Amid the many systems of the One
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature’s deeps;
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being’s goal.

‘The One’, the Divine, has created many ‘systems’: many universes and cosmoses made by his ‘interpreting creative joy’: a delight of creation which interprets and expresses the intention of the One in the form of many different systems. This ‘world-pile’ is one of those, the only one amongst them which can show us earthly beings the way back ‘Out of our long self-loss in Nature’s deeps’. Our souls have plunged into the inconscience which forms the viewless base of the World- Stair. Through evolution we have risen up a little way and become partly conscious, able to recognise that we are lost in a state of ignorance and have forgotten where we have come from, who we are and why we are here. But there is a way ‘Out of our long self-loss’. We have to climb back up that world-stair from level to level, individually and as a species, through the process of evolution. That is our journey back, which in The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo refers to as ‘the human journey’. In the last section of Book One Canto Five, Aswapati saw ‘a golden ladder carrying the soul, / Tying with diamond threads the Spirit’s extremes.’ That ladder is ascending and descending between the ‘Spirit’s extremes’: the utter freedom, infinity and eternity of the Oneness beyond manifestation at one end and the inconscience of Matter at the other, uniting them and linking ‘creation to the Ineffable’. Now he has stepped into another Space and Time and is seeing that ladder in another way, as the ‘world-pile’, which ‘Planted on earth … holds in it all realms:’ Matter is the base, the plinth, but this ‘carved sea of worlds’ holds all the planes of existence within it: ‘It is a brief compendium of the Vast.’ ‘Compendium’ is a word which we do not use much these days: it means a compressed version of something much bigger or longer, giving a brief outline of the whole. Aswapati sees that this ‘compendium’ of the entire vast cosmos offers a way up and out of our lost state here in the ignorance: it is ‘the single stair’ to the goal of our individual existence and all existence.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A ‘summary’ is a text which gives a brief overview of a much longer one.  Here Sri Aurobindo says that the ‘World-Stair’ which Aswapati is seeing gives a ‘summary’ or compact overview of all the planes of manifested existence, ‘the stages of the spirit’: the steps that the spirit has followed in the involution process down from the supreme state, creating one by one these realms and worlds in its descent to Matter, until it is absorbed in the Inconscient. Evolution must climb back up step by step through all these planes. He also says that it is a ‘copy of the cosmic hierarchies’: an image of all the different levels and powers of the universe. The word ‘hierarchy’ implies an order of command, with one highest authority at the top, which delegates power and responsibility in an ordered way – for example, in an army there is one supreme commander and beneath him are his generals, each of whom commands a section of the army and has other officers beneath him, who give orders through sergeants to the ordinary soldiers. The order of the universal planes forms a hierarchy, from Sachchidananda through Supermind and Overmind to the various Mind levels and Life levels down to the subtle physical and finally to gross physical Matter. That hierarchy has created a copy of itself in our inner consciousness, ‘our secret air of self’, so that it is possible for us human beings, deep within ourselves, to experience its different levels.

                                                           It is within, below, without, above.

That copy or representation of the entire universe is inside us, below us, outside and all around us, as well as above us.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Acting upon this visible Nature’s scheme
It wakens our earth-matter’s heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body’s death with immortality’s call:

Aswapati saw this ‘summary of the stages of the spirit’ veiled behind ‘a mystical barrage of dynamic light’; but it is always acting upon our world and having an effect on ‘this visible Nature’s scheme’: our world is constantly being affected by influences from those other worlds. Their effect here is to waken up ‘our earth-matter’s heavy doze’ to greater consciousness and higher states. Matter as we know it here on earth is in a ‘doze’: a heavy sleepy state of unconsciousness. It needs to be stimulated by influences from subtler worlds to wake it up so that it can begin ‘To think and feel and to react to joy’. Human beings are not like ‘sea and sky and stone’ : in us ‘earth-matter’ has woken up a little bit and developed the capacity to live; living matter has developed the capacity to think and to feel delight. That is the result of a pressure, an influence from higher subtler planes of existence: life planes and mind planes. Other higher possibilities are also exerting their influences on earth evolution, acting on human beings and modelling within us ‘our diviner parts’ – our higher spiritual capacities. We mortals have minds which seem to be dependent on our physical brains. What makes us aspire for higher states of being that are not focussed only on material needs? Influences from those subtle planes lift our mortal minds up ‘into a greater air’, so that they begin to perceive higher things, such as the beauty of nature, the beauty of art and music, and even things beyond that. The Life-Force in our physical bodies uses the senses to tell us about the material world around us; but the influence of the higher planes wakes us up to long for things that are beyond the reach of our senses, things that we cannot hear or taste or touch: ‘intangible aims’. The influence of the higher subtler worlds links our awareness of death with a longing for immortality. All these influences wake up in us a sense that there must be higher possibilities, so that we no longer feel content simply to live the best way we can from cradle to grave and wish for nothing more; they make us dream of a greater existence in the midst of higher things.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter’s house.

