Opening Remarks
Savitri now experiences the state where the cosmos seems an illusion. This state is now described here.
Cosmic game
It watched the figure of the cosmic game,
But the thought and inner life in forms seemed dead,
Abolished by her own collapse of thought:
A hollow physical shell persisted still.
Savitri sees the forms in the cosmos as empty of contents as if its thought and inner life seems dead just as her own thought structures had collapsed. Only a hollow physical shell seemed to persist still.
Brilliant shadow
All seemed a brilliant shadow of itself,
A cosmic film of scenes and images:
The enduring mass and outline of the hills
Was a design sketched on a silent mind
And held to a tremulous false solidity
By constant beats of visionary sight.
All appeared as a brilliant shadow as if a cosmic film was running with its scenes and images. The solid masses of objects and outline of hills was a design sketched on a silent mind. The solidity seemed false and tremulous which seemed concrete due to the persistent information flowing through the nerves of the eye.
Illusion of the eyes
The forest with its emerald multitudes
Clothed with its show of hues vague empty Space,
A painting’s colours hiding a surface void
That flickered upon dissolution’s edge;
The blue heavens, an illusion of the eyes,
Roofed in the mind’s illusion of a world.
The rich green forest with its hues of vague empty Space was like the colours of a painting hiding an empty void that flickered upon the verge of dissolution. The blue heavens seemed an illusion of the eyes that were formed in the roof of the mind.
Mobile puppets
The men who walked beneath an unreal sky
Seemed mobile puppets out of cardboard cut
And pushed by unseen hands across the soil
Or moving pictures upon Fancy’s film:
There was no soul within, no power of life.
Human beings seemed like mobile puppets cut out of cardboard and walking beneath unreal sky. They were as if pushed by unseen hands across the soil or moving pictures upon some fancy’s film. There was no soul within, no power of life.
Sleeping void
The brain’s vibrations that appear like thought,
The nerve’s brief answer to each contact’s knock,
The heart’s quiverings felt as joy and grief and love
Were twitchings of the body, their seeming self,
That body forged from atoms and from gas
A manufactured lie of Maya’s make,
Its life a dream seen by the sleeping Void.
The vibrations of the brain that take the form of thoughts, the stir of nerves at every contact. The quivering of the heart that is felt as feelings were simply twitchings of the body formed out of atom and gas. All seemed a lie manufactured by some inexplicable Maya. Life itself seemed a dream seen by a sleeping Void.
All-creating eye
The animals lone or trooping through the glades
Fled like a passing vision of beauty and grace
Imagined by some all-creating Eye.
The lone animals or in herds and groups seemed to speed across like a passing vision of beauty and grace imagined by some all-creating eye.
Closing Remarks
What is described here as the experience of cosmic illusion.
