Summary or A Brief Restatement:

            This Book-1, Canto-1 has much Spiritual importance as the content of the whole book is compressed in this single Canto. The Canto begins with the message from the beginning of this earth which is also ‘the hour before the Gods awake’ (Savitri-1) and ends with the message of the future earth when Satyavan will conquer physical death and this is also the day which is decreed for Satyavan’s death. The time spent from the beginning of creation to the end of creation, which is known as All Time, and the life spent through the subtle links of the union from the beginning of creation to the end of creation, known here as All Life; Savitri gathered and accumulated her Spiritual energy through all life and all Time which is symbolized here as ‘Twelve swift-winged months’ (Savitri-431) and ‘this day returning Satyavan must die.’  (Savitri-431)          

            The whole of Savitri is written from a plane of cosmic Consciousness ("The calm delight that weds one soul to all," Savitri-6) where 'All grew a consecration and a rite' (Savitri-4) and all the ten subtle planes meet each other linking earth and heaven. So this book gives us a lesson to learn 'the adventure of consciousness' (Savitri-2) and removes the gulf created between ten Selves and ten sheaths and the persistent slow dynamic Divine energy 'Persuaded the inert black quietude' (Savitri-3) to transform Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths.

            This Canto gives the foreknowledge of the advent of 'a marvellous birth' (Savitri-5) of feminine Avatar which is 'A Form from far beatitudes' (Savitri-4) of Sachchidananda plane. Her Presence and Power are 'Too perfect to be held by death-bound hearts.' (Savitri-5) Her immortal work is 'to confront death on her road.' (Savitri-7) Even in the hour of grim meeting with death and fear, 'No cry broke from her lips, no call for aid;...Calm was her face and courage kept her mute.'  (Savitri-8) 'Her spirit opened to the Spirit in all...The universal Mother's love was hers.' (Savitri-8)

            All the descriptions in this book are in symbolic language meant for undergoing Spiritual experiences. If we confine these symbols to literal and earthly meaning, it will be a  Spiritual blunder that may culminate in 'the oblivion that succeeds the' (Savitri-3) Spiritual fall. ​ The Soul saving non-escapist truth revealed in Savitri is disturbing to the ordinary mind, liberated Souls, later Vedantist, Illusionist and Nirvanist. Hence, the Spiritual Message of Savitri is for strong and pure Souls who are destined to reconcile Spirit and Matter  of ancient Vedantic doctrine.

OM TAT SAT 

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Immobile in herself, she gathered force. (Savitri utilized time and space exclusively for the accumulation of Spiritual energy.)

This was the day when Satyavan must die.” Savitri-10 

 

Summary or A Brief Restatement:

             This Canto makes us aware of 'An absolute supernatural darkness' that visits the Soul of man while he moves toward God. This evil fate or doom is the child of the past negative energies and the accumulated Soul Force through sadhana, can travel back in time, and illumine the past obscurities and events. Thus, through each Divine intervention, the destiny is rewritten. Savitri is here the symbol of Spirit's Timeless dynamic Power, Paraprakriti, who 'Can lift the yoke imposed by birth in Time.' The issue is also, to exhaust 'An old account of suffering' (Savitri-13) and to arrest the wheels of earth’s "Doom this greatness rose.” (Savitri-19) Heaven protected Savitri’s virginity through her pure and dense subtle physical sheath which acted as a 'tranquil shield.' (Savitri-16) “To wrestle with the Shadow she had come” (Savitri-17) “Was her soul's issue thrown with Destiny's dice.” (Savitri-17) Soul and Nature are the dice players. Nature always meets life with Doom. To win the game in all life is the Soul’s issue which 'with her nude spirit measure the Infinite’s night.' (Savitri-13) In this play Soul has to accumulate extreme Spiritual force in the form of 'self's bare reality' (Savitri-14) or 'the superman casts its seed' (Savitri-19) to become mightier than all the material forces of the world and wrestles with them to compel its own transfiguration. 

            This Canto also hints that Savitri had attained universalised Consciousness or 'The great World-Mother now in her arose.' (Savitri-21) This empowers her to open 'the door denied and closed' (Savitri-21) of dark Subconscient and Inconscient sheath and dislodges the past which acts as a block in her immortal journey. This activation of dynamic cosmic Consciousness 'reversed fate's cold dead turn' (Savitri-21) and bursts the bound nature of three Gunas of limited exclusive concentration and opens the door of triple time.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

"Her will must cancel her body’s destiny.

For only the unborn spirit’s timeless power

Can lift the yoke imposed by birth in Time." Savitri-12

"The fixity of the cosmic sequences

Fastened with hidden inevitable links

She must disrupt, dislodge by her soul’s force

Her past, a block on the Immortal’s road,

Make a rased ground and shape anew her fate." Savitri-12

“Whether to bear with Ignorance and death
Or hew the ways of Immortality,
To win or lose the godlike game for man,
Was her soul's issue thrown with Destiny's dice.
But not to submit and suffer was she born;
To lead, to deliver was her glorious part.” Savitri-17

“If once it (earth) met the intense original Flame,

An answering touch might shatter all measures made

And earth sink down with the weight of the Infinite.” Savitri-18

 

​

​

A Brief Restatement:          

            Now this Book-1, Canto-3 is the most important Canto for the beginners of integral Yoga. Here it hints how through King Aswapati’s movement of Consciousness, ten energy centres or ten Selves opened and their corresponding action in the respective ten Sheaths, here known as ‘all Nature.’

The opening of ten Selves and Their influence on ten sheaths:

"A heavenlier function with a finer mode

Lit with its grace man’s outward earthliness;

The soul’s experience of its deeper sheaths

No more slept drugged by Matter’s dominance." Savitri-27

Inconscient Self:

"As a sculptor chisels a deity out of stone

He slowly chipped off the dark envelope,

Line of defence of Nature’s ignorance,

The illusion and mystery of the Inconscient

In whose black pall the Eternal (in the form of Inconscient Self) wraps his head

That he may act unknown in cosmic Time.” (the discovery of Inconscient Self) Savitri-36

Subconscient Self:

"A treasure was found of a supernal Day.

In the deep subconscient glowed her jewel-lamp;

Lifted, it showed the riches of the Cave

Where, by the miser traffickers of sense

Unused, guarded beneath Night’s dragon paws,

In folds of velvet darkness they sleep

Whose priceless value could have saved the world.” (the discovery of Subconscient Self) Savitri-42

True Physical Self:

"Even his body’s subtle self within

Could raise the earthly parts towards higher things

And feel on it the breath of heavenlier air." Savitri-43

True Vital Self:

"A deeper interpretation greatened Truth,

A grand reversal of the Night and Day;

All the world’s values changed heightening life’s aim;

A wiser word, a larger thought came in

Than what the slow labour of human mind can bring,

A secret sense awoke that could perceive

A Presence and a Greatness everywhere." Savitri-42

True Mental Self:

“Apart he lived in his mind’s solitude,

 A demigod shaping the lives of men:

One soul’s ambition lifted up the race;

A Power worked, but none knew whence it came." Savitri-44

Psychic Self:

"His soul breaks out to join the Oversoul,

His life is oceaned by that superlife." Savitri-24

Spiritual Self:

"A beam of the Eternal smites his heart,

His thought stretches into infinitude;

All in him turns to spirit vastnesses." Savitri-23-24

Universal Self:

"He has drunk from the breasts of the Mother of the worlds;

A topless Supernature fills his frame:

She adopts his spirit’s everlasting ground

As the security of her changing world

And shapes the figure of her unborn mights." Savitri-24

Supramental Self:

“Inspired by silence and the closed eyes' sight (Supramental action of King Aswapati)

His force could work with a new luminous art

On the crude material from which all is made

And the refusal of Inertia's mass

And the grey front of the world's Ignorance

And nescient Matter and the huge error of life." Savitri-36

Bliss Self:

"A glory and a rapture and a charm,

The All-Blissful sat unknown within the heart;

Earth’s pains were the ransom of its prisoned delight.

A glad communion tinged the passing hours;

The days were travellers on a destined road,

The nights companions of his musing spirit." Savitri-43

 

            This movement of Consciousness is complex in Nature and for our understanding purpose, we have simplified it. This is made on the basis of our study and understanding of ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’ book. First, by practising any of the triple Yoga, the Spiritual being opens and by the pressure of  static Spirit or ascent of the Spirit, the universal Self, Supramental Self and Bliss Self open. By the pressure of dynamic Spirit, the Psychic being, and triple Selves of true Physical, true Vital and true Mental being open. By the pressure of the Supramental Self, the Subconscient and Inconscient Selves open. Thus the movement of consciousness undulates between the Inconscient and Bliss plane. Through these movements, the ten Sheaths are purified, transformed, enlarged and perfected. The Gita hints movement of Consciousness from Kshara (Psychic) Purusha to Akshara (Spiritual) Purusha or from waking trance to non-waking trance which substitutes the movements of consciousness between three gunas. Then after a long movement between the Psychic and Spiritual plane, one is considered fit to open the Supramental Self or Purshottama. This triple movement of Consciousness hinted in the Gita is extensively developed in integral Yoga as movement between ten Selves and their ten Sheaths. Now in other Cantos, we will experience King Aswapati’s extensive movement in different planes of Consciousness.

            For a higher Spiritual life, this Canto insists on calling down more and more silence, peace and calmness and to maintain equality in all circumstances and in all happenings. By maintaining these conditions, Consciousness can best experience its vertical movement by replacing the earlier circular and arrested movements of three gunas.

OM TAT SAT

The Important Secret of this chapter: (Discovery of Spiritual being and Universal Being)

“Each action left the footprints of a god,” Savitri-23 

“A spirit that is a flame of God abides,
A fiery portion of the Wonderful,
Artist of his own beauty and delight,
Immortal in our mortal poverty.” Savitri-23
“As so he grew into his larger self,” Savitri-26 (Cosmic Self)

“He neared the still consciousness sustaining all.” Savitri-32

“He comes unseen into our darker parts

And, curtained by the darkness, does his work,

A subtle and all-knowing guest and guide,

Till they too feel the need and will to change.

All here must learn to obey a higher law,

Our body’s cells must hold the Immortal’s flame." Savitri-35

"At last was won a firm spiritual poise,
A constant lodging in the Eternal's realm,
A safety in the Silence and the Ray,
A settlement in the Immutable. “ Savitri-36 (King Aswapati’s realisation of Spiritual Being, Akshara Purusha)

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            Here the Secret Knowledge is divided into five parts.

First part: This Canto hints that when we are unconscious and feel ourselves stagnant, there are parts of being that grow towards the Divine during that period. There is much hope here for the beginners of Yoga which is identified as the first secret of Sadhana.  

“Even when we fail to look into our souls

Or lie embedded in earthly consciousness,

Still have we parts that grow towards the light,

Yet are there luminous tracts and heavens serene

And Eldorados of splendour and ecstasy

And temples to the godhead none can see.” Savitri-46-47

            When we live in darkness and our tamasic mind is the only lamp in that obscure field, there too, the Truth-Light enters like a thief and its charm and sweetness open many closed doors of our life. About this mystery we must be aware and open:

"When darkness deepens strangling the earth’s breast

And man’s corporeal mind is the only lamp,

As a thief’s in the night shall be the covert tread

Of one who steps unseen into his house.

A Voice ill-heard shall speak, the soul obey,

A Power into mind’s inner chamber steal,

A charm and sweetness open life’s closed doors

And beauty conquer the resisting world,

The Truth-Light capture Nature by surprise,

A stealth of God compel the heart to bliss

And earth grow unexpectedly divine." Savitri-55

Its complementary lines are found in other Canto:

(Savitri said after her Psychic being is Supramentalised.)

“If the chamber’s door is even a little ajar,

What then can hinder God from stealing in

Or who forbid his kiss on the sleeping soul?” Savitri-649

(Divine said) “Even the many shall some answer make

And bear the splendour of the Divine’s rush

And his (Divine’s) impetuous (hasty) knock at unseen doors.” Savitri-709

            When we live alone with ourselves, leaving our cherished guests outside, that is the condition of meeting the Divine and through the movement of Divine Consciousness, the gulfs between different subtle worlds are bridged.

"In moments when the inner lamps are lit

And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,

Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs." Savitri-47

       This first part of Secret Knowledge suggests that all men knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously receive the Divine's touch but a few of them are capable of catching and holding the Divine flame and can lead a greater and higher Spiritual life. All can enter Supramental’s huge store for a very brief period with new creations, new inventions and new opulence at their disposal but none can stay in that world permanently. Only a few, who have a strong subtle and causal body can enter the Supramental world for a longer period and can descend into the Subconscient and Inconscient night for a longer period and experience conscious transformation.

"A fire has come and touched men’s hearts and gone;

A few have caught flame and risen to greater life." Savitri-7 

"Only they knew what Mind could take and build

Out of the secret Supermind’s huge store." Savitri-187

“There man can visit but there he cannot live.” Savitri-659

Second part: This Canto hints that for those who are aware of the above mystery, the Divine Chooses a few of them as His instrument and by the touch of His infinite Grace and Force, their frontal Nature is predominated by Silence, Stillness, Calm and Peace.

"In the unfolding process of the Self

Sometimes the inexpressible Mystery

Elects a human vessel of descent.

A breath comes down from a supernal air,

A Presence is born, a guiding Light awakes,

A stillness falls upon the instruments:

Fixed, motionless like a marble monument,

Stone-calm, the body is a pedestal

Supporting a figure of eternal Peace.” Savitri-47

Third Part: Awareness of the Guardians of the Supramental world or world-creators who oversee (1) Fate, (2) Chance, and (3) Divine Work through Divine Will. If we do this Yoga, then these invisible Guardians from the Supramental world will come down to help us, help in our ascent of the Soul, and give protection to our Sadhana life, they will help to change our destiny, transform chance into decreed Spiritual life and will expedite the Divine work, Divine Purification, transformation, and perfection.

“A greater Personality sometimes

Possesses us which yet we know is ours:” Savitri-47

“He (man) is ignorant of the meaning of his life,

He is ignorant of his high and splendid fate.

Only the Immortals on their deathless heights

Dwelling beyond the walls of Time and Space,

Masters of living, free from the bonds of Thought,

Who are overseers of Fate and Chance and Will

And experts of the theorem of world-need,

Can see the Idea, the Might that change Time’s course,

Come maned with light from undiscovered worlds,

Hear, while the world toils on with its deep blind heart,

The galloping hooves of the unforeseen event,

Bearing the superhuman Rider, near

And, impassive to earth’s din and startled cry,

Return to the silence of the hills of God;

As lightning leaps, as thunder sweeps, they pass

And leave their mark on the trampled breast of Life.” Savitri-53-54

“Immaculate in self-knowledge and self-power,

 Calm they (Immortals) repose on the eternal Will.

Only his (Divine Will) law they count and him obey;

They have no goal to reach, no aim to serve.

Implacable in their timeless purity,

All barter or bribe of worship they refuse;

Unmoved by cry of revolt and ignorant prayer

They reckon not our virtue and our sin;

They bend not to the voices that implore,

They hold no traffic with error and its reign;

They are guardians of the silence of the Truth,

They are keepers of the immutable decree.

A deep surrender is their source of might,

A still identity their way to know,

Motionless is their action like a sleep.” Savitri-57

Fourth part: The relation between the Creator and creation and the Creator’s blind love and care for the creation without seeing any of her defects, limitations and faults. This is also Prakriti Yajna, a Vedic Sacrifice, more powerful than Purusha Yajna, Vedantic sacrifice. Prakriti Yajna is a very important sadhana for developed Souls. How the Creator is taking care of creation, how He has made Himself a slave of her are most beautifully and most profoundly described by Sri Aurobindo, very rare in earth’s Spiritual history. This is identified as third secret of Sadhana which culminates in discovering the relation of dual Avatara in our heart centre. We can practice this surrender literally as described in this Canto and will be most benefited by this exercise.   

“As one too great for him he (Divine) worships her (Creation);

He (Divine) adores her (Creation) as his regent of desire...” Savitri-62

“This whole wide world is only he and she.” Savitri-63

 

Fifth part: A seeker of truth is an adventurer and Voyager of multiple unknown oceans representing ten subtle bodies or sheaths and a Cosmologist exploring obscure geography of three surface life, mind and body. A Sadhaka must be a Kshetriya Soul force, having the courage to fight outer and inner endless war and ready to bear inner and outer wounds that are slow to heal till he discovers the Supramental world with a new or transformed body and mind. In Ashram activity, most of the inmates are Shudra Soul force, they give service and hold Ashram living by practice of obedience but they recoil from any great adventure. So the presence of a few more Kshetriya Soul Force is felt and with their help, the adventure of Consciousness can be expedited.  

"He is the adventurer and cosmologist

Of a magic earth’s obscure geography." Savitri-69 

“This is the sailor on the flow of Time,

This is World-Matter’s slow discoverer,

Who, launched into this small corporeal birth,

Has learned his craft in tiny bays of self,

But dares at last unplumbed infinitudes,

A voyager upon eternity’s seas.

In his world-adventure’s crude initial start

Behold him ignorant of his godhead’s force,

Timid initiate of its vast design.

An expert captain of a fragile craft,

A trafficker in small impermanent wares,

At first he hugs the shore and shuns the breadths,

Dares not to affront the far-off perilous main.” Savitri-69-70

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“The Spirit's bare and absolute potencies (Last perfection of integral Yoga.)
Burn in the solitude of the thoughts of God.” Savitri-57

“With the Truth-Light strike earth's massive roots of trance, (Supramental light will strike the Inconscient sheath and penetrate into it.)
Wake a dumb self in the inconscient depths (dumb self is the Inconscient Self)
And raise a lost Power from its python sleep (lost Power is the Inconscient Self.)
That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time
And the world manifest the unveiled Divine.” Savitri-72-73

​

A Brief Restatement:

            Here, the King’s adventure into Spiritual planes has been revealed and they are divided into seven parts.

 

First part: The transition from ordinary life to Supramental life where ‘all (the knowledge of three times) is for ever known’ and ‘all that the Gods have learned is there self known.’ The King Aswapati was able to build in Ignorance the steps of Light, saw the unshaped thought in soulless form, knew Matter pregnant with Spiritual sense, Mind dared the study of the Unknowable; Life was the gestation of the Golden Child, in the Void he saw throned the Omniscience supreme.

 

Second part: He entered the experience of Vedantic ascent to ‘unseen spiritual heights’ without any descending link and solution to the problem of the earth nature. The greatness of the eternal Spirit appeared but it could not transform matter. This height of the Spirit repels the lowness of the earthly state. From cradle to grave he lives with little mental hope, faint rays of happiness, thrills of flesh, Love's broken reflexes of unity, wounded happiness, mutilated ecstasy and forfeited heavenly bliss. He realised the Soul above the limitation of Nature and Fate.
 

Third part: Then he experienced Vedantic ascent and descent of Consciousness linking Spirit with Matter. A call he received from intangible height. A golden influx of Divine force and current from eternal Seas of Bliss came down into heart, brain and into his mortal limbs; made him aware of his dynamic occult Omnipotent Source and turned to his immense Spiritual fate.
 

Fourth part: His being towered into pathless height to meet bare, pure and ruthless Divine Love. A strong Descent of Might, Flame, Beauty, violent Ecstasy leaped down and enveloped him by penetrating into nerve, heart and brain with its stupendous limbs. By the touch of Divine Love earth Nature’s obsolete laws were overpowered and the scripts of fixed destiny were abolished.
 

Fifth part: King Aswapati’s experience of Vedic sacrifice (occupied large section of this Canto signifying its importance for a developed Soul) resulted first the descent of Divine Mother Force projected here as almighty Occultist, who plunged from graded Law of Timeless Eternity into the Time. Then up a golden ladder carrying the soul, the beauty of the Matter’s shapes, life’s adventure and delight and glory of the multitudinous mind, he climbed back from Time into undying Timeless Self, tying with diamond threads the Spirit’s extremes. Here in this Vedic sacrifice or Prakriti Yajna, the higher Divine Consciousness dropped to lower consciousness and then the lower consciousness soared to higher consciousness.
 

Sixth part: Then during these double movements of consciousness, a last high world of Bliss sheath was seen where all the other nine worlds meet. In this summit Bliss world there was no Night and Sleep and the light of Trinity supreme that of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss was visible. All that we seek here on earth are discovered there and freed the finite into boundlessness and rose into its own eternity.

 

Seventh part: By the pressure of this high plane, the bottom Inconscient Sheath discovered its heart, the Divine All in the form of Inconscient Self. Thus all the ideas and feelings of Ignorance clutched to the body of the Truth. A grand solution, due this discovery of Inconscient Self, closed the long impasse; the music and perfect rhythm was born in Matter’s silences and a reconciling wisdom was found which lifted the striving undertone of mind, the confused refrain of human hopes, inarticulate murmur of our lives, under ground of pain, soul’s faint scattered utterances, disjointed mutterings in sleep into sweet and happy Divine Call.
           Lastly, this Canto asks a Sadhaka to become the Voyager and Adventurer in Consciousness and to discover another Time and Space other than the experience of the divisible time and divisible space of surface mind.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A strong Descent leaped down. A Might, a Flame,
A Beauty half-visible with deathless eyes,
A violent Ecstasy, a Sweetness dire,
Enveloped him with its stupendous limbs
And penetrated nerve and heart and brain
That thrilled and fainted with the epiphany:” (Bliss Self-experience.) Savitri-81

“By a Power more ruthless than Love, happier than Heaven,
Taken sovereignly into eternal arms,
Haled and coerced by a stark absolute bliss,
In a whirlwind circuit of delight and force
Hurried into unimaginable depths,
Upborne into immeasurable heights,
It was torn out from its mortality
And underwent a new and bourneless change.”  Savitri-81

​

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A Brief Restatement:

            This Book-2, Canto-1, hints King’s established state in universalized Consciousness which stands as precondition of exploring multiple planes of consciousness and of pursuing the Yoga of the earth. This Canto makes us aware of our objective of housing the Illimitable in the time-made body and to live ‘all Ocean’ symbolizing the multiple worlds in a drop of water symbolizing our finite Self. Here again the importance of Psychic Being, Jivatma is recognized as means of largest Supramental action. The activation of Supramental energy in our external earthly life ensures three things. They are inherent order of all things, great harmony and oneness with Self, World and Divine.

            The need of impersonalized and universalized consciousness in our daily life ensure these six attributes: “(1) It releases his knowledge from the narrowness of personal mind, (2) his will from the clutch of personal desire, (3) his heart from the bondage of petty mutable emotions, (4) his life from its petty personal groove, (5) his soul from ego, and (6) it allows them to embrace calm, equality, wideness, universality, infinity.” (The Synthesis of Yoga-127) 

           

            This universalized consciousness drags King beyond the limitation of mortal eye, mental knowledge and personal will and he experiences limitless peace, descent of immortal timeless Word, extreme purity, sovereign sweetness, violent overhead poetry, terrible adventure of delight, unseen perfection, Truth’s secrecies, opulent beauty, dynamic Superconscient light, voiceless stillness, intangible aims, immortality’s call, calm and luminous intimacy within, many toned unity, many meeting worlds, ordered plan, unfathomed loneliness, mute and single strength, formless Stillness, white immobile Ray, eternal Silences and bare summit of created things.

            Thus in this journey of World Stair, Traveller in Time, Voyager of all ocean and adventurer of Consciousness, the King’s high pitched attempt is extended to guarded powers of multiple worlds, deep beatitudes of multiple heavens and he called down to earth and men eternal Silences, formless Stillness and nameless Light. 

            King Aswapati greatly inspires us to transform ‘this surface life’ to ‘inner all life’ extending over many births and bodies and to transform our individual activity to world action.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

"A miracle of the Absolute was born;
Infinity put on a finite soul,
All ocean lived within a wandering drop

A time-made body housed the Illimitable.
To live this Mystery out our souls came here.” Savitri-101

​

A Brief restatement:

             This Book-2, Canto-2, represents a subtle physical world. It is an important Spiritual Science, hinted at in the Upanishad as dream Self, sukhma sharira. This world is very close to the material world, the meeting place of the Superconscient, Subconscient and universal world. This subtle physical has an important role in Supramental transformation action and all the happening and new manifestations in the material world have their source and previous formation in this subtle matter. A purified and universalized subtle matter can act as a field of interpenetration of superconscient and Subconscient energies and hence is the preparatory field of all new manifestations.

