Savitri

 II

 

      'THE WAY OF FATE AND THE

PROBLEM OF PAIN'

 

Sage Narad has unveiled Savitri's future; a future that is death. But Savitri, undaunted, has accepted the challenge, and instead of changing her path, has decided to travel on the same road, although fraught with seeming annihilation. And she has uttered the word of fate that she believes more in her own immortal destiny than in the blind workings of a mechanical God. The king and the rishi sit quiet looking straight into the "eyes of Fate", not willing to disturb the workings of Providence. But Savitri's mother will not so easily be silenced. Although she is the queen, yet is she a human mother also who cannot bear ill luck to befall her child. Aswapati's queen decides to arraign Destiny itself. In this turbulent condition of mind, she loses all balance; her mind that had hitherto won for itself a place on the higher planes of living now descends into the vital plane where ordinary human passions rage and rule. To her now earthly mind, the workings of destiny come as an unnatural shock. In her throat rises the desperate cry of all humanity that groans under the load of a freakish destiny.

 

      Mankind is essentially ignorant of the cause that produces the effect of human pain. Forced into a tragic condition man cries out why there should be all this grief and pain. Savitri's mother too questions the sage:

 

      By what pitiless adverse Necessity

      Or what cold freak of a Creator's will,

      By what random accident or governed Chance

      That shaped a rule out of fortuitous steps,

      Made destiny from an hour's emotion, came

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       Into the unreadable mystery of Time

       The direr mystery of grief and pain?²²⁷

 

Why should there be these perversions, these tumours and cankers in this world which should essentially be a beautiful creation of God? Did God make his handiwork successfully, and did some demon come afterwards to wreck its harmony? Something must have gone wrong with creation even from the beginning:

 

A fatal seed was sown in life's false start

When evil twinned with good on earthly soil.²²⁸

 

With the sowing of this dragon seed, there,

 

.. .first appeared the malady of mind,

Its pang of thought, its quest for the aim of life.²²⁹

 

Man had eaten the forbidden fruit, alas! No more for him the life in blessed ignorance and unfeeling matter; the free and simple ways, the guileless frankness, are lost forever. The birth of 'mind' has ushered in the vicious circle of evil and pain. Heaven has breathed into him reason, mind, intellect and imagination. The rose of man has bloomed in its fullness. But in this very rose of humanity the canker of tragedy finds a place and reduces the human flower to nought.

 

A grisly company of maladies

Come, licensed lodgers, into man's bodily house,

Purveyors of death and torturers of life.²³⁰

 

And the result?

 

      Life is a marvel missed, an art gone wry;.. .²³¹

 

God's gift of this bright and pleasant world to man is itself darkened by a shadow overhanging it. All Nature is ambivalent; there is a good, bright side, and withal, a bad and cloudy side too.

 

Error is the comrade of our mortal thought

And falsehood lurks in the deep bosom of truth,

Sin poisons with its vivid flowers of joy

Or leaves a red scar burnt across the soul;

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Virtue is a grey bondage and a gaol.

At every step is laid for us a snare.²³²

 

 Torn and frustrated at the very beginning of our benevolent thoughts and honest actions, we espy in this world only a wreckage before and a desert after:

 

      A growing register of calamities

      Is the past's account, the future's book of Fate.²³³

 

 Not satisfied with fate's wreckage, man also contrives miseries of his own doing. He commits countless blasphemies and unthinkable follies and brings retribution upon himself. And drunk with Faustus-like success he invades the secret chambers of Nature and commits again sacrilege of various kinds:

 

      His science is an artificer of doom;

      He ransacks earth for means to harm his kind;

      He slays his happiness and others' good.²³⁴

 

 These researches of man will bring him no good, for he has lost the Godhead's seal that alone could make his science holy and fruitful. Instead, his science is pursued for selfish ends and brings him only doom and death. But in spite of the heavy budget of dooms, he has not grown any wiser; still he takes the same path of tragedy and falls headlong into the same pit of Hell. Centuries of bitter lessons have not made him take the path of Dharma. He has remained what he ever was; still does he fight and war for selfish ends, and bedews Mother Earth with innocent blood. Not only does he go in search of the Devil's tools, but he also destroys the good in the world. Some wise men create something beautiful, but there are others to destroy the work:

