Skip to main content

A synthesis of Savitri and Theosophy - Paintings No 4 & 5

 "An unshaped consciousness desired light

And a blank prescience yearned towards distant change.

As if a childlike finger laid on a cheek

Reminded of the endless need in things

The heedless Mother of the universe,

An infant longing clutched the sombre Vast.

Insensibly somewhere a breach began:

A long lone line of hesitating hue

Like a vague smile tempting a desert heart

Troubled the far rim of life’s obscure sleep."


An unevolved and unshaped consciousness (Ray 2) is desirous of the light and has a foreknowledge of the distant goal of fulfilment (Ray 1 Divine purpose). At it current stage in evolution it is a like a longing infant who lays a finger on the cheek of a seemingly unmindful Divine mother as portrayed by Huta. The desert heart and obscure sleep of the matter is being breached by a tinge at the dawn.



"Arrived from the other side of boundlessness

An eye of deity peered through the dumb deeps;

A scout in a reconnaissance from the sun,

It seemed amid a heavy cosmic rest,

The torpor of a sick and weary world,

To seek for a spirit sole and desolate

Too fallen to recollect forgotten bliss.

Intervening in a mindless universe,

Its message crept through the reluctant hush

Calling the adventure of consciousness and joy

And, conquering Nature’s disillusioned breast,

Compelled renewed consent to see and feel.

A thought was sown in the unsounded Void,

A sense was born within the darkness’ depths,

A memory quivered in the heart of Time

As if a soul long dead were moved to live:

But the oblivion that succeeds the fall,

Had blotted the crowded tablets of the past,

And all that was destroyed must be rebuilt

And old experience laboured out once more."


The eye of deity as depicted in the painting is compared to a soldier being sent out by the Central spiritual Sun in order to survey the depths of lethargy of tired consciousness of the world which is so grim that it has even forgotten the original bliss from where it has come. The next lines remind us again of the earlier failures hidden in the long gone ages of the evolution on the moon chain. As per theosophy there had been a systemic failure in that chain, where the Lords of the Dark inconscient forces for a time achieved a sort of success. This time is expected to end only in the fifth round of our current evolutionary earth chain. This explains present evil conditions on this planet as well as of misery, pain and of distress. This is the memory which Sri Aurobindo says trembles in the heart of Time. Those inscribed marks or stains of old failed labours and experiences of destruction and fall long dead must be reconquered by the soul. It is again being compelled to renew the adventure of evolution in this cycle dawning now. 


Images: Meditations on Savitri paintings no 4 and 5 in Book 1, Canto 1.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Yoga of Synthesis Diary Leaves 4

 Album The Yoga of Synthesis  Dated 22 January 2025 The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali give us four stages of meditation and when applied on symbols we find: 1. First, as the form is pondered upon, the realisation begins to dawn that it is but a symbol of an inner reality. 2. Second, there is a recognition of the quality or nature of the form—its subjective energy, the quality of the force that seems to flow through it, the emotion that the symbol arouses. 3. Third, as we concentrate on considering the quality, we arrive next at the purpose, the motive, and the idea that the symbol has held concealed. 4. Fourth, in the final stage of identification, one becomes at one with the symbol; one shares its quality; one participates in its purpose, and through these stages one arrives at a unity with the creator of the form. When applied to the four symbols (of Helena Blavatsky, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Alice Bailey, and the category-theoretic model of Cause-Meaning/Quality-Effect), we...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Lam-Rim Retreat - Part III

Dated May/June 2025. 1. A Darshan As we meditated and learned some key concepts of Mahayana Buddhism, the air within the monastery was mildly perfumed with the delicate scent of Tibetan essence. Outside, the bees hummed among the native flowers, intoxicated by their fragrance. On the nearby trees, the monkeys leaped and swung, and the outside air was filled with the chirp of small birds and insects.       Deceived by material prosperity and addicted to comforts (I am not against either of these, but against the ever-increasing production of goods or the culture of consumerism to gratify men's insatiable desires; or to hide the unpleasant facts of life), the majority of "modernistic" men have deprived themselves of the opportunity and privileges of leading a truly satisfying life of spiritual freedom as their ancestors once did. As I took a Tibetan Buddhist retreat on the Himalayan heights, I could readily experience that it was immensely easier for the materially “ba...
Post a Comment
Read more

A synthesis of Savitri and Theosophy - Painting No 15

 Today we continue to contemplate on the remaining lines from Page 5 of the Symbol Dawn of Savitri.  "Here too the vision and prophetic gleam Lit into miracles common meaningless shapes; Then the divine afflatus, spent, withdrew, Unwanted, fading from the mortal’s range. A sacred yearning lingered in its trace, The worship of a Presence and a Power Too perfect to be held by death-bound hearts, The prescience of a marvellous birth to come." 'Here' stands for our ordinary human world where the vision and prophetic brief light of Goddess lit the ordinary shapes miraculously into divine meaning for few moments. But then the divine creative impulse or inspiration was spent and feeling unwanted withdrew and faded from the range of mortal men. Once gone it left behind a sacred yearning in the hearts of those later realized what had happened. The presence and Power of Divine Goddess was too perfect to be worshipped to be held steady by death-bound hearts of ordinary mortals. ...
Post a Comment
Read more