Book Seven. The Book of Yoga
Canto I Canto II Canto III Canto IV Canto V Canto VI Canto VII
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Book Seven: Canto 6 Nirvana and the Discovery of the all Negating Absolute
Summary One day as she is still breathing the joy of her lover Satyavan, an abyss suddenly yawns beneath her heart. There is a drag of fear on her nerves. An inexplicable Dread follows in its wake and a profound Darkness envelops all, seeming to abolish her very existence. Out of that negating emptiness a voice speaks to her, in uttered words, questioning the reality of her soul and warning her against the impossibility of happiness in this world of pain, the impossibility of making manifest what is the Unknowable. She is told that only the blank Eternal can be true and all else is a shadow, her soul an invention of a passing moment and the centre of illusion. "Know thyself and cease from vain existence" — this is the message. The Voice ebbs leaving behind it a barren silence; her kingdom of delight is no more. Only her soul remains, alone, awaiting the unknown eternal Will. And from the heights above, after the voice of Night, there comes down the Voice of Light. It is the reply of Heaven to the cry of the Abyss. "Do not expose thy kingdom of felicity to the Enemy. But adventure further and make the whole world thine; do not fear to be nothing that thou mayst be all. "Thou hast come to found thy luminous kingdom in God’s Dark. Thou must needs bear the suffering of the universe if thou wouldst save it. Banish all thought from thee and be God’s Void in order to discover the truth of the Mystery." Savitri listens and plunges deep into herself. She becomes a witness and watches the drama of life and mind in her own inner self. She observes the birth of thought, She sees the activities of the various faculties in the subtle Centres of Consciousness the several Lotuses. She feels the totality of the universe, the high meeting the low. She beholds the mighty Power of Nature and the role of the individual as its instrument. God and Nature do all, only the soul’s acceptance is man’s own. Only when he breaks through the external walls of Matter can man realise his spiritual vastness and assume mastery. Savitri rises above the mind, above the hold of Nature and sees creation from far above. All growsalm and tranquil. The body seems to have become a stone. But the far repose of the Absolute is not yet. She still sees stray thoughts crossing her solitude. Even this stops gradually and all is absolutely still, silent. In this bare stillness she glimpses a supreme all-negating Void. Thought, emotion, feeling all are as if dead. Her body functions by itself, without a person to make it act. Only a pure perception remains. It sees impartially the world go by, it sees only the abysmal unreality of it all. All looks like a cosmic film of scenes and images sketched on a silent mind. And yet she perceives behind all, beyond all Time and Space, a One that is solely real, escaping from all form and hue. It is both an endless No to all that seems, an endless Yes to all that is still unconceived. To this stupendous lone reality even eternity and infinity seem but words. Consciousness, Truth, Love, Force, Bliss — they all appear as if a shield before its face. A formless liberation comes upon Savitri; she escapes into infinity. She shares the Superconscient’s high retreat. She is a point in the Unknowable. Some last annulment still remains. Only a memory of being still keeps her separate from Nothingness. An infinite Nothingness appears to be the ultimate. A lonely Absolute, negating all, effaces the ignorant world and drowns her soul in everlasting peace.
A calm slow sun looked down from tranquil heavens.
A routed sullen
rearguard of retreat, The last rains are over. All is tranquil. A calm, mild sun shines on the earth. A gentle wind blows amid the wet leaves. The sky is clear, once again blissfully smiling in its enchanting blue.
Its mellow splendour
unstressed by storm-licked heats Autumn is on. The days are warm and mild, the nights are richly lit with the golden moon floating across a magic sky.
And Savitri’s life
was glad, fulfilled like earth’s;
Although her kingdom
of marvellous change within And Savitri is happy, her life feeling fulfilled even as the earth feels fulfilled in this felicitous air. For Savitri has found the truth of her being, knows the aim of her life. And although she keeps to herself this marvellous change within her and does not speak of it to anyone, all around her clearly feel the spell of its charm.
The trees’
rustling voices told it to the winds,
Absorbed in wide
communion with the Unseen The trees speak in rustles of this marvellous change in Savitri to the winds; flowers express it in their flaming colours and new joy. The song of the birds swells into a joyous hymn. The beasts forget their enmities and live in peace. The mild ascetics in the forest, absorbed in their communion with the Divine, find their contemplation in solitude suddenly intensified.
This bright
perfection of her inner state
Even the smallest
meanest work became This radiant inner perfection of Savitri pours out into her outer environment. It turns the dull common things in life beautiful, ordinary actions wonderful and drab time into something profoundly divine. Even the most ordinary, petty work becomes a happy and glorious mode of worship, a means of offering oneself to the Self Universal or of serving the One Divinity in All.
