The Savitri Handbook
"Q: Savitri represents the Mother’s Consciousness, doesn’t
she?
Ans: Yes.
Q: What does Satyavan represent?
Ans: Well, he is the Avatar. He is the incarnation of the Supreme.”
The Mother
The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-5/p-390
​
Savitri book proposes a Sadhaka to utilise Time and Space exclusively for fourfold Divine union and by this an increase and accumulation of Soul force is witnessed which must be utilised towards preparation of meeting the worst adversity in life or immobile in herself, Savitri gathered Soul force to meet the hour "This was the day when Satyavan must die." (Savitri-10)
Four-fold Divine Union:
Jivatma's union with Paramatma
Jivatma's union with Para-prakriti
Paramatma's union with Para-prakriti in the heart centre
Para-prakriti's union with Apara-prakriti.
For this, Savitri book proposes a Sadhaka to develop single-minded devotion, ekabhakti, or "Her consciousness grew aware of him (Satyavan) alone...Give me back Satyavan, my only lord." (Savitri-410, 637) The book emphasies Psychic Being in the heart as the virgin Mother and to live under its sole Influence which is elevated further as Spiritualised Psychic Being and Supramentalised Psychic Being or we have to be aware of the Maha Mantra of Savitri, "Virgin who comest perfected by joy...." (Savitri-424) and recognise it as "His only comrade is the Strength within." (Savitri-368) Sri Aurobindo proposes that 'even the most highly developed psychical consciousness cannot be absolutely safe unless the psychical is illumined and uplifted by a higher force...' (CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-896) The single Protection provided by the Psychic being has to be secured and strengthened by the discovery of double and multiple protection by realisation of the verse, "‘Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light.... Heaven’s leaning down to embrace from all sides earth....It (dynamic Spirit) is within, below, without, above." (Savitri-531, 716, 98)
We have to be aware of the Maha Vakya, Supreme Word of Savitri, which proposes to call down the Supreme Self, Paramatma and the Supreme Mother, Para-prakriti, to the heart Centre and through Their union open God's Supramental door. Or
"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
This, Savitri handbook partly satisfies Sri Aurobindo’s directives issued in The Synthesis of Yoga, that ‘all truth and practice… must be constantly renovated by fresh streams of the spirit’¹ and ‘thus constantly renewed, relived, their stuff of permanent truth constantly reshaped and developed… continue to be of living importance’² and by this exercise alone a Sadhaka will trace a path of his own Sadhana and prevent the written truths from becoming ‘monuments of the past’² without any ‘actual force or vital impulse for the future.’² (Reference: 1: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-5, 2: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-5,)
​
​
OM TAT SAT
Savitri, the representative Symbol of The Mother's Consciousness:
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,26 twilight and grey inhibitions. She leans with pity over earth-bound men in order to share the burden of ‘earth’s struggle and fate.’24
Satyavan, the incarnation of the Supreme:
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 fulfil 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’5 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.’6 He continued his life in many successive births and bodies as ‘twin souls born from one undying fire’5 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’17 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’17 or ‘God’s summits look back on the mute Abyss.’17 He accepts the small and human personality of woodsman on earth and his small beginning witnesses immense ascent of 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 wheel14 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.
King Aswapati, Symbol of Concentrated Tapasya:
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’23 with her ‘flame of radiant happiness.’23 Like all human fathers, he aspires that her mortal life be unwounded and to serve humanity with ‘glad and griefless days.’23 His capacity to unite with new bliss and flame-white Love came by annulling all ‘the contact formed with time-born things.’18 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,’21 ‘meet the Omnipotent in this house of flesh,’21 ‘Out of Immortal’s substance you were made’21 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’13 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’1 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’16 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’15 for the whole of suffering humanity and of changing all future time by unlocking the doors of human Fate. King Aswapati’s Palace and Kingdom, Madra, stands as a symbol of Supreme Self and Savitri left this Heaven permanently and had chosen the darkest forest of Shalwa as the symbol of Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths for illumination and Divine transformation.
Narad: The symbol of Overmental God:
Narad, the heavenly sage, the God, the instrument having the experience of oneness and complete union with the Divine. (The Gita identifies him as Vibhuti and Divine sage.) 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.’10 This Divine stationed in the heart centre is also projected as ‘greater than the God,’7 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.’35 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 adventure 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.The Divine Grace will act when either of the four conditions below is satisfied. The Supreme Divine Grace will intensify only when the four conditions are simultaneously satisfied in Integral Concentration of (1) total and sincere surrender, (2) exclusive self-opening to the Divine Power, (3) constant and integral choice of descending Truth and (4) constant and integral rejection of falsehood of mind, vital, body, surrounding world and Subconscient plane.
“
“I am not doing it (Savitri translation) to show it to people or to have anyone read it, but to remain in Savitri's atmosphere, for I love that atmosphere. It will give me an hour of concentration, and I'll see if by chance. I have no gift for poetry, but I'll see if it comes! (It surely won't come from a mentality developed in this present existence there's no poetic gift!) So it's interesting, I'll see if anything comes. I am going to give it a try.
I know that light. I am immediately plunged into it each time I read Savitri. It is a very, very beautiful light…
So now I don't mind finishing The Synthesis (of Yoga). I was a little bothered because I have no other books by Sri Aurobindo to translate that can help me in my sadhana: there was only The Synthesis. As I said, it always came right on time, just when it was needed for a particular experience…
All his other books that could help me are already translated. And with Savitri, the idea isn't to make a translation, but to SEE. To try something. To give me the daily experience of that contact.
I had some magnificent experiences when I read it the first time (two years ago, I believe). Wonderful, wonderful experiences! And since then, each time I read those lines, the same thing happens – not the same experience, but I come in contact with the same realm.”
The Mother
The Mother’s Agenda-18.09.1962