Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

the Unknown

      And the endless possibility that lurked

      In the womb of Chaos and in Nothing’s gulf

      Or looked from the unfathomed eyes of Chance.

      It tired of its unchanging happiness,

      It turned away from immortality:

      It was drawn to hazard’s call and danger’s charm,

      It yearned to the pathos of grief, the drama of pain,

      Perdition’s peril, the wounded bare escape,

      The music of ruin and its glamour and crash,

      The savour of pity and the gamble of love

      And passion and the ambiguous face of Fate.

      A world of hard endeavour and difficult toil,

      And battle on extinction’s perilous verge,

      A clash of forces, a vast incertitude,

      The joy of creation out of Nothingness,

      Strange meetings on the roads of Ignorance

      And the companionship of half-known souls

      Or the solitary greatness and lonely force

      Of a separate being conquering its world,

      Called it from its too safe eternity.

      A huge descent began, a giant fall:

      For what the spirit sees, creates a truth

      And what the soul imagines is made a world.

      A Thought that leaped from the Timeless can become,

      Indicator of cosmic consequence

      And the itinerary of the gods,

      A cyclic movement in eternal Time.

      Thus came, born from a blind tremendous choice,

      This great perplexed and discontented world,

      This haunt of Ignorance, this home of Pain:

      There are pitched desire’s tents, grief’s headquarters.

      A vast disguise conceals the Eternal’s bliss.”

      Then Aswapati answered to the seer:

      “Is then the spirit ruled by an outward world?

      O seer, is there no remedy within?

      But what is Fate if not the spirit’s will

      After long time fulfilled by cosmic Force?

      I deemed a mighty Power had come with her;

      Is not that Power the high compeer of Fate?”

      But Narad answered covering truth with truth:

      “O Aswapati, random seem the ways

      Along whose banks your footsteps stray or run

      In casual hours or moments of the gods,

      Yet your least stumblings are foreseen above.

      Infallibly the curves of life are drawn

      Following the stream of Time through the unknown;

      They are led by a clue the calm immortals keep.

      This blazoned hieroglyph of prophet morns

      A meaning more sublime in symbols writes

      Than sealed Thought wakes to, but of this high script

      How shall my voice convince the mind of earth?

      Heaven’s wiser love rejects the mortal’s prayer;

      Unblinded by the breath of his desire,

      Unclouded by the mists of fear and hope,

      It bends above the strife of love with death;

      It keeps for her her privilege of pain.

      A greatness in thy daughter’s soul resides

      That can transform herself and all around

      But must cross on stones of suffering to its goal.

      Although designed like a nectar cup of heaven,

      Of heavenly ether made she sought this air,

      She too must share the human need of grief

      And all her cause of joy transmute to pain.

      The mind of mortal man is led by words,

      His sight retires behind the walls of Thought

      And looks out only through half-opened doors.

      He cuts the boundless Truth into sky-strips

      And every strip he takes for all the heavens.

      He stares at infinite possibility

      And gives to the plastic Vast the name of Chance;

      He sees the long results of an all-wise Force

      Planning a sequence of steps in endless Time

      But in its links imagines a senseless chain

      Or the dead hand of cold Necessity;

      He answers not to the mystic Mother’s heart,

      Misses the ardent heavings of her breast

      And feels cold rigid limbs of lifeless Law.

      The will of the Timeless working out in Time

      In the free absolute steps of cosmic Truth

      He thinks a dead machine or unconscious Fate.

      A Magician’s formulas have made Matter’s laws

      And while they last, all things by them are bound;

      But the spirit’s consent is needed for each act

      And Freedom walks in the same pace with Law.

      All here can change if the Magician choose.

      If human will could be made one with God’s,

      If human thought could echo the thoughts of God,

      Man might be all-knowing and omnipotent;

      But now he walks in Nature’s doubtful ray.

      Yet can the mind of man receive God’s light,

      The force of man can be driven by God’s force,

      Then is he a miracle doing miracles.

      For only so can he be Nature’s king.

      It is decreed and Satyavan must die;

      The hour is fixed, chosen the fatal stroke.

      What else shall be is written in her soul

      But till the hour reveals the fateful script,

      The writing waits illegible and mute.

      Fate is Truth working out in Ignorance.

      O King, thy fate is a transaction done

      At every hour between Nature and thy soul

      With God for its foreseeing arbiter.

      Fate is a balance drawn in Destiny’s book.

      Man can accept his fate, he can refuse.

      Even if the One maintains the unseen decree

      He writes thy refusal in thy credit page:

      For doom is not a close, a mystic seal.

      Arisen from the tragic crash of life,

      Arisen from the body’s torture and death,

      The spirit rises