On Savitri
THEME/S
The Bhagavad-Gita says that not even for one moment can man remain without performing action; for, to live is to act. Life is relationship and to be related is to act. But if we examine the nature of our actions, we will find that they are not actions at all; they are only reactions. Such reactions may be in terms of physical movements or of words or of thoughts. There is a fundamental difference between an action and a reaction. A reaction emanates from a fixed centre in one's consciousness. It may be called a centre of habit or of memory. Action, however, arises from no centre at all, and that is why it is always spontaneous and natural. A reaction is habitual, but an action is natural. Thus an action does not arise from a centre of thought. To put it differently: an action always precedes thought. Such an action is not a thoughtless action in the sense that it is impulsive. It remains untouched by thought. In such pure action thought is used only to explain as to how one acted. As we have stated above, an action can be at any level. To look at something is itself an action. But true looking is possible only if thought does not intervene. And so the action of looking must precede thought, if there is to be a true looking. This applies to all categories of action. When thought intervenes then the experience is broken up. True relationship is possible when the action of relationship precedes thought. With regard to Savitri's encounter with Death, Sri Aurobindo says that a sudden change came over her where "the thinker was no more." That is why her meeting with Death was complete, leaving no residue behind. Our so-called actions are incomplete and, therefore, in such actions there is always the looking to the future. The whole process of psychological time is created by our incomplete actions. These incomplete actions are verily the reactions. It is reaction which is the begetter of psychological time with all its frustrations and anxieties. It needs to be understood that Love alone is total action. Love is completely free from all trace of reaction. A reaction arises when an outer challenge stimulates the centre of memory or of habit. But Love needs no stimulation of outer challenge. Its action is free from all compulsions, whether outer or inner. We are either compelled by the factors of outer environment or by the inner factors of ideals and images. An action arising from an ideal is a
reaction. And so all efforts to translate ideals into actions are an exercise in futility; for, they keep one chained to an endless process of reactions. Such efforts to translate generate only incomplete actions and therefore create the need for psychological time. In any effort to translate ideals into actions there comes into existence this factor of psychological time. It is not for nothing that Sri Aurobindo deals with the problem of ideals in a comprehensive manner in the course of Death's dialogue with Savitri. Death calls ideals as the malady of the mind or the bright delirium of thought. We have seen how he ridicules Savitri's idealistic stance. It is in this context that he rules out all sentiments regarding love, calling it only another expression of the same futile idealistic fervour. Death tells Savitri to face the realities of life and not get lost in mere idealistic glamour of love. But Savitri was not a person who could be easily disposed of by Death through such intellectual discussions and moral discourses. Savitri was remarkably quickwitted and so replied almost immediately to the long oration of Death. She said:
O dark-browed sophist of the universe
Who veilst the Real with its own Idea,
Hiding with brute objects Nature's living face,
Masking eternity with thy dance of death,
Thou hast woven the ignorant Mind into a screen
And made of Thought error's purveyor and scribe,
And a false witness of mind's servant sense...
Champion of a harsh and sad philosophy
Thou hast used words to shutter out the Light A
nd called in Truth to vindicate a lie...
ODeath, thou speakest Truth but Truth that slays,
I answer to thee with the Truth that saves.1
Savitri calls Death a sophist, meaning a mere quibbler. She says that Death tries to veil the Real with his own dark and dismal contrivance. He invokes Truth to vindicate a lie. According Savitri, Death is an adept at distorting things. Out of this distortion he utters a truth that slays. Savitri tells Death that she speaks the Truth that slaves. Death is a past-master at misrepresenting facts. Savitri says:
1 Savitri, p. 621.
Page 444
The Timeless took its ground in emptiness
And drew the figure of a universe,
That the spirit might adventure into Time
And wrestle with adamant Necessity
And the soul pursue a cosmic pilgrimage.2
Savitri gives to Death lessons in evolution and reminds him as to how the universe took its birth and how evolutionary stream moved on. She says that the whole purpose of evolution is to see that spirit adventures in Time and wrestless with Necessity. It was not to submit to Necessity that the spirit took its birth in time. And surely the greatest symbol of Necessity is Death. Savitri says that the spirit is bom not to submit to the dictates of Death. She says:
O Death, thou lookst on an unfinished world
Assailed by thee and of its road unsure,
Peopled by imperfect minds and ignorant lives,
And sayest God is not and all is vain.
How shall the child already be the man?3
Savitri says that Death is looking at the unfinished world. Here Sri Aurobindo has indicated the dynamic concept of Godhead. God did not create a finished world and is now resting on His oars. The creation of the universe is a continuing process and there is none more dissatisfied with his creation than the Creator himself. If Death would only understand the movement of evolutions then he would realise that the child cannot suddenly become a man. The fallacy in Death's reasoning consists in the fact that he is assailing an unfinished universe, regarding it as a finished product. Savitri says to Death that the child cannot suddenly become a man; she tells him further:
Because he is infant, shall he never grow?...
