No, I did not spell the word incorrectly! In the Russian Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic Churches and 'high' Protestant churches and in certain other religious dominations the censer is an important part of the service. A censer is a vessel used for burning solid incense. Most often pieces of red hot charcoal are inserted into the censer and then usually Frankincense is placed on the coals. The smoke and fragrance fill the air with its peace-inducing perfume.
Why have I devoted a paragraph to a censer? Let us read these beautiful lines in Savitri where Sri Aurobindo lifts us to such high realms of mantric expression that the psychic being is immediately filled with an intense and glorious vision of the beauty of our earth.
The life of the enchanted globe became
A storm of sweetness and of light and song,
A revel of colour and of ecstasy,
A hymn of rays, a litany of cries:
A strain of choral priestly music sang
And, swung on the swaying censer of the trees,
A sacrifice of perfume filled the hours.
Meditate on the supreme beauty in these seven lines.
We have here terms familiar to many, especially to those who grew up in the west.
hymn: a song or ode in praise or honor of God, a deity, a nation.
litany: a form of prayerconsisting of a series of invocations,eachfollowed by an unvaryingresponse.
choral: music, often a cappella (only for voices, i.e. without instruments) related to or writtenfor or performed by a chorus or choir.
priestly: befitting or characteristic of a priest or thepriesthood; i.e. denoting sacredness.
music needs no defining
sacrifice: The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage.
revel: a rather boisterous celebration
So we see that the lines,
"And, swung of the center of the trees
A sacrifice of perfume filled the hours.
pertain to the offering of the flowers and as the boughs of the trees sway gently in the wind their perfume fills the hours.
Read these lines over and over and much more will be revealed. Meditate especially on the word 'sweetness" said to be Sri Aurobindo's favorite word which he used more than 80 times in Savitri and also known to be Shakespeare's favorite word!
Concentrate also on the inevitable words Sri Aurobindo has given us in this joyous image of the earth as he has seen it and as it shall be in all its ecstasy and revelry of colour, light and song.
Narad (Richard Eggenberger)
Copyright 2016