On Savitri
THEME/S
At the river's bend hope took a northward turn—
As if stumbling on a strange post of the night
Stars found a sudden way through emptiness;
Something glimmered to awaken a newer urge,
The spirit of things timeless and alone.
Gods were yet to be and the enormous hush
Held in its still incumbent mood of trance
Another surprise getting shaped by death.
Colours of wonder flew on rhythmic wings,—
And also came repeated pain in the heart.
But in rich green silence of the wood at noon
Stood Savitri to meet the blemished might.
9 April 2002
Page 3
Music streamed down from blue of the upper sky
And the hills and the lush fields and the choir birds
Bore its eager delight in earthly moments.
In emerald peace of that wilderness
Love came seeking her through hesitant ages:
A phoenix of flame-hued wings descending
Into death awaited her fiery greatness.
A joy of beauty bejewelled all her being
And her soul was a deep celebration
Of divinity in the strides of time;
Even her body recalled its godly longing.
This mortal world claimed its truth in her birth.
12 April 2002
Page 4
A king-yogi willed her rush in the earthly fields,
Bright waters of her divinising force.
From a homeland of the truth, the right, the vast
Down the gold-white rays descended the sun;
It quickened a splendid fire on the altar
Of fate, the elemental ignorance.
An ancient sacrifice released his soul
And in a swift lunge tearing nature's bond
Sped abroad horses of spirit's energies.
A vision grew wider than the universe
And the unknowable's script became distinct.
Aloof he climbed heaven's ascending slopes.
14 April 2002
Page 5
Concealed the spirit's immensities lie
And nature is all, nursing the age-old grief.
On life's tree time has built her nest of pain
And as the eternal's guard there stands death.
But her vision and work aim at heaven-fire
A-kindled in this half-lit terrestrial day.
An invisible presence prompts her movements
Even as in the mute trance of matter
Through dimness of her eyes looks out the sun.
Slowly the discoverer voyages on seas
Reaching calm waters across the cosmic shores
Where under the horned moon is adrift his barge.
19 April 2002
Nest of Pain: Keats
Page 6
In the murky cave awoke the god of sleep
Who builds in trance the starry worlds of dream,
And Aswapati understood their meaning
And the spiritual sense in material things,
Grasped the will that works behind halting fate.
A Ganges of knowledge poured down from above
Flooding his mortality with supernal light.
In the listening depth of his heart he heard
Sounds that lead movements of the heavenly spheres,
Voices that disclose the cosmic secrecies.
He entered into wide excellent realms
And lived in the day of the undying spirit.
21 April 2002
Page 7
Fourteen sounds came from Shiva's rattle-drum,
Fourteen waves surged on the ocean of calm;
Fourteen desires gathered in the world's desire.
From materials of these many worlds
Was formed this earth, darling of the dancer.
Angels, demons, gods of the great spirit
Took their stations up the viewless ladder
And poured their bounties on this little soul.
But haunted was she by a grisly shade
And Aswapati to redeem her woe
Sought a power beyond the afflicter's reach.
The seer within set him on the upward route.
23 April 2002
Page 8
First he entered the world of exquisite matter
That could beauty house and all its sweetness
And bring unflawed wonder to time-made things.
A quiet flame burned in the gold lamp of joy
And filled room and room with the light of its truth.
But then came mind and fragmented the dream;
A wave dashed on the hoary rock of night
And in its spume and spray dimly glistened
A million planktons of the vague early form,
And only lingered a fading memory.
Of yore there lived the atomic being alone,
Preparing the body of a deathless god.
25 April 2002
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Heavenly queen wore flowing purple dresses
In the sky and drove her car of adventure
On roads of swift brightsome mood. Sun nor moon
Nor countless stars of the unbounded world
Drew limits to life's zestful vineyard song.
Eagle-winged flying over the viewless Everest
Or a worm crawling on the Pacific's floor,
Is her spirit hazardously valiant.
