Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol, by Sri Aurobindo, Book VI The Book of Fate, Canto 2 The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, pp. 456-460

1
00:00:01,520 --> 00:00:04,240
Then Ashwapati answered to the
seer.

2
00:00:05,680 --> 00:00:08,560
Is then the Spirit ruled by an
outward world?

3
00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:11,840
O seer, is there no remedy
within?

4
00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:15,440
But what is fate if not the
Spirit's will?

5
00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:21,000
After a long time fulfilled by
cosmic force, I deemed a mighty

6
00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:24,880
power had come with her.
Is not that power the high

7
00:00:24,880 --> 00:00:29,680
compeer of fate?
But Narod answered, covering

8
00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:34,880
truth with truth.
O Ashwapati, random seem the

9
00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:38,440
ways along whose banks your
footsteps stray, or run in

10
00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:43,240
casual hours or moments of the
gods, Yet your least stumblings

11
00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:48,160
are foreseen above infallibly
the curves of life are drawn,

12
00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:51,640
following the stream of time
through the unknown.

13
00:00:52,520 --> 00:00:56,800
They are led by a clue.
The calm immortals keep this

14
00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:02,040
blazoned hieroglyph of prophet
Morns, a meaning more sublime in

15
00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:05,280
symbol's rites than sealed
thought wakes to.

16
00:01:05,960 --> 00:01:10,600
But of this high script, how
shall my voice convince the mind

17
00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:14,680
of earth?
Heaven's wiser love rejects the

18
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:18,760
mortal prayer.
Unblinded by the breath of his

19
00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:24,280
desire, unclouded by the mists
of fear and hope, it bends above

20
00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:29,240
the strife of love with death.
It keeps for her her privilege

21
00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:32,640
of pain.
A greatness in thy daughter's

22
00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:37,640
soul resides that can transform
herself and all around, but must

23
00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:40,560
cross on stones of suffering to
its goal.

24
00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:45,960
Although designed like a nectar
cup of heaven, of heavenly ether

25
00:01:45,960 --> 00:01:50,240
maid, she sought this air.
She too must share the human

26
00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:55,040
need of grief, and all her cause
of joy transmute to pain.

27
00:01:55,720 --> 00:01:58,560
The mind of mortal man is led by
words.

28
00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:03,480
His sight retires behind the
walls of thought and looks out

29
00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:09,360
only through half open doors.
He cuts the boundless truth into

30
00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:14,480
sky strips and every strip he
takes for all the heavens.

31
00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:18,880
He stares at infinite
possibility and gives to the

32
00:02:18,880 --> 00:02:24,640
plastic vast the name of chance.
He sees the long results of an

33
00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:29,080
all wise force planning a
sequence of steps in endless

34
00:02:29,080 --> 00:02:35,160
time, but in its links imagines
a senseless chain or the dead

35
00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:39,920
hand of cold necessity.
He answers not to the Mystic

36
00:02:39,920 --> 00:02:44,280
mother's heart, misses the
ardent heavings of her breast,

37
00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:50,280
and feels cold, rigid limbs of
lifeless law, the will of the

38
00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:54,640
timeless working out in time in
the free absolute steps of

39
00:02:54,640 --> 00:02:59,920
cosmic truth, He thinks a dead
machine or unconscious fate.

40
00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:05,120
A magician's formulas have made
matters laws, and while they

41
00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:07,440
last, all things by them are
bound.

42
00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:13,040
But the spirit's consent is
needed for each act, and freedom

43
00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:19,080
walks in the same pace with law.
All here can change if the

44
00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:23,240
magician choose.
If human will could be made one

45
00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:27,600
with God's, If human thought
could echo the thoughts of God.

46
00:03:28,160 --> 00:03:31,120
Man might be all knowing and
omnipotent.

47
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,040
But now he walks in nature's
doubtful ray.

48
00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:39,360
Yet can the mind of man receive
God's light?

49
00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:43,160
The force of man can be driven
by God's force.

50
00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:49,360
Then is he a miracle doing
miracles, for only so can he be

51
00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:54,040
nature's king.
It is decreed, and such Yvonne

52
00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:57,920
must die.
The hour is fixed, chosen the

53
00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:01,440
fatal stroke.
What else shall be is written in

54
00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:05,160
her soul.
But till the hour reveals the

55
00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:07,880
fateful script, the writing
waits.

