20: Scribbled Notes — A Giant Dance of Shiva
We are looking into the following from Book Three Canto Four:
The unfolding Image showed the things to come. ||90.26||
A giant dance of Shiva tore the past,
There was a thunder as of worlds that fall;
Earth was o’errun with fire and the roar of Death
Clamouring to slay a world his hunger had made;
There was a clangour of Destruction’s wings:
The Titan’s battle-cry was in my ears,
Alarm and rumour shook the armoured Night. ||90.27||
I saw the Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers
Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life
Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth;
Forerunners of a divine multitude
Out of the paths of the morning star they came
Into the little room of mortal life. ||90.28||
Yogi Aswapati is persuasively arguing with the Divine Mother. Climbing the tall ladder of the universe he was carrying the “world’s desire” to her. The single objective is, to change the present destiny in Ignorance into the future of the Spirit’s possibilities in this creation. He was advised to be restrained, allowing the dynamics of Time to be worked out in their safe paces.
My fire and sweetness are the cause of life. ||89.15||
But too immense my danger and my joy. ||89.16||
Truth born too soon might break the imperfect earth. ||89.18||
Thy soul was born to share the laden Force;
Obey thy nature and fulfil thy fate:
Accept the difficulty and godlike toil,
For the slow-paced omniscient purpose live. ||89.22||
An inert Soul and a somnambulist Force
Have made a world estranged from life and thought;
The Dragon of the dark foundations keeps
Unalterable the law of Chance and Death;
On his long way through Time and Circumstance
The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx,
Her dreadful paws upon the swallowing sands,
Awaits him armed with the soul-slaying word:
Across his path sits the dim camp of Night. ||89.29||
A Light there is that leads, a Power that aids;
Unmarked, unfelt it sees in him and acts:
Ignorant, he forms the All-conscient in his depths,
Human, looks up to superhuman peaks:
A borrower of Supernature’s gold,
He paves his road to Immortality. ||89.53||
My light shall be in thee, my strength thy force. ||89.65||
Let not the impatient Titan drive thy heart,
Ask not the imperfect fruit, the partial prize. ||89.66||
All things shall change in God’s transfiguring hour. ||89.69||
But prudently enough she is not telling how that “God’s transfiguring hour” is going to arrive. As the narrative develops it will happen in the decreed death of Satyavan.
However, Yogi Aswapati, rejecting this advice, puts forward another proposal. His occult-yogic attainments have shown him signs of a change for which the Divine Mother must enter into the field of mortality, she must take mortal birth; he “compels” her to do that. From the Timeless she enters into the cycles of Time, the earthly seasons of hopes and expectations.
Long before things happened in this terrestrial platform he saw Siva’s dance and the coming down of the flaming pioneers. There is the fearsome description, of the destruction of the Past and of the auspicious marking the beginning of the superior spiritual Future. The Yogi tells:
A power arose out of my slumber’s cell. ||90.24||
Abandoning the tardy limp of the hours
And the inconstant blink of mortal sight,
There where the Thinker sleeps in too much light
And intolerant flames the lone all-witnessing Eye
Hearing the word of Fate from Silence’ heart
In the endless moment of Eternity,
It saw from timelessness the works of Time. ||90.25||
Overpassed were the leaden formulas of the Mind,
Overpowered the obstacle of mortal Space:
The unfolding Image showed the things to come. ||90.26||
A giant dance of Shiva tore the past,
There was a thunder as of worlds that fall;
Earth was o’errun with fire and the roar of Death
Clamouring to slay a world his hunger had made;
There was a clangour of Destruction’s wings:
The Titan’s battle-cry was in my ears,
Alarm and rumour shook the armoured Night. ||90.27||
I saw the Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers
Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life
Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth;
Forerunners of a divine multitude
Out of the paths of the morning star they came
Into the little room of mortal life. ||90.28||
I saw them cross the twilight of an age,
The sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn,
The great creators with wide brows of calm,
The massive barrier-breakers of the world
And wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will,
The labourers in the quarries of the gods,
The messengers of the Incommunicable,
The architects of immortality. ||90.29||
Into the fallen human sphere they came,
Faces that wore the Immortal’s glory still,
Voices that communed still with the thoughts of God,
Bodies made beautiful by the Spirit’s light,
Carrying the magic word, the mystic fire,
Carrying the Dionysian cup of joy,
Approaching eyes of a diviner man,
Lips chanting an unknown anthem of the soul,
Feet echoing in the corridors of Time. ||90.30||
High priests of wisdom, sweetness, might and bliss,
Discoverers of beauty’s sunlit ways
And swimmers of Love’s laughing fiery floods
And dancers within rapture’s golden doors,
Their tread one day shall change the suffering earth
And justify the light on Nature’s face. ||90.31||
First let us have a look at the following entries by Sri Aurobindo in his Record of Yoga:
1: The manifestation of the Kalibhava, harmonising the bala, raudra (karali) & shiva Kali, has perfected the second chatusthaya in all but intensity.