 

War making nought the sweet smiling calm of life,

Battle and rapine, ruin and massacre

Are still the fierce pastimes of man's warring tribes;

An idiot hour destroys what centuries made,

His wanton rage or frenzied hate lays low

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The beauty and greatness by his genius wrought

And the mighty output of a nation's toil.²³⁵

 

Thus man unmakes God's beautiful and kindly creation and "wallows in his self-made misery". What is this life on earth, made miserable by ruthless fools? Is it not merely "an episode in a meaningless tale?" It has been said that we have come here from a heavenly source, and that in us is lodged the heavenly Life-spark. It has also been said that the ultimate goal of our life is to return to our harbour-home, that golden source of the Life Divine. If that were so, if we are of Heaven and are to return there again, where is the need for this strange savage interlude of the earth? Why should we be made to pass through this aimless futile drama of pain, terror, rapine and death? The queen's mind is indeed a whirl of questions. Why, why this tragedy of a world signifying nothing? Is all the world, is all life, a mere illusion? In the end, the tragedy that threatens Savitri turns her mother almost into a nihilist.

 

Perhaps the soul we feel is only a dream,

Eternal self a fiction sensed in trance.²³⁶

 

The queen is a woman, and being also a mother, she has come to a stage when the higher thinking powers have been numbed by the shadow of a doom. Now it behoves Narad to guide the sorely afflicted queen out of the labyrinth of her ignorance. So the eternal seer begins:

 

Was then the sun a dream because there is night?

Hidden in the mortal's heart the Eternal lives:...²³⁷

 

It is the cloud of unknowing that prompts us to deny the light of the world and the spirit. The sun does not cease to exist during the night. Even so, the presence of tragedy does not exclude the reality of the Eternal spirit that abides in our inmost heart. Our own ignorance veils the light within us, even from ourselves. Because of this ignorance in mankind pain was born, for pain naturally follows ignorance. And it is also true that one cannot attain joy without first undergoing pain. But for the throes of labour, there would be no birth. Even in the beginning of things, "by pain Life

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stirred in the subliminal deep"; so does pain through shock and difficulty push mankind to the heights:

 

      Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break

      A dead resistance in the mortal's heart,

      His slow inertia as of living stone.²³⁸

 

The image of the Superman is hewn out of the earthy mortal by inflicting on him the pain of death. Unless we are tested and tempered by failures, we would rest quite Oblomov-like in a trance of success and miss the chance of self-transcendence, for it is when we are struck by tragedy that we wish to transcend to the higher states:

 

      If the heart were not forced to want and weep,

      His soul would have lain down content, at ease,

      And never thought to exceed the human start

      And never learned to climb towards the Sun.²³⁹

 

Hence the Divine Mother cries out for yet bigger and acuter trials for mankind, so that out of the tremendous labour and pain a greater creation may come into being. Vain are the deluded cries of mortals like the queen against the pain inflicted by Providence:

 

      Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men

      To greatness: an inspired labour chisels

      With heavenly cruelty an unwilling mould.²⁴⁰

 

In every mortal resides the divine spark; it is to be fanned into a divine flame. The greater the pain the mortal undergoes, the sooner will it assume its real glow. Of course it is all very easily said, but actually the cosmic pain and the cosmic evolution implicit in the process are indescribable. It is on those who are selected to undergo this cosmic suffering, it is on those who wish to save this world, that the mantle of thorns unerringly falls. They are the persons who have to undergo this cosmic pain. As examples Narad (or Sri Aurobindo) projects before us the vision of Christ and the vision of Shiva. There is Christ who has "drunk the bitter cup" and who "has signed salvation's testament with his blood":

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       It is finished, the dread mysterious sacrifice,

      Offered by God's martyred body for the world;

      Gethsemane and Calvary are his lot,

      He carries the cross on which man's soul is nailed;

      His escort is the curses of the crowd;

      Insult and jeer are his right's acknowledgement;

      Two thieves slain with him mock his mighty death.