             A preliminary attempt is made to enter this vast, affirmative, plastic, immaterial kingdom and to become aware of this Annamaya Purusha, the Soul in the physical (“And Matter’s depths be illumined with a soul” (Savitri-268) and Annamaya Kosha or the subtle physical sheath (The gross weighs less, the subtle counts for more;” (Savitri-186) which are identified as an important base of unfolding of the mystery of the existence.

            The vision of this Canto is divided into four parts:

First Part:

​

Second Part:

​

Third Part:

​

Fourth Part:

           In the future, this Canto asks for more study and attention…

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“To fix the eternal's touch in time-made things,
This is the law of all perfection here.” Savitri-108

“Our souls forget to the Highest to aspire.” Savitri-113

“Intruder from the formless Infinite
Daring to break into the Inconscient's reign,
The spirit's leap towards body touches ground.” Savitri-105

“A Being woke and lived in the meaningless void, (Here Being is the Inconscient Self.)
A world-wide Nescience strove towards life and thought,
A Consciousness plucked out from mindless sleep.” Savitri-107
“A Splendour presses or a Power breaks through,
Earth's great dull barrier is removed awhile,
The inconscient seal is lifted from our eyes
And we grow vessels of creative might.” Savitri-108
 

A Brief Restatement: 

            In this Canto, the King ascends to the subtle vital plane from the subtle matter’s plane.  From here he could understand the dichotomy between this subtle vital as it is reflected in our plane (in a fallen state) compared to its original beauty (higher Purer Vital world).
 

            The Lord describes the beauty and grandeur of this (True) heavenly plane and contrasts it with its lower (fallen) vibration in our earth.  He outlines how Life answered the desperate call of the Soul/Beings trapped in inert matter and longed for deliverance into other forms.  The Life descended to our earth plane (from above) to remake earth in Her glorious image, swiftly stopped and maimed in her flow by a dark being of inconscience.  Since then the vital on our plane (the subtle vital) thinks back to the glory of her original state but she is unable to reclaim it.
 

             This Savitri, Book-2, Canto-3, gives a vivid account of the glory of life or the action of Para-prakriti or higher Nature on life or vital plane in five parts.  

First part: This accounts for King's entry into a 'wide obscure disputed fields' of untransformed subtle vital life where all was doubt, unsatisfied, unsure, toilsome, unsolved problems and 'uncertain of the ground he trod.'  Here 'every change prolonged the same unease,' 'in the new saw the face of old,' and 'the fierce lust that brings a dead fatigue.' The King further confirms that the existing life is born from a pure and bright Timeless and endless Bliss state of consciousness. During this fall 'A lost world rapture lingers in her eyes' and 'Beauty and happiness are her native right.'

 

Second part: Despite the sudden disclosure of grief, fear and insecurity, King saw a happier state and kingdom of griefless life. This pure subtle vital plane is a new celestial vault, an archipelago of laughter and fire. This subtle vital plane is free from life's suffering, struggle, and grief, not affected by anger, gloom and hate and this visioned land is ever blissful in its timeless state. They live sure of their immortal gladness and content with their own beauty. One can enter this subtle world through meditation, dreams and trance. Here he will meet rapturous landscapes, figures of the perfect kingdom and behind them leave a shining memories trail. This subtle vital plane seems unreal but more real than the gross life, happier than earthly joy and truer than things true. this gives the experience of eternal moments, calm heavens of imperishable Light, and an illumined continent of violent peace and griefless countries.

 

Third part: The King was able to bridge the gulf that divides the subtle vital world from the gross vital world which is felt indispensable for purification, transformation, perfection and Divinisation of surface vital plane. So the visions of the wonder-world became a reality with pure loveliness and bliss and life was fulfilled with the touch of supreme Delight. The King was able to invert the Spirit's apex Supramental consciousness towards life through an intermediate subtle vital plane and by this action, he controlled life's restless seas and obeyed a governing Wisdom. He felt the Presence of this inscrutable Supermind but could not know its origin. Life became the slave of World-self, thus she was able to canalise the seas of omnipotence. In this part, we see that King was able to bridge the gulf between the Cosmic world and the subtle vital world. In this cosmic Consciousness King experienced triple time as a moving picture and met the whole world as the chaos of personality.

Fourth part: In this part, King met his universalised subtle vital action and felt a deep need 'To take all beings into his saviour arms,' and 'To force on them the happiness they refuse' and of transforming earth life through his experience: 'Heaven’s joys might have been earth’s if earth were pure.' He felt the need of Divinised Sense and Heart which was natural Delight's bright extreme. His life's closed doors were opened to things Supreme. The King met the guardians of Supravital and subtle vital worlds as 'Immortal figures.' We also get the hint of nude god-children who are perfect instruments to Divinise life and the vital transformation and 'They steeped existence in their youth of soul.' 

 

Fifth part:   In this part, the King standing on the border of the Supramental world, received the call of Bliss world and saw that world but could not bridge the gulf between them. Before the Divine Mother or 'gracious great-winged Angel' possesses life, 'A dark ambiguous Presence questioned all.' This dark Power abolishes the action of the mighty true Vital being and the boon of Psychic happiness. Thus life meets doom and Spiritual fall by the influence of work born out of the activation of three gunas.

          From this Canto, we learn the lesson of how Para-Prakriti, or a hierarchy of dynamic Consciousness can act stumblingly and steadily on life and experience both rise and fall or glory and fall of life.

             This Canto asks to develop the highest dynamic Consciousness which can meet the inert Inconscient’s law. We can refer the Mother’s following important observation related with Her vital Being:

                 “But you see, you see all the way I have come...And I was born with a consciously prepared body—Sri Aurobindo was aware of that, he said it immediately the first time he saw me: I was born free. That is, from the spiritual standpoint: without any desire. Without any desire and attachment. And mon petit, if there is the slightest desire and the slightest attachment, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do this work.

             A vital like a warrior, with an absolute self-control (the vital of this present incarnation was sexless—a warrior), an absolutely calm and imperturbable warrior—no desires, no attachments...Since my earliest childhood, I have done things which, to human consciousness, are “monstrous;” my mother went so far as to tell me that I was a real “monster,” because I had neither attachments nor desires. If I was asked, “Would you like to do this?” I answered, “I don’t care.” If people were nasty to me, or if people died or went away, it left me absolutely calm—and so: “You are a monster, you have no feelings.”

             And with that preparation... It is eighty-six years since I came here, mon petit! For thirty years I worked with Sri Aurobindo consciously, without letup, night and day... We shouldn’t be in a hurry.” The Mother’s Agenda/28.03.1964

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

 “Inverting the spirit’s apex towards life,

She (The Mother Nature) spends the plastic liberties of the One
To cast in acts the dreams of her caprice,
His wisdom’s call steadies her careless feet,
He props her dance upon a rigid base,
His timeless still immutability
Must standardise her creation’s miracle.” Savitri-121

 “At her will the inscrutable Supermind leans down
To guide her force that feels but cannot know,
Its breath of power controls her restless seas (of the vital world.)
And life obeys the governing Idea” Savitri-121

“She has canalised the seas of omnipotence;” Savitri-121(the descent of Divine force on large scale)
“And still her doors are barred to things supreme” Savitri-123

“And high dependencies of her virgin sun,” Savitri-124

 “The grand Illuminate seized her gleaming limbs
And filled them with the passion of his ray
Till all her body was its transparent house
And all her soul a counterpart of his soul.” Savitri-125
“This world of bliss he (King Aswapati) saw and felt its call,

But found no way to enter into its joy;
Across the conscious gulf there was no bridge” Savitri-128

​

A Brief Restatement:

            This Book two Canto-4 speaks of triple creation, where the first creation is subconscious evolution, the second creation is the evolution of lower/little life and the third creation (not the last) is identified as ‘body’s early (evolution of) mind.’ This small thinking man (of third creation) has no upward gaze, no inward look, no loftier aim, no deeper cause to live, interested to utilize truth and power only for outward use. His life is limited like animal’s feeding space and he opposes all adventure of the Unseen and Soul’s journey through unknown infinity.

              In Savitri, the slow evolution starts from the Subconscient plane from the beginning of the creation and when the earth will be ready for Divine life then the ‘last salvation’ is experienced which is identified as total transformation of earth’s Subconscient and Inconscient plane. In Savitri, the first Spiritual experience of the evolving man is identified as discovery of Soul either Psychic or Spiritual Being and the last Siddhi of an integral Yogi is ‘Truth supreme.’ This is the transformation of universal Inconscient and there would be no longer any Ignorance, suffering, falsehood and death. This Yoga will continue through all life and all Time before which this present life is a very small fragment.

     This Canto also hints King’s opening of six or seven chakras known as Kundalini from below the feet. The Mother said, “The tantrics recognize seven chakras, I believe. Theon said he knew of more, specifically two below the body and three above (the head). That is my experience as well – I know of twelve chakras. And really, the contact with the Divine Consciousness is there (The Mother motions above the head), not here (at the top of the head). One must surge up above.” These twelve centres define the twelve Selves, twelve Sheaths or twelve subtle bodies to which one can visit consciously in trance.

             In integral Yoga, the gulf created between lower life and the Supramental life is bridged by (1) purification, (2) transformation and (3) perfection of lower Nature. All the above three activities are possible by a movement of Consciousness in twelve planes. 

          This Canto foresees the coming of ‘a tremendous  dawn of God’ where King saw the purpose of Divine Work in Time and also in the aimlessness of lower life a Divine work, magic will and Divine transformation was worked out.

 

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

 “A difficult evolution from below
Called a masked intervention from above
Else this great, blind inconscient universe
Could never have disclosed its hidden mind,
Or even in blinkers worked in beast and man
The Intelligence that devised the cosmic scheme.”(Supramental Intelligence) Savitri-146-147

​
 

A Brief Restatement:

            This Book-2, Canto-5 gives us input regarding the lower vital beings that dominate largely our untransformed life and are the cause of all disorder, disease, accident, division and disharmony. In the evolution of Nature, they also like Asuras, demons, and Pisachas, wait for the hour of Divine transformation.

             This Canto also hints about a ‘mighty Hand’ that helps us to travel back in time to the past of this life and past births for illumination of Subconscient darkness and Divine transformation and also hints the action of ‘golden Messenger’ who is responsible for the carrying out the cellular transformation. This also hints at our patient waiting for the ‘golden Hand that never came’ (Savitri-199) and locking up our protected life in Savitri’s ‘golden hands’ (Savitri-723).

            This Canto also hints about the human love of sattwic mind which can give ‘Joy that forgot mortality for a while’ and its brief blaze can crumble vital passion into ashes. It can manifest beauty only for an hour and afterward feels tired. Divine Love can uplift the limitations of fragile human love and can lead man towards uninterrupted joy and immortality.     

             A perfect and integral Divine instrument is at once receiver of overhead Wisdom and Light of Integral Jnana Yoga, his own personal will is tuned and identified with the Divine Will of Integral Karma Yoga and his heart becomes the centre of the overflow of Divine Love, Delight and Beauty of Integral Bhakti Yoga.

            Here in this study, we will get mysteries of lower vital forces that largely dominate earthly existence through the Mother’s account of Her Spiritual experiences. These experiences are immensely important in purifying and enlarging our vital sheath.

             Our Psychic being is surrounded with ten layers of desire Souls of which this vital plane is one of them. So in order to uncover the Psychic being one has to go beyond the lures of (1) the world of titans and asuras imitating the Divine, (2) the world of lower nature of forbidden sense enjoyment, (3) the world of vital mind surrounding the vital self, (4) the world of the physical mind, (5) the world of schoolman mind, (6) the world of fixed mind, (7) the world of outer mind, (8) the mother of seven Sorrows, (9) the mother of (limited) Might and (10) the mother of (limited) Light respectively. About them, we are aware while concentrating on Savitri’s Yoga.

             Finally, we will have to remember that Divine wisdom does not visit man as a guest from outside but it is slowly accumulated through the blows of life. Similarly, Divine Love does not visit as a guest from outside but it evolves from the disgust of precarious human relation and human love. Both Love and Wisdom are necessary for the fulfilment of life. 

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“The magic was chiselled of a conscious form;
Its tranced vibrations rhythmed a quick response,
And luminous stirrings prompted brain and nerve,
Awoke in Matter spirit’s identity
And in a body lit the miracle
Of the heart’s love and the soul’s witness gaze.” Savitri-157-58                                                              

“Our seekings are short-lived experiments  

Made by a wordless and inscrutable Power
Testing its issues from inconscient Night
To meet its luminous self of Truth and Bliss.” Savitri-168
“In our body’s cells there sits a hidden Power (true physical Being)

That sees the unseen and plans eternity,
Our smallest parts have room for deepest needs;
There too the golden Messengers (Supramental beings) can come:” Savitri-169-70

“And when that greater Self comes sea-like down
To fill this image of our transience,
All shall be captured by delight, transformed:
In waves of undreamed ecstasy shall roll
Our mind and life and sense and laugh in a light
Other than this hard limited human day,
The body’s tissues thrill apotheosised,
Its cells sustain bright metamorphosis.” Savitri-171

​
 

A Brief Restatement:

            This Book-2, Canto-6 gives us input regarding the action of higher vital beings, action of higher Nature of Para-prakriti which can give us Divine’s touch and not His embrace; in this plane twilight is not entirely abolished, hence its door is open to both gods and Beings of higher planes and hostile agencies of Subconscient world; the greatness of this world is to seek Soul saving Truth tirelessly and create and manifest new forms. For him (King) this higher ‘Life was a search but finding (of the Absolute) never came.’ (Savitri-174)

          It speaks of primarily of self-concentration through endless unfolding of Truth, utilize subjective time as endless pilgrimage and secondarily of self-expansion of working out timeless mysteries in Time and utilize objective space for Divine creation and manifestation.

               In that higher plane, from every thought and feeling an action is born and every action is a symbol and means of descent of higher Divine Power and this universe is built by this descended truth and myth. ‘But what she needed most (of conscious emergence of full Sachchidananda in its own creation) she cannot build.’ (Savitri-183) From the truth of this intermediate world Religion and Modern Science and other creative forces of Mother Nature are born.
 

              This Canto gives a hint to learn the lesson to open towards the Divine’s constant touch or the New Consciousness that is now active in earth’s atmosphere or as Satyavan spoke to Savitri in the early period of his Sadhana, ‘I lived in the ray but faced not the sun.’ (Savitri-407) This will help in the long run to open towards Supramental Sunlight.

OM TAT SAT

 

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

 “A fire to call eternity into Time,

Make body’s joy as vivid as the soul’s,

Earth she would lift to neighbourhood with heaven,

Labours life to equate with the Supreme

And reconcile the Eternal and the Abyss.” Savitri-196

“Our life’s repose is in the Infinite;
It cannot end, its end is Life supreme.” Savitri-197

“A sun of transfiguration still can shine

And Night can bare its core of mystic light; (the experience of opening of Inconscient and subconscient Self.)
The self-cancelling, self-afflicting paradox
Into a self-luminous mystery might change,
The imbroglio into a joyful miracle.
Then God could be visible here, here take a shape; (Supramental state.)
Disclosed would be the spirit’s identity;
Life would reveal her true immortal face.” Savitri-200-01 (Cellular transformation.)

​
 

A Brief Restatement:

            This Descent into Night of Book-2, Canto-7, is forbidden in traditional Spirituality and King Aswapati entered this prohibited world with the hope of finding ‘wide world failure’s cause (Savitri-202)’ and ‘panacea for all Time’s ill; (Savitri-198)’ for key of world problem is hidden in the Inconscient night. 

            In integral Yoga, a conscious descent into Night is possible after the opening of the Supramental Being. This Canto gives the message that without the purification of Subconscient Night, mental, vital and physical transformation cannot be complete. This Canto-7 also gives the message that before conquering Death from without, one must conquer it from within. Spirit’s bare and absolute Power can alone meet, purify and transform the naked night of Hell.

           Those who enter this night unconsciously experience Spiritual fall and forfeit their ‘lonely chance (Savitri-210)’ in this birth and their beauty of life ends with ‘aging face (Savitri-205).’ ‘There all could enter (like lost soul) (Savitri-211) but none stay for long. (Savitri-206)’ Similarly, all can enter Supramental’s huge store for a very brief period with new creations, new inventions and new opulence at their disposal but none can stay in that world permanently. Only few, who have strong subtle and causal body can enter Supramental world for longer period and can descend into the Subconscient and inconscient night for a longer period and experience conscious transformation.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Here must the traveller of the upward Way—
For daring Hell’s kingdoms winds the heavenly route—
Pause or pass slowly through that perilous space,
A prayer upon his lips and the great Name. “ Savitri-210
“To the blank horror a calm Light replied:
Immutable, undying and unborn,
Mighty and mute the Godhead in him woke
And faced the pain and danger of the world. (The Supramental Godhead can face the pain and danger of the world.)
He mastered the tides of Nature with a look:
He met with his bare spirit naked Hell.” Savitri-219

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

           In Book-2, Canto-8, King Aswapati’s Soul dared to adventure into the dark ocean of Subconscient and Inconscient plane with Supramental energy at his disposal.

            This Canto gives some new message on the dark nether world. It has identified the Mother of Evil as the guardian of that world and represented Death as her foster son. Those who strive immortality on earth must confront with this dark antagonist Force.

            This Canto also hints about twice born Souls known as Divine Children (Savitri-224). They need congenial atmosphere in which they can survive and flower. Unfortunately ‘world’s Spiritual Shrines’ (Savitri-226) are occupied by dark Forces and they cunningly slay the Divine children.

            This Canto gives the secret of outer Death. Before  outer death, when the growth of the Soul is arrested, his Psychic being decides to leave the body. After this Psychic escape, the aura or the golden nimbus around the body withdraws. A dark shadow is replaced. And finally the subtle body and subtle mind leave the body.

            Those who want to lead a Spiritual life or want to become instrument of Truth, their name is recorded in the Subconscient and inconscient world. The giant sons of darkness sit and plan to make the life of instruments of truth or god’s radiant children, miserable. Those who cannot bear their (dark forces) long torture and wounds are not fit for higher Spiritual life and cannot make earth a play field of heaven.

           So world problems can be resolved by opening of the Supramental Self, and invert its dynamic energy to enter into dark Subconscient and Inconscient world. Thus, Subconscient and Inconscient Selves are discovered and by their Force and Light, slay the dark antagonist Forces and transform that nether life. Thus ‘sorrow could live no more in Nature’s breast.’ (Savitri-232)

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“She groped in his deeps for an invisible Law,

Fumbled in the dim subconscient for his mind (that had fallen) (tamas, rajas and sattwa are three negative  inconscient mental energy.)

And strove to find a way for spirit to be. “(Search for discovery of Subconscient Self.) Savitri-222,

 “Yet in her formidable instinctive mind

She feels the One grow in the heart of Time

And sees the Immortal shine through the human mould.” Savitri-224

“Into the abysmal secrecy he came

Where darkness peers from her mattress, grey and nude,

And stood on the last locked subconscient’s floor

Where Being slept unconscious of its thoughts

And built the world not knowing what it built.” Savitri-231

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            In this Book-2, Canto-9, King Aswapati, entered a higher world in cosmic Consciousness, known as Overmind. The Canto indicates that one can enter this higher cosmic Consciousness either through Psychic being  (And make the heart wide as infinity) or through Spiritual Being (And lay on the breast of universal love) or through movement of both the Selves (A touch supreme surprised his hurrying heart.)

            This overmental world is free from fear, grief, shocks of fate, adverse circumstance, free from our body’s poor health ‘inviting death,’ and free ‘from the danger zone of stumbling Will.’ There pain transformed into potent joy, no presence of lower Nature to terminate endless charm, desire and personal will transformed into omnipotent flame, pleasure  had the stature of God, dream walked in the highway of stars, and sweet common action, thought and feeling turned into miracle. The mental fore knowledge transformed into ecstatic truth of triple time, trikaladristi. King’s anguish of the Soul, long strife in the subconscient night and wounded limbs suffered during the war with Inconscient dark forces were healed quickly and recompensed with calm and peace, Spiritual ease, celestial rest and sorrowless hours in this higher plane.

            Finally, King entered a Supramental world where he met the forms that divinise the sight, heard the music that can immortalise the mind, received Wisdom that newly makes the universe, harboured power that can reconcile Spirit with Matter, the cells of the body experienced nectar-cup of the Absolute and dire delight that could shatter mortal flesh. Thus, Immortality captured Time and Space and carried forward the rhythm of all life.

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Healed were his warrior nature’s wounded limbs” Savitri-235

“A scale of sense that climbed with fiery feet

To heights of unimagined happiness,

Recast his being’s aura in joy-glow,

His body glimmered like a skiey shell;

His gates to the world were swept with seas of light.” Savitri-236

“Nor feared the swoon of glad identity (Samadhi)

Where spirit and flesh in inner ecstasy join

Annulling the quarrel between self and shape.” Savitri-236

“A giant drop of the Bliss unknowable

Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became

A fiery ocean of felicity;

He foundered drowned in sweet and burning vasts:

The dire delight that could shatter mortal flesh, (The experience of cellular transformation.)

The rapture that the gods sustain he bore.” Savitri-239

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

           In this Book-2, Canto-10, King Aswapati, entered the triple world of ‘little mind tied to little things,’ known as physical mind or tamasic mind, vital mind or rajasic mind, and intellect or sattwic mind. To liberate life and Nature from their narrow, false and divisible consciousness is a difficult task of an integral Yogi or supramental man. Sri Aurobindo observed them as three dwarfs, bound in a golden chain. The Gita recommends them as three asuras and defines amply the Nature of these three Gunas. The Gita proposes new static methods for developing Souls and Sri Aurobindo proposes dynamic Supramental method to go beyond their influence. And in fact, both methods are to be combined for the complete eradication of their influence.