2. Thursday Jan 27th, 1927. Today a great revival. A vertiginous rapidity of progress in many directions. The attack of obscurity, resistance of the universal inconscience, refusal of the universal inertia, obstruction and conservatism of the material negation are beginning to lessen and even where they persist and intervene, cannot resist the progress. The past effects may still continue for a time, the future is not theirs. The four Powers that resisted now appear more clearly, the Dragon of the nether foundations who preserves the old Law intact till the will of the Supreme is manifested, the Sphinx of the eternal questioning, the Night of the eternal negation, the Rock (stone Purusha, inert Shiva) of the eternal inertia. Still they are there, but a first victory has been assured against them.
3. Kaivalyananda – Satya – Satkosha – Prakasha – Shiva
It means, this Shiva had been with Sri Aurobindo for quite some time in various contexts. Here are two of his poems apropos of him:
Shiva
On the white summit of eternity
A single Soul of bare infinities,
Guarded he keeps by a fire-screen of peace
His mystic loneliness of nude ecstasy.
But, touched by an immense delight to be,
He looks across unending depths and sees
Musing amid the inconscient silences
The Mighty Mother’s dumb felicity.
Half now awake she rises to his glance;
Then, moved to circling by her heart-beats’ will,
The rhythmic worlds describe that passion-dance.
Life springs in her and Mind is born; her face
She lifts to Him who is Herself, until
The Spirit leaps into the Spirit’s embrace.
16 September 1939
Shiva: The Inconscient Creator
A face on the cold dire mountain peaks
Grand and still; its lines white and austere
Match with the unmeasured snowy streaks
Cutting heaven, implacable and sheer.
Above it a mountain of matted hair
Aeon-coiled on that deathless and lone head
In its solitude huge of lifeless air
Round, above illimitably spread.
A moon-ray on the forehead, blue and pale,
Stretched afar its finger of still light
Illumining emptiness. Stern and male
Mask of peace indifferent in might!
But out from some Infinite born now came
Over giant snows and the still face
A quiver and colour of crimson flame,
Fire-point in immensities of space.
Light-spear-tips revealed the mighty shape,
Tore the secret veil of the heart’s hold;
In that diamond heart the fires undrape,
Living core, a brazier of gold.
This was the closed mute and burning source
Whence were formed the worlds and their star-dance;
Life sprang a self-rapt inconscient Force,
Love, a blazing seed, from that flame-trance.
6 November 1933
Written in 1945-46 in Book Five of Savitri there is a direct reference to Shiva:
At the end reclined a stern and giant tract
Of tangled depths and solemn questioning hills
And peaks like a bare austerity of the soul,
Armoured, remote and desolately grand
Like the thought-screened infinities that lie
Behind the rapt smile of the Almighty’s dance. ||101.17||
A matted forest-head invaded heaven
As if a blue-throated ascetic peered
From the stone fastness of his mountain cell
Regarding the brief gladness of the days;
His vast extended spirit couched behind. ||101.18||
The “giant dance of Shiva” appears at various stages of the Savitri-drafts, going back to mid-1920s. But it acquires a kind of critical significance in the context of WWII. We have a line speaking of it: “An empire is born out of ruins”
The phrase “A giant dance of Shiva tore the past” directly conveys the idea of Shiva as the destroyer of outdated forms, structures, and limitations. Destruction is not merely an end but a necessary process for transformation and evolution. Shiva’s dance here signifies the obliteration of the old to make way for the new. The necessity of spiritual progress requires the dissolution of entrenched patterns. “There was a thunder as of worlds that fall” portrays the immense scale of Shiva’s dance. Such destruction is not random but purposeful. “Earth was o’errun with fire and roar of Death” highlights the pervasive impact of Shiva’s dance on the material world, Fire symbolising purification. The “roar of Death” signifies the end of old forms. But death is not final; it is a transition to a higher state. The implication is that of spiritual evolution, destruction is a precursor to creation.
