Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

SUMMARY OF BOOK SEVEN

CANTO I

THE JOY OF UNION, THE ORDEAL OF THE FORE-KNOWLEDGE OF DEATH AND THE HEART'S GRIEF

Whatever happens to man it is Fate that leads "the blind will" "towards an unknown goal". The parentage of what happens to man is "in his secret soul". Even what is suffering to us,—"our ordeal,"—"is the hidden spirit's choice".

What Savitri's heart had chosen was all being fulfilled. Once more she left her own country, Madra, and travelled to Shalwa hermitage. As she travelled not only the country but even "the past receded and the future neared". She left behind all familiar places, relations and friends. From populous city she came to live in "primeval loneliness" with only the voices of birds and beasts. The escort that accompanied Savitri gave her in charge of the blind King, Dyumthsena and the Queen. The escort parted from Savitri unwillingly with a heart "heavy with sorrow."

There in the hermitage Savitri commenced a new life altogether. She put "behind that was once her life" and welcomed the future. "Priceless she deemed her joy" which she derived from Satyavan's company, because it was "so close to death". In the new surroundings everything, at first, was like an ideal dream to Savitri, She felt the hermitage like heaven, everything there was smiling—"there was a chanting in the casual wind".

"There was glory in the least sun beam;

Night was a nestling darkness or a moon-lit deep

Day was a purple pageant and a hymn,"

Satyavan's absence "was a dream of memory

His presence was the empire of a god".

Page 307

Their meeting was the "rushing of two spirits to be one

A burning of two bodies in one flame".

But the season underwent a change. Clouds began to appear in the clear sky, "storm became the forest's titan voice", sobbing winds after the rains sighed, thunder clashes were also noticed and sorrow seemed muttering all the night. Savitri's mood also underwent a change: "The grief of all the world came near to her". She remembered the Fate of Satyavan, "And fear laid hands upon her mortal heart" "Grief came, a passionate stranger to her gate". It could not find entrance when Savitri was with Satyavan. But she could not avoid grief because "her deepest grief from sweetest gulfs arose". The more intense experience of love made her feel more sad when she remembered the Fate of Satyavan. Thus Savitri passed her days "feeding sorrow and terror with her heart" for now these feelings were "among her bosom's guests". When she looked at the future she found blank night and the ignorant and smiling world go happily by,—she "wondered at the careless lives of men". These two worlds were quite apart,—she in knowledge, the world indifferent. She fully realised "the fragile happiness" of "mortal love".

Savitri, though intensely in grief, continued her daily routine of work—this work was a mask. During this period her true being was veiled from her, she had occassional glimpses of it but not the presence. She controlled her mind and heart and continued to act normally in the daily round of her works. In her own country a princess, she became a willing and "diligent serf of all", and did not spare "the labour of broom and jar and well". She did all the menial work of the household. Even in her lowly "acts a strange divinity shone". She lifted these "common acts by love".

All love was hers and its one heavenly cord

Bound all to all with her as golden tie".

But when she felt grief all these actions seemed meaningless to her,—"a round mechanical and void". Internally she was vigilant and passionate about saving Satyavan's life, keeping watch over him at night while he slept, praying for him. As she had the fear of his

Page 308

death in her heart every time she would implore him, inwardly, to give more and more of his precious love for she knew they would have to part soon.

But she never expressed her fear or grief to any one. She bore -her grief alone. Satyavan even without being told intuitively half understood or felt her need and gave her as much of his time as he could spare from his daily duties. But Savitri's need was infinite. If she felt happy in his presence his absence increased her agony thousand-fold: "She saw the desert of her coming days". She could easily die and follow Satyavan to the beyond but she could not think of it, "for those sad parents still would need her here".

"To help the empty remnant of their day".

And they grew in union so close that they became inseparable from each other: even when Satyavan went alone to the forest it seemed to Savitri that she was all along with him,—"as if in herself he moved"

"Grief, fear became the food of mighty love."

Thus the year seemed to come to a close,—clouds and thunder were in the sky, the sun was hidden. "So her grief's heavy sky shut in her heart".

"A still self hid behind but gave no light". Savitri seemed to feel all the movements of human love, fear and grief specially due to her foreknowledge of his doom. This reveals the working of the human aspect of Savitri.

CANTO TWO

THE PARABLE OF THE SEARCH FOR THE SOUL

Savitri heard the "dumb tread of Time" and also "the approach of ever-nearing Fate". Then she heard a call from her true Being: "A mighty Voice invaded mortal space". It came from the height but was intimate and near. As she heard the Voice her mind became

Page 309

quiet: "Why earnest thou to this dumb death bound earth,...O spirit, O immortal energy"!

"If 'twas to nurse grief in a helpless heart

"Arise, 0 soul, and vanquish Time and Death."

Savitri's heart replied: "My strength is taken from me and given to Death", why should I raise my hands in supplication to Heavens when they are shut? Why should I hope in vain to "uplift an ignorant race"

"Who hug their lot and mock the saviour Light?