No wonder, in her amaranthine craze
She hailed death and took him for her husband.
Out of that wedlock were born grim children,
But Aswapati discerned there another will.
28 April 2002
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Earth's thick shadow swallowed the bold angel
And in that occult mystery began
The quizzical march; the eclipsed moon of joy
Explored the emptiness with its blind regard,
Compelling yet the desert of the universe
To feel and flower in the laughter of god.
Soon out of dull matter's crevices hissed
Someone and from its terrifying fangs
Poured quick poison on the Cleopatran breast.
Yet she adventured into the Jurassic
And gave early thought to the Neanderthal.
A sense that suffered triple gloom was now here.
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Crossing the destinies of sorrows and of joys
Child of jagat-shakti, the maimed goddess
Bore children in whom burned no gracious flame.
Soulless creatures lived feeding on slush
Or relished frog-liver cooked in cruelty
And, croaking throughout the night, hungered for more.
At times 'neath the life-mind squirmed a trepid ray
And looked at things with squinting scarlet eyes;
At times some ghost of thought rushed quickly by
Or the animal leaped to seize on wisdom's word.
Yet from elsewhere awareness must come
And bring gain to the godheads of little life.
30 April 2002
Jagat-Shakti: World-Force
Page 12
Led by his spirit's promptings Aswapati
Reached the rainbow land where in colourful haste
The celestial artist created wonders.
Life sang golden reality's nether song
And a miracle was wrought in matter's womb.
Thus alone would it suffer the pregnant change,
The rock-image of Shiva beget offspring.
But presently all saw just a faint gleam
In the brute stuff wherein lies imprisoned
The idea that gives meaning to our lives,
As if failed the intention which bore truth.
A power that denied grace held her in sway.
2 May 2002
Page 13
Another reality the spirit met.
A dark river flowed 'neath the currents of time
And swam gargantuan fish swallowing
Gargantuan fish, god's shadow only god.
On its grimy bank a citadel was built
And a fierce scarecrow shouted through the night.
In it stayed the fatal woman wearing
As a forehead mark destiny's black sun.
From the dreadfulness of her nixie past
Peered eyes that deepened the mystery of hell
Even as she proclaimed the Tao of evil.
But in that cave too Aswapati saw Vishnu.
4 May 2002
Page 14
In dismal river was born the tadpole ego
Who claimed forthwith the universe for its use
And brought falsehood to run the enterprise,
And hired a serpent to guard the sleeping treasure.
Soon in countless numbers burned these dark stars
Working out in the ways of night the fate
Ruinous of this creation, soul's quick downfall.
The terrible adventuress grew hostile
And gave to the interminable nothing
A chance to win divinity,—through death.
Then in the rocky insensate trance was heard
Wing-flap of birds and chime of distant bells.
5 May 2002
Page 15
If darkness gave to her a grimacing face,
Under the flowering acacia life was sweet,
A bloom of happiness in god's smiling grove.
Music trailed in the cadence of the stream
And the note of love gave wings to the singing bird,
King and queen strolled in the moonlit garden,
As if by a magic wand came a new world
Into birth to heal the wounds of the past.
A warm air urged the traveller on his way,
The chariot wheels setting into motion
Swift rhythms that trace the orbits for the suns.
In its rush a fiery wonder filled his soul.
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Could it be that a great thought made the world,
Light plunged in the night and became fortunate stars
And life awoke feelings in the dumb mass
And the blue-tinged brain found its reason to be?
A thinking ape was not an accident
And the braying mind was not without design
And never was the atom elemental.
Yet was implanted denial in the dna
And a swift-footed pride in the forest raged
And a serene mistress read nature's tomes.
Still from the invisible fount of wisdom
Poured sudden truths that bring vision to our sight.
7 May 2002
Page 17
Ascending the slopes of mind Aswapati
Now stepped into a world of sapphire thought
That looks at unborn luminous ideas
Knowing themselves which live in spirit alone.
