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World Hindu Wisdom Meet 2014 Sanatana Dharma “I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated. Even the Upanishads and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in seed… I may say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion new or old for humanity in the future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-411 The third lecture delivered by S.A. Maa Krishna at the World Hindu Wisdom Meet-2014 held at Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia on 17.04.2014: (This pilgrimage to Bali witnessed tremendous opening towards The Mother’s new Divinity, both by the Balinese Aspirants and the noble participants of World Hindu Wisdom Meet-2014 which is a continuation of its earlier World Hindu Summit Meet in 2012 and 2013 . The first-day session, 16.04.2014, began with the inauguration of S.A. Maa Krishna’s Book The Divine Bliss which focuses on the man’s possibility of ascending to the status of Integral Godhead through Divine Call and our Soul’s task in Integral Yoga is to reveal The Mother’s Power which is too great for earth, to live in Her Bliss which is too large for heaven, to open toward Her Light which is too intense for inconscient hell, to extricate Her Beauty which is too vast for physical consciousness and to possess Her Love which is too boundless. The second-day session, 17.04.2014 began with S.A. Maa Krishna’s recitation of the Hymn offered to Mother Durga in which Sri Aurobindo projected India as the noblest race destined to save the world by calling down the Divine Mother power, by whose appearance we can regain the lost Spiritual Teaching, inviolate Character, strength of Intuition, force of Austerity, power of Virginity and true liberating Integral Knowledge. She only can slay the dark enemy of Titan and Asura within and root out all obscurity without. Our earnest prayer is that may our entire life and all life of successive births and bodies become a ceaseless worship of the Mother and that all our actions are a continuous service dedicated to Her. May She descend and manifest physically upon this earth. The second-day session ended with S.A. Maa Krishna’s lecture representing The Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s world vision, world redemption and world transformation. She pointed out that 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 nescient sleep of shadow and the Night in the form of Subconscient Sheath and in the wakefulness of the stars and Sun symbolising Supramental Self and wait for the hour in which high meets the low. The emergence of Divine Life on earth is possible by the reconciliation of God’s Night below the feet and His fathomless Light above the head. Bali is long recognised as the land of peace, whose Soul has turned towards greater Spiritual Call and this auspicious World Hindu Wisdom Meet-2014 has opened enormous Spiritual possibilities for the children of Bali and its ardent seekers.) OM Manatha Sree Jagannatha Mad Guru Sree Jagad Guru Mad Atma Sarva Bhutatma Thasmai Sree Guruvae Namahah “Supreme Lord, Eternal Truth, let us obey Thee alone and live according to Truth.” OM Swastiastu Om Namo Bhagavateh Divine Amar Atman! My all Eternal Love and heartiest Pranams to you all, WORLD HINDU WISDOM MEET-2014 PROPOSAL “There are very few people who carry with them an atmosphere which irradiates joy, peace, confidence- it is very rare. But these are truly benefactors of humanity. They don’t need to open their mouth.” The Mother On this auspicious occasion of the noble and great World Hindu Parisad/World Hindu Wisdom Meet-2014, I propose the following abstracts not on behalf of me but on behalf of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo for world Spiritual movement and radical Divine change. All our human effort has a subordinate role and utility before the great mysterious infinitely superior Divine plan and wisdom which has worked out its faultless action since the beginning of this creation. We must hate none, despise none, be repelled by none but rather to accept this existence as the body of the Brahman, where the Divine is little revealed in one or more revealed in another or veiled and wholly distorted in others for that which He intends to become something best in their form and to execute secret Divine plan in their recalcitrant nature. This spiritual experience extends to embracing Godhead in whatever disguise He approaches us. We must regard, obey and adhere to the law, guidelines, norms of traditional or ancient schools of Yoga in conformity with our highest objective Truth realization and proceed ahead with the other complementary discipline of constantly renovating and restating all truth and practice through fresh instreaming of Spiritual experiences. We propose to give secondary importance to the outward appearance of things and fellow creatures and deliver them from contradictory and hostile ideas and emotions and insists to lean on the primary importance of seeking the Soul and Divine in all. And we always preserve within us the inalienable sense of unity in the midst of infinite variation of potentiality and differences of all possible relations. A seeker of truth would under no circumstance set the power and knowledge in him against the power and knowledge in others or affirm himself as an ego striving against other egos. He is rightly related to the world by giving or contributing what is the best, the profoundest and the completest in him. All our actions of intermediate planes between the highest and the lowest are the intermingling of truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance, joy and suffering, from which pure truth, wisdom and delight have to be worked out. It further believes that the Truth of things that emerges out of the phenomenal world’s contradictions is an infinite Bliss and self-conscious Existence, the same everywhere, self-existent in all things, in all times and beyond Time, whose