The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul,
To feel was a flame-discovery of God,
All mind was a single harp of many strings,
All life a song of many meeting lives;
For worlds were many, but the Self was one.

This is one of the great climactic moments in the poem. For Aswapati now, the ‘great world-rhythms’, the ‘cosmic stir’, the expansion and contraction of the universe, are allexperienced as the throbbing ‘heart-beats of one Soul’. ‘To feel was a flame-discovery of God’: everything experienced by the senses was an intense perception of the Divine. ‘All mind was a single harp of many strings’: a ‘harp’ is a musical instrument with many strings; in the Christian tradition it is said that in heaven the angels play harps, making heavenly music. Here Aswapati experiences all the movements of mind in the universe as many strings of ‘a single harp’; he feels ‘All life’ as ‘a song of many meeting lives’: like a great choir, all lives in the universe are taking part in one great song of life. There is one ‘harp’ with ‘many strings’ – the harp of ‘mind’; all the lives in the universe are singing one song: all the rhythms and vibrations of all the worlds are ‘heart-beats of one Soul’, ‘For worlds were many, but the Self was one’. He feels the blissful embrace of Oneness uniting all the many worlds, with all their beings and experiences, into one Soul, one Self.

[Shradhavn’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

Then from the trance of that tremendous clasp
And from the throbbings of that single Heart
And from the naked Spirit’s victory
A new and marvellous creation rose.

Out of ‘the trance of that tremendous clasp’ – that powerful embrace of Bliss and Power and Light and flame-white Love – and from ‘the throbbings of that single Heart’ of the one Soul, and from ‘the naked Spirit’s victory’ – the triumph of pure unveiled Spirit, ‘A new and marvellous creation rose.’ Aswapati is privileged to witness the birth of a ‘New Creation’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

There were no contraries, no sundered parts,
All by spiritual links were joined to all
And bound indissolubly to the One:
Each was unique, but took all lives as his own,
And, following out these tones of the Infinite,
Recognised in himself the universe.

Because these worlds are united by ‘egoless Self’ there are ‘no contraries’, no oppositions: all opposites are united and harmonised. There are ‘no sundered parts’, no parts which are cut off from the whole or separated from each other, because ‘All by spiritual links were joined to all’: everything is spiritually connected to everything else; everything is ‘bound’, connected, ‘indissolubly’ – by a tie that cannot be broken or dissolved – ‘to the One’. There each being is unique, but each of them identifies with all the others, and feels allother equally unique lives as aspects of itself. ‘Following out these tones’, these unique notes ‘of the Infinite’, each of them can recognise the whole universe within itself.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

None was apart, none lived for himself alone,
Each lived for God in him and God in all,
Each soleness inexpressibly held the whole.

None of these unique beings is separated from the others, and none of them is living ‘for himself alone’: each is living for the One, ‘for God in him and God in all’; and each unique individual, ‘Each soleness’, in some way which we cannot put into words or thoughts, ‘inexpressibly held the whole’. This state is the goal that is coded into each one of us, which each of us is deeply longing for. We will not be satisfied until we have experienced the delight of fulfilling our own unique individuality in the Divine, and at the same time feeling the delight of the fulfilment of all the other unique individualities as parts of ourself, as well as the delight of the Oneness that is containing us all within itself, united.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

Appearance looked back to its hidden truth
And made of difference oneness’ smiling play;
It made all persons fractions of the Unique,
Yet all were being’s secret integers.

Each of these individual beings or movements has its own special ‘Appearance’ – its own identifiable characteristics; but each of these appearances is looking back to the ‘hidden truth’ of that particular individual aspect of the One, so that all this difference and variety of appearances is a ‘smiling play’ of oneness. There is an apostrophe here which shows that the ‘smiling play’ of difference belongs to the oneness. The underlying truth which is supporting the ‘smiling play’ of all the different appearances ensures that all these persons, all these individuals, are ‘fractions’: parts of that ‘Unique’ and sole One; and yet at the same time all these ‘fractions’ are in fact ‘being’s secret integers’. In mathematics a distinction is made between a fraction and an integer: a fraction is a part, while an integer is a whole number. But here Sri Aurobindo is telling us that while each of these individual beings and appearances is a fraction, a portion, an aspect of the One, in fact secretly each of them is an integer, a whole, carrying the whole of the one existence within itself.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, volume 3]

All struggle was turned to a sweet strife of love
In the harmonised circle of a sure embrace.
Identity’s reconciling happiness gave
A rich security to difference.

