal sense

Are superconscious realms of heavenly peace,

Below, the Inconscient's sullen dim abyss,

Between, behind our life, the deathless Rose."

Behind the outer appearance of this ignorant and suffering world, unseen by it, "blooms for ever at the feet of God" and "Here too its bud is born in human breast". When the bud of Rose blooms in thehuman heart,

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"Then by a touch, a presence or a voice

The world is turned into a temple ground

And all discloses the unknown Beloved."

Then life becomes a rapture-offering full of bliss, carrying in it the secret divine grace and revealing even in life the working of immortal divine powers. Then the individual feels fulfilled in life. At its summit this realm touches the regions of this Immortals. On those immortal planes are all the elements of human perfection in their entirety. It is "the House of Flame" where the divine thoughts and golden bliss, a strange combination of fire and sweetness and all other joys even of mortal life are present but transmuted by the touch of the Immortal. From the regions of earth there is a movement to reach this House of Flame,

"Tune's sun-flowers' gaze at gold Eternity:

"A million lotuses swaying on one stem,

World after coloured and ecstatic world

Climbs towards some far unseen epiphany."

There was another side of this eternal staircase where

"Out of the sorrow and the darkness of the world,

"Lonely mounts up to heaven the deathless Flame".

In the depth of darkness of humanity, this Flame burns upwards and humanity itself is "its house of sacrifice". Slowly it mounts to the invisible throne ascending plane after plane, going even beyond the realms of the ideals to the "Heights of the grandeur of Truth's ageless ray". But the effort to support this aspiration of a constant higher ascent is too much for the human being to maintain constantly. Human heart, mind and nerves cannot support this tremendous effort

"Only the Eternal's strength in us can dare

To attempt the immense adventure of that climb

And the sacrifice of all we cherish here."

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Through all his efforts man is trying to approximate this inmost dream of his perfection. Man feels—

"Happy the worlds that have not felt our fall,

Where Will is one with Truth and Good with Power".

It is this perfect divine spiritual nature which is reflected in the transparent mirror of Self of the individual who then becomes heir and co-sharer of divinity.

Aswapathy moved beyond this kingdom of the ideals and did not want to stay there permanently because "All there was an intense but partial light". Each idea thought itself absolute there and wanted to mould the whole world into its image. It wanted to make therefore "a world where it could reign alone". This light can only be a guiding angel on the way to the Infinite and the Divine for the traveller of spiritual path. He. was not tempted by their per- suasion because he was dreaming of a state where all the differences between the ideals would not only be forgotten but reconciled and they would all "Become a single multitudinous whole". The destiny of the traveller is the immutable and inviolate Truth of the Eternal.

"On the wide spirit height where all are one".

CANTO XIII

IN THE SELF OF MIND

Going beyond the kingdoms of the ideal world, Aswapathy came to a region "Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice". But he did not answer the million calls, the endless questions, nor did he answer the eager hopes that were directed towards it. It appeared as if the hierarchy of the worlds paused here. And, there Aswapathy

"...stood on a wide arc of summit Space

Alone with an enormous Self of Mind

"Omnipotent, immobile and aloof,

In the world which sprang from it, it took no part".

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This Self of mind was a cause of everything but it was only a witness.

"It acted not but bore all thoughts and deeds,

The witness Lord of Nature's myriad acts".

This witness Lord was also a consenter. The origin of creation is in the silence of the Divine where "A seeing Self and potent Energy met". The Self is thus the "Spectator of a drama self-conceived". As it is a world created out of himself,—in fact, a world which he himself has become,—he naturally understands it and knows it. And this Self could always remain the Self in perfect silence and unbroken peace. It knows the cosmic whole. By a mysterious act of Providence, this self-knowledge was denied to the self and an effort was imposed upon the instruments of nature to acquire the knowledge of the Self. There "A doubt corroded even the means to think". Distrust of the power of mind arose and all knowledge acquired by it turned out to be undependable frauds "Or assets valueless in Truth's treasury". This state of ignorance which reigned in the cosmos gave rise to knowledge which was acquired under the conditions of division and therefore even though what it saw was real but its sight was untrue. The fault lay in the vision. All the ideas which it got were like transient clouds and

"The magic hut of built-up certitudes

Made out of glittering dust and bright moonshine

In which it shrines its image of the Real,

Collapsed into the Nescience whence it rose."