A light invaded all
from her being’s light; Her inner light invades all. Her very heart-beats pour out bliss around. When others share their happiness with her, their happiness grows much more by her touch. Those who are grieved find solace even as she draws physically near; they do not have to express their sorrow to her.
Above the cherished
head of Satyavan No more does she see the dark formation of Fate around the beloved head of Satyavan; instead, her newly-opened foreseeing eye perceives a golden halo around a supernal radiance, revealing a fully rounded victorious life.
In her visions and
deep-etched veridical dreams, In her visions, in her dreams touching the truth, in the brief glimpses she is vouchsafed of the future, shedoes not see Satyavan under the irrevocable curse of death or transported to the blissful heavens far away from her, from the warm delight of the earth, from the ardent embrace of love, fully absorbed in the bliss of the immortal.
Always he was with
her, a living soul
But now no longer in
these great wild woods Satyavan is always with her, both body and soul close to hers in joy. But he is no longer the old Satyavan, companion of the birds and beasts of the wild forest, in close contact with the bare earth.
But mid the thinking
high-built lives of men
Thus for a while she
trod the Golden Path; She visions a rich life of mind and body natural to their princely background. Even when physically far, he is closer to her than the thoughts in her mind, close in body, close in soul. It is as if both live and move by a common breath and will. They are united in the common round of their days by the unseen atmosphere of their love, inseparable like the earth and sky. Thus for a while Savitri treads the Golden Path of felicity. This is the bright sun before the onset of the dark Night.
Once as she sat in
deep felicitous muse,
A vast and nameless
fear dragged at her nerves Once as she is sitting deeply happy in contemplation, still vibrating to the thrill of Satyan’s strong embrace, spanning earth and heaven with her joy, transported to the very heavens in her bliss, suddenly an abyss opens wide beneath her feet. A vast, vague, indeterminable fear clutches and drags at her nerves like a wild beast dragging its half-killed prey. It seems to have no ascertainable source; it is not hers. Its cause is unseen, hidden.
Then rushing came its vast and fearful Fount.
A formless Dread
with shapeless endless wings Then, there rushes on her the vast and terrible Fount of fear. A formless Dread with its wild, huge indeterminate wings fills the universe with its dangerous breath. A darkness more dense than the utmost darkness of the Night envelops the skies and possesses the earth in its grasp.
A rolling surge of
silent death, it came A powerful wave of benumbing death comes sweeping from the far end of the trembling earth, negating heaven with its huge stride; it seeks to expel the distressed and suffocated air and end once for all the unreal tale of the joy of life.
It seemed her very
being to forbid It seems to forbid her very existence, seeking to abolish everything by which her nature lives; it strives to blot out her body and her soul. She is held in the hard grasp of some half-seen invisible Entity, a veritable ocean of terror and irresistible might. It is at once a person — an individual formation — and some black, unbounded Vast.
It seemed to cry to
her without thought or word This invading host appears to proclaim to her, without thought or word, the unnerving message of its dark eternity and the fearful meaning of its cold silences. It has arisen from some dismal monstrous Vast, out of a bottomless pit of grief and fear; it seems to be the imagination of some blind heedless entity.
A consciousness of
being without its joy, It is a consciousness of being bereft of its innate joy, vacant of thought, incapable of bliss, feeling life to be all blank, finding nowhere the soul. Its voice conveys to the dumb anguished heart a wordless message, bare and sharp. Savitri hears in her depths its unspoken thought that makes the world unreal and cancels all meaning from life.
“Who art thou who
claim’st thy crown or separate birth, "Who art thou who seekest a crown of unique birth different from other births that end in death, for thyself, who cherishest the illusion that thy soul is real, who believest in a personal godhead inhabiting the animal body of the imperfect human being on this ignorant globe?
Hope not to be happy
in a world of pain "Do not hope to be happy in this world which is meant for pain. Do not by listening to that inner Word which makes itself heard without utterance, by being carried away by a flash of the supernal Light that cannot be described and by going beyond the absolute Silence of the Superconscience above, ever dream to be able to make known what is for ever unknowable. Do not try to achieve thy heart’s joyous desire of realising Bliss in the silent, still Supreme Reality, thereby thou wouldst taint Its austere, bare and formless sacredness. Do not dream, either, of calling the Divine into thy heart-chamber, and with Him as thy companion sit tasting human joy.
I have created all,
all I devour; "Know that I have created all this and it is I that devours all. I am the dark Source of life, I am Death. I am the Deity of tamas in this world, Kali black and nude. Again I am Maya, the Power of Illusion, and the whole Universe is my fraud, my cunning trick.