This makes it once more clear that Savitri's mission was not an individual attainment but a work for the race, for humanity.) She further asks: "Is there a God whom any cry can move"? This is the attitude of ignorant human mind when faced with Fate; Here Savitri voices it with all its intensity. I would rather submit to "earth's unyielding laws" and "follow close behind my lover's steps" to the beyond. There, we can have eternal joy of union in heaven.

The Voice replied: "Is this enough?, "what shall thy Soul say when it wakes and knows" that "the work was left undone for which it came?" Would you forget your mission and "leave unchanged the old dusty laws" of this world? Did you not come to open the golden road from finite things to eternity?

Savitri's heart then fell mute, and "A Power within her answered the still Voice:

"I am thy portion here charged with thy work,

Speak to my depths, 0 great and deathless Voice;

Command, for I am here to do thy will."

The Voice replied:

"Remember why thou cam'st:

Find out thy soul, recover thy hid self,

Page 310

"Then mortal nature change to the divine

"Cast Thought from thee, that nimble ape of Light" The voice advised her to cast away her sense—

"...let thy heart beat in God

"Then shalt thou harbour my force and conquer Death."

Savitri followed the instructions of the Voice and sitting by her husband's side she "looked into herself and sought her soul".

She tried to correlate herself to the cosmos and find out the past. There in the indeterminate formlessness of Self she saw that "Matter learned to think and person grew". Life and Mind were formed, With Life. and Mind pleasure and pain as experience came. And yet all this seemed the work of a blind world-Energy. Man seemed only "A chaos of little sensibilities"

"Gathered round a small ego's pin-point head".

A "living personality" was not evolved and this mental person "felt a godhead in its fragile house" and "dreamed immortality".

This Mind which is the minister of the Self now acts as the King. But this mind is driven by life-force—"This mind. no silence knows". It is always disturbed, receiving messages from the external world through the senses. It also receives mental messages. Even in sleep it is disturbed.

The human being then flies into the mental plane "in imagination's car" and is able to conceive "ideals". But this mental being is not the true Self of man; true Self is hidden and lives within. Human nature holds within itself both the divine and the undivine powers:

"Careless guardian of his nature's powers".

"Man harbours dangerous forces in his house".

These lower powers "can act in his acts, infest his thought and life". They can even take possession of the human being and act violently in it and they can "break through the soul's stillness with a noise and cry". "Man's lower nature hides these awful guests."

Page 311

Sometimes these lower forces break out into the open in the collective life of man. Then they let loose blood-lust and "the will to slay", "and fill with horror and carnage God's fair world". Pain, destruction, calamity are then abroad: "Creation rocks and tremble top and base". All over the world there is "a momentary Evil's almightiness". But that does not mean that the world is delivered over to them. "There is a guardian power, there are Hands that save" humanity.

Man harbours all possibilities—of good and evil—within him. The past lives in him and the future is preparing in the present. Mind of man goes on working and creating its own moulds but at last it is some other will—a divine power—that works out the "intricate plan". It waits for its time and circumstances. Man is not what he appears to be on the surface of his consciousness: "A vast subliminal is man's measureless part". Like the ice-berg much of man's being is hidden below the surface—in the subliminal. Tendencies and movements rejected from the surface or from outer life persist in "our unconscious selves": "Old thoughts, old longings, dead passions live again".

"An old self lurks with new self we are;

"The old rejected nature still survives,

"in dim tunnels of the world's being and ours".

Very often,

"Our dead selves come to slay our living soul".

Thus seen, man is not a free being he thinks himself to be.

"Above us dwells a superconscient god

Around us is a vast of ignorance

Lit by the uncertain ray of human mind,

Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute".

But that is only the first self-view of Matter. There is a greater Self of knowledge waiting for us: "It shall descend and make earth's life divine". Summits of man's being are divine; there Eternity

Page 312

and Divinity are his birth right. We can feel the presence of this true self in us:

"One speaks within. Light comes to us from above". Even in the imperfect life, subject to ignorance, man seeks Good and Beauty, God and Truth. There is in us a greater Life-Being. Man put his consciousness on the surface and has succeeded in mastering Nature partially by his Mind. Thus he "grew towards an unseen heaven of thought and dream". Man is now able to take his stand on the mind and gaze above; "He calls the Godhead into his mortal life".

Savitri's inmost soul had achieved all this behind her surface consciousness and she found that she came to mankind to discover or create "a new world".

"Earth must transform herself, and equal Heaven" or "Heaven descend into earth's mortal state". That is the destiny of man on earth.

"But for such vast spiritual change to be,

The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil

And step into common nature's crowded rooms

And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life".

Savitri sat obedient to the high command of her higher Self and felt compelled "to find her soul".

CANTO THREE

THE ENTRY INTO THE INNER COUNTRIES

From the din and noise of her mind, Savitri entered her deep consciousness, and she experienced "emptiness",—her "Self" became a "blank". When she was in her mind she knew that she was a human being living in a limited material world. But 'she did not take her "surface person for the soul".

