Here is a synoptic presentation of Book Two—the Book of the Traveller of the Worlds. It forms the universal aspect of the yoga-tapasya of Aswapati the incarnate Supreme. By it he established his avataric presence in the entire cosmic manifestation. It is thus that the occult-spiritual base or ādhāra for the divine incarnate Shakti that is Savitri is luminously founded. It is in that resplendent and joyous dynamism of hers that the truth-possibilities of the Spirit shall enter into the expression of life on earth.

II:1 The World-Stair

The Vishva Yoga begins. Here is a Universe well-planned and many-tiered. It has limits neither in Space nor in Time. Experience after experience displays the rainbow moods of the Power that brought it into existence. It is as if from one string issued out numberless harmonies, each with its own frozen perfection. They climb one above the other and disappear in the original Hush. It is up on these ascending slopes of Heaven that the aspiring soul of man moves. So too these worlds influence in several ways the working of this earth, her grief and her joy. Our souls were attracted by its mystery and accepted the travail. In the process slowly the meaning of the cosmic scheme itself becomes evident. The Seer is born within and whatever knowledge is necessary is received. In the exploration of this scheme no term has been fixed for Aswapati and his march is towards the indiscernible end. He sees Nature’s climbing hierarchy and sets himself on the way.

 

Fourteen sounds came from Shiva’s rattle-drum,

Fourteen waves surged on the ocean of calm;

Fourteen desires gathered in the world’s desire.

From materials of these many worlds

Was formed this earth, darling of the dancer.

Angels, demons, gods of the great spirit

Took their stations up the viewless ladder

And poured their bounties on this little soul.

But haunted was she by a grisly shade

And Aswapati to redeem her woe

Sought a power beyond the afflicter’s reach.

The seer within set him on the upward route.

 

II:2 The Kingdom of Subtle Matter

The first port of entry is the world of Subtle Matter. Here are present the prototypal forms, the shining origins of things on earth. All here is beautiful, faultless, dream-hued, outlasting death and birth. Though so close to earth they suffer no deformation. Even as the soul is radiant, material substance in this region bears the signature of power and authority. From here occurs the fall into darker and denser reality that is ours. This makes us humble, but also can make us noble to be stars. Here is a possibility of our mortal body becoming glorious if it should hold sufficient truth in it. The divine substance is now present in this proximate world marking a new beginning towards that divinity on earth. But prior to that Aswapati has to discover what lies beyond this material Paradise.

 

First he entered the world of exquisite matter

That could house beauty and all its sweetness

And bring unflawed wonders to time-made things.

A quiet flame burned in the gold lamp of joy

And filled room and room with the light of its truth.

But then came mind and fragmented the dream;

A wave dashed on the hoary rock of night

And in its spume and spray dimly glistened

A million planktons of the vague early form,

And only lingered a fading memory.

Of yore there lived the atomic being alone,

Preparing the body of a deathless god.

 

II:3 The Glory and Fall of Life

Not symmetric charm and carved dreams, but the spirit of adventure is what gives vibrancy to existence. Life bothers the least about the pros and cons and hazards to assert herself in every circumstance. Her high birth disdains her not from entering into the squalid earth. Indeed, whatever can serve her questing delight she gambles, unmindful of the peril. She risks even the extremes. Be they meadows of laughter or fields of toil, for her everything is for creative enjoyment. Because of her alone the dull material substance becomes sensitive to dynamic possibilities of the revealing Spirit. She builds the foundation for greater powers to step into this physical manifestation. However, in the process, Matter’s stiffness or jadatva overpowers her and she is no more her old self here. Life meets Death and they together now drive the insecure cart of dubious immortality.

 

Heavenly queen wore flowing purple dresses

In the sky and drove her car of adventure

On roads of swift brightsome moods. Sun nor moon

Nor countless stars of the unbounded world

Drew limits to life’s zestful vineyard song.

Eagle-winged flying over the viewless Everest

Or a worm crawling on the Pacific’s floor,

Is her spirit hazardously valiant.