Time travels towards revealed eternity.4
From the Unmanifest to the Manifest,—this is the movement of evolution. The Unmanifest is continually establishing new contacts for its manifestation. The expression of the Unmanifest can never be finished. Even a thousand names of God cannot fully describe him, similarly the Unmanifest goes on, age after age, expressing itself in the Manifest. Never will the Creator say: My world is
2 Ibid., p. 622. 3Ibid., p. 623. 4Ibid.
Page 445
over and I have created a finished product as my creation. Savitri says to Death:
He has built a world in the unknowing Void.
His forms he has massed from infinitesimal dust;
His marvels are built from insignificant things.
If mind is crippled, life untaught and crude,
If brutal masks are there and evil acts,
They are incidents of his vast and varied plot,
His great and dangerous drama's needed steps.5
The poet says that the entire universe is the Creator's passion-play. Death only looks at isolated incidents, and not at the whole play. He pities the man as he is today, but does not see the tremendous potentiality lying concealed in his nature. Let him not deride the role of man; for, if till now he was a tool in the hands of Death, tomorrow he may rise to his full stature and challenge his might. Savitri indicates that in her challenge Death must see the future of humanity. Savitri says that as evolution proceeds the Creator wishes man, his highest creation, to take a greater and greater initiative and not be a child eternally spoon-fed by the mother. She says:
His knowledge he disguised as Ignorance,
His Good he sowed in Evil's monstrous bed,
Made error a door by which Truth could enter in,
His plant of bliss watered with Sorrow's tears.6
The Creator expressed himself in contraries, so that man may make his way with full understanding. Savitri says: "A dual Nature covered the Unique."7 The One became the Many so that the Many may return to the One, bringing a rich harvest of a multi-coloured experience. She says:
In this meeting of the Eternal's mingling masques,
This tangle-dance of passionate contraries
Locking like lovers in a forbidden embrace
The quarrel of their lost identity.8
In this world the quarrel and the conflict that are visible are indeed due to lost identity. It is a part of the growth of man. A point comes when man moves away from the lost identity to his real nature. When child grows to the stature of man, he passes through
5Ibid., p. 624. 6Ibid., p. 625. 7Ibid. 8lbid.
Page 446
numerous ways of error and mistake. But thus alone can he grow and come to real maturity. Man stumbles again and again, but thus alone can he acquire strength and vigour. Evolution proceeds from Instinct to Intellect. It is true that instinct is pure and innocent, while intellect displays many a time corruption and vile. But intellect is only an interlude, just a pause of the evolutionary stream before it turns to the glory of Intelligence or Intuition. In the interlude perchance many perversions occur, but they are just passing incidents on the onward journey. Intellect gives to man a sweep and a range of expression which the subhuman creatures do not have in spite of the innocence of their instinctual living. But the possibility of perversion does not invalidate the state of purity. Savitri says:
Our Knowledge walks leaning on Error's staff,
A worshipper of false dogmas and false gods,
Or fanatic of a fierce intolerant creed
Or a seeker doubting every truth he finds,
A sceptic facing Light with adamant No
Or chilling the heart with dry ironic smile,
A cynic stamping out the god in man.9
Here the poet describes many perversions and aberrations that are there in the whole phenomenon of Creation. To look at the whole requires a different approach from one that only examines part by part. Savitri says that Death lacks that approach of the Whole and so is unable to see the real significance of things. It is Love alone that can comprehend the Whole, and the meaning of Life is vouchsafed only to one who sees it as a Whole, and not as a synthesis made up of the parts. Savitri says:
There is the mystic realm whence leaps the power
Whose fire bums in the eyes of seer and sage;
A lightning flash of visionary sight,
It plays upon an inward verge of mind:
Thought silenced gazes into a brilliant Void.10
The experience of mystic communion or Love comes when "thought silenced gazes into the brilliant Void."11 The evolutionary drama is leading man to that state through the labyrinth of mind and its activities. Savitri says to Death that it is only during the
9Ibid., p. 626. 10 Ibid., p. 627. 11Ibid.
Page 447
interlude from intellect to intelligence that his reign can last. And during this interlude Death has taken full advantage to confuse man. She says:
Thy mask has covered the Eternal's face,
The Bliss that made the world has fallen asleep.
Abandoned in the Vast she slumbered on:
An evil transmutation overtook
Her members till she knew herself no more.12
Sri Aurobindo's philosophy rests on the thesis of Bliss and Joy being the undercurrent of all life on earth. For him, to be a spiritual pilgrim is not to be a candidate for woe. Unfortunately, during the interval between intellect and intelligence, Death has wrought such havoc that "the Bliss that made the world has fallen asleep."13 It is this inherent joy of life that has to be awakened; but for this the power of Death must be vanquished. Savitri says:
But now the primal innocence is lost
And Death and Ignorance govern the mortal world.14
Savitri tells Death that even though he has wrought havoc with the life of the mortal, there are still intimations of the Real to be felt even in the midst of the fallen existence. She says:
Earth still has kept her early charm and grace,
The grandeur and the beauty still are hers,
But veiled is the divine Inhabitant.15
It is this divine Inhabitant that has to be awakened; for, once he wakes up, no more can Death and Ignorance rule the world. Nature has still kept her charm and grace, but it is the mind of man that has come under the sway of the veil cast by Death. Savitri tells Death:
Although God made the world for his delight,
An ignorant Power took charge and seemed his Will
And Death's deep falsity has mastered Life.
