Book 2, Canto 1 – The World-Stair, Section 3

A Seer within who knows the ordered plan
Concealed behind our momentary steps,
Inspires our ascent to viewless heights
As once the abysmal leap to earth and life.

This is a general statement, not part of the story of King Aswapati. Sri Aurobindo says that within each of us there is a being who has a power of vision, a rishi or ‘Seer’, who has the knowledge of ‘the ordered plan’ that is hidden behind all the little steps that we take in life and all the things that we do from moment to moment in our lives. That being of vision and knowledge hidden within us is inspiring our ‘ascent’, our rise, to ‘viewless heights’, to heights that we cannot see as yet, just as it once inspired our souls to take ‘the abysmal leap to earth and life’. Our souls have dived down from the original state of Oneness, of pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss where they originated, to take part in the adventure of involution and evolution, to participate in ‘the ordered plan’ foreseen by that Seer within us. We read in the previous section about the ‘World-Mother’ taking this plunge; with her, all our souls have also plunged, inspired by the ‘Seer within’. We have taken this ‘leap’ into the abyss and landed up here in the material universe, not by chance, but as part of the ‘ordered plan’ which lies behind it. That is true for all of us, just as it is for Aswapati.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

His call had reached the Traveller in Time.
Apart in an unfathomed loneliness,
He travelled in his mute and single strength
Bearing the burden of the world’s desire.

The call of that ‘Seer’ had ‘reached the Traveller in Time’. The ‘Traveller in Time’ is the Divine dwelling in the world, the Divine soul in each of us following the evolutionary journey.

In Book One Canto Four, ‘The Secret Knowledge’, Sri Aurobindo refers to the inner Divine Presence in us as ‘the explorer and the mariner’, ‘the adventurer and cosmologist’ and ‘the sailor on the flow of Time’. Here it is  Aswapati who embodies this ‘Traveller in Time’, carrying the Divine Presence within him on this inner journey through the planes and realms of universal existence. He is ‘Apart’, separated from everything that is happening here in the human world, ‘in an unfathomed loneliness’. There seems to be no bottom, no end, to this loneliness; he is all alone. He is travelling in his own ‘mute’ – silent – and ‘single strength’, and he is carrying with him, Sri Aurobindo says, ‘the burden’, the load, of the desire of the world. In the first line of Book One Canto Three, when Sri Aurobindo introduces us to Aswapati, he says that Savitri has been born here in response to ‘A world’s desire’; Aswapati is the protagonist, the one who is representing that desire, that need and aspiration of the whole world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

No term was fixed to the high-pitched attempt;
World after world disclosed its guarded powers,
Heaven after heaven its deep beatitudes,
But still the invisible Magnet drew his soul.

‘No term’ means ‘no limit’, ‘no end’. As Aswapati embarks on his great ascent, he cannot see where it will end or how long his ‘high-pitched attempt’ will take. Setting out on this quest, he is setting his aim very high: a ‘high-pitched’ aim. As he ascends the ‘World-Pile’, one world after another reveals or discloses to him the powers which it is guarding, keeping secret. ‘Heaven after heaven’ discloses or reveals ‘its deep beatitudes’, its own special states of bliss: each heaven represents a particular kind of delight. He does not rest in any of them, but continues onward. It is as if he is being drawn by a ‘Magnet’. Sri Ramakrishna used this image, saying that once we have felt the attraction of the Divine, we become like a needle or pin that is being drawn by a magnet: the nearer we approach the source of attraction the stronger becomes its power over us. Aswapati’s soul is being drawn as if by an ‘invisible Magnet’ towards the goal that he has to reach.

Q. Doesn’t Sri Aurobindo say that the Supreme Divine Mother is the magnet?

Yes. It is in Book Three, Canto Two:

She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent

[ Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A figure sole on Nature’s giant stair,
He mounted towards an indiscernible end
On the bare summit of created things.

All alone on the ‘giant stair’ of the planes of manifestation, Aswapati goes on moving upwards. The top of the stair is ‘indiscernible’: it cannot be seen, but it must be there somewhere – at the ‘summit’, the topmost height. He is aiming for ‘the bare summit of created things’: the highest level
of manifestation.

This brings us to the end of Canto One of Book Two, the longest Book of the poem. It contains 15 cantos, several of which describe more than one step up the ladder of worlds. In Canto Two we shall follow Aswapati to the next step of the ladder: the Kingdom of Subtle Matter.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]