Savitri Study Class with Alok Pandey. Book 6, Canto 2
A Secret Bliss is at the root of things. Bliss is the Origin and Source, Bliss is the End and the Goal, the great fulfillment awaiting us at the culmination of the Journey. Bliss is also there in the middle, but concealed in the triple disguise of Indifference, Pleasure and Pain.
The soul suffering is not eternity’s key,
Or ransom by sorrow heaven’s demand on life.
O mortal, bear, but ask not for the stroke,
Too soon will grief and anguish find thee out.
Too enormous is that venture for thy will;
Only in limits can man’s strength be safe;
Yet is infinity thy spirit’s goal;
Its bliss is there behind the world’s face of tears.
A power is in thee that thou knowest not;
Thou art a vessel of the imprisoned spark.
It seeks relief from Time’s envelopment,
And while thou shutst it in, the seal is pain:
Bliss is the Godhead’s crown, eternal, free,
Unburdened by life’s blind mystery of pain:
Pain is the signature of the Ignorance
Attesting the secret god denied by life:
Until life finds him pain can never end.
Calm is self’s victory overcoming fate.
Bear; thou shalt find at last thy road to bliss.
Bliss is the secret stuff of all that lives,
Even pain and grief are garbs of world-delight,
It hides behind thy sorrow and thy cry.
Because thy strength is a part and not God’s whole,
Because afflicted by the little self
Thy consciousness forgets to be divine
As it walks in the vague penumbra of the flesh
And cannot bear the world’s tremendous touch,
Thou criest out and sayst that there is pain.
Indifference, pain and joy, a triple disguise,
Attire of the rapturous Dancer in the ways,
Withhold from thee the body of God’s bliss.
Thy spirit’s strength shall make thee one with God,
Thy agony shall change to ecstasy,
Indifference deepen into infinity’s calm
And joy laugh nude on the peaks of the Absolute.
pp. 453-454
