The base of the World-Stair is gross matter, the matter that we experience in this universe. As Aswapati begins to mount the ‘giant stair’ of the subtle planes of existence, he comes first to ‘The Kingdom of Subtle Matter’, which is described in Canto Two.

In the impalpable field of secret self,
This little outer being’s vast support
Parted from vision by earth’s solid fence,
He came into a magic crystal air
And found a life that lived not by the flesh,
A light that made visible immaterial things.

Sri Aurobindo reminds us that this journey of ascent is happening in the inner consciousness, ‘In the impalpable field of secret self’: within Aswapati’s own consciousness. That inner field is ‘impalpable’, which means that it cannot be touched physically; but nevertheless it is the support which keeps our ‘little outer being’ in existence. If it were not for that ‘impalpable field of secret self’, the ‘little outer being’ which each of us identifies with would not exist at all. It is the ‘vast support’ of ‘this little outer being’, but it is hidden from our physical eyes by the ‘solid fence’ of earthly matter, and can be perceived only by the inner senses of touch and vision and hearing. As Aswapati enters into this realm of subtle matter, he encounters ‘a magic crystal air’: a very different atmosphere from the air that our bodies depend on here in the realm of gross matter. There he finds ‘a life that lived not by the flesh’, a life which can live independently from any material body. He also finds a kind of light that is different from the material light which we experience here: ‘A light that made visible immaterial things’, revealing things that cannot be seen by our physical eyes because they are ‘immaterial’, made of a substance that is finer than the matter which constitutes our universe.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A world of lovelier forms lies near to ours,
Where, undisguised by earth’s deforming sight,
All shapes are beautiful and all things true.

The new world which Aswapati now discovers is more beautiful than our own; the ‘forms’ there are ‘lovelier’ – more beautiful; but it is ‘near to ours’, not very far away from  There, ‘All shapes are beautiful’, and they are ‘true’: they appear as they really are. They are not disguised, deformed, distorted by our earthly vision which sees only imperfect material forms.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Attempted vainly now or won in vain,
Already were mapped and scheduled there the time
And figure of her future sovereignties
In the sumptuous lineaments traced by desire.

Things that we try to bring about here on earth but fail – or if we succeed, are soon lost again – are there already ‘mapped and scheduled’: the forms of those realisations and even the time of their realisation here are already decided and fixed there. The wonderful achievements that will happen on earth in the future are already beautifully laid out and arranged and can be seen there, ‘In the sumptuous lineaments traced by desire’: just the way that we would wish them to be. ‘Sumptuous’ means ‘magnificently rich and luxurious’. Those achievements prepared for the earth’s future are not simply sketched out: all their ‘lineaments’ or features are already expressed there in full detail, just the way we would desire or imagine that they should be.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Our vague beginnings are overtaken there,
Our middle terms sketched out in prescient lines,
Our finished ends anticipated live.

Some of the things that we try to achieve here are still only ‘vague beginnings’, unfulfilled efforts; there they ‘are overtaken’:it is as if someone has run past us and already reached wherever we are aiming at. ‘Our middle terms’, the things we are in the middle of working on here, are ‘sketched out’ there ‘in prescient lines’ which indicate what will be realised in the future. Things that will be achievements for us in the future – ‘Our finished ends’ – are already ‘anticipated’ there, already in existence. If you anticipate something, you are expecting that it will happen, waiting and looking forward to it happening; or you may be trying to express something, and someone else anticipates what you are trying to say or do and does it before you; in a similar way, things that we are trying to achieve here have already been achieved there – ‘anticipated’ – in advance

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A passage for the Powers that move our days,
Occult behind this grosser Nature’s walls,
A gossamer marriage-hall of Mind with Form
Is hidden by a tapestry of dreams;
Heaven’s meanings steal through it as through a veil,
Its inner sight sustains this outer scene

‘Powers’ from other worlds are moving ‘our days’: we are not aware of them, but influences from other planes are moving us and affecting our lives. The Kingdom of Subtle Matter acts as a ‘passage’ through which those Powers reach our world. ‘Occult’, hidden ‘behind this grosser Nature’s walls’ of matter, that realm is like ‘A gossamer marriage-hall’. ‘Gossamer’ is a beautiful poetic word for the fine threads of silk that baby spiders spin to carry them away from the spot where they have just hatched from their eggs. Each tiny spider spins a long thread of silk, so fine that it is practically invisible; it climbs up onto a twig or blade of grass and waits for the wind to come and blow it away on its silken parachute to the unknown destination where it will start its life. If many spiderlings hatch at the same time, and the air is very still, in the early morning we may see a field covered with a fine silvery net of shining ‘gossamer’. Imagine a whole room made out of such very fine, almost invisible threads: this is the hall where ‘Mind’ marries with ‘Form’. Here in our world, Matter or ‘Form’ is dominant over Mind, but in that realm they marry, as equal partners. The secret ‘marriage-hall’ where they meet ‘Is hidden by a tapestry of dreams’. A ‘tapestry’ is a woven or embroidered wall-hanging. The space where ‘Mind’ marries ‘Form’ is concealed behind a curtain of dreams. That ‘gossamer marriage-hall’, ‘hidden by a tapestry of dreams’, where Mind and Form unite, provides a passage through which ‘Heaven’s meanings steal’: divine significances pass through it imperceptibly, so that we do not see or hear them coming. They pass from that world into our world ‘as through a veil’ – a very fine transparent curtain. And the power of subtle inner vision which rules in that world ‘sustains’ – supports or holds up – ‘this outer scene’: all that we see here.

[ Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

In rooms of the young divinity of power
And early play of the eternal Chil
The embodiments of his outwinging thoughts
Laved in a bright everlasting wonder’s tints
And lulled by whispers of that lucid air
Take dream-hued rest like birds on timeless trees
Before they dive to float on earth-time’s sea.

Sri Aurobindo likens that realm of subtle matter to a house where the ‘eternal Child’ lives and plays. This expression makes us think of what is called in India Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Child, who represents the Divine as ruler of the subtle realms. The Golden Child is playing and dreaming, and all his wonderful thoughts and dreams take subtle forms, ‘The embodiments of his outwinging thoughts’. Those forms are ‘Laved’, or washed, ‘in a bright everlasting wonder’s tints’: they get tinted with bright colours in that air of untiring wonder and charm.They are also‘lulled by whispers of that lucid air’.We may rock a baby in our arms to lull it to rest, to soothe it so that it will rest peacefully. In the Kingdom of Subtle Matter, the thoughts and dreams of the Hiranyagarbha, the Divine in his form of a Golden Child, get rocked and soothed in that ‘lucid air’, so pure and clear and full of light. This happens in the subtle realms, ‘In rooms of the young divinity of power’, where the Creator takes the form of a Golden Child, before entering into the world of matter as Virat, the Lord of the material universe. His thoughts take form and fly around him like birds, and they are washed in the lovely ‘tints’, or colours of ‘a bright everlasting’ wonder, an unfailing charm and delight. That air is very soft and soothing; those divine thoughts and dreams are ‘lulled by whispers of that lucid air’. There in the Kingdom of Subtle Matter they take rest – ‘dream-hued rest’. Clothed in the kind of beautiful magical colours you might see in a lovely dream, the embodied thoughts of the Divine Child remain for a time, ‘like birds on timeless trees / ‘Before they dive…’ out of that world into our world, where they will ‘float on earth-time’s sea’. Here in earth-time and earth-space they will take other forms. Sri Aurobindo has written in The Life Divine that everything in the universe embodies a thought of God. Here he evokes the process by which God’s thoughts take form in the subtle physical realm before entering our material world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

The future’s marvels wander in its gulfs;
Things old and new are fashioned in those depths:
A carnival of beauty crowds the heights
In that magic kingdom of ideal sight.

Wonderful possibilities are waiting for us in the future. In one of his aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo has written,

If mankind could but see though in a glimpse of fleeting experience what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all & never rest till  they had gained these treasures.

In the Kingdom of Subtle Matter, ‘The future’s marvels’ – those wonders of the future – are wandering ‘in its gulfs’ – its deepest secret places, and in those depths old things and new things are given shape: ‘fashioned’ means ‘shaped’ or ‘made’. On its heights is ‘A carnival of beauty’ – a crowded festival with a riot of beautiful colours and forms and movement, revelling ‘In that magic kingdom of ideal sight’. The power of vision there perceives things in their ideal forms, their highest and most perfect expressions.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

In its antechambers of splendid privacy
Matter and soul in conscious union meet
Like lovers in a lonely secret place:
In the clasp of a passion not yet unfortunate
They join their strength and sweetness and delight
And mingling make the high and low worlds one.

An ‘antechamber’ is a small private room adjoining a bigger and more public space. The world of subtle matter provides some secret and protected places, ‘antechambers of splendid privacy’ where ‘Matter and soul’ can meet in ‘conscious union’, ‘Like lovers in a lonely secret place’. We may feel that Matter and Soul are almost like opposites which cannot really meet. But in that subtle realm they can meet secretly. They embrace as lovers, ‘In the clasp of a passion’ that is ‘not yet unfortunate’. In our world perhaps the meeting of Soul with Matter seems to be doomed, but there it is pure and delightful: ‘They join their strength and sweetness and delight’, mingle their qualities and melt together, uniting the realms of heaven and earth and making ‘the high and low worlds one’. We are not only our bodies; we have souls within us, we have subtle physical elements, we have mental and vital parts, we carry the potentialities of all the planes of existence in us; but in this material world, soul has difficulty in expressing itself: as long as our minds and lives and bodies are under the domination of matter the soul cannot express itself freely. In the world of subtle matter, it is easier for Matter and Soul to meet and mingle, because the substance of that world is finer and purer than ours.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

After the falling of mortality’s cloak
Lightened is its weight to heighten its ascent;
Refined to the touch of finer environments
It drops old patterned palls of denser stuff,
Cancels the grip of earth’s descending pull
And bears the soul from world to higher world,
Till in the naked ether of the peaks
The spirit’s simplicity alone is left,
The eternal being’s first transparent robe

‘After the falling of mortality’s cloak’ – when the physical body falls away, so that the spirit no longer has to wear this ‘cloak’ of matter which is subject to death, its subtle physical covering becomes lighter, ‘to heighten its ascent’, so that it can easily rise to higher levels. It becomes finer, ‘Refined to the touch of finer environments’, of even subtler worlds. The spirit ‘drops old patterned palls of denser stuff’. A ‘pall’ is a heavy cloth used to cover a dead body or a coffin. Here it refers to the material substance of the body. The spirit lets fall all those old heavy patterned coverings of denser substance and ‘Cancels the grip of earth’s descending pull’ so that it is no longer subject to gravity, the downward pull of the earth. That subtler body can carry ‘the soul from world to higher world’, getting finer and lighter until ‘in the naked ether of the peaks’, the very refined atmosphere of the highest planes, no ‘covering’ is needed: ‘The spirit’s simplicity alone is left, / The eternal being’s first transparent robe.’

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

But when it must come back to its mortal load
And the hard ensemble of earth’s experience,
Then its return resumes that heavier dress.

When the spirit has to return to this world, to take up the load of human existence and face all the hard circumstances of living on earth again, then as it comes back, step by step it puts on ‘that heavier dress’ of subtle and then gross material bodies.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

This wonder-world with all its radiant boon
Of vision and inviolate happiness,
Only for expression cares and perfect form;
Fair on its peaks, it has dangerous nether planes;

‘This wonder-world’, the Kingdom of Subtle Matter, ‘with all its radiant boon’ or shining gift of subtle vision and ‘inviolate happiness’ only cares about ‘expression’ and ‘perfect form’. ‘Inviolate’ means ‘unspoiled’; when something is violated, it gets spoiled or broken, but the happiness gifted by that world is ‘inviolate’, unspoiled. In a way the material world too cares only about form, but forms here are not as beautiful as the perfect forms of that world. ‘On its peaks’, its higher levels, the forms are beautiful – ‘Fair’ – but also ‘it has dangerous nether planes’; its lower levels are dangerous. In the next few lines the poet explains why.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Its light draws towards the verge of Nature’s lapse;
It lends beauty to the terror of the gulfs
And fascinating eyes to perilous Gods,
Invests with grace the demon and the snake.

The light of that realm comes close to ‘the verge of Nature’s lapse’ – the borderline where Nature falls away from perfection into unconsciousness, imperfection, falsehood and evil. Since that world cares only about perfect expression and form, it gives beautiful forms even to dark and terrible things from ‘the terror of the gulfs’ – the deep dark levels of the vital. It lends ‘fascinating eyes to perilous Gods’, providing attractiveness even to dangerous powers; it makes even ‘the demon and the snake’ – symbolic terms for adverse vital powers – look beautiful and alluring.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Our secret breath of untried mightier force,
The lurking sun of an instant’s inner sight,
Its fine suggestions are a covert fount
For our iridescent rich imaginings
Touching things common with transfiguring hues
Till even earth’s mud grows rich and warm with the skies
And a glory gleams from the soul’s decadence.

That realm of subtle matter is supporting our material world with a ‘secret breath’ carrying a greater strength than anything we have so far tried to use. It is a ‘lurking sun’: a hidden consciousness and light which we might glimpse for a moment with ‘an instant’s inner sight’. It is sending us many ‘fine suggestions’ which flow to us as if from a secret fountain, feeding ‘iridescent rich imaginings’ that shine with all the colours of the rainbow. Sometimes those ‘fine suggestions’ touch the ordinary things we see here in our world ‘with transfiguring hues’ so that we see them changed, in a new magical light, and for a moment even our gross muddy matter becomes ‘rich and warm with the skies’, with the light of higher levels of consciousness, ‘and a glory gleams’ even ‘from the soul’s decadence’, from the fallen state of the soul here in the material world. ‘Decadence’ means ‘falling away’; we use it of something that has fallen away from a higher state into a lower one, for example civilisations or cultures.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Its knowledge is our error’s starting-point;
Its beauty dons our mud-mask ugliness,
Its artist good begins our evil’s tale.

Since our material world is derived from that subtler plane, ‘Its knowledge’ forms the starting-point of our ignorance and error, and its magical beauty ‘dons our mud-mask ugliness’. To ‘don’ means ‘to put on’, for example a mask or robe. The mud of matter covers up the loveliness of the subtle forms of that higher world and ‘Its artist good begins our evil’s tale.’ This is a paradoxical line, but earlier Sri Aurobindo warned us that the Kingdom of Subtle Matter cares only for expression and perfect form like an artist; sometimes the aesthetic values of the artist can give grace and allure to falsehood, and this may contribute to the long story of what we experience in our world as evil.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A heaven of creative truths above,
A cosmos of harmonious dreams between,
A chaos of dissolving forms below,
It plunges lost in our inconscient base.
Out of its fall our denser Matter came.

On its highest levels the Kingdom of Subtle Matter is ‘A heaven’ full of ‘creative truths’, able to create their own perfect expressions. In its middle levels it is ‘A cosmos’, a universe ‘of harmonious dreams’; but on its lower levels there is ‘A chaos of dissolving forms’, losing their shapes and their harmonious order, so that at its lowest, ‘It plunges lost in our inconscient base’: finally it gets lost in the formless Inconscience from which the material world has emerged: ‘Out of its fall our denser Matter came’. As the poet showed us earlier, ‘earth’s solid vest’ has been forged out of the formlessness of the inconscient ‘By the technique of the atomic Void’. The gross matter that makes up our world has emerged from that ‘inconscient base’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]