(S 1) | ||
190 | Then after a silence Narad made reply: | |
Tuning his lips to earthly sound he spoke, | ||
And something now of the deep sense of fate | ||
Weighted the fragile hints of mortal speech. | ||
(S 2) | ||
His forehead shone with vision solemnised, | ||
195 | Turned to a tablet of supernal thoughts | |
As if characters of an unwritten tongue | ||
Had left in its breadth the inscriptions of the gods. | ||
(S 3) | ||
Bare in that light Time toiled, his unseen works | ||
Detected; the broad-flung far-seeing schemes | ||
200 | Unfinished which his aeoned flight unrolls | |
Were mapped already in that world-wide look. | ||
(S 4) | ||
“Was then the sun a dream because there is night? | ||
(S 5) | ||
Hidden in the mortal’s heart the Eternal lives: | ||
He lives secret in the chamber of thy soul, | ||
205 | A Light shines there nor pain nor grief can cross. | |
(S 6) | ||
A darkness stands between thyself and him, | ||
Thou canst not hear or feel the marvellous Guest, | ||
Thou canst not see the beatific sun. | ||
(S 7) | ||
O queen, thy thought is a light of the Ignorance, | ||
210 | Its brilliant curtain hides from thee God’s face. | |
It illumes a world born from the Inconscience | ||
But hides the Immortal’s meaning in the world. | ||
(S 8) | ||
Thy mind’s light hides from thee the Eternal’s thought, | ||
Thy heart’s hopes hide from thee the Eternal’s will, | ||
215 | Earth’s joys shut from thee the Immortal’s bliss. | |
(S 9) | ||
Thence rose the need of a dark intruding god, | ||
The world’s dread teacher, the creator, pain. | ||
(S 10) | ||
Where Ignorance is, there suffering too must come; | ||
Thy grief is a cry of darkness to the Light; | ||
220 | Pain was the first-born of the Inconscience | |
Which was thy body’s dumb original base; | ||
Already slept there pain’s subconscient shape: | ||
A shadow in a shadowy tenebrous womb, | ||
Till life shall move, it waits to wake and be. | ||
(S 11) | ||
225 | In one caul with joy came forth the dreadful Power. | |
(S 12) | ||
In life’s breast it was born hiding its twin; | ||
But pain came first, then only joy could be. | ||
(S 13) | ||
Pain ploughed the first hard ground of the world-drowse. | ||
(S 14) | ||
By pain a spirit started from the clod, | ||
230 | By pain Life stirred in the subliminal deep. | |
(S 15) | ||
Interned, submerged, hidden in Matter’s trance | ||
Awoke to itself the dreamer, sleeping Mind; | ||
It made a visible realm out of its dreams, | ||
It drew its shapes from the subconscient depths, | ||
235 | Then turned to look upon the world it had made. | |
(S 16) | ||
By pain and joy, the bright and tenebrous twins, | ||
The inanimate world perceived its sentient soul, | ||
Else had the Inconscient never suffered change. | ||
(S 17) | ||
Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break | ||
240 | A dead resistance in the mortal’s heart, | |
His slow inertia as of living stone. | ||
(S 18) | ||
If the heart were not forced to want and weep, | ||
His soul would have lain down content, at ease, | ||
And never thought to exceed the human start | ||
245 | And never learned to climb towards the Sun. | |
(S 19) | ||
This earth is full of labour, packed with pain; | ||
Throes of an endless birth coerce her still; | ||
The centuries end, the ages vainly pass | ||
And yet the Godhead in her is not born. | ||
(S 20) | ||
250 | The ancient Mother faces all with joy, | |
Calls for the ardent pang, the grandiose thrill; | ||
For with pain and labour all creation comes. | ||
(S 21) | ||
This earth is full of the anguish of the gods; | ||
Ever they travail driven by Time’s goad, | ||
255 | And strive to work out the eternal Will | |
And shape the life divine in mortal forms. | ||
(S 22) | ||
His will must be worked out in human breasts | ||
Against the Evil that rises from the gulfs, | ||
Against the world’s Ignorance and its obstinate strength, | ||
