Index

Book Seven Canto VI:

Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute

It is autumn. Savitri is happy; she knows the aim of her being. All around her feel the charm of her inner change and receive a heightening impulsion. Even grief finds solace in her proximity. Savitri no more sees the shadow of Fate above Satyavan's head. He is luminous and shares her joy always.

One day as she is still breathing the joy of her lover Satyavan, an abyss suddenly yawns beneath her heart. There is a drag of fear on her nerves. An inexplicable Dread follows in its wake and a profound Darkness envelops all, seeming to abolish her very existence. Out of that negating emptiness a voice speaks to her, in uttered words, questioning the reality of her soul and warning her against the impossibility of happiness in this world of pain, the impossibility of making manifest what is the Unknowable. She is told that only the blank Eternal can be true and all else is a shadow, her soul an invention of a passing moment and the centre of illusion. "Know thyself and cease from vain existence" — this is the message.

The Voice ebbs leaving behind it a barren silence; her kingdom of delight is no more. Only her soul remains, alone, awaiting the unknown eternal Will. And from the heights above, after the voice of Night, there comes down the Voice of Light. It is the reply of Heaven to the cry of the Abyss.

"Do not expose thy kingdom of felicity to the Enemy. But adventure further and make the whole world thine; do not fear to be nothing that thou mayst be all.

"Thou hast come to found thy luminous kingdom in God's Dark. Thou must needs bear the suffering of the universe if thou wouldst save it. Banish all thought from thee and be God's Void in order to discover the truth of the Mystery." Savitri listens and plunges deep into herself. She becomes a witness and watches the drama of life and mind in her own inner self. She observes the birth of thought. She sees the activities of the various faculties in the subtle Centres of Consciousness — the several Lotuses. She feels the totality of the universe, the high meeting the low. She beholds the mighty Power of Nature and the role of the individual as its instrument.

God and Nature do all, only the soul's acceptance is man's own. Only when he breaks through the external walls of Matter can man realise his spiritual vastness and assume mastery.

Savitri rises above the mind, above the hold of Nature and sees creation from far above. All grows calm and tranquil. The body seems to have become a stone. But the far repose of the Absolute is not yet.

She still sees stray thoughts crossing her solitude. Even this stops gradually and all is absolutely still, silent.

In this bare stillness she glimpses a supreme all negating Void. Thought, emotion, feeling — all are as if dead. Her body functions by itself, without a person to make it act. Only a pure perception remains. It sees impartially the world go by, it sees only the abysmal unreality of it all. All looks like a cosmic film of scenes and images sketched on a silent mind.

And yet she perceives behind all, beyond all Time and Space, a One that is solely real, escaping from all form and hue. It is both an endless No to all that seems, an endless Yes to all that is still unconceived.

To this stupendous lone reality even eternity and infinity seem but words. Consciousness, Truth, Love, Force, Bliss—they all appear as if a shield before its face.

A formless liberation comes upon Savitri; she escapes into infinity. She shares the Superconscient's high retreat. She is a point in the Unknowable. Some last annulment still remains. Only a memory of being still keeps her separate from Nothingness.

An infinite Nothingness appears to be the ultimate.

A lonely Absolute, negating all, effaces the ignorant world and drowns her soul in everlasting peace.