The Gita’s method:

            “Sattwa must be transcended as well as rajas and tamas; the golden chain must be broken no less than the leaden fetters and the bond-ornaments of a mixed alloy. The Gita prescribes to this end a new method of self-discipline. It is to stand back in oneself from the action of the modes and observe this unsteady flux as the Witness seated above the surge of the forces of Nature. He watches but is impartial and indifferent, aloof from them on their own level and in his native posture high above them. As they rise and fall in their waves, the Witness looks, and observes, but neither accepts nor for the moment interferes with their course. First, there must be the freedom of the impersonal Witness; afterward there can be the control of the Master, the Ishwara.” CWSA/21/The Synthesis of Yoga-238

Integral Yoga's method:

            “The Supermind had descended long ago—very long ago—into the mind and even into the vital: it was working in the physical also but indirectly through those intermediaries. The question was about the direct action of the Supermind in the physical. Sri Aurobindo said it could be possible only if the physical mind received the supramental light: the physical mind was the instrument for direct action upon the most material. This physical mind receiving the supramental light Sri Aurobindo called the Mind of Light… As soon as Sri Aurobindo withdrew from his body, what he has called the Mind of Light got realised in me.” The Mother/29 June 1953/The Mother’s Centenary Works/13/62-63, The Synthesis of Yoga book proposes that not only we will go beyond the Gunas but also reconcile the higher nature of Para-prakriti with the lower nature of three gunas of Apara-prakriti and higher nature can penetrate the lower Nature in order to transform the lower nature. “When we break out from ego and physical mind into the infinity of the spirit, we still see the world and others as the mind has accustomed us to see them, as names and forms; only in our new experience of the direct and superior reality of spirit, they lose that direct objective reality and that indirect subjective reality of their own which they had to the mind. They seem to be quite the opposite of the truer reality we now experience; our mentality, stilled and indifferent, no longer strives to know and make real to itself those intermediate terms which exist in them as in us and the knowledge of which has for its utility to bridge over the gulf between the spiritual self and the objective phenomena of the world.” (CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-442) “But it is also possible to make this silence of the mind and ability to suspend the habits of the lower nature a first step towards the discovery of a superior formulation, a higher grade of the status and energy of our being and pass by an ascent and transformation into the supramental power of the spirit. And this may even, though with more difficulty, be done without resorting to the complete state of quietude of the normal mind by a persistent and progressive transformation of all the mental into their greater corresponding supramental powers and activities.” (CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga-758-759)

            The Synthesis of Yoga book proposes another method in addition to the Gita’s method by which one can go beyond three gunas. “There is nothing to be done with this fickle, restless, violent and disturbing factor but to get rid of it (physical mind) whether (1) by detaching it and then reducing it to stillness or (2) by giving a concentration and singleness to the thought by which it will of itself reject this alien and confusing element." (CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-314) “Tamas in the spiritual being becomes a divine calm, which is not an inertia and incapacity of action, but a perfect power, sakti, holding in itself all its capacity and capable of controlling and subjecting to the law of calm even the most stupendous and enormous activity: rajas becomes a self-effecting initiating sheer Will of the spirit, which is not desire, endeavour, striving passion, but the same perfect power of being, sakti, capable of an infinite, imperturbable and blissful action. Sattwa becomes not the modified mental light, prakasa, but the self-existent light of the divine being, jyotih., which is the soul of the perfect power of being and illumines in their unity the divine quietude and the divine will of action.” (CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga-689) “This process (of Spiritual transformation) may be rapid or tardy according to the amount of obscurity and resistance still left in the nature, but it goes on unfalteringly so long as it is not complete. As a final result the whole conscious being is made perfectly apt for spiritual experience of every kind, turned towards spiritual truth of thought, feeling, sense, action, tuned to the right responses, delivered from the darkness and stubbornness of the tamasic inertia, the turbidities and turbulences and impurities of the rajasic passion and restless unharmonised kinetism, the enlightened rigidities and sattwic limitations or poised balancements of constructed equilibrium which are the character of the Ignorance.” (CWSA-22/The Life Divine-941,)

            The Gita confirms that Intellect has the capacity to enter partial union with the Divine, buddhi grahyam atindriyam. Savitri book confirms that this partial Divine union will not be able to discern truth from falsehood which is again a partial truth. The two characters in Savitri, Death and Savitri’s birth mother were having the partial realisation of the Divine but both were advocates of Soul-slaying Truth. In this Canto we can carefully note this line, mind “Denied the (Soul saving) Truth that transient (Soul slaying) truths might live.” (Savitri-244) Again this Soul-slaying truth will not be able to remove the ‘twilight thought’ from tamasic, rajasic and sattwic mind which seems to be one of the affirmative conditions in confronting Death.

            However, the study of the whole Nature of the tamasic mind, rajasic mind and sattwic mind is very crucial to begin traditional Yoga and continue the integral Yoga. In order to pursue the sadhana, Arjuna wanted to know from the Lord, the vivid description of the whole nature of three gunas.

            In this Canto, we observe three solutions of Psychic transformation, Psychic and Spiritual transformation and Supramental transformation of the triple mind. They are:

“The mighty daemon lies unshaped within,”  Savitri-244

“Two sun-gaze Daemons witnessing all that is “ Savitri-258

“To illumine the deep heart of self and things.” Savitri-258

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A greater Mind may see a greater Truth,

Or we may find when all the rest has failed

Hid in ourselves the key of perfect change.” Savitri-256

“A greater Gnosis shall regard the world

Crossing out of some far omniscience

On lustrous seas from the still rapt Alone

To illumine the deep heart of self and things.” Savitri-258

“Accustomed to a blue infinity, (Overmental infinity or preliminary Supramental)

It (Supramental) planed in sunlit sky and starlit air;

It saw afar the unreached Immortal’s home

And heard afar the voices of the Gods.”  Savitri-258

“Iconoclast and shatterer of Time’s forts,

Overleaping limit and exceeding norm,

It (Supramental) lit the thoughts that glow through the centuries

And moved to acts of superhuman force.” Savitri-259

​

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

                  The King enters the triple plane of the higher, illumined and intuitive minds and meets the godheads of those subtle worlds, who are respectively 'mighty wardens,' 'archangels of the race' and  'bright gods of Thought.'  The higher and illumined minds get their source from the Intuitive plane (which in turn is sourced from the Overmind).  The key difference between these higher triple planes and our (lower) mind is that in these planes one does not grope around in the dark or infer conclusions from various pieces of data.  These triple planes allow for direct form, visions and flashes of the Truth to be reflected more clearly and truly and therefore less subject to the floundering seen in the mortal mind. But even this plane does not capture the whole Truth, only some fragments of it. In these triple realms, there is harmony. The triple realms are: (1) 'small beginning of immense ascent;' (Savitri-264) (2) 'a light of liberating knowledge;' (3) 'Attracting into time the timeless Light.' (Savitri-274)

            In this Book-2, Canto-11, gives this message that in order to adventure in higher planes of consciousness one must have Kshetriya Soul force in his frontal nature.

“Its (Spirit’s) wings can dare to cross the Infinite.” Savitri-260

"Our spirits break free from their environment;

The future brings its face of miracle near,

Its godhead looks at us with present eyes;

Acts deemed impossible grow natural;

We feel the hero’s immortality;

The courage and the strength death cannot touch

Awake in limbs that are mortal, hearts that fail;

We move by the rapid impulse of a will

That scorns the tardy trudge of mortal time." Savitri-262

“Adventurers, we have colonised Matter’s night.” Savitri-262

“These (God-born strength) dared to grasp with their thought Truth’s absolute;” Savitri-272

“Dare to surrender to her absolute.” Savitri-276

“At each moment willed or adventure of the soul,” Savitri-266

“It (Supermind) casts on our world its great crowned influences,

Its speed that outstrips the ambling of the hours,

Its force that strides invincibly through Time,

Its mights that bridge the gulf twixt man and God,

Its (Supermind) lights that combat Ignorance and Death.” Savitri-261

           

            In addition to Kshetriya Soul Force, Spiritual life prohibits earthly enjoyments and rest and proposes ceaseless action by uniting with the Divine. The ultimate vision is to call down the Supreme Lord and His magic Will in its entirety that can break down all established laws, all the limitations of mortal life instantly; search for that fire of Love which can bring dead back to life; that Power which can cancel the things once done; that supreme Consciousness which can arrest the advance of time and slipping moments and that Bliss which can persuade the past perfect hours to live again with greater intensity. Adventure into Supramental consciousness promises endless new discoveries in material world, endless opulence, beauty and harmony in surrounding world. It also promises to put pressure on common man or on humanity to reveal their Soul.

 

            This Canto also gives more hints on Soul saving truth which alone can replace the Soul slaying truth of three gunas.

“The Spirit’s truths take form as living Gods” Savitri-261

“Of a truth that sees in an unerring light” Savitri-261

“A memory steals in from lost heavens of Truth,” Savitri-263

“In our unknown depths sleeps their reserve of truth,” Savitri-263

“Answers Truth’s call as to a parent’s voice” Savitri-264

“A happiness it brings of whispered truth;” Savitri-264

“The flame-bright hierarchs of the divine Truth” Savitri-265

“Or icons figuring a mystic Truth,” Savitri-265

“They lived in the mind and knew truth from within” Savitri-268

“And theoricians of unknowable truths,” Savitri-268

“Truths they could find and hold but not the one (Supreme) Truth” Savitri-271

“A Truth-gaze shapes its beings and events;” Savitri-271

“Even Nature’s ignorance is Truth’s instrument;” Savitri-272

“Mystic, ineffable is the spirit’s truth,” Savitri-272

“This greater Truth is foreign to our thoughts;” Savitri-272

“And hoped to conquer Truth’s supernal base.” Savitri-273

“In transparent systems bodied termless truths,” Savitri-273

“This they have planned, to snare the feet of Truth” Savitri-274

“But thought nor word can seize eternal Truth:

The whole world lives in a lonely ray of her sun

Truth smiled upon the gracious golden game” Savitri-275

“A king of truth upon his separate throne.” Savitri-275

“For Truth is wider, greater than her forms.” Savitri-276

This Canto also makes us aware of our limitation and makes us accountable towards Divine life:

“We see not what small figure of her (Para-prakriti) we hold;

We feel not her inspiring boundlessness,

We share not her immortal liberty.

Thus is it even with the seer and sage

For still the human limits the divine:” Savitri-276

“To account for the Actual’s unaccountable sum,” Savitri-269

“Its values weighed by the accountant Mind,” Savitri-270

            This Canto deals only with higher planes of Consciousness and gives importance to live a life in extreme happiness and joy. This is also a condition to meet and confront with world’s Ignorance, Falsehood, Suffering and Death.

  

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A gold supernal sun of timeless Truth

Poured down the mystery of the eternal Ray

Through a silence quivering with the word of Light

On an endless ocean of discovery.” Savitri-264

“Of throbbing new discovery without end.” Savitri-275

“The All-containing was contained in form,

Oneness was carved into units measurable,

The limitless built into a cosmic sum:

Unending Space was beaten into a curve,

Indivisible Time into small minutes cut,

The infinitesimal massed to keep secure

The mystery of the Formless cast into form.” Savitri-266-67

“A breadth of all-containing Consciousness

Supported Being in a still embrace….

A great all-ruling Consciousness is there…” Savitri-271

“The secret power in the inconscient depths,

Compelling the blinded Godhead to emerge,” Savitri-272 (Inconscient Self.)

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            This Book-2, Canto-12, gives the account of King Aswapati’s Psychic being’s ascent to Spiritual and Supramental height, hence this is identified as Purusha yajna, Vedantic sacrifice. This Canto also gives the account of movement of Consciousness in higher planes of Consciousness, particularly in between Psychic and Spiritual plane. This Canto also gives hint of opening of Chakras of King Aswapati from above the head moving downward as Divine Shakti. The traditional Yoga gives importance of opening of Chakras or energy centres from below and asks the physical presence of Guru in order to avoid the possibility of Spiritual fall. The opening of Chakras as proposed in integral Yoga is safe and need not depend on the Physical presence of Guru. The descending Shakti will purify mind, vital and body and finally descend to Subconscient and Inconscient plane for purification and transformation.

“Our hidden centres of celestial force

Open like flowers to a heavenly atmosphere;

Mind pauses thrilled with the supernal Ray,

And even this transient body then can feel

Ideal love and flawless happiness

And laughter of the heart’s sweetness and delight

Freed from the rude and tragic hold of Time,

And beauty and the rhythmic feet of the hours.” Savitri-278

 

            So the Yoga which begins with the movement of Consciousness between Psychic and Spiritual plane, replacing or superseding the earlier status of movement of consciousness between three gunas, will culminate with the movement of Consciousness between Inconscient and Supramental plane.

“Above the spirit cased in mortal sense

Are superconscious realms of heavenly peace,

Below, the Inconscient’s sullen dim abyss,

Between, behind our life, the deathless Rose.” Savitri-277-278

 

            Thus, King Aswapati prepared his body for cellular transformation. This is identified as the highest siddhi of integral Yoga.

“A fiery stillness wakes the slumbering cells,

A passion of the flesh becoming spirit,

And marvellously is fulfilled at last

The miracle for which our life was made.” Savitri-278

            We also observe in this Canto the reconciliation of Divine Will, Divine Knowledge and Divine Love through movement of Consciousness and they become one and further ‘Aspired to reach the Being’s absolute.’(Savitri-279). This sense of Oneness with the existence is a movement towards Cosmic and Supramental Consciousness and the King met in those planes ‘radiant children of Eternity’ who can assist a Sadhaka to establish himself in that plane.

 

OM TAT SAT

The Important Secret of this chapter:

“It longed for the Light that knows not death and birth.

Each stage of the soul’s remote ascent was built

Into a constant heaven felt always here.” Savitri-277

“A fiery stillness wakes the slumbering cells,

A passion of the flesh becoming spirit,

And marvellously is fulfilled at last

The miracle for which our life was made.

A flame in a white voiceless cupola

Is seen and faces of immortal light,

The radiant limbs that know not birth and death,

The breasts that suckle the first-born of the Sun,

The wings that crowd thought’s ardent silences,

The eyes that look into spiritual Space.” Savitri-278

The More Important Secret of this chapter:

“There is the secrecy of the House of Flame (Agni), (Psychic being)

The blaze of godlike thought and golden bliss,

The rapt idealism of heavenly sense;

There are the wonderful voices, the sun-laugh,

A gurgling eddy in rivers of God’s joy,

And the mysteried vineyards of the gold moon-wine,

All the fire and sweetness of which hardly here

A brilliant shadow visits mortal life.” Savitri-279

 The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“It left known summits for the unknown peaks:” Savitri-277

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

             The Book-2, Canto-13 concentrates on King Aswapati’s full opening of intermediate static Spiritual Being and its relation with dynamic Psychic Being below and dynamic Supramental Being above. It also hints that the most important Psychic being of integral Yoga is partly fulfilled by union with Spiritual Being and fully satisfied with the union with Supramental Being.

 

            While a Static Spiritual being is indifferent to world problems, its intervention in life reduces desire, personal will, ego, attachment, dualities and action of three gunas. This Canto does not concentrate on the dynamic Spiritual being which is also known as Cosmic Consciousness and its action is more described in the next Canto, Book 2, Canto-14.

 

            The Nature of Spiritual Being is ‘Mighty calm,’ ‘immobile calm,’ ‘wordless peace,’ ‘deep peace,’ indifferent to victory and defeat, ‘vast quietism,’ creator Mind, ‘a wide and witness Self,’ a shadow of Supramental light, ‘a pale front of the Unknowable’ Supermind, ‘blank and still,’

 

            Spiritual being can trace a passage of brief Supramental touch, which gives input to explore more on the subject. They are described as That, sceptic Ray, Superconscient Sun, convicting beam, nameless Force, mighty Mother, white passion of God-ecstasy, boundless heart of Love, ‘A greater Spirit,’

 

           This Canto also proposes to become immortal by constantly renewing the mortality though the Spiritual Being is unable to confront with Death in the inconscient plane.

             Finally, the Canto proposes that if one will remain in the world he will have to live in the prison of ego, and if he will activate the Spiritual being it will find a passage of extinction and escape from this world. So, we have to go beyond the Spiritual Mind in order to discover a comprehensive solution to the world's problems.

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Then suddenly a luminous finger fell

On all things seen or touched or heard or felt

And showed his mind that nothing could be known (for the mind is an instrument of ignorance);

That (the Source) (which is beyond the Self of Mind) must be reached from which all knowledge comes.” Savitri-284

 “Our sweet and mighty Mother was not there (In the Spiritual plane)

Who gathers to her bosom her children’s lives,

Her clasp that takes the world into her arms

In the fathomless rapture of the Infinite,

The Bliss that is creation’s splendid grain

Or the white passion of God-ecstasy

That laughs in the blaze of the boundless heart of Love.” Savitri-286-87

​

A Brief Restatement:

            Book-2, Canto-14 represents King Aswapati’s Spiritual experience of cosmic Self which is identified as the dynamic state of the Spiritual being, all this existence is Brahman of the Gita (Vasudevah Sarvamiti) (The Gita-7.19), Para Prakriti or the Divine Mother of Tantra. This is also identified as the preliminary stair of Supermind where the World, Self and Divine are reconciled, home and training ground of dead Souls and one enters the right relation with the world, fellow brothers and material things through direct contact of higher consciousness. This is also the state of Consciousness, which is the outcome of Jivatma’s Divine union with the Para-Prakriti, who holds together this whole universe, jagat dharayete (The Gita-7.5).

 

            In Cosmic Consciousness, Matter and Spirit are reconciled and all negations of material life is Divinised by the universal Spirit’s touch. They are:

“One who could love without return for love (Divine Love),

Meeting and turning to the best the worst,

It healed the bitter cruelties of earth,

Transforming all experience to delight;

Intervening in the sorrowful paths of birth

It rocked the cradle of the cosmic Child

And stilled all weeping with its hand of joy;

It led things evil towards their secret good,

It turned racked falsehood into happy truth;

Its power was to reveal divinity.” Savitri-291

            In this cosmic Consciousness, the King Aswapati was able to have direct personal contact with the supreme Lord and supreme Mother and Their dual relation, which uplifted the King’s consciousness to the status of Avatara.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A flame that cancels death in mortal things.” Savitri-291

“Behind them in a morning dusk One stood (the Divine Mother – as the Transcendent Shakti)

Who brought them forth from the Unknowable (the Supreme).

Ever disguised she awaits the seeking spirit;

Watcher on the supreme unreachable peaks,

Guide of the traveller of the unseen paths,

She guards the austere approach to the Alone.” Savitri-295

​

A Brief Restatement:

            Book-2, Canto-15 gives the message of the Supramental plane, which becomes active after one is established in the waking trance of the Psychic and non-waking trance of Spiritual plane. A concentration on this Canto can give brief Supramental touch, brief Supramental silence, brief Supramental hope, and brief Supramental Peace. That will help to trace a path of our own or “He (King) knocked at the doors of the Unknowable.’ (Savitri-298)

             This Canto hints that due to this Supramental influence; some Permanent changes were observed in King’s physical life. They are identified as: “A light was round him (King) wide and absolute,” (Savitri-297) This change is also observed in Satyavan’s pursuit of Yoga in book-7. They are:

“Above the cherished head of Satyavan

She saw not now Fate’s dark and lethal orb;

A golden circle round a mystic sun

Disclosed to her new-born predicting sight” Savitri-533

We also observe in this Canto, the nature of Supramental action:

“The greatness and wonder of its boundless works,” Savitri-298

“The glorious dream of their universal acts;” Savitri-298

“Its inexhaustible acts in a timeless Time,” Savitri-298

“And all creation is an act of light.” Savitri-298

“It thrilled with the mighty marchings of World-Force,

Its acts were the comrades of God’s infinite peace.” Savitri-301

“His finite parts approached their absolutes,

His actions framed the movements of the Gods,

His will took up the reins of cosmic Force.” Savitri-302

            The above supramental action also calls down the Supramental wisdom and Supramental Love:

“Here came the thought that passes beyond Thought,

Here the still Voice which our listening cannot hear,

The Knowledge by which the knower is the known,

The Love in which beloved and lover are one.” Savitri-297-98

            Supramental action makes a Sadhaka King, Leader and Captain of the team; Supramental wisdom makes him Scout guarding Truth’s ‘diamond purity’ and Pioneer of new Consciousness and new path; Supramental Love makes his life exceedingly joy and laughter and boundless self-giving.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A consciousness lay still, devoid of forms,

Free, wordless, uncoerced by sign or rule,

For ever content with only being and bliss;

A sheer existence lived in its own peace

On the single spirit’s bare and infinite ground.” Savitri-297

“A state in which all ceased and all began.” Savitri-297 (a state of Consciousness)

“On peaks where Silence listens with still heart

To the rhythmic metres of the rolling worlds,

He served the sessions of the triple Fire.” Savitri-299,

“In that high realm where no untruth can come,

Where all are different and all is one,

In the Impersonal’s ocean without shore

The Person in the World-Spirit anchored rode;

It thrilled with the mighty marchings of World-Force,

Its acts were the comrades of God’s infinite peace.” Savitri-301

“His finite parts approached their absolutes,

His actions framed the movements of the Gods,

His will took up the reins of cosmic Force.” Savitri-302

“Out of the neutral silence of his soul

He passed to its fields of puissance and of calm

And saw the Powers that stand above the world, (the various Personalities of the Divine Mother)

Traversed the realms of the supreme Idea

And sought the summit of created things

And the almighty source of cosmic change.” Savitri-298

​

A Brief Restatement:

            In Book-3, Canto-1, King entered a state of consciousness beyond Supramental and this absolute static state of the Divine we may call as Bliss Self, Supreme Self, Turiya state. Its dynamic state is not revealed here. The King was able to enter this world after bridging the gulf between this world and the Supramental world, about which we get hints from the previous Book-2, Canto-3. The narration is like this:

“This world of bliss he (King Aswapati) saw and felt its call,

But found no way to enter into its joy;

Across the conscious gulf there was no bridge.” Savitri-128

“But who that mightiness was he knew not yet.” Savitri-306

“But what That was, no thought nor sight could tell.” Savitri-308

            How can we enter this world of Bliss through movement of Consciousness?

Through the fourfold ladders of (1) waking Self, Virat, (2) subliminal Self, dream Self, Hiranyagarbha, (3) Supramental Self, Sleep Self, causal body, Susupti (4) Supreme Self, Turiya, the Consciousness of pure self-existence, we climb back through trance or deep meditation to this absolute Divine plane. More hints we can observe from this Canto:-

1)    “Although more near to us than nearness’ self,…Hidden by its own works, it seemed far off, Impenetrable, occult, voiceless, obscure… Near, it retreated; far, it called him still.” (Savitri-305)

2)    Without this Divine Presence, the world lived empty of its Mission, all things have no charm, no glory, no brightness, which can be compared as love after the beloved’s demise.  (Savitri-305)

3)    The Delight of this Supreme Self can satisfy life utterly. ‘Its absence left the greatest action dull, Its presence made the smallest (action) seem divine. When it was there heart’s abyss (desire Soul) was' fullfilled, purified, transformed and perfected. (Savitri-305-306)

4)    When this Deity, the Anandamaya Purusha withdraws, the existence experiences dissolution or when the Psychic Being withdraws, the individual experiences the death of the body. During that period of dissolution the godlike fullness of Divine Instruments, Vibhutis, Avataras become the support of an impermanent scene.

5)    The Canto proposes that to make the mind empty, vital silent and body plastic is the condition of continuous ascent of Soul, continuous descent of Shakti and boundless change and further proposes to live like a newborn child or a zero formed where every hope and search must cease and nothing built could live. Then all the parts of Nature can transform into the image of Bliss Self. This is the adventure of Spirit within Matter’s Ignorance. Thus Spirit can hold the universe in the trance of its luminous insufficiency.

6)    The separate Self or Psychic being must be Supramentalised by the invasion of the Supramental and Bliss Self and its sepatrative identity is lost and becomes one with the Bliss Self. By the influence of its Truth, the mind dies like a moth and one lives in a ‘fine and blissful Nothingness.’ (Savitri-307)

7)    Before that supreme state all human glory, sweetness and harmony become unimportant and obsolete. Thus, by the attraction of this Supreme Self, the unsolved slow evolution of three gunas returns to its Divine Source from which all springs and all ceases.

8) The Supreme Self has no kinship with the dominant three gunas of the universe. Thus, in its vast consciousness, there is no external movement, no tamasic mind’s ignorant action, no rajasic mind’s indulgence in human love and no sattwic mind’s disinterested search for pure truth. All the false personalities born by the influence of three gunas perished before the nameless impersonal influence and oneness of the Supreme bliss Self. There remains only one Supreme Divine Mother without a second personality to substitute Her or “There was no second, it had no partner or peer; Only itself was real to itself.” This Oneness of pure existence is safe from the falsehood of ‘thought and mood’ and pure Consciousness is ‘unshared immortal bliss’ and dwelt alone, aloof, unique, bare and unutterably sole. This Being is formless, featureless, mute, occult, impenetrable, infinite, eternal, unthinkable and alone.

9)    After this static realisation of the Supreme Self, King Aswapati became fit to meet its Dynamic state of the Divine Mother in Person or in Her personal embodied Form who alone can bridge the gulf between Matter and Spirit or Death and Immortality in their entirety.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A cave of darkness guards the eternal Light.” Savitri-305

“Nothing could satisfy but its delight:

Its (Supreme Self’s) absence left the greatest actions dull,

Its presence made the smallest seem divine.” Savitri-305

“A height was reached where nothing made could live,

A line where every hope and search must cease

Neared some intolerant bare Reality,

A zero formed pregnant with boundless change.” Savitri-306

“All he had been and all towards which he grew

Must now be left behind or else transform

Into a self of That which has no name.” Savitri-307

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The Book-3, Canto-2, deals with the vast dynamic silence state of Supreme Self, Turiya, Bliss Self, which can abolish and swallow the burdening need and the rajasic sense urge of life. This dynamic state perfects the action of Psychic Being, Spiritual Being and Supramental Being; its influence reduces or silences the demand of desire Soul, it turns all parts of being towards a single-minded quest and single-minded opening towards the Divine Mother Consciousness and it establishes the Bliss Consciousness in all the parts of Being and Becoming.

