Savitri – Eine Legende und ein Symbol. Sri Aurobindo

lit by a Truth above

      Was felt; it saw the light but not the Truth:

      It caught the Idea and built from it a world;

      It made an Image there and called it God.

      Yet something true and inward harboured there.

      The beings of that world of greater life,

      Tenants of a larger air and freer space,

      Live not by the body or in outward things:

      A deeper living was their seat of self.

      In that intense domain of intimacy

      Objects dwell as companions of the soul;

      The body’s actions are a minor script,

      The surface rendering of a life within.

      All forces are Life’s retinue in that world

      And thought and body as her handmaids move.

      The universal widenesses give her room:

      All feel the cosmic movement in their acts

      And are the instruments of her cosmic might.

      Or their own self they make their universe.

      In all who have risen to a greater Life,

      A voice of unborn things whispers to the ear,

      To their eyes visited by some high sunlight

      Aspiration shows the image of a crown:

      To work out a seed that she has thrown within,

      To achieve her power in them her creatures live.

      Each is a greatness growing towards the heights

      Or from his inner centre oceans out;

      In circling ripples of concentric power

      They swallow, glutted, their environment.

      Even of that largeness many a cabin make;

      In narrower breadths and briefer vistas pent

      They live content with some small greatness won.

      To rule the little empire of themselves,

      To be a figure in their private world

      And make the milieu’s joys and griefs their own

      And satisfy their life-motives and life-wants

      Is charge enough and office for this strength,

      A steward of the Person and his fate.

      This was transition-line and starting-point,

      A first immigration into heavenliness,

      For all who cross into that brilliant sphere:

      These are the kinsmen of our earthly race;

      This region borders on our mortal state.

      This wider world our greater movements gives,

      Its strong formations build our growing selves;

      Its creatures are our brighter replicas,

      Complete the types we only initiate

      And are securely what we strive to be.

      As if thought-out eternal characters,

      Entire, not pulled as we by contrary tides,

      They follow the unseen leader in the heart,

      Their lives obey the inner nature’s law.

      There is kept grandeur’s store, the hero’s mould;

      The soul is the watchful builder of its fate;

      None is a spirit indifferent and inert;

      They choose their side, they see the god they adore.

      A battle is joined between the true and false,

      A pilgrimage sets out to the divine Light.

      For even Ignorance there aspires to know

      And shines with the lustre of a distant star;

      There is a knowledge in the heart of sleep

      And Nature comes to them as a conscious force.

      An ideal is their leader and their king:

      Aspiring to the monarchy of the sun

      They call in Truth for their high government,

      Hold her incarnate in their daily acts

      And fill their thoughts with her inspired voice

      And shape their lives into her breathing form,

      Till in her sun-gold godhead they too share.

      Or to the truth of Darkness they subscribe;

      Whether for Heaven or Hell they must wage war:

      Warriors of Good, they serve a shining cause

      Or are Evil’s soldiers in the pay of Sin.

      For evil and good an equal tenure keep

      Wherever Knowledge is Ignorance’s twin.

      All powers of Life towards their godhead tend

      In the wideness and the daring of that air,

      Each builds its temple and expands its cult,

      And Sin too there is a divinity.

      Affirming the beauty and splendour of her law

      She claims life as her natural domain,

      Assumes the world’s throne or dons the papal robe:

      Her worshippers proclaim her sacred right.

      A red-tiaraed Falsehood they revere,

      Worship the shadow of a crooked God,

      Admit the black Idea that twists the brain

      Or lie with the harlot Power that slays the soul.

      A mastering virtue statuesques the pose,

      Or a Titan passion goads to a proud unrest:

      At Wisdom’s altar they are kings and priests

      Or their life a sacrifice to an idol of Power.

      Or Beauty shines on them like a wandering star;

      Too far to reach, passionate they follow her light;

      In Art and life they catch the All-Beautiful’s ray

      And make the world their radiant treasure house:

      Even common figures are with marvel robed;

      A charm and greatness locked in every hour

      Awakes the joy which sleeps in all things made.

      A mighty victory or a mighty fall,

      A throne in heaven or a pit in hell,

      The dual Energy they have justified

      And marked their souls with her tremendous seal:

      Whatever Fate may do to them they have earned;

      Something they have done, something they have been, they live.

      There Matter is soul’s result and not its cause.

      In a contrary balance to earth’s truth of things

      The gross weighs less, the subtle counts for more;

      On inner values hangs the outer plan.

      As quivers with the thought the expressive word,

      As yearns the act with the passion of the soul

      This