Today we briefly review our synthetic table of planes of consciousness (from an earlier post) of Blavatsky, Djwal Khul and Bailey and Sri Aurobindo as described in the second book of Savitri (An epic occult poetry of 24000 lines giving cosmic Answer to the cosmic Question through direct artistic experience (Ray 4) in contrast to philosophical, psychological and scientific perspectives of Blavastsky and Khul).
Those planes are covered in Book 2 The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds with cantos roughly describing:
Canto 1 - The World-Stair: An introduction describing the planes which King Aswapati (traveller) sees as an immobile worlds pile, layers of worlds upon worlds rising from the lowest layer of Matter and ascending into the unknowable summits of the Spirit. This macrocosm is reflected in the microcosm of our inner being.
ALONE he moved watched by the infinity
Around him and the Unknowable above.
All could be seen that shuns the mortal eye,
All could be known the mind has never grasped;
All could be done no mortal will can dare.
A limitless movement filled a limitless peace.
In a profound existence beyond earth’s
Parent or kin to our ideas and dreams
Where Space is a vast experiment of the soul,
In an immaterial substance linked to ours
In a deep oneness of all things that are,
The universe of the Unknown arose.
A self-creation without end or pause
Revealed the grandeurs of the Infinite:
It flung into the hazards of its play
A million moods, a myriad energies,
The world-shapes that are fancies of its Truth
And the formulas of the freedom of its Force.
...
...
A Seer within who knows the ordered plan
Concealed behind our momentary steps,
Inspires our ascent to viewless heights
As once the abysmal leap to earth and life.
His call had reached the Traveller in Time.
Apart in an unfathomed loneliness,
He travelled in his mute and single strength
Bearing the burden of the world’s desire.
A formless Stillness called, a nameless Light.
Above him was the white immobile Ray,
Around him the eternal Silences.
No term was fixed to the high-pitched attempt;
World after world disclosed its guarded powers,
Heaven after heaven its deep beatitudes,
But still the invisible Magnet drew his soul.
A figure sole on Nature’s giant stair,
He mounted towards an indiscernible end
On the bare summit of created things.
Canto 2 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter: Describes Aswapati's experience of the Kingdom of Subtle Matter (Etheric Body in Theosophy);
IN THE impalpable field of secret self,
This little outer being’s vast support
Parted from vision by earth’s solid fence,
He came into a magic crystal air
And found a life that lived not by the flesh,
A light that made visible immaterial things.
A fine degree in wonder’s hierarchy,
The kingdom of subtle Matter’s faery craft
Outlined against a sky of vivid hues,
Leaping out of a splendour-trance and haze,
The wizard revelation of its front.
...
...
Our spirit tires of being’s surfaces,
Transcended is the splendour of the form;
It turns to hidden powers and deeper states.
So now he looked beyond for greater light.
His soul’s peak-climb abandoning in its rear
This brilliant courtyard of the House of Days,
He left that fine material Paradise.
His destiny lay beyond in larger Space.
Here I have quoted a few lines from the beginning and end of the first two Cantos.
Similarly Cantos 3-9 describe the various regions of the Kingdom of lower life and planes, Cantos 10-13 describe the different regions of the Kingdom of the Minds with Cantos 14 and 15 reaching the Kingdom of the Spirit upto Satchitananda.
Best research book I have come across so far on Savitri (apart from the Sri Aurobindo's words themselves) giving a philosophical, psychological and scientific analytical perspective is "Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1 and 2 by R. Y. Deshpande" which one can google and read online.
Images - The World Stair (from Inconscient to Satchitananda compared and synthesised with Theosophy and Seven Rays) and The Mother at the top of Stair with Sri Aurobindo's few lines from The World Stair.
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