The human "mind is a house haunted by the slain past"; dead ideas mummified, that are ghosts of Truth generally fill the human mind. The whole view of existence is subjected to a tremendous doubt, because, to the human instruments of knowledge it appears like a lotus-leaf in the pool of cosmic Nescience. This Self of mind is like a veil, it is an idol, not the living body of God. It can afford the experience of deep peace but cannot embody the nameless Force, because

"Our sweet and mighty Mother was not there

Who gathers to her bosom her children's lives".

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The rapture of the Infinite, the passion of god-ecstasy proceeding from the boundless heart of love was lacking. For a greater satisfaction of the spiritual hunger of man, a greater spirit than the self of mind is required. Standing on the great vacancy on the summit of abstract firmament of thought, he saw life below, its strife and end- less labour, surging like a great ocean. On the breast of that enormous ocean, everything that is manifested in the cosmos was seen moving, jostling, rising, sinking, rising again and falling into a mystic void, into death. This whole creation reposed upon "the dim Inconscient's dumb incertitude". Two firmaments, one of Darkness and the other of Light, faced each other, offering themselves for the movement of the Spirit. In it the spirit moved in spirals and cycles of acts and thoughts and yet it was no more than its original Self. It seemed as if "to be was a prison, extinction the escape".

CANTO XIV

THE WORLD-SOUL

In response to his seeking for an escape, Aswapathy saw in the background of mind-space a brilliant opening. It extended into the Unknown like "A well; a tunnel of the depths of God". There he felt

"As one drawn to his lost spiritual home

Feels now the closeness of a waiting love,

"He travelled led by a mysterious sound."

This Sound was all sounds yet had the character of sameness. At times it rose high with enthusiasm and delight, at other times, it sank into a whisper going round and round; again, at times, it appeared like the yearning of a lonely flute. It also became a single note like a cricket's. It even became like the jingling of anklet bells. It also became like the tinkling heard from a long caravan from afar. At other rimes it was solemn like the temple gong or like a bee-croon heard in slumberous noon, or like "the far anthem of a pilgrim sea". There was unearthly incense and the feeling of the approach of the invisible Beloved and the possibility of changing the world with the beauty of a smile. Aswapathy found that this was

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"An hour eternal in the heart of Time.

The silent soul of all the world was there".

It was "A single Person who was himself and all" and. he was "Trans- forming all experience to delight". This world-soul

"led things evil towards their secret good,

It turned racked falsehood into happy truth".

From this world-Soul proceeds each new birth of the Eternal and it is "A flame that cancels death in mortal things". Aswapathy found that everything in the cosmos had grown familiar and kindred because "The intimacy of God was everywhere" i e., there was no veil, no barrier dividing consciousness from consciousness, being from being. He felt "A sense of universal harmonies", and "eternity of truth and beauty and good and joy made one". From this centre all finite life seemed to proceed and he saw that "A formless spirit became the soul of form".

This was a plane "of sheer soul-stuff". There was no thought but knowledge was there by "a moved identity". There was a direct communication between consciousness and consciousness and life was not there present as life "but an impassioned force". It was a subtle and spiritual power. There was no physical body there, because body was not needed. The soul itself was its own deathless form. The knowledge derived of things was by their soul and not their shape. Everything there was beautiful by its own birthright. On this plane "world and self were one reality".

There he saw beings that had lived on earth once in a state of silent internatal trance, in the condition of spiritual sleep. They had gone beyond the realms of birth and death into the world's deep soul, "All now was gathered into pregnant rest". They underwent the transformation of their person and nature and created their own future from this plane. And "They waited for the adventure of new life" It is the persistent personality of the Spirit that assumes various names and forms and passes through a series of births. When it is born in life on earth, it

"...learns by experience what the spirit knew,

Till it can see its truth alive and God."

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He discovered that he had come to the centre of creation from where with a starring point of silence, all spiritual personalities—psychic beings— remould their purpose "Recast their nature, and reform their shape". After the period of recouping and rest on this plane they

"Resume their place in the process of the Gods

Until their work in cosmic Time is done."