largest totality and most intense vibrations of activity can be entirely manifested through practice of Yoga and Spiritual discipline. The integral liberating Knowledge or “Sā Vidya Yā Vimuktaye ” insists on the unity and reality of all the manifestations of the Absolute and refuses to confine truth to any one aspect. It admits all the valid truths of all the Schools of thought by getting rid of their limitation and negation and reconciles these partial truths in the larger all-truth that fulfills our whole being entirely. This Wisdom proposes to turn all the individual problems, one sided view points, individual perfection, liberation, ananda and limitation imposed on Brahman out of partial Divine experiences into catholicity of the all vision of the Divine and he will be able to wait, learn, grow, integrate, synthesize and universalize all Deities, Teachers, Scriptures, Religions, developmental urges invented by Mother nature and weld them strongly to the One, the Ineffable and the Infinite and unifies many states of Consciousness at a time. Lastly, we aspire for the complete descent of the dynamic Divine Shakti or the Divine Mother through all Her attributes that of the Truth Supreme, Love Supreme, Delight Supreme, Knowledge Supreme, Beauty Supreme, Power Supreme, Life Supreme, Light Supreme, Silence Supreme, Peace Supreme, Word Supreme, Voice Supreme, Void Supreme, and entry into all the intermediate worlds or planes of Consciousness that exists between the Inconscient Matter and Sachchidananda. Though the UNKNOWABLE is not knowable by the finite mind or to our limited mental consciousness, it is not altogether and in every way unknowable; it is self-evident to an infinite Consciousness or a knowledge by Identity and the Spiritual Being within us can explore all the ranges of Consciousness from the darkest Inconscient plane to the highest plane of Sachchidananda to unravel the whole of the Unknowable and its complete Divine manifestation. OM TAT SAT Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Post Speech Thesis: Religion is considered great if behind every exoteric side of fixed faith, devotion, hope, symbol, ritual, ceremony and limiting dogmas there exists an esoteric side of inner Spiritual preparation, illumination and discovery of mystery of higher planes of existence. Its real motive is to train man’s mind, life and body for the emergence of an inner Spiritual Light and higher Consciousness. Integral Yoga accepts all ‘exoteric Religion’ as unconscious Yoga, the inferior stage and first approach of tardy evolution and insists on its subordination over esoteric Religion which is a conscious Yoga of swift Spiritual evolution. We have to identify two forms of Spiritual evolution developed by Mother nature; the first is an esoteric movement of Consciousness, the Mystic approach of concentrated evolution and unfolding of endless Spiritual mysteries in secrecy and silence of a secured and isolated Spiritual Fortress; the second is an exoteric diffusive Religious approach of entering commerce with the world in transforming it; here the highest available Spiritual truth is generalised for the largest benefit of humanity. These two complementary movements of the subjective adventure of Self-concentration of Spirituality and subordinate action of the objective adventure of Self-expansion of Religion are effectively combined in integral Yoga. But in integral Yoga Self-expansion is pursued primarily by movement of universal consciousness and secondarily by psycho-physical machinery. In Religion the Knowledge of the Self, World and God are relatively fixed and in Spirituality they are constantly updated, relived, renewed and restated and their endless Truth is endlessly unfolded. Now it is time for humanity to search for that highest Spiritual Knowledge which gathers together, illumines, integralises and harmonises the essential truth of all available knowledge and finds the basic and justifying reason of the existence of four negations of Ignorance, Falsehood, Suffering and Death and cures them. This effort can begin with the thorough study of the evolution of the Spiritual history of the earth and must culminate with the realisation of that Vedantic Supreme Reality, which being known all is known, yasmin vijnate sarvam idam vijnatam . OM TAT SAT Download this WEB PAGE in PDF Format: Photo Gallery “Help men, but do not pauperise them of their energy; lead and instruct men, but see that their initiative and originality remain intact; take others into thyself, but give them in return the full godhead of their nature. He who can do this is the leader and the guru .” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga-p-208 “That is why it is always said that, no matter what aspect of the Divine you adore or even what guide you choose, if you are perfect in your self-giving and absolutely sincere, you are sure to attain the spiritual goal.” The Mother The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/Vol.8/p-243, The Divine Bliss “For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him....For the seeker of the integral Yoga… will meet him (the Divine) in the faces of the Gods, his cosmic personalities supporting the World-Play, detect him behind the mask of the Vibhutis, embodied World-Forces or human Leaders, reverence and obey him in the Guru , worship him in the Avatar .” Sri Aurobindo CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-67, 130 Hymn to Mother Durga “It has always been said that to take disciples means to take upon yourself the difficulties of the disciples as well as your own. Of course, if the Guru does not identify himself with the disciple, does not take him into his own consciousness, keeps him outside and only gives him upadesa , leaving him to do the rest himself, then the chance of these effects is much diminished, made practically nil.