56
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:12,280
Illegible and mute.
Fate is truth working out in

57
00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:16,800
ignorance, O King.
Thy fate is a transaction done

58
00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:20,560
at every hour between nature and
thy soul, with God for its

59
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:24,960
foreseeing arbiter.
Fate is a balance drawn in

60
00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,760
destiny's book.
Man can accept his fate.

61
00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:34,800
He can refuse, even if the one
maintains the unseen decree.

62
00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:40,120
He writes thy refusal in thy
credit page, For doom is not a

63
00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:47,200
close, A Mystic seal Arisen from
the tragic crash of life, arisen

64
00:04:47,200 --> 00:04:52,200
from the bodies torture and
death, The spirit rises mightier

65
00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:57,720
by defeat, Its God like wings
grow wider with each fall, Its

66
00:04:57,720 --> 00:05:00,640
splendid failures some to
victory.

67
00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:05,760
O man, the events that meet thee
on thy Rd., though they smite

68
00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:10,040
thy body and soul with joy and
grief, are not thy fate.

69
00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:13,160
They touch thee a while and
pass.

70
00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:19,360
Even death can cut not short.
Thy spirits walk thy goal, the

71
00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:25,400
road thou choosest are thy fate
on the altar, throwing thy

72
00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:31,080
thoughts, thy heart, thy works.
Thy fate is a long sacrifice to

73
00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:35,960
the gods, till they have opened
to thee thy secret self and made

74
00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:38,840
thee one with the indwelling
God.

75
00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:44,600
O soul, intruder in nature's
ignorance, armed traveller to

76
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:49,240
the unseen supernal heights.
Thy spirit's fate is a battle

77
00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:53,600
and ceaseless March against
invisible opponent powers.

78
00:05:53,960 --> 00:05:57,080
A passage from matter into
timeless self.

79
00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:02,080
Adventurer through blind,
unforeseen time, a forced

80
00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:04,760
advance through a long line of
lives.

81
00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:10,120
It pushes its spearhead through
the centuries across the dust

82
00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:15,240
and mire of the earthly plain,
on many guarded lines and

83
00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:19,440
dangerous fronts.
In dire assaults, In wounded,

84
00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:24,760
slow retreats holding the ideals
ringed and battered Fort, or

85
00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:27,520
fighting against odds.
In lonely posts.

86
00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:33,200
Or camped in night around the
bivouac's fires, awaiting the

87
00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:38,360
tardy trumpets of the dawn.
In hunger and in plenty and in

88
00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:43,440
pain, Through peril and through
triumph and through fall.

89
00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:48,880
Through life's green lanes and
over her desert sands, Up the

90
00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:53,960
bald Moor, along the sunlit
Ridge in serried columns with a

91
00:06:53,960 --> 00:07:00,320
straggling rear Led by its nomad
vanguard's signal fires, marches

92
00:07:00,320 --> 00:07:02,520
the army of the way.
Lost God.

93
00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:06,360
Then late the joy ineffable is
felt.

94
00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:09,600
Then he remembers his forgotten
self.

95
00:07:10,400 --> 00:07:13,240
He has refound the skies from
which he fell.

96
00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:20,080
At length his fronts indomitable
line forces the last passes of

97
00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:24,800
the ignorance, advancing beyond
nature's last known bounds,

98
00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:30,080
reconnoitring the formidable
unknown beyond the landmarks of

99
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:33,280
things visible.
It mounts through a miraculous

100
00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:38,200
upper air till, climbing the
mute summit of the world, he

101
00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:41,440
stands upon the splendor peaks
of God.

102
00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:46,080
In vain thou mournest that
Satyavan must die.

103
00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:49,200
His death is a beginning of
greater life.

104
00:07:49,960 --> 00:07:52,360
Death is the Spirit's
opportunity.

105
00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:58,000
A vast intention has brought two
souls close, and love and death

106
00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:02,840
conspired towards 1 great end.
For out of danger and pain

107
00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:06,760
heaven bliss shall come times
unforeseen event.

108
00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:11,480
God's secret plan.
This world was not built with

109
00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:16,200
random bricks of chance.
A blind God is not destiny's

110
00:08:16,200 --> 00:08:19,640
architect.
A conscious power has drawn the

111
00:08:19,640 --> 00:08:23,320
plan of life.
There is a meaning in each curve

112
00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:25,160
and line.
Is it?

113
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:29,480
It is an architecture high and
grand by many named and nameless

114
00:08:29,480 --> 00:08:34,600
Masons, built in which unseeing
hands obey the unseen.

115
00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:38,840
And of its master builders, she
is one.