Needless here were reason's heavy glasses
And broadened the vista unto the unseen.
Magic word was a key for truth's locked cave
And numbers and forms became visible links
And doors of awareness led to Platonic gold.
So could he walk in eminence of these realms
And bright immortalities freely breathe.
Yet truth like sun is vaster than all its flames.
8 May 2002
Page 18
Mountains of time climbed towards timeless peaks
And god's felicities flamed high in god.
It was a silent chant, a pilgrim march
Of the petite who saw marvellous worlds
And soared in the calm of creation's joy.
The aspiring soul of earth breathed wonders
And the truth that answers made it beauteous.
In splendid will of the spirit was lit
A fire that gives to mortals seerhood
And raises the sacrifice to heaven.
A leader has arrived, friendly knower,
And he shall escort us on the shining path.
9 May 2002
Page 19
What of victory drums, what of the grieving heart?
Armies of Hitler set the world on fire,
Maniacs of time destroy the towers of pride,
And what of the river-song through luxuriant fields,
Of Sistine Chapel and the caves of Ajanta?
Aloof and untouched watches the witness eye,
Else consents to the whims in nature's play.
Passive has become the thinker, listless the thought,
And the Vedantist himself an illusion,
Gods, creatures, imperious death but shadows.
The will to be disappeared in that calm
And remained the mute alone and self-absorbed.
10 May 2002
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Shadows of night turned into splendours of god
And a delicate fragrance filled the air
And in the etheric hush surged forth sounds
That speak of the truer infinity's urgings;
The calm pace of the yogin-traveller
Took him to the temple-palace of Sophia,
Self-luminous and divine, creation's heart.
His will burned in the will of the bright goddess,
The builder of the worlds to build a new world.
Her almighty power he must house in his soul's deep —
Not for himself but to change the lot of man,
Bring immortal happiness to this deathful life.
11 May 2002
The World-Soul:
Gnostic Sophia
Goddess of Wisdom
Apocalyptic Virgin
Theotakos—Mother of God
The Divine Feminine
Swayamprabhā of the Ramayana
Page 21
Then Brahma engaged himself in gold-bright tapas
And the directions were born and the word
And out of the truth-idea, the splendid womb
Sprang readily seven rhythms of creation
And the great rishis took radiant daughters
For their spouses and in their rich company
Held sessions of the undying triple fire,
Made offerings of the earth, the mid-region
And, when had set the sun, the blazing heaven.
And Aswapati partook in the hearth
And the table of the gods. His body-mind
Opened to things that are to come to time.
12 May 2002
Tapas: Intense spiritual concentration; the Yoga of the Will.
Triple Fire:
Householder's Fire, grāhapatya, morning offering, earth;
Ancestor's Fire, dakṣhina, midday offering, mid-world or antariksha;
Fire of the Gods, āhavanīya, evening offering, heaven.
Sun-Lightning-Agni.
Hearth and Table of the Gods:
At the top of the human scale are the prophets, the minstrels and the physicians; their next step upward is to the divine, sharing the hearth and the table of the gods.—Empedocles.
Body-Mind: tanū-manas.
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Into luminous emptiness he entered
And even the world's yearning which he carried
In his high-intended Odyssey disappeared.
A potent universe without galaxies,
Without streams, mountains, beasts or birds or men
Withheld in its formlessness the epiphanic.
Behind sachchidaananda was the quiescent
And what remained was nirvana of the absolute,
The austere apocalyptic alone.
Yet must be known that power whose enigma
Gives meaning and content to things of the world.
His spirit's will pursued the unknowable.
13 May 2002
Sachchidānanda: Truth-Consciousness-Bliss
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Then was abolished the eternal nay
And only the forceful positive stood there,
The fire that gives fire to a million fires.
Immortal death worked with the heart of love
And ignorance was a bright page in the book
Om Chidrūpinī Paramā, her name.