Page 313

As she was proceeding towards her soul, a voice spoke: "For man thou seekst, not for thyself alone". The spiritual attainment was not to be for her a personal achievement, but a work for the race, for mankind. It is only when the Divine "puts on mortal ignorance" that he "can help man to grow into the God". Alan is the disguise of the cosmic Divine. Savitri is asked to accept human limitations so as to transform human nature.

In her journey towards her soul Savitri separated herself from the body and looked at the inner depths of her being. She found that the dim portal was barred. She knocked and pressed against the gate. A formidable voice cried out

"Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die."

"The Serpent of the threshold" that was guarding the entrance of the inner worlds, "hissing rose". But Savitri had no fear, her will remained "unshaken" and so her being "entered into the inner worlds". She had some difficulty in forcing her way "through body to the soul". In the inner world where she entered "all was there but nothing in its place". It was all a region of the vague Inconscient. As she progressed towards her soul she "broke into a form of things". She came to a plane of being where things had begun to take "form"—and, were no longer vague and amorphous. This world was the sense-world where the senses could grasp the forms. Yet even here—in the sense-world—"all was still confused." "Soul was not there but only cries of life." All along sounds, visions, feelings, centred round ego—"a rally without key of common will", surrounded her. This chaotic condition of impulses could go on for ever. "This was the sense's instinct void of soul".

In the absence of mind life-force cannot do much, it remains only "a chaos of disordered impulses" "in which no light can come, no joy, no peace".

Savitri pushed away this state from her; she gathered her will from the crowd of impulses and fixed it "upon the saviour Name". "Then all grew still and empty;"—all the sense-impulses disappeared, and "she was free". She experienced peace.

But now a greater danger faced her,—"the physical mind". It released "a torrent of the speed of Life", "it drowned its banks, a

Page 314

mountain of climbing waves". This great flood demanded "God's submission to chainless Force".

It filled the earth with its primitive-impulses, "the honey-sweet poison-wine of lust and death", and felt it as "celestial". "It dared the force that slays, the joys that hurt". It brought about a surging of the opposite powers into the being,—ascent and sinking, tenderness and hate, laughter and tears, fears and joys, ecstasy and despair, These were the movements of the Life-force, ''full of ardour". They had their higher movements full of mixture. For example, one could enter here into "the valley of the wondering Gleam", intermediate zone of the vital being full of deceit and danger because of the false light it shows. Those who are attracted by this "wandering Gleam" are agents of life-force, not its masters. This current of Life-force flowed past Savitri like "a clamour of waters". Savitri stood unmoved, she did not plunge in the vain waves. It passed, "her spirit was mute and free".

Then travelling farther into the hush she came to Life-force that was chained, "Tamed to the modesty of a measured pace". She was now "A royalty without freedom". Reason had come in and tried to govern life. Now she lived within "laws", there was no freedom of the Spirit. Even thought was cut into a system or "rivetted to Matter". Life was made to move on "safe and level path." When reason had succeeded in its task it arrived at limited perfection.

"Action and thought cemented made a wall

Of small ideas limiting the soul".

Even religion was narrowed down to conventional worship.

Savitri travelled beyond this region and came to the "quiet country of fixed mind." She saw some one standing at the entrance, it was a commanding personality. She told Savitri:—you are a fortunate being to reach our brilliant air. Here you will find the perfect way of life. This mental region is the "home of cosmic certainty." "Here is the truth. God's harmony is here." She asked Savitri to remain in this realm.

Savitri replied: those who "can find the single Truth, the eternal Law" are happy indeed. If men can live anchored in fixed belief

Page 315

they would be really happy. But I must pass leaving this "ordered knowledge of apparent thing" which the mind gives, because "I seek my soul".

The being on the plane of mind said:—the Soul, the Spirit cannot be known,—nobody has ever known it. Mind is the parent of the Soul. Mind is the "sole creator of the apparent world". How can there be any one who seeks to go beyond mind?

Savitri saw the crowd of the powers of mind and was strongly attracted by them. But she controlled herself. She knew she must discover her soul, because "Only who save themselves can others save." The only way to save others was to find her soul and save herself.

She then cried out to the powers that had assembled asking them to reveal "the birthplace of the occult Fire".

Only-one of them answered: "0 Savitri!, from thy hidden soul, we come". "Follow the world's winding highway to its source."

"There in the silence" "thou shall see Fire burning" and "the deep cavern of they secret soul."

Savitri moved and felt the nearness of her soul.

CANTO FOUR

THE TRIPLE SOUL-FORCES.

Savitri began the ascent towards her soul. She came across a Woman with "moon-bright face" "in a pale lustrous robe". She was sitting on a rugged soil with "sharp and wounding stones" beneath her feet. She was "divine pity", a "spirit touched by the grief of all that lives". She was the Mother of seven sorrows. Her eyes were "dim with" the ancient stain of tears. "She had" beauty of sadness on her face. She spoke to Savitri:—

"O Savitri, I am thy secret soul".