"Here was the fashioning chamber of the worlds". Aswapathy's soul passed on towards the end which ever begins again, approaching through a stillness to the source of all things, human and divine.

"There he beheld in their mighty union's poise

The figure of the deathless Two-in-One,

A single being in two bodies clasped,

A diarchy of two united souls,

"Their trance of bliss sustain the mobile world."

Behind this dual image, he saw the figure of the supreme Power who "guards the austere approach to the Alone". She is the Supreme Creatrix of the world

"Above them all she stands supporting all,

The sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled

Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask".

His own spirit was made a vessel of Her force and Aswapathy felt a passionate will and "outstretched to her his folded hands of prayer". Then the supreme Mother, in her grace, uncovered to him half of her face. Aswapathy was overwhelmed by the light and bliss, by the sweetness and power and

"Drunk with a deep golden spiritual wine,

He cast from the rent stillness of his soul

A cry of adoration and desire

"He fell down at her feet unconscious, prone,"

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CANTO XV

THE KINGDOMS OF THE GREATER KNOWLEDGE

Aswapathy came "Out of the timeless depths where he had sunk" and "He heard once more the slow tread of the hours". He had now gone beyond the witness Self and his universe and entered into a realm of boundless silences. He aspired to understand and hear the voice that created the worlds.

"A light was round him wide and absolute,

A diamond purity of eternal sight".

There he experienced sheer being living in its own peace, content with only being, full of bliss. There was no nature now.

"It was a plane of undetermined spirit

"A lonely station of Omniscience,

A diving-board of the Eternal's power".

Here was no knowledge by thought because it was beyond thought. But it was the knowledge by which the knower is known. It was "The Love in which the Beloved and the Lover are one". There were a thousand roads in that infinite realm leading towards eternity and having gone beyond the realm of the knowable he gazed with an immeasurable outlook which was "one with self's inlook into its own pure vasts". He saw the miraculous content of knowledge, power and delight of this stupendous All and "Its inexhaustible acts in a timeless Time". Here on this plane of radiant Self, which was multiple of one Self, he found that the spirit was not hidden from its own view and all consciousness was oceanic happiness, "and all creation is an act of light". Then out of the neutral silence of his soul he was called to a vision that climbs beyond the reach of time.

"He moved through regions of transcendent Truth

Inward, immense, innumerably one,"

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He was completely freed from the limitations of mind and Time's triple dividing step baffled him no more and he saw Time in a "single wide regard". There was a universal beauty sheltered behind all forms which rendered commonplace things into wonders of beauty. Here he climbed

"On peaks where Silence listens with still heart

To the rhythmic meters of the rolling worlds,"

and here

"He served the sessions of the triple fire."

Freed from the bondage of death and sleep, he mounted beyond the seas of cosmic mind and "trod along extinction's narrow edge" and "The belt he reached of the unchanging Truth". Beings were seen whose wings fold around created space. "The sun-eyed Guardians and the golden Sphinx" he saw there. There was "A wisdom waiting on Omniscience" in silence and complete passivity. It did not judge nor measure nor try to know "But listened for the all-seeing Thought". Aswapathy had reached the top of all that can be known and the heavens of light and the abyss of darkness revealed their truth to him. Only the ultimate mystery was left to be known. But still on the plane on which he stood there was a complex play of infinity and eternity "A million energies joined and were the One".

It was a realm where no untruth can come "Where all are different and all is one". There "The Person in the World-Spirit anchored rode". He was

"An immortal point of power, a block of poise

In a cosmicity's wide formless surge".

He was re-born in this infinite kingdom of the spirit "And grew in the wisdom of the timeless Child". Henceforward ' '

"He thought and felt in all,...

He communed with the Incommunicable,"

and

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"The Gods conversed with him behind Life's veil".

Thus,

"He scanned the secrets of the Overmind,

He bore the rapture of the Oversoul.

"He linked creation to the Eternal's sphere,

His finite parts approached their absolutes,

His actions framed the movements of the Gods,

His will took up the reins of cosmic Force."

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