No wonder, in her amaranthine craze

She hailed death and took him as her husband.

Out of that wedlock were born grim children,

But Aswapati discerned there another will.

 

II:4 The Kingdoms of the Little Life

The great power has succumbed and earth failed to keep the joy she had brought with her. Not only that. She herself has become an abject being crawling in the lowly mud. Yet in her arrival glimmers a faint hope urging the mortal’s soul on the wakened path. Aswapati sees this pitiful state of fallen Life surviving on Death. Here perpetuity is her immortality. But then there are gains also. There is a climbing of life from below. The first creation is followed by the instinct of a thinking sense. An animal experiment then begins. In it all is done to satisfy the body’s wants and survival of the fittest becomes the law. But with the physical mind opening to higher Light the possibility of transformation becomes distinct. Presently an instrument personality is born and all is dictated by habits. Everything looks species-based and repetitive; around the little glow of life there is the nescient haze.

 

Earth’s thick shadow swallowed the bold angel

And in that occult mystery began

The quizzical march; the eclipsed moon of joy

Explored the emptiness with its blind eye,

Compelling yet the desert of the universe

To feel and flower in the laughter of god.

Soon out of dull matter’s crevices hissed

Someone and from its terrifying fangs

Poured quick poison on the Cleopatran breast.

Yet she adventured into the Jurassic

And gave early thought to the Neanderthal.

A sense that suffered triple gloom was now here.

 

II:5 The Godheads of the Little Life

There is nothing angelic in this empire of little life. Chaos governs the infernal creatures inhabiting it. Life has force and she is driven by idea, but the Idea-Force is absent. Instinct is followed by thought and thought by will. Out of this queer stuff was shaped man and it could be proclaimed that he was well made. Still man lives just for a brief while—only to enjoy and suffer and die. He has essentially remained the same, yet greatly prone to error. His mind is but a doll manipulated by unseen forces and such cannot be the end of Life’s adventure. She has to move forward to receive truer gifts from the hands of Fortune. Not Man nor Nature but the Avatar alone can help her receive these rewards. He pays the price for that. If the body’s cells have to be filled with divine joy he has to eliminate the wrong afflicting them. Sacrificing his triple glory he accepts the mortal state, bears its anguish. Aswapati moves through it with his spirit’s alert flame.

 

Crossing the destinies of sorrows and of joys

Child of jagat-shakti, the maimed goddess

Bore children in whom burned no gracious flame.

Soulless creatures lived feeding on slush

Or relished frog-liver cooked in cruelty

And, croaking throughout the night, hungered for more.

At times a trembling ray squirmed under the life-mind

And looked at things with squinting scarlet eyes;

At times some ghost of thought rushed quickly by

Or the animal leaped to seize wisdom’s word.

Yet from elsewhere awareness must come

And bring gain to the godheads of little life.

 

II:6 The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life

Stepping into the wider Life, Aswapati notices her attempt to seize the boundless in birth. Thus she would claim back her heavenly state she had lost long ago. She made this creation of many hues but missed the True. Yet she moves on towards the far-off Light. Aswapati glimpses a ray of hope in her thousand expressions. He hears the heartbeats of a hidden reality. But he also hears the weeping of her soul within. She has become hostile and has consorted herself with hidden death. She is a riddle unto herself and yet slays the puzzled wayfarer. But Aswapati reads clearly the hieratic script and the Word of Life is not a mystery to him. He discerns the gap between what she came to do and what she now is. Pause she would not in her attempt to bring glory to the material inanity, though her knowledge be incomplete. He must probe in the night itself the cause of this failure.

 

Led by his spirit’s promptings Aswapati

Reached the rainbow land where in colourful haste

The celestial artist worked out his wonders.

Life sang golden reality’s nether song

And a miracle was wrought in matter’s womb.

Thus alone would it suffer the pregnant change,

The rock-image of Shiva beget offspring.

