These Suns are not mere metaphors, just descriptive; they are functional, they are creative powers

Re: Book of Fate: Below him burned the myriad suns
by RY Deshpande on Wed 17 Oct 2007 04:33 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link Dear Angelo Your question about the line “Whose creative slumber kindles the suns” in the following passage on p, 1 of Savitri
As in a dark beginning of all things, A mute featureless semblance of the Unknown Repeating for ever the unconscious act, Prolonging for ever the unseeing will, Cradled the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force Whose moved creative slumber kindles the suns And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.

is of course connected with the dark beginnings of things. The Symbol Dawn opens with it, the commencement of this creation. We have in it a cluster of phrases describing in various ways what actually happened at that sombre moment: “tenebrous womb”, “dark beginning of all things”, “unconscious act”, “unseeing will”, “cosmic drowse”, ignorant Force”, “somnambulist whirl”, “shadow spinning in the soulless Void”, and so on. This is the “last Nothingness” from which has to come the intended manifestation. But this “Nothingness” is different from the “first Nothingness”, the Non-Manifest, Avyakta, the unexpressed Absolute. The “last Nothingness”, the Unmanifest, is kind of negative Absolute, and has in it present the inconscient Self and the blind somnambulist Force, Achetana Purusha and the Andhah Prakriti. So, whatever has to happen will happen by the workings of this unseeing Prakriti, Nature, and it happens or will happen only because there is present behind it the supporting inconscient Will of the inconscient Being or Purusha. This pair we meet also in the passage pertaining to Narad’s arrival on earth (p. 415)

He passed from Mind into material things Amid the inventions of the inconscient Self And the workings of a blind somnambulist Force.

Therefore it is this “ignorant” or the “blind somnambulist Force”, who is going to kindle the suns in her creative slumber. Note that the action is the action of kindling, kindling of the suns who are in their dark states, the unexpressed potentials, potentials which can flame up, blaze. The same sense is present in the other passage I have quoted as another example of the “suns” as plural in Savitri: (p. 314)

She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire. The luminous heart of the Unknown is she, A power of silence in the depths of God; She is the Force, the inevitable Word, The magnet of our difficult ascent, The Sun from which we kindle all our suns, The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts, The joy that beckons from the impossible, The Might of all that never yet came down.

“The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,”—again the suns are there but they have to be kindled. But what is meant by “kindling”? The stars in scientific astronomy are kindled by the force of gravity, the ubiquitous force that cannot be dissolved, eliminated, gravitational collapse leading to rise in temperature to a point when the thermonuclear fusion can set in, gravity acting as a matchstick or the lighter. But then they will have the sense of the stars and not of the suns.

In the language of the mystics, the Suns or the Vedic Adityas represent certain qualities and cosmic functions, certain powers, personalities, living godheads active in their roles. I have briefly indicated these in the article. Thus Love and Light are represented by the Sun as Mitra. In the form of Bhaga he is the Lord of Enjoyment, as the Increaser, he becomes Pushan. These Suns are not mere metaphors, just descriptive; they are functional, they are powers, creative powers operating in the scheme of things. The suns are possibly, as I said, the sun of knowledge, the sun of joy, the sun of beauty, of love, passion, strength, wisdom, skill, perfection, harmony; there are the myriad suns.

There are five Suns of Poetry,—the Sun of Truth, the Sun of Beauty, the Sun of Delight, the Sun of Life, and the Sun of the Spirit. But let us not take them in their abstract sense, even as they are powers and personalities. I am avoiding describing them as deities, which they are, but not in the religious sense just to be worshipped; their aspects have to be imbibed. Sun as the creator brings out one or the other faculty and it is that which is being done, somnambulistically, by the ignorant Force. They are present there, dormantly, and she is the one in her long travail kindling them slowly. So shall they become manifest in their authentic blaze and glory, a long process for which she works tirelessly, works through the sempiternal ages.

I don’t know if this answers your question, but perhaps that is one way of looking at things. Thanks for your interest in the subject and the keenness with which you are following it. RYD