The Winds of Wonder

The flame-child born

“Choose, spirit, thy supreme choice not given again;

For now from my highest being looks at thee

The nameless formless peace where all things rest. ||153.36||

In a happy vast sublime cessation know,—

An immense extinction in eternity,

A point that disappears in the infinite,—

Felicity of the extinguished flame,

Last sinking of a wave in a boundless sea,

End of the trouble of thy wandering thoughts,

Close of the journeying of thy pilgrim soul. ||153.37||

Accept, O music, weariness of thy notes,

O stream, wide breaking of thy channel banks.” ||153.38||

The moments fell into eternity. ||153.39||

But someone yearned within a bosom unknown. ||153.40||

And silently the woman’s heart replied:

“Thy peace, O Lord, a boon within to keep

Amid the roar and ruin of wild Time

For the magnificent soul of man on earth. ||153.41||

Thy calm, O Lord, that bears thy hands of joy.” ||153.42||

Limitless like ocean round a lonely isle

A second time the eternal cry arose:

“Wide open are the ineffable gates in front. ||153.43||

My spirit leans down to break the knot of earth,

Amorous of oneness without thought or sign

To cast down wall and fence, to strip heaven bare,

See with the large eye of infinity,

Unweave the stars and into silence pass.” ||153.44||

In an immense and world-destroying pause

She heard a million creatures cry to her. ||153.45||

Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts

Immeasurably the woman’s nature spoke:

“Thy oneness, Lord, in many approaching hearts,

My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls.” ||153.46||

Mightily retreating like a sea in ebb

A third time swelled the great admonishing call:

“I spread abroad the refuge of my wings. ||153.47||

Out of its incommunicable deeps

My power looks forth of mightiest splendour, stilled

Into its majesty of sleep, withdrawn

Above the dreadful whirlings of the world.” ||153.48||

A sob of things was answer to the voice,

And passionately the woman’s heart replied:

“Thy energy, Lord, to seize on woman and man,

To take all things and creatures in their grief

And gather them into a mother’s arms.” ||153.49||

Solemn and distant like a seraph’s lyre

A last great time the warning sound was heard:

“I open the wide eye of solitude

To uncover the voiceless rapture of my bliss,

Where in a pure and exquisite hush it lies

Motionless in its slumber of ecstasy,

Resting from the sweet madness of the dance

Out of whose beat the throb of hearts was borne.” ||153.50||

Breaking the silence with appeal and cry

A hymn of adoration tireless climbed,

A music beat of winged uniting souls,

Then all the woman yearningly replied:

“Thy embrace which rends the living knot of pain,

Thy joy, O Lord, in which all creatures breathe,

Thy magic flowing waters of deep love,

Thy sweetness give to me for earth and men.” ||153.51||

“Then after silence a still blissful cry”

“Began, such as arose from the Infinite

When the first whisperings of a strange delight

Imagined in its deep the joy to seek,

The passion to discover and to touch,

The enamoured laugh which rhymed the chanting worlds:

“O beautiful body of the incarnate Word,

Thy thoughts are mine, I have spoken with thy voice. ||154.1||”

“My will is thine, what thou hast chosen I choose. ||154.2||”

“All thou hast asked I give to earth and men. ||154.3||”

“All shall be written out in destiny’s book

By my trustee of thought and plan and act,”

“The executor of my will, eternal Time. ||154.4||”

“But since thou hast refused my maimless Calm

And turned from my termless peace in which is expunged

The visage of Space, and the shape of Time is lost,

And from happy extinction of thy separate self

In my uncompanioned lone eternity,—

For not for thee the nameless worldless Nought,

Annihilation of thy living soul

And the end of thought and hope and life and love

In the blank measureless Unknowable,—

Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will

I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame,

I lay my hands upon thy heart of love,

I yoke thee to my power of work in Time. ||154.5||”

“Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will,

Because thou hast chosen to share earth’s struggle and fate

And leaned in pity over earth-bound men

And turned aside to help and yearned to save,

I bind by thy heart’s passion thy heart to mine

And lay my splendid yoke upon thy soul. ||154.6||”

“Now will I do in thee my marvellous works. ||154.7||”

“I will fasten thy nature with my cords of strength,

Subdue to my delight thy spirit’s limbs

And make thee a vivid knot of all my bliss,

And build in thee my proud and crystal home. ||154.8||”

