A Giant Dance of Shiva

Prophetic lines from Sri Aurobindo's Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol

Over 75 years ago, in his Magnum Opus epic poem Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo both hinted at the times we are in now [and are coming to shortly, it would seem], and prophesied that which would be our salvation, the heaven-born souls coming into birth at this time who will [and some already are] be leading us out of the present darkness into a greater Light.

It begins with the Master yogi and king, Aswapati, in colloquy with the Divine Mother, describing a vision of the future he has been shown.

======================

A Power arose out of my slumber’s cell.

Abandoning the tardy limp of the hours
And the inconstant blink of mortal sight,
There where the Thinker sleeps in too much light
And intolerant flames the lone all-witnessing Eye
Hearing the word of Fate from Silence’ heart
In the endless moment of Eternity,
It saw from timelessness the works of Time.

Overpassed were the leaden formulas of the Mind,
Overpowered the obstacle of mortal Space:
The unfolding Image showed the things to come.

A giant dance of Shiva tore the past;
There was a thunder as of worlds that fall;
Earth was o’errun with fire and the roar of Death
Clamouring to slay a world his hunger had made;
There was a clangour of Destruction’s wings:
The Titan’s battle-cry was in my ears,
Alarm and rumour shook the armoured Night.

I saw the Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers
Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life
Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth;
Forerunners of a divine multitude,
Out of the paths of the morning star they came
Into the little room of mortal life.

I saw them cross the twilight of an age,
The sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn,
The great creators with wide brows of calm,[p.343]
The massive barrier-breakers of the world
And wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will,
The labourers in the quarries of the gods,
The messengers of the Incommunicable,
The architects of immortality.

Into the fallen human sphere they came,
Faces that wore the Immortal’s glory still,
Voices that communed still with the thoughts of God,
Bodies made beautiful by the spirit’s light,
Carrying the magic word, the mystic fire,
Carrying the Dionysian cup of joy,
Approaching eyes of a diviner man,
Lips chanting an unknown anthem of the soul,
Feet echoing in the corridors of Time.

High priests of wisdom, sweetness, might and bliss,
Discoverers of beauty’s sunlit ways
And swimmers of Love’s laughing fiery floods
And dancers within rapture’s golden doors,
Their tread one day shall change the suffering earth
And justify the light on Nature’s face.

[Sri Aurobindo, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, pp. 343-344]

---