The speciality of this Canto is the manifestation of the Divine Mother’s Love:

“But where is the Lover’s everlasting Yes,” Savitri-310,

“The soul’s ignorance is slain but not the soul:” Savitri-311 (by the pressure of Divine Love)

“Across the silence of the ultimate Calm,

Out of a marvellous Transcendence’ core,

A body of wonder and translucency                    

As if a sweet mystic summary of her self

Escaping into the original Bliss

Had come enlarged out of eternity,

Someone (Divine Mother) came infinite and absolute.” Savitri-312

“A moment’s sweetness of the All-Beautiful (Divine Mother)

Cancelled the vanity of the cosmic whirl.” Savitri-312

“A love that bore the cross of pain with joy

Eudaemonised the sorrow of the world,

Made happy the weight of long unending Time,

The secret caught of God’s felicity.” Savitri-312-133

“A Mother Might brooded upon the world;

A Consciousness revealed its marvellous front

Transcending all that is, denying none:” Savitri-313

“A Heart was felt in the spaces wide and bare,

A burning Love from white spiritual founts

Annulled the sorrow of the ignorant depths;

Suffering was lost in her immortal smile.

A Life from beyond grew conqueror here of death;

To err no more was natural to mind;

Wrong could not come where all was light and love.” Savitri-313-14

“Her clasp shall turn to ecstasy our pain.” Savitri-314

“All here shall be one day her sweetness’ home,

All contraries prepare her harmony;

Towards her our knowledge climbs, our passion gropes;

In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,

Her clasp shall turn to ecstasy our pain.” Savitri-314

“All that denies (Supreme Love) must be torn out and slain

And crushed the many longings (of desire Soul) for whose sake

We lose the One (Divine) for whom our lives were made.

Now other claims (of desire Soul) had hushed in him their cry:

Only he longed to draw her presence and power

Into his heart and mind and breathing frame;

Only he yearned to call for ever down

Her healing touch of love and truth and joy

Into the darkness of the suffering world.

His soul was freed and given to her alone.” Savitri-316

            The Divine Love is a supremely affirmative energy defined as ‘Lover’s everlasting Yes’ which can reject, destroy and transform Inconscient/Subconscient negations known as ‘everlasting No.’ This Divine Love can slay Soul’s Ignorance, can annul the wheel of earth’s doom known as ‘cosmic whirl.’ It can bear the cross of pain with joy; transcends all the creation but denies none and can annul the sorrow of ignorant depths. It can turn pain into ecstasy, confront and conquer death, slay or transform falsehood. Before its Presence error of mind and wrong action cannot materialise. All discords of life move towards harmony, all darkness of suffering is healed and this Divine love can crush and silence the many longing desires of mind, life and body.

            So, Spiritual and Psychic Love can reject falsehood, Supramental and Bliss Love can destroy and transform falsehood and save the Soul, Mind, Life and Body. So, King Aswapati’s single-minded quest longed and yearned only the Divine Mother’s Presence in the form of Truth, Love and Joy and ‘A vast surrender was his only strength.’ (Savitri-315) 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“In absolute silence sleeps an absolute Power.

Awaking, it can wake the trance-bound soul

And in the ray reveal the parent sun:” Savitri-311-12

 

“This Light (of Supreme Self) comes not by struggle or by thought;

In the mind’s silence the Transcendent acts

And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.

A vast surrender was his only strength.

A Power that lives upon the heights must act,

Bring into life’s closed room the Immortal’s air

And fill the finite with the Infinite.” Savitri-315-16

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

In the Book-3, Canto-3, King was able to dynamise the Supramental Force of having four consequences through ‘downward look’ and by embracing all existence. They are identified as (1) new creation, (2) extinction of suffering, (3) oneness with the existence and (4) transformation of Subconscient and inconscient sheath.

1. Supramental touch/embrace will equip life with new creation and new manifestation which may be identified as an extension of integral Karma Yoga. The source of all action is Consciousness or ‘The one Consciousness that made the world was seen’ (Savitri-318) These new creations are:

A new and marvellous creation rose.” Savitri-323

“In these new worlds projected he became” Savitri-325

“A stream ever new-born that never dies,” Savitri-325

“Lured at each turn by new vicissitudes

To self-discovery that could never cease.” Savitri-328

“Brought new creations for the thought’s surprise” Savitri-328

“And vast adventure into thinking shapes

And trial and lure of a new living’s dreams.” Savitri-328

“A new creation from the old shall rise,” Savitri-330

2: Supramental touch/embrace can annul the suffering of life. This can be identified as the extension of integral Bhakti Yoga. They are:

“No suffering of hearts compelled to beat” Savitri-321

“He felt the extinction of the world’s long pain,” Savitri-322

“All struggle was turned to a sweet strife of love” Savitri-324

“There was no sob of suffering anywhere;

Experience ran from point to point of joy:

Bliss was the pure undying truth of things.

All Nature was a conscious front of God:” Savitri-324

3: Supramental touch/embrace can give the experience of Oneness with all existence. This is identified as an extension of integral Jnana Yoga and this perfection is identified as sajujya mukti. We can observe them from the following lines:

“There was no more division’s endless scroll;

One grew the Spirit’s secret unity,

All Nature felt again the single bliss.” Savitri-319

“His soul was a delegation of the All (Psychic being as a delegate of Supreme.)

That turned from itself to join the one Supreme.” Savitri-319

“A living Oneness widened at its core” Savitri-322

“Existence found its truth on Oneness’ breast” Savitri-322-23

“The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul,” Savitri-323

“Lived their innumerable unity;” Savitri-323

“There were no contraries, no sundered parts,

All by spiritual links were joined to all

And bound indissolubly to the One:” Savitri-323

“There Oneness was not tied to monotone;” Savitri-324

“And made of difference oneness’ smiling play;

It made all persons fractions of the Unique, ” Savitri-324

“There leaps out unity’s supreme delight ” Savitri-324

“Harmonised a Oneness deep, immeasurable.” Savitri-325

“The bliss of a myriad myriads who are one.” Savitri-325

“An image cast by one deep truth’s absolute,

Married to all in happy difference...

One in the might and joy of multitude.

Even in the poise where Oneness draws apart

To feel the rapture of its separate selves,

The Sole in its solitude yearned towards the All

And the Many turned to look back at the One.” Savitri-326

“In the temple of the ideal shrined the One:…

The virgin forms through which the Formless shines,” Savitri-327

4: Supramental touch/embrace or ‘constant lightnings of the spirit’ can penetrate the Subconscient and inconscient sheath. This is identified as an extension of the integral Yoga of Self-perfection. They are:

“And in subconscious whispers and in dream

Still murmured at the mind’s and spirit’s choice.

Its treacherous elements spread like slippery grains

Hoping the incoming Truth might stumble and fall,” Savitri-317

“All Nature’s recondite (little known) spaces were stripped bare,

All her dim crypts and corners searched with fire

Where refugee instincts and unshaped revolts

Could shelter find in darkness’ sanctuary

Against the white purity of heaven’s cleansing flame.” Savitri-318

“All seemed to have perished that was undivine:

Yet some minutest dissident might escape

And still a centre lurk of the blind force.

For the Inconscient too is infinite;

The more its abysses we insist to sound,

The more it stretches, stretches endlessly.” Savitri-318

“For even there (dim far universe) the boundless Oneness dwells

To its own sight unrecognisable,

It lived still sunk in its own tenebrous (dark shadowy or obscure) seas,

Upholding the world’s inconscient unity

Hidden in Matter’s insentient multitude.” Savitri-331

“It merges knowledge in the inconscient deep;

Accepting error, sorrow, death and pain,

It pays the ransom of the ignorant Night,

Redeeming by its substance Nature’s (Spiritual)  fall.” Savitri-331

“Himself he knew and why his soul had gone

Into earth’s passionate obscurity

To share the labour of an errant Power

Which by division hopes to find the One.” Savitri-331

: His heart lay somewhere conscious and alone

Far down below him like a lamp in night;

Abandoned it lay, alone, imperishable,

Immobile with excess of passionate will,

His living, sacrificed and offered heart

Absorbed in adoration mystical,

Turned to its far-off fount of light and love.” Savitri-331-332

“In the centre of his vast and fateful trance

Half-way between his free and fallen selves,

Interceding twixt God’s day and the mortal’s night,

Accepting worship as its single law,

Accepting bliss as the sole cause of things,

Refusing the austere joy which none can share,

Refusing the calm that lives for calm alone,

To her (Paraprakriti) it turned for whom it willed to be.” Savitri-332

“Armed with the intuition of a bliss

To which some moved tranquillity was the key,

It persevered through life’s huge emptiness

Amid the blank denials of the world.” Savitri-332-33

            This Inconscient transformation is very crucial in deciding Earth’s future. For such transformation to be active individuals must be established in Supramental Consciousness through Yoga of Self-perfection. This outbreak of Yoga of perfection’s law promises movement in between ‘hierarchy of lucent planes’ of Consciousness and swift Spiritual evolution.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“In the temple of the ideal shrined the One:

It peopled thought and mind and happy sense

Filled with bright aspects of the might of God

And living persons of the one Supreme,

The speech that voices the ineffable,

The ray revealing unseen Presences,

The virgin forms through which the Formless shines,” Savitri-327

​

​

​

 

A Brief Restatement:

            In the Book-3, Canto-4, the King Aswapati entered a Supramental world and through a Supramental vision met the ‘mighty face’ of the Divine Mother in his heart. This also symbolises that the King’s Psychic Being is Supramentalised. The Divine Mother discouraged King to call down immeasurable Divine Force and man is not ready to bear the Infinite’s weight. She asked King to live with the slow-paced evolution of humanity and accept God-like toil for earth and men with patience. She further informed that static Soul and influence of three gunas have made a world estranged from life and thought. The Divine Mother describes elaborately the limitation of present humanity who cannot reconcile heaven with earth. The infallible Guide leads all the Souls through stumble and failure and till they discover their Psychic being, rest and earthly ease are forbidden. Man during his journey in higher planes of Consciousness, is assisted by Immortals and Ambassadors of those planes of Consciousness. The Divine Mother declares that in spite of present limitations, tardy evolution and attachment to inferior life, ‘a pure perfection and a shadowless bliss’ (Savitri-340) is man’s mighty fate. She asks King to ‘Help still humanity’s blind and suffering life’ with the aid of his ‘spirit’s wide and omnipotent urge.’  Any impatience towards fulfilment of highest human aspiration can draw King Aswapati towards Titan drive, imperfect fruit and partial prize. So, the King must renounce the fruit of his long labour and offer everything to unchanging Divine Will. All things shall change and transform in all Life and all Time and not in this life and not in this brief time.

            Then King’s prayer again rises to activate dynamic Divine Shakti who came to him in Supramental vision to fulfil his aspiration for earth and men. King saw ‘Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers,’ ‘the sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn’, who came into this fallen human sphere as architects of Immortality. “Their tread one day shall change the suffering earth.” (Savitri-344) The King foresaw the coming of the high Divine successor, the Avatara, Satyavan. ‘He shall know’ what the heart of the mortal could not think, ‘He shall do what the heart of the mortal could not dare.’ (Savitri-344) The King prayed the Divine Mother to ‘Mission some living form’ of Her to earth who ‘with one gesture change all future time.’ (Savitri-345)

            The Divine Mother was satisfied with the King’s Tapasya, askesis and consecration and agreed to incarnate Her living form on earth and She shall ‘break the iron Law, Change Nature’s doom by the lone spirit’s power.’ (Savitri-346)

            Thus, King was eternal Seeker of Truth, Love and Power of All Life. Through him great swift-footed deed awoke. His Supramentalised Psychic Being established the empire of the Soul, who also can conquer the opulence and wealth of heaven. His empire of Soul can rule Matter and bounded universe and can reconcile Spirit with Matter. The literal meaning of King’s name is ‘the Lord of Life’ and he resumed his mighty Supramental action again in this ambiguous globe.

            Thus, ends the Book-3, Canto-4. In the next Canto we shall witness the secret of the Divine Mother’s earthly embodiment which the Lord of the Gita confirms that ‘My birth and My work are both Divine’ janma karma cha me divyam. Savitri’s birth is the symbol of Para-prakriti’s movement in an earthly embodiment which is ‘A columned shaft of fire and light.' (Savitri-581) Satyavan’s birth is the symbol of Paramatma’s earthly incarnation of 'unknown Lover' (Savitri-374). And Their meeting symbolises the union between Supreme Mother and Supreme Purusha in our heart centre as 'incarnate dual Power.' (Savitri-705)

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Flashing with lightnings, mad with luminous wine.” Savitri-334

“He shall know what mortal mind barely durst think,

He shall do what the heart of the mortal could not dare.

Inheritor of the toil of human time,

He shall take on him the burden of the gods;

All heavenly light shall visit the earth’s thoughts,

The might of heaven shall fortify earthly hearts;

Earth’s deeds shall touch the superhuman’s height,

Earth’s seeing widen into the infinite.” Savitri-344

“One moment fill with thy eternity,

Let thy infinity in one body live,

All-Knowledge wrap one mind in seas of light,

All-Love throb single in one human heart.” Savitri-345

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The Book-4, Canto-1 symbolically represents the mystery of the Godhead’s birth. The Divine Mother, when incarnated in an earthly body, her birth, childhood, youth and rest of the life are guided by the influence of higher Nature, Para-prakriti. Deluded Souls do not understand this mystery of Divine birth and consider Desire (The Gita-16.8) as the sole cause of this world existence.

In the Mother’s womb, Savitri spent three (five) thoughtful seasons of nine (ten) months before her mighty birth in the Spring season. Here seasons of summer, monsoon, autumn, winter, dew-time and spring are described not as a dead mechanical cycle but as a living deity, the force of the Divine Mother who participated in building the physical frame of Savitri.

            Savitri’s growth in the mother’s womb took place by ‘A mightier influx (that) filled the oblivious clay’ (Savitri-353) and after her birth her dim cave of Subconscient and inconscient sheaths were flooded with ‘slow conscient light’; (Savitri-355) her lovelier body was formed by the new descent of Divine Love and new Delight; her sense was purified by the pressure of Psychic being. Invisible Supramental sunlight ran through her veins and the same light flooded her brain with heavenly brilliances.

            This Canto suggests that in child Savitri the Mind of Light became active which lies in between Overmind and Supermind. Her surface Nature was also divinised or “Nearer the godhead to the surface pressed.’ (Savitri-357) She lived self-guarded and self-protected in the Spirit’s silence and in her luminous cell.

            Her pure aspiration called high Spiritual destiny down and she was able to guard the Truth’s diamond throne from the vigil tower. Her Supramental love invisibly embraced all without any sign and word and sound. Due to her half-opened Psychic being, many high Gods preferred to live in her Psychic temple. Her body is like heaven’s transparent light, a golden bridge between heaven and earth and she can walk alone with her strange and starry head in the deepest Night.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“The strong Inhabitant turned to watch her field

A lovelier light assumed her spirit brow

And sweet and solemn grew her musing gaze;

Celestial-human deep warm slumbrous fires

Woke in the long fringed glory of her eyes

Like altar-burnings in a mysteried shrine.” Savitri-357

“A nectarous haloed moon her passionate heart

Loved all and spoke no word and made no sign, (Her universal Love needs no external aid and expression.)

But kept her bosom’s rapturous secrecy

A blissful ardent moved and voiceless world.” Savitri-358

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The Book-4, Canto-2 gives an account of (1) Savitri’s state of Consciousness of young Divinity, (2) the state of consciousness of her followers and devotees, (3) the gulf between Savitri and her followers, (4) a desperate attempt to bridge those gulfs, (5) Spiritual fall down and (6) discouragement of gathering together of devotees for a Divine purpose.

1: Savitri’s Soul and Nature were equally Divinised and she was waiting to find her destined equal Soul:

“But mid this world, these hearts that answered her call,

None could stand up her equal and her mate.

In vain she stooped to equal them with her heights,

Too pure that air was for small souls to breathe.

These comrade selves to raise to her own wide breadths

Her heart desired and fill with her own power

That a diviner Force might enter life,

A breath of Godhead greaten human time.” Savitri-365-66

“Her greater self lived sole, unclaimed, within.” Savitri-366

“Among the many who came drawn to her 

Nowhere she found her partner of high tasks,

The comrade of her soul, her other self (second Self)

Who was made with her, like God and Nature, one.” Savitri-366

“Admired, unsought, intangible to the grasp

Her beauty and flaming strength were seen afar

Like lightning playing with the fallen day,

A glory unapproachably divine.

No equal heart came close to join her (Savitri’s) heart,

No transient earthly love assailed her calm,

No hero passion had the strength to seize;

No eyes demanded her replying eyes.” Savitri-367

“All worshipped marvellingly (Savitri), none dared to claim.” Savitri-368   

 

2: The Personality of her admirers, followers and devotees:

 “Only a few responded to her call:

Still fewer felt the screened divinity

And strove to mate its godhead with their own,

Approaching with some kinship to her heights.” Savitri-362

“They could not keep up with her tireless step;

Too small and eager for her large-paced will,

Too narrow to look with the unborn Infinite’s gaze

Their nature weary grew of things too great.” Savitri-363

“Others pursued her with life’s blind desires

And claiming all of her as their lonely own,

Hastened to engross her sweetness meant for all.

As earth claims light for its lone separate need

Demanding her for their sole jealous clasp,

They asked from her movements bounded like their own

And to their smallness craved a like response.

Or they repined that she surpassed their grip,

And hoped to bind her close with longing’s cords.

Or finding her touch desired too strong to bear

They blamed her for a tyranny they loved,

Shrank into themselves as from too bright a sun,

Yet hankered for the splendour they refused.

Angrily enamoured of her sweet passionate ray

The weakness of their earth could hardly bear,

They longed but cried out at the touch desired

Inapt to meet divinity so close,

Intolerant of a Force they could not house.

Some drawn unwillingly by her divine sway

Endured it like a sweet but alien spell;

Unable to mount to levels too sublime,

They yearned to draw her down to their own earth.

Or forced to centre round her their passionate lives,

They hoped to bind to their heart’s human needs

Her glory and grace that had enslaved their souls.” Savitri-365

 

3: The gulf between Savitri and her admirers:

“Her will was puissant on their nature’s acts,

Her heart’s inexhaustible sweetness lured their hearts,

A being they loved whose bounds exceeded theirs;

Her measure they could not reach but bore her touch,

Answering with the flower’s answer to the sun

They gave themselves to her and asked no more.

One greater than themselves, too wide for their ken,

Their minds could not understand nor wholly know,

Their lives replied to hers, moved at her words:” Savitri-364

“Although she leaned down to their littleness

Covering their lives with her strong passionate hands

And knew by sympathy their needs and wants

And dived in the shallow wave-depths of their lives

And met and shared their heart-beats of grief and joy

And bent to heal their sorrow and their pride,

Lavishing the might that was hers on her lone peak

To lift to it their aspiration’s cry,

And though she drew their souls into her vast

And surrounded with the silence of her deeps

And held as the great Mother holds her own,

Only her earthly surface bore their charge

And mixed its fire with their mortality:” Savitri-366

“Some near approached, were touched, caught fire, then failed,

Too great was her demand, too pure her force.

Thus lighting earth around her like a sun,

Yet in her inmost sky an orb aloof,

A distance severed her from those most close.” Savitri-366

 

4: Desperate effort to bridge the gulf between herself and her admirers:

“For even the close partners of her thoughts

Who could have walked the nearest to her ray,

Worshipped the power and light they felt in her

But could not match the measure of her soul.” Savitri-363

“A mind daring heavenly experiment,

Growing towards some largeness they felt near,

Testing the unknown’s bound with eager touch

They still were prisoned by their human grain:” Savitri-363

“Or longing with their self of life and flesh

They clung to her for heart’s nourishment and support:

The rest they could not see in visible light;

Vaguely they bore her inner mightiness.

Or bound by the senses and the longing heart,

Adoring with a turbid human love,

They could not grasp the mighty spirit she was

Or change by closeness to be even as she.

Some felt her with their souls and thrilled with her,

A greatness felt near yet beyond mind’s grasp;

To see her was a summons to adore,

To be near her drew a high communion’s force.” Savitri-363

“So men worship a god too great to know,

Too high, too vast to wear a limiting shape;

They feel a Presence and obey a might,

Adore a love whose rapture invades their breasts;

To a divine ardour quickening the heart-beats,

A law they follow greatening heart and life.

Opened to the breath is a new diviner air,

Opened to man is a freer, happier world:” Savitri-364

“Her will was puissant on their nature’s acts,

Her heart’s inexhaustible sweetness lured their hearts,

A being they loved whose bounds exceeded theirs;

Her measure they could not reach but bore her touch,

Answering with the flower’s answer to the sun

They gave themselves to her and asked no more.” Savitri-364

“They felt a godhead and obeyed a call,

Answered to her lead and did her work in the world;

Their lives, their natures moved compelled by hers

As if the truth of their own larger selves

Put on an aspect of divinity

To exalt them to a pitch beyond their earth’s.

They felt a larger future meet their walk;

She held their hands, she chose for them their paths:” Savitri-364

 

5: Spiritual fall:

“Uplifted towards luminous secrecies

Or conscious of some splendour hidden above

They leaped to find her in a moment’s flash,

Glimpsing a light in a celestial vast,

But could not keep the vision and the power

And fell back to life’s dull ordinary tone.” Savitri-362

“Or with a slow great many-sided toil

Pushing towards aims they hardly could conceive;

Yet forced to be the satellites of her sun

They moved unable to forego her light,

Desiring they clutched at her with outstretched hands

Or followed stumbling in the paths she made.” Savitri-363

"In man a dim disturbing somewhat lives;

It knows but turns away from divine Light

Preferring the dark ignorance of the fall." Savitri-366

 

6: Discouragement of gathering together of devotees for a Divine purpose:

            In this Canto a Sadhak is discouraged from wasting his time in gathering together people, lakasangraha, for a Divine purpose. It proposes to utilise time and space exclusively to accumulate Spiritual energy and by the movement of Spiritual consciousness, he does good of all creatures. His one, only and best friend is his Psychic Being.

"Whoever is too great must lonely live.

Adored he walks in mighty solitude;

Vain is his labour to create his kind,

His only comrade is the Strength within.” Savitri-368

            Savitri is a representative symbol of Incarnation and myriad Instruments and Emanations, always present close to earth’s atmosphere with the single mission of divinising the clay. This Canto proposes Divine’s Yantras, Vibhutis and Avataras, not to waste their time in building Soul of their own kind, rather to utilise time to accumulate Spiritual energy, to canalise this Transcendent Force to earth and men. They will learn the lesson to depend on their own Spiritual energy rather than on collective force. In the long run, humanity will be prepared to divinise themselves and all the Divine opulence will be given to them.

7: The Gulf between Sri Aurobindo and His direct disciples:

“It (Savitri) heralds the Supermind.

            But I had a feeling (after reading the last chapter of Savitri) he (Sri Aurobindo) had not completed his revision. When I read this, I felt it was not the end, just as when I read the last chapter of the “Yoga of Self-Perfection,” (of The Synthesis of Yoga) I felt it was not finished. He left it unfinished. And he said so. He said, “No, I will not go down to this mental level anymore.”

             But in Savitri’s case… (I didn’t look after it, you know), he had around him Purani, that Chinmayi, and… (what is his name) Nirod—they all swarmed around him. So I didn’t look after Savitri. I read Savitri two years ago (1961), I had never read it before. And I am so glad! Because I read it at the time I could understand it –and I realised that none of those people had understood ONE BIT of it.” The Mother/The Mother's Agenda/13th March-1963

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Earth nursed, unconscious still, the inhabiting flame,

Yet something deeply stirred and dimly knew;

There was a movement and a passionate call,

A rainbow dream, a hope of golden change;

Some secret wing of expectation beat,

A growing sense of something new and rare

And beautiful stole across the heart of Time.” Savitri-367

 

A Brief Restatement:

            The Book-4, Canto-3, defines King Aswapati’s Mission known as ‘The Call’ and he made Savitri aware of her two important discoveries known as ‘The Quest’.