“Thy days shall be my shafts of power and light,

Thy nights my starry mysteries of joy

And all my clouds lie tangled in thy hair

And all my springtides marry in thy mouth. ||154.9||”

“O Sun-Word, thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light

And bring down God into the lives of men;

Earth shall be my work-chamber and my house,

My garden of life to plant a seed divine. ||154.10||”

“When all thy work in human time is done,

The mind of earth shall be a home of light,

The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven,

The body of earth a tabernacle of God. ||154.11||”

“Awakened from the mortal’s ignorance

Men shall be lit with the Eternal’s ray

And the glory of my sun-lift in their thoughts 

And feel in their hearts the sweetness of my love

And in their acts my Power’s miraculous drive. ||154.12||”

“My will shall be the meaning of their days;

Living for me, by me, in me they shall live. ||154.13||”      

“In the heart of my creation’s mystery I will enact the drama of thy soul,

Inscribe the long romance of Thee and Me. ||154.14||”

“I will pursue thee across the century;

Thou shalt be hunted through the world by love,

Naked of ignorance’ protecting veil

And without covert from my radiant gods

No shape shall screen thee from my divine desire. ||154.15||”

“Nowhere shalt thou escape my living eyes. ||154.16||”

“In the nudity of thy discovered self 

In a bare identity with all that is,

Disrobed of thy covering of humanity,

Divested of the dense veil of human thought,

Made one with every mind and body and heart,

Made one with all nature and with self and God,

Summing in thy single soul my mystic world

I will possess in thee my universe,

The universe find all I am in thee. ||154.17||”

“Thou shalt bear all things that all things may change,

Thou shalt fill all with my splendour and my bliss,

Thou shalt meet all with my transmuting soul. ||154.18||”

“Assailed by my infinitudes above,

And quivering in immensities below,

Pursued by me through my mind’s wall-less vast,

Oceanic with the surges of my life,

A swimmer lost between two leaping seas

By my outer pains and inner sweetnesses

Finding my joy in my opposite mysteries

Thou shalt respond to me from every nerve. ||154.19||”

“A vision shall compel thy coursing breath,

Thy heart shall drive thee on the wheel of works,

Thy mind shall urge thee through the flames of thought,

To meet me in the abyss and on the heights,

To feel me in the tempest and the calm

And love me in the noble and the vile,

In beautiful things and terrible desire. ||154.20||”

“The pains of hell shall be to thee my kiss,

The flowers of heaven persuade thee with my touch. ||154.21||”

“My fiercest masks shall my attractions bring. ||154.22||”

“Music shall find thee in the voice of swords,

Beauty pursue thee through the core of flame. ||154.23||”

“Thou shalt know me in the rolling of the spheres

And cross me in the atoms of the whirl. ||154.24||”

“The wheeling forces of my universe

Shall cry to thee the summons of my name. ||154.25||”

“Delight shall drop down from my nectarous moon,

My fragrance seize thee in the jasmine’s snare,

My eye shall look upon thee from the sun. ||154.26||”

“Mirror of Nature’s secret spirit made,

Thou shalt reflect my hidden heart of joy,

Thou shalt drink down my sweetness unalloyed

In my pure lotus-cup of starry brim. ||154.27||”

“My dreadful hands laid on thy bosom shall force

Thy being bathed in fiercest longings’ streams. ||154.28||”

“Thou shalt discover the one and quivering note

And cry, the harp of all my melodies,

And roll, my foaming wave in seas of love. ||154.29||”

“Even my disasters’ clutch shall be to thee

The ordeal of my rapture’s contrary shape:

In pain’s self shall smile on thee my secret face:

Thou shalt bear my ruthless beauty unabridged

Amid the world’s intolerable wrongs,

Trampled by the violent misdeeds of Time

Cry out to the ecstasy of my rapture’s touch. ||154.30||”

“All beings shall be to thy life my emissaries;

Drawn to me on the bosom of thy friend,

Compelled to meet me in thy enemy’s eyes,

My creatures shall demand me from thy heart. ||154.31||”

“Thou shalt not shrink from any brother soul. ||154.32||”

“Thou shalt be attracted helplessly to all. ||154.33||”

“Men seeing thee shall feel my hands of joy,

In sorrow’s pangs feel steps of the world’s delight,

Their life experience its tumultuous shock

In the mutual craving of two opposites. ||154.34||”