But presently all saw just a faint gleam

In the brute stuff wherein lies imprisoned

The idea that gives meaning to our lives,

As if failed the intention which bore truth.

A power that denied grace held her in sway.

 

II:7 The Descent into Night

The problem of Life’s abysmal condition is a central issue and Aswapati cannot rest content without tackling it. What could have been in the service of good has become an instrument of vice. In this world of fallen Life fair is foul and foul fair. If there is creative Darkness engendering pain, wickedness, suffering, corrupting truth, then it could be here. Now Ignorance, Falsehood, Error, Ego walk in its thick shadow and the Satanic votaries proclaim: “Evil, be thou my God.” Life in that gloom with her perilous charm and beauty lies cursed under the Gorgon spell. There Aswapati felt that his body was licked by the hostile Power and he suffered fear. But this had to be borne. He endures and with his bare spirit masters her. The stepping of the Incarnate into the worlds of Night is a wonderful thing that can happen to her and in it is her opportunity to change.

 

Another reality the spirit met.

A dark river flowed ’neath the currents of time

And swam gargantuan fish swallowing

Gargantuan fish, god’s shadow but god.

On its grimy bank a citadel was built

And a fierce scarecrow shouted through the night.

In it stayed the fatal woman wearing

As a forehead mark destiny’s black sun.

From the dreadfulness of her nixie past

Peered eyes that deepened the mystery of hell

Even as she proclaimed the Tao of evil.

But in that cave too Aswapati saw Vishnu.

 

II:8 The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness

God created Hell in his mood of infinite love and justice, but this love has to first conquer the appalling Inane. The existential problem is the denial to all that is God’s. Here are titans and maniac powers and cruel operators; here, allowed by the mighty Spirit, work determinedly terrible agencies. But Aswapati in the strength of his soul takes up the challenge. He probes penetratingly this kingdom of pain, this world of sorrow and hate, of wickedness and malignancy. Not only that. Shiva-like he drinks all the poison, till not a drop is left. The radiant truth in him yet remains intact. In the vastness of Existence he even feels the smallness of this queer material creation. Aswapati observes that the inconscient Being is asleep and knows not what it built. But he puts his finger upon the error and the pain and at once awakens there new knowledge. He has opened the Book of Bliss and Life’s truth is revealed. The dichotomy between Matter and Spirit is resolved.

 

In dismal river was born the tadpole ego

Who claimed forthwith the universe for its use

And brought falsehood to run the enterprise,

And hired a serpent to guard the sleeping treasure.

Soon in countless numbers burned these dark stars

Working out in the ways of night the fate

Ruinous of this creation, soul’s quick downfall.

The terrible adventuress grew hostile

And gave to the interminable nothing

A chance to win divinity,—through death.

Then in the rocky insensate trance was heard

Wing-flap of birds and chime of distant bells.

 

II:9 The Paradise of the Life-Gods

In the occult abyss was the rendezvous with the Night. Aswapati had gone there to woo her dark and dangerous heart. On the track leading to the meeting place his footprints have become the seals of divinity and thence shall gush radiant fountains. Around him all is felicitous and wonderful and the daylight of conscious suns is within him. After that wounding experience here is something healing and marvellous. The dread is over and an Elysian fragrance fills the air. He is in the company of Gods and Goddesses and is thrilled with beauty, peace, love, might, desire, pleasure, dream, sweetness. Forms are shaped here by the divine light and mind is made immortal by music. Aswapati’s whole being is flooded with bliss and an undying power fills his strength. But he has also the perception that this cannot be the journey’s end and that the Highest must be reached.

 

If darkness gave to her a grimacing face,

Under the flowering acacia life was sweet,

A bloom of happiness in god’s smiling grove.

Music trailed in the cadence of the stream

And the note of love gave wings to the singing bird,

King and queen strolled in the moonlit garden,

As if by a magic wand came a new world

Into birth to heal the wounds of the past.

A warm air urged the traveller on his way,

The chariot wheels setting into motion

Swift rhythms that trace the orbits for the suns.