"To share the suffering of the world I came."

She then recounted to Savitri the various forms in which she works in the world:

Page 316

"I am woman, nurse and slave and beaten beast.

"...the courted queen, the pampered doll

"I am in all that suffers and that cries".

Her spirit has witnessed and is even now witnessing, all the suffering of humanity.

"I have seen the peasant burning in his hut,

I have seen the slashed corpse of the slaughtered child,

Heard woman's cry ravished and stripped and haled

Amid the bayings of the hell-hound mob".

Not only in human life but in the life of animals, of all living creatures' she has known the suffering:

"I have shared the toil of the yoked animal drudge

"I have shared the fear-filled life of bird and beast,

"Its pain and terror seized by beak and claw".

In all walks of life the "tedious labour without joy" she has experienced. Her mission is to manifest pity and "sympathy making life less hard to bear".

The suffering of this power manifested as woman is endless. Heaven has been indifferent and Nature cruel, and yet she has not complained, she has only prayed: "A patient prayer has risen from my breast". She is resigned in her suffering and has a blind faith in her heart.

"I carry the fire that never can be quenched".

"And the compassion that supports the suns."

She has an assurance from the Divine who says to her "I come". She says to Savitri: "I know that one day he shall come at last".

As she stopped "a voice of wrath took up the refrain". It was the voice of the being in man that complains against the suffering of humanity and yet who at the same time seems almost to enjoy his suffering. He seems to take a perverse delight in his sorrow. The

Page 317

voice said: "I am the Man of Sorrows". I am he "who is nailed on the wide cross of the universe". He complains against God and voices his defiance and revolt against him, because of the injustice done to him.

"I am the seeker who can never find,

I am the fighter who can never win,

I am the runner who never touched his goal".

The eternal toil and effort without success is the character of this Man of Sorrows who is widely prevalent in humanity: "I toil like the animal, like the animal die." This type is also known in History. "I am man the rebel, man the helpless serf". He has thus the double and contradictory aspect. Even when he succeeds in loosening his "servitude's seal" he gets "new tyrants" on his back in place of the old ones he destroys. He labours and others enjoy the fruit of his toil. So he is left alone with his evil thoughts, for he has always a "quarrel against God and man", he has "envy of riches that" he "cannot share", hatred of other peoples' happiness. This type does not believe in pity or goodness or kindness. It always thinks that these things are "an investment for .return." Even "altruism is ego's other face." "He serves the world that him the world may serve." This spirit consents to his own sufferings: "There is a dull consent in my sluggish heart", "a fierce satisfaction with my special pangs", and a feeling that "only by suffering can I excel." When he is in revolt he does "demoniac deeds." His feeling is: "I was made for evil, evil is my lot". He thus confirms himself into his low state and effectively bars any chance of change in his being. He even justifies his condition by saying it is my nature and nature cannot be changed.

Savitri gave no reply to this being that had closed its doors against any transformation. She rather addressed the woman—The "Madonna of suffering," who had faith in the advent of God and in the consequent transformation: Thou art a universal aspect of my divine being put forth to bear the "unbearable sorrow of the. world." It is thy presence that saves man from despair and gives him hope.

"But thine is the power to solace, not to save,

One day I will return, a bringer of strength

Page 318

Then "Misery shall pass abolished from earth".

The anger of the Beast, the Man of Sorrows, shall also disappear. The world will then be free from "the cruelty of the titan and his pain".

"There shall be peace and joy for ever more."

Then Savitri went forward "in her upward route". There she came to a Woman in gold and purple sheen, sitting "on a boulder carved like a huge throne".

"Armed with the trident and the thunderbolt," she was royal in her mien with majesty and victory. She was the Mother of Might. In a voice like a war-cry or a pilgrim chant she said "0 Savitri, I am thy secret soul". In the human world she is keeping watch over "the battle of the bright and sombre Powers". She works to "help the unfortunate and save the doomed." She responds to the "cry of the oppressed", she topples down "the thrones of tyrant kings".

"I smite the Titan who bestrides the world.

"I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,

And Laxmi, queen of the fair and fortunate."

But she, the Mother of Might, finds that her efforts are not successful in leading man to God:

"The cosmic evil is too deep to unroot:

The cosmic suffering is too vast to heal."

She is able to help only a few. She has faith that ultimately she will not fail, because, "His seal is on my task." Her mission would be fulfilled "When God comes out to meet the soul of the world".

When Mother of Might had finished the voice of the Dwarf-Titan was heard. It was the cry of the "Ego of this great world of desire" that "claimed earth and wide heavens for the use of man". It is the aspect of man as the "thinking animal" who is a tool and slave of Nature. He believes that he is the possessor and the ruler but in reality "he is possessed and, ruler, ruled". He is Nature's

Page 319

conscious automaton. He said: "I climb, a claimant to the throne of heaven".

