Audio recording of the Savitri Study Class with Alok Pandey. Book 2, Canto 12 & 13.
Climbing through the higher Mind realms, Aswapati now reaches a state where the mind powers withdraws into a silent hush. It is the witness Self of the Mind. The intense but partial lights of the higher Mind-Heavens is also withdrawn and nothing else is left except a bare indifferent silence as if it were the last peak into the Beyond.
Homes of unfallen and illumined Might,
Heavens of unchanging Good pure and unborn,
Heights of the grandeur of Truth’s ageless ray,
As in a symbol sky they start to view
And call our souls into a vaster air.
On their summits they bear up the sleepless Flame;
Dreaming of a mysterious Beyond,
Transcendent of the paths of Fate and Time,
They point above themselves with index peaks
…
A thunder rolling mid the hills of God,
Tireless, severe is their tremendous Voice:
Exceeding us, to exceed ourselves they call
And bid us rise incessantly above.
Far from our eager reach those summits live,
Too lofty for our mortal strength and height,
Hardly in a dire ecstasy of toil
Climbed by the spirit’s naked athlete will.
Austere, intolerant they claim from us
Efforts too lasting for our mortal nerve
…
Only the Eternal’s strength in us can dare
To attempt the immense adventure of that climb
And the sacrifice of all we cherish here.
p. 280
All there was an intense but partial light.
In each a seraph-winged high-browed Idea
United all knowledge by one master thought,
Persuaded all action to one golden sense,
All powers subjected to a single power
And made a world where it could reign alone,
…
Each deemed Truth’s intimate fount and summit force,
The heart of the meaning of the universe,
Perfection’s key, passport to Paradise.
Yet were there regions where these absolutes met
And made a circle of bliss with married hands;
Light stood embraced by light, fire wedded fire,
p. 281
AT LAST there came a bare indifferent sky
Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice,
But answered nothing to a million calls;
The soul’s endless question met with no response.
An abrupt conclusion ended eager hopes,
A deep cessation in a mighty calm,
A finis-line on the last page of thought
And a margin and a blank of wordless peace.
There paused the climbing hierarchy of worlds.
He stood on a wide arc of summit Space
Alone with an enormous Self of Mind
Which held all life in a corner of its vasts.
Omnipotent, immobile and aloof,
In the world which sprang from it, it took no part:
It gave no heed to the paeans of victory,
It was indifferent to its own defeats,
It heard the cry of grief and made no sign;
Impartial fell its gaze on evil and good,
It saw destruction come and did not move.
An equal Cause of things, a lonely Seer
And Master of its multitude of forms,
It acted not but bore all thoughts and deeds,
The witness Lord of Nature’s myriad acts
Consenting to the movements of her Force.
His mind reflected this vast quietism.
p. 283
