Opening Remarks
The queen having described the earthly as it seems in appearance, now puts forth her questions to Narad to seek answers. These are questions that most of humanity asks and seeks.
Brief appearance
His brief appearance on the enigmaed earth
Ever recurs but brings no high result
To this wanderer through the aeon-rings of God
That shut his life in their vast longevity.
Man’s brief appearance on this enigmatic earth recurs without any high result to man wandering through the aeons that shut his life in huge time loops.
Useless orbit of their course
His soul’s wide search and ever returning hopes
Pursue the useless orbit of their course
In a vain repetition of lost toils
Across a track of soon forgotten lives.
The seeking and search of man’s soul and his hopes pursue as if a vain round repeating lost toils across tracks of old forgotten previous lives.
Meaningless tale
All is an episode in a meaningless tale.
So does it seem like an episode in a meaningless tale.
Why is it all
Why is it all and wherefore are we here?
The queen asks as to why is it all and wherefore are we here?
Strange and sterile interlude
If to some being of eternal bliss
It is our spirit’s destiny to return
Or some still impersonal height of endless calm,
Since That we are and out of That we came,
Whence rose the strange and sterile interlude
Lasting in vain through interminable Time?
And if the end is to return to some being of eternal bliss or some still impersonal height of endless calm since we are That in our origin, then what occult necessity gave rise to this strange and fruitless lasting in vain through endless Time?
Cold emptiness of Space
Who willed to form or feign a universe
In the cold and endless emptiness of Space?
Who impelled the real or apparent universe to be in the cold endless emptiness of Space?
Ignorance and tears
Or if these beings must be and their brief lives,
What need had the soul of ignorance and tears?
If these beings and their brief lives yet must be what was the need of ignorance and tears?
Sorrow and pain
Whence rose the call for sorrow and for pain?
What gave birth to sorrow and pain?
Without a cause
Or all came helplessly without a cause?
Or all came helplessly without a cause.
Forced to birth
What power forced the immortal spirit to birth?
What power forced the immortal spirit to take birth assuming a limited form.
Forfeit its immortal privilege
The eternal witness once of eternity,
A deathless sojourner mid transient scenes,
He camps in life’s half-lit obscurity
Amid the debris of his thoughts and dreams.
Or who persuaded it to fall from bliss
And forfeit its immortal privilege?
The soul was once an eternal witness of the play. It watched the transient scenes as a deathless sojourner but now it moves in life’s half-lit obscurity amid his broken dreams and thoughts. Who persuaded it to fall from bliss and forfeit its immortal privilege?
Load of joy and grief and love
Who laid on it the ceaseless will to live
A wanderer in this beautiful, sorrowful world,
And bear its load of joy and grief and love?
Who laid on man the ceaseless will to live. A wanderer in this beautiful, sorrowful world, who compelled it to bear the burden of joy and grief and love.
Vain toil of brief living things
Or if no being watches the works of Time,
What hard impersonal Necessity
Compels the vain toil of brief living things?
Or if no being watches the work of time, then what hard impersonal Necessity compels the vain toil of brief living creatures.
Circling of unreal suns?
A great Illusion then has built the stars.
But where then is the soul’s security,
Its poise in this circling of unreal suns?
The queen concludes that perhaps a great illusion has then built the stars. But then what is the soul’s security and its poise in this illusory creation of unreal suns circling in space?
No issue from a meaningless world
Or else it is a wanderer from its home
Who strayed into a blind alley of Time and chance
And finds no issue from a meaningless world.
The queen wonders that perhaps the soul is a wanderer from its home who has strayed into a blind alley of Time and Chance and finds no issue from a meaningless world.
Beginning and end of illusion
Or where begins and ends Illusion’s reign?
Where begins and ends illusion’s reign, she asks?
A fiction sensed in trance
Perhaps the soul we feel is only a dream,
Eternal self a fiction sensed in trance.”
Perhaps the soul is only a dream and Eternal self a fiction sensed in trance, she felt.
Closing Remarks
The queen raises questions awaiting Narad’s reply.
About Savitri | B1C3-11 Towards Unity with God (pp.31-33)