All grew a play of Chance simulating Fate.16
She says that what has mastered Life is Death's deep falsity. Once this falsity is laid bare the rule of Death will be no more. And Savitri is addressing herself to this great task of laying bare the
12lbid., p. 628. 13Ibid. 14Ibid. 15Ibid. 16Ibid., p. 629.
Page 448
falsity of Death. The first move in this game is to look Death in the face and challenge its might. She says:
A hidden Bliss is at the root of things.
A mute Delight regards Time's countless works:
To house God's joy in things Space gave wide room,
To house God's joy in self our souls were bom...
Indifferent to the threat of karmic law,
Joy dares to grow upon forbidden soil,
Its sap runs through the plant and flowers of Pain:
It thrills with the drama of fate and tragic doom,
It tears its food from sorrow and ecstasy,
On danger and difficulty whets its strength;
It wallows with the reptile and the worm
And lifts its head, an equal of the stars.17
It is Joy that underlies everything; for, it raises its head even in the midst of doom and destruction. It is this Joy which is the will to live. This will can never be smothered. It lifts its head even under dire circumstances and asserts its equality with the stars. Savitri says that "our earth starts from mud and ends in sky."18 When this transfiguration comes, then is seen the end of Death as also of the Night. She tells Death an ardent comradeship
Becomes a wide spiritual yearning's space.
A lonely soul passions for the Alone,
The heart that loved man thrills to the love of God.19
The secret of man's transmutation lies in Love. The poet says here that he alone can respond to love of God who has loved man. He who has never known human love must remain a stranger to the love of God. Savitri says to Death:
A Lover learning from his cloister's door
Gathers the whole world into his single breast...
ODeath, I have triumphed over thee within;
Iquiver no more with the assault of grief,
A mighty calmness seated deep within
Has occupied my body and my sense...
O Death, not for my heart's sweet poignancy
Nor for my happy body's bliss alone
17Ibid., p. 630. 18Ibid., p. 632. Ibid.
Page 449
I have claimed from thee the living Satyavan,
But for his work and mine, our sacred charge.20
Here once again we see the poet depicting Savitri as human and divine at the same time. Savitri says to Death that "not for my happy body's bliss alone"21 she asks for living Satyavan. Here the indication is that her human happiness is certainly involved in her demand. But there is the greater demand for the fulfilment of the work which they together have to accomplish. She says that this work is their sacred charge. But what is this work they together can do? Can not Savitri do it alone? The work obviously is the making of a new world where man can rise to his full spiritual stature. In this great work the masculine and the feminine aspects of consciousness must work together; for, then alone it can lead to the integration of man. Savitri says that he is
...the Eternal's delegate soul in man.
My will is greater than thy law, O Death;
My love is stronger than the bonds of Fate:
Our love is the heavenly seal of the Supreme.
I guard that seal against thy rending hands.
Love must not cease to live upon the earth;
For Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven...
Love is man's lien on the Absolute.22
Savitri says she is guarding the seal of the Supreme which the Supreme has put on their love. Her great mission on earth is to see that love does not cease to exist upon this earth. Love is not a mere sentimentality; nor is it just emotionalism. The plant of Love flowers only when the masculine and the feminine co-exist. It is only when there is a simultaneous existence of the Strength symbolising the masculine consciousness, and Grace symbolising the feminine consciousness that Love can be bom. Savitri says: "Love is man's lien on the Absolute." It is only through Love that man can keep this lien. And Love is the only link that exists between Man and God. But Death was a tough customer; he refused to be taken in by these words of Savitri. And so Death replied to Savitri, saying
Thus will thou hire the glorious charlatan Mind,
20Ibid., p. 633. 21Ibid. 22Ibid., p. 633.
Page 450
To weave from his Ideal's gossamer air
A fine rainment for thy body's nude desires...?
Daub not the web of life with magic hues...
O human face, put off mind-painted masks...
Accept thy futile birth, thy narrow life.
For truth is bare like stone and hard like death.23
There can be no more apt description of the mind than the epithet given here by the poet wherein he calls it a "charlatan" meaning a quack or a pretender. Mind is a quack, administering spurious medicines having no relevance to the ailment. Death tells Savitri that he regards all her talk as mere effervescence, a sentimental sob-stuff. He asks her to accept the unpleasant reality; for, "truth is bare like stone and hard like death."24 But Savitri immediately retorts and gives a fitting reply to Death's taunting words. She says:
Yes, I am human. Yet shall man by me,
Since in humanity waits his hour the God,
Trample thee down to reach the immortal heights...
Yes, my humanity is a mask of God:
He dwells in me, the mover of my acts...
In me are the Nameless and the secret Name.25
Here the poet has introduced two seemingly contradictory expressions, the Nameless and the Secret Name. God's name is indeed a secret which He conveys only to him who goes to him, shedding all false names. When the names given by the mind are dropped then the Reality is rendered truly Nameless. It is in the Nameless that the secret Name is conveyed. The Nameless is the Nirguna even as the Name is the Saguna. The poet says that God is Nirguna as well as Saguna, both the Nameless and having a secret Name. But Death continues the dialogue and demolishes argument after argument presented by Savitri. Death tells her:
O priestess in Imagination's house,
Persuade first Nature's fixed immutable laws...
