29: Scribbled Notes — The Dangerous Intermediate Zone
In her quest for her soul Savitri first has the knowledge of the Cosmic Past with a glimpse of what could be the future. But then she has to enter into the Inner Countries and observe the subconscient modes in which life is suffering, with no hope of relief. There are dangerous beings also who can not only foil the search but turn into a precipitous loss.
The forms that came were not heaven’s native births:
Its puissance dangerous and absolute
Could mingle poison with the wine of God. ||118.50||
On these high shining backs falsehood could ride;
Truth lay with delight in error’s passionate arms
Gliding downstream in a blithe gilded barge:
She edged her ray with a magnificent lie. ||118.51||
Here in Life’s nether realms all contraries meet;
Truth stares and does her works with bandaged eyes,
And Ignorance is Wisdom’s patron here. ||118.52||
Those galloping hooves in their enthusiast speed
Could bear to a dangerous intermediate zone
Where Death walks wearing a robe of deathless Life. ||118.53||
Or they enter the valley of the wandering Gleam
Whence, captives or victims of the specious Ray,
Souls trapped in that region never can escape. ||118.54||
Agents, not masters, they serve Life’s desires
Toiling for ever in the snare of Time. ||118.55||
Their bodies born out of some Nihil’s womb
Ensnare the spirit in the moment’s dreams,
Then perish vomiting the immortal soul
Out of Matter’s belly into the sink of Nought. ||118.56||
This is a frightening passage, in the lower vital possibly causing annihilation. The occult is harsh and cruel and extremely foreboding. But there is something in Savitri, her blazing and alert psychic being, and all this streams past her, ebbs into a distant roar, the smile bringing a large and tranquil air. Pure the soil shines and Life’s clamour flees in the vastness of the silent self.
Against this fearsome occult witness theological experience. “As for despondency, it is surely a terrible burden to carry on the way. One has to pass through it sometimes, like Christian of The Pilgrim’s Progress through the Slough of Despond, but its constant reiteration cannot be anything but an obstacle. The Gita specially says, ‘Practise the Yoga with an undespondent heart’, anirviṇṇacetasā’.”
The Slough of Despond, a powerful allegory, appears in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) that represents a state of intense spiritual despair, fear, and guilt. Christian faces it as an obstacle sinking him under the weight of his sins The “mire” is formed by the scum and filth of conviction. He is rescued by one named Help. There are steps, promises of grace. This is very typical of Christian experience, as is the “night of God” where, when one is approaching the soul, human faculties cease to be present.
Savitri’s inner journey is significantly occult compared with Aswapati’s cosmic explorations. He is seeing fallen Life and is set to discover the cause. He descends into Night and notices Life looking upon him with sombre eyes. He follows the track of dim tremendous steps.
All who were there lived for themselves alone;
All warred against all, but with a common hate
Turned on the mind that sought some higher good;
Truth was exiled lest she should dare to speak
And hurt the heart of darkness with her light
Or bring her pride of knowledge to blaspheme
The settled anarchy of established things. ||56.28||
But a greater darkness waited, worse reign.
A bull-throat bellowed with its brazen tongue;
Its hard and shameless clamour filling space
And threatening all who dared to listen to truth
Claimed the monopoly of the battered ear;
A deafened acquiescence gave its vote,
And braggart dogmas shouted in the night
Kept for the fallen soul once deemed a god
The pride of its abysmal absolute. ||59.17||
A formless void suppressed his struggling brain,
A darkness grim and cold oppressed his flesh,
A whispered grey suggestion chilled his heart;
Haled by a serpent-force from its warm home
And dragged to extinction in blank vacancy
Life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath;
Lapped was his body by a tenebrous tongue. ||60.12||
Savitri doesn’t have this experience of sge being lapped by a tenebrous tongue. Hers and Aswapati’s yogas are of a different. If in one there is prayer for the Divine Mother to incarnate herself, in the other it is the victory over Death to clear for the Divine Manifestation, divine life in a divine body. The first is the foundational, the second the fulfilmental.
Savitri Book 7 Canto 3 – The Entry into the Inner Countries
Across a perilous border line she passed
Where Life dips into the subconscient dusk
Or struggles from Matter into chaos of mind,
Aswarm with elemental entities
And fluttering shapes of vague half-bodied thought
And crude beginnings of incontinent force…. ||118.19||
This state now threatened, thus she pushed from her. ||118.31||
Featured image is by Huta, Book Seven Canto Three: Savitri witnesses the region where Life dips into the subconscient.
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