The Descent into Night (SVH 16) Book 2 Canto 7

This talk is based on Book Two Canto Seven of Savitri. Aswapati has seen that there is the seed of a divine possibility in life. Due to this ultimate divine origin of life there is in it a cry for truth and good and beauty, a surge for higher things. Yet it stops short after a leap. It seems unable to touch its own Source or reach its highest possibilities. A few exceptional moments and a few exceptional beings here and there but that is all it accomplishes and with hard toil and great sacrifice. Aswapati seeks to know now the reason why life fails to climb beyond a certain level. For this he must plunge into the dark abysses that hold back its flights. It is this black pit of Inconscient, this abyss of unconsciousness and falsehood and suffering and death into which he plunges now and which is described in this Canto.