“Hearts touched by thy love shall answer to my call,

Discover the ancient music of the spheres

In the revealing accents of thy voice, 

And nearer draw to me because thou art:

Enamoured of thy spirit’s loveliness

They shall embrace my body in thy soul,

Hear in thy life the beauty of my laugh,

Know the thrilled bliss with which I made the worlds.||154.35||”

“All that thou hast, shall be for other’s bliss,

All that thou art, shall to my hands belong. ||154.36||”

“I will pour delight from thee as from a jar,”

“I will whirl thee as my chariot through the ways,

I will use thee as my sword and as my lyre,

I will play on thee my minstrelsies of thought. ||154.37||”

“And when thou art vibrant with all ecstasy,

And when thou livst one spirit with all things,

Then will I spare thee not my living fires,

But make thee a channel for my timeless force. ||154.38||”

“My hidden presence led thee unknowing on

From thy beginning in earth’s voiceless bosom

Through life and pain and time and will and death,

Through outer shocks and inner silences

Along the mystic roads of Space and Time

To the experience which all Nature hides. ||154.39||”

“Who hunts and seizes me, my captive grows:

This shalt thou henceforth learn from thy heart-beats. ||154.40||”

“For ever love, O beautiful slave of God! ||154.41||”

“O lasso of my rapture’s widening noose,

Become my cord of universal love. ||154.42||”

“The spirit ensnared by thee force to delight

Of creation’s oneness sweet and fathomless,

Compelled to embrace my myriad unities

And all my endless forms and divine souls. ||154.43||”

“O Mind, grow full of the eternal peace;

O Word, cry out the immortal litany:”

“Built is the golden tower, the flame-child born. ||154.44||”

[Savitri Book Eleven]

This surhomme consciousness

This surhomme consciousness, greatness pioneering, doing wonders,

Miracle brings out miracles, dismissing the past’s senselessness;

अयं श्रेष्ठः पुरुषः चैतन्यः, अग्रणीः माहात्म्यं, आश्चर्यं कुर्वन्,

विसर्जितः अतीतस्य निरर्थकत्वं स्थापितं च चमत्कारेण चमत्कारः;

There is melodic joy in each song of the busy eternal,

And beautiful the vineyard bearing purple fruit of the future;

व्यस्तस्य शाश्वतस्य गीते सुस्वरः आनन्दः अस्ति,

सुन्दरं च द्राक्षाक्षेत्रं भविष्यस्य धूमलवर्णं फलं ददाति;

Yet, amazing, piano has to have keyboard for the octaves,

Rushing up and down, calm, winning crescendos and diminuendos;

तथापि आश्चर्यजनक पियानो सप्तकस्य कृते कीलसमूहः भवितुम् अर्हति,

उपरि अधः च त्वरितम्, शान्तं, उच्चतमं शब्दं जित्वा उच्चैः न्यूनतां च;

Materiality of sleeping matter awakes to own self,

Truth readying itself for the body of the truth-idea;

सुप्तद्रव्यस्य भौतिकत्वं स्वात्मं प्रति जागरति,

सत्यं इष्ट सत्य-संकल्पना शरीराय स्वयमेव सज्जीकृत्य;

At mid-night hour is kindled in a pot of gold the seventh fire,

And has revolutionary substance begun to breathe, to grow;

अर्धरात्रौ प्रज्वल्यते सुवर्णकुम्भे सप्तमः अग्निः,

तथा च क्रान्तिकारी पदार्थः श्वसितुम्, वर्धयितुं आरब्धवान्;

Mind of Light, mind of living matter responding to supreme Light,

Streams incessantly with its will into vigilant limbs and nerves;

प्रकाशस्य मनः, परमं ज्योतिप्रतिक्रियां कुर्वन् जीवद्रव्यस्य मनः,

सजग अङ्गेषु तंत्रिकासु च स्वस्य संकल्पेन सह अविरामं प्रवाहयति;

The Incarnate embodied, son of the body, prepares the way,

Not just the consciousness but presence bringing about the marvel.

अवतारः देही,  तनूनपात, मार्गं सज्जीकरोति,

न केवलं चैतन्यं अपितु आश्चर्यं आनयन् उपस्थितिः.

From RY Deshpande’s O Son of the Body