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-197, “The ideal is that of humanity in God, of God in humanity, the ancient ideal of the sanatana dharma but applied as it has never been applied before to the problem of politics and the work of national revival. To realise that ideal, to impart it to the world is the mission of India. She has evolved a religion which embraces all that the heart, the brain, the practical faculty of man can desire but she has not yet applied it to the problems of modern politics. This therefore is the work which she has still to do before she can help humanity; the necessity of this mission is the justification for her resurgence, the great incentive of saving herself to save mankind is the native power which will give her the force, the strength, the vehemence which can alone enable her to realise her destiny... Spirituality is India’s only politics, the fulfilment of the Sanatan Dharma its only Swaraj. ” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-6-7/Vande Mataram/p-1017 CWSA-36/Autobiographical Note/p-170 Each Nation/Continent is having its Soul quality about which she must be aware. For example, Europe represents ‘material sincerity and honesty;’ Roman empire represents ‘efficiency and administrative organisation;’ Arabians represent ‘passionate and impulsive in Nature;’ India represents ‘ Spiritual heart centre of the world ; ’ France represents ‘clarity in intellect;’ Japan represents ‘wonderful and unexpected progress through Beauty;’ Germany represents ‘skill and inventiveness;’ Russia represents ‘brotherhood of man;’ United States of America represents ‘enthusiasm for adventure and practical organisation;’ China represents ‘inventive intellect with creative power and self-expansion;’ Ireland represents ‘fine psychic turn and quick intelligence and delicate imagination;’ Australia represents ‘emergence of new generous energy and enthusiasm;’ Israel represents ‘intellectuals with an exceptional will and sense of organisation;’ Ukraine represents ‘extraordinary Heroism and Nationalism.’

Integral Jnana Yoga “ The Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique and supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual reflection, vicara , to right discrimination, viveka . It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakriti , of phenomenal Nature, creations of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right identification with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme... But this exclusive consummation is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with a less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realisation a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilisable for the perception of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualisation and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-38-39 The Injunction issued to the Seekers of integral Jnana Yoga : “These are the three fundamental realisations (1. Brahma Satya Jagat Mithya , 2. Brahman is the Source and creator of the Jagat, 3. Brahma Satya Jagat Satya ), so fundamental that to the Yogin of the way of Knowledge they seem ultimate, sufficient in themselves, destined to overtop and replace all others… Other realisations there are that are imperatively needed and must be explored to the full limit of their possibilities… All the revelatory aspects of the Divine must be caught in the wide net of the integral Yoga.”³ ⁷ Sri Aurobindo “The knowledge comes from above like the light and peace and everything else. As the consciousness progresses, it comes from a higher and higher level. First it is the higher or illumined mind that predominates, then the intuition, next the overmind, lastly the supermind; but the whole consciousness has to be sufficiently transformed before the supramental knowledge can begin to come.”²⁸ Sri Aurobindo Psychic Knowledge: “An inspired Knowledge sat enthroned within Whose seconds illumined more than reason’s years:” Savitri-37 “A wide God-knowledge poured down from above, A new world-knowledge broadened from within: His daily thoughts looked up to the True and One, His commonest doings welled from an inner Light.” Savitri-44 “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. A wider consciousness opens then its doors; Invading from spiritual silences A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile To commune with our seized illumined clay And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.” Savitri-47-48 “An inmost self looked up to a heavenlier height, An inmost thought kindled a hidden flame And the inner sight adored an unseen sun.” Savitri-351 “All this she saw and inly felt and knew Not by some thought of mind but by the self. A light not born of sun or moon or fire, A light that dwelt within and saw within Shedding an intimate visibility Made secrecy more revealing than the word:” Savitri-525 “As knowledge grows Light flames up from within:” Savitri-626 “The soul that into the world-adventure came, A scout and voyager from Eternity?” Savitri-717 Spiritual Knowledge: “As so he grew into his larger self, Humanity framed his movements less and less; A greater being saw a greater world. A fearless will for knowledge dared to erase The lines of safety Reason draws that bar Mind’s soar, soul’s dive into the Infinite.” Savitri-26 “His being lay down in bright immobile peace And bathed in wells of pure spiritual light; It wandered in wide fields of wisdom-self Lit by the rays of an everlasting sun.” Savitri-43 “Even now great thoughts are here that walk alone: Armed they have come with the infallible word In an investiture of intuitive light That is a sanction from the eyes of God; Announcers of a distant Truth they flame Arriving from the rim of eternity.” Savitri-258 “The labour to know seemed a vain strife of Mind; All knowledge ended in the Unknowable:” Savitri-305 “At hide-and-seek on a Mother-Wisdom’s breast, An artist teeming with her world-idea, She never could exhaust its numberless thoughts And vast adventure into thinking shapes And trial and lure of a new living’s