I lay waste human
happiness with my breath "My very breath lays waste all human happiness. I kill the will to live, the joy of existence, so that all may disappear into a Nothing and only what is eternal, what is absolute, remain.
For only the blank Eternal can be true.
All else is shadow
and flash in Mind’s bright glass, Only the Eternal Void can be true and nothing else. All else is unsubstantial shadow, a flash in the shining glass of the Mind — the Mind which is but a hollow mirror in which Ignorance beholds a splendid reflection of its own unreal self and imagines it is seeing a wonderful world which is solid and real.
O soul, inventor of
man’s thoughts and hopes, O soul, thou inventest all these thoughts and hopes of man while thou thyself art but an invention of the passing stream of moments moments that are gone almost as soon as they come, — a Centre or the fine apex point of Illusion.Know thyself finally for what thou truly art. Know that thou art not real. Cease to strive after all this vain existence."
A shadow of the
negating Absolute,
It left behind her
inner world laid waste: Then this shadow of the all-negating Absolute passes, the Darkness that would allow nothing else to exist surges past; and the dominating Voice ebbs away leaving behind Savitri’s inner world laid waste by its vibrations. A stark silence weighs heavy upon her heart; her inner kingdom of delight is there no more. Only her soul is left empty, void, awaiting the unknown, eternal Will of God.
Then from the
heights a greater Voice came down, Then a greater Voice comes down from the heights of her being. It is the Word that straight touches the heart and discovers the soul; it is the voice of the abiding Light after the Voice of the dark Night dies down. The unnerving cry of the Abyss below has drawn forth the reply from Heaven above. The might of the storm is driven away by the might of the eternal Sun of Truth.
“O Soul, bare not
thy kingdom to the foe;
Hide whilst thou
canst thy treasure of separate self "O soul, do not expose thy kingdom to the enemy. Conceal thy sovereignty of bliss so that Time and Fatemay not find their way to invade it. Hide, while still thou canst, thy precious individual self behind thy luminous depths, till it grows part of a vaster Self and so becomes invulnerable.
But not for self
alone the self is won:
Fear not to be
nothing that thou mayst be all; "And yet the self is not realised and won for oneself alone. Do not stay content with the conquest of one realm; essay all to conquer the whole world, use thy force to break into greater realms. Do not hesitate, do not fear to be nothing; only so canst thou be everything. Consent to the Void, the emptiness of the Supreme in order that all in thyself may arrive at its fulfilment in its absolute.
Accept to be small
and human on the earth,
If for thy own sake
only thou hast come, "Suspend for a while thy state of divinity that thou hast realised lately, and consent to be small and human on this earth in order that man may come to discover his real being in God. If thou, an immortal spirit, hast come into this world of mortals only for thy own self, to establish thy own bright kingdom in the dark realm of God, so that one shining star may sparkle in the domain of the Inconscient, one door to light may open in the world of Ignorance, where was the need for thee to come down at all? Surely thou hast not come down only for thy own glorification!
Thou hast come down
into a struggling world "Thou hast in fact come down into this struggling world to help a blind and suffering humanity, to open its closed eyes to Light, to bring bliss here into the heart of grief, to make of thy life a veritable bridge from earth to heaven for man. And if thou wouldst save this labouring universe, then thou must share its vast universal suffering, thou must fully bear the sorrow that thou wishest to heal. He who would usher in the day has got to traverse the darkest night.
He who would save the world must share its pain. If he knows not grief, how shall he find grief’s cure?
If far he walks
above mortality’s head,
If one of theirs
they see scale heaven’s peaks,
God must be born on
earth and be as man "He who hopes to save the world has first got to share its pain; for if he does not know what grief is, how can he find a cure for grief? If he were to walk far above the level of mortal man, how would the mortal ever hope to reach and tread that path which is too high for him? But if men were to see one of their own kind climbing the peaks of heaven, then they might hope to learn to do likewise. If man, the human, is to grow into the likeness of God, become God, God has first to be born on earth as man and show the way.
He who would save
the world must be one with the world, "He who seeks to save the world must first become one with the world, identify himself with it. He needs to admit and contain in his own heart all the sufferings of the world, and bear the grief and joy of all that lives.
His soul must be
wider than the universe "His soul must expand to become larger than the universe; it must realise that it is not subject to time but that eternity is woven into its stuff; it must not identify itself with its personality of the moment but know that it is prior to the birth of Time; it must know and feel that creation occurs as a passing incident in a mighty Consciousness, that huge stars like Arcturus and Belphegor are only living grains of fire making their rounds in the vast expanse of the infinite Self, that in its calm infinity the destruction of an entire world would be but a small passing storm and nothing more.