How canst thou force to wed two eternal foes?
Irreconcilable in their embrace
They cancel the glory of their pure extremes:
An unhappy wedlock maims their stunted force.26
23Ibid., p. 634. 24lbid. 25Ibid., pp. 634-35.
Page 451
One may ask: Who are these two eternal foes whom Savitri proposes to join in wedlock? They are Matter and Spirit. Death says that if Matter is all then Spirit is a dream, and if Spirit is all then Matter is a lie. He says: The Real with the unreal cannot mate. Death wants Savitri to make up her mind. If she regards Spirit as supreme, then why does she bother about Matter? Why should the material form of Satyavan mean so much to her? If she believes in Matter then she must obey the laws of matter which are inscrutable. Death indicates to Savitri that she should be consistent in her argument. How can Spirit and Matter be brought together in a wedlock? For, such marriage is bound to prove most unhappy. Savitri replies to God:
My heart is wiser than the Reason's thoughts,
My heart is stronger than thy bonds, O Death...
It sees the cosmic Spirit at its work;
In the dim Night it lies alone with God.
My heart's strength can carry the grief of the universe...
And never lose the white spiritual touch.27
The dialogue between Death and Savitri is most illuminating and tremendously scintillating. They seem to be equals and hence cross their swords freely. Death found in Savitri some one who was proving more than a match for him. The arrows of Death, however sharp they may, fail utterly to hit Savitri.
Death tells Savitri that if she is so strong and powerful then let her show her freedom from the inscrutable laws of fate. She says that surely she will ultimately succeed and that the plans of Death will be foiled. Death the great Nihil contemptuously asked her to prove her strength, and if she does, then,
Then will I give thee all thy soul desires,
All the brief joys earth keeps for mortal hearts.
Only the one dearest wish that outweighs all,
Hard laws forbid and thy ironic Fate.
My will once wrought remains unchanged through Time,
And Satyavan can never again be thine.28
Here we are reminded of the dialogue between Yama and Nachiketa in the Kathopanishad. Yama tells Nachiketa to choose whatever joys and pleasures of life he liked, but not press him to reveal the
26Ibid., p. 635. 27Ibid., pp. 635-36. 28Ibid., p. 636.
Page 452
secret of Death. In Sri Aurobindo's Savitri, we find Death willing to grant all earthly pleasures to Savitri but Satyavan can never again be hers. But Savitri spurns these flimsy offers of Death and says:
If the eyes of Darkness can look straight at Truth,
Look at my heart and, knowing what I am,
Give what thou wilt or what thou must, O Death.
Nothing I claim but Satyavan alone.29
The poet says that after these words uttered by Savitri there was a hush, a poignant silence. Death had never come across such resoluteness on the part of a mortal being. His threats and explanations, his philosophical reasonings and offers of gifts, having failed, Death still attempts to wean Savitri away from the path she has chosen. And so Death tells Savitri:
I give to thee, saved from death and poignant fate
Whatever once the living Satyavan
Desired in his heart for Savitri.
Bright noons I give thee and unwounded dawns,
Daughters of thy own shape in heart and mind,
Fair hero sons and sweetness undisturbed...
Return, O child, to thy forsaken earth.30
But Savitri is not slow to reply; for, how can these wishes be fulfilled, if Satyavan is not returned to her alive? She says:
Earth cannot flower if lonely I return.31
But Death too was not to be weaned away from his path. And so he angrily cries out to Savitri:
What knowest thou of earth's rich and changing life
Who thinkest that, one man dead, all joy must cease?...
Soon other guests the empty chamber fill.32
Death tells Savitri that everything on earth is in a state of flux. Nothing is permanent, and so she too will soon forget Satyavan and his place will be taken by others. He says that grief dies soon in the tired human heart. Savitri tells Death:
Give me back Satyavan, my only Lord.
Thy thoughts are vacant to my soul that feels
29lbid. 30Ibid., pp. 636-637. 31"Ibid., p. 637. , 32Ihid.
Page 453
The deep eternal truth in transient things.33
Savitri knows that life is in a flux and everything is transient. But she reminds Death that she has the insight to comprehend the Eternal in the midst of the transient. She can fathom the permanent even in the ceaseless flux of life. Her love for Satyavan was bom when she perceived the Eternal in the bosom of Time itself. But Death says that she is pursuing something that is utterly false. If she returns to earth she will soon find other men as loveable as Satyavan. She will feel happy in the company of the other man, and "Satyavan shall glide into the past, a gentle memory pushed away from thee by new love and thy children's tender hands." Death reminds Savitri that after all life is "a constant stream that never is the same."34 In the stream of life, fresh waters come every moment, and so events of the past glide into memory. Satyavan too will be one of those events that will get pushed into the recesses of memory. But Savitri tells Death:
Why dost thou vainly strive with me, O Death,
A mind delivered from all twilight thoughts
To whom the secrets of the gods are plain?...