dreams.” Savitri-328 “A lightning from the heights that think and plan,” Savitri-336 “Assent to thy high self, create, endure. Cease not from knowledge, let thy toil be vast.” Savitri-340 “Holding her forehead’s candid stainless space Behind the student arch a noble power Of wisdom looked from light on transient things.” Savitri-357-58 “Cast from thee sense that veils thy spirit’s sight: In the enormous emptiness of thy mind Thou shalt see the Eternal’s body in the world, Know him in every voice heard by thy soul, In the world’s contacts meet his single touch; All things shall fold thee into his embrace.” Savitri-476 “All knowledge failed and the Idea’s forms And Wisdom screened in awe her lowly head Feeling a Truth too great for thought or speech, Formless, ineffable, for ever the same.” Savitri-522 “The immortal’s thoughts displaced our bounded view, The immortal’s thoughts earth’s drab idea and sense; All things now bore a deeper heavenlier sense. A glad clear harmony marked their truth’s outline, Reset the balance and measures of the world.” Savitri-529 “Consent to be nothing and none, dissolve Time’s work, Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name. Annul thyself that only God may be.” Savitri-538 “Thoughts leaped down from a superconscient field Like eagles swooping from a viewless peak, Thoughts gleamed up from the screened subliminal depths Like golden fishes from a hidden sea.” Savitri-541 “Only sometimes small thoughts arose and fell Like quiet waves upon a silent sea Or ripples passing over a lonely pool When a stray stone disturbs its dreaming rest. Yet the mind’s factory had ceased to work, There was no sound of the dynamo’s throb, There came no call from the still fields of life.” Savitri-543 “This seeing was identical with the seen; It knew without knowledge all that could be known, It saw impartially the world go by, But in the same supine unmoving glance Saw too its abysmal unreality.” Savitri-546 “Something unknown, unreached, inscrutable Sent down the messages of its bodiless Light, Cast lightning flashes of a thought not ours Crossing the immobile silence of her mind: In its might of irresponsible sovereignty It seized on speech to give those flamings shape, Made beat the heart of wisdom in a word And spoke immortal things through mortal lips.” Savitri-553 “The voice of life is tuned to infinite sounds, The moments on great wings of lightning come And godlike thoughts surprise the mind of earth.” Savitri-571-72 Supramental Knowledge: “Or a revealing Force sweeps blazing in; Out of some vast superior continent Knowledge breaks through trailing its radiant seas, And Nature trembles with the power, the flame.” Savitri-47 “A reconciling wisdom looked on life; It took the striving undertones of mind And took the confused refrain of human hopes And made of them a sweet and happy call; It lifted from an underground of pain The inarticulate murmur of our lives And found for it a sense illimitable.” Savitri-90 “Out of the ineffable hush it hears them come Trembling with the beauty of a wordless speech, And thoughts too great and deep to find a voice, Thoughts whose desire new-makes the universe.” Savitri-236 “But thought nor word can seize eternal Truth: The whole world lives in a lonely ray of her sun.” Savitri-276 “Awakened by the touch of the Unseen, Deserting the boundary of things achieved, Aspired the strong discoverer, tireless Thought, Revealing at each step a luminous world.” Savitri-277 “Of wisdom looked from light on transient things. A scout of victory in a vigil tower, Her aspiration called high destiny down; A silent warrior paced in her city of strength Inviolate, guarding Truth’s diamond throne.” Savitri-358 “The knowledge of the thinker and the seer Saw the unseen and thought the unthinkable, Opened the enormous doors of the unknown, Rent man’s horizons into infinity.” Savitri-359 “I sat with the forest sages in their trance: There poured awakening streams of diamond light, I glimpsed the presence of the One in all.” Savitri-405 “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 “A voice comes down from mystic unseen peaks: A cry of splendour from a mouth of storm, It is the voice that speaks to night’s profound, It is the thunder and the flaming call.” Savitri-627 “He (Supermind) is the Wisdom that comes not by thought, His wordless silence brings the immortal word.” Savitri-681 “For knowledge shall pour down in radiant streams And even darkened mind quiver with new life And kindle and burn with the Ideal’s fire And turn to escape from mortal ignorance.” Savitri-710 Integral Yoga of Knowledge is the extensive extension of the Gita’s teaching of traditional Sankhya and Vedanta . Through this Yoga the higher Nature of Sachchidananda and the lower nature of mind, life and body are reconciled to such extent that the Matter becomes the manifesting field of the Light, Force and Joy of Sachchidananda; life becomes all-blissful conscious force of Sachchidananda ; sensational mind and emotional mind become play field of Divine Love and universal Delight and intellect transforms into Divine Knowledge-Will. 1) All Life is Yoga of Nature through Knowledge, which is something self-existent, everlasting and infinite. All life includes a higher, truly conscious existence which our half-conscious humanity does not yet possess and can only arrive at by a self-exceeding spiritual ascension. All life is extended towards the pursuit of this knowledge in three stages. Firstly, the ‘endless difficulties that arise from the environing world are dismissed by erecting firmly against them a defence of outer physical and inner spiritual solitude; safe behind a wall of inner silence, he remains impassive and untouched by the discords of world and others.’³ ⁴ The Sadhak of the integral Knowledge must be absolutely free from attachment to action and equally free from attachment to inaction and must be capable of pursuing ceaseless action. Any ‘tendency to mere inertia of mind or vitality or body must be surmounted, and if that habit is found growing on the nature, the will of the Purusha must be used to dismiss it.’