260 | Against the stumblings of man’s pervert will, | |
Against the deep folly of his human mind, | ||
Against the blind reluctance of his heart. | ||
(S 23) | ||
The spirit is doomed to pain till man is free. | ||
(S 24) | ||
There is a clamour of battle, a tramp, a march: | ||
265 | A cry arises like a moaning sea, | |
A desperate laughter under the blows of death, | ||
A doom of blood and sweat and toil and tears. | ||
(S 25) | ||
Men die that man may live and God be born. | ||
(S 26) | ||
An awful Silence watches tragic Time. | ||
(S 27) | ||
270 | Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men | |
To greatness: an inspired labour chisels | ||
With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould. | ||
(S 28) | ||
Implacable in the passion of their will, | ||
Lifting the hammers of titanic toil | ||
275 | The demiurges of the universe work; | |
They shape with giant strokes their own; their sons | ||
Are marked with their enormous stamp of fire. | ||
(S 29) | ||
Although the shaping god’s tremendous touch | ||
Is torture unbearable to mortal nerves, | ||
280 | The fiery spirit grows in strength within | |
And feels a joy in every titan pang. | ||
(S 30) | ||
He who would save himself lives bare and calm; | ||
He who would save the race must share its pain: | ||
This he shall know who obeys that grandiose urge. | ||
(S 31) | ||
285 | The Great who came to save this suffering world | |
And rescue out of Time’s shadow and the Law, | ||
Must pass beneath the yoke of grief and pain; | ||
They are caught by the Wheel that they had hoped to break, | ||
On their shoulders they must bear man’s load of fate. | ||
(S 32) | ||
290 | Heaven’s riches they bring, their sufferings count the price | |
Or they pay the gift of knowledge with their lives. | ||
(S 33) | ||
The Son of God born as the Son of man | ||
Has drunk the bitter cup, owned Godhead’s debt, | ||
The debt the Eternal owes to the fallen kind | ||
295 | His will has bound to death and struggling life | |
That yearns in vain for rest and endless peace. | ||
(S 34) | ||
Now is the debt paid, wiped off the original score. | ||
(S 35) | ||
The Eternal suffers in a human form, | ||
He has signed salvation’s testament with his blood: | ||
300 | He has opened the doors of his undying peace. | |
(S 36) | ||
The Deity compensates the creature’s claim, | ||
The Creator bears the law of pain and death; | ||
A retribution smites the incarnate God. | ||
(S 37) | ||
His love has paved the mortal’s road to Heaven: | ||
305 | He has given his life and light to balance here | |
The dark account of mortal ignorance. | ||
(S 38) | ||
It is finished, the dread mysterious sacrifice, | ||
Offered by God’s martyred body for the world; | ||
Gethsemane and Calvary are his lot, | ||
310 | He carries the cross on which man’s soul is nailed; | |
His escort is the curses of the crowd; | ||
Insult and jeer are his right’s acknowledgment; | ||
Two thieves slain with him mock his mighty death. | ||
(S 39) | ||
He has trod with bleeding brow the Saviour’s way. | ||
(S 40) | ||
315 | He who has found his identity with God | |
Pays with the body’s death his soul’s vast light. | ||
(S 41) | ||
His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death. | ||
(S 42) | ||
Hewn, quartered on the scaffold as he falls, | ||
His crucified voice proclaims, ‘I, I am God;’ | ||
320 | ‘Yes, all is God,’ peals back Heaven’s deathless call. | |
(S 43) | ||
The seed of Godhead sleeps in mortal hearts, | ||
The flower of Godhead grows on the world-tree: | ||
All shall discover God in self and things. | ||
(S 44) | ||
But when God’s messenger comes to help the world | ||
325 | And lead the soul of earth to higher things, | |
He too must carry the yoke he came to unloose; | ||
He too must bear the pang that he would heal: | ||
Exempt and unafflicted by earth’s fate, | ||
