The next part of Savitri we shall discuss is as follows.

On life's thin border awhile the Vision stood

And bent over earth's pondering forehead curve.
Interpreting a recondite beauty and bliss
In colour's hieroglyphs of mystic sense,
It wrote the lines of a significant myth
Telling of a greatness of spiritual dawns,
A brilliant code penned with the sky for page.
Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed
Of which our thoughts and hopes are signal flares;
A lonely splendour from the invisible goal
Almost was flung on the opaque Inane.
Once more a tread perturbed the vacant Vasts;
Infinity's centre, a Face of rapturous calm
Parted the eternal lids that open heaven;
A Form from far beatitudes seemed to near.
Ambassadress twixt eternity and change,
The omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths
That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars
And saw the spaces ready for her feet.

MEANINGS OF SOME DIFFICULT WORDS

Pondering = Persistently or morbidly thoughtful.

Recondite = A complex thing not easily understood, involving profound concepts and
complexities, hidden, obscure.

Inane = Lacking Sense, Silly, Foolish, Absurd.

Epiphany = Divine Manifestation.

Tread = movement.

Perturbed = Disturbed.

Flung= Fling = Throw recklessly.

Rapture = A state of elated bliss or happiness.

In the last post we discussed how Goddess Usha overtly manifests and Nature realizes Her. She
is an instant’s visitor only and has a Great Divine Work to do. Now She starts Her duties.

On life's thin border awhile the Vision stood

And bent over earth's pondering forehead curve.

Here “life” refers to Nature or Earth only. On this border of Earth, the Vision of Goddess Usha
stands and pays a look over the forehead of the earth, which has a curve on it because it is
pondering or thinking or wondering what is to come next? Here Goddess Usha is called a Vision,
because it is she who lent this Nature, a vision. What does the Goddess do then?
Interpreting a recondite beauty and bliss
In colour's hieroglyphs of mystic sense,
It wrote the lines of a significant myth
Telling of a greatness of spiritual dawns,
A brilliant code penned with the sky for page.

This is a wonderful implementation of one belief we have. I don’t know whether people from
North India know this or not. In southern India we always have this belief. In Kannada we refer
the fate as “Hane Baraha”. “Hane” means forehead and “Baraha” means writings or scripture.
There is belief that when a baby is born and it cries, it begs or demands in Brahma all that it
wants in its life. Then, Brahma calculates its demands and writes its fate on the forehead. Here
Goddess Usha is doing somewhat similar thing. She wrote some lines on the sky as page instead
of the forehead, in some colorful hieroglyphic letters, which carry a mystic sense. What it was?
These were the “lines of significant myth”. Myth is a legend, a story in which there is a
supernatural element. But, there should be some interpretation of this hieroglyph, and this
interpretation was of a “recondite beauty and bliss” and also they were “Telling of a greatness of
spiritual dawns”, as if assuring the Nature something profound is happening, the grandeur of
these Spiritual Dawns.

Here “recondite” carries a lot of significance. Recondite literally has two meanings and both can
be interpreted here. First it means a complex thing, which is difficult to understand and involves
profound concepts. Therefore, the lines written in the hieroglyphic letters by Goddess Usha are
so sublime that they can not be understood by the Nature ad are so profound that they are the
promises of the Supreme. Recondite also means hidden. We can also understand in this way that
this beauty and bliss thus interpreted are not sempiternal, are not the Highest and some where
within the Nature itself this Sempiternal Beauty and Bliss are hidden, and when the time comes
they can manifest. This is why Sri Aurobindo is praised Greatest Poet. Such instances of one
word yielding one or more meanings or different meanings to different minds was only possible
in Sanskrit and in Vedic Literature. Sri Aurobindo imparted this quality to English in Savitri.

Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed

Of which our thoughts and hopes are signal flares;

Epiphany means Divine manifestation. It was not actually the manifestation or its disclosure; it
was “Almost” because the Nature, the Earth is not yet ready for it. And, here more importantly
“Our thoughts and hopes are its signal flares”, that is of this glimpse of His Manifestation. Sri M
P Pandit states in his book that it is because of this herald (messenger) manifestation we hope
and think of such manifestation or of its certainty of manifestation. (The Book of Beginnings,
Page 21).

A lonely splendour from the invisible goal

Almost was flung on the opaque Inane.

Here “Inane” refers to something lacking in sense. Sri Aurobindo is calling the Nature or Earth
as Inane, because it was once senseless, without life, without mind and still the traces of such
Inanity is left somewhere. To such Nature, “A lonely splendour from the invisible goal” is flung.
These two lines once again emphasize the herald manifestation. Another point of view given by
Sri A B Purani is that this lonely splendour is Goddess Usha herself. She is now realized as a
splendour by the Nature. And also this way of praising a god again and again can only be found
in our Sanskrit Mantras and Vedic literature. Sri Aurobindo implements it in Savitri. This is why
he is praised as “Maharshi”.
Once more a tread perturbed the vacant Vasts;

Now, once again Goddess Usha gives some movements, which again disturbed the “vacant
Vasts”. Sri Aurobindo calls this Nature as “Vacant” vast, because still the Transcendent
Supremes Manifestation is yet to come. What was this movement?

Infinity's centre, a Face of rapturous calm

Parted the eternal lids that open heaven;
A Form from far beatitudes seemed to near.

Goddess Usha who is the center of Infinity and “A Form from far beatitudes”, and has “A Face
of rapturous calm” now seemed very near and opened her eyelids, which are “the lids eternal lids
open heaven;” that is she opened her eyes, which are the openings for the Heaven. Here I
remember one incidence. In one of the prayers, when my grandpa was explaining us Savitri, one
member who was very infamous for asking irrelevant questions, asked, “Sir, if She is opening
Her eyes now, then was She having Her eyes closed when she was doing all the things before?”
This may seem a silly question, but sometimes such silly questions give us an opportunity to
understand a subtle element. Certainly Goddess Usha was not functioning so far with closed
eyes. It was actually the Nature now looking into Her eyes now, and realizing the Grace in them
or now it is concentrating on them. Moreover, Gods do not close their eyes nor they blink. If
Gods who look after every aspect of this universe, close their eyes even for a split second, it
would be the very end of the universe. Here Goddess Usha is praised as “Infinity’s Centre”.
Infinity has no boundaries, or edges, or bounds. But, it has a center. Goddess Usha is Center of
this Infinity because it is only She who is belonging to Infinity here and it is only She who has
manifested by now, and not any other Godheads. Also she has “Face of rapturous calm”. In
human psychology, “Rapture” and “Calm” never go hand in hand. Sri M P Pandit emphasizes on
this element. They are two individual states of mind or emotions. They do not exist together, that
is where there is rapture, there is no calm and vice versa. But with Divine both go together. This
is something we can experience when we meditate and feel Her Presence in us.

heart of silence in the hands of joy.

These lines once again re-affirm the words “rapturous calm”. Goddess Usha is praised by Sri
Aurobindo as the one who has or is “A heart of silence” and with “the hands of joy”.
Ambassadress twixt eternity and change,
The omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths
That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars
And saw the spaces ready for her feet.

“The omniscient Goddess” who is “Ambassadress” from eternity, which is changeless to the
Great Change that is now happening here. And she “leaned across the breadths”, those breadths
which wrapped the “fated journeyings” or movements of the stars. Here “fate” refers to the law,
which governs the movement of the stars. Stars never move randomly, but according to a definite
law of Nature, which is the basis of Astronomy and Astrology. And she saw that now “the spaces
are ready for her feet”, that is she found that the conditions in cosmos are now favorable for Her
further duties. This was the first ever leaning of Divine Grace on Nature even when Goddess
Usha made her appearance. And all the previous processes were the necessary steps to prepare
the Nature for this Grace.