The high and luminous tension breaks too soon,
The body’s stone stillness and the life’s hushed trance,
The breathless might and calm of silent mind;
Or slowly they fail as sets a golden day.

This is a general experience in the spiritual life: we aspire, we concentrate and receive some wonderful experience where we are in a state of ‘high and luminous tension’; but soon it breaks, and we come back to the ordinary consciousness. In that state of concentration, the body was still, unmoving, like a stone, all the life-forces were as if in a ‘hushed trance’; the mind too was silent: a ‘breathless might and calm of silent mind’ was felt; but too soon it breaks: suddenly we are back to normal; or perhaps the experiences just slowly fade away: ‘Slowly they fail as sets a golden day’, like some beautiful sunset slowly fading into twilight. Suddenly or gradually Aswapati too would come down out of those ‘large wide-poised upliftings’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 1]

He comes unseen into our darker parts
And, curtained by the darkness, does his work,
A subtle and all-knowing guest and guide,
Till they too feel the need and will to change.

He, the One who is also the ‘twin duality’, the supreme Diplomat, ‘comes unseen into our darker parts’. We are not aware of him coming into our lower subconscious parts, but he does his work there ‘curtained by the darkness’. A curtain is a cloth that we hang at the window to keep out the light, or to prevent people from seeing into the room from outside; here Sri Aurobindo uses it as a verb; the Lord is hidden by the darkness as if by a curtain so that we are not aware of what he is doing. He goes on doing his work behind the curtain, acting as a ‘subtle and all-knowing guest and guide’ within us. Although we do not know that he is there, he goes on doing his work and guiding us, until all our parts, even the darker ones, also begin to feel ‘the need and will to change’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 1]

Nature would ever labour unredeemed;
Our earth would ever spin unhelped in Space,
And this immense creation’s purpose fail
Till at last the frustrate universe sank undone.

This is what would happen if the higher consciousness and power did not come down into ‘Nature’s gusty field’ to help everything here to obey a higher law. Nature would just go on forever with its toil and its labour ‘unredeemed’, unsaved. ‘Redeemed’ is a word with a Christian connotation; it literally means ‘bought back’. When you need money for a special purpose and give some gold ornaments to the bank to get a loan, in order to get the gold back, you have to repay the loan and the interest to ‘redeem’ your property. Christianity teaches that the sacrifice of Christ has saved the whole world, has bought the whole world back for the Divine. The Lord has to come down into all the darker parts of nature and work on them until they feel the need and the will to learn to obey the higher law, so that this fallen Nature can be redeemed, saved; if Nature could not be redeemed, then our earth would just go on spinning helplessly through Space, and the purpose for which this great creation has been made would fail, ‘Till at last the frustrate universe sank undone’: a universe that has gone wrong somehow, that is ‘frustrate’, prevented from fulfilling its purpose and its destiny, will eventually dissolve. But Sri Aurobindo tells us that this is not going to happen: the supreme Diplomat is secretly working, he is bringing those higher forces to work here in the darkness, even when we seem to fail and fall.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 1]

Each time he rose there was a larger poise,
A dwelling on a higher spirit plane;
The Light remained in him a longer space.

This process of rising and falling was progressive: each time that he rose again after a fall, he reached ‘a larger poise’: a wider balance, a steadiness, and a greater vastness; and he could dwell, he could remain settled for some time ‘on a higher spirit plane’, a higher level of consciousness. ‘The Light remained in him a longer space’: each time the higher experience lasted longer before he fell back again into the darker state.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 1]

To the still heights and to the troubled depths
His equal spirit gave its vast assent:
A poised serenity of tranquil strength,

Once Aswapati has achieved this ‘firm spiritual poise’ the effect is a vast equality. The spirit is equal: it sees the Oneness everywhere, experiences the Oneness everywhere. So his ‘equal spirit gave its vast assent’, saying ‘yes’ equally to the wonderful silent heights and to the most troubled depths of nature. To ‘assent to’ something means to accept it, to say ‘yes’ to it. His equal spirit gains ‘A poised serenity’, a state which is peaceful, balanced, calm, quiet, tranquil, smiling. Aswapati’s ‘poised serenity’ and ‘tranquil strength’ give him ‘A wide unshaken look on Time’s unrest’. In the world of space and time, everything is always moving, there is no silence, no peace, no rest; but for Aswapati now, the troubles and the disturbances and confusions do not shake his peace; he can look at all that and remain undisturbed; he can face ‘all experience with unaltered peace’. This is a state which Sri Aurobindo asked his disciples to cultivate. My dear mentor, Amal Kiran, pointed out these lines to me as describing a state that he was always aiming for: ‘A wide unshaken look on Time’s unrest’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 1]

An inspired Knowledge sat enthroned within
Whose seconds illumined more than reason’s years:
An ictus of revealing lustre fell
As if a pointing accent upon Truth,
And like a sky-flare showing all the ground
A swift intuitive discernment shone.

Using the power of our reason, it may take us years and years of study and struggle to find some knowledge; but with Inspiration that knowledge can come to us in seconds. Now for Aswapati that inspired knowledge is throned within him, like a king; in just a second, a moment of insight, more knowledge comes to him from within than could be gained by the reason through years of effort. When that happens, ‘An ictus of revealing lustre fell’. The word ‘ictus’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘a blow’, but in poetry it means stress on a particular word or syllable; to mark the rhythm of the line of verse, that kind of stress or accent may be marked with a sign over the word or syllable that is to be accented. Here Sri Aurobindo seems to be saying that in Aswapati’s experience, from time to time, something would be pointed out to him as if by a ray of light, a ‘revealing lustre’, coming from above and pointing out some hidden Truth. And ‘like a sky-flare’, like a rocket or flare going up into the dark sky and bursting into light and showing ‘all the ground’ below, he experiences a sudden ‘intuitive discernment’. ‘Discernment’ is the capacity of seeing how things really are. This discernment comes suddenly, swiftly, like a flash of bright light in the darkness.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 1]