      He has trod with bleeding brow the Saviour's way.

      He who has found his identity with God

      Pays with the body's death his soul's vast light.

      His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death.²⁴¹

 

      It is clear that Narad here wants to prepare Savitri's mind and strengthen her will by describing the tribulations of the world-redeemers. She herself is one; Narad tells her how Christ and Shiva did their tasks unflinchingly, undaunted by death or poison. Mankind has its ills and pains; no human being is exempt from them. But the tortures that a saviour of mankind has to undergo are tremendous and have epic dimensions. The pertinent question would of course be: Why should a saviour be subjected to these mortal tribulations? But even a saviour must know what afflicts mankind before he could prescribe the necessary cure:

 

      Exempt and unafflicted by earth's fate,

      How shall he cure the ills he never felt? ²⁴²

 

      Therefore Christ had to undergo the jeers of the lewd people and had to be nailed on the cross. It is for the same purpose Shiva had to drink the poison from the sea. To save mankind, God dons a mortal garb, undergoes human suffering and ultimately even 'dies' to give birth to a brave new world. The saviour's situation is terrible indeed. The very people whom he has sought to save turn against him, mock at him, and do their best to wreck his hard-wrought handiwork. This is because there is a dark spot in man's own mind that continuously instigates the lower instincts in him, and drags

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him to Hell. Hence, however often the great saviours come to this earth, they in the end succeed in saving only a few. So, first of all, a "larger light" must come and clear man's heart of the dark spots, and hand him over as a clear plate for God to write thereon the Song Celestial of Eternal Life. The ordinary mind of man must give way to a "supramental plane of mind" where everything is pure white, and nothing sullies its white radiance. Till that is done,

 

.. .till the evil is slain in its own home

And Light invades the world's inconscient base

And perished has the adversary Force,

He still must labour on, his work half done.²⁴³

 

The world-redeemer, the divine soul, stands steadfast in this tremendous task, and is neither tired nor daunted by failures and difficulties. His will is of steel, his determination of iron. In spite of the barriers and troubles,

 

In the dreadful passages, the fatal paths,

Invulnerable his soul, his heart unslain,

He lives through the opposition of earth's Powers

And Nature's ambushes and the world's attacks.²⁴⁴

 

This saviour who has understood the way-s of the world and the workings of fate, the gnostic being, undergoes the darkest of earth's terrors, the acutest of the world's pains and the deepest of human sufferings, so that he may bring to the dark world—even to the dark world—the Light Divine:

 

      He must enter the eternity of Night

      And know God's darkness as he knows his Sun.

      For this he must go down into the pit,

      For this he must invade the dolorous Vasts.²⁴⁵

 

      Having passed through this dark night of the soul, the gnostic being  would emerge into the Eternal Light.

 

The superconscient beam shall touch men's eyes

And the truth-conscious world come down to earth

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Invading Matter with the Spirit's ray,

Awaking its silence to immortal thoughts,

Awaking the dumb heart to the living Word.

This mortal life shall house Eternity's bliss,

Tie body's self taste immortality.

Then shall the world-redeemer's task be done.²⁴⁶

 

After this lucid account of man's spiritual becoming, Narad turns to the immediate problem and warns the queen not to meddle with the decree of Providence. Any attempt to assume a greater cunning, and try to change the course of destiny, would bring the late that befalls the titans. The path of the titans is self-destructive. By denying God's sovereignty the titan brings retribution on his own head. The queen will be well advised not to tempt Providence. But if she will bear her yoke patiently by strengthening her will, all will yet turn out well.

 

Thy spirit's strength shall make thee one with God,

Thy agony shall change to ecstasy,

Indifference deepen into infinity's calm

And joy laugh nude on the peaks of the Absolute.²⁴⁷

 

While trying to explain to the queen the birth of pain in this world, Narad tells her a short parable. The spirit of mankind was originally perfection itself. But the spirit was not content to rest in its perfect state. It wished to see what the world was like. In this adventure it descended into the lower levels and travelled through the vital planes. In this original descent was the fall that brought pain in its wake. As a result the inner splendour was veiled from its casket, man. The forbidden fruit had been plucked and eaten. So the pain of knowledge came and, with it, this half-seen, little understood, undefined world:

 

Thus came, born from a blind tremendous choice,

This great perplexed and discontented world,

This haunt of Ignorance, this home of Pain:

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There are pitched desire's tents, grief's headquarters.