All shall be seized, transcended; there shall kiss
Casting their veils before the marriage fire The
eternal bridegroom and eternal bride.35
At these words of Savitri, the poet says, the twilight trembled like a bursting veil. There was a deep silence cast over the region where the three stood. Then they moved without any exchange of words, journeying onward through the drifting ways. The poet describes this further journey in the following words:
mortal led, the god and spirit obeyed
And she behind was leader of their march
And they in front were followers of her will.36
In this further journey, Death brings the travellers to a spot where the twilight of the ideal recedes and the twilight of the earthly real comes into view. Death purposely does this so that Savitri may see clearly what the earthly real is. He feels that perhaps in this environment of the earthly real, Savitri will be able to free herself from the illusions of the idealistic world. Standing on this slope
33 Ibid. 34Ihid., p. 638. 36Ibid. 36lbid.,.p. 639.
Page 454
that slowly downward sank, Death once again addresses Savitri and says:
Behold the figures of this symbol realm...
Here thou canst trace the outcome Nature gives
To the sin of being and the error in things
And the desire that compels to live
And man's incurable malady of hope.
Where Nature changes not, man cannot change...
His mind is pent in circling boundaries:
For mind is man, beyond thought he cannot soar.
If he could leave his limits he would be safe:
He sees but cannot mount to his greater heavens;
Even winged, he sinks back to his native soil.
He is a captive in his net of mind
And beats soul-wings against the walls of life.37
The poet says that the limits of man have been set by his mind. He is unable to soar beyond the limits of thought; for, he is a captive in the net of the mind. He fruitlessly beats his soul-wings against the walls of life. But the poet says, somewhat paradoxically, that man would be safe if he could leave his limits. But he appears to feel safe only within his limits. But he appears to feel safe only within his limits. This safety, however, is unreal. His real safety lies in breaking through the supposed safety of the mind. Death tells Savitri that after all she too is the creature of this mind. He asks her that even though she may profess to see the Eternal in the transient, how is she going to bring down that Eternal? He says:
Hope not to call God down into his life:
How shalt thou bring the Everlasting here?
There is no house for him in hurrying Time.38
Death tells Savitri that Truth cannot come down to the transient earth; for, how can the Everlasting live in the house of Time? Time is hurrying fast and so in that flux where will the Everlasting live? He says to her that she is caught in the illusions of the mind. Death wants to impress upon Savitri that Matter alone exists: Mind has no independent existence. Mind may talk big, but all its talk is empty chatter. And so he says to Savitri:
37Ibid., pp. 643-44. 38Ibid., p. 644.
Page 455
If Mind is all, renounce the hope of bliss;
If Mind is all, renounce the hope of Truth.
For Mind can never touch the body of Truth
And Mind can never see the soul of God...
Truth comes not there but only the thought of Truth,
God is not there but only the name of God.39
Death tells Savitri: How can she know God with the mere instrument of mind? The Self can never be known by the mind, and if she is the Self then she must remember that it is Unborn. She must then enter the state of the Unborn. For this she must die and enter the realm of the Spirit only through the gateway of Death. Death tells her:
...thou must die to thyself to reach God's height:
I, Death, am the gate of immortality.40
Death brings Savitri to the point that even if she wants to live the life of the Spirit, she and all others must pass through his gate. And so Death is supreme. It is supreme in the field of Matter; and it is also supreme for those who desire to enter the world of the Spirit. Without passing through his gate none can reach the realm of God. Thus must Savitri accept the supreme overlordship of Death. What is the use of Savitri crossing swords with this Almighty? Death has now started talking of things that belong to the world of the Spirit. But here Savitri is on a firmer ground:
The world is a spiritual paradox
Invented by a need in the Unseen,
A poor translation to the creature's sense
Of That which for ever exceeds idea and speech,
A symbol of what can never be symbolised,
A language mispronounced, misspelt, yet true.41
She says that the world by itself makes no meaning; for, it can never speak the language of the Spirit. We may describe the world as a symbol of the Real, but the Real can never be put in a symbol. But even though the world mispronounces and misspels the language of the Spirit, there are hidden in it the intimations of the true and the real. She says that "the world is not cut off from Truth and God."42 She tells Death:
39Ibid., pp. 645-46. 40Ibid., p. 647. 41Ibid., p. 648. 42Ibid.
Page 456
In vain thou hast dug the dark unbridgeable gulf,
In vain thou hast built the blind and doorless wall:
Man's soul crosses through thee to Paradise,
Heaven's sun forces its way through death and night;
Its light is seen upon our being's verge...
How sayst thou Truth can never light the human mind
And Bliss can never invade the mortal's heart
Or God descend into the world he made?...
I have discovered that the world was He;
I have met Spirit with spirit, Self with self,
But I have loved too the body of my God.
I have pursued him in his earthly form.
