At the end of the previous section Sri Aurobindo showed us that King Aswapati could see in a single glance the highest and the lowest regions of life. All these realms are the creation of the World-Force. In this section Sri Aurobindo describes some of these life worlds which are neither on the highest summits nor in the lowest depths, but ‘halfway to heaven’

But here were worlds lifted half-way to heaven.
The Veil was there but not the Shadowy Wall;
In forms not too remote from human grasp
Some passion of the inviolate purity
Broke through, a ray of the original Bliss.

A ‘Veil’ separates these worlds from the very highest levels of consciousness, ‘but not the Shadowy Wall’ of ignorance, unconsciousness and falsehood. In them the forms are ‘not too remote from human grasp’: Aswapati is able to catch some glimpses of them. He sees that ‘Some passion’, some intensity ‘of the inviolate purity’, the perfect purity of the highest levels of existence, ‘a ray of the original Bliss’ does break through the Veil into these worlds. ‘Inviolate’ means ‘pure’, ‘unspoiled’, ‘undamaged’, ‘not harmed or imperfect in any way’. Some light of the ‘inviolate purity’ and ‘the original Bliss’ from which the Life-Force has been born can enter those worlds like a ray of sunlight breaking through clouds.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Pure mystic voices in beatitude’s hush
Appealed to Love’s immaculate sweetnesses,
Calling his honeyed touch to thrill the worlds,
His blissful hands to seize on Nature’s limbs,
His sweet intolerant might of union
To take all beings into his saviour arms,
Drawing to his pity the rebel and the waif
To force on them the happiness they refuse.

Aswapati sees these figures and hears ‘Pure mystic voices’ in the blissful silence, the hush of beatitude which prevails in those realms. Those voices are appealing or calling to the ‘immaculate sweetnesses’ of the Lord of Love. ‘Immaculate’ also means ‘pure’ ‘without any stain’. They are appealing for ‘his honeyed touch to thrill the worlds’ and imploring him to seize hold of ‘Nature’s limbs’ with his hands of bliss, begging for ‘His sweet intolerant might of union’ to overcome all division and separation by its power of oneness which will not tolerate separation, praying to Love to ‘take all beings into his saviour arms’ and to embrace with his compassion ‘the rebel and the waif’; ‘the rebel’ rejects and struggles against the power of divine love; a ‘waif’ is a lost child who may never have experienced love, does not know what it is. Those heavenly voices in the blissful silences are appealing to Love to force on all lost and suffering beings ‘the happiness they refuse’. Divine love is always giving the impulse towards union, towards oneness, the making of two into one, many into one. These voices are calling to Love’s power, his might, which cannot bear separation; his power of union is such a sweet power, they are appealing to him to take all Nature into his grasp. It is like Savitri’s prayer in Book Eleven: ‘Take all beings into one embrace’. These voices are saying that he should force ‘happiness’ even on beings who might not choose it. The rebel has chosen something else; the waif does not even know that it has a choice; they are turning away, living in sadness or in anger and hatred. But if the Lord’s sovereign love comes and takes them into its arms, they cannot but become happy.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

The voice of Time sang of the Immortal’s joy;
An inspiration and a lyric cry,
The moments came with ecstasy on their wings;
Beauty unimaginable moved heaven-bare
Absolved from boundaries in the vasts of dream;
The cry of the Birds of Wonder called from the skies
To the deathless people of the shores of Light.

There ‘The voice of Time’ is singing ‘of the Immortal’s joy’, the joy which is beyond Time. Aswapati feels the passing of time, each moment coming like a beautiful singing bird, bringing ‘An inspiration and a lyric cry’, uplifting and meaningful, carrying ‘ecstasy on their wings’. He experiences ‘Beauty unimaginable’ moving there ‘heaven-bare’, without any covering to veil its loveliness. The spirit of Beauty is moving on all the planes, but here in our world it is clothed in material forms, physical forms. In these life-worlds Aswapati sees unimaginably beautiful forms moving  ‘heaven-bare’, unveiled, without any of the coverings that disguise beauty from us. That Beauty is ‘Absolved from boundaries’, it can move freely, without restrictions, in those dream-vastnesses. He hears ‘The Birds of Wonder’ calling from the skies to the ‘deathless people’ who inhabit those ‘shores of Light’. The sense of wonder, of what is marvellous and magical, is one of the most delightful and attractive things that we can experience. In those beautiful life-worlds that power of wonder, of mystery and surprise, is constantly calling to the immortal beings who live there on the shores of the infinite ocean of Light. Sri Aurobindo has seen and experienced these things. His magical words help us to glimpse hints of glories that lie beyond our experience, but we cannot say precisely what these words mean. That is also one of the attractions of poetry. One dimension of poetry is wonder and mystery. There is something surprising and new and inexplicable, magical, about pure poetry.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

There were summit glories inconceivable
Autonomies of Wisdom’s still self-rule
And high dependencies of her virgin sun,
Illumined theocracies of the seeing soul
Throned in the power of the Transcendent’s ray.