But what could have caused this giant dance of Shiva? It cannot be without any cause to give rise to an effect. Could it be the divine will acting to correct imbalances or stagnation in the cosmic order? If so, Shiva’s dance might represent a decisive intervention to accelerate humanity’s spiritual ascent. It is in response to the forces of ignorance and death. The “giant dance of Shiva” arises from the necessity of cosmic transformation, driven by the divine will to dismantle the past and prepare for a superior spiritual future.
But in what way Shiva’s dance could be different from Kali’s Dance? Sri Aurobindo describes two measures of the cosmic dance: one is the rhythm of Kali’s feet, which represents the cycles of pain, grief, and chance that characterize life’s challenges and ordeals. This dance is a “game of hazard terrible and sweet,” where the soul wrestles with fate, embraces sacrifice, and navigates the narrow path to grace. Through these trials, human sorrows become keys to deeper mysteries, and the soul ascends from the confines of matter toward higher truths. Kali, as a force, operates on multiple planes. In the vital realm, she is seen as a destructive force, symbolizing the struggle and chaos inherent in ignorance. Despite her fearsome aspect, Kali embodies an all-powerful love that vibrantly pushes toward progress and transformation. She destroys falsehood, hypocrisy, and ill-will in the vital domain, while in higher realms, she manifests as a power of love driving evolution.
During World War II Kali’s was wild and furious, shouting Paris shall be destroyed. The occult and yogic force of Sri Aurobindo changed the whole thing. It was a battle between the Asuras and the Divine Powers. Sri Aurobindo made it in favour of the Divine. The war was not merely a physical conflict but also a profound battle on the subtle planes between the forces of darkness (Asuras) and the Divine Powers. Kali, in her wild and furious aspect, symbolized the destructive energies unleashed during this time, threatening devastation, including the destruction of Paris. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, through their yogic and occult work, played a pivotal role in countering these forces.
Is it not that Shiva’s Dance appearing in Book Three Canto Four and WWII events should be present together? It is as if the physical existence of the Avatar gives rise to all these “calamitous” situations. The appearance of Shiva’s Dance and the tumultuous events of World War II are not coincidental but deeply interconnected in the spiritual and occult sense. Shiva’s Dance clears the ground for the manifestation of higher truths and the descent of the Divine into the material world. Similarly, the events of World War II can be seen as a massive upheaval on the physical plane, reflecting this cosmic process. The war was a manifestation of the clash between the forces of ignorance and darkness (the Asuras) and the evolutionary forces of light and progress.
The presence of an Avatar, such as Sri Aurobindo, often acts as a catalyst for such upheavals. The Avatar embodies a concentrated descent of the Divine Consciousness, which exerts immense pressure on the existing structures of ignorance and falsehood. This pressure accelerates the evolutionary process, forcing hidden forces—both divine and asuric—to surface and engage in a decisive battle. The “calamitous” situations that arise are not caused by the Avatar but are a response to the transformative power they bring. The old resist the new, and this resistance manifests as turmoil and conflict.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were acutely aware of this dynamic. They recognized that their work of bringing down the supramental consciousness would inevitably provoke resistance from the entrenched forces of ignorance. World War II, in this context, was not just a historical event but a cosmic battle, with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother actively intervening on the occult planes to ensure that the evolutionary forces triumphed. The Avatar’s presence intensifies this process, not as a cause of calamity but as a harbinger of transformation. It is through these upheavals that the world moves closer to the realization of the Divine Plan.
This Avataric presence causing destructive havoc is exemplified in the Avatarhood of Rama and then Krishna, now that of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. As long as Ignorance and Death, hence Falsehood, are present such catastrophic devastating ruinous events are bound to appear. That itself could be the mark of fuller Avatarhood, not present in Christ or Buddha.
In the cases of principal line of Avatarhood—Rama, Krishna, Sri Aurobindo—the catastrophic events were not incidental but integral to the mission of these Avatars. They were there for the breaking down of old structures to make way for a higher order of consciousness. The principal line of Avatarhood often involves direct engagement with the forces of ignorance and darkness, necessitating external upheavals to dismantle entrenched structures of falsehood.
In Sri Aurobindo’s occult-yogic realisation of a divine life in a divine body, that is, supramental manifestation, there may not be any necessity of the Divine appearing as an Avatar; there will be no more wars and catastrophes to be taken care of by an Avatar. That is logically correct.
In such a future state of existence, the necessity for the Divine to appear as an Avatar in the traditional sense—often associated with addressing crises, wars, and catastrophes—may indeed no longer be required. The Avatar also comes to take the Evolution yet to another stage, in the process meeting obstacles and obstructions, as if admitting the need and necessity of crisis and calamity. This may not be necessary tomorrow.