Sons of divinity hymned her glories
And offered to her onyxes and diamonds
And epic conquests of nobility
And real-ideas of distinction,
Found in her the secret of the Veda.
14 May 2002
Om Chidrūpiṇī Paramā:
Om, she whose form is consciousness, supreme.
Page 24
But the heavy past weighing on the soul of the earth
He must offer to the flames of sacrifice,
Of nature and gods, kindled in the new divine.
Here was the beginningless beginning
And the endless end, here the unmoved mover.
Here flamed his will in trance of luminous sleep
And was formed the world celebrating truth
Immortal even in things material.
Thus broke out the yoga's paean supreme.
The stork of paradise brought the news of a birth
Waiting for voiceless omniscience to speak.
Opened were freeways for haste of the daughter.
15 May 2002
Page 25
Even as Aswapati invoked Savitri
With many-leaping flames in the radiant sky
Rained over his tapas resplendent waters.
The dreams of earth excelled in their rapid flow
And the auspicious hour validated the world.
True, the gods enter not this den of night
And the dark-hued sphinx slays the soul of man
And time is haunted by the ghost of death;
But if life is to discover love's immensity
And sunbright children are to be born in these bounds,
She must take our mortal birth and alter fate.
The word was spoken and the new era began.
16 May 2002
Savitri:
In the story by Vyasa as we have in the Mahabharata, the issueless king Aswapati offers daily a hundred-thousand oblations to Goddess Savitri. He performs the Yajna for eighteen years.
Page 26
Year is the body and Savitri was born.
Gods and goddesses gave her heavenly gifts,
The moon of delight, the sword of triumph,
The golden heart of love, the mind of light,
The physical plastic to the touch of truth,
The spirit making the moulds of time immortal.
Even as a child she would visit the stars
Or dream of a city waking to wide days.
Already the earth's longings took bright wings,
Already the ancient promises became good,
Already the faultless charm drew closer the worlds.
Her presence attracted great divinities.
17 May 2002
Page 27
The young princess grew phase by phase, the moon,
And the roundsome digit gladdened beauty's sky.
In her dreamful slumber and in her bright waking
The wheels of time speeded on a jewelled path
And life became a journey led by love.
She could hold in her happy embrace the whole world
And pour the wine of rapture in human heart;
But the frail vessel shudders with its joy.
High the eagle of her flaming youth ever flew,
Above wind and cloud unmatched and alone.
No earth-soul could reach her splendour's winging,
No Aryan prince claim her hand in marriage.
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In the royalty of hush sometimes descends
The word that can forever change destiny
And bring good even to death's circumstance:
Eternity's moment arrives on white wings
And a cry is stirred in quiet of the soul;
Something surges from the creation's silence
And to flute-call awakes the beloved's heart.
From the world of immortality she had come
Not to fly a lonely flight in heavens
Of joy but into life's rough countries to dare.
Far in the forest on an emerald bough
Awaits the gold-bright orange-hued doomed bird.
18 May 2002
Page 29
Her future's course ran through the karmic past
And the chariot-wheels recalled the dim tracks
Of memory as if to claim godheads
Who drive the speeds of nature across birth
And birth when silent watches the alert eye.
No human escort led the events of time,
But love seated in the heart of Savitri
Spurred the toiling energies towards their goal.
She heard the sounds of the Veda chanted
In the ear and sight opened the soul's doors
And infinity's calm reposed in her bosom.
Golden solitude stood waiting for the hour.
19 May 2002
Page 30
Mango-blossoms burst in the yellow's richness
And the air was filled with delicate fragrance
And the distant coil sang a welcome song.
Far were left behind the kings' palaces
And the rivers threading proud cities of time
And the gods dwelling in luminous shrines
And meditation's groves awake to the spirit.
She now reached a place where absent was life's buzz
And mind needed not the tracks of thought to run.
There close to Shiva's fane came seeking her
The flame of love in a body of death
And blazed in a sudden moment the idol.