In its rush a fiery wonder filled his soul.

 

II:10 The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind

Across the land of sensuous beauty are the realms of observation and understanding. Now in the play of Nature has been set into motion another faculty, that of the early mind. First appears the physical mind, marking the beginning of the thinking mind. It is tied to habits and it toils in ignorance. Soon arrives Reason. She has come and made great inventions, built philosophies and rational disciplines, drawn on the map of knowledge a few lines of reality. But there is no goal and the game is inconclusive. In the process she stumbles upon the fissioned atom and in it sees the omnipotent’s force. Yet what is witnessed is the tyranny of Matter’s logic imposed upon the Spirit’s swiftness of thought. There has to be a greater Mind to see a greater truth. Only rarely does intuition bring to us superior knowledge, the higher gnosis. Sometimes Life-Thoughts come like shining Maruts, or else the pure Thought-Mind brings bodiless ideas in our midst.

 

Could it be that a great thought made the world,—

Light plunged in the night and became the stars

And life awoke feelings in the dumb mass

And the blue-tinged brain found its reason to be?

A thinking ape was not an accident

And the braying mind was not without design

And never was the atom elemental.

Yet was implanted denial in the dna

And a swift-footed pride in the forest raged

And a serene mistress read nature’s tomes.

Still from the invisible fount of wisdom

Poured sudden truths that bring vision to our sight.

 

II:11 The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind

But these wonderful powers of Mind are not of great avail. There is a truth by which things can be seen in an unerring manner and that is altogether beyond their reach. Aswapati now meets in the Ideal’s world the Thinker or Manishi. Across the first realms of Mind he is in the company of shining archangels and kings of thought. Theirs is an attempt to grasp Truth’s absolute. The creative Word sets into motion these many worlds and the will-to-be is seized in things. The divine power of hearing comes as a natural gift. But Mind is incapable of understanding these works of Truth. Even sages and seers find her to be beyond their grasp. There is no way to know her and it is only by surrendering to the absolute will of hers that a ray of her radiant wonder can enter into our life’s many dimnesses. Or else she would remain forever unknown to us.

 

Ascending the slopes of mind Aswapati

Stepped into regions of sapphire thought

That looks at unborn luminous ideas

Knowing themselves which live in spirit alone.

Needless here were reason’s heavy glasses

And broadened the vista unto the unseen.

Magic word was a key for truth’s locked cave

And numbers and forms became visible links

And doors of awareness led to Platonic gold.

So could he walk in eminence of these realms

And bright immortalities freely breathe.

Yet truth like sun is vaster than all its flames.

 

II:12 The Heavens of the Ideal

But the Ideal is always a bright spur for the explorer. At each step is seen a luminous world rising in honour of the high Truth. On one side are the kingdoms of love, beauty, joy, sweetness all bringing to earth their gracious marvels. What remained dormant until now opens to spiritual greatnesses. Here is felt the Immortal’s touch. On the other side of this climbing pathway burns the deathless flame of will, the force of utter divine consciousness. Even as it climbs the ascending slopes, there is a call to reach the summits of existence. Aswapati moves through these worlds with the household ease. But he finds that here while beauty and greatness, sweetness and might, the Rose and the Flame, come together yet they stand apart. They would not find themselves in the single soul of the world. The spiritual path and the occult-psychic path run parallel but do not yet become one. Aswapati must therefore advance towards the diviner spheres.

 

Mountains of time climbed towards timeless peaks

And god’s felicities flamed high in god.

It was a silent chant, a pilgrim march

Of the petite who saw marvellous worlds

And soared in the calm of creation’s joy.

The aspiring soul of earth breathed wonders

And the truth that answers made it beauteous.

In splendid will of the spirit was lit

A fire that gives to mortals seerhood

And raises the sacrifice to heaven.

A leader has arrived, friendly knower,

And he shall escort us on the shining path.