A lonely freedom cannot satisfy
A heart that has grown one with every heart:
I am a deputy of the aspiring world,
My spirit's liberty I ask for all.43
Savitri tells Death that however dark may be his night, there is always to be seen a ray of light. Such perception comes to one who can penetrate his veil. To such a one Transcendence is visible even in the Immanence. God is not invisible; he is intangible. He is to be found in the very creation that he has made. Surely one can discover the Creator in the Creation itself; not away from it. Savitri says: "I have discovered that the world was He."44 And so one who discovers the Spirit does not reject the Body. Savitri says: "I have loved too the body of my God."45
Under the incessant assault of Savitri, Death shows signs of thawing and starts adopting a different line. If persuation and git fail, then what is he to do? He tries to flatter Savitri by saying that, since she is so wise and strong, why should she then waste her precious energies for a cause that is so earthly and mundane? Death tells her:
Because thou knowst the wisdom that transcends
Both veil of forms and the contempt of forms,
Arise delivered by the seeing gods...
Use not thy strength like the wild Titan souls!
Touch not the seated lines, the ancient laws,
Respect the calm of great established things.46
43bid., pp. 648-19. 44Ibid. p. 649. 45Ibid. 46Ibid., pp. 650-51.
Page 457
Death tells Savitri that her wisdom transcends both the veil of forms and the contempt of forms. She is neither attached to forms, nor is she repulsed by them. It is a wisdom rare among the mortals, and so Death appeals to her not to dissipate her strength for things that are small and petty. He says that she should not use her powers like wild Titan souls. Death speaks an appealing language, showing great respect for the strength and wisdom of Savitri. He tells her not to disturb the calm of established things. If she uses her strength to disturb the functioning of ancient laws, then there would be utter confusion. But Savitri is not taken in by these flattering words of Death and so she says to him:
What is the calm thou vauntst, O Law, O Death?47
She says what is this calm about which he seems to be boasting so much? If it is the calm of established law then surely such calm is only an expression of something inert and soulless. She tells Death:
Vain the soul's hope if changeless Law is all:
Ever to the new and the unknown press on
The speeding aeons justifying God.
What were earth's ages if the grey restraint
Were never broken and glories sprang not forth...?
Impose not upon sentient minds and hearts
The dull fixity that binds inanimate things.48
Here Savitri speaks of the fundamental urge pressing on the evolutionary stream. If changeless Law is everything then there is no hope for man. If the grey restraint of Law is not broken, how can the new glories spring forth? In Mutations, both biological and psychological, it is these grey restraints of Law that are broken. And it is only thus that new species can be born. The evolutionary movement can never be fully explained in terms of the changeless Law. They can explain variations, but for mutations they have no explanation in the framework of law. Savitri is concerned with spiritual mutation, not with a mere psychological variation. She says to Death:
I trample on thy law with living feet;
For to arise in freedom I was born.
If I am mighty let my force be unveiled
47Ibid. p. 651. 48Ibid, pp. 651 -52.
Page 458
Equal companion of the dateless powers,
Or else let my frustrated soul sink down
Unworthy of Godhead in the original sleep.49
Death is indeed overawed by these words, but still tries to hold his own ground, perhaps in vain. He says to Savitri:
Child, hast thou trodden the gods beneath thy feet
Only to win poor shreds of earthly life
For him thou lov'st cancelling the grand release,
Keeping from early rapture of the heavens
His soul the lenient deities have called?
Are thy arms sweeter than the courts of God?50
Savitri says to Death that since he has been praising her for her might he should realise that she would like her force to be fully unveiled and seen as an equal companion of the dateless powers. The "dateless powers" are indeed the powers of Death; for, death comes without any prior appointment. Listening to these words, Death tells Savitri why should she deprive her lover, Satyavan, from the joys of heaven? Is she going to use her powers for that, cancelling the grand release of Satyavan? And then Death taunts Savitri by putting the question: "Are thy arms sweeter than the courts of God?"51 He has placed a very awkward question before Savitri. Does Savitri regard herself as greater than God himself? How can Savitri say "Yes"? But how can Savitri also say "No"? If she says "Yes", then surely she makes God inferior to her, and if she says "No", then she should allow Satyavan to proceed to the courts of God where he will know the rapture of the heaven. Savitri is on the horns of a dilemma.
But Savitri had no hesitation in replying to Death. She said that she was following the path ordained by the Divine and that she was not deviating in the least from the line indicated by God. She said that perhaps Death did not know that God created man not in order that he may be a mere puppet, a toy, in the hand of the Creator. He created man so that he may become a collaborator with God. But for this man has to be completely free. So long as he is not free, he will be afraid of Death and become a mere plaything in the hands of Fate. It is only as a completely free individual that he can co-operate with God in the fulfilment of his great plan. Savitri
49Ibid. 50lbid, p. 652. 50Ibid.
Page 459
was working to claim this freedom for man. She had gone thus far, challenging Death, because her mission dictated to her that man's freedom depended upon his release from the clutches of Death. Death has denied freedom to man. Savitri says:
What liberty has the soul which feels not free
Unless stripped bare and cannot kiss the bonds
The Lover winds around his playmate's limbs,
Choosing his tyranny, crushed in his embrace?
To seize him better with her boundless heart
She accepts the limiting circle of his arms,
Bows full of bliss beneath his mastering hands
And laughs in his rich constraints, most bound, most free.