"For me and my use the universe was made", the Sun, the Stars, the air are all for my use. When I was bom I was small and weak but now "I have grown greater than Nature, wiser than God." I have seized Nature's powers and I create new and magical things which Nature could never do. "What God imperfect left, I will complete." I have mastered the world of Matter, I am its King now.

I am also mastering the secrets of Life and "Soon I shall know the secrets of the Mind". I shall even acquire occult powers. "When earth is mastered, I shall conquer heaven".

Savitri did not reply to this voice but turned to Mother of Might:

"Thou art a portion of my soul put forth"

"To help mankind and help the travail of Time"

It is because of you that man dares and can climb to heaven. But "Thou hast given men strength, wisdom thou couldst not give."

"One day I will return, a bringer of light." Then you will be able to see the self and world as they are seen by God.

Savitri ascended higher in her "spirit's upward route". She came to " A wide tower of vision whence all could be seen". Here "A Woman sat in clear and crystal light", with heavenly lustre in her eyes, sunlight face and moon-beam feet. She said: "0 Savitri, I am thy secret soul". I heal the pangs of the earth and lull its heart to peace. I create ideals for man, I reveal God to man. "I am peace,...! am charity"'...'! am silence,...I am Knowledge". When man's mind is divided between good and evil "I am the Power that labours towards the best". All forms of the Good, the Right, of freedom, valour, sacrifices, martyrdom, of Truth and Beauty—all these I am. My work has not entirely succeeded because "human mind dings to its ignorance", and the earthly life of man to "its right to grief." If man consents to my working I can save the world.

Then Savitri heard the "voice of the sense-shakled human mind" its limitation is that it cannot know the whole of the Infinite and so all mental knowledge remains incomplete. This mind can give man the forms but not the soul, or Truth behind the forms, It can know the external but not the noumenal, the real. It knows

Page 320

the process but "That which moves all" is hidden from its gaze. It said:

"I am the all-discovering Thought of man

I am a god fettered by Matter and sense

An animal prisoned in a fence of thorns."

Even though I have mastered Matter yet I do not know the secret of Matter and energy. When mind progresses all my knowledge is contradicted. All that I know is only "reasoned guess'. Soul seems a "speculation or a dream" and it is doubtful if the world at all exists. I would like to remain confined to the limits of safety, I would like to remain human for "Human I am, human let me remain".

This mind of man does not want to accept any higher possibility, any spiritual destiny for man:

"To think that God lives hidden in the clay

And that eternal Truth can dwell in Time

"This wizard Gods may dream, not thinking men." Savitri turned to the spirit and said:

"Thou art a portion of my soul put forth

To raise the spirit to its forgotten heights."

Because of thee "soul draws near to God" and "love grows in spite of hate". She also gave a warning to her:

"But not by showering heaven's golden rain,

Upon the intellect's hard and rocky soil

Can the tree of Paradise flower on earthly ground."

The reason for this is that in the Mind "only a bright shadow of God can come." When I return with the Divine then life will attain perfection.

Page 321

CANTO FIVE

THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

As Savitri ascended further she found a dark region, "a night of God"—as distinguished from the darkness of the lower regions. This was a region where there was no mind/no light, no heart, no knowledge—"A sacred darkness brooded now within". It was "formless, voiceless, infinite". It was in fact, "simple purity of emptiness". She felt only two things within her: a self and a prostrate yearning. She had no ambition, no personal strength for attainment. In this darkness "Silent she moved". "At last a change approached, the emptiness broke". She found a wide space, where the air was happy and the Dawn seemed to have risen there. It was a region which may be called "Truth's last retreat."

She "found herself amid great figures of gods." All the life-scenes of man and his evolution from the animal were depicted on the walls there and were as it were the background. The gods who were there were endeavouring to ascend "to the abiding and eternal in their climb." These gods were "executive figures of Cosmic self" and they came from the Infinite Sat-Chit and Ananda—infinite Being,—consciousness—and delight—"the triune being who is all and one"

"And yet is no one but himself apart".

Savitri knew all this "not by some thought" but "by the self", by identity. She passed from room to room of the soul and felt one with everything.

"She knew herself Beloved of the Supreme:

"Mother was she of Beauty and Delight,

The Word in Brahma's vast creating clasp,

"The Master and the Mother of all lives

"And Krishna and Radha for ever entwined in bliss".

Page 322

There she arrived in the last chamber where "one Sat"

"A Sun of which all knowledge is a beam

A Greatness without whom no life could be".

Savitri then passed through a tunnel and came "where there shone a deathless Sun," "a house all made of flame." In the living Fire she met wide eyes—"Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes". It was

"The Spirit's conscious representative".

"Comrade of the universe, the Transcendent's ray",

It was the deepest truth of the individual, one with the universal Being and a projection of the Transcendent. Earth's bliss and grief this Being her soul—welcomed with a smile. This Being, "knows the toil of mind and life". It is this soul that "puts forth a small portion of herself"

"A being no bigger than the thumb of man

Into a hidden region of the heart

To face the pang and to forget the bliss".

