A Spiritual Biography of Savitri

46: God’s Messenger

 

…when God's messenger comes to help the world

And lead the soul of earth to higher things,

He too must carry the yoke he came to unloose;

He too must bear the pang that he would heal:

Exempt and unafflicted by earth’s fate,

How shall he cure the ills he never felt?

 

He covers the world’s agony with his calm;

But though to the outward eye no sign appears

And peace is given to our torn human hearts,

The struggle is there and paid the unseen price;

The fire, the strife, the wrestle are within.

 

He carries the suffering world in his own breast;

Its sins weigh on his thoughts, its grief is his:

Earth’s ancient load lies heavy on his soul;

Night and its powers beleaguer his tardy steps,

The titan adversary’s clutch he bears;

His march is a battle and a pilgrimage.

 

Life’s evil smites, he is stricken with the world’s pain:

A million wounds gape in his secret heart.

He journeys sleepless through an unending night;

Antagonist forces crowd across his path;

A siege, a combat is his inner life…

 

He meets an ancient adversary Force,

He is lashed with the whips that tear the world's worn heart;

The weeping of the centuries visits his eyes:

He wears the blood-glued fiery Centaur’s shirt,

The poison of the world has stained his throat.

 

In the market-place of Matter’s capital

Amidst the chafferings of the affair called life

He is tied to the stake of a perennial Fire,

He burns on an unseen original verge

That Matter may be turned to spirit stuff:

He is the victim in his own sacrifice.

 

The Immortal bound to earth’s mortality

Appearing and perishing on the roads of Time

Creates God’s moment by eternity’s beats.

 

He dies that the world may be new-born and live.

 

Even if he escapes the fiercest fires,

Even if the world breaks not in, a drowning sea,

Only by hard sacrifice is high heaven earned:

He must face the fight, the pang who would conquer Hell…

 

An adversary Force was born of old:

Invader of the life of mortal man,

It hides from him the straight immortal path…

 

This all must conquer who would bring down God’s peace…

 

Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task;

The world itself becomes his adversary,

His enemies are the beings he came to save.

 

Those he would save are his antagonists:

This world is in love with its own ignorance,

Its darkness turns away from the saviour light,

It gives the cross in payment for the crown.

 

His work is a trickle of splendour in a long night;

He sees the long march of Time, the little won;

A few are saved, the rest strive on and fail:

A Sun has passed, on earth Night's shadow falls.

 

Yes, there are happy ways near to God’s sun;

But few are they who tread the sunlit path;

Only the pure in soul can walk in light…

 

Although Light grows on earth and Night recedes,

Yet till the evil is slain in its own home

And Light invades the world’s inconscient base

And perished has the adversary Force,

He still must labour on, his work half done.

 

One yet may come armoured, invincible…

In the dreadful passages, the fatal paths,

Invulnerable his soul, his heart unslain,

He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers

And Nature’s ambushes and the world’s attacks.

 

His spirit stature transcending pain and bliss

He fronts evil and good with calm and equal eyes.

 

He too must grapple with the riddling Sphinx

And plunge into her long obscurity.

 

He has broken into the Inconscient’s depths

That veil themselves even from their own regard:

He has seen God’s slumber shape these magic worlds…

 

He must call light into its dark abysms,

Else never can Truth conquer Matter’s sleep

And all earth look into the eyes of God.

 

All things obscure his knowledge must relume,

All things perverse his power must unknot:

He must pass to the other shore of falsehood’s sea,

He must enter the world’s dark to bring there light.

The heart of evil must be bared to his eyes,

He must learn its cosmic dark Necessity,

Its right and its dire roots in Nature’s soil…

 

Imperishable and wise and infinite,

He still must travel Hell the world to save.

 

Into the eternal Light he shall emerge

On borders of the meeting of all worlds;

There on the verge of Nature's summit steps

 

The secret Law of each thing is fulfilled,

All contraries heal their long dissidence.

 

There meet and clasp the eternal opposites,

There pain becomes a violent fiery joy;

Evil turns back to its original good,

And sorrow lies upon the breasts of Bliss:

She has learnt to weep glad tears of happiness;

Her gaze is charged with a wistful ecstasy.

 

Then shall be ended here the Law of Pain…

 

This mortal life shall house Eternity’s bliss,

The body’s self taste immortality.

Then shall the world-redeemer's task be done.

 

Savitri, pp. 446-51