³⁵ Secondly , the difficulty of realisation of the divine life with human living, of being in God and yet living in man is the very difficulty that he is set here to solve and not to shun. If there is an opposition between the Spiritual life and that of the world, it is that gulf which he is here to bridge, that opposition which he is here to change into a harmony. The example of great Avataras is there to show that not only by rejecting the life of the world as it is can help, but also and more by accepting and uplifting it. Thirdly , all knowledge is ultimately the knowledge of the One, through himself, through Nature, through her works. Mankind has first to seek the knowledge through the external life; for until its mentality, buddhi, is sufficiently purified and developed, Spiritual knowledge is not really possible, and in proportion as it is developed, the possibilities of Spiritual knowledge become richer and fuller. 2) Sarvam karmakhilam Partha jnane parisamapyate , (The Gita-4.33) Knowledge is that in which all action culminates, O Arjuna ! Due to the defect in work, sacrifice through knowledge is considered greater than sacrifice through action. And Bhakti is recognised as the highest sacrifice of Yoga. Integral Yoga accepts this hierarchy of traditional Yoga and further defines Divine Will as the foundation and is fit to occupy the Driver’s seat, whereas Divine Knowledge and Love are its willing subordinates. From this, we understand Karma Yoga is the greatest Yoga, the starting point and foundation of all Yoga; Bhakti Yoga is considered as ‘the crown of Works and flowering of Knowledge.’³⁶ 3) Traditional Jnana Yoga leads to the rejection of phenomenal worlds from consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme Self. The point of departure of Integral Jnana Yoga from the traditional path of knowledge is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the Divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. The unique object of Integral Jnana Yoga i s that it seeks the truth of existence in its completeness and converts all forms of mundane knowledge into activities of the Divine Consciousness utilised for both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. 4) “The criterion is within, as the Gita insists. It is to have the soul free from craving and attachment, but free from the attachment to inaction as well as from the egoistic impulse to action, free from attachment to the forms of virtue as well as from the attraction to sin. It is to be rid of “I-ness” and “my- ness” so as to live in the one Self and act in the one Self; to reject the egoism of refusing to work through the individual centre of the universal Being as well as the egoism of serving the individual mind and life and body to the exclusion of others. To live in the Self is not to dwell for oneself alone in the Infinite immersed and oblivious of all things in that ocean of impersonal self-delight; but it is to live as the Self and in the Self equal in this embodiment and all embodiments and beyond all embodiments. This is the integral knowledge.”²³ “The seeker of the integral knowledge will not stop either at half-way and attractive or high-pinnacled and exclusive end. He will not limit himself within any religious creed and philosophical dogma. He must soar to the utmost height, circle and spread to the most all-embracing wideness, free to admit and combine all the soul’s highest and greatest and fullest and most numerous experiences. If the highest height of Spiritual experience, the sheer summit of all realisation is the absolute union of the Soul with the Transcendent who exceeds the individual and the universe, the widest scope of that union is the discovery of that very Transcendent as the source, support, continent, informing and constituent spirit and substance of both these manifesting powers of the divine Essence and the divine Nature.”¹⁵ “We must be prepared to leave behind on the path not only that which we stigmatise as evil, but that which seems to us to be good, yet is not the one good. There are things which were beneficial, helpful, which seemed perhaps at one time the one thing desirable, and yet once their work is done, once they are attained, they become obstacles and even hostile forces when we are called to advance beyond them. There are desirable states of the soul which it is dangerous to rest in after they have been mastered, because then we do not march on to the wider kingdoms of God beyond. Even divine realisations must not be clung to, if they are not the divine realisation in its utter essentiality and completeness. We must rest at nothing less than the All, nothing short of the utter transcendence.”²⁰ 5) The method of Integral Knowledge is initiated through the mind’s method of abstraction, which is the most effective means of enlightening the ignorance by the practice of gathering and reflection, sravana , meditation and fixed contemplation, manana , absorbed dwelling of mind in its object, nidhidhyasa . The whole preparatory method of Yoga is psychological and it does not exclude the forms of lower knowledge, so that the outward-going sensuous, pragmatic preoccupation of the lower knowledge with phenomena and forms is replaced by the one Divine preoccupation. ‘Contemplation of God in Nature, contemplation and service of God in man and in the life of man and of the world in its past, present and future, are equally elements of which the Yoga of knowledge can make use to complete the realisation of God in all things.’¹⁷ ‘The highest truth, the integral self-knowledge is not to be gained by this self-blinded leap into the Absolute but by a patient transit beyond the mind into the Truth-consciousness where the Infinite can be known, felt, seen, experienced in all the fullness of its unending riches.’