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Through the Shalwa tapovanas as she moved
In the lotus of her heart opened a pink sun,
Splendid in the summer of eternity.
Though born in transient world his tranquil gaze
Was a look of the spirit winning nature's joys
And his dawns were the gifts of her wisdom.
The one whom she met in the sudden forest
Gave bright deservance to the dreams of her life—
Even as he discovered the charmed moon
Of beauty in the chariot of his delight.
Gods and goddesses gathered in the sky
And calm was heard the chiming of happy bells.
20 May 2002
tapovanas: the forests where the ancient rishis were engaged in tapas, the spiritual austerities and sacrifices.
Chariot of Delight: chandraratha of the Rig Veda.
Page 32
God's Savitri and goddess's Satyavan
Courted the green fields of life together.
If love urged her divinity to step out
And spread beauty's spell over his mortal soul,
The beloved brought a skyful of sweetness
And healed his wounds, of cleaved matter and spirit.
Beings of glad worlds thronged the forest grove
And flocks of birds came from the hilltops
And dimpling waters ran with murmuring notes
And wild flowers scattered their joy in the air
And doe and buck pranced in blithesome grass
And priests of nature chanted the marriage hymn.
21 May 2002
Page 33
But a black tiger stood on the stealthy way
And Narad saw him from his home in Vaikunttha
And hastened that be known to Savitri
Year is the body and Satyavan,
When fly away twelve birds of time, shall die.
In the earthly soil was cast the occult seed,
An imponderable wonderful, bright.
No human mind would comprehend its working,
No heart's passion halt the advancing doom,
And truer yet became Savitri's resolve.
If love came from the old creation to die
The new shall take birth in the glory of death.
Vaikunttha: The Heaven of Vishnu
Page 34
Falsehood is the sorrow of the supreme
And not for nothing was this creation made
And not for failure the sacrifice performed.
Not this world but pain is deep illusion
And when the price is paid it turns into joy.
But only the great in soul can bear its stroke
And walk through death as through door of the sun.
Savitri must wage the battle for god
And meet the stark force in the flame of her will.
Her way to the high runs through the bosom of night
And when is kindled the fire in trance of sleep
She can house victory's power and the challenge face.
22 May 2002
It is as though the battle of the world was being fought within my consciousness. (The Mother, Notes on the Way, 25 October 1972, CWM, Vol. 11, p. 323)
Page 35
The shadow of bliss now fell on Savitri.
In the trance of awesome night when together
Her moon of honey was chased by a poison cloud
And the owl of fear hooted in the sobbing heart
And reached to console her voice of no helpful god.
Not forbidding dream but unspeaking silence
Appeared to make the year harsher than grief.
The flame that had come with her from the calm sky
Trembled in the storm-wind raging in the forest
And instantly marked destiny drew nearer yet.
In the embrace of Satyavan and Savitri
Laughed death deriding this life's hollowness.
23 May 2002
Page 36
Savitri lay prone with sorrowing spirit,
But the greatness who watches all her movements
Commanded her to awake to her soul's truth
And gather in it the defeatless power
And, crossing the gate of death, meet the eternal.
First in subconscient plunge the shadowy past
Unfolded to her sight the obscure worlds,
The wounding stone, the hungry beast, the ape-mind
Leaping from tree to dangerous tree of thought.
Somewhere lived deep buried the issue of nature
Finding in subterranean dark its food.
This she must consume in her shakti yajna.
24 May 2002
Shakti Yajna: The sacrifice performed to get power.
Page 37
From the body's guarded fort Savitri stepped
Into a bleak room that housed ghastly beings,
Pythonesses and she-wolves ever waiting
To tear the soul of man, kill it with untruth,
Night-ravens crying on the path to perdition.
But she braved the assault and breathed freer air.
Past the dim chapels, past the garden schools,
The viharas of monks, the adwaitins' mathas,
She met en route to the cave where dwells the flame
Brilliant gods helping with their light our lives,
Bringing to wakened sense things of the spirit.