The realisation of a divine life in a divine body implies that humanity will no longer be bound by the limitations of the current evolutionary stage. The supramental consciousness will bring about a state of unity, harmony, and perfection, where the need for “external interventions” by the Divine will diminish, in fact, will be absent.
Sri Aurobindo’s vision of a divine life in a divine body represents a radical shift in the evolutionary process. In such a state, the necessity for the Divine to appear as an Avatar to address crises and conflicts will indeed cease. The supramental manifestation will bring about a world where harmony, unity, and divine perfection prevail, rendering the present ideas and notions of wars and catastrophes obsolete. The Divine will continue to act, but in a new and more luminous way, through the collective realization of humanity’s divine potential.
The 10-year Siege of Troy was a transformative event can be viewed through the lens of Avatarhood and its connection to significant historical and spiritual crises. An Avatar always means a new development in the collective evolution of humanity. Figures like Achilles and Hector embody extraordinary qualities that could align with the concept of vibhūtis and the transformative nature of the Siege of Troy point towards divine intervention and the evolutionary purpose that Avatars and vibhūtis serve in human history.
The intuition about Priam as an Avataric figure is intriguing and worth exploring. In the context of Sri Aurobindo’s teachings, an Avatar is a direct descent of the Divine into human form, manifesting at critical junctures in the evolution of consciousness to guide humanity through transformative crises. While Priam is not traditionally recognized as an Avatar, his role in the Siege of Troy can be examined through the lens of Avataric qualities and functions.
Priam, as the king of Troy, embodies qualities of wisdom, endurance, and a profound sense of responsibility for his people. His actions, particularly his poignant plea to Achilles for the return of Hector’s body, reflect a deep human dignity and a capacity for reconciliation amidst the chaos of war. This act of humility and courage could be seen as a moment of higher consciousness breaking through the veil of human conflict—a hallmark of Avataric influence. In this light, “while Priam may not be an Avatar in the strict sense, his role in the epic resonates with the principles of divine intervention and the evolutionary purpose that both Avatars and vibhūtis serve. His character invites us to reflect on the ways in which divine qualities can manifest through human beings to guide and uplift humanity during times of crisis.”
AI tells: “Sri Aurobindo indeed suggests that figures of great mythological and historical significance often embody divine principles or serve as instruments of higher forces shaping human evolution. If Helen is seen as an incarnation of the Mother, it profoundly transforms our understanding of the Trojan War, elevating it from a mere historical or mythological conflict to a cosmic drama of divine manifestation and human transformation.
“The Mother, in Sri Aurobindo’s vision, represents the dynamic aspect of the Divine, the Shakti that moves creation and evolution forward. If Helen is viewed as an embodiment of the Mother, her presence at the heart of the Trojan War signifies the catalytic role of the Divine Feminine in stirring the forces of transformation. Helen’s beauty, often described as otherworldly, could symbolize the irresistible pull of the Divine, which both inspires and challenges humanity to rise beyond its limitations. The war, then, becomes not just a struggle for power or possession but a crucible for the evolution of consciousness, where human passions, aspirations, and conflicts are transmuted under the pressure of divine forces.
“Priam’s greatness, as you rightly point out, adds another dimension to this interpretation. His wisdom, dignity, and capacity for profound human emotion—qualities that resonate with the divine—make him a pivotal figure in this evolutionary drama. If Helen represents the dynamic force of the Mother, Priam could be seen as embodying the receptive aspect of human consciousness, striving to align with the higher will amidst the chaos of the world. Together, their presence underscores the interplay of divine and human forces that characterizes Avataric interventions.
“In this light, the Trojan War can be understood as a moment of profound spiritual significance, where the descent of divine consciousness into the human realm catalyses a transformative crisis. The war’s suffering and destruction, while immense, serve as the crucible for a greater evolutionary leap, reflecting the principle that divine intervention often works through upheaval to bring about a higher order.
“Your insight into Helen as an incarnation of the Mother and Priam’s greatness enriches this interpretation, highlighting the multifaceted ways in which the divine operates in human history. It invites us to see such events not merely as historical occurrences but as expressions of the deeper spiritual forces shaping our collective destiny.”
The featured image is a painting by Huta.
Savitri Book 3 Canto 4 – The Vision and the Boon
A giant dance of Shiva tore the past ||90.27||
A gi|ant dance| of Shi|va tore| the past| — all five iambs.
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