¹⁸ ‘The status of knowledge, is a “realisation”, in the full sense of the word;... it consists of three successive movements, (1) internal Vision, (2) complete internal Experience and (3) Identity.’¹⁹ 6) Our mind gives a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure in its relation with the Existence until they are enlightened by the faculty of higher Spiritual, Supramental and supra-sensuous Knowledge. The Supreme has the right relation with our individual being and with the universe and it transcends both the Soul and the Universe. The object of a Yoga of Spiritual knowledge is this eternal Reality, this Self, this Brahman, this Transcendent, this All that dwells over all and in all and is manifest and yet concealed in the individual and disguised in the universe. Ordinary objects, the external appearances of life and matter, the psychology of our thoughts and actions, the perceptions of forces of the apparent world are part of this knowledge and are the part of the manifestation of the One. Intellectual analysis can only lead to a clear conception, intellectual deliberations and right discriminations are meant to remove the difficulty of the path; all concentration, purification of understanding, psychological self-knowledge, all seeking by the heart through love, by the senses through beauty, by the will through power and works and by the Soul through peace and joy are only keys, avenues, first approaches and beginnings of the ascent which we have to use and to follow till the wide and infinite levels are attained and the Divine doors swing open into the infinite Light. 7) The comprehensive Yoga of Knowledge includes all the mass of graded experience existing behind the closed doors to which the consciousness of a seeker may find. It need not confine to the seeking after the Absolute alone but the hidden truth of material world and occult powers of great natural forces through the cultivation of Science and higher Spiritual planes and worlds and possibilities of our being through Yoga which are aimed at and cultivated by great Religions. The consciousness of the Absolute is the highest reach of the Yoga of Knowledge and the first, foremost, greatest and ardent object is the possession of this highest Divine and to neglect it for any inferior knowledge is to afflict our Yoga, Life and Evolution with inferiority and fall away from its true characteristic object. So, the integral Yoga of Knowledge takes account of all things, unifies their diverse truth and embraces all the Divine in its relations with ourselves and the world on the different planes of Existence. 8) The first object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹³ is realisation of pure Self, pure Existence, jyotirmaya Brahman , above the terms of mind, life and body which is achieved after long persistent concentration or by other means the veil of mind is rent or swept aside. In this experience, Self is realised as present, real and concrete to physical sensation. After this realisation whatever darkness and fading of the light may afflict the Soul, the experience is inevitably renewed and must become frequent and constant depending on our sincere effort and persistence. The first result of the aim of Jnana Yoga ¹⁶ is an absolute quietude; for unless the old action of Nature in us be entirely quieted, it is difficult if not impossible to find either any true soul-status or any divine activity. Our first object on the path of knowledge is rather the liberation that comes by detachment from the desire-mind and by the renunciation of its passions. Therefore, to get back to this eternal fact of complete Oneness is our essential act of self-knowledge and whole aim of our Yoga of knowledge; to live in it must be the effective principle of our inner possession of our being and of our right and ideal relations with the world. For integral self-possession, we must be one not only with the Self, with God, but with all existences; this realisation of oneness of Sachchidananda in himself and this practice of oneness in difference or oneness in all His manifestation is the whole basis of Yoga. The second object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹⁴ is that we begin to realise that the first Spiritual experience is not sufficient and we must realise the Self or Brahman in its essential mode of triune reality of static Sachchidananda . Thus, Existence, Consciousness and Delight are experienced as silent, passive, quietistic, self-absorbed, self-sufficient, impersonal, without play of qualities and turned away from the universe with indifference and without participation. The third object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹⁴ is the realisation of dynamic Sachchidananda which is sovereign, free, lord of things, acting out of an inalienable calm, pouring itself out in infinite action, infinite quality acting out of integral self-concentration, all possible play of personality of the one Person, possession of the infinite phenomenon of the universe, without attachment, without aloofness and without indifference. Thus, the Divine Manifestation takes place with Freedom, Divine Mastery and luminous Self-delight without any bondage. The fourth object of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹⁴ is the holding together of the static and dynamic aspects of the Sachchidananda in a Transcendent Consciousness which is not the personal God of the Religions or the qualified Brahman of the philosophers, but that in which personal and impersonal, quality and non-quality are reconciled. The fifth aim of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹² is to possess the Divine and be possessed by the Divine either through movement of Consciousness or through identification or through reflection of the Divine Reality. This possession of the Divine in himself is extended to the Divine in the world and the Divine in all things and all beings. This possession of the Divine is to be realised either in the oneness or in the infinite