If thou wouldst a
little loosen the vast chain, "If thou wouldst loosen a bit the vast chain that binds thee, draw back from the world that has been created by the Idea behind it, the world which is nothing more than a particular selection of thy mind from the vast Infinite, nothing more than a construction of thy senses based on the dance of the infinitesimal atoms, then thou wilt know how this great bondage came to be.
Banish all thought from thee and be God’s void.
Then shalt thou
uncover the Unknowable "Expunge all thought from thee and be the void of God. Then alone shalt thou unveil the Unknowable and the Superconscient shall reveal itself on the peaks of thy consciousness; Infinity shall peer through thy gaze and thou shalt come face to face with the Unknown, discover the concealed truth in all things that appear non-existent and unreal, discover also that even behind things that are taken as known there are mysteries that are unrevealed.
Thou shalt be one
with God’s bare reality "Thou shalt be one with God in his absolute, bare reality, one with him also in this miraculous world that he has become and the divine miracle that is yet to be when Nature, that is now unconscious of her Godhood, grows luminous and radiates the light of God, when her vision becomes his sight, her movements his steps of puissance, when all life is full with the joy of the Spirit and Matter accepts to collaborate willingly with the Spirit, when Matter becomes the happy bride of the Spirit.
Consent to be
nothing and none, dissolve Time’s work, Annul thyself that only God may be.” "Now do thou dissolve everything that is a creation of Time; be nothing, be none; eliminate thy mind; withdraw and stand back from all form and name. Cancel thyself as a separate being so that only God
Thus spoke the
mighty and uplifting Voice, Savitri hears this mighty and uplifting Voice. She bows her head and muses, delving into her own depths in the solitude of her soul, in that Night of silence.
Aloof and standing
back detached and calm, She stands back, calm and aloof, and witnesses the drama of her self, studies her own inner being, watches the passion and labour of her life and hears the unending movements of her thoughts in the crowded roads of her mind.
All she allowed to
rise that chose to stir; Savitri remains passive, she calls up nothing, compels nothing, forbids nothing, but allows everything to rise that chooses to stir. She leaves everything to the natural process that has formed itself in Time, to the free impulsions of Nature’s will.
Thus following the
complex human play
All she beheld that
surges from man’s depths, Thus Savitri follows the complex human play that goes on. She hears the voice of the unseen prompter from behind the stage, glimpses the book of the music to be played and the theme composed by the inspiring Force. She beholds all that surges up from the depths of the being of man: the brute instincts moving in the domain of the life-force, the delicate impulses whispering to the heart, the violent run of passion rushing through the nerves. She sees the formidable powers staring from the nether depths and also the steady, silent Light from above that liberates the soul from its manifold bondage.
But most her gaze pursued the birth of thought.
Affranchised from
the look of surface mind Mainly she pursues with her piercing gaze the source of thought. Liberated from the hold of the surface mind, she is no more distracted by the finished wares of the brain: thoughts expressed or unexpressed, latent voices not heard by the external ear, the endless issue of fresh coins from the mint of the thought-mind.
These were but
counters in mind’s symbol game,
In our unseen subtle
body thought is born All these thoughts, thought-forms, voices are sensed by her to be only indices used in the symbol play of the mind, devices of repetition, presentation, a set of code signs. Thought is really born in the subtle body that is unseen, not in the brain-mind as it seems; or it enters that subtle body from the universal environment.
Oft from her soul
stepped out a naked thought Often a bare, luminous profound thought would leap out from her soul or some fiery face would emerge from her heart seeking to express itself in life, love and passion, extending itself to embrace the world or aspiring to reach heaven; or it caught some bright fancy that illumined man’s dull common days; or it gave concrete form to the unearthly beauty of faithamidst the uncertainties of earth’s knowings, like a living rose standing out amidst a crowd of flower-prints.
A thaumaturgist sat
in her heart’s deep, She sees a wonder-worker in the depths of her heart compelling the forward march and the upward vision till wonder springs up in the illumined breast and life grows marvellous with a hope that transforms its nature.
A seeing will
pondered between the brows; The dynamic will and vision centre between her brows govern her action; brilliant and reverent thoughts awake to the higher Truth, wait behind her brain and pour the light of supernal Knowledge into her physical body.
Imaginations flamed
up from her breast, From her heart-centre of emotions rich imaginations flash up; they are full of celestial beauty, vibrations of superb joy, wonder plans and dreams of delight. Around her navel centre of vital emotions, large sensations of crowded realms flow with their unexpressed thought-movements of some idea not yet formed. These thought-movements rush to the throat-centre of expression to find a speech true and beautiful in which to formulate themselves.