The King Aswapati again confirmed his mission for earth and men.

“Again the mighty yearning (of King) raised its flame

That asks a perfect life on earth for men

And prays for certainty in the uncertain mind

And shadowless bliss for suffering human hearts

And Truth embodied in an ignorant world

And godhead divinising mortal forms.” Savitri-369

            The King got the overhead direction or ‘from some far sky of thought’ which was received by ‘the echoing passages of his brain’ and this overhead wisdom ‘left its stamp (of Divinity) on the recording cells’ of the King and his ‘dim ignorant cells’ and ‘the blind brain’ received Divine transformation. He got a blueprint of how the King will realise his mission from above.

            The Fate-driven earth-born race will face the greatest opposition in realisation of the perfect life from the three Inconscient energies of gunas. The dwarf Sattwic mind will oppose the realisation of comprehensive Truth; the dwarf rajasic mind will oppose the realisation of tireless Divine Love and the dwarf tamasic mind will be satisfied with the attainment of ‘low-peaked height’ of consciousness. Inconscient’s mindless muddy water blocks all the action of Divine Will, Wisdom and Love. The man turns for little gains to ignorant Powers, kindles a light for demon face, loves ignorance fathering his pain and a great Illusion wraps his life. Even the descent of flaming light returns back to its home; none understands the Eternity’s direction and the luminous divine Eye retires from its action.

              The King has not lost confidence in humanity and hoped for his action with swift revealing Spiritual steps and fit all his actions to a transcendent scheme. The Godhead can grow within his heart and the Mighty Mother can stay permanently in the Psychic Heart Centre. Man must receive the Divine call to exceed himself. Earth life is an epic of hope and failure and she can exceed her form and fixed fate. Though she is a goddess, yet she is caught in the net of Death and forbidden joy. In the altar of despair, she builds hope; with the pains of hell, she aspires to joy and her high step can liberate all humanity.

            The King Aswapati, as the Guru of Savitri, gave her two tasks of finding the Divine without and within. Firstly, she will tread a brief golden path with her second Self, the lyrist of her Soul’s most intimate chords, mover of her force and guide. His Light will guard her from without and within and by holding his strong hand she can confront life’s adversity. Secondly, she has to discover her Psychic being where the Supramental Mother can choose to stay permanently and with the power of the Psychic being, she can tread a sun-lit path followed by a journey in the abysmal night, dream twilight of Subconscient plane, permanent rise of Soul to Sachchidananda plane and permanent descent of Sachchidananda consciousness by returning to earth life along with Satyavan.

            This Canto also hints Savitri’s Psychic opening not by Vedic/Tantric self-discipline but by Vedantic Self-discipline where the Soul in the heart opened by the pressure/descent of Soul in the Mind or Spiritual Being, or ‘A hand from some Greatness opened her heart’s locked doors.’ (Savitri-375)

            In King, the Karma, Jnana and Bhakti are reconciled to such extent the all-overhead Power, Knowledge and Ecstasy rushed into his physical frame known as annamaya Purusha/annamaya Kosha and thus physical transformation or cellular change is experienced.

            After Savitri knew that her unknown Lover was waiting for her the Unknown, the palace of Madra became empty of its sweetness, the sovereign of daily joys of life went far; her moonbeam feet touched not the lucent floors. The beauty and divinity were gone. Delight had fled to search for another specious world and future home.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Knows that one high step might enfranchise (liberate) all” Savitri-371

“Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self

Are seized unutterably and he endures

An ecstasy and an immortal change;

He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power,

All knowledge rushes on him like a sea:” Savitri-375 (reconciliation of King’s Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga.)

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            Before discovering Divine within Savitri has to discover her Divine without. Before this Divine Call, the attraction of ‘Madra’s spacious halls, the white carved pillars, the cool dim alcoves, the tinged mosaic of the crystal floors, the towered pavilions, the wind-rippled pools and gardens humming with the murmur of bees’ became pale, unwanted and obsolete. In Book-4, Canto-4, Savitri left the palace in search of her ‘only Lord’ (Savitri-637) who can hold her Divine Love, Delight and Beauty, collaborate in fulfilling her Divine Mission which is a manifestation of the Divine Will and call down Divine Wisdom, Truth and Light to guard her mission’s ‘diamond throne’ (Savitri-358) and adventure ahead in Consciousness like a pioneer to manifest the Divine life. He (the destined Lover) will give voice to what in her is mute and the lyrist of her 'soul’s most intimate chords.' (Savitri-374)

 

            We get some hints from this Canto related with the Spiritual destiny of a Sadhaka. They are divided into three parts. The Divine Destiny is made by (1) the intervention of Divine work and Divine descent of Wisdom, (2) the intervention of higher Beings (hooded godheads) (Savitri-377) who accompany him from his birth, (3) the intervention of 'all seeing Eye above,' (Savitri-378) the Divine architect. These three elements are responsible for building Spiritual destiny. If Sadhaka has realised Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental beings, then (4) beings of those planes will join with him as emanations of Divine Mother and they will further help to change the destiny.

            This Canto proposes a Sadhaka that before wearing the face of Satyavan for receiving Savitri’s full Divine Love, he must develop/integrate the following twelve attributes through practices of multiple self-disciplines of traditional and integral Yoga. They are:

1: “The strong king-sages from their labour done,

Freed from the warrior tension of their task,

Came to her serene sessions in these wilds;

The strife was over, the respite lay in front.” Savitri-381

2: “In the soul’s unprofaned star-white recess

They sojourned with an everliving Bliss;

A Voice profound in the ecstasy and the hush

They heard, beheld an all-revealing Light.

All time-made difference they overcame;

The world was fibred with their own heart-strings;

Close drawn to the heart that beats in every breast,

They reached the one self in all through boundless love.” Savitri-381

3: “Nameless the austere ascetics without home

Abandoning speech and motion and desire

Aloof from creatures sat absorbed, alone,

Immaculate in tranquil heights of self” Savitri-382

4: “The seers attuned to the universal Will,

Content in Him who smiles behind earth’s forms,

Abode ungrieved by the insistent days.

About them like green trees girdling a hill

Young grave disciples fashioned by their touch

Trained to the simple act and conscious word,

Greatened within and grew to meet their heights.” Savitri-382

5: “Bathed in the purity of the mild gaze

That, uninsistent, ruled them from its peace,

And by its influence found the ways of calm.” Savitri-382

6: “King-children nurtured in that spacious air

Like lions gambolling in sky and sun

Received half-consciously their godlike stamp:…

Plastic and firm beneath the eternal hand,

Met Nature with a bold and friendly clasp

And served in her the Power that shapes her works.” Savitri-382

7: “One-souled to all and free from narrowing bonds,

Large like a continent of warm sunshine

In wide equality’s impartial joy,

These sages breathed for God’s delight in things…

The love that flows from the one Mother’s breast

Healed with their hearts the hard and wounded world.” Savitri-383

8: “Drunk with a wine of lightning in their cells” Savitri-383

9: “Some lost to the person and his strip of thought

In a motionless ocean of impersonal Power,

Sat mighty, visioned with the Infinite’s light,

Or, comrades of the everlasting Will,

Surveyed the plan of past and future Time.” Savitri-383-84

10: “Some winged like birds out of the cosmic sea

And vanished into a bright and featureless Vast:

Some silent watched the universal dance,

Or helped the world by world-indifference.” Savitri-384

11: “Some watched no more merged in a lonely Self,

Absorbed in the trance from which no soul returns,

All the occult world-lines for ever closed,

The chains of birth and person cast away:” Savitri-384

12: “Some uncompanioned reached the Ineffable.” Savitri-384

 

            Among the above twelve types of great exclusive liberated Souls, Savitri was unable to discover her Soul’s companion who was a symbol of comprehensive Divine Love:

“Still she found not the one predestined face

For which she sought amid the sons of men.” Savitri-385

            Thus, in Savitri’s life, many months passed without discovering Satyavan (Paramatma in material embodiment). She has not lost hope and waited for the destined meeting.

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“August, exulting in her Maker’s eye,

She felt her nearness to him in earth’s breast,

Conversed still with a Light behind the veil,

Still communed with Eternity beyond.” Savitri-381

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            This Book-5, Canto-1 gives the message that Savitri has to receive the Divine Love from without, from within and from above. They will bring complete fulfilment of her earth life and her mission of transforming earth will be expedited which is her long pending issue of all life.

 

            This Canto confirms that all the happenings of past, present and future life are not accidental but there exists a Divine plan and all events happen in the cosmic play in a foreseen time and place. We are given a brief time from cradle to grave to call down Timeless eternity and a small place to call down spaceless Infinity. Savitri’s birth and youth in Madra’s palace is the symbol of the ascent of the Soul to the highest status and her return to Shalwa’s forest hermitage is the symbol of descent into nether earth in order to discover the last Godhead sleeping in the Inconscient sheath (Savitri-405) and this Godhead in the form of Inconscient Self can illumine earth life by its lone power or ‘lay his (man’s) hand on happy inconscient things.’ (Savitri-390)

 

            This Canto also proposes a Sadhaka to become ascetic within symbolised as ‘solitude far from the world’ (Savitri-391) with the realisation of Brahma Satya Jagat Mithya as the starting point of ‘sad and limitless (Divine) Call’ (Savitri-391) of the endless integral Yoga.

OM TAT SAT

The Important Secret of this chapter:

“Unknowing she had neared her nameless goal…

And nothing happens in the cosmic play

But at its time and in its foreseen place.” Savitri-389

The More Important Secret of this chapter:

“His (ascetic’s) vast extended spirit couched behind.” Savitri-391

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“To lay his hand on happy inconscient things,” Savitri-390

“Love in the wilderness met Savitri.” Savitri-391

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The moderate Satyavan, who lived in the illumined Soul ray of God’s touch but was not ready to face the eternal Sun of His constant embrace, became ascetic Satyavan, when this surface concentration of the Divine ray penetrated heart and flesh. This ascetic Divine realisation could not bridge the gulf between Matter and Spirit. When he concentrated on the world he lost the God and when concentrated on the God lost the world. With Savitri’s arrival, this gulf was bridged and the consecrated Satyavan became King Child and was able to live and face the Sunlight, representing Vijnana. And in the cosmic Consciousness of Vijnana, the Spirit and Matter are reconciled and Matter’s or physical body’s fixed death bound destiny and grooves of Iron law are changed into the Spirit’s immortal all life. This is a passage from mere man incarnating to the integral ascending Godhead of the race or ‘the soul of man climbing to God,’ (Savitri-703) and its destined saviour. His Godhead status does not prevent him from living ‘in one house with the primal beast’ (Savitri-541) in the forest, colloquies with the Djinn and Asuras of the Subconscient world; thus in the Divine’s single plan ‘high meets the low’ (Savitri-541) or ‘God’s summits look back on the mute Abyss;’ (Savitri-541) accepts to be small and human on earth. This is the emergence of Lord Satyavan, for whom Savitri fought with the dark Godhead in Death’s Night. Through this sacrificial action, the highest Divine Consciousness of the Avatara is reconciled with the lowest consciousness of Earth.

            This Book-5, Canto-2 proposes a Sadhaka to live in the new Time and new Space, where an incalculable amount of Divine Force, Light, Ananda, Love, Beauty, Peace and Silence invade in and to live without them is to return to the old world and mortal time subject to death, decay and disease. His rare privilege is to meet the dual Avatara in subtle physical, Psychic and Superconscient planes.

 

             Sri Aurobindo reveals Satyavan as a symbol of Divine Love (masculine Power). Divine love is an overhead energy which descends to Earth through a prepared human channel. When Divine Love enters earth’s atmosphere he is ‘Abased, disfigured, mocked’ (Savitri-397) by inferior beings. Tamasic beings (within and without) misunderstand the Divine Love, rajasic beings misuse the Divine Love and sattwic beings limit the action of Divine Love. Mind, life and body cannot hold the Divine Love in its pure form.

​

             Through this Canto we can concentrate on dual Avatara’s supreme relation in a mortal body. Even the experience of a brief touch of Divine Love is of immense value in our external life. The meeting of the Dual Avatara in the heart is also identified as a Supramental experience of uninterrupted intense immortal joy. The mortal body learns to wear this intense delight.

OM TAT SAT

​The Important Secret of this chapter:

“The one for whom her heart had come so far.” Savitri-393

“For suddenly her heart looked out at him,” Savitri-395

“Then trembling with the mystic shock her heart” Savitri-396

“Heart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;

All strives to enforce the unity all is.” Savitri-398

“Her heart unveiled and his to find her turned;” Savitri-399

 The More Important Secret of this chapter:

“The chariot stood like an arrested wind.

And Satyavan looked out from his soul’s doors

And felt the enchantment of her liquid voice

Fill his youth’s purple ambience and endured

The haunting miracle of a perfect face.” Savitri-396

“A forehead that wore the crown of all her (Savitri’s) past,

Two eyes her constant and eternal stars,

Comrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul,

Lids known through many lives, large frames of love.” Savitri-396

“These bodies summed the drift of numberless births,

And the spirit to the spirit was the same.” Savitri-399

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“This golden figure given to his grasp

Hid in its breast the key of all his aims,

A spell to bring the Immortal’s bliss on earth,

To mate with heaven’s truth our mortal thought,

To lift earth-hearts nearer the Eternal’s sun.

In these great spirits now incarnate here

Love brought down power out of eternity

To make of life his new undying base.” Savitri-397

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            Sri Aurobindo was able to accommodate His (and also The Mother’s) all life’s comprehensive high Spiritual Visions and experiences in symbolic characters of incarnations, emanations and instruments, depicted from the legendary epic Mahabharata where Savitri, the descending Godhead, Avatara, the all Mother, the Mother of all Time, Paraprakriti, knew her fiery Self and her Being’s aim of pursuing the Soul of earth, symbolised as Satyavan in his earthly form in each birth and in all life. She glimpsed the glory for which she had chosen earth and its atmosphere for a gradual and subsequently constant, intense, comprehensive and instantaneous total descent of Divine attributes of Truth-Light, Power, Wisdom and Delight. She keeps her will alive to drive human Souls and fills in their brute elements, the endless hope to Divinise clay and confronts the riddle of Birth, inevitable Death, grooves of iron Law and stone eyes of fixed Fate in them with the sheer power of her unchanging Soul force manifested as living fire of Divine Love. She has chosen the Souls who have long suffered on this harsh globe, for the field of her sacrifice and action and she is even ready to walk and waste all infinity with wounded feet to accomplish her seemingly impossible task of transforming earth’s shadow, fixed destiny, grooves of iron Law, meaningless suffering, splendid failure, twilight and grey inhibitions. She leans with pity over earth-bound men in order to share the burden of ‘earth’s struggle and fate.’

 

           Satyavan, a mere man of action, a woodsman, Nara, Jivatma, raised his consciousness to the status of the ascending integral Godhead, Avatara, Narayana, by the Power of consecration and loss of ego and was destined to fulfill Savitri’s mighty Mission of bridging the gulf between Heaven, Earth and Hell. He was also the Eternal Consciousness, a unique rare treasure loaned by Gods, who accompanied Savitri from the beginning of the creation as first ‘man and woman’ or first dual Incarnation and the Supreme had promised to grant physical immortality in all life when the first Avatara’s ‘heart dared death and suffered life.’ He continued his life in many successive births and bodies as ‘twin souls born from one undying fire’ of this mortal existence to endure in his human heart a million wounds representing the delegate Soul of earth. Through his long suffering in human form the God’s debt is paid. His Godhead status does not prevent him from living ‘in one house with the primal beast’ in the forest, colloquies with the Djinn and Asuras of the Subconscient world; thus in the Divine’s single plan he reveals solidarity with antagonist powers; ‘high meets the low’ or ‘God’s summits look back on the mute Abyss.’ He accepts the small and human personality of woodsman on earth and his small beginning witnesses the immense ascent of the Soul and immense descent of Shakti, leading the creation towards a mighty end. While tracing the path of immortality he signed salvation’s testament with his blood and broke into the dangerous and dark Inconscient’s depth and if he were to meet the Spiritual fall in the form of death while attempting to break the wheel of earth’s doom and before bridging the gulf between Heaven and Earth in order to balance the dark account of mortal Ignorance then this would be a great loss for humanity. Or an Avatara, as a delegate Soul of Heaven lent to earth must live a brief period in human history in order to trace and build a passage in intermediate ranges of consciousness so that a large section of humanity will be able to bridge the gulf between Heaven and Earth and reconcile Spirit with Matter with less effort. This work is further accelerated if Divine Love becomes active in earth’s atmosphere through action and interfusion of dual Avatara. His Divine work on earth of invasion of the series of Light and Love is treated unfinished and half done till all the evils are slain or transformed in their Inconscient home.

 

            In Savitri and Satyavan, Soul and Nature had realised equal Divine Presences and merged themselves in the oneness of wide harmony and balance. Their Spirit and body were glad, fulfilled through their union which drove them towards the discovery of ‘Love’s deathless moment,’  (Savitri-579) beings’ aim and richness extending over all Time. Their first meeting gives the most thrill by witnessing the dual Avatara in a secluded shrine of earth and in the secluded chamber of their heart who carry all the memory of their past births and their unfulfilled world task. From time to time or from the beginning of the creation, earth waits patiently for this destined meeting. Each meeting after the passing of many ages brings a new promise of Divine manifestation and the new hope becomes again visible in earth’s creatures. They had treasured the rich relation of their brief human birth through a subtle link of union or clasp of two eternities through many successive births and bodies of un-beginning past and felt the call of Spirit’s unending future joy; even they knew their Selves ‘older than the birth of Time.’ (Savitri-537) A vast intention of love’s unseen Presence has drawn these dual incarnating Powers closer in this life and their love asks them to wait endlessly as if they have all eternity ahead for their self-fulfilment. Together they have disdained from the God’s everlasting Night of Inconscient world and turned away from His everlasting Day of Sachchidananda plane and returned to Earth to wage a million wars against the universal dark rebel forces attached to present unstable existence, to bear the earth Mother’s ancient adversary, to bear ‘world’s intolerable wrongs’ (Savitri-701) and to accomplish their double task of raising the world to God’s deathless Light, a permanent ascent of Divine Consciousness and bringing down Divine Shakti to earth and men, a permanent descent of Divine Consciousness.

           Dyumatsena, the self-exiled King of Shalwa, father of Satyavan, is the Divine’s Conscious instrument, Yantra, here fallen blind, limiting his capacity to three gunas and walks lamely on this dangerous world with slow evolutionary mental footsteps. Through this Spiritual fall he has lost the celestial inner kingdom of seven immortal Selves and through that loss its kingdom of outer glory and opulence. Due to this adverse fate, he now sojourns a wiser life in the solemn rustle of the wood and his yearning towards All meets two solitudes (1) that of an outcast from the empire of the outer light symbolically represented as a crutch upon which his faltering-limb supports and he helplessly stumbles in the rushing speed of hasty Time and (2) lost to the comradeship of five galloping hooves of sense that of sound, touch, sight, taste and smell symbolically represented as his sightless blind identity. This double doom of his father compelled Satyavan to live in the high peopled loneliness of the Spirit which called the Divine Mother to enter his earthly life in human form and finally helped his long pure childhood’s lonely dream to restore King Dyumatsena’s steady royal walk in high dynamic outer Kingdom and a deeper visionary eye of Divine Wisdom. Restoration of the outer Kingdom was also the outcome of his revival of the inner kingdom through sadhana in double seclusion.  

           

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Her beating heart a remembrance of bliss” Savitri-410

“Each now was a part of the other’s unity,

The world was but their twin self-finding’s scene

Or their own wedded being’s vaster frame.” Savitri-411

“Oneness must sever its recovered bliss

Or fate sunder (divide) our lives while life is ours.” Savitri-412

​

A Brief restatement:

          This book (with its two Cantos) deals with the question of Fate, its source, its effect on our lives and whether it can be conquered. It also deals with problem of pain, the reason for its existence and when it will leave the scene.

 

            The main participants who partake in uncovering this topic (mystery) are:

 

Narad – who represents a Divine messenger aware of the source and secret mystery of fate and the forces that act behind all apparent destinies but does not have the power to change fate (that is also the limitation of our relation with Overmental Gods and Goddess) only he has the power to inform and awaken one to its impending action. He lives in a realm where Truth manifests without the distortion (What Narad saw about the detailed future of Savitri, about the same thing King Aswapati got the hint. In this sense Gods are superior to King Aswapati as projected in Savitri book) of any intermediary ignorance or inconscience, but he understands the secret mystery behind the ignorance and the future destiny of the earth.  He comes to awaken and add a sense of haste (swiftness and acceleration) to Savitri’s Divine mission.

 

 

King Aswapati – plays the role of both the father (and the Guru) of Savitri but as a seer of Truth and aware of the Divine Mother’s descent and action and ability to change fate, he is unperturbed by Narad’s pronouncements (Because King Aswapati had developed the strong conviction that the Supreme Will can work only for the good, independent of whatever it seems good or bad to man’s mind) and is aware of the purpose that Savitri has descended for. (Like king Aswapati, in Integral Yoga the physical Guru has the responsibility of helping to find the Psychic Self. Then Psychic being is the inner Guru who takes the next responsibility in Sadhana.)

 

 

The Queen – birth mother of Savitri and here is shown as someone who has accomplished some realisations and done sadhana, aware of the higher planes of existences and some of the secrets behind life and nature, but does not believe that Death can be overcome by a direct descent of the Divine power, but rather pleads the case for a slow and gradual evolution of man to his divine nature. (She has realized the Divine but was not aware that the Divine Power can change the untransformed Nature and hence can change human destiny.)  The Queen was strong moderate by nature and hence she recoils from any high mission and discourages Savitri to step back from her Soul’s choice and asks her to follow an easier established path (“A choice less rare may call a happier fate,” Savitri-432). In the course of time, Savitri transcended her moderate passionate wise Mother and Ascetic Mighty Seer Father (She must disrupt, dislodge by her soul’s force Her past, a block on the Immortal’s road, Savitri-12) 

 

Savitri – although the incarnation of the Divine Mother, here she also represents someone who accepts their fate (which in her case is not the result of any karma of her previous lives) and can answer to it, not by pleading to a lower power/gods or by side stepping it (by rejecting to marry Satyavan), but by relying on (Spiritual experience of meeting with Satyavan that uplifted her consciousness to Supreme Height) their pure Soul force and the Divine within. (Savitri book indicates that Savitri’s Psychic being has more power than the Gods and the Guru.) “Then meet a greater god, thy self beyond Time.” (Savitri-375)

 

 

             The two cantos explore how the fate of most mortals differs from the fate of the Avatars or divine beings (Divine instruments, Yantra, Vibhuti and Avatara).  In the former case fate (is the fixed destiny activated by Nature’s law where the Supernature or Ishwara remains as witness during critical transitional moments) is usually prescribed to mortals by their karma, or nature or the actions of the Gods, while in the latter it is self-chosen, part of their mission (to activate the Supernature and witness or the ruler becomes Over-ruler and Overseer to change the fixed death bound destiny of the individual and the race).  Hence, to escape one’s fate of a self-chosen mission is not possible for the divine (conscious) beings, who descend from a higher plane of Consciousness.  We learn that these beings have to take their share of human misery if they wish to transform the earth and that all suffering can ultimately only be erased by bringing the highest supramental light to the lowest/deepest part of the Inconscient.  Pain, we are told is the necessary instrument, the Gods use to cajole the divine within the inconscient to evolve towards the higher light…without which it would remain in its current (untransformed dark) state.  We learn that once the highest divine light invades and transforms the inconscient sheath, pain no longer has its place and is transformed into its true state of divine (Ecstasy) good/joy….

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

"Earth keeps for man some short and perfect hours” Savitri-421

“Virgin who comest perfected by joy,

Reveal the name thy sudden heart-beats learned.

Whom hast thou chosen, kingliest among men?” Savitri-424

​

Summary Restated:

          This book (with its two Cantos) deals with the question of Fate, its source, its effect on our lives and whether it can be conquered. It also deals with problem of pain, the reason for its existence and when it will leave the scene.

