Opening Remarks
A nameless fear, an unseen terror starts invading the new found kingdom of God within the heart of Savitri. It assumes a voice to dissuade her from the dream of perfection of earthly life.
Illusion of thy soul
“Who art thou who claimst thy crown of separate birth,
The illusion of thy soul’s reality
And personal godhead on an ignorant globe
In the animal body of imperfect man?
The voice of Night mocks Savitri’s new found joy of the soul. It throws upon her doubt about an individual soul calling it an illusion. It denies the possibility of the Immanent Divine on an ignorant earth in the imperfect man with a body built upon the animal plan.
Hope not to be happy
Hope not to be happy in a world of pain
And dream not, listening to the unspoken Word
And dazzled by the inexpressible Ray,
Transcending the mute Superconscient’s realm,
To give a body to the Unknowable,
Or for a sanction to thy heart’s delight
To burden with bliss the silent still Supreme
Profaning its bare and formless sanctity,
Or call into thy chamber the Divine
And sit with God tasting a human joy.
The voice of Night tries to snatch away hope of any happiness in a world of pain. He mocks at her dream of earthly perfection based on her inner dazzling realisations that transcend the Superconscient as if it were a sanction to her heart’s delight of a glad beautiful harmonious life with Satyavan. The voice retorts that the Supreme is still and mute and there is no scope of bliss or possibility of giving a body and a form to the Unknowable. That bare and formless sanctity cannot be profaned with earthly joys nor can the Divine Reality be called in the chamber of the heart tasting a human joy.
I am Death
I have created all, all I devour;
I am Death and the dark terrible Mother of life,
I am Kali black and naked in the world,
I am Maya and the universe is my cheat.
The Voice now claims that it is Death, the origin and end of all things. It further claims that he is the black and naked Kali, the dark and terrible Mother. It goes on to claim that he is Maya that has created this universe as a trick to cheat and deceive.
Nothingness
I lay waste human happiness with my breath
And slay the will to live, the joy to be
That all may pass back into nothingness
And only abide the eternal and absolute.
It claims to be the Nihil that swallows all happiness by his breath and slays the will to live and the joy to be. He bids all to pass back into the nothingness which alone is eternal and absolute.
Blank Eternal
For only the blank Eternal can be true.
The voice of Night gives the logic that only the blank Eternal can be true after he has craftily and cunningly given his own dark immense shadow the name of the Eternal.
All else is a shadow
All else is shadow and flash in Mind’s bright glass,
Mind, hollow mirror in which Ignorance sees
A splendid figure of its own false self
And dreams it sees a glorious solid world.
Extending his shadow upon all creation, Death bids Savitri that all is a shadow and flash in mind’s bright glass, a hollow mirror in which Ignorance sees non-existing forms and figures and takes them to be real. It sees its own false reflections and dreams it to be a glorious solid world.
From vain existence cease
O soul, inventor of man’s thoughts and hopes,
Thyself the invention of the moments’ stream,
Illusion’s centre or subtle apex point,
At last know thyself, from vain existence cease.”
Finally it bids the soul to renounce all hopes it has invented through the mind and its thoughts since it is itself a momentary fiction. The voice claims that the soul is nothing but the centre of the Illusion a subtle apex point around which the illusion is perpetuated as a cosmos. So, it says, know thyself, the vanity of the illusory existence with yourself itself an illusion and thereby cease from this vain existence.
Shadow of negating Absolute
A shadow of the negating Absolute,
The intolerant Darkness travelled surging past
And ebbed in her the formidable Voice.
The voice of Night is the shadow of the Absolute negating Its own Reality. This intolerant Darkness travelled surging past and the formidable Voice ebbed away.
Barren silence
It left behind her inner world laid waste:
A barren silence weighed upon her heart,
Her kingdom of delight was there no more;
Only her soul remained, its emptied stage,
Awaiting the unknown eternal Will.
The effect of this voice of the Night was that her inner world was laid waste and a barren silence weighed upon his heart. Her kingdom of delight suddenly seemed to vanish leaving only her soul upon an empty stage awaiting the unknown eternal will.
Closing Remarks
The voice of Night speaks in all of us and makes life and effort and the world seem vain and a waste. It is the voice of the Shadow of God that imitates His Reality.