In that ‘smiling play’ of ‘difference’, what would be ‘struggle’ to us gets turned into ‘a sweet strife of love’: a kind of love-play. When people are in love they sometimes playfully wrestle and compete with each other; they can do that because they are so sure of their love, of their oneness, that within ‘the harmonised circle of a sure embrace’ they can play at ‘strife’. Because their oneness is something that they can absolutely rely on, they can play at disagreeing and competing and being different. Because they know for sure that they are one, they experience a ‘reconciling happiness’, a bliss of oneness and harmony, which gives ‘A rich security to difference’. Expressing their differences is entirely safe. I remember somebody here in Auroville pointing out to me that if we really felt human unity we could also disagree without being destructive or unpleasant in any way, because that sense of identity would give ‘A rich security to difference’: there would be no danger in being different. Because each person is representing a unique aspect of the One, we need to feel safe in expressing our uniqueness. That is a problem in the present state of humanity: none of us is experiencing that ‘reconciling happiness’ of identity; each of us is feeling separate, and therefore insecure; each of us feels that we have to defend our own position and our own way of seeing things. This is a great difficulty which human beings suffer from. Aswapati is seeing a new creation in which this problem does not exist.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

There was no sob of suffering anywhere;
Experience ran from point to point of joy:
Bliss was the pure undying truth of things.

This is an absolutely blissful state, with ‘no sob of suffering anywhere’. In that new creation there are many, many different experiences, but each of them is a ‘point of joy’, a different kind of delight, and ‘Bliss’ – ananda – is experienced as ‘the pure undying truth of things.’

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

All turned to all without reserve’s recoil:
A single ecstasy without a break,
Love was a close and thrilled identity
In the throbbing heart of all that luminous life.

‘All turned to all without reserve’s recoil’: all the beings in that new creation turned to each other without any ‘reserve’, without withholding anything or any drawing back. Sometimes when we sense a contact we may ‘recoil’ from it: we draw back with a feeling of ‘reserve’, we are reluctant to give ourselves fully or respond fully, so we draw back or hold something back. In the New Creation there is nothing like that: all these many different experiences flow together in ‘A single ecstasy’ in which there is no ‘break’ or interruption, because ‘In the throbbing heart of all that luminous life’ there is love, a love that feels oneness in a very close and intimate way, with a thrill of delight. Love implies a relationship; there it is a relationship of union, of identity that brings a thrill, a delight which flows through the ‘throbbing heart of all that luminous life’: everything and everyone shares that ‘single ecstasy without a break’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

A grand orchestra of spiritual powers,
A diapason of soul-interchange
Harmonised a Oneness deep, immeasurable.

All these individual souls in harmony make up a great ‘orchestra of spiritual powers’: the powers and potentialities of the One. An ‘orchestra’ is a group of many musicians playing on different instruments to make great music. This ‘grand orchestra of spiritual powers’, with all its many different notes and tones, creates ‘A diapason of soul-interchange’. The word ‘diapason’ comes from Greek and means ‘the whole range of notes playing at full volume and in perfect harmony’. All the souls are communicating with each other, sharing their unique individual notes and tones without reserve, to create a deep immeasurable harmony of all the aspects of the Oneness. What a wonderful music that must be, the music of the New Creation!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

A stream ever new-born that never dies,
Caught in its thousandfold current’s ravishing flow,
With eddies of immortal sweetness thrilled,
He bore coiling through his members as they passed
Calm movements of interminable delight,
The bliss of a myriad myriads who are one.

This is a wonderfully poetic expression of the unimaginable bliss which Aswapati experiences as he participates in the life of that new creation. To grasp some of its suggestions, let us have a look at the structure of this sentence. First of all, Sri Aurobindo speaks of a ‘stream’ that is being constantly born anew, and which never dies; although it is always fresh and new, it is never-ending, it is going on and on and on and on. Then he refers to Aswapati: Aswapati is ‘caught’ in the current of that ‘stream’ which is ‘ever new-born’ and ‘never dies’; it is a ‘thousandfold’ current, containing many, many different elements; he is caught in that current, and it is a ‘ravishing flow’ which is utterly delightful: something that is ‘ravishing’ is irresistibly delightful. Caught in that ‘ravishing flow’, he feels the thrill of ‘eddies of immortal sweetness’; in a flowing stream there will be ‘eddies’: small whirlpools circling around; he feels the thrill, the delight of those eddies, those little whirlpools of ‘immortal sweetness’ as they coil through his limbs. This is such an intense experience that Sri Aurobindo uses the word ‘bore’, the past tense of ‘bear’: normally we use this word in connection with some painful sensation. Aswapati feels these intense thrills of delight ‘coiling through his members as they passed’. If you are bathing in a stream, you may feel the delightful cool eddies of water passing over your skin; but Aswapati is feeling these intense sensations passing ‘through his members’, through all the parts of his being. They coil, they flow, they are thrilling, but they are calm: ‘Calm movements of interminable delight’. The word ‘interminable’ normally has a negative connotation; we might say “The politician made an interminable speech”: one that went on far too long. But this is ‘interminable delight’: intense and unending bliss which is almost too much to bear. Aswapati feels, passing throughout his being, ‘The bliss of a myriad myriads who are one’. A ‘myriad’ is an uncountable number; here there are an uncountable number of uncountable beings: ‘a myriad myriads’, beyond all counting. This uncountable multitude of beings are all experiencing the bliss of Oneness, and Aswapati is sharing their sense of that ever-new and ever- undying flow, multiplied in all of them and passing through him: ‘The bliss of a myriad myriads who are one’. It is a supreme poetic expression of a supreme experience.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]