Below, desires
formed their wordless wish, Further down, from her centre of lower vital movements below the navel, petty desires articulate themselves and longings for physical happiness and joy surge forward to increase their hold on objects and souls.
Her body’s
thoughts climbed from her conscious limbs The movements of her body’s consciousness surge from the physical centre at the base and carry their longings to the mystic, superconscient Centre at the crown of the head where Nature’s aspirations to meet her Lord are fulfilled.
But for the mortal
prisoned in outward mind However, the man who lives only in his surface mind is not aware of the truth and the actual source of his various thought-movements. He cognises their existence only when they appear at the threshold of this mind; they hide their real nature, they pass for products of his brain.
Only to the inner
mind they speak direct, Only the inner mind sees these movements for what they really are; to it they become concrete. Their source is known, their innate nature is perceived, their passage clearly marked, their message heard and understood. There they stand fully revealed to an immortal’s eye as messengers of our nature to the uninvolved, witness soul.
Impenetrable,
withheld from mortal sense, Normally inaccessible to mortal sense, the inner regions reveal to her their movements and their visitants. Through openings in invisible walls and secret unseen portals, her eyes see thoughts entering into the small frontal mind, thoughts that expand the limited human range, uplift the half-satisfied or failing flame of the ideal or perceive the infinite in finite forms.
A sight opened upon
the invisible Deep within the inner being, a sight opens upon what is normally invisible and perceives forms that mortal eyes do not see. There, hearing sounds that the mortal ear cannot hear, feeling a blissful happiness the outcome of a contact with the intangible, seeing objects where we normally see empty air, are matters of constant experience.
The beings of the
subtle realms appeared Beings of subtle regions appear and scenes normally veiled behind our earthly scene begin to unroll themselves. Savitri sees the life of distant realms of existence and hears voices from far. She feels the thought-movements passing in minds unknown to her; events of the past occur again before her eyes.
The great world’s
thoughts were part of her own thoughts, Thoughts from all over the wide world are felt to be part of her own thoughts. Mute and bottled-up feelings, unexpressed ideas, hints from the obscure subconscient realms expose their own strange and deeply twisted meaning, the fantastic contents of their reluctant speech and their links with the unseen reality that underlies all things.
The unseen grew
visible and audible: What is normally invisible grows visible and audible. From the high altitudes of the superconscient thoughts leap down; from the hidden subliminal depths thoughts rise up golden gleaming.
This world is a vast
unbroken totality, God’s summits look back on the mute Abyss.
So man evolving to
divinest heights The high meets the low, all is a single plan. This world is of one great piece; it is a vast unbroken whole. An underlying oneness unites all its opposite powers. The peaks of the Spirit regard the bottomless pit of Nescience below. That is why man who evolves to the divine heights of being is still in relation with the animal and the half-animal, half-human entities. The godhead in man aspiring for the heights and the primal beast in him dwell in the same body. The high and the low meet together. All is a single plan.
So she beheld the
many births of thought, Savitri beholds the innumerable births of thought. But can one speak of births with regard to what is eternal and unborn? Yes, because the powers of the Eternal share his nature; in the domain of the Timeless, they are also timeless; in the domain of Time, they are constantly being born, manifested.
This too she saw
that all in outer mind
This mind is a
dynamic small machine She also sees that all that is in the outer mind is not something naturally born, but a perishable product manufactured in the factory of the body by an earthbound force. This outer mind is a small active machine producing things continuously till it wears out; the raw material upon which it works is drawn from the outer world; what it produces are the patterns outlined by an artist God, not anything original of its own
Often our thoughts
are finished cosmic wares
For now they bear
the living person’s stamp; Truly, our thoughts are mostly stuff that is manufactured in the world outside. They are wares that gain admittance through some unobtrusive entry, pass through the corridors of the subconscient and then come out of the mind into the open as products of its own make. For they now bear on them the stamp of the person through whom they have passed; a deft operation takes place, a special colouring is given them which makes them appear as his own.
All else is Nature’s craft and this too hers.
Our tasks are given,
we are but instruments; Except the stamp of the individual, all else is of Nature’s making. Our tasks are not really chosen by our selves but assigned to us and we are only instruments; what we create also is not all ours; the Power that effectuates is not our own force. Even the exceptional achievements of a genius are not completely original. He too receives from elsewhere: his source is hidden in some superconscient; it is from there that he gets the inspiration for the work that brings him immortal renown.
The word, the form,
the charm, the glory and grace The word, the form, the charm, the glory and grace that distinguish the works of the genius are but sparks from a huge central Fire in the supernal sent to him with the purpose of inspiring him. What the genius creates is truly a sample received from God’s laboratory; this product over which he wields a proprietary right on earth comes to him from above enclosed in bright golden wrappings.