diversity, in his personality and impersonality, in his purity free from qualities and in his infinite qualities, in time and beyond time, in his action and in his silence, in the finite and in the infinite in this life and in all life. The sixth aim of integral Yoga of Knowledge¹² is to put on in our surface life the Divine being and Divine nature. And since Divine is Sachchidananda , it is our responsibility to raise our being into the Divine being, our consciousness into the Divine consciousness, our energy into the Divine energy, our delight of existence into Divine delight of being. This highest consciousness is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, and physical existence shall become full of the Divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the Divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the Divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the Divine life, our physical being a new-mould of the Divine substance. The seventh aim of integral Yoga of knowledge¹² is realised by an opening of oneself to the Divine gnosis and Divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent dwelling in the Vijnanamaya Purusha and the Anandamaya Purusha . One earth-bound Soul lives within the binding limitation of the material plane and in normal outward-going surface experience; the Mind and Life are preoccupied only with the externality of material existence. He can raise the internal consciousness from the lower plane to the higher planes through true and right relations of Purusha with Prakriti , and subsequently Ishwara with Shakti, Brahman with Maya and Sat with Chit . Thus, the mental being ascends to the Gnostic being and the Bliss-self and assumes the Gnostic and the Bliss nature. By upliftment of this inner life, one can experience the positive transformation of the whole outward-going existence. Thus, the Material life will be dominated and possessed by the absolute Spirit with all its circumstances moulded and determined by the purity of Being, by the infinite Consciousness possessing the finite limiting consciousness of Mind, Vital and Physical, by the invasion of Divine energy, joy and bliss of the Spirit. 9) Samadhi or trance is given great importance in the Yoga of traditional knowledge, because there it is the very principle of its method and its object to raise the mental consciousness into a clarity of and concentrated power by which it can become entirely aware of, lost in, and identified with true being. In integral Yoga, Yogic trance is not accepted as an aim but only a means utilised not as an escape from waking existence by cessation of life, but includes the possession of the Divine in life through waking trance. 10) The limitation of traditional Jnana Yoga is that when one enters higher or highest state of Consciousness of inner Samadhi, absolute state of Turiya , either through concentration on single object, or through contemplation, meditation or through silencing of the mind either through rejection of thought-suggestion or through witness state of standing back from the mental action; one loses hold of the inward Samadhi when he is awake or ‘descend into the contacts of the world.’⁹ This truncated possession of the perfect Consciousness may be accepted as the initial Spiritual experience of the beginners of integral Yoga but this higher/highest Consciousness must be finally called down to the waking state ‘to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness.’⁹ “Therefore not only must the mind be able to rise in abnormal states out of itself into a higher consciousness, but its waking mentality also must be entirely spiritualised.”²⁹ Thus, Purusha can exercise its full conscious control over Prakriti. This repeated and prolonged calling down of the dynamic Divine Shakti to the nether untransformed Nature is identified as ‘not of a pilgrim following the highroad to his destination, but, to that extent at least, of a path finder hewing his way through a virgin forest’¹⁰ and there will not be merely negative quiescence of waking trance but effective dynamisation of positive transformation of Nature. Yogic trance is not the aim of integral Jnana Yoga but an important means to ‘enlarge and raise the whole seeing, living and active consciousness.’¹¹ Thus, one becomes established in waking trance in which he experiences all the four planes of Waking, Dream, Sleep and Turiya Consciousness or Divine union of multiple (ten) Selves with the respective Sheaths, koshas , in a dynamic waking state. The Divine life is possible with self-identification with all four planes and a right relation with Purusha and Prakriti is restored. Thus, through movement of the highest Consciousness to the lowest Matter, the Spirit’s Face is revealed. OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-109, 2: The Gita-4.10, 4.19, 20, 21, 22, 3: The Gita-4.33, 34, 35, 4: The Gita-4.36, 37, 38, 39, 5: The Gita-5.16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 6: The Gita-18.49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 7: The Gita-18.57, 8: The Gita-7.30, 9: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-323-325, 10: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-56-57, 11: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-519, 12: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-511-12, 13: “It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-305, 14: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-390, 15: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-361, 16: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-420, 17: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-517, 18: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-296 19: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-296, 20: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-334, 21: The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/10/p-15, 22: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-103, “You will