 

II:13 In the Self of Mind

On his onward march Aswapati has now entered the passive world of the superior being of Mind who is simultaneously impersonal also. He stands on the summit and is a silent witness, sākshi, of things carried out by Nature, Prakriti. He watches indifferently the good and the bad of life; he is unconcerned about victory or defeat. Yet without his consent the movements of Prakriti would not take place. He is anumantā, giving approval for her actions. Aswapati lived in this still self, and its quiet vastness was in him. But there was no urge to stay in it. That self seemed but a shadow of a vaster and more forceful a reality. Peace is all right, but there has also to be the Truth’s dynamism. It is this dynamic aspect which gives credibility to this world. Aswapati found love and sweetness of the Mother-force absent here. This would not satisfy him and he is prompted to go beyond the realization of this silent self.

 

What of victory drums, what of the grieving heart?

Armies of Hitler set the world on fire,

Maniacs of time destroy the towers of pride,

And what of the river-song through luxuriant fields,

Of Sistine Chapel and the caves of Ajanta?

Aloof and untouched watches the witness eye,

Else consents to the whims in nature’s play.

Passive has become the thinker, listless the thought,

And the Vedantist himself an illusion,

Gods, creatures, imperious death but shadows.

The will to be disappeared in that calm

And remained the mute alone and self-absorbed.

 

II:14 The World-Soul

In search of the active power who shapes the course of events, Aswapati is led by a mysterious sound and he comes to a wonderful realm. There consciousness, mind, life, body are all made of soul-stuff and spiritual sense is the instrument of knowledge. Those who have by the practices of virtue accumulated great merit in life on earth ascend to this splendid abode. Here wait the liberated souls for a new adventure in the world of opportunities. Beyond it are regions of happiness and peace, of light, hope, love. Aswapati grows aware of them. He sees Shiva and Shakti in a fulfilling union’s poise. Behind them stands the omnipotent Goddess, Chidvilasini or Consciousness-Force by whose act this creation has come out from the Unknowable. Aswapati’s spirit has now become a vessel to hold her luminous might. In her he finds an answer to his long search and surrenders to her. Indeed, this is the offering of the World-Soul to the Higher Power who alone can assure the success of his work. His quest bears fruit in her.

 

Shadows of night turned into splendours of god

And a delicate fragrance filled the air

And in the etheric hush surged forth sounds

That speak of the truer infinity’s urgings;

The calm pace of the yogin-traveller

Took him to the temple-palace of Sophia,

Self-luminous and divine, creation’s heart.

His will burned in the will of the bright goddess,

The builder of the worlds to build a new world.

Her almighty power he must house in his soul’s deep,—

Not for himself but to change the lot of man,

Bring immortal happiness to this deathful life.

 

II:15 The Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge

Aswapati, after such a wonderful experience on the border touching the Transcendent, returns to the things of Time. Now wherever he goes he carries along with him the consciousness of Passive Brahman, the quiescent Sachchidananda as a foundation for all of his activities in the world. He sees the powers that supervise the world and beyond them looks for that which can bring about a cosmic change. He makes a total yogic surrender to the Reality which sustains the Earth, the Mid-region, and Heaven,—Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar. In that sacrifice he is newborn and even his body partakes in its joy. Yet this supernal birth is his alone and cannot be of great avail for the collective on the earth. The individual’s supernal birth has to become a larger supernal birth. Its key is with the Divine Mother and therefore Aswapati must approach her. With this Siddhi attained, and with the cosmic forces now under his control, he becomes the Lord of Life. Hence onward his march is towards that transcendence where is her home.

 

Then Brahma engaged himself in gold-bright tapas

And the directions were born and the word

And out of the truth-idea, the splendid womb

Sprang readily seven rhythms of creation

And the great rishis took radiant daughters

For their spouses and in their rich company

Held sessions of the undying triple fire,

Made offerings of the earth, the mid-region

And, when had set the sun, the blazing heaven.

And Aswapati partook in the hearth

And the table of the gods. His body-mind

Opened to things that are to come to time.