He listens for
Inspiration’s postman knock He receives it through the channel of inspiration but in the very reception it is spoilt by the receiving mind, or mixed with the workings of his physical brain. When what is received is least deformed, then indeed is it most divine it retains most of its original character.
Although his ego
claims the world for its use, Although man’s ego claims the whole world for its benefits, he is only a dynamo for purposes of the cosmos. Most of what he does is really executed by Nature, the rest that is lofty is from God. What is his own is only his choice, the acceptance or rejection by his soul.
This independent,
once a power supreme, This soul of man is anterior to the universe; at one time it was independent, a direct power of the Divine. It has accepted to participate in the manifestation of this cosmos and so binds itself as a slave of Nature a condition that continues till the soul develops and grows into freedom from the bonds of Nature or becomes the slave of God.
This is the
appearance in our mortal front; Such is the appearance only on the surface. But the greater truth of ourselves is behind. Our true consciousness is immense and as wide as the universe. But it is only when we break out of the limits imposed by the material embodiment, that we can stand in that spiritual vastness and from there live as masters of our world, the mind becoming only an instrument and the body a tool — instead of their holding sway over us, posing as our masters.
For above the birth
of body and of thought The truth of our spirit dwells in the bare self, high above the formation of our body and our mind, and from that height, where it is bound by nothing, it surveys the world.
Out of the mind she
rose to escape its law Savitri rises above the mind in order to free herself from the law of the mind so that the mind may lie wrapt in some profound nearness of the self or fall silent in the silence of the Reality Unseen.
High she attained
and stood from Nature free Savitri rises high in her consciousness, stands free from Nature and sees creation from above. From there she imposes her free and mastering will upon all to consecrate and offer it to the eternal calm of God. All in her being grows tranquil; only occasionally small thoughts rise and fall like quiet waves upon a placid sea or like ripples upon a solitary pool when its reverie is disturbed by a casual stone.
Yet the mind’s
factory had ceased to work,
Then even those
stirrings rose in her no more;
This men call
quietude and prize as peace.
Despite these small thoughts rising and falling, the factory of her mind ceases to work; the vibrations of its dynamo are no more heard. The life-energies are quiet. Finally even the small thoughts die down Her mind appears like a vast vacant room or a peaceful landscape without a sound. This is what men call quietude and cherish as peace.
But to her deeper
sight all yet was there, Then this too paused; the body seemed a stone. But this is so only on the surface. To Savitri’s deeper sight all is still present like a churning mixture under a lid. She finds that feelings and thoughts are still there clamouring for expression, only the silenced brain does not respond. She sees that all is held down by force but nothing is extinguished; the suppressed things might explode at any moment. Then even this state ends. The body appears to have become a stone.
All now was a wide
mighty vacancy,
Even now some
thoughts could cross her solitude: All becomes a wide and powerful emptiness. And yet the silence of the Eternal is not here. The repose of the Absolute is still far and so too the oceanic silence of the Infinite. Some thoughts still pass through her solitude; these do not rise from within or from the depths of her being; they are cast up from some vague existence to shape themselves into definite forms; they are not concerned with any need of the body or call of the mind.
These seemed not
born nor made in human Time, These thoughts do not appear to be of human origin at all. They are cosmic in nature and come from a far off world; they are forms taken by Idea in the protective shape of words and are assigned positions like travellers in an alien territory.
Out of some far
expanse they seemed to come These thoughts seem to float in from some vast expanse. They reach the inner, subtler ear with ease as if they have a natural right of entry into the high royal portals of the soul.
As yet their path lay deep concealed in light.
Then looking to know
whence the intruders came The precise path of these thoughts is still not seen; it is concealed by an intense light that shines around them. Savitri looks to know from where these intruders come and she beholds a spiritual vastitude pervading and enveloping the whole world-space as ether pervades our physical air; through it a thought sails in serene.
As smoothly glides a
ship nearing its port, Like an authorised ship confidently gliding into its port, unaware of any prohibition of entry or any blockade, the thought arrives at the silent city of the brain towards its usual landing sure of welcome; but there it is met by an opposing will, is hit by a Force and sinks disappearing into the immensity around.
After a long vacant
pause another appeared But soon that commerce failed, none reached mind’s coast.
Then all grew still,
nothing moved any more: After a long blank pause, another such thought appears followed, one by one, by others suddenly emerging on the scene; they are unexpected visitors to the mind from the unseen, arriving like ships from afar upon an empty sea. Soon, however, all this traffic ceases and no more thought reaches the coast of the mind. All grows still, nothing moves. A silent spirit, immobile, self-absorbed, timeless, alone, pervades the silent Space.
