Invocation 08 - Auroville

42
The fierce spiritual agony of a dream.
Savitri felt as if she was being sucked into a cavernous throat of darkness.
A curtain of impenetrable dread,
The darkness hung around her cage of sense
As, when the trees have turned to blotted shades
And the last friendly glimmer fades away,
Around a bullock in the forest tied
By hunters closes in no empty night (p. 583)
When it suits him, Sri Aurobindo can arrest an entire mood, an entire scene
in a small image. In the old days when killing animals was quite fashionable,
what people used to do was to visit the haunt of a tiger or a lion they wanted
to shoot. But they didn't have the courage to face it directly, so they would
tie a bullock or calf in a very prominent place, and then climb up into the top
of a tree to be at a safe distance. There they would train their guns on this
bait, and after nightfall the tiger would come for its food, whatever calf or
bullock they have tied there. Then while the tiger is busy eating, they can
show their skill and kill the tiger. This used to be the sport of the leisured
class in the good old days. Even now you find reports of this kind of thing in
the newspapers. But here Sri Aurobindo says that Savitri was now like that
poor calf, tied there to the tree. When this is done, there is still some light;
then early evening comes and the light recedes and what at one time were
clearly seen to be trees now become simply blotches of darkness, it is no
longer possible to distinguish one from the other, darkness has settled in.
And the poor animal is sensing the presence of the tiger and helplessly
expecting to be attacked at any moment. This is what the God of Death
wanted Savitri to feel. It is not an empty night. It is a night full of terror, and
full of the tiger that the animal senses and expects. Savitri is made to feel
like that by the God of Death.
This gives us some picture of what the God of Death does and how he
tries to terrorise Savitri. This God of Death is a very clever person, he is
very sophisticated, and when he begins to talk to Savitri, there is not only
disdain and scorn, he also has many a convincing punchline here and there,
and a beautifully epigrammatic style. He is trying to convince Savitri that
she is too small a person, too insignificant a being, to take on something like