Jail of Material World

Jail of Material World:

A gaol is this immense material world:

Across each road stands armed a stone-eyed Law,

At every gate the huge dim sentinels pace.

A grey tribunal of the Ignorance,

An Inquisition of the priests of Night

In judgment sit on the adventurer soul,

And the dual tables and the Karmic norm

Restrain the Titan in us and the God:

Pain with its lash, joy with its silver bribe

Guard the Wheel’s circling immobility.

Page 18, Savitri (A Legend, Symbol, the Mantric Epic of Sri Aurobindo), The Issue.

In these lines Sri Aurobindo portrays a huge material world being like a jail. Every road of escape here, is armed with a cold emotionless Law of Nature. Every gate is patrolled by massive guards and there seems to be no chance to get past them. The word 'Inquisition' means a court to question people about their beliefs with intolerance and cruelty where gloomy council of ignorant judges and dark ministers of religion sit cross-examining and judging a soul. A soul that is on the adventure of progress and evolution through experiences is always being challenged by these forces of ignorance and judgement. Moreover on dual tables is the law of duality written in stone: For every pleasure there is a pain, for every good there is a bad and so one. Sri Aurobindo taught his disciples that out of the sumtotal of all possible consequences of our past actions, a soul makes the choice of those which it wishes to face in present life on its onward march towards progress. 'Karma' is an oriental term for the law of cause and effect encompassing many lives. Both law of duality and law of karma restrict the God within and prevents the titanic ego from getting bloated. Pain like a whip of a belt and joy with its silver inducement for betraying our higher impulses, firmly guard the wheel of samsara (mundane existence of aimless wandering). The wheel goes round and round in circles hardly moving forward.

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