This is my answer to thy lures, O Death.52
Death had taunted Savitri by saying that, although she was so wise, she was frittering away her energies in protecting the demands of earthly love. Savitri refused to be lured by the flattery of Death. She says that she wanted to be free in the arms of Satyavan. She tells Death that in order "to seize him better with her boundless heart she accepts the limiting circle of his arms." She claims for man his right to love and to be loved. It is this fundamental right which Death attempts to take away. But Death tells Savitri:
However mighty, whatever thy secret name
Uttered in hidden conclave of the gods,
Thy heart's ephermeral passion cannot break
The iron rampart of accomplished things
With which the great Gods fence their camp in Space.
Whoever thou art behind thy human mask...
The cosmis Law is greater than thy will.
Even God himself obeys the Laws he made:
The Law abides and never can it change,
The Person is a bubble on Time's sea.53
There is a fundamental conflict in the approaches of Death and of Savitri. Death regards the Person as a mere bubble on the sea of Time, while Savitri regards the Person as a real entity, a traveller from the Timeless into the realms of Time. Death asks Savitri that, if she claims to know Truth, can she then communicate that Truth to him? He asks what is truth
52Ibid., p. 653. 53Ibid., p. 654.
Page 460
Amid the specious images of sense,
Amid the crowding guesses of the mind
And the dark ambiguities of a world
Peopled with the incertitudes of Thought?...
Truth has no home in earth's irrational breast:
Yet without reason life is a tangle of dreams,
But reason is poised above a dim abyss
And stands at last upon a plank of doubt.
Eternal truth lives not with mortal men.54
Death demolishes Savitri's claim to know Truth and to represent it here on earth. He says that reason after all stands only on the plank of doubt, and without reason man's life is a tangle of mere dreams. Again Death says that truth has no home in man's irrational breast. Thus he indicates that neither by reason nor by unreason can Truth be found. How can Savitri, a mere mortal, know about Truth. But if Savitri still claims to know Truth, then Death tells her:
Show me the body of the living Truth
Or draw for me the outline of her face
That I too may obey and worship her.
Then will I give thee back thy Satyavan.55
Death tells Savitri that if she can draw the outline of the face of Truth and show the body of living Truth, then he too will follow that Truth and give back to her Satyavan. Death has laid down an impossible demand; for, how can the body of living Truth be shown. Perhaps Death uses the term "living Truth" purposely; for, one can speak of the body of truth with reference to something that is crystallised and therefore dead. If Savitri is able to show the body of living Truth then Death is ready to follow it and even give back Satyavan to her. Death tells Savitri: "No magic truth can bring the dead to life, no power of earth cancel the thing once done." Once again he asks Savitri to leave the dead Satyavan and rearrange her life accepting that fact. Then Savitri replied; but, as she was speaking, her mortality disappeared and her Goddess self grew visible. She said:
O Death, thou too art God and yet not He,
But only his own black shadow on his path...
54 Ibid., pp. 654-55. 55 Ibid.
Page 461
All contraries are aspects of God's face.
The Many are the innumerable One,
The One carries the multitude in his breast...
Darkness below, a fathomless Light above...
Stand face to face, opposite, inseparable...
Two poles whose currents wake the immense World-Force.56
Savitri speaks to Death about the play of the opposites which underlies all movements in the manifested universe. There has to be collapse of logic before one can understand Truth as God himself. Truth and God are not two different things. Death wants to see the face of Truth, but he forgets that Truth defies Reason. By Reason one can never understand the secret of the Universal Drama which the Universe is. The One and the Many are not opposed to each other; for, as the poet says in the above lines: "The Many are the innumerable One." Savitri says to Death:
Our human words can only shadow her.
To thought she is an unthinkable rapture of light,
To speech a marvel inexpressible.
O Death, if thou couldst touch the Truth supreme
Thou wouldst grow suddenly wise and cease to be.57
If Death could touch the supreme Truth then he would cease to be — that is what Savitri assures him. She says here that Truth cannot be expressed in words nor can become a subject of thought. Truth has to be directly known and when this direct knowledge comes then the very ground on which Death stands gives way. But Death says that if Truth cannot be expressed, then how is a bridge to be constructed between the Unmanifest and the Manifest? Must this gulf remain unbridgable? If so, how can earth receive the blessing of heaven? Who will bring down the light of heaven on earth? Here now Death poses a direct question to Savitri. He says:
Is thine that strength, O beauty of mortal limbs,
O soul who flutterest to escape my net?
Who then art thou hiding in human guise?
Thy voice carries the sound of infinity,
Knowledge is with thee, Truth speaks through thy words
The light of things beyond shines in thy eyes.
But where is thy strength to conquer Time and Death?58
56 Ibid., pp. 656-57. 57 Ibid.,p.663. 58 Ibid.
Page 462
There is a challenge to Savitri in these words of Death. He says to her that while she has knowledge and light, where is her strength to conquer Death and Time? Without such strength of what use are Knowledge and Light? Death throws out a more powerful challenge when he addresses her thus:
Hast thou God's force to build heaven's values here?
For truth and knowledge are an idle gleam...
If Might comes not to give to Truth her right....
O human claimant to immortality,
Reveal thy power, lay bare thy spirit's force,
Then will I give back to thee Satyavan...
Let deathless eyes look into the eyes of Death...
Transform earth's death into immortal life.