How shall he cure the ills he never felt? | ||
(S 45) | ||
330 | He covers the world’s agony with his calm; | |
But though to the outward eye no sign appears | ||
And peace is given to our torn human hearts, | ||
The struggle is there and paid the unseen price; | ||
The fire, the strife, the wrestle are within. | ||
(S 46) | ||
335 | He carries the suffering world in his own breast; | |
Its sins weigh on his thoughts, its grief is his: | ||
Earth’s ancient load lies heavy on his soul; | ||
Night and its powers beleaguer his tardy steps, | ||
The Titan adversary’s clutch he bears; | ||
340 | His march is a battle and a pilgrimage. | |
(S 47) | ||
Life’s evil smites, he is stricken with the world’s pain: | ||
A million wounds gape in his secret heart. | ||
(S 48) | ||
He journeys sleepless through an unending night; | ||
Antagonist forces crowd across his path; | ||
345 | A siege, a combat is his inner life. | |
(S 49) | ||
Even worse may be the cost, direr the pain: | ||
His large identity and all-harbouring love | ||
Shall bring the cosmic anguish into his depths, | ||
The sorrow of all living things shall come | ||
350 | And knock at his doors and live within his house; | |
A dreadful cord of sympathy can tie | ||
All suffering into his single grief and make | ||
All agony in all the worlds his own. | ||
(S 50) | ||
He meets an ancient adversary Force, | ||
355 | He is lashed with the whips that tear the world’s worn heart; | |
The weeping of the centuries visits his eyes: | ||
He wears the blood-glued fiery Centaur shirt, | ||
The poison of the world has stained his throat. | ||
(S 51) | ||
In the market-place of Matter’s capital | ||
360 | Amidst the chafferings of the affair called life | |
He is tied to the stake of a perennial Fire; | ||
He burns on an unseen original verge | ||
That Matter may be turned to spirit stuff: | ||
He is the victim in his own sacrifice. | ||
(S 52) | ||
365 | The Immortal bound to earth’s mortality | |
Appearing and perishing on the roads of Time | ||
Creates God’s moment by eternity’s beats. | ||
(S 53) | ||
He dies that the world may be new-born and live. | ||
(S 54) | ||
Even if he escapes the fiercest fires, | ||
370 | Even if the world breaks not in, a drowning sea, | |
Only by hard sacrifice is high heaven earned: | ||
He must face the fight, the pang who would conquer Hell. | ||
(S 55) | ||
A dark concealed hostility is lodged | ||
In the human depths, in the hidden heart of Time | ||
375 | That claims the right to change and mar God’s work. | |
(S 56) | ||
A secret enmity ambushes the world’s march; | ||
It leaves a mark on thought and speech and act: | ||
It stamps stain and defect on all things done; | ||
Till it is slain peace is forbidden on earth. | ||
(S 57) | ||
380 | There is no visible foe, but the unseen | |
Is round us, forces intangible besiege, | ||
Touches from alien realms, thoughts not our own | ||
Overtake us and compel the erring heart; | ||
Our lives are caught in an ambiguous net. | ||
(S 58) | ||
385 | An adversary Force was born of old: | |
Invader of the life of mortal man, | ||
It hides from him the straight immortal path. | ||
(S 59) | ||
A power came in to veil the eternal Light, | ||
A power opposed to the eternal will | ||
390 | Diverts the messages of the infallible Word, | |
Contorts the contours of the cosmic plan: | ||
A whisper lures to evil the human heart, | ||
It seals up wisdom’s eyes, the soul’s regard, | ||
It is the origin of our suffering here, | ||
395 | It binds earth to calamity and pain. | |
(S 60) | ||
This all must conquer who would bring down God’s peace. | ||
(S 61) | ||
This hidden foe lodged in the human breast | ||
Man must overcome or miss his higher fate. | ||
(S 62) | ||
This is the inner war without escape. |
Book 6, Canto 2 – The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, Section 2Savitri Bhavan2018-09-12T05:02:33+00:00