A vast disguise conceals the Eternal's bliss.²⁴⁸

 

Pain is now quite natural to mankind, and a world-redeemer like Savitri has to carry her own tremendous load of pain and affliction.

 

      The king now questions the sage whether there is any power in man to save himself, or is he merely ruled by an external spirit. He had heard, on her birth, that such an inner power had descended with Savitri. Is not this inner power equal to the task of facing the threatened fate? Can she not save herself from pain through the exercise of this power? In answer, Narad tells the king that the Superior Divine rejects the prayers of unthinking mankind for unbroken joy on the mortal plane. It is true that Savitri is born with an imprisoned splendour:

 

A greatness in thy daughter's soul resides

That can transform herself and all around ²⁴⁹

 

 But even she, the daughter of Aswapati, "must cross on stones of suffering to its goal". Man's mental machine is limited in its scope, and cannot perceive the integral truth and the self that lurks behind the law of the universe. The limited vision of man sees only a lifeless law in the workings of the universe and thus misses the fact that the spirit of man works along with the wisdom and spirit of the Universe. For Savitri's future, the external spirit, God, has pronounced its decree. Now it remains for the internal spark to burst into a flame. But it is not for Narad to say what exactly is going to happen:

 

It is decreed and Satyavan must die;

The hour is fixed, chosen the fatal stroke.

What else shall be is written in her soul²⁵⁰

 

Fate's decree is not altogether final; "Man can accept his fate, he can refuse". And if man is thwarted once, he can always rise again and again to fulfil his real destiny. The true seeker after Truth will not be frightened even by the dread alarm of fate. So if Savitri's destiny is to achieve ultimate victory, she will never waver in her quest for

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the Life Divine. Even if trouble and pain lie before her, she will not fail to advance. Hence the king need entertain no doubts regarding her future, and try to change the course of her destiny. And neither Aswapati nor his queen should try to separate the young lovers because of the encircling doom. The present situation is all for the best:

 

In vain thou mournst that Satyavan must die;

His death is a beginning of greater life,

Death is the spirit's opportunity.

A vast intention has brought two souls close

And love and death conspire towards one great end.²⁵¹

 

Narad further tells the queen to leave the course of destiny to its own fulfilment. Nor need she think that Savitri is too trail and weak to be the agent of the world's redemption:

 

Sometimes one life is charged with earth's destiny,

It cries not for succour from the time-bound powers.

Alone she is equal to her mighty task.²⁵²

 

Soon will a day come when, armed by her own will, she will be facing alone a mighty power. But in her loneliness she will find her strength:

 

The great are strongest when they stand alone.

A God-given might of being is their force,

A ray from self's solitude of light the guide;²⁵³

 

thus armed and strengthened, Savitri will have to face the day,

 

.. .when she must stand unhelped

On a dangerous brink of the world's doom and hers,

Carrying the world's future on her lonely breast,

Carrying the human hope in a heart left sole

To conquer or fail on a last desperate verge,. . .

Must cross alone a perilous bridge in Time

And reach an apex of world-destiny

Where all is won or all is lost for man.²⁵⁴

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      In that hour neither the queen nor anybody else can help her, "alone she must conquer or alone must fall". The queen would do better to stand back and leave Savitri to work out mankind's destiny:

 

      Think not to intercede with the hidden Will,

      Intrude not twixt her spirit and its force

      But leave her to her mighty self and Fate.²⁵⁵

 

Having done his appointed task of enlightening the queen and strengthening Savitri's will, Narad now vanishes from the human scene. But even after he has gone, even after the holy seer has merged with the skies, the listening souls on earth, the king, the queen and Savitri, hear a golden song of hope from the eternal heavens:

 

      A high and far imperishable voice

      Chanted the anthem of eternal love.²⁵⁶

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