find that the Gita speaks of this rejection of all mental thought as one of the methods of Yoga and even the method it seems to prefer. This may be called the dhyana of liberation, as it frees the mind from slavery to the mechanical process of thinking and allows it to think or not think as it pleases and when it pleases, or to choose its own thoughts or else to go beyond thought to the pure perception of Truth called in our philosophy Vijnana. ” CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-294 23: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-332-33, 24: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-631, 25: “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 “So a whole slice of my life came back, but it didn’t stop there! It keeps extending back further and further, and memories keep on coming, things that go back sixty years now, even beyond, seventy, seventy-five years – they are all coming back. And so it all has to be put in order .” The Mother’s Agenda/November 5/1960 26: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-1054, 27: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-303, 28: CWSA-30/Letters on Yoga-III/p-461, 29: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-396, 30: TMCW-8/The Questions and Answers-1956/p-299-300, 31: Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-230, 32: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-59-60, 33: “It is only in the parts where the little ego is usually too strong for us, it is only in our emotional or physical joy and suffering, our pleasure and pain of life, before which the desire-soul in us is utterly weak and cowardly, that the application of the divine principle becomes supreme difficult and seems to many impossible or even monstrous and repellent. Here the ignorance of ego shrinks from the principle of impersonality which it yet applies without too much difficulty in Science, in Art and even in a certain kind of imperfect spiritual living because there the rule of impersonality does not attack those desire cherished by the surface soul and those values of desire fixed by the surface mind in which our outward life is most vitally interested. In the freer and higher movements there is demanded of us only a limited and specialized equality and impersonality proper to a particular field of consciousness and activity while the egoistic basis of our practical life remains to us; in the lower movements the whole foundation of our life has to be changed in order to make room for impersonality, and this the desire soul finds impossible.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-237-38, 34: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-77, 35: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-348, 36: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-551 37: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-118, “The ordinary man who wishes to reach God through knowledge, must undergo an elaborate training. He must begin by becoming absolutely pure, he must cleanse thoroughly his body, his heart and his intellect, he must get himself a new heart and be born again; for only the twice born c an understand or teach the Vedas. When he has done this he needs yet four things before he can succeed, (1) the Sruti or recorded revelation, (2) the Sacred Teacher, (3) the practice of Yoga and (4) the Grace of God.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-169 “ In the Vijnana the right relation and action of Purusha and Prakriti are found, because there they become unified and the Divine is no longer veiled in Maya. All is his action. The Jiva no longer says “I think, I act, I desire, I feel”; he does not even say like the sadhaka striving after unity but before he has reached it, “As appointed by Thee seated in my heart, I act.” For the heart, the centre of the mental consciousness is no longer the centre of origination but only a blissful channel. He is rather aware of the Divine seated above, lord of all, adhisthita , as well as acting within him . And seated himself in that higher being, parardhe, (Katha Upanishad-1.3.1) paramasyam paravati , (the highest summit) he can say truly and boldly, “God himself by his Prakriti knows, acts, loves, takes delight through my individuality and its figures and fulfils there in its higher and divine measures the multiple lıla which the Infinite for ever plays in the universality which is himself for ever.”" Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-496-497 "I can see I am still (and God knows how long it will last!) in that transitional period Sri Aurobindo describes in "The Yoga of Self-Perfection. " A period when the true thing is getting established but the tail of the old thing trails behind, mixes in and colors things. Well, it's an old habit, and it takes SUCH a long time to go away... The habit of not understanding something unless it can be mentally explained is disastrous, for instance. This feeling we have that we don't understand something unless we can explain it – that's really disastrous. That half-hour's experience was something absolute, you see, not for one second was there any concern to know what was going on (naturally!); it was absolute. And only when the time was up and I had to come out of it did I start wondering, "What happened? What does it mean?" It wasn't even that pronounced. It's simply an old habit, what we call "understanding." A bad habit... To live THAT spontaneously, all the time – how wonderful it would be! (silence)... And the Power! The Power was tremendous. And I could see in detail everything it was doing, but in another way. I can say it was a certainty (I knew exactly what it was doing), but I couldn't have described it with the words we use here." The Mother The Mother's Agenda/November 27, 196 2

The Central Truth of The Life Divine The Central Truth of The Divine Life Or The Book of Consciousness “A spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling spirit, is then the