EXPLORATIONS IN SAVITRI
THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE - 8
Again, a caution that these passages are rarely intelligible to the mind alone, without the intuitive inner sense lending its depth and gift for meaning to the picture.
Reading slowly through, without trying to interpret or judge, but simply allowing images or a deeper sense to arise spontaneously is far more useful than parsing out each sentence [although, at times, that too can be useful to interpret the Poet’s creative use of English usage.]
KarunDas
Earth’s winged chimaeras are Truth’s steeds in Heaven,
The impossible God’s sign of things to be.
But few can look beyond the present state
Or overleap this matted hedge of sense.
All that transpires on earth and all beyond
Are parts of an illimitable plan
The One keeps in his heart and knows alone.
Our outward happenings have their seed within,
And even this random Fate that imitates Chance,
This mass of unintelligible results,
Are the dumb graph of truths that work unseen:
The laws of the Unknown create the known.
The events that shape the appearance of our lives
Are a cipher of subliminal quiverings
Which rarely we surprise or vaguely feel,
Are an outcome of suppressed realities
That hardly rise into material day:
They are born from the spirit’s sun of hidden powers
Digging a tunnel through emergency.
Sri Aurobindo, Savitri p.52
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“Earth’s winged chimaeras are Truth’s steeds in Heaven,
The impossible God’s sign of things to be.
But few can look beyond the present state
Or overleap this matted hedge of sense.”
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“Chimaeras” are the impossible monsters of Greek mythology, with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a dragon’s tail, often pointed to as being fanciful imaginations. Sri Aurobindo is saying that the impossible fancies of Earth are actually the bearers of highest Truths in heaven, ie. the Ideal worlds that lie behind the curtain of our earthly consciousness. And these impossibilities are actually indications of what may be possible at a future time.
But few there are who can see through this “matted hedge” our senses bind us with in order to reach those elevated states of sensibility.
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All that transpires on earth and all beyond
Are parts of an illimitable plan
The One keeps in his heart and knows alone.
Our outward happenings have their seed within,
And even this random Fate that imitates Chance,
This mass of unintelligible results,
Are the dumb graph of truths that work unseen:
The laws of the Unknown create the known.
The events that shape the appearance of our lives
Are a cipher of subliminal quiverings
Which rarely we surprise or vaguely feel,
Are an outcome of suppressed realities
That hardly rise into material day:
They are born from the spirit’s sun of hidden powers
Digging a tunnel through emergency.
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This short section of the longer passage contains some tricky wording and non-standard usages, that I will try to explicate.
Of course, the phrase “the One” in the 3rd line is the Divine Creator, the pure Divine being Whose “illimitable plan” refers to the plan for this created Universe which was present from the very start - before the start, actually.
The next 4 lines, from “Our outward happenings” to “truths that work unseen”, are saying that the outward happenings of our daily lives, which may seem random and unintelligible, actually have their origin within - “The laws of the Unknown [the inner logic of that One] create the known.” [ie: the outer world of our bodily senses.]
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“The events that shape the appearance of our lives
Are a cipher of subliminal quiverings
Which rarely we surprise or vaguely feel,
Are an outcome of suppressed realities
That hardly rise into material day:”
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In this context, “cipher” refers to a secret code. The events of our lives secretly express subliminal vibrations, but we are rarely able to surprise them into revealing themselves. These hidden realities are suppressed by our outer, material outlook. They “hardly rise”, that is, rise only with great difficulty, into our everyday lives, “material day.”
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“They are born from the spirit’s sun of hidden powers
Digging a tunnel through emergency.”
============
In other words, these “suppressed realities” must emerge from the subliminal depths as though through a tunnel to reach the outer world and affect the happenings here.