 

            The main participants who partake in uncovering this topic (mystery) are restated with more deeper meaning:

Savitri: Sri Aurobindo was able to accommodate His (and also The Mother’s) all life’s comprehensive high Spiritual Visions and experiences in symbolic characters of incarnations, emanations and instruments, depicted from the legendary epic Mahabharata where Savitri, the descending Godhead, Avatara, the all Mother, the Mother of all Time, Paraprakriti, knew her fiery Self and her Being’s aim of pursuing the Soul of earth, symbolised as Satyavan in his earthly form in each birth and in all life. She glimpsed the glory for which she had chosen earth and its atmosphere for gradual and subsequently constant, intense, comprehensive and instantaneous total descent of Divine attributes of Truth-Light, Power, Wisdom and Delight. She keeps her will alive to drive human Souls and fills in their brute elements, the endless hope to Divinise clay and confronts the riddle of Birth, inevitable Death, grooves of iron Law and stone eyes of fixed Fate in them with the sheer power of her unchanging Soul force manifested as living fire of Divine Love. She has chosen the Souls who have long suffered on this harsh globe, for the field of her sacrifice and action and she is even ready to walk and waste all infinity with wounded feet to accomplish her seemingly impossible task of transforming earth’s shadow, fixed destiny, grooves of iron Law, meaningless suffering, splendid failure, twilight and grey inhibitions. She leans with pity over earth-bound men in order to share the burden of ‘earth’s struggle and fate.’

 

King Aswapati: Aswapati, King of Madra, the son of God, Vibhuti, destined to do some special Divine work, represents the human aspiration, hard Tapasya, askesis, and concentrated endeavour to explore all the multiple planes of Consciousness through vast and multiple identities. As Divine father he fostered, nourished and served his Divine daughter selflessly without attachment and wanted his daughter to ‘set earth alight’ with her ‘flame of radiant happiness.’ Like all human fathers, he aspires that her mortal life be unwounded and to serve humanity with ‘glad and griefless days.’ His capacity to unite with new bliss and flame-white Love came by annulling all ‘the contact formed with time-born things.’ He was able to retrieve the earth’s lost Spiritual energies, discovered earth’s secret beyond all previously attained Spiritual wisdom, nurtured Almighty’s Power in silence and solitude, sought the Divine strength that was not yet manifested on earth and called down the Divine Mother in the form of his daughter, Savitri. As Spiritual Teacher, the Guru; firstly, he made her aware that her world Mission of awakening ‘Almighty powers’ that ‘are shut in Nature’s cells,’ ‘meet the Omnipotent in this house of flesh,’ ‘Out of Immortal’s substance you were made’ and hewing the path of immortality would be accomplished not by her own effort alone but by venturing to find her second Self, future Lord, unknown Lover, personal Godhead of the race and lyricist of her ‘soul’s most intimate chords’ in distant lands, who alone can match the measure of her waiting Soul, can walk with him like Gods in Heaven and can stand up as her equal comrade and peer; secondly, ‘must fire always test’ the purity and greatness of her Soul, who must wrestle with supernatural Darkness and must leave behind Death’s night to raise the fallen world. None can possess the kingdom of heaven and supreme Delight that has not passed through the ‘stones of suffering’ and tragic torture of giant sons of Falsehood; thirdly, she must continue her father’s unfinished Yoga and unfinished mission of ‘pure perfection and a shadowless bliss’ for the whole of suffering humanity and of changing all future time by unlocking the doors of human Fate.

Queen: The Queen, the beautiful, passionate and the wise human mother of Savitri, the Divine’s unconscious instrument in Ignorance, child Soul, bala, represents mankind satisfied and preoccupied with earthly life of surface consciousness with having partial static Divine realisation through ‘sacrificial flame of aspiration,’ illumination of intellect, sattwic mind, limited light in Ignorance, and in her understanding of the mystery of creation and the Creator, the truth distorted and the Immortal’s meaning in the world was veiled. Thus, the limitation of her sattwic mind is here identified as soul slaying truth.  As a human mother she fostered, nourished and served her Divine daughter with self-interest and attachment. She understands perfectly the limitations of human love and static Divine Love which cannot illuminate material life and not aware of the dynamic aspect of Divine Love which can transform life and human love. She was unaware of the secret of abundant dynamic Divine’s Grace and Bliss that hunt behind all effort to accept danger and pain to resolve the fundamental problem of existence and hence to decline all greater adventure by rejecting the doomed Satyavan was identified by her as the best solution. She, like a common man, was unable to recognise the greatness, nobility and action of world redemption of an Avatara and hence nourished no regard and gratitude towards him. She was also not aware that all unforeseen events are part of God’s secret plan and that He can overrule the Iron Law of Nature by conscious human effort and by dynamisation of His Supernature. So Narad asks the Queen not to interfere in matters that are beyond her understanding and power and to stand back from the stupendous scene and tremendous strife of her daughter’s heaven-sent task. The Queen was a representative Soul of moderate Spirituality or a beginner of integral Yoga and during the critical hour of her daughter’s choice of Satyavan, she experienced a Spiritual fall as her Soul was not sufficiently trained to lean on the pure and tranquil Spirit for all necessary aid and help during the hour of extreme adversity. This suggests that to oppose Divine’s Will in carrying out her daughter’s ‘heaven-sent task’ of rescuing men is the cause of her Spiritual decline. Her only daughter and husband’s mighty Spiritual Presence did not help her to overcome this fall of Consciousness and she lost the ‘empire of her hard-won quietude.’ (Savitri-437)

Narad: Narad, the heavenly sage, the God, the instrument having the experience of oneness and complete union with the Divine. He is a mediator between Heaven and Earth, who was aware of the source and mystery of human fate and was having the power to foresee the future of man and knowledge of Soul saving Truth behind this creation, came down to earth to make Savitri aware that Soul’s greatness is measured through the capacity to bear pains of hell and she must cross on the stones of supreme universal suffering to arrive at her high mission, though he was having no power at his disposal to change her destiny and hence incapable of changing human destiny. Savitri’s Psychic being has the ability to give shelter where all the ‘high Gods could live.’ This Divine stationed in the heart centre is also projected as ‘greater than the God,’ the Guru and personal Godhead and has the capacity to change her own destiny and the destiny of the race or ‘She only can save herself and save the world.’ To bring all the worlds under her loving control and to uplift her body’s destiny or destiny of the race, her Soul entered a series of world adventures in different planes of Consciousness to become one with Divine Will and with the growth of Consciousness, a sort of mastery, a harmony and peace preoccupied the cells of the body and further extended to her multiple Selves of Sun-vast Truth.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A day may come when she must stand unhelped

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

Carrying the world’s future on her lonely breast,

Carrying the human hope in a heart left sole

To conquer or fail on a last desperate verge,

Alone with death and close to extinction’s edge.

Her single greatness in that last dire scene

Must cross alone a perilous bridge in Time

And reach an apex of world-destiny

Where all is won or all is lost for man." Savitri-461

​

Summary:

            We have identified the special features in Book-7, Canto-1 that have inspired our sadhana life.

1, First, we discover that both Savitri and Satyavan were Karma Yogis accepting the most practical and the most difficult issue of material life and divinised them. They are:

“A worshipped empress all once vied to serve,

She made herself the diligent serf of all,

Nor spared the labour of broom and jar and well,

Or close gentle tending or to heap the fire

Of altar and kitchen, no slight task allowed

To others that her woman’s strength might do.

In all her acts a strange divinity shone:

Into a simplest movement she could bring

A oneness with earth’s glowing robe of light,

A lifting up of common acts by love.” Savitri-470

 

“All of his (Satyavan) speeding days that he could spare

From labour in the forest hewing wood

And hunting food in the wild sylvan glades

And service to his father’s sightless life

He gave to her (Savitri) and helped to increase the hours

By the nearness of his presence and his clasp,

And lavish softness of heart-seeking words

And the close beating felt of heart on heart.” Savitri-472

 

2, Secondly, we discover a subtle physical relation between them which will replace the transient and divisible human love. They are:

“For when he (Satyavan) wandered in the forest, oft

Her conscious spirit walked with him and knew (while Satyavan was away from her in the forest.)

His actions as if in herself he moved;

He, less aware, thrilled with her from afar.” Savitri-473 (This is subtle physical Divine Love which will one day replace the divisible human love.)

3, Thirdly we discover their Psychic, Spiritual, Supramental, Bliss Divine union and through which Psychic, Spiritual, Supramental and Bliss Love are manifested in the earthly atmosphere. They are:

“A fusing of the joys of earth and heaven,

A tremulous blaze of nuptial rapture passed,

 A rushing of two spirits to be one, (Psychic union experience)

A burning of two bodies in one flame. (Spiritual union experience)

Opened were gates of unforgettable bliss: (Supramental and bliss Self experience.)

Two lives were locked within an earthly heaven

And fate and grief fled from that fiery hour.” Savitri-468

4, Fourthly, we observe that if the bond of their relation is made strong through the accumulation of Spiritual energy or Yoga Shakti or Divine Love, then Death cannot divide their life. They are:

“Priceless she deemed her joy so close to death; (Her joy was priceless which can confront death and can save life. Earthly joy is soul slaying and always submits itself before death.)

Apart with love she lived for love alone.” Savitri-468 (She lived only for the Divine who has incarnated here as Love.)

“Always behind this strange divided life

Her spirit like a sea of living fire

Possessed her lover and to his body clung,

One locked embrace to guard its threatened mate.” Savitri-471

“Yet ever they grew into each other more

Until it seemed no power could rend apart,

Since even the body’s walls could not divide.” Savitri-473

5: Fifthly, Satyavan’s birth Mother is identified in this epic as the smallest character, the symbolic representation of the child Soul and through her Sri Aurobindo gives the strongest message of true consecrated service to all earth-bound aspiring child Souls and their right relation with the Mother Soul; here symbolically represented as Savitri. Mother Soul serves Earth from below as a slave and from above and beyond like strong sunlight and she trespasses the bound life of child Souls as a strong Goddess and liberates them from their barren days. Like all other parents, Satyavan’s birth mother was not aware of the doom nearing her only child and aspired for him ‘All joy of earth, all heaven’s beatitude.’ (Savitri-467) A similar observation is marked in King Aswapati who aspired to pass the mortal life of his only child Savitri unwounded and further aspired for this young spirit untouched with tears, and be possessed by all new and ‘beautiful things.’ (Savitri-422)

OM TAT SAT

The Important Secret of this chapter:

“All of his (Satyavan) speeding days that he could spare

From labour in the forest hewing wood

And hunting food in the wild sylvan glades

And service to his father’s sightless life

He gave to her and helped to increase the hours

By the nearness of his presence and his clasp,

And lavish softness of heart-seeking words

And the close beating felt of heart on heart.” Savitri-472

“Thus in the silent chamber of her soul

Cloistering her love to live with secret grief

She dwelt like a dumb priest with hidden gods

Unappeased by the wordless offering of her days,

Lifting to them her sorrow like frankincense,

Her life the altar, herself the sacrifice.” Savitri-472-73

​

A Brief Restatement: 

            The Book-7, Canto-2 concentrates on the initial approach to find the Soul. Savitri’s Consciousness was moving between Psychic and Spiritual planes and also between three gunas and these Psychic and Spiritual planes.

           In her search for Soul, she entered the inner world leaving aside the surface world and came across two planes known as the (1) world of titans and asuras, (2) the world of lower nature of forbidden joy. They are linked with each other through the verse, ‘“Man’s lower nature hides these awful guests.’ (Savitri-481)

            So those who want to lead a higher life, must enter the inner ten worlds of desire Souls to discover their Psychic being. If they do not want to reject the untransformed lower nature which occupies ‘too large a place’ (Savitri-487) in life and dare not to meet and confront with the dark and invisible dangerous forces, they are considered unfit to lead a higher Divine life.

            In this Canto, we find a relation between Para prakriti Savitri and Paramatma Satyavan whose source is in absolute trance or brief cataleptic trance. They are:

“As the Voice touched, her body became a stark

 And rigid golden statue of motionless trance,

A stone of God lit by an amethyst soul.”  Savitri-474

“Then Savitri by her doomed husband sat,

Still rigid in her golden motionless pose, (brief cataleptic trance)

A statue of the fire of the inner sun.” Savitri-477

 

            Through the movement of consciousness, she came in contact with the Psychic being and also met the Spiritual Mother who consented to live permanently in her Psychic heart centre. Thus, before a Psychic being is Supramentalised it has to be Spiritualised. These experiences are:

“Our larger being sits behind cryptic walls:

There are greatnesses hidden in our unseen parts

That wait their hour to step into life’s front:

We feel an aid from deep indwelling Gods; (Psychic beings)

One speaks within, Light comes to us from above.” (Spiritual being) Savitri-485

“Out of the mystic cavern in man’s heart

The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil

And step into common nature’s crowded rooms

And stand uncovered in that nature’s front

And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life.” Savitri-486-87 (Psychic transformation)

“A portion of the mighty Mother came (Spiritual Mother)

Into her as into its own human part:

Amid the cosmic workings of the Gods

It marked her the centre of a wide-drawn scheme,

Dreamed in the passion of her far-seeing spirit

To mould humanity into God’s own shape

And lead this great blind struggling world to light

Or a new world discover or create.

Earth must transform herself and equal Heaven

Or Heaven descend into earth’s mortal state.” Savitri-486

            We again find in this Canto, Savitri came in contact with her Inconscient Self, which is identified here as nameless God. They are:

“A conscious soul in the Inconscient’s world, (discovery of Inconscient Self)

Hidden behind our thoughts and hopes and dreams,

An indifferent Master signing Nature’s acts

Leaves the vicegerent mind a seeming king.” Savitri-478

“A nameless god (Inconscient Self) in an unapproachable fane,

In the secret adytum of his inmost soul

He guards the being’s covered mysteries

Beneath the threshold, behind shadowy gates

Or shut in vast cellars of inconscient sleep.

The immaculate Divine All-Wonderful

Casts into the argent purity of his soul

His splendour and his greatness and the light

Of self-creation in Time’s infinity

As into a sublimely mirroring glass.

Man in the world’s life works out the dreams of God.” Savitri-479

 

            During this movement of Consciousness, Savitri also entered the source of existence, here identified as Supreme Light which is felt necessary to arrive at a deathless state.

“Our greater self of knowledge waits for us,

A supreme light in the truth-conscious Vast:

It sees from summits beyond thinking mind,

It moves in a splendid air transcending life.

It shall descend and make earth’s life divine.” Savitri-484

“His (Divine’s) young unaging look on deathless things,

His joy in our escape from death and Time,” Savitri-484

           

OM TAT SAT

The Important Secret of this chapter:

 “Man’s lower nature hides these awful guests.

Their vast contagion grips sometimes man’s world.

An awful insurgence overpowers man’s soul.

In house and house the huge uprising grows:

Hell’s companies are loosed to do their work,

Into the earth-ways they break out from all doors,

 Invade with blood-lust and the will to slay

And fill with horror and carnage God’s fair world.” Savitri-481

 “Nothing is wholly dead that once had lived;

In dim tunnels of the world’s being and in ours

The old rejected nature still survives;

The corpses of its slain thoughts raise their heads

And visit mind’s nocturnal walks in sleep,

Its stifled impulses breathe and move and rise;

All keeps a phantom immortality.” Savitri-483-84

 “The inferior nature born into ignorance

Still took too large a place, it veiled her self

And must be pushed aside to find her soul.” Savitri-487

 

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The Book-7, Canto-3 concentrates on inner world. Here Savitri discovered her two selves, identified as annamaya Purusha, true physical being, Soul in the body and Pranamaya Purusha, true vital being, Soul in the vital. Here also we find the description of subtle physical sheath and subtle vital sheath and their relation with Subconscient sheath and how Subconscient lower untransformed nature trespass the subtle physical and subtle vital. Here we mark, Savitri utilised Nama Japa (to repeat the name of the Divine) or ‘saviour Name’ (Savitri-491) as means of sadhana which has the capacity to transform all the invasion of lower Nature into a still and empty chamber and can call down peace, vast calmness, freedom and tranquillity of mind.

            After exploring the limitations of the tamasic mind and rajasic mind she came across ‘a brilliant ordered Space’ of Sattwic mind. Here we observe a reason’s balanced reign, ‘adamant walls of law,’ ‘a small world or rule and line,’ and limited freedom.

            Here, the sattwic mind is divided into three parts of schoolman mind, fixed mind and outer mind. They, three have three characteristics of fear, doubt and impatience respectively and through these attributes they limit the Illimitable.

            Schoolman mind occupies life’s large space, fixed pillars of thought, lives in its dreams. ‘Its thoughts (are) an army ranked and disciplined.’ It does not dare to pursue ‘great and difficult’ adventure,’ does not call down the ‘flaming god;’ cannot set the world ablaze with the inner Fire. It limits the Soul with narrow ideal, adores an exclusive God, meditation is done to realise a narrow end; shuts its door to Divine Love and dries the heart with a rational religion. Its sacrifice is cold and flameless, Shastra is a sealed book devoid of Spiritual influence.

            Fixed mind is a quiet country where sense hunger is partly quenched, doubt is replaced with fixed faith. This is a firm and settled space of intelligence where all things are kept in their proper place. This fixed mind appears to be the creator of this apparent world, a substitute of the mighty Soul. Aspirant of limited perfection, limited truth and limited harmony. This is the home of elite who are satisfied with their exclusive achievement, the victory of single truth, and clarity of the sword of limited Light. It does not want to go beyond itself to discover the Psychic being. A fixed mind is satisfied with truth’s rounded outcome and ordered knowledge of apparent things. This is the world of artists, scientists, writers, philanthropists who are satisfied with their single achievement and do not show interest to go beyond their exclusive confident life. 

            Then, Savitri came to the world of outer mind, where all are in haste and all are impatient to save the God’s world. Here no Divine Light and mystic Voice are received. The outer mind cannot receive the Divine messengers of subliminal world. It is not aware of waking trance, dreams of unborn Reality and strange goddesses with deep pooled magical eyes.

            This Canto gives the message that those who are deeply dissatisfied with the limitations of schoolman mind, fixed mind and outer mind can trace their Psychic being.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Awhile she moved through a blank tranquillity

Of naked Light from an invisible sun,

A void that was a bodiless happiness,

 A blissful vacuum of nameless peace.” Savitri-491

“To find the inner self concealed in sense.” Savitri-489 (true vital being)

“She forced her way through body to the soul.” Savitri-489 (true physical being)

“Soul was not there but only cries of life.” Savitri-490 (surface life is far from the influence of true vital being.)

“She crossed through spaces of a secret self ” Savitri-490 (Annamaya and Pranamaya Purusha.)

“But now the vital godhead wakes within (true vital being)

And lifts the life with the Supernal’s touch.” Savitri-490

“A schoolman mind had captured life’s large space,” Savitri-496

“Here was a quiet country of fixed mind,” Savitri-498

“And pass through masked doorways into outer mind” Savitri-500

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            In the Book-7, Canto-4, before finding the Psychic being Savitri came across three Mother powers of the subtle world who are having link with three inconscient energies of tamas, rajas and sattwa of Aparaprkriti (lower Nature) and also have a link with the higher Nature (Para-prakriti) of four Mother powers of Psychic plane. They are three untransformed Subliminal Soul Forces known as tamasic Mother or Mother of seven sorrows, rajasic Mother or Mother of might and sattwic Mother or the Mother of Light. They are also representative symbols of desire Soul and also three (limited) perfections, siddhis in the subtle mental world of having a link with the lower worlds of Ignorance. Those who search their Soul, feel satisfied with these three Mother powers and their limited Siddhis and do not strive to go beyond to discover the Psychic being. A subtle world is accepted as a link through which the gulf between higher nature and lower untransformed nature is bridged or this important subtle physical plane bridges the gulf between the Spiritual plane and the surface Nature of mind, life and body. Since Subtle physical, subtle vital and subtle mental have important roles in earth’s transformation, so purification, transformation and perfection of three subliminal Mother powers are identified as crucial in the life of Sadhaka of integral Yoga. These three Mother Powers are to be strongly linked with four Psychic Mother Powers of Brahma Shakti, Kshetra Shakti, Vaisya Shakti, Shudra Shakti and the four Spiritual Mother Powers of Maheswari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, and Mahasaraswati. They are also to be linked with the Supramental Source identified as Truth Supreme, Power supreme, Supreme Delight and Will supreme as hinted in Savitri.

            The great hope with which the Mother of seven Sorrows strives for purification, transformation and perfection of her existing limited attributes are observed in the following verse where she will be transformed in the future as the Mother of seven Delight:

“Within me a blind faith and mercy dwell;

I carry the fire that never can be quenched

And the compassion that supports the suns.

 I am the hope that looks towards my God,

My God who never came to me till now;

His voice I hear that ever says ‘I come’:

I know that one day he shall come at last.” Savitri-505

“Thy (Mother of seven Delight) love shall be the bond of humankind,

Compassion the bright key of Nature’s acts:

Misery shall pass abolished from the earth;

The world shall be freed from the anger of the Beast,

From the cruelty of the Titan and his pain.

There shall be peace and joy for ever more.” Savitri-507-508

            Similarly, we observe great hope in the Mother of (limited) Might and she strives for her purification, transformation and perfection to become Mother of perfect and unlimited Might. She is waiting for her days when she can guide, save and help all humanity. Her future hope and promise we observe in the following verse:

“The cosmic evil is too deep to unroot,

The cosmic suffering is too vast to heal.

A few I guide who pass me towards the Light;

A few I save, the mass falls back unsaved;

A few I help, the many strive and fail.

But my heart I have hardened and I do my work:

Slowly the light grows greater in the East,

Slowly the world progresses on God’s road.

His seal is on my task, it cannot fail:

I shall hear the silver swing of heaven’s gates

When God comes out to meet the soul of the world.” Savitri-510

“One day I will return (as Mother of unlimited Might), a bringer of light;

Then will I give to thee the mirror of God;

Thou shalt see self and world as by him they are seen

Reflected in the bright pool of thy soul.

Thy wisdom shall be vast as vast thy power.

Then hate shall dwell no more in human hearts,

And fear and weakness shall desert men’s lives,

The cry of the ego shall be hushed within,

Its lion roar that claims the world as food,

All shall be might and bliss and happy force.” Savitri-514

            Similarly, the third and the greatest Mother Power of the subliminal world, the Mother of (limited) Light strives for her purification, transformation and perfection. Her future hope of becoming the Mother of unlimited Light and helping mankind to lead towards Supramental Light is observed in the following verse:

“ Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand,

Only when infinity weds the finite’s thought,

Can man be free from himself and live with God.

I bring meanwhile the gods upon the earth;

I bring back hope to the despairing heart;

 I give peace to the humble and the great,

And shed my grace on the foolish and the wise.

I shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved.

Then Love shall at last unwounded tread earth’s soil;

Man’s mind shall admit the sovereignty of Truth

And body bear the immense descent of God.” Savitri-516

“His hunger for the eternal thou must nurse

And fill his yearning heart with heaven’s fire

And bring God down into his body and life.

One day I will return (as Mother of unlimited Light), His hand in mine,

And thou shalt see the face of the Absolute.

Then shall the holy marriage be achieved,

Then shall the divine family be born.

There shall be light and peace in all the worlds.” Savitri-521

            This Canto gives the important message that for the transformation of human life into Divine Life the gulf between Divine Consciousness and human Consciousness of three gunas must be bridged. That gulf can be bridged in the subtle mind, the subtle vital and the subtle body which have double doors; one open towards Subconscient negative energies and the other open towards Superconscient affirmative energies. So, their purification, transformation, universalisation and perfection are important requisites in the manifestation of Divine Life. So, all our opposition to enter and concentrate on the inner life must be transcended and open the doors of three Mother Powers for their own perfection and discovery of still powerful and more intimate Psychic Being.