But she yearned for the birth of the child divine.
25 May 2002
vihāras and maṭhas are lonely cloisters of the respective ascetics.
Page 388
Now the little boroughs of dream were left behind
And she came to a place where toil consorts
Nature that body and life and mind's self
Open to the supraliminal powers.
Portions of the secret soul of Savitri,
Unwearied, and conquering, and tranquil-bright,
They bring profounder gods to struggling earth.
But what if the antagonists raise their heads,
Or take up arms against the descending sea!
She must discover in the fullness of night
A flame that can hold deathless might in its blaze.
26 May 2002
Triple Purusha: instinctive, impulsive and emotional-intellectual being presiding over the actions of the three nature-powers: compassionate toiler and warrior on the battlefield and luminous in wisdom, full of Karuna, Jnana-Prem-Ananda, Prakash-Harsha-Shanti.
Page 39
Now the way must cut through brahmāndhāra
And Savitri meet god in a godless form.
By whatever it may be known or perceived
That ceases in the genuine night, the sacred void,
And only remains the will that cancels
The burden of death present in the mortal's breast.
Above all stood the wonder of the triple sun,
Bliss and consciousness and absolute truth.
Suddenly the cave opened and she saw
The primal force seated on the topaz rock
And heard seven great notes; flooded her the sound
Occult soham ̣- om ̣- ham ̣- yam ̣- ram ̣- vam ̣- lam.̣
Brahmāndhāra: Darkness of Brahma or the Great Night, the Night of God; Dryden's is genuine night full of idiocy and ignorance.
soham,̣ om,̣ ham,̣ yam,̣ ram,̣ vam,̣ lam ̣are the seven sounds that come from the seven Chakras, from above below, in the subtle-physical. The seven musical notes sā, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, nī or do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, have their origin in these centres rising from below above.
Page 40
The lamp of her soul burned in a fruitful darkness
Where quiet void became a means to dissolve
The inherent issue of first mortality
Carrying yet in its backward-moving will
The mystery of this creation's godlessness.
So her luggage of time she left behind
To bring to it the treasures of the true,
To thought plenitudes of the silent spirit.
And in the siddhi of nature's dissolution
She joined back with the origin, love alone.
Then the form behind the impersonal grew bright.
27 May 2002
siddhi: a settled spiritual realisation
She joined back with the Origin:
The Mother's experience of 1 October 1958
Agenda, Vol. 1, pp. 198, 202-03.
Page 41
But perhaps she would have slipped into that peace,
Forgetting the world, forgetting her Satyavan.
To the danger awoke the spirit of the earth earth
And it took awhile for Savitri to be.
Now light in the water and the smooth pebbles
Glistening with the sense of fairer life breathed joy
And the rishis of the forest suddenly felt
A new divinity invading them,
And stood creation's reality distinct.
A chant of the name filled her body's cells
And in it joined countless aspiring voices.
In matter's heart was blown the conch of triumph.
28 May 2002
Page 42
The sky was crowded with a throng of gods
And golden Durga with sword in her hand
Guarded the kingly tree since the early dawn
And Satyavan and Savitri moved in the peace
Of that rich forest, destiny's rendezvous.
Year is the body and Satyavan must die
And three great times he uttered the mantric name.
The noon was filled with the creator's shadow
And the still river watched the motionless crane,
As if eternity had come to its end.
In the campanile of death tolled the hour
And no more was there Savitri's Satyavan.
30 May 2002
Page 43
The luminous flame left the clay-lamp behind
And, impelled by the path, walked into the night.
Now the old man with his chill pitiless look
Determined the movement of the captive poor,
Helpless mortality yielding to the fear
Terrible, the keeper of the souls of the dead.
But someone assumed charge of human Savitri
And she gathered within the strength that puts out death
And took courage to follow the god to the end.
In the oceanic surge of her silent will
Rested the exultant power that can save
The world from the fate of collapsing time.