This projected part of the soul is the human personality in Nature which we see acting in life. It is supported by the "unwounded and immortal self" from behind. The soul gives the human being the power to live and act.

Savitri's human personality in her upward ascent met here her true Being, "the secret Deity". "They rushed into each other and grew one".

Then Savitri came back to her human surroundings: She was "human upon earthly soil" in the night, in "rain-swept woods" in the "rude cottage". The subtle, divine world withdrew from her.

She sat "in the deep lotus home" in her own natural being— "on concentration's marble seat", "calling the mighty Mother of the worlds" to descend into her, "to make this earthly tenement her house". The divine Mother descended into her heart and there was "a mighty movement" when the higher Power touched her heart-centre. "A naming serpent rose released from sleep". Then

Page 323

every centre of her being, from top to bottom, became "surcharged with Light aid Bliss" as the Serpent-power climbed mightily and stormily upwards.

"Then at the crown it Joined the Eternal's space. Thus throughout the string of forts that guards the human being from world contacts the high Power brought about a great change. In Savitri "all underwent a high celestial change," "powers and divinities burst flaming forth."

"In the country of the lotus of the head

"In the castle of the lotus twixt of the brows

"In the passage of the lotus of the throat

"A glad uplift and a new working came."

Then a transformation of nature followed in which "every act" of Savitri "became an act of God." In her heart "all the emotions gave themselves to God". Her vital being was tamed "to do a work of God on earthly soil." In the body "a firm ground was made for Heaven's descending might." Thus the entire human part of Savitri became harmonious.

Once Nature's veil is removed then "a Light comes down into the Ignorance".

"Then sin and virtue leave the cosmic lists" because, "Our words become the natural speech of Truth."

"Each thought is a ripple on the sea of Light."

Then the mind lifts a cry of victory:

"O Soul, my soul, we have created Heaven

Within we have found the kingdom here of God."

In this way

"A first perfection's stage is reached at last

Out of the weed and stone of our nature's stuff—

A temple is shaped where the high gods could live".

Page 324

This attainment of perfection is the promise for all mankind:

"One man's perfection still can save the world" because by such an attainment

"A camp of God is pitched in human time."

CANTO SIX

NIRVANA AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE ALL-NEGATING ABSOLUTE

After Savitri discovered her soul her "life was glad" for "she found herself". The influence of this inner perfection was felt around her,—"into her outward scene". The result was that

"Even the smallest meanest work became"

A sweet or glad and glorious sacrament,

An offering to the self of the great world

Or a service to the One in each and all."

Around Satyavan she now saw "the cyclic roundure of a sovereign life" instead of "fate's dark and lethal orb". She and Satyavan were now always together, "now no longer in these great wild woods" only but always and everywhere. Even when they were separated by physical space they were together,

"Body to body near, soul near to soul"

"Inseparable like the earth and sky".

Once when Savitri was sitting and making her "joy a bridge twixt earth and heaven" "an abyss yawned suddenly beneath her heart". Then "a formless Dread with shapeless endless wings" "enveloped the heavens and possessed the earth". It wanted to "end the fable of the joy of life". That which thus arose was "a consciousness of being without its joy," 'out of some sullen monstrous vast arisen," "imagined by some blind regardless self". Savitri heard in her heart words "that made unreal the world and all life meant".

Page 325

The abyss said: there is no soul, no personality,—"hope not to be happy in a world of pain". Do not try "to burden with bliss the silent still Supreme." "I am Death," "I am Kali," "I am Maya" and the universe is my cheat", for "only the blank Eternal can be true".

"All else is shadow and flash in Mind's bright glass.

"...from vain existence cease."

Savitri found "her inner world laid waste" and "a barren silence weighed upon her heart" because all her efforts at perfection were negatived by this voice. It reduced the world to an illusion. "Then from the heights a greater Voice came down". It was "the voice of Light after the voice of Night". It asked Savitri to hide her kingdom of Heaven within herself. It said: "not for self alone the self is won": it is not for thy own self that thou hast to win the self. Do not be content "with one conquered realm": there are many more fields to be won for the Divine. "Adventure all to make the whole world thine"

"Accept to be small and human on the earth

"That man may find his utter self in God".

You have not come to the earth for an individual achievement: you have not come to life to be merely "one door in the Ignorance opened upon Light". You have come "to aid a blind and suffering mortal race".

"To open to Light eyes that could not see.,

"If thou wouldst save the toiling universe,

The vast universal suffering feel as thine.

"The day-bringer must walk in darkest night."

By such sharing of the world's pain her divinity would not suffer or diminish for, "God must be born on earth and be as man", "that man being human may grow even as God."

In order to be able to realise this Cosmic unity, the being who

Page 326

would attempt it should grow into a supracosmic consciousness: such a one must be "wider than the universe" and "know itself older than the birth of Time". To the view of such a being, "the world's destruction" would be a "small transient storm" "in the calm infinity it has become." As to the solution of the question, how did the bondage come to the Transcendent the answer is you will know it when you withdraw your being from the world: "be God's void" then you will be "one with God's bare reality," "and the miraculous world he has become." You will also know "the diviner miracle still to be". Then only can complete transformation take place and Matter will be "the spirit's willing bride".