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

 “One day I will return, a bringer of strength,  (as Mother of seven Delight)

And make thee drink from the Eternal’s cup;

His streams of force shall triumph in thy limbs

And Wisdom’s calm control thy passionate heart.” Savitri-507

“But without wisdom power is like a wind,

It can breathe upon the heights and kiss the sky,

It cannot build the extreme eternal things.” Savitri-514

“His hunger for the eternal thou (Mother of Light) must nurse

And fill his yearning heart with heaven’s fire

And bring God down into his body and life.” Savitri-521

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            In Book 7, Canto-5, Savitri discovered her Psychic being through the Tantric Method of Yoga and not the Vedantic self-discipline. This Tantric method is safe for Developed Souls but not so safe for developing Souls. Because the desire Soul surrounding the Psychic Being is not easy to overcome but rather it invites Spiritual fall. In the Vedantic method, first, the Spiritual being opens and by its pressure or descent, the Psychic being opens and this Self-discipline is rather safe for developing Souls without any possibility of Spiritual fall.

 

            In this Canto, Savitri’s Psychic being not only opens but the Psychic being is Spiritualised and Supramentalised. It means mediatrix Spiritual Mother and Creatrix Supramental Mother consented to live permanently in Savitri’s Psychic heart centre, thus, the Psychic being is identified as an important centre for individual and world Transformation.

“Here in this chamber of flame and light they met; (Psychic and Spiritual being met)

They looked upon each other, knew themselves,

The secret deity (Spiritual being) and its human part (Psychic being),

The calm immortal (Spiritual being) and the struggling soul (Psychic being).

Then with a magic transformation’s speed

They rushed into each other and grew one.” Savitri-527 (This is the experience of Spiritualisation of Psychic being.) (By this experience the Spiritual Mother consented to live in the Psychic heart centre.)

“In its deep lotus home her being sat

As if on concentration’s marble seat,

Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds

To make this earthly tenement her house.” Savitri-528 (The Mighty Supramental Mother stationed permanently in the Savitri’s Psychic Heart Centre.)

 

           So, Savitri book proposes that if a Sadhaka has realised the Psychic being and his consciousness learns the lesson to live in a waking trance, then through the movement of Consciousness he can Spiritualise and Supramentalise the Psychic being, then he can save himself, the collectivity and the world. But to realise this perfection is a long action of time.

            This Canto gives the input, that if the Psychic being opens, then this heart Centre acts as a Fortress of Truth and Virginity, surrounded by a large world of Ignorance and from this Divine Centre the Overhead truth and purity pour into the world of Falsehood and world perversion, thus one extends help to illumine the world and this is further universalised as ‘the little strength we have to help our race.’ (Savitri-527)

“O soul, my soul, we have created Heaven,

Within we have found the kingdom here of God,

His fortress built in a loud ignorant world.” Savitri-531

 

            This Canto also informs us that with the Psychic realisation of Savitri, the Gods and Goddess of the Overmental world preferred to live with her. Similar experience we also observe with King Aswapati:

. 

  “In the slow process of the evolving spirit,

In the brief stade between a death and birth

 A first perfection’s stage is reached (by Savitri) at last;

Out of the wood and stone of our nature’s stuff

A temple is shaped where the high gods could live.

Even if the struggling world is left outside

One man’s perfection still can save the world.” Savitri-531

(King Aswapati’s experience) “In an outburst of heavenly joy and ease

Life yields to the divinity within

And gives the rapture-offering of its all,

And the soul opens to felicity.

A bliss is felt that never can wholly cease,

A sudden mystery of secret Grace

 Flowers goldening our earth of red desire.

All the high gods who hid their visages

From the soiled passionate ritual of our hopes,

Reveal their names and their undying powers.”  Savitri-278

            This Canto also hints at the Psychic transformation of Savitri’s untransformed Nature. They are:

“And all emotions gave themselves to God.” Savitri-529

 “Its proud ambitions and its master lusts

Were tamed into instruments of a great calm sway

To do a work of God on earthly soil.” Savitri-530

“Its childish game of daily dwarf desires

Was changed into a sweet and boisterous play,” Savitri-530

 “Then sin and virtue leave the cosmic lists;” Savitri-531

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“In its deep lotus home her (Psychic) being sat

As if on concentration’s marble seat,

Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds (Supramental Mother)

To make this earthly tenement her (Savitri’s) house.” (Supramentalised Psychic being) Savitri-528

“But when its feet had touched the quivering bloom,

A mighty movement rocked the inner space

As if a world were shaken and found its soul: (Discovery of Inconscient Self)

Out of the Inconscient’s soulless and mindless night” Savitri-528

“All underwent a high celestial change:

Breaking the black Inconscient’s blind mute wall,

Effacing the circles of the Ignorance,

Powers and divinities burst flaming forth;

Each part of the being trembling with delight

Lay overwhelmed with tides of happiness

And saw her hand in every circumstance

And felt her touch in every limb and cell.” Savitri-529

“In the deep place where once the Serpent slept,

There came a grip on Matter’s giant powers (opening of Inconscient Self)

For large utilities in life’s little space;

A firm ground was made for Heaven’s descending might.”  Savitri-530

​

A Brief Restatement:

             “The psychic and the spiritual opening with their experiences and consequences can lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here (in integral Yoga) being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-943

             In this Canto Savitri's Spiritual Being opened which is identified as 'calm slow sun' and from which overhead light invaded her whole inner and outer life. If Spiritual energy enters the body in a large scale then the body vibrates unusually or symbolically as represented in Savitri, 'Still quivering from her lover’s strong embrace.' (Savitri-533) Thus, 'Matter is the Spirit’s willing bride.' (Savitri-538) With the opening of her Spiritual being, she could see Satyavan's future Spiritual destiny where the dark shadow above his head was illumined:

"Above the cherished head of Satyavan

She saw not now Fate’s dark and lethal orb;

A golden circle round a mystic sun

Disclosed to her new-born predicting sight

The cyclic rondure of a sovereign life." Savitri-533

             This Canto defines the Nature of Spiritual Love which is 'Absolved in the self-rapt immortal’s bliss.' (Savitri-533) and this joy can bridge the gulf between Earth and Heaven or Matter and Spirit.  She was given a brief time to tread this 'Golden Path' with Satyavan before the abysmal Night fell on her days:

"Always he was with her, a living soul

That met her eyes with close enamoured eyes,

A living body near to her body’s joy.

But now no longer in these great wild woods

In kinship with the days of bird and beast

And levelled to the bareness of earth’s brown breast,

But mid the thinking high-built lives of men

In tapestried chambers and on crystal floors,

In armoured town or gardened pleasure-walks,

Even in distance closer than her thoughts,

Body to body near, soul near to soul,

Moving as if by a common breath and will

They were tied in the single circling of their days

Together by love’s unseen atmosphere,

Inseparable like the earth and sky." Savitri-533

            Savitri in her Spiritual Journey meets two Voices from within and above. One Voice is soul-slaying negation or 'A denser darkness than the Night could bear,' and the other is Soul saving affirmation or 'a greater Voice came down' from height. The former Voice gives the message that this world is an illusion and 'only the blank Eternal can be true' and proposes to cease from this vain existence. The latter affirmative Voice confirms that the Spiritual being can be dynamised to such extent that it 'Accept(s) to be small and human on the earth,' and consecrates even the smallest and the meanest work:

"But not for self alone the Self is won:

Content abide not with one conquered realm;

Adventure all to make the whole world thine,

To break into greater kingdoms turn thy force.

Fear not to be nothing that thou mayst be all;

Assent to the emptiness of the Supreme

That all in thee may reach its absolute." Savitri-536

            Cantos 6 & 7 are best understood when they are read in conjunction (Spiritual or blank pure Consciousness and Cosmic Consciousness) with each other and when the term Nirvana is understood from the perspective of Integral Yoga as a transitory phase to a higher more encompassing consciousness.  The all negating Absolute is not a nihilistic state where existence and being ceases or is treated as a false concoction of the separative personality as has been understood from past philosophies and religions – rather the Absolute is beyond all positive terms of existence, even the most abstract and transcendent that can be conceived of by the human mind and senses.  The reaching of a state of static realisation above and residing in the absolute is the foundation (and starting point) for the next stage of the play of the cosmic energies and dynamic self.

 

             In these following two Cantos, Savitri proceeds from her first perfection of finding her Psychic being in her heart centre (which is Spiritualised and Supramentalised) to the subsequent perfections of finding her spiritual and supramental beings/realisations – the process of these ascents are reflected in her passing through the transitionary stages of nirvana and cosmic consciousness and finally reaching a stage where both the personal liberation and cosmic consciousness are held together in a state of (absolute) harmony (of dwelling in the supramental/transcendent consciousness).  As such we find that nirvana and cosmic/universal consciousness are not opposites or contraries, they only appear so when we reside in the consciousness of the mind, in the higher (supramental consciousness) they are contained as mutually complementary states.

             Brahma satya Jagat Mithya is the first fundamental Siddhi of integral Yoga. The Canto-6 deals with this part of Savitri’s realisation.

 

1. “The Divine alone is true – all the rest is falsehood.

2. The Divine alone is real – all the rest is illusion.

3. The Divine alone is life – all the rest belongs to the kingdom of death.

4. The Divine alone is light – all the rest is semi-obscurity.

5. The Divine alone is love – all the rest is selfish sentimentality.

And yet the Divine is everywhere, in the ignorant man as well as in the  sage.

And yet the Divine is everywhere, in the sinner as well as in the saint.” The Mother's Agenda/undated-1958

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“When Nature who is now unconscious God

Translucent grows to the Eternal’s light,

Her seeing his sight, her walk his steps of power

And life is filled with a spiritual joy

And Matter is the Spirit’s willing bride.” Savitri-538

“So man (Satyavan) evolving to divinest heights

Colloques still with the animal and the Djinn;

The human godhead with star-gazer eyes

Lives still in one house with the primal beast.

The high meets the low, all is a single plan.” Savitri-542

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The Book-7, Canto-7, confirms that both Paramatma Satyavan and Para prakriti Savitri’s main method of Yoga was Spiritual or “Her divine emptiness was their instrument.” (Savitri-553) or “An impersonal emptiness walked and spoke in her.’ (Savitri-552) In the previous Canto Savitri’s main method of Sadhana was also confirmed as Spiritual. Or “Annul thyself that only God may be.” (Savitri-538) Or “In a simple purity of emptiness Her mind knelt down before the unknowable.” (Savitri-522) "Assent to the emptiness of the Supreme That all in thee may reach its absolute." (Savitri-536) "Banish all thought from thee and be God’s void." (Savitri-537)

            This Canto confirms that Savitri had the knowledge of past, present and future birth known as All Life, about which her surrounding world was little aware:

“They marvelled at her, for she seemed to know

What they had only glimpsed at times afar.” Savitri-553

Its complementary line from the Gita:

“The Blessed Lord said: Many are my lives that are past, and thine also, O Arjuna; all of them I know, but thou knowest not, O scourge of the foe.” The Gita-4.5

            With the attainment of Cosmic Consciousness, the inner life changes but ‘daily human life,’ ‘outward body of the routine,’ ‘small unchanging works’ and ‘happy quiet ascetic peace’ do not change. Cosmic consciousness is the dynamic state of the Divine where ‘living spirit’ clasps her body and in this state, Matter can reconcile with the Spirit and with the Spirit’s penetration into material life, Savitri experiences change in the form of purification, transformation and perfection in her outward life. She continues to pour her greatness, sweetness and light upon her surrounding little hermit world.

            In this Book-7, Canto-7 Savitri realized her cosmic Self which is identified as the second fundamental realization of integral Yoga. First fundamental realisation: Brahma satya jagat mithya, Divine is Real and world is an Illusion; second fundamental realisation: the world which appears to be false is created from Brahman; third fundamental realisation: Brahma satya jagat satya and Brahman consciousness can penetrate material life and Divinise life. The characteristics of second fundamental realisation are:

“Her being, a circle without circumference,” Savitri-554

“A spirit, a being saw created things

And cast itself into unnumbered forms” Savitri-554-55

“A Truth in which negation had no place,” Savitri-555

“Her spirit saw the world as living God;” Savitri-556

            In the earlier Cantos it is confirmed that those who have a Mission (aim of life) and have realised their Psychic beings, their life is fully protected by the Divine. Savitri had both the awareness of her aim and Psychic realisation. This Canto proposes that if a Spiritual being is made open, then also it ensures protection to life. These developments are as follows:

“Heaven’s tranquil shield guarded the missioned child.” Savitri-16

 “Only were safe who kept God in their hearts:” Savitri-211(Psychic opening)

“And Savitri’s life was glad, fulfilled like earth’s;

She had found herself, she knew her being’s aim.” Savitri-532 (Psychic being’s awareness)

“Something perhaps unfelt, unseen, unknown

Guarded the body for its future work,” Savitri-552 (Spiritual opening)

“Guarded behind its face of ignorance:” Savitri-556 (Spiritual opening)

            This Canto also hints that the attainment of Cosmic consciousness is also the beginning of subconscient transformation. So the opening of higher Selves like Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Selves are utilised exclusively for purification, transformation and perfection of untransformed Nature.

“She was a subconscient life of tree and flower,

The outbreak of the honied buds of spring;

She burned in the passion and splendour of the rose,

She was the red heart of the passion-flower,

The dream-white of the lotus in its pool.

Out of subconscient life she climbed to mind,” Savitri-557

            These are the hidden agenda of cosmic Consciousness, which is utilised for both self-concentration and self-expansion.

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“She passed beyond Time into eternity,

Slipped out of space and became the Infinite;

 Her being rose into unreachable heights

And found no end of its journey in the Self.” Savitri-555

“She was the godhead hid in the heart of man,

She was the climbing of his soul to God.” Savitri-557

​

​

Summary or Brief Restatement:

            This Canto speaks of the earthly departure of Satyavan in all life and Satyavan will return to earth after Savitri’s Yoga in Subconscient and inconscient planes are complete which is again an issue of many births.

         The awareness of Satyavan’s death will make a Sadhaka supremely conscious of the brief Time he is given in this birth and utilize it as a bank to accumulate Spiritual energy. His only Divine work is to call down timeless Eternity into slipping moments and to call down spaceless Infinity into his limited surrounding space.

         This has to be understood that during the inner wandering in the Subconscient and Inconscient plane in finding the secret of Immortality and origin of Death, Satyavan met death in all life. His link with Savitri made him again return to earth as the last Avatara. This link is the Divine Love which grows through Sadhana. By breaking this link, Death can succeed in carrying human Souls to its home.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Like the strong sun that serves earth from above.” Savitri-562

“Her life was now in seconds, not in hours,

And every moment she economised

Like a pale merchant leaned above his store,

The miser of his poor remaining gold.” Savitri-563

“All grief and fear were dead within her now

And a great calm had fallen. The wish to lessen

 His suffering, the impulse that opposes pain

Were the one mortal feeling left. It passed:

Griefless and strong she waited like the gods.” Savitri-564-65

​

A Brief Restatement:

             This Book-9, Canto-1 is concentrated on Savitri’s entry into the Inconscient world. This world is the home of Death and only dead people can visit that unhealthy world of negation and darkness. King Aswapati traveled this world without dying and suffered multiple injuries that were slow to heal. In this Canto, the movement of Consciousness between the Supramental and Inconscient plane is observed which appears to be a long movement before Consciousness is preoccupied with Subconscient transformation (which is the message of Book-10, Canto-1 to 4).

            This Canto suggests that those who are established in Supramental Consciousness can alone visit the Inconscient world in deep trance and through that exercise alone, the Inconscient world can be illumined and transformed. Sri Aurobindo’s Accident in 1938 was an attack by a dark asuric force (Lord of Falsehood) while he was pursuing transformation action in Subconscient/Inconscient Sheath.

            This Canto also suggests that a Sadhaka must be established in Supramental Consciousness, before meeting his own death or death of kith and kin or brother Souls. Extreme adversity must be met ‘like a tree recovering from a wind.’ (Savitri-574) Savitri had the following experiences after Satyavan’s death:

“She measured not her loss with helpless thoughts,” Savitri-571

“Then suddenly there came on her the change

Which in tremendous moments of our lives

Can overtake sometimes the human soul

And hold it up towards its luminous source.” Savitri-571

“Over was the haunted pain, the rending fear:

Her grief had passed away, her mind was still,

Her heart beat quietly with a sovereign force.

There came a freedom from the heart-strings’ clutch,

Now all her acts sprang from a godhead’s calm.” Savitri-573

 

            This Canto suggests that after arriving in Supramental Consciousness, the transformation work pursued in the Subconscient and inconscient world may not be easy and may continue through many births.

“That mightier spirit turned its mastering gaze

On life and things, inheritor of a work

Left to it unfinished from her halting past, (This line suggests that Subconscient and Inconscient transformation is a continuation of Savitri’s past birth extending over future birth till she returns to earth as last Avatara.)

When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled

And ill-shaped instruments were crudely moved.” Savitri-573 (This line suggests mind’s infant state in transformation action.)

 

            This Canto suggests that in order to change destiny and conquer Death, one must have knowledge of past, present and future lives. This is possible by the opening of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental beings.

“Only the spirit sees and all is known.” Savitri-571

“Now to the limitless gaze disclosed that sees” Savitri-572

“And live in borders of the seen and known.” Savitri-579 (One can foresee and know much before the happening of the event.)

Its complementary line:

“For what the spirit sees, creates a truth

And what the soul imagines is made a world.” Savitri-456

“I know all past and all present and future existences, O Arjuna, but Me none yet knows.” The Gita-7.26

‘Many are My lives that are past, and thine also, O Arjuna; all of them I know, but thou knowest not…’ The Gita-4.5

This change of destiny is further strengthened by the following experience as hinted in Savitri:

“Only the spirit (of Savitri) knew the spirit (of Satyavan) still,

And the heart divined the old loved heart, though changed.”  Savitri-576

“All was the violent ocean of a will

Where lived captive to an immense caress,

Possessed in a supreme identity,

Her aim, joy, origin, Satyavan alone.” Savitri-579

“Around him nameless, infinite she surged,

Her spirit fulfilled in his spirit, rich with all Time,

As if Love’s deathless moment had been found,

A pearl within eternity’s white shell.” Savitri-579

            The mystery of the Inconscient world is that it is a kingdom of titans who can slay the living Soul. They are cruel, sentinels of dumb necessity, and they watch across Savitri’s path mercilessly. In this midnight’s dumb abysses, Savitri rose like a ‘columned shaft of fire and light,’ ‘against fixed destiny and the grooves of’ Iron Law.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Then suddenly there came on her the change

Which in tremendous moments of our lives

Can overtake sometimes the human soul

And hold it up towards its luminous source.” Savitri-571

“All was the violent ocean of a will

Where lived captive to an immense caress,

Possessed in a supreme identity,

Her aim, joy, origin, Satyavan alone.” Savitri-579

“The Woman answered not. Her high nude soul,

 Stripped of the girdle of mortality,

Against fixed destiny and the grooves of law

Stood up in its sheer will a primal force.” Savitri-581

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The importance of Book-9, Canto-II is the movement of Consciousness through which the gulf between the Supramental plane and the Inconscient plane is bridged. If this gulf is not bridged then Satyavan cannot be traced or discovered in the Inconscient home of Death and by this loss of contact Satyavan cannot return to earth.

            In other Cantos, we have marked how through the movement of Psychic, Spiritual, and Supramental Consciousness different planes of Consciousness or ten worlds are bridged. They are:

The gulf between Savitri and Satyavan in the Inconscient plane:

“But now a silent gulf between them came” Savitri-584

“Visionless she moved amid insensible gulfs,” Savitri-584

The gulf between Savitri and Satyavan in the Subconscient plane:

“In vain thou (Death) hast dug the dark unbridgeable gulf,” Savitri-648,

A similar gulf King Aswapati felt in between Supramental Self and Bliss Self:

“This world of bliss he saw and felt its call,

But found no way to enter into its joy;

Across the conscious gulf there was no bridge.” Savitri-128,

Linking the gulf between Spiritual and Mental plane:

“A mediating ray had touched the earth (mediating ray is the Spiritual energy)

Bridging the gulf between man’s mind and God’s;

Its brightness linked our transience to the Unknown.” Savitri-353

Psychic being can bridge the gulf between Spirit and Matter:

“But soon the link of soul with form grew sure” Savitri-355

“Unlocked were inner spirit’s trance-closed doors:” Savitri-369

Spirit travelling backward in Time in order to illumine dark untransformed world in universalised Consciousness:

“A gap was rent in the all-concealing vault (of King Aswapati);

The conscious ends of being went rolling back:

The landmarks of the little person fell,

The island ego joined its continent.” Savitri-25,

Bridging the gulf between Bliss self and Sense mind:

“A consciousness of beauty and of bliss,

A knowledge which became what it perceived,

Replaced the separated sense and heart

And drew all Nature into its embrace.” Savitri-28

Bridging the gulf between Absolute, Alone, Real and his Fate in universalised Consciousness:

“A union of the Real with the unique,

A gaze of the Alone from every face,

The presence of the Eternal in the hours

Widening the mortal mind’s half-look on things,

Bridging the gap between man's force and Fate

Made whole the fragment-being we are here.” Savitri-35,

The gulf between Psychic being and Spiritual Being is bridged:

“In moments when the inner lamps are lit

And the life’s cherished guests are left outside, (This line suggest life’s cherished guests stand as obstacles to Spiritual experience.)

Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.

A wider consciousness opens then its doors;

Invading from spiritual silences” Savitri-47-48,

Our surface casual life is harmonized by bridging the gulf between surface action and inner life:

“But who shall pierce into the cryptic gulf

And learn what deep necessity of the soul

Determined casual deed and consequence?” Savitri-52,

Supramental action and removal all gulfs in different planes:

“Because eternal eyes turned on earth's gulfs” Savitri-101

“She hopes by the creative act’s release

To o’erleap sometimes the gulf she cannot fill,

To heal awhile the wound of severance,

Escape from the moment’s prison of littleness

And meet the Eternal’s wide sublimities

In the uncertain time-field portioned here.” Savitri-177

“Its (Supermind) mights that bridge the gulf twixt man and God,

Its (Supermind) lights that combat Ignorance and Death.” Savitri-261,

“There was no cleavage between soul and soul,

There was no barrier between world and God.” Savitri-319

“There (in the Supramental) was no gulf between the thought and fact,” Savitri-327

“And made her joy a bridge twixt earth and heaven,” Savitri-534,

“To make thy life a bridge twixt earth and heaven;” Savitri-536,

(Death asked) “What bridge can cross the gulf that she (Truth supreme) has left

Between her (Truth supreme) and the dream-world she (Truth supreme) has made?” Savitri-663,

“The two (Heaven and Earth) longing to join, yet walk apart,

Idly divided by their vain conceits; …

They gaze across the silent gulfs of sleep.” Savitri-684

                Bridging the gulf between Supramental/bliss Self and Inconscient/Subconscient Sheath is the most difficult exercise of integral Yoga and hence from this point of view Book-9 and Book-10 are very important and the Mother had chosen Book-10 for translation into the French language in order to better understand and pursue Subconscient transformation.

 

             Inconscient Sheath is ‘an all-negating immensity’ (Savitri-585) or ‘immense refusal of the eternal No.’ (Savitri-583) In the core of it lies the Inconscient Self (‘Matter still slept empty of its Lord’ (Savitri-405)) which is the Divine’s last and the greatest Spiritual energy by whose intervention ‘a grand solution’ (Savitri-90) will be witnessed in the cosmic life. So, after the discovery of the Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Self, a Sadhaka’s task is to trace the Subconscient and Inconscient Selves, by whose discovery,  Supramental energy will flow into mind, life, and body from below the feet. The simultaneous flow of Supramental energy from above the head and below the feet or ‘Our life is entrenched between two rivers of light’ (Savitri-531) is the apex Spiritual experience for transformation action. The Divine Love labours in the depths as the Inconscient Self and exults on the height as the Supramental/Bliss Self and this Divine Love has the capacity to rebuild Death’s perishable world.

