The spirit is doomed to pain till man is free.

Savitri: Book 6 Canto 2 Section 2 part 2 The spirit is doomed to pain till man is free. There is a clamour of battle, a tramp, a march: A cry arises like a moaning sea, A desperate laughter under the blows of death, A doom of blood and sweat and toil and tears. Men die that man may live and God be born. An awful Silence watches tragic Time. Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men To greatness: an inspired labour chisels With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould. Implacable in the passion of their will, Lifting the hammers of titanic toil The demiurges of the universe work; They shape with giant strokes their own; their sons Are marked with their enormous stamp of fire. Although the shaping god’s tremendous touch Is torture unbearable to mortal nerves, The fiery spirit grows in strength within And feels a joy in every titan pang. He who would save himself lives bare and calm; CANTO II: The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain 445 He who would save the race must share its pain: This he shall know who obeys that grandiose urge. The Great who came to save this suffering world And rescue out of Time’s shadow and the Law, Must pass beneath the yoke of grief and pain; They are caught by the Wheel that they had hoped to break, On their shoulders they must bear man’s load of fate. Heaven’s riches they bring, their sufferings count the price Or they pay the gift of knowledge with their lives. The Son of God born as the Son of man Has drunk the bitter cup, owned Godhead’s debt The debt the Eternal owes to the fallen kind His will has bound to death and struggling life That yearns in vain for rest and endless peace.