Savitri then became a witness "aloof and standing back detached and calm". Then she could see the movements of Nature and know the forces behind them,—"prompter's voice", "animal instincts", impulses, passions. She also could see the birth of "Thought". The human mind appeared like a "gramophone's disc" unrolling, almost mechanically, "a reproduction's film" indicating what is stored up from the past. There came "thought-sounds" and "soundless words" to the human mind, "These were but counters in mind's symbol game." All seemed "a list of signs, a cipher and a code." Very often mental stuff is born in the subtle or comes from outside. This is the ordinary thought-movement.

Then lower forces were also seen, "they speak direct" to the inner mind" of man. Great thoughts, ideals, come to man from far, enter the human brain and find expression in life. Savitri's mind had ceased to be an individual centre, it had become universal: "the great world's thoughts were part of her own thoughts". Thus, "the unseen grew visible and audible" to Savitri. She knew that

"...man evolving to divinest heights

"Colloques still with the animal and the Djinn."

In the arrangement of universal Nature there are no abrupt breaks, but "the high meets the low, all is a single plan".

Ordinarily, Mind is only "a dynamic small machine producing ceaselessly till it wears out". Very often man is not the creator of the thoughts that he expresses:

Page 327

"Often our thoughts are finished cosmic wares,"

they come to man ready-made and then pass through the subconscient and are "then issued in Time's mart as private make". Alan is not free in the movements of his nature: "Our tasks are given, we are but instruments".

"Nothing is all our own that we create". The material for everything that man creates is furnished by Nature. "The Power that acts in us is not our force". Even the greatest man receives either the word, or form or charm, the glory and grace "from a stupendous Fire". It is, as it were, a "sample from the laboratory of God" is given to man "wrapt in golden coverings". It may be an Intuition or an Inspiration. Even though man's ego claims the world for its use

"Man is a dynamo for the cosmic work". It may be asked: if Nature does everything and if man is only an instrument, what is the contribution of man to the cosmic work? The Master says that "Only his soul's acceptance is his own," soul has the freedom to accept or reject the movement of higher or lower Nature that is presented before it. Man has either to be "freed man—or God's slave".

In truth "Our consciousness is- cosmic" and our "mind is only a means and body a tool." Man can be free and even rise above the cosmos and survey the world. Savitri attained this freedom, became silent and then she willed the whole world to be dedicated "to God's timeless calm". Her mind and life became quiet. Even in the peace which she attained she could see that all the elements of old nature were present, only they were inactive. "All was suppressed but nothing yet expunged." Those old movements could return and disturb the calm. She found that some "Thoughts" were surging up in her being. When she tried to trace their origin she found that they did not come from "human Time". They were children of cosmic Nature, and like boats they sailed from the far wide expanse and with "easy access reached the inner ear." while pursuing the place of their origin Savitri "saw a spiritual immensity" "pervading and encompassing, the world-space". The cosmic Thoughts came from there. When they entered Savitri's inner being they "met a barring will"—"a blow of Force", and "sank vanishing in the immensity".

Page 328

All then became silent in her, "a silent spirit pervaded silent Space".

"In that absolute stillness" she met an all-negating Void which "claimed...sovereign right" "to cancel Nature and deny the soul". In that Void the world appeared a dream, and her soul something impersonal,—only a name. Sense was not able to act in the all", negating Void, therefore, there was no "form", but only "A sheer self-sight", a "self-seeing", a self-view. Events .could not provoke it into action; there was no response to external touches of Nature. Savitri acted, thought and felt impersonally: "there was no person there behind the act." Nature continued to work by the force of old habit. She upheld the action but did not participate in it. The only active power in her seemed to be that of "pure perception".

Everything became unreal in that experience, only, "a hollow physical shell persisted still."

The world was only "a cosmic film of scenes and images.." The universe was a "design sketched on a silent mind" and it assumed the appearance of solidity "by constant beats of visionary sight." Sky was "an illusion of the eyes," men were "mobile puppets", unsubstantial or like moving pictures.

The One alone was real, it was free from Time, name and form. It was like an Omnipresent point.

"Pure of dimensions, unfixed, invisible

Accentuating its sole. eternity." It was

"an endless No to all that seems to be".

"An endless Yes to things ever unconceived.

"An eternal zero or untotalled Aught

"The world is but a spark-burst from its light"

and

"All objects glimmerings of the Bodiless

That disappear from Mind when That is seen."

Page 329

"A formless liberation came" to Savitri: she found that

"Once sepulchred alive in brain and flesh

She was no more a Person in a world,

She had escaped into infinity."

In that state "she shared the Superconscient's high retreat" "There was no temptation of the joy to be"—the delight of Existence was not there.

