The Finding Of The Soul

From Savitri Book 7 CANTO V Section 2: The Finding of the Soul Section All things she saw as a masquerade of Truth Disguised in the costumes of Ignorance, Crossing the years to immortality; All she could front with the strong spirit’s peace. But since she knows the toil of mind and life As a mother feels and shares her children’s lives, She puts forth a small portion of herself, A being no bigger than the thumb of man Into a hidden region of the heart To face the pang and to forget the bliss, To share the suffering and endure earth’s wounds And labour mid the labour of the stars. This in us laughs and weeps, suffers the stroke, Exults in victory, struggles for the crown; Identified with the mind and body and life, It takes on itself their anguish and defeat, Bleeds with Fate’s whips and hangs upon the cross, Yet is the unwounded and immortal self Supporting the actor in the human scene. Through this she sends us her glory and her powers, Pushes to wisdom’s heights, through misery’s gulfs; She gives us strength to do our daily task And sympathy that partakes of others’ grief And the little strength we have to help our race, We who must fill the role of the universe Acting itself out in a slight human shape And on our shoulders carry the struggling world. This is in us the godhead small and marred; In this human portion of divinity She seats the greatness of the Soul in Time To uplift from light to light, from power to power, Till on a heavenly peak it stands, a king. In body weak, in its heart an invincible might, It climbs stumbling, held up by an unseen hand, A toiling spirit in a mortal shape. Here in this chamber of flame and light they met; They looked upon each other, knew themselves, The secret deity and its human part, The calm immortal and the struggling soul. Then with a magic transformation’s speed They rushed into each other and grew one.