31 May 2002
Page 44
Enraged by her firm intruding tread the person
Of the abyss swung back, as though agonised
The night grew more dreadful in her terror.
Nothing seemed meaningless and a graver aim
Sustained its might against the spirit's assault.
Imperious the voice bade her to return—
With boons in his bosom the deceased held dear.
But Savitri steadfast in the truth of her soul
Was alert to the reality of the world.
What boons these if earth remains ever death-bound!
From flames of the pyre must rise the birds of joy
And awakened dawns bring to life their love.
1 June 2002
Page 45
If death were not there life would disappear,
Even as would sweetness when absent is spite.
The abiding ender of the worlds must work
And uphold the marvellous claim of the soul,
Or else our superficial mortality
Never would suffer change and the dream-ideal
Find not a place to live in god's vastnesses.
Hence Satyavan through countless martyrdoms
Must advance and do well on the occult way.
But like a volcano burning upside down
A will lived in the mystery of the night
And saw the charming that can be true on earth.
2 June 2002
Page 46
Things of beauty were there in death's dream world
And all around prince Satyavan cast a spell
Of joy and honeyed life breathed fragrant truths.
But hope flounders on the rock of darkness
And a helpless phantom screams in the cloud
And incarnate gods depart in agony
And vain is the yearning to change this doleful earth,
An illusion to see love in the mortal's breast.
What mind if the horses of passion it reins not,
And what soul if it blooms not on the tree of time?
But Savitri let stream from her heart music,
Not dream but a roaring fire of happiness.
Page 47
Is it not ananda that flows in a stream?
And ananda that surges in the calm ocean,
A wave of ananda on the waters of ananda,
And the boat of ananda and the winds of ananda,
The nest of ananda on the tree of ananda,
Ananda of death and ananda in death,
At the base, in the middle, on the summit
Ananda, ananda, all ananda!
O death to fill great life with ananda!
But victory in life wins not great death
And a nobler sacrifice must be kindled
And the supreme with his flaming spouse preside.
3 June 2002
Ananda: The highest creative Bliss founded on Reality.
The Mother speaks of life only without death as a blind attempt:
Agenda, Vol. 6, pp. 235-37.
Page 48
But existential death armed with law
Respects not cloying lyricism of delight
And scoffs at wisdom that is not held by strength.
Golden paradise on earth is a dream
Paradisal and Savitri is naïve
That nature and spirit would consort here,
As if the truth-gods harboured an illusion
That the great sun would burn in body's house.
Adamant the dreadful will of darkness stood,
Dismissing hope of the mortal's return to life.
But the flaming woman on battleground
Took charge of god's work and fled the denial.
4 June 2002
Page 49
The embodied nihil fled—only to appear
As the tempter divine behind the void,
The new gate through which Savitri forced the way
To claim Satyavan in the world of her choice,
The world of men and matter and joyous things.
Far behind were left the original creations
And in the tremendous hour of reality
She made her will one with the supreme's will
And in the luminous hush of her heart
Exultant rose truth-word of the topaz sky.
Then hurried the glad hymn of sweetness and love
And resplendent awoke the soul of earth to the sun.
5 June 2002
Page 50
Happy life rushed in bird and beast and tree
And through dreaming quietude ran swift joys of men
And the rishis in the forest felt a change,
As though the past had vanished into fire
Of the yajna kindled to make wide the world.
Satyavan and Savitri tended the flames,
Flames whose tongues can bear expression of the true,
Hold in their leaping zest newborn greatnesses.
Moon-lotuses bloomed for the crimson bright
And Soma and Indra and Agni and Vayu
Came in their auspicious forms to celebrate
The birth of Savitr ̣in this creation.
savitr ̣: The Sun-God.
Sri Aurobindo's Gayatri:
tat savitur varam rūpam jyotih ̣ parasya dhīmahi
yannah ̣satyena dīpayet.
Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitri,
the Light of the Supreme
which shall illumine us with the Truth.
Page 51
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