A power of fallen boundless self awake
Between the first and the last Nothingness,
Recalling the tenebrous womb from which it came,
Turned from the insoluble mystery of birth
And the tardy process of mortality
And longed to reach its end in vacant Nought.
As in a dark beginning of all things,
A mute featureless semblance of the Unknown
Repeating for ever the unconscious act,
Prolonging for ever the unseeing will,
Cradled the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force
Whose moved creative slumber kindles the suns
And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.
Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space,
Its formless stupor without mind or life,
A shadow spinning through a soulless Void,
Thrown back once more into unthinking dreams,
Earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs
Forgetful of her spirit and her fate.
Source: Savitri (Canto One, The Symbol Dawn)
Even when a cycle of creation is over, the power of the boundless self– “something that centrally evolves in creation”1— is awake “between two nothingnesses—the Inconscient around, and the Superconscient above.”2 Confronting the wearying, sluggish process of mortality, involving cycles of births and deaths, this power yearns for reaching its end in the Nescience.
Some “semblance of the Unknown”, while repeating an unconscious act and carrying on the unseeing will,3 “cradles” the “cosmic drowse” of ignorant Force. M.P. Pandit describes drowse as “a state between waking and sleep…which is not a complete sleep.” And this drowse is creative, kindling the suns. Pandit explains, “All those suns are first lighted by this mechanical movement in drowse. Even after the kindling of the suns, all is carried in this whirl, the circling movement. That is, this material Force, to which we deny intelligence…creates mechanically in a somnambulist manner. It is moved by a creative slumber. The movement and the activity of this force have a meaning.”4
Further, in the vast emptiness, Earth keeps spinning like a shadow (image below), having forgotten its essential nature and destiny. This is the the state before “conscious creation.” The beginning is perhaps is like a seemingly fresh and blank page, already marked for a script of an unfolding story–the story of the rise of its characters.
Image Source: Painting by Huta, https://motherandsriaurobindo.in/The-Mother/meditations-on-savitri/book-1-canto-1/
- https://savitri.in/books/m-p-pandit/the-book-of-beginnings ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- “It is an ‘unseeing will’—it is not a blind will, only it does not choose to see, it has closed its eyes.” https://savitri.in/books/m-p-pandit/the-book-of-beginnings ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