In that absolute
stillness bare and formidable
Even the nude sense
of self grew pale and thin: In that austere, absolute and overwhelming stillness, a supreme all-negating Void is glimpsed a mystic Nihil that claims its sovereign right to abolish Nature and soul. Before it even the bare sense of the self pales and thins. The mind is no more; in its place there is a blank, unsullied Consciousness which is impersonal, signless, featureless, empty of forms.
Her spirit seemed
the substance of a name, Before this Void, her spirit seems to be no more substantial than a name, the world a symbol figure etched on the self. A dream of images and sounds seems to have built up the appearance of a universe or made the spirit itself seem like a world.
This was
self-seeing; in that intolerant hush There remains only the self-seeing itself. In this severe hush, no notion, no concept is able to form itself. No sense is left to weave shapes. There is only an awareness of the self. No thought arises.
Emotion slept deep
down in the still heart All emotion is dormant in the still heart; it has swooned in that peace. All feelings look inert, calm or as if dead; it appears as if the snapped heart-strings can no more work, and joy and grief can never arise again.
The heart beat on
with an unconscious rhythm
Vain was the
provocation of events; The heart continues to beat in its mechanical rhythm, but there is no response from it, no cry; events do not cause any reaction in it; impacts from outside evoke no answer from within. Not a nerve stirs; no reaction arises.
Yet still her body
saw and moved and spoke;
There was no person
there behind the act, And yet her body continues to see, move, speak. It is able to understand without the necessity of thinking. It says naturally what is to be said, it does what needs to be done. Behind the act there is no directing individual person as such; there is no mind to choose or pass the right word. All works like an absolutely correct and exact machine.
As if continuing old
habitual turns, It is like an engine working as designed: the old habitual turns are continued and the impetus is given by an old force still unexhausted. Her consciousness witnesses everything but does not participate in anything; it supports all, but shares in nothing.
There was no strong
initiator will;
A pure perception
was the only power
If that retired, all
objects would be extinct, There is no strong will to initiate anything. There isonly a chaos which, in passing through a firm void, gets bogged and turns into some chance-woven order. The only power that is behind her action and her sight is a pure perception. If that were to withdraw, all objects would cease to be, her individual universe would be no more — the edifice which she had erected at the outset with the bricks of thought and sense, after the formation of Space.
This seeing was
identical with the seen; This perceptual seeing is one with what is seen; there is no distinction between them. It knows everything that can be known, without going through the process of knowledge; it knows by identity. It watches objectively the passing world and yet, with the same lofty immutable regard, it sees the utter unreality of the world.
It watched the
figure of the cosmic game, In this seeing and watching of the moving figure of the cosmic play, it looks as if all thought and pulsation has disappeared from forms as a consequence of her own cessation of thought. Only a hollow physical shell is left.
All seemed a
brilliant shadow of itself, Everything appears to be only a brilliant shadow of what had been taken to be real. It is a cosmos-wide film of scenes and figures. Even the lasting mass and outline of hills seem a design drawn on a silent mind, their solidity is not real, but a vibrating appearance sustained by recurring operations of the eye.
The forest with its
emerald multitudes The forest with its green opulence seems only a splash of colours on empty Space, a painting’s colours that conceal a surface void which is about to be dissolved. The blue skies, an illusion of the eyes, are seen to be only a roof for what the mind imagines to be a world.
The men who walked
beneath an unreal sky The men who walk under this unreal sky seem to be moving puppets cut out of cardboard, manipulated by unseen hands across the earth-soil, or so many passing pictures on the screen of Fancy. There is no living soul within any, there is no power of life.
The brain’s
vibrations that appear like thought, Vibrations of the brain organ appearing as thought, instant and brief reactions of the nerves to impacts from outside, the throbbings of the heart felt as joy, grief and love, all appear to be only twitchings of the body which is apparently the self of the brain, nerve and heart. The body itself is a seeming formation created from atoms and gas, a false product of illusion, Maya, and the life of that body is only a dream seen by the vast Void in its sleep.
The animals lone or
trooping through the glades Animals, whether single or moving in herds, pass like a fleeting vision of beauty and grace in the imagination of some vision-projecting Eye.
Yet something was
there behind the fading scene;
The One only real
shut itself from Space Its truth escaped from shape and line and hue. And yet, behind this fading scene there is something that persists. Wherever Savitri turns, whatever she looks at, there it is perceived, though it is concealed from mind and sight. This is the One, the only thing that is real; but it seems to stand outside all Space, aloof from the conception of Time; its truth constantly escapes all form and shape.
All else grew
unsubstantial, self-annulled, Excepting this One, all grows vague and cancels itself. Only this One seems to be true and everlasting; and yet it has no dwelling place and is outside time.
