Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

have felt his tread;

      He has made heaven and earth his instruments,

      But the limits fall from him of earth and heaven;

      Their law he transcends but uses as his means.

      He has seized life’s hands, he has mastered his own heart.

      The feints of Nature mislead not his sight,

      Inflexible his look towards Truth’s far end;

      Fate’s deaf resistance cannot break his will.

      In the dreadful passages, the fatal paths,

      Invulnerable his soul, his heart unslain,

      He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers

      And Nature’s ambushes and the world’s attacks.

      His spirit’s stature transcending pain and bliss,

      He fronts evil and good with calm and equal eyes.

      He too must grapple with the riddling Sphinx

      And plunge into her long obscurity.

      He has broken into the Inconscient’s depths

      That veil themselves even from their own regard:

      He has seen God’s slumber shape these magic worlds.

      He has watched the dumb God fashioning Matter’s frame,

      Dreaming the dreams of its unknowing sleep,

      And watched the unconscious Force that built the stars.

      He has learned the Inconscient’s workings and its law,

      Its incoherent thoughts and rigid acts,

      Its hazard wastes of impulse and idea,

      The chaos of its mechanic frequencies,

      Its random calls, its whispers falsely true,

      Misleaders of the hooded listening soul.

      All things come to its ear but nothing abides;

      All rose from the silence, all goes back to its hush.

      Its somnolence founded the universe,

      Its obscure waking makes the world seem vain.

      Arisen from Nothingness and towards Nothingness turned,

      Its dark and potent nescience was earth’s start;

      It is the waste stuff from which all was made;

      Into its deeps creation can collapse.

      Its opposition clogs the march of the soul,

      It is the mother of our ignorance.

      He must call light into its dark abysms,

      Else never can Truth conquer Matter’s sleep

      And all earth look into the eyes of God.

      All things obscure his knowledge must relume,

      All things perverse his power must unknot:

      He must pass to the other shore of falsehood’s sea,

      He must enter the world’s dark to bring there light.

      The heart of evil must be bared to his eyes,

      He must learn its cosmic dark necessity,

      Its right and its dire roots in Nature’s soil.

      He must know the thought that moves the demon act

      And justifies the Titan’s erring pride

      And the falsehood lurking in earth’s crooked dreams:

      He must enter the eternity of Night

      And know God’s darkness as he knows his Sun.

      For this he must go down into the pit,

      For this he must invade the dolorous Vasts.

      Imperishable and wise and infinite,

      He still must travel Hell the world to save.

      Into the eternal Light he shall emerge

      On borders of the meeting of all worlds;

      There on the verge of Nature’s summit steps

      The secret Law of each thing is fulfilled,

      All contraries heal their long dissidence.

      There meet and clasp the eternal opposites,

      There pain becomes a violent fiery joy;

      Evil turns back to its original good,

      And sorrow lies upon the breasts of Bliss:

      She has learned to weep glad tears of happiness;

      Her gaze is charged with a wistful ecstasy.

      Then shall be ended here the Law of Pain.

      Earth shall be made a home of Heaven’s light,

      A seer heaven-born shall lodge in human breasts;

      The superconscient beam shall touch men’s eyes

      And the truth-conscious world come down to earth

      Invading Matter with the Spirit’s ray,

      Awaking its silence to immortal thoughts,

      Awaking the dumb heart to the living Word.

      This mortal life shall house Eternity’s bliss,

      The body’s self taste immortality.

      Then shall the world-redeemer’s task be done.

      “Till then must life carry its seed of death

      And sorrow’s plaint be heard in the slow Night.

      O mortal, bear this great world’s law of pain,

      In thy hard passage through a suffering world

      Lean for thy soul’s support on Heaven’s strength,

      Turn towards high Truth, aspire to love and peace.

      A little bliss is lent thee from above,

      A touch divine upon thy human days.

      Make of thy daily way a pilgrimage,

      For through small joys and griefs thou mov’st towards God.

      Haste not towards Godhead on a dangerous road,

      Open not thy doorways to a nameless Power,

      Climb not to Godhead by the Titan’s road.

      Against the Law he pits his single will,

      Across its way he throws his pride of might.

      Heavenward he clambers on a stair of storms

      Aspiring to live near the deathless sun.

      He strives with a giant strength to wrest by force

      From life and Nature the immortals’ right;

      He takes by storm the world and fate and heaven.

      He comes not to the high World-maker’s seat,

      He waits not for the outstretched hand of God

      To raise him out of his mortality.

      All he would make his own, leave nothing free,

      Stretching his small self to cope with the infinite.

      Obstructing the gods’ open ways he makes

      His own estate of the earth’s air and light;

      A monopolist of the world-energy,

      He dominates the life of common men.