Superfluity’ means ‘more than necessary’;Earth has been given something much more than would be necessary for a purely material existence. Because of the golden superabundance provided by the subtler planes of existence earth has bee  able to give birth to ‘thinking man’; and evolution has not yet ended on earth: she will give birth to higher beings, who are ‘more than man’.‘This higher scheme of being is our cause’: without it we would not be here at all, and it ‘holds the key to our ascending fate’. We often think that the answer to what we are and why we are like this is to be found by studying our physical origins in the far distant past. But if we look back into the past we can only see the physical beginnings of our evolutionary emergence – not the cause or purpose of our existence. It is the series of higher planes, ‘This higher scheme’, which can really give the answer to why we are here, and what our ultimate destiny will be. It ‘holds the key to our ascending fate’. All those higher levels are calling to ‘The conscious spirit nursed in Matter’s house’: hidden within this dense material body is a conscious spirit; Matter is nursing that spirit and helping it to mature and become independent, and the higher levels of consciousness are calling it to evolve further and further.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity’s lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are.

That ‘fall’ did not happen accidentally. This entire manifestation has come about through a conscious sacrifice of ‘The great World-Mother’. Her soul has become ‘the body of our state’. In spite of her divinity, she has accepted the ‘sorrow and unconsciousness’ of material existence. Her ‘lapse’ or fall from her own splendid divine state has woven ‘The many- patterned ground of all we are’: the basis of this evolutionary creation. So what is Matter? It is a very dense expression of the soul of the Supreme Mother. Sri Aurobindo explains this great mystery:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Yet some first image of greatness trembles there,
And when the ambiguous crowded parts have met
The many-toned unity to which they moved,
The Artist’s joy shall laugh at reason’s rules;
The divine intention suddenly shall be seen,
The end vindicate intuition’s sure technique.

Even as it is, even though it is only half complete, ‘some first image of greatness trembles there’. Even now we can get a first glimpse of the future beauty and glory of life. Sri Aurobindo says that when all the different parts of this work-in-progress reach the ‘many-toned unity’, the complex and many-coloured harmony towards which they are moving, then ‘The divine intention suddenly shall be seen’: we shall be able to see what the Artist was patiently working towards. The divine Artist himself will feel a great delight at the fulfilment of his work, and he will ‘laugh at reason’s rules’: at all the reasonable critics who were saying that he was doing everything wrong and contrary to the rules of art. He will be able to laugh, because the end-result of his work will ‘vindicate intuition’s sure technique’.The Artist has not been following the rules set by human reason; instead he has been guided by ‘intuition’, which has a much clearer feeling of how to achieve the wished-for effect. This is not obvious while the Artist is still at work, but when he has finished, his ‘divine intention suddenly shall be seen’, and everyone will understand that his ‘technique’, his way of doing it was justified. As long as the work is still in progress, it is ‘ambiguous’–the meaning and significance of all its ‘crowded parts’ remain unclear. But when all of them have reached the ‘many-toned unity’ towards which he was moving them, he will feel the joy of fulfilled creation, and we shall suddenly understand what he was aiming at all the time. We shall have to admit that he was doing it just as it had to be done, and ‘intuition’s sure technique’ will be vindicated, justified.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A slow reversal’s movement then took place:
A gas belched out from some invisible Fire,
Of its dense rings were formed these million stars;
Upon earth’s new-born soil God’s tread was heard.
Across the thick smoke of earth’s ignorance
A Mind began to see and look at forms
And groped for knowledge in the nescient Night:

First ‘a strange anomalous base’ was laid. Next, ‘A slow reversal’s movement … took place’. Something was turned inside out, and out of ‘some invisible Fire’ in the subtle worlds, ‘a gas belched out’, got emitted or discharged. From the ‘dense rings’ of that gas or vapour ‘these million stars’ were formed. The next step is the formation of Matter as we know it: ‘earth’s new-born soil’. This does not necessarily refer to our planet, but perhaps rather to the element ‘earth’ – matter as such. Scientists tell us that the atoms which constitute the material elements which make up our world were formed within stars; eventually these atoms aggregated around their mother stars to form planets such as our earth, on which life and consciousness could eventually emerge in physical forms: ‘Upon earth’s new-born soil God’s tread was heard’. In that primary state, earth is in a state of complete ignorance as if enveloped in thick smoke; but even in the midst of that Ignorance, the principle of ‘Mind’ ‘began to see and look at forms’. It began to grope ‘for knowledge in the nescient Night’. When we are in darkness and cannot see our way, we reach out our hands and try to find out where we are: we grope. If we are in a house we may grope for a light switch, a torch, or for matches and a candle. That ‘Mind’, emerging in the ‘nescient Night’ of material existence, began to grope, to feel around ‘for knowledge’ – for the light of consciousness. ‘Nescient’ means not-knowing, without knowledge.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A miracle of the Absolute was born;
Infinity put on a finite soul,
All ocean lived within a wandering drop,
A time-made body housed the Illimitable.
To live this Mystery out our souls came here.

The outcome of this ‘Mystery’s process’ is that ‘the Absolute’, the transcendent One, puts on a ‘finite soul’ in each of its   multitude of individualities. In each of them the infinite and eternal Divine is present: ‘All ocean lived within a wandering drop’. Each soul is a ‘wandering drop’ but contains within it the vastness of the entire ocean. ‘A time-made body’, born in time, made out of matter, can house ‘the Illimitable’. That is why we are all here: ‘To live this Mystery out our souls came here.’ Our souls have accepted to be part of this Mystery and to follow it through its whole process from beginning to fulfilment. We have said, “Yes, we will undertake this adventure”: this plunge into inconscience, this adventure of involution and evolution that is to be lived out in the material world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]