On the highest levels of the life worlds are ‘summit glories’, splendid shining peaks that are ‘inconceivable’ to us: our minds cannot imagine or conceive them. There, ‘Wisdom’ is the dominant principle. In this passage we find some political vocabulary: first, ‘Autonomies’: independent states which enjoy the ‘self-rule’ of Wisdom. Connected to them are ‘dependencies’, also ruled by the pure light of Wisdom’s ‘virgin sun’ but less directly. There are also ‘Illumined theocracies of the seeing soul’. A ‘theocracy’ is a state governed by the Divine. In those realms ‘the seeing soul’, fully conscious, with a clear unveiled vision, is enthroned as the ruler, illumined and empowered by ‘the Transcendent’s ray’: the light of the Supreme, the Transcendent Divine.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

There met the ardent mutual intimacies
Of mastery’s joy and the joy of servitude
Imposed by Love on Love’s heart that obeys
And Love’s body held beneath a rapturous yoke.

Those spontaneous noble beings enjoy the ‘ardent mutual intimacies’, the intense and intimate relationships between masters and loyal servants: one enjoying the delight of being the master, of ruling and dominating, and the other enjoying the delight of being a willing servitor. These different and shared kinds of joy are ‘Imposed by Love’. One may be the master and the other the slave, but because there is Love between them even slavery is ‘a rapturous yoke’ connecting them, which both enjoy mutually because it is ‘Imposed by Love’ and worn by ‘Love’s body’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

All was a game of meeting kinglinesses.
For worship lifts the worshipper’s bowed strength
Close to the god’s pride and bliss his soul adores:
The ruler there is one with all he rules;
To him who serves with a free equal heart
Obedience is his princely training’s school,
His nobility’s coronet and privilege,
His faith is a high nature’s idiom,
His service a spiritual sovereignty.

There Life is like ‘a game’ of different kinds of royalty, of ‘kinglinesses’ coming together. Sri Aurobindo shows us that even if one is high and the other low, the act of worship, of adoration, lifts up, gives dignity to, the bowed attitude of the worshipper. He bends his head but in his heart he is adoring the one he sees as a god, and his soul is lifted up to be equal and close to the one he worships. And on those levels, the one who rules is ‘one with all he rules’, identified with all his subjects: he rules with love and knowledge, understanding and compassion. The poet also shows us how noble servitude can be: ‘To him who serves with a free equal heart / Obedience is his princely training’s school’. The one who serves willingly learns through being obedient to his master how to be a good ruler. In the old feudal system young princes or nobles would serve as squires or equerries, as servants and aides to the more mature ones, and they had to be obedient and disciplined; that state of service was their training to become leaders, masters, rulers, warriors whose duty was to command and lead. The British public school system was based on some kind of ideal like this, and in the army it happens. In our human societies this ideal can  be terribly debased sometimes, but on the higher levels of life, Aswapati is seeing these noble possibilities in their purity, in their essence. Here the word ‘equal’ suggests the discipline recommended by Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita for overcoming egoism: to take good fortune and misfortune, happiness and suffering all with the same steadiness. If you can serve like that, willingly, obedience and service can be a training school. This privilege is given only to noble beings; a ‘coronet’ is a sign of nobility. The ‘faith’ or loyalty and faithfulness shown by the servitor towards the one whom he has chosen to serve is a characteristic expression or ‘idiom’ of a noble nature: the fact that he can serve like that shows ‘a spiritual sovereignty’: a spiritual self-mastery.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

There were realms where Knowledge joined creative Power
In her high home and made her all his own:
The grand Illuminate seized her gleaming limbs
And filled them with the passion of his ray
Till all her body was its transparent house
And all her soul a counterpart of his soul.

Now Aswapati sees realms which are ruled by a marriage or partnership between the creative Power of Life and the mental power of Knowledge: ‘Knowledge joined creative Power / In her high home and made her all his own’: it is as if the mind power joins with Life, takes her as his mate, possesses her. ‘The grand Illuminate’, one who has a higher secret knowledge takes the creative Life-Power as his consort, seizing ‘her gleaming limbs’, uniting with her and filling her ‘with the passion of his ray’, his ray of illumined Knowledge, ‘Till all her body was its transparent house’, full of the light of understanding, ‘And all her soul a counterpart of his soul’, creating a perfect union of Knowledge and creative Power.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A captive Life wedded her conqueror.
In his wide sky she built her world anew;
She gave to mind’s calm pace the motor’s speed,
To thinking a need to live what the soul saw,
To living an impetus to know and see.