CANTO SEVEN

Savitri's daily life went on plodding as usual. She was living in the supreme Mother's consciousness but nobody knew anything about her inner condition. "They saw a person where was only God's vast". All people found her "the same perfect Savitri." To all she spoke the same words, she did the same acts yet "there was no will" behind the word and act. Perhaps, it was the Nihil that acted in her, because "her mortal ego perished in God's night." She saw within her "the individual die, the cosmos pass".

"These gone, the Transcendent grew a myth." Yet there was a secrecy. Out of the Vast replies came to her questionings, sometimes in the assembly of sages she received inspired word. It seemed as if the inconscient Nature and superconscient mystery—a dual Power—, at two different poles, acted in her.

Now the Transcendent seemed to begin to act in and through her. She was sitting by Satyavan when a Voice began to speak and it changed every thing for her: she found that "all was" and "all lived", everything had a real existence and real life,—the world was no longer non-existent—unreal. "She felt all being one", "there was no more a universe built by mind". At the basis of all was "a spirit" that "cast itself into unnumbered forms". All was a Truth now "in which negation had no place". There "all was conscious," "all had a substance of Eternity". The Reality in the Transcendent "was her self, it was the self of all". The Reality "was Timelessness and Time", "it was the Bliss of formlessness and form". In short "it was joy of being on the peaks of God",—the delight of self- existence of the Divine.

Page 330

Savitri "passed beyond Time into eternity"

"She was all vastness and one measureless point".

Her being one with the Universal did not prevent her from being an individual because even that individuality was a "measureless point".

"All contraries were true in one huge spirit.

"An individual, one with cosmic self

In the heart of the Transcendent's miracle

Her spirit saw the world as living God;

"It saw the One and knew that all was He.

"All Nature's happenings were events in her:

"She was no more herself but all the world."

She felt that

"Nowhere she dwelt, her spirit was everywhere".

The distant constellations wheeled round her

"what seemed herself was an image of the Whole.

"The Cosmos flowered in her, she was its bed".

Thus now:

"The superconscient was her native air,

Infinity was her movement's natural space;

Eternity looked out from her on Time."

Savitri had gone not only beyond Ignorance and found her Soul but that Soul was Cosmic, it was also Supracosmic—Transcendent. She lived in it and so was beyond Time and space—and yet was omnipresent in Time and space.

Page 331

SUMMARY OF BOOK EIGHT

CANTO THREE

DEATH IN THE FOREST

SAVITRI gazed on her "sleeping husband" and felt like one who is about to die. She relived her life in that short time.

"The whole year in a swift and eddying race

"Of memories swept through her and fled away

Into the irrecoverable past."

She got up and bowed down to the goddess "carved by Satyavan upon a forest stone". Then she went to Satyavan's "pale mother, queen". She spoke to her with great composure so as not to allow her to perceive "a dire foreknowledge of the grief to come". She said to the queen: I have lived one year with Satyavan on the edge of the green forest in this hermitage but I have not gone "into the silences" of the forest. A strong desire has "seized all my heart to go with Satyavan" into the forest. "Release me now".

The queen answered "Do as thy wise mind desires". Then Savitri accompanied Satyavan "with linked hands" into the beauty and grandeur and majestic silence of the forest. Satyavan walked beside her "full of joy" "because she moved with him". "He showed her all the forest's riches",—flowers, creepers, birds. Savitri listened deeply to "The voice that soon would cease". She did not give attention to the sense of what he spoke: "Of death, not life she thought". Her heart was moaning with anguish at every step and she looked round to see if there was the dim and dreadful god of Death anywhere near.

Satyavan stopped now; he wanted to finish the work of cutting wood first so as to be able to wander freely with Savitri afterwards.

Page 332

Savitri, "wordless but near", watched Satyavan. "Her life was now in seconds, not in hours". But Satyavan, quite unconscious of Fate, "wielded a joyous axe". He sang and "sometimes paused to cry to her sweet speech of love and mockery tenderer than love". Savitri "like a pantheress leaped upon his words." Then Satyavan felt "the violent and hungry hounds of pain" in his body "biting as they passed". Then he felt a little relief. But "now the great Woodsman hewed at him and his labour ceased". He called out to Savitri who clasped him. Then he said: I feel a pang in my head and heart similar to that which the tree must feel when it is sundered.

"Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lap

And guard me with thy hands from evil fate:

Perhaps because thou touchest, death may pass."

Then Savitri avoided the tree which Satyavan had cloven and sat under another tree trying to soothe "his anguished brow and body with her hands." She felt no grief or fear; a great calm descended on her.

Then the colour of Satyavan changed into "tarnished greyness". Once before the light of life faded completely he cried out: "Savitri, 0 Savitri" "Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die".

Even as Savitri kissed him Satyavan died.

Then she found that they were not alone: "Something had come there conscious, vast and dire". There was all round an awful hush.

"As if from a Silence without form or name,

The Shadow of a remote uncaring god"

to his Naught illusory universe"

And its limitation of eternity", had come there and

"She knew that visible Death was standing there

"And Satyavan had passed from her embrace".

Page 333