This only could
justify the labour of sight, The effort of sight to see is justified because of the existence of this One; and yet sight cannot catch it in a form. Only this One could satisfy the ear which is always expectant; but the hearing waits in vain for this sound which is missing. Neither does this One respond to the sense, nor does it impinge upon the Mind.
It met her as the
uncaught inaudible Voice
It met her like an
omnipresent point It meets Savitri as the ungrasped, unheard Voice that is ever vibrant from the Unknowable. It meets her like a point of Space that is everywhere, without direction, not fixed, not visible. It meets her in the recurring moment in Time which in its singleness focusses its sole eternity.
It faced her as some
vast Nought’s immensity, It confronts her as the immensity of some vast Nil, an endless negation of all that claims to exist; it faces her as a Yes, as an endless affirmation of what is beyond conception, imagination and thought — an eternal zero or an incalculable Existence, a spaceless, unhoused Infinite.
Yet eternity and
infinity seemed but words
The world is but a
spark-burst from its light, Yet eternity and infinity seem to be mere labels affixed by the incompetent mind upon that stupendous bare reality. The world is only a spark that has issued from the Light of that reality; all moments are only flashes from its Timelessness; all forms are only glimmerings of the Formless which disappear from the Mind when that reality is perceived.
It held, as if a
shield before its face, That reality holds, like a shield before its face, a consciousness that perceives spontaneously, without the need of a perceiver, the Truth where the triplicities of knower, knowledge and known are not, the Love which is lost in its own delight and where neither the Lover nor the Beloved exist bringing their turbid individual passion into that Vast, the omnipotent Force holding itself in quietude, the Bliss beyond human reach.
It cancelled the
convincing cheat of self;
If all existence
could renounce to be This Reality cancels the self that has effectively posed itself to be real so far. Its mighty clue is its truth in nothingness. Something of this Reality, something of its lustre, might appear if all existence, Being, could cease to exist and dissolve itself in a Non-being and that Non-being erase even its conceptual form of zero.
A formless liberation came on her.
Once sepulchred
alive in brain and flesh A liberation into formlessness comes upon Savitri. Once entombed alive in material brain and flesh she now rises above body, mind, life. She ceases to be a finite Person in the world; she has escaped into infinity.
What once had been
herself had disappeared;
A refugee from the
domain of sense, All that was herself before has disappeared; there is neither the set-up of things nor the figure of soul. Escaping from the field of the senses, no more obliged to undergo the process of thought, absolved from both Knowledge and Ignorance, freed from the true and the untrue of the relative world, she now shares the high retreat of the Superconscient, beyond even the primordial Word, the sheer Idea, the original bare, immutable ground of Consciousness. There are no beings here, there is no existence; there is no attraction of the joy to be.
Unutterably effaced,
no one and null, Totally effaced, no more existing as one, a null so to say, a fast vanishing impression, a faint record of what was a self before, she now remains only a point in the Unknowable.
Only some last
annulment now remained, Some final cancelling still remains, a vague indefinable step before annihilation is complete. There is still some memory of being and this keeps her apart from nothingness. She is in the bosom of That, the Indeterminable, but has not yet merged into That.
This shadow of
herself so close to nought This shadow of herself so near to Nothingness, could again form the base for the self to stand upon, and provide for its return to the world from the Inconceivable to become what the profound mysterious vast might choose.
Even as the
Unknowable decreed,
Even, she might
learn what the mystic cipher held, Depending upon what the Unknowable decrees, she may pass into Nothingness or newly become the All. Or if the all-powerful Nihil takes a form, she may emerge as a redeemer of the world. She may even come to know the content of the mystic Zero; possibly, what now appears to be the exit or blind end of all, could be only a dark passage veiled from sight, her own state only the shell that eclipses a darkened sun on its secret route to the Ineffable.
Even now her
splendid being might flame back Even now her splendid being might dart back from this silence and state of nothingness as a shining portion of the All-Wonderful, a power of some all-affirming Absolute, a bright mirror of the Truth eternal in which the One that is in all could behold its own revealed face and in which the souls of men could see their deep identity.
Or she might wake
into God’s quietude Or she might wake up into the quietude of God, beyond the creation and withdrawal of the cosmos, and retire content in his pure, bare eternity.
But this was now
unreal or remote
In infinite
Nothingness was the ultimate sign
A lonely Absolute
negated all: But all these possibilities are now unreal or remote, or they are veiled by the mystic, profound, blank. A boundless Nothingness seems to be the final sign of all; or perhaps the Reality is unknowable. There is now only a bare Absolute negating all. From its solitude the ignorant world is wiped out and in its everlasting peace the soul is drowned.
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