Opening Remarks
These are the form-makers who give a symbolic body and shape to the Idea that comes from the heights. They are the builders, architects and engineers of the material universe.
Archmasons
Archmasons of the eternal Thaumaturge,
Moulders and measurers of fragmented Space,
They have made their plan of the concealed and known
A dwelling-house for the invisible king.
These gods measure out Space and mould it into tangible forms and objects. Hidden behind the forms they work to build the vast mansion for the Lord whom they obey but cannot see.
Eternal’s deep command
Obeying the Eternal’s deep command
They have built in the material front of things
This wide world-kindergarten of young souls
Where the infant spirit learns through mind and sense
To read the letters of the cosmic script
And study the body of the cosmic self
And search for the secret meaning of the whole.
Obeying the Eternal’s Will to create they build the material universe and all its forms where infant souls must learn and grow so that it can read the cosmic script. The material universe is the outermost body of the Lord. Beholding this vast material universe the soul must grow further to search the secret meaning of creation.
Finite shape to infinite things
To all that Spirit conceives they give a mould;
Persuading Nature into visible moods
They lend a finite shape to infinite things.
They lend a materially visible form to all the moods and forces of Nature. He material forms these form-makers build are subject to disintegration but the idea itself is indestructible and infinite and hence expresses itself through new forms.
Figurante in the cosmic dance
Each power that leaps from the Unmanifest
Leaving the largeness of the Eternal’s peace
They seized and held by their precisian eye
And made a figurante in the cosmic dance.
The power and idea that enter the cosmic scene from the folds of Unmanifest are seized and held by their eye of precision and turned into a visible shape and figure in the cosmic dance.
Rhythmic laws
Its free caprice they bound by rhythmic laws
And compelled to accept its posture and its line
In the wizardry of an ordered universe.
The Divine Force works in perfect Freedom fully aware of the secret truth of everything. But these intermediary planes distort this Divine Impulsion or Will little by little. At the level of the higher Mind the freedom and plasticity of the Divine Will is turned into a rigid laws that habitually repeats itself in the rhythms and measures set for it. Thus the magic is lost and science begins with fixed patterns that cannot change. The universe becomes an ordered mechanism governed by fixed rules and laws.
Cast into form
The All-containing was contained in form,
Oneness was carved into units measurable,
The limitless built into a cosmic sum:
Unending Space was beaten into a curve,
Indivisible Time into small minutes cut,
The infinitesimal massed to keep secure
The mystery of the Formless cast into form.
The All-containing Formless Truth was cast into forms. One ness was cut into manageable bits constituting portions and sections of One single Whole. The limitless was reduced to countless numbers. Unending Space was beaten into a curve and indivisible flow of Time into seconds and minutes and hours and so on. The infinitesimal was brought together to build the forms and keep it secure against melting back into its formless state.
Closing Remarks
Sri Aurobindo describes here the action of the form-makers, the source of their inspiration and the distortion that truth undergoes in the process.