This is a further description of this union of Knowledge and Power, reminding us of certain legends or historical happenings, of a ruling Queen being conquered and wedded by a great hero, as in the tale of Arjuna and Chitrangada or of Alexander and Roxanne. Here Life surrenders to and is united with illumined Knowledge and adapts to it. In the light of ‘his wide sky’, the wide sky of Knowledge, she rebuilds her world: everything changes in her kingdom, and she adds her speed and powerful dynamism ‘to mind’s calm pace’. To his thinking she adds ‘a need to live what the soul saw’, and to her Life-Force she joins his ‘impetus’, his powerful urge ‘to know and see’. Thus these realms are ruled by a fusion of Power and Knowledge.

[Shraddhav’ s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A flaming thunder, a creator flash,
His victor Light rode on her deathless Force;
A centaur’s mighty gallop bore the god.
Life throned with mind, a double majesty.

Here the poet gives us three powerful images for this dynamic union of Knowledge and Power. First the ‘deathless Force’ of Life is imaged as a strong horse, which is being ridden and controlled by illumined Knowledge: the rider and his steed together are like a powerful storm, ‘A flaming thunder, a creator flash’. Then an even closer union is imaged as a ‘centaur’, a symbolic figure from ancient Greek mythology with the upright torso of a man and the body, tail and hooves of a horse: ‘A centaur’s mighty gallop bore the god’: the galloping horse of Life-energy united with the divinised Mind. Thirdly, the two Powers of Life and Mind are shown seated side by side on a single throne ruling together as a dual power, ‘a double majesty’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Imposing on the safety of the stars
A race and laughter of immortal strengths,
The nude god-children in their play-fields ran
Smiting the winds with splendour and with speed;
Of storm and sun they made companions,
Sported with the white mane of tossing seas,
Slew distance trampled to death under their wheels
And wrestled in the arenas of their force.

This seems to take place on a universal scale. The ‘nude god- children’ are running and playing and wrestling and enjoying ‘the safety of the stars’, the security of the universal order, imposing on it their ‘carefree youthfulness’. These ‘immortal strengths’ who know nothing of death enjoy racing, laughing as they run freely ‘in their play-fields’, unclothed like ancient Greek athletes. If you run against a strong wind you will feel it buffeting you, but here it is not the wind that is buffeting them, but they who are buffeting the winds: ‘Smiting the wind with their splendour and their speed’. They are so beautiful and splendid, and run faster than the wind. They do not mind whether it is stormy or sunny, but make both ‘storm and sun’ their playmates. They sport ‘with the white mane of tossing seas’. Nowadays we often see films of young people surfing, daring the powerful waves, which show their ‘white mane’ as they break and curl over. On a stormy day out at sea we can see the troubled waves tossing their white crests – and we refer to them as ‘sea-horses’. ‘Slew’ is the past tense of the verb ‘to slay’, which means ‘to kill’. For those ‘nude god-children’ it is easy to speed from one place to another, destroying distance with the swiftness of their chariot-wheels, as if trampling space under the hooves of their racing horses. They compete with each other, wrestling in the ‘arenas’ of their force; an ‘arena’ is an enclosed space or stage set aside for public competitions and displays of strength.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Ideas were luminous comrades of the soul;
Mind played with speech, cast javelins of thought,
But needed not these instruments’ toil to know;
Knowledge was Nature’s pastime like the rest.

In these dynamic and playful life-worlds, ‘Ideas were luminous comrades of the soul’: the mind and soul play together as companions. ‘Mind played with speech’, with words, and ‘cast javelins of thought’: a ‘javelin’ is a long heavy spear used in athletic competitions. Javelin throwing is one of the Olympic disciplines. Sometimes we say that thought is like an arrow, but these thoughts are stronger, more powerful like javelins. Mind sports with words and thoughts but there it does not need them to gain knowledge, ‘to know’, for in those realms ‘Knowledge was Nature’s pastime like the rest’, a spontaneous and enjoyable game like everything else there.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

An exquisite and vehement tyranny,
The strong compulsion of their will to joy
Poured smiling streams of happiness through the world.
There reigned a breath of high immune content,
A fortunate gait of days in tranquil air,
A flood of universal love and peace.
A sovereignty of tireless sweetness lived
Like a song of pleasure on the lips of Time.

These are child-rulers. They are imperious. Their will to joy is like a ‘vehement tyranny’, a forceful autocratic rule that does not allow opposition of any kind. But this ‘tyranny’ of theirs is not only ‘vehement’ – insistent – but also ‘exquisite’, wonderfully beautiful and fine. ‘The strong compulsion of their will to joy’, the dominant characteristic of the beings of those realms, was so contagious that it ‘Poured smiling streams of happiness through the world’. As a result, in the whole atmosphere of that world, ‘There reigned a breath’, a pervasive air, ‘of high immune content’. There is no discontent, no dissatisfaction, and this all-pervasive contentedness is ‘immune’: it cannot be harmed or spoiled or diminished in any way. There is a sense of security in all that happiness. ‘A fortunate gait of days in tranquil air’: the days march on in a blessed way, with a ‘fortunate gait’. The word ‘gait’ refers to the way that someone or something walks. If a person feels really happy and fortunate and immune, they will walk in a special way: those days move smoothly, happily, confidently, ‘in tranquil air’, serene and smiling. The atmosphere of those realms is undisturbed by storms of any kind. Their happiness is ‘A flood of universal love and peace’. There is a ruling atmosphere of ‘tireless sweetness’ as if Time is constantly singing a happy song: ‘a song of pleasure on the lips of Time’, as if all the moments of all the days are singing with happiness.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A large spontaneous order freed the will,
A sun-frank winging of the soul to bliss,
The breadth and greatness of the unfettered act
And the swift fire-heart’s golden liberty.

We mental beings aim for order, but what we achieve, often with difficulty, is a restricted and restricting order which is unsatisfactory and cannot last. We long for a harmony that comes naturally. Aswapati perceives that in those higher realms of Life ‘A large spontaneous order’ sets the will free from effort, allowing ‘A sun-frank winging of the soul to bliss’. ‘Frank’ means ‘sincere’, ‘honest, ‘candid’, ‘without pretence or concealment’; frankness is the quality of free beings. As if in full sunlight, the soul flies freely and spontaneously towards bliss. This spontaneous freedom brings about ‘The breadth and greatness of the unfettered act’: ‘breadth’ means ‘wideness’; ‘unfettered’ means ‘free’. ‘Fetters’ are chains or shackles put on the feet of criminals to limit their movement. Sometimes we have to fetter our speech and our actions: we have to restrain what we do, what we say, what we feel, in order to be in harmony with our environment and the situation. But there action is ‘unfettered’, unrestricted, free to be vast and great, and the heart too is free to follow its aspirations without restraint and enjoy a ‘golden liberty’, moving swiftly and freely in the sunlight of the soul, spontaneously going exactly where it has to go.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Awake with a cry and stir of numberless souls,
Arisen from the breast of some deep Infinite,
Smiling like a new-born child at love and hope,
In her nature housing the Immortal’s power,
In her bosom bearing the eternal Will,
No guide she needed but her luminous heart:
No fall debased the godhead of her steps,
No alien Night had come to blind her eyes.

Free of falsehood and ignorance and ‘soul-severance’, Life is awake and active, filled with the ‘cry and stir of numberless souls’. Like a goddess born from the ocean, she has emerged ‘from the breast of some deep Infinite’, fresh and new, ‘Smiling like a new-born child at love and hope’. In her nature she houses or contains the power of the immortal, and in her bosom, her heart, she is carrying ‘the eternal Will’; so she does not need any other guide than her own ‘luminous heart’. ‘No fall debased the godhead of her steps’. ‘To debase’ means to reduce the value or purity of something. If pure gold is mixed with some other substance it becomes impure and less valuable, it is ‘debased’. In these realms Life has not fallen from her original divine state, nothing has ‘debased’ the natural divinity of Life. ‘No alien Night had come to blind her eyes’: she can still see clearly.

Q: Does ‘alien Night’ here refer to Ignorance of the material world?

The poet suggests that all darkness is ‘alien’ or foreign to the  original divine state of Life.

At the end of the first section of this canto, after showing us the troubled and doubtful state of life that rules the earth at present, Sri Aurobindo told us that despite this face of Life which is familiar to us,

Yet pure and bright from the Timeless was her birth,
A lost world-rapture lingers in her eyes,
Her moods are faces of the Infinite:
Beauty and happiness are her native right,
And endless Bliss is her eternal home.

In the three following sections Aswapati has been shown ‘the image of a happier state’ than that of the life that we know. In the next and last section of this canto Sri Aurobindo will reveal how that diviner ‘happier state’ which we have been reading about has turned into the troubled and unhappy state of the lower life-levels.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]