Then can thy dead return to thee and live.59
As these words of Death were spoken Savitri, the poet says, looked on Death and answered not. Then a mighty transformation came in Savitri. The poet says:
A halo of the indwelling Deity,
The Immortal's lustre that had lit her face
And tented its radiance in her body's house...
In a flaming moment of apocalypse
The Incarnation thrust aside its veil.60
The transformation in Savitri was such that it was a flaming moment of apocalypse, meaning revelation. It was a supreme moment of revelation where the Incarnation threw aside her veil. Savitri came into her own as the incarnation of the Divine. All human beings are incarnations of the Divine — but we are unable to thrust aside the veil that hides this Divinity. Savitri threw aside the veil and a flaming moment of revelation came. The poet says, she was,
A little figure in infinity
Yet stood and seemed the Eternal's very house,
As if the world's centre was her very soul
And all wide space was but its outer robe.61
The poet says that such was the transformation that, through her, Eternity looked into the eyes of Death. There was a silence. Even Death must have stood stunned at this transformation of the mere
59 Ibid., pp. 664. 60 Ibid .
Page 463
mortal. Then the aweful silence was broken and a Voice was heard that seemed the low calm utterence of infinity. It said:
I hail thee almighty and victorious Death,
Thou grandiose Darkness of the Infinite...
Thou art my shadow and my instrument...
But now, O timeless Mightiness, stand aside
And leave the path of my incarnate Force.
Relieve the radiant god from thy black mask;
Release the soul of the world called Satyavan
Free from thy clutch of pain and ignorance
That he may stand master of life and fate,
Man's representative in the house of God,
The mate of Wisdom and the spouse of Light,
The eternal bridegroom of the eternal bride.62
But Death still put up a resistance, even though he knew that he had almost lost the game. As the poet says, "Death unconvinced resisted still, although he knew refusing still to know, although he saw refusing still to see," Even though Death knew that he was refusing to know, and still resisted. Surely there is none so blind as one who refuses to see. Death was utterly blind in his resistence. Seeing the game was lost, he made frantic efforts to call all his colleagues for help, but one by one these friends and associates relented, leaving Death all alone. The poet says:
He called to Night but she fell shuddering back,
He called to Hell but sullenly it retired:
He turned to the Inconscient for support,
From which he was bom, his vast sustaining self:
It drew him back towards boundless vacancy
As if by himself to swallow up himself:
He called to his strength, but it refused his call...
At last he knew defeat inevitable
And left crumbling the shape that he had worn,
Abandoning hope to make man's soul his prey
And force to be mortal the immortal spirit.63
The associates of Death are Night, Hell and Matter; but all these, realising the predicament in which Death was placed, deserted him. They refused to stand by him in his hour of great need. Death
62 Ibid, p. 666. 63Ibid.,p.667.
Page 464
disappeared and he took refuge in the retreating Night. Death was unable to stand the onslaught of the transformed Savitri. The Voice that had spoken had shaken him up. His frantic efforts to save himself had failed and none of his associates was willing to stand by him. And so taking shelter under the retreating Night, he vanished. The poet says:
The dire universal Shadow disappeared
Vanishing into the Void from which it came.
As if deprived of its original cause,
The twilight realm passed fading from their souls,
And Satyavan and Savitri were alone.64
With the disappearance of Death into the Void from where it had come, Satyavan and Savitri were left alone. No more was there the figure of Death to intervene. While the form of Death was not there, there was something else which still kept Satyavan and Savitri apart. The poet says that Satyavan and Savitri were alone,
But neither stirred: between those figures rose
A mute invisible and translucent wall.
In the long blank moment's pause nothing could move:
All waited on the unknown inscrutable Will.65
With the disappearance of Death, if Satyavan and Savitri were left alone, why could they not come together? What was it that separated them? The poet says: "A mute invisible and translucent wall" kept them apart even when Death had vanished. What was this wall and why did it not crumble when Death moved away? It has to be remembered that so far what has happened is the disappearance of Death in the moment of his defeat. His moving away in the hour of defeat created a long blank. It was a moment of blankness, not the moment of emptiness. In the blankness, the form of death had gone but his invisible presence was there. The blankness was haunted by this invisible presence of Death. And it was this haunting presence which created a wall so that neither Satyavan nor Savitri could stir. The defeat of Death is not sufficient; for, then he will make his presence felt invisibly. It is not the conquest of Death that will lead man to the realisation of his immortality. The invisible presence of defeated Death will still strike terror in the heart of man. By calling the hidden strength,
64 Ibid., p. 668. 65 Ibid.
Page 465
man may defeat Death and cause his form to disappear. But this does not free man from the fear of Death. Death must be transformed so that he becomes the friend to man, not a disguised foe. Until Death is transformed there is no freedom for man from the fear of Death. When Death is transformed then man can live with him even in the midst of his daily avocations. It is in such transformation that life and death can co-exist. And only in their co-existence, can one find the secret of life as well as death. Savitri's strength had defeated Death — but her Love must still create the miracle of Death's transformation. Only then can she go back to earth with Satyavan and together create a new world where man shall move as an immortal being.
ROHIT MEHTA
Page 466
Home
Disciples
R Y Deshpande
Books
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.