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Armoured with light she advanced her foot to plunge

 Into the dread and hueless vacancy;

Immortal, unappalled, her spirit faced

The danger of the ruthless eyeless waste.” Savitri-582

“Mine is the labour of the battling gods:

Imposing on the slow reluctant years

The flaming will that reigns beyond the stars,

They lay the law of Mind on Matter’s works

And win the soul’s wish from earth’s inconscient Force.” Savitri-588

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The Book-10 is identified as The Book of Double Twilight. The first twilight is created by the invasion of fathomless Light above to the dark Subconscient plane below and the second twilight is created either by the invasion of darkness below to the bright Subconscient plane or by the invasion of fathomless Light below the feet through the opening of Subconscient and Inconscient Selves to dark Subconscient sheath.

           

              The Book-10, Canto-1 concentrates on Subconscient transformation by Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental invasion to a dark Subconscient sheath. They are identified as:

Psychic invasion:

“As when a goddess’ bosom dimly moves

To first desire and her white soul transfigured,

A glimmering Eden crossed by faery gleams,

Trembles to expectation’s fiery wand,

But nothing is familiar yet with bliss.” Savitri-604

“A comrade of the Ray and Mist and Flame,

By a moon-bright face a brilliant moment drawn,

Almost she seemed a thought mid floating thoughts,

Seen hardly by a visionary mind

Amid the white inward musings of the soul.

Half-vanquished by the dream-happiness around,

Awhile she moved on an enchantment’s soil,

But still remained possessor of her soul.” Savitri-605-606

Spiritual Invasion:

“Here in this seat of Darkness mute and lone,

In the heart of everlasting Nothingness

Light conquered now even by that feeble beam:

Its faint infiltration drilled the blind deaf mass;

Almost it changed into a glimmering sight

That housed the phantom of an aureate Sun

Whose orb pupilled the eye of Nothingness. Savitri-601

Supramental Invasion:

“A golden fire came in and burned Night’s heart;

Her dusky mindlessness began to dream;

The Inconscient conscious grew, Night felt and thought.” Savitri-601

“Above, her spirit in its mighty trance

Saw all, but lived for its transcendent task,

Immutable like a fixed eternal star.” Savitri-606

           The whole of humanity is now going through this Subconscient transformation unconsciously and few prepared vessels are going through this transformation consciously. Those who are open towards Subconscient transformation, they will feel all the time a Divine Force is entering the mind, vital, body, and Subconscient sheaths in a very minuscule manner. When this descent of Divine force is strong enough to be felt as a higher body temperature of fever, then its outcome is a miracle in Subconscient sheath resulting in some Divine manifestation.

            In the previous Cantos of the whole book, (1) we get the information that if our Psychic and Spiritual beings are open then beings of those higher planes will accompany us and assist us in our sadhana, involve in many creative actions, and call down divine energies. Integral Yoga identifies ten Selves and their opening activates affirmative Beings belonging to higher planes. (2) Similarly, through our untransformed nature, asuric beings or dark energies enter our system and do their destructive and pessimistic action both in waking and dream states. (3) We also get this information from Savitri that like our parents, some invisible beings pursue us in this birth and take care of us. Similarly, some beings accompany us from our previous births. So, we have to remember that neither this world, nor any creative action, nor any destructive action, nor any powers and personalities that are acting through us are our own. (4) Now in this book-10, Canto-1, we get some new inputs that will assist in our Subconscient transformation action. It describes some invisible beings identified as ‘morning twilight of the gods’ who assist us in our sadhana and carry us from the twilight physical mind, twilight vital mind, and twilight intellect to complete and integral Divine Light, Wisdom, Delight etc. Now we will concentrate on the character of these affirmative twilight beings.

            Their forms arise from our sleep and they justify the long night followed by a new dawn and a new birth of consciousness. These dreaming deities look beyond the visible things and fashion in their thoughts, ideal worlds. By their presence ‘the heaviness of eyeless dark’ have overpassed and all the sorrow of the night perished. He who wakes in this twilight world, finds his dreams true and all ran after light and joy and love. This twilight world is an atmosphere that cannot dare too much light, love and delight yet breathes strange ecstasy and anticipates deeply of delight. This twilight world is surrounded by vague fields, vague pastures, vague trees, vague scenes, vague cattle, vague spirits, vague melodies and vague ideal lands without a goal but having sweet memories, mighty measures of thought, far chanting of gods with low disturbing voices of desire. These twilight gods are fugitive beings and natural habitants of the Subconscient world and they have the capacity to assist an individual to find his soul. In that Subconscient sheath, nothing there was fixed or stayed for long, no mortal feet can take rest upon that soil, no breath of life lingered embodied there, no joy can dance for long period and no beauty can settle there. Yet in that Subconscient world, the memory of gladness ever repeats the same note, shapes are strangely consistent, the same thoughts are constant passers-by, all charms are renewed unendingly, waits always to hear the music like the recurrence of a haunting rhyme. Divine touches incessantly, the things that never seized for Subconscient transformation. The Divine Light showers as a trail of disappearing star and each Divine touch faints the vessel and the promise of unrealised bliss is heard. Psychic being participates in this Subconscient transformation through its purity, adoration and subtle presence and their unaware, momentary and escaping thrill is experienced as much sweeter than any rapture known to earth and heaven.

            Now we will concentrate on the line: “Heaven ever young and earth too firm and old” (Savitri-603) This line also suggests that when we open ourselves towards Divine Forces, we become young and energetic and when we keep the door open towards dark Subconscient and inconscient undivine energies we become old and weak. This also suggests the presence of heavenly beings for Subconscient transformation whose raptures of creation last too long; their affirmative bold formations are too absolute and are too intimate with eternal things. They stand up sculptured on the eternal hills and win immortality by perfect physical form. These heavenly beings are too pure, too great, too meaningful without shadow and without incertitude.

            Thus, a golden hem of bliss is experienced along with the gleaming shoulder of some godlike hope and flying feet of fine desires. These heavenly beings are visitors from the morning star, satisfied with the first perfection of Psychic opening. They mingle in a passion of pursuit and thrill with the spray of joy….

 

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“In that tremendous darkness heavy and bare

She atoned for all since the first act whence sprang

The error of the consciousness of Time,

The rending of the Inconscient’s seal of sleep,” Savitri-599

“And when there is no world, no creature more,

When Time’s intrusion has been blotted out,

It shall last, unbodied, saved from thought, at peace.” Savitri-600

“Here in this seat of Darkness mute and lone,

In the heart of everlasting Nothingness

Light conquered now even by that feeble beam:

Its faint infiltration drilled the blind deaf mass;

Almost it changed into a glimmering sight

That housed the phantom of an aureate Sun

Whose orb pupilled the eye of Nothingness." Savitri-601

“A golden fire came in and burned Night’s heart;

Her dusky mindlessness began to dream;

The Inconscient conscious grew, Night felt and thought.” Savitri-601

​

​

A Brief Restatement:

            Book 10, Canto 2 represents the gospel of Death which is a Soul slaying truth and his ideal appears to be in vain in resolving world problems. This Canto proposes that to remain satisfied with a brief touch of Divine Force is a moderate and escapist Spirituality which cannot transform Nature but to prepare for that Truth which slowly and constantly infiltrates into the material vessel, which alone can expedite Subconscient transformation and transform Nature. Death’s ideal accepts the later Vedantic doctrine of the Soul’s (Jivatma’s) union with Spirit (Paramatma) and refuges the ancient Vedantic doctrine of the Spirit’s reconciliation with Matter. This Canto is important from three points of view. Firstly, it gives more description of the twilight of the Subconscient world which must be approached through faint infiltration of Truth Light (Or ‘Threatened (falsehood) with this faint beam of wandering Truth’ Savitri-585) and not the later Vedantic escape from material problems; secondly, here Sri Aurobindo defines the Soul slaying human love through the symbolic representation of Death’s gospel; thirdly in this Canto, the Supreme word, Mahavakya, of Savitri book is revealed.

 

1: “I think Sri Aurobindo deliberately made this Death very vulgar to discourage all the Illusionists and Nirvanists.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-6/164,

(Death said) “Earth only is there and not some heavenly source.

If heavens there are they are veiled in their own light,

 If a Truth eternal somewhere reigns unknown,

It burns in a tremendous void of God;

For truth shines far from the falsehoods of the world;

How can the heavens come down to unhappy earth

Or the eternal lodge in drifting time?” Savitri-609

(Death said) “The Avatars have lived and died in vain,

Vain was the sage’s thought, the prophet’s voice;

In vain is seen the shining upward Way.

Earth lies unchanged beneath the circling sun;

She loves her fall and no omnipotence

Her mortal imperfections can erase,

Force on man’s crooked ignorance Heaven’s straight line

 Or colonise a world of death with gods.” Savitri-609-610

(Death said) “Heaven’s hour adjourned flees into bodiless Time.

 Death saves thee from this and saves Satyavan:

He now is safe, delivered from himself;

He travels to silence and felicity.

Call him not back to the treacheries of earth

And the poor petty life of animal Man.

In my vast tranquil spaces let him sleep” Savitri-611

(Death said) “Renounce, forgetting joy and hope and tears,

Thy passionate nature in the bosom profound

 Of a happy Nothingness and worldless Calm,

Delivered into my mysterious rest.” Savitri-612

 

2: As per our study like Arjuna of the Gita, Death has raised twenty-three questions and indirectly hints at a passage to immortality. From the Arjuna we learn the lesson of Jivatma’s union with Paramatma, similarly, from Death’s conversation with Savitri, we can learn the lesson of reconciliation of Perfect Spirit with imperfect Matter. 

            A Soul-slaying human love, a soul-slaying word and a soul-slaying momentary work can slay the Psychic being. This means human association, thought bound to three gunas and any action by the pressure of three gunas can veil the Psychic being. Whereas Divine Love, Divine descended overhead Knowledge and Divine action by the pressure of Divine Will can save and activate the Psychic being.

(Death said) “Thy mortal longing made for thee a soul.

This angel in thy body thou callst love,

Who shapes his wings from thy emotion’s hues,

In a ferment of thy body has been born

And with the body that housed it it must die.

 It is a passion of thy yearning cells,

It is flesh that calls to flesh to serve its lust;

It is thy mind that seeks an answering mind

And dreams awhile that it has found its mate;

It is thy life that asks a human prop

To uphold its weakness lonely in the world

 Or feeds its hunger on another’s life.” Savitri-608

(Death said) “What is this love thy thought has deified,

This sacred legend and immortal myth?

It is a conscious yearning of thy flesh,

It is a glorious burning of thy nerves,

A rose of dream-splendour petalling thy mind,

 A great red rapture and torture of thy heart.

A sudden transfiguration of thy days,

It passes and the world is as before.” Savitri-610

(Death said) “If Satyavan had lived, love would have died;

But Satyavan is dead and love shall live

A little while in thy sad breast, until

His face and body fade on memory’s wall

 Where other bodies, other faces come.” Savitri-610

(Death said) “Love cannot live by heavenly food alone,

Only on sap of earth can it survive.

For thy passion was a sensual want refined,

A hunger of the body and the heart;

Thy want can tire and cease or turn elsewhere.

Or love may meet a dire and pitiless end

By bitter treason, or wrath with cruel wounds

Separate, or thy unsatisfied will to others

Depart when first love’s joy lies stripped and slain:

A dull indifference replaces fire

Or an endearing habit imitates love:

An outward and uneasy union lasts

Or the routine of a life’s compromise:” Savitri-611

(Death said) “Two strive, constant associates without joy,

Two egos straining in a single leash,

Two minds divided by their jarring thoughts,

Two spirits disjoined, for ever separate.

Thus is the ideal falsified in man’s world;

Trivial or sombre, disillusion comes,

Life’s harsh reality stares at the soul:” Savitri-611

(Death said human love is) “A sweet secretion from the erotic glands

Flattering and torturing the burning nerves,

Love is a honey and poison in the breast

 Drunk by it as the nectar of the gods.

Earth’s human wisdom is no great-browed power,

 And love no gleaming angel from the skies;

If they aspire beyond earth’s dullard air,

Arriving sunwards with frail waxen wings,

How high could reach that forced unnatural flight?

But not on earth can divine wisdom reign

And not on earth can divine love be found;

Heaven-born, only in heaven can they live;

Or else there too perhaps they are shining dreams.” Savitri-618-619

 

3: Supreme Word of Savitri (Mahavakya)

“If there is a yet happier greater god,

Let him first wear the face of Satyavan

And let his soul be one with him I love;

So let him seek me that I may desire.” Savitri-614,

            A psychic being is identified as a greater God. That means if a Sadhaka has realised his Psychic Being in the heart centre, then his status is greater than overmental God and he can call down Divine Love to earth and men. If he calls down Paramatma/Purushottama/Supramental Purusha to the heart centre then he begins to wear the face of Satyavan and experiences static Divine union. With the prolongation of this union, dynamic Brahman/Paraprakriti/Supramental Mother comes down permanently to stay in the heart centre. Then heart centre becomes the meeting ground of Paramatma Satyavan and Paraprakriti Savitri and this dynamic union possesses material life and the cellular transformation begins the action. To Love and Possess equally Paramatma Satyavan and Paraprakriti Savitri in the heart centre is the supreme Word of Savitri and the extension of World transformation through the mighty descent of Divine Force. This is the condition of receiving Savitri’s comprehensive Divine Love. Here we divide this comprehensive Divine Love into four parts:

Jivatma’s union with Paramatma (realisation of transcendent Divine)

Jivatma’s union with Paraprakriti (Universalisation of Consciousness and beginning of individual transformation))

Parmatma’s union with Paraprakriti (beginning of cellular and world transformation.)

Paraprakriti’s union with Aparaprakriti (Matter) (transformation of Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths or Reconciliation of Spirit with Matter.)                                                                            

            When King Aswapati asked Savitri 'somewhere on the longing breast of earth, Thy unknown lover waits for thee the unknown,’ Savitri went across the world to meet her Lord. She met twelve types of liberated great Souls before meeting Satyavan but they were not fit to hold Savitri’s Comprehensive Divine Love. So, in order to hold Savitri’s comprehensive Divine Love, one has to ‘wear the face of Satyavan’ or move the Consciousness comprehensively in all the above four ways.

 

OM TAT SAT

​

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“His bliss laughs to us or it calls concealed

Like a far-heard unseen entrancing flute

From moonlit branches in the throbbing woods,

Tempting our angry search and passionate pain.

Disguised the Lover seeks and draws our souls.

He named himself for me, grew Satyavan.

For we were man and woman from the first,

The twin souls born from one undying fire.

Did he not dawn on me in other stars?

How has he through the thickets of the world

 Pursued me like a lion in the night

And come upon me suddenly in the ways

And seized me with his glorious golden leap!

Unsatisfied he yearned for me through time,

Sometimes with wrath and sometimes with sweet peace

Desiring me since first the world began.

He rose like a wild wave out of the floods

And dragged me helpless into seas of bliss.

Out of my curtained past his arms arrive;

They have touched me like the soft persuading wind,

They have plucked me like a glad and trembling flower,

And clasped me happily burned in ruthless flame.

I too have found him charmed in lovely forms

And run delighted to his distant voice

And pressed to him past many dreadful bars.

 If there is a yet happier greater god,

Let him first wear the face of Satyavan

And let his soul be one with him I love;

So let him seek me that I may desire.

For only one heart beats within my breast

And one god sits there throned. Advance, O Death,

Beyond the phantom beauty of this world;

For of its citizens I am not one.

I cherish God the Fire, not God the Dream.” Savitri-614

​

A Brief Restatement:

            This book-10, Canto-3, reveals first Savitri’s discovery of the Subconscient Self within Subconscient Sheath. This discovery is important for the purification and transformation of Subconscient and adjacent worlds of mind, life and body.

             This creation is to be wholly accepted and embraced as the manifestation of the Brahman. If the existing mind of most man is crippled; life is untaught and crude; if there exist brutal and evil activities, then they are to be accepted as incidents of the Divine’s vast and varied plot; His great and dangerous drama’s needed steps. We have to meet our Lord in the nascent sleep of shadow and the Night and in the wakefulness of the stars and Sun and wait for the hour in which high Supracosmic Source meets the low and nether Inconscient Sheath. The emergence of Divine Life on earth is possible by the reconciliation of God’s Night with His fathomless Light and Life and Death become the fuel of the great world action and world existence.

            Savitri has to unite with Satyavan in the Subconscient and Inconscient world by calling down Divine energy there. Satyavan’s death created such an opportunity for Savitri. She has to prove her Divine Love which can transform those dark worlds. So, her task is to call down Divine Love from higher planes and the emergence of the same Divine Love by activation of Subconscient Self and the ‘two rivers of Light’ (Savitri-531) wait ‘to be kindled in our secret cells.’ (Savitri-626)

            Lastly, this Canto gives a clue how the business of Death and Night fails on Earth. That is possible by universalisation of Divine Love, by attainment of unity consciousness of Supermind and all is known and clasped by Divine Love.

            This Canto also proposes that Subconscient transformation can only be experienced in deep meditation or non-waking trance.

"But now her spirit’s flame of conscient force

Retiring from a sweetness without fruit

Called back her thoughts from speech to sit within

In a deep room in meditation’s house." Savitri-639

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“A Lover leaning from his cloister’s door

Gathers the whole world into his single breast.

Then shall the business fail of Night and Death:

When unity is won, when strife is lost

And all is known and all is clasped by Love

Who would turn back to ignorance and pain?” Savitri-632-33

 “My love eternal sits throned on God’s calm;

For Love must soar beyond the very heavens

And find its secret sense ineffable;

It must change its human ways to ways divine,

Yet keep its sovereignty of earthly bliss.” Savitri-633

 “For now at last I know beyond all doubt,

The great stars burn with my unceasing fire

And life and death are both its fuel made.

Life only was my blind attempt to love:

Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory;

All shall be seized, transcended; there shall kiss

Casting their veils before the marriage fire

The eternal bridegroom and eternal bride.” Savitri-638

​

A Brief Restatement:

            The canto marks the final confrontation of Savitri with Death in his own realm (of Night).  The next time Savitri meets Death will be in the realm of light where Death’s contorted mask is removed and his true divine nature is revealed.

 

             Death (after his gospel in the previous canto) argues for Savitri to give up her quest and conviction of revealing the Divine behind all matter and bringing down the divine from the highest planes. Savitri destroys all his arguments with the Truth.  Finally, Death slowly recognises that the Divine Mother may be present in Savitri asks for that darshan and agrees to release him if he is blessed with that vision.  A vast transformation comes over Savitri and the divine Mother within steps forward and reveals herself to Death and asks him to return Satyavan’s soul.  Despite this Death remains stubborn and refuses to give up Satyavan.  But the light and force of the Divine Mother overwhelms him and he retreats defeated, giving up the soul of Satyavan.

            Arjuna was shown Viswarupa Darshana (The Vision of the universal Godhead) by the Lord in the Gita for the completeness of his Spiritual life. Here in this Canto-IV, book-10, Savitri, the Divine Mother had shown Her Viswa rupa to the Death God who was a temporary dark instrument of the Divine. This is also the message for a Sadhak that one has to realise the Divine Mother with Her Viswarupa, in his passage towards immortality. For him, realisation of the Divine is an easier task and the transformation of earthly Nature is a very difficult task, which he has to experience after the universalization of Consciousness.

             If a Sadhak attains Cosmic Consciousness, then he must pursue sadhana in secrecy and silence. His presence will be intolerable for the common man because of this particular nature, ‘Universal he is all,--transcendent, none.’ When he lives in universal Self, he becomes very intimate with all; when he lives in transcendent Consciousness, he goes beyond all these relations. This is unbearable to man’s righteousness. His outward appearance will be marked with Truth-Power or the 'sound of infinity' in his voice and his eyes will shine with the 'light of things beyond.'

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Darkness below, a fathomless Light above,

In Light are joined, but sundered by severing Mind

Stand face to face, opposite, inseparable,

Two contraries needed for his great World-task,

Two poles whose currents wake the immense World-Force.” Savitri-656-657

“A few have dared the last supreme ascent

And break through borders of blinding light above,

And feel a breath around of mightier air,

Receive a vaster being’s messages

And bathe in its immense intuitive Ray.” Savitri-659

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A Brief restatement:

             After the Savitri moves through the realms of Eternal Night and the Dream Twilight and defeats Death so that he retreats and gives up his claim to Satyavan’s Soul, Savitri enters the realm of the Superconscient. As she enters these realms she move up the levels of the overmind and then onto the Supramental and Sachchidananda planes.

 

            As she ascends past the overmind regions she encounters the Supreme who gives her the final test.  To date Savitri has had to deal with obstacles from her birth mother, her untransformed nature and Death both within (as a void/nirvana) and without.

 

            Having conquered Death and secured Satyavan, the Supreme asks her to enjoy the fruits of her glory, reminded her that she is the Eternal Bride and His force – he asks her to withdraw to live in her spirit above or in her Soul within and no longer does she need to strive against the recalcitrant nature who in the course of time (eons) will eventually be transformed.

 

             Savitri in spite of the deeply loving and ensnaring words of the Divine refuses – just as she refused to succumb to the eternal night and the twilight she also refuses this boon.  This is because for Savitri the Divine has to be experienced integrally, not just in one realm.  The Divine then takes her to the highest planes of existence, from where she will be better able to make her decision and tempts her three more times.  But each time Savitri refuses, because in those highest stations of Sachchidananda, Savitri is united with the Supreme Mother’s consciousness and she feels all of creations as her children.  The voices of these children plead to her to remain with them and the love which binds her to Her creations makes her ask the supreme that all that she offers him, let that be provided to all of Earth and man, not just to her.

 

            One key difference I note between the Supreme’s discussion with Savitri and the Divine Mother’s instruction with King Aswapthi is that even though both Lord and the Supreme Mother said not to hasten the descent of the force on unprepared earth, with King Ashwapathi, he was asked to remain on earth and “let thy toil be vast” (Savitri-340) or ‘Accept the difficulty and godlike toil,’ (Savitri-335)  and not to retire to a station above creation.  With Savitri the Supreme is actually asking her to withdraw into highest planes of Consciousness. (Important observation.) (This also hints difference between dynamic Divine Mother and static Divine Father.)

 

             The Supreme is pleased with Savitri’s choice and grants her the Supreme Consummation which is to find the Divine in all and be filled by the Divine.

 

           He says that after Savitri prepares the Earth it will then be able to bear the descent of the Supreme Mother.  This will coincide with the emergence of a new race of diviner men, who will also raise the existing race of men towards the Divine. This will then allow the Supreme’s force and presence to act directly on Earth without distortion and the need of any intermediary consciousness.

OM TAT SAT

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A Brief restatement:

            This chapter signifies the permanent descent of Sachchidananda Consciousness to earth consciousness which was the result of Savitri’s permanent ascent of Soul to Sachchidananda consciousness, here symbolically represented as Everlasting Day.

           Savitri along with Satyavan return to earth consciousness and to their bodies with the blessings of the Supreme to stay in the Earth’s atmosphere and continue their eternal work as the dual incarnating power of the Supreme (1) to raise the consciousness of man to God and (2) to bring down the higher consciousness to the Earth plane.

 

            Satyavan recognizes the great (subjective and objective) change that Savitri has undergone (during this long cataleptic trance) and realizes that it is due to her love alone (Or accumulation of her Yoga Shakti in the form of Divine love that was able to bring back Satyavan from the clutch of Death or Their strong bond of Divine union failed death to take Satyavan away from Savitri)  that he has consented to remain on the earth plane and continue their work.

 

            The boons Death gave to Savitri have resulted in the King’s (Dyumatsena’s) outward vision (and inner vision of seven immortal worlds) being restored and his lost kingdom (symbolized as King Dyumatsena’s lame identity with Ignorance) and returned (with the eye of wisdom and integral Knowledge).

 

            The poem finishes with marked difference in the consciousness of the Earth, (permanent manifestation of Sachchidananda Consciousness on Earth), especially in the inconscient plane, which now houses the promise of greater dawn and light due to the work of this dual Force on the (Subconscient/Inconscient plane) earth plane.

OM TAT SAT

The Most Important Secret of this chapter:

“Awakened to the meaning of my heart

That to feel love and oneness is to live

And this the magic of our golden change,

Is all the truth I know or seek, O sage.” Savitri-624

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