Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

      But thrown now into a crowded glory of speech

      The beauty and sublimity of her forms,

      The passion of her moments and her moods

      Lifting the human word nearer to the god’s.

      Man’s eyes could look into the inner realms;

      His scrutiny discovered number’s law

      And organised the motions of the stars,

      Mapped out the visible fashioning of the world,

      Questioned the process of his thoughts or made

      A theorised diagram of mind and life.

      These things she took in as her nature’s food,

      But these alone could fill not her wide Self:

      A human seeking limited by its gains,

      To her they seemed the great and early steps

      Hazardous of a young discovering spirit

      Which saw not yet by its own native light;

      It tapped the universe with testing knocks

      Or stretched to find truth mind’s divining rod;

      There was a growing out to numberless sides,

      But not the widest seeing of the soul,

      Not yet the vast direct immediate touch,

      Nor yet the art and wisdom of the Gods.

      A boundless knowledge greater than man’s thought,

      A happiness too high for heart and sense

      Locked in the world and yearning for release

      She felt in her; waiting as yet for form,

      It asked for objects around which to grow

      And natures strong to bear without recoil

      The splendour of her native royalty,

      Her greatness and her sweetness and her bliss,

      Her might to possess and her vast power to love:

      Earth made a stepping-stone to conquer heaven,

      The soul saw beyond heaven’s limiting boundaries,

      Met a great light from the Unknowable

      And dreamed of a transcendent action’s sphere.

      Aware of the universal Self in all

      She turned to living hearts and human forms,

      Her soul’s reflections, complements, counterparts,

      The close outlying portions of her being

      Divided from her by walls of body and mind

      Yet to her spirit bound by ties divine.

      Overcoming invisible hedge and masked defence

      And the loneliness that separates soul from soul,

      She wished to make all one immense embrace

      That she might house in it all living things

      Raised into a splendid point of seeing light

      Out of division’s dense inconscient cleft,

      And make them one with God and world and her.

      Only a few responded to her call:

      Still fewer felt the screened divinity

      And strove to mate its godhead with their own,

      Approaching with some kinship to her heights.

      Uplifted towards luminous secrecies

      Or conscious of some splendour hidden above

      They leaped to find her in a moment’s flash,

      Glimpsing a light in a celestial vast,

      But could not keep the vision and the power

      And fell back to life’s dull ordinary tone.

      A mind daring heavenly experiment,

      Growing towards some largeness they felt near,

      Testing the unknown’s bound with eager touch

      They still were prisoned by their human grain:

      They could not keep up with her tireless step;

      Too small and eager for her large-paced will,

      Too narrow to look with the unborn Infinite’s gaze

      Their nature weary grew of things too great.

      For even the close partners of her thoughts

      Who could have walked the nearest to her ray,

      Worshipped the power and light they felt in her

      But could not match the measure of her soul.

      A friend and yet too great wholly to know,

      She walked in their front towards a greater light,

      Their leader and queen over their hearts and souls,

      One close to their bosoms, yet divine and far.

      Admiring and amazed they saw her stride

      Attempting with a godlike rush and leap

      Heights for their human stature too remote

      Or with a slow great many-sided toil

      Pushing towards aims they hardly could conceive;

      Yet forced to be the satellites of her sun

      They moved unable to forego her light,

      Desiring they clutched at her with outstretched hands

      Or followed stumbling in the paths she made.

      Or longing with their self of life and flesh

      They clung to her for heart’s nourishment and support:

      The rest they could not see in visible light;

      Vaguely they bore her inner mightiness.

      Or bound by the senses and the longing heart,

      Adoring with a turbid human love,

      They could not grasp the mighty spirit she was

      Or change by closeness to be even as she.

      Some felt her with their souls and thrilled with her,

      A greatness felt near yet beyond mind’s grasp;

      To see her was a summons to adore,

      To be near her drew a high communion’s force.

      So men worship a god too great to know,

      Too high, too vast to wear a limiting shape;

      They feel a Presence and obey a might,

      Adore a love whose rapture invades their breasts;

      To a divine ardour quickening the heart-beats,

      A law they follow greatening heart and life.

      Opened to the breath is a new diviner air,

      Opened to man is a freer, happier world:

      He sees high steps climbing to Self and Light.

      Her divine parts the soul’s allegiance called:

      It saw, it felt, it knew the deity.

      Her will was puissant on their nature’s acts,

      Her heart’s inexhaustible sweetness lured their hearts,

      A being they loved whose bounds exceeded