Thus taken was God’s plunge into the Night.
This fallen world became a nurse of souls
Inhabited by concealed divinity.

The Supreme Consciousness has plunged into the Asat, the non-existence, the darkness of inconscience, in order to set off the slow process of evolution. As a result, ‘This fallen world’ of matter, ‘became a nurse of souls’. Earth, the material principle is apparently inconscient, but she nourishes and feeds the souls who are going to emerge. This world and the souls it will give birth to are ‘Inhabited by concealed divinity’: the Divine dwells within them, ‘concealed’, hidden from our View.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A Being woke and lived in the meaningless void,
A world-wide Nescience strove towards life and thought,
A Consciousness plucked out from mindless sleep.
All here is driven by an insentient will.

Because of God’s plunge into the Night of non-existence, a ‘Being’ woke up and lived within ‘the meaningless void’. As a result, that ‘world-wide Nescience’, that state of not knowing, began to strive, to make an effort, ‘towards life’ and beyond life even towards ‘thought’. The will in matter is ‘insentient’, without senses; but it is blindly pushing towards the capacity to live, to feel, and even to think. In that way it is driving the evolutionary movement forward towards  higher realisations.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

This is the destiny bequeathed to her,
As if a slain god left a golden trust
To a blind force and an imprisoned soul.

This is earth’s ‘destiny’. It has been ‘bequeathed to her’. Before you leave your body you may plan, you may write a Will, indicating who should receive your wealth, your belongings and your responsibilities: what must go to whom, so that when you are no longer here each particular responsibility or possession will go to the person you have ‘bequeathed’ itHere it is as if a god has been ‘slain’, killed, a divine being, who knowing that he is no longer going to be there, has left this very precious ‘golden trust’ as a task to the earth, even though she seems to be only ‘a blind force’, an unconscious energy and a soul that is ‘imprisoned’ in matter which cannot express it properly. So how is she going to carry out its ‘golden trust’?

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Her giant energy tied to petty forms
In the slow tentative motion of her power
With only frail blunt instruments for use,
She has accepted as her nature’s need
And given to man as his stupendous work
A labour to the gods impossible.

Earth has accepted this inheritance as ‘her nature’s need’, recognised it as the work she needs to do; she has accepted that her tremendous energy should be ‘tied to petty forms’, small, unimportant, insignificant, forms, as she exercises her great power in a ‘slow tentative motion’. The movement of this evolving material earth is very slow and ‘tentative’, unsure of itself. As if groping in the dark it tries out one thing and then another; it is not absolutely sure of the direction it must go. Evolution seems to move like that: through many experiments, testing and trying, always asking, “Is this the right thing? Will it work or not?” And what kind of ‘instruments’ or tools has she got at her disposal for this tremendous work? Only forms that are born in the material world; they are both ‘frail’ – weak and easily broken – and ‘blunt’. If you have a great work to do you would like to have a nice sharp suitable tool to use, but if you have only got a blunt instrument it makes your work very much more difficult. She has accepted this task and all these difficult conditions. The task which she has accepted is impossible to the gods, but she has handed on that ‘stupendous work’ to us human beings. We are the ‘frail blunt instruments’ she has at her disposal. We are the ones who have to help her carry out this labour that is impossible to the gods. ‘Stupendous’ means ‘unimaginably huge’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 

A life living hardly in a field of death
Its portion claims of immortality;
A brute half-conscious body serves as means
A mind that must recover a knowledge lost
Held in stone grip by the world’s inconscience,
And wearing still these countless knots of Law
A spirit bound stand up as Nature’s king.

This sentence is about human beings, and the task we have to do on behalf of the Earth goddess. We are alive, but the whole universe around us is subject to entropy, to dissolution and we are constantly in danger of death; but something in us feels that we are immortal and have the right to live forever. Our body is an animal body that is ‘brute’, primitive and unrefined and only ‘half-conscious’; but it has to serve a mind – in consciousness we are mental beings. This mind of ours has the task of recovering or rediscovering a knowledge that has been lost and is ‘Held in stone grip’, the grip of inconscient matter. This animal body of ours must also serve a spirit which is intended to rise up as the king of Nature even while it is still wearing all ‘these countless knots of Law’, restricted by the laws of matter, of life and of mind. Our spirit has to grow strong enough to stand up and rule Nature even while it still inhabits and is restricted by the physical body and brain.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Even in the littleness of our mortal state,
Even in this prison-house of outer form,
A brilliant passage for the infallible Flame
Is driven through gross walls of nerve and brain,
A Splendour presses or a Power breaks through,
Earth’s great dull barrier is removed awhile,
The inconscient seal is lifted from our eyes
And we grow vessels of creative might.

Here we are in ‘our mortal state’, subject to death, in our little separate existence, imprisoned in these ‘outer’ forms; but even so it is possible for a higher inspiration to come to us from above, when a ‘brilliant passage for the infallible Flame’ of creative force gets ‘driven through’ the gross material walls of the nerves and the brain, so that the ‘dull barrier’ of matter gets removed for a time and ‘The inconscient seal is lifted from our eyes’: our power of vision is no longer sealed up by the limited capacity of our physical eyes, and under the pressure of that higher inspiration we may become for a moment or two ‘vessels of creative might’, able to contain and be used by a great creative power. Here, I think, Sri Aurobindo is speaking about the inspiration the poet or the artist receives. Somehow ‘A brilliant passage for the infallible Flame’, a shining tunnel through which a ‘Flame’ of inspiration that brings something absolutely true, something which is invincible and cannot fail, gets driven through the gross physical ‘walls’ of our nerves and our brain, so that we feel some glorious possibility pressing on us and a ‘Power breaks through’. Then the ‘dull barrier’ of matter is ‘removed’ for some time; the ‘seal’ of blindness, of unconsciousness, ‘is lifted from our eyes’ and we become ‘vessels’, containers of a great creative force.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

But soon the inert flesh responds no more,
Then sinks the sacred orgy of delight,
The blaze of passion and the tide of power
Are taken from us and, though a glowing form
Abides astonishing earth, imagined supreme,
Too little of what was meant has left a trace.

‘But soon’ owing to the nature of our physical body, our brain and nerves and hands stop responding to that powerful flow of inspiration: ‘the inert flesh responds no more’. The substance of our bodies tends to be tamasic, inert, unresponsive. That ‘dull barrier’ of earthly nature may be removed for a while, so that we receive some touch of inspiration, but soon the body cannot respond any longer to the powerful flow from above. Then the intense creative delight that we have been experiencing, that ‘sacred orgy of delight’, is lost. The word ‘orgy’ is usually used of a mass indulgence in the lower enjoyments of the senses; but here the poet speaks of a ‘sacred orgy’ when the whole body is seized by creative inspiration and force. For a time all the senses and capacities may be fully engaged in this intense delight, but soon all that intensity dies down like a candle burning out or a fire sinking down. ‘The blaze of passion’: the intense feelings that come under the pressure of the higher inspiration are like a ‘blaze’, a big bonfire burning; also we feel a ‘tide of power’ pouring into us like an ocean of strength but soon those powerful experiences are taken away from us. Under their influence we may have created something very beautiful, ‘a glowing form’ which ‘Abides’, remaining after the creative impulse has passed. That great creation may astonish those who see it, who may exclaim “What a great masterpiece! What a supreme piece of art!” But the artist himself knows that ‘Too little of what was meant has left a trace’. The inspiration that was coming was so much more perfect, more complete, more complex, more beautiful than what he was able to express. Maybe even Sri Aurobindo felt like this about Savitri. We see this ‘glowing form’ that he has left to us, and are astonished by the supreme poetry, but he himself might have felt that ‘Too little of what was meant has left a trace’. 

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Here in a difficult half-finished world
Is a slow toiling of unconscious Powers;
Here is man’s ignorant divining mind,
His genius born from an inconscient soil.
To copy on earth’s copies is his art.

Here we are in this ‘difficult half-finished world’, which is only half-way through its evolution. So what we experience here is ‘a slow toiling of unconscious Powers’: everything costs effort, even simple things. Even if we feel inspired to produce a great work of art, that demands an enormous effort and takes time because here the powers of Matter, Life and Mind are unconscious and unable to respond fully to the higher consciousness. What we have to work with is ‘man’s ignorant divining mind’. Our minds are ignorant, but seem somehow to be guided or have some power of intuition. Sri Aurobindo uses the word ‘divining’, the verb we use for the intuitive capability of a person who can tell us where to find water or things that are lost, because he has some special sense which is not really understood. The word is connected with the French word ‘deviner’ which means ‘to guess’, but that capacity is not really guessing so much as knowing without knowing how you know; it is a form of intuition, of direct knowledge. And if a person shows some exceptionally developed capacity of intellect, artistic ability or power of organisation, we call him a ‘genius’; but human genius is nevertheless born from this unconscious soil of matter, of the physical body, and is dependent to a certain extent on a physical brain, on the nerves and the body’s responses. This means that human beings who are inspired to create great beautiful things – in art, music, poetry, the sciences and even philosophy – find that what they are doing is ‘To copy on earth’s copies’. All artists, as part of their training, have to do this: learn to observe the forms of nature, the material forms and see how accurately and precisely and evocatively they can express the appearances of nature, which are already ‘copies of heaven’s art’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A ripple of light and glory wraps the brain,
And travelling down the moment’s vanishing route
The figures of eternity arrive.

This is the experience of inspiration or even revelation: suddenly the brain is enveloped in a gentle wave – ‘A ripple’ – of ‘light and glory’ and just for a moment, ‘down the moment’s vanishing route / ‘The figures of eternity arrive’. The moment lasts only a very short time, but in that short time, we are visited by ‘figures of eternity’, images that express eternity.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Although beginnings only and first attempts,
These glimmerings point to the secret of our birth
And the hidden miracle of our destiny.

These experiences are only beginnings, only first attempts, only ‘glimmerings’: faint little lights; but the very fact that we can have such experiences points ‘to the secret of our birth’, who and what we really are, and ‘the hidden miracle of our destiny’: they are indications of where we have come from and where we are going. These rare and exceptional experiences are clues to the truth of our existence.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Earth’s doubting future hides our heritage:
The Light now distant shall grow native here,
The Strength that visits us our comrade power;
The Ineffable shall find a secret voice,
The Imperishable burn through Matter’s screen
Making this mortal body godhead’s robe.

We look into the future with a mixture of hope and anxiety: we are not sure what will happen, what the prospects are. It is as if our possible futures are doubting themselves, uncertain of themselves. That sense of doubt ‘hides our heritage’: what is the future going to inherit from the past? We do not know – but Sri Aurobindo assures us that we have a very bright heritage. The higher Light of consciousness which now seems very far away and out of reach ‘shall grow native here’: it will become absolutely natural and ‘native’ to the earth. The greater spiritual ‘Strength’ that occasionally ‘visits us’ for a short time in special moments will become ‘our comrade power’, always with us, always supporting us. A ‘comrade’ is a reliable and intimate friend and companion. ‘The Ineffable’ is the supreme Reality which we can never adequately express in words or images; but Sri Aurobindo promises us that the inexpressible Truth will find ‘a secret voice’, a subtle way of expressing itself here on Earth. ‘The Imperishable’ existence and substance which does not decay or die will ‘burn through Matter’s screen’, the material covering of the inner being, to make ‘this mortal body’ we have now, which is subject to death and decay, into ‘godhead’s robe’ – a dress for the divine being which inhabits it. All this can happen because:

The Spirit’s greatness is our timeless source
And it shall be our crown in endless Time.

The greatness of the Spirit is beyond Time, ‘timeless’, but it is our ‘source’, our origin, where we have come from. It is also where we are going to. Reaching it consciously in the material manifestation will be our crowning achievement in the endless process of Time.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Thus all creation is a single chain:
We are not left alone in a closed scheme
Between a driving of inconscient Force
And an incommunicable Absolute.

Now Sri Aurobindo starts to tell us something about those ‘greater worlds’: first, the transcendent realms where pure existence is concentrated within itself and feels all its latent potentialities within its centre or heart, ‘its … core’. That core is ‘immense’ and ‘dynamic’ – full of energy and power. Within the core lie all infinite ‘potencies’ of Being, its powers and possibilities; as yet they are ‘nameless, unformed, unborn’, unmanifested; but they want to be named, formed, born, manifested – they are crying out to be expressed and to find expression ‘in the unshaped Vast’. This is the state in which pure unmanifest existence feels itself pregnant with infinite possibilities that are waiting to find expression in a manifested world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

There are realms where Being broods in its own depths;
It feels in its immense dynamic core
Its nameless, unformed, unborn potencies
Cry for expression in the unshaped Vast: 

Now Sri Aurobindo starts to tell us something about those ‘greater worlds’: first, the transcendent realms where pure existence is concentrated within itself and feels all its latent potentialities within its centre or heart, ‘its … core’. That core is ‘immense’ and ‘dynamic’ – full of energy and power. Within the core lie all infinite ‘potencies’ of Being, its powers and possibilities; as yet they are ‘nameless, unformed, unborn’, unmanifested; but they want to be named, formed, born, manifested – they are crying out to be expressed and to find expression ‘in the unshaped Vast’. This is the state in which pure unmanifest existence feels itself pregnant with infinite possibilities that are waiting to find expression in a manifested world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Ineffable beyond Ignorance and death,
The images of its everlasting Truth
Look out from a chamber of its self-rapt soul:

The ‘everlasting Truth’ of that pure existence is ‘Ineffable’ – beyond all expression, in a transcendent state beyond ‘Ignorance and death’; but it forms ‘images’ of itself and its possibilities, and those images look outwards from ‘a chamber of its self-rapt soul’: a secret space at the core of the Being where its soul is concentrated, indrawn and focussed only on its own self-delight. Its unborn potentialities look out from that ‘self-rapt’ state.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Worlds are there nearer to those absolute realms,
Where the response to Truth is swift and sure
And spirit is not hampered by its frame
And hearts by sharp division seized and rent
And delight and beauty are inhabitants
And love and sweetness are the law of life.

There are other worlds that are ‘nearer to those absolute realms’ than ours is. In those worlds the response to Truth is spontaneous – ‘swift and sure’, and ‘spirit is not hampered by its frame’. Here in our material world, the spirit is ‘hampered’ – impeded or slowed down – by its material bodily frame; here our ‘hearts’ are ‘seized’ and torn – ‘rent’ means torn apart – ‘by sharp division’. But in those higher worlds ‘delight and beauty are inhabitants’ and ‘love and sweetness are the law of life’. It seems as if we are carrying the memory of those worlds and are always longing to be there. That makes life on earth very painful sometimes because we have the feeling, “It should not be like this: ‘Love and sweetness’ should be the law of life!”.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A communion of spiritual entities,
A genius of creative Immanence,
Makes all creation deeply intimate:
A fourth dimension of aesthetic sense
Where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all,
To the cosmic wideness re-aligns our souls.

The word ‘genius’ is often applied to a person who has an outstanding capacity in some area, such as a poet or musician or scientist; but in its origin it means ‘spirit’. There is a spirit of ‘creative Immanence’, an indwelling ‘creative’ power, which may express itself in outstanding capacities, but which is dwelling within everything. If that spirit wakes up in us through a ‘communion of spiritual entities’, a communion of our spirit with other spirits, we may experience a ‘deeply intimate’ connection and kinship with everything in creation, and true creativity results from that sense of intimacy with all creation. Sri Aurobindo tells us that there is a ‘fourth dimension’ beyond the three dimensions of space, a ‘dimension of aesthetic sense’, a sense of beauty where we experience that everything is in ourselves and we ourselves are in everything. This experience ‘re-aligns’ or attunes ‘our souls’ to the vastness of the entire universe.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A kindling rapture joins the seer and seen;
The craftsman and the craft grown inly one
Achieve perfection by the magic throb
And passion of their close identity.

When that happens, an intense delight, a ‘rapture’, gets kindled in us like a fire which ‘joins the seer and seen’, uniting what is seen with the one who sees, in an identity where there is no separation. When such a ‘rapture’ unites a ‘craftsman’ with his ‘craft’, his skill, they grow inwardly one. The ‘magic throb’, the enchanting thrill and the ‘passion of their close identity’ enable ‘perfection’ to be achieved. From the Far East comes the ancient teaching about the Tao, the cosmic oneness, which says that if any human being can put themselves in touch with the universal creativity, the ‘genius of creative Immanence’, through a particular skill or a way of being and living, then they can achieve perfection in what they do, whether they are a painter or a butcher or anything else: that is the way to ‘Achieve perfection’. Whatever we human beings produce from our limited selves is necessarily limited and artificial; but if we can establish a connection with the universal creative force then some perfection can be achieved despite our limitations.

[Shraddhavan’s English od Savitri, Book 2]

But rarely burns the flame nor burns for long;
The joy it calls from those diviner heights
Brings brief magnificent reminiscences
And high splendid glimpses of interpreting thought,
But not the utter vision and delight.

But here, because of the ‘inertia of response’ of our nature, that ‘flame’ of divine creative Will comes to us only ‘rarely’, and if it comes at all it does not burn in us for very long. When it comes, it calls down from the heavenly heights a great joy, which brings with it ‘brief magnificent reminiscences’, glorious memories of the higher planes our souls have come from, and ‘high splendid glimpses of interpreting thought’, but does not give us ‘the utter vision and delight’, the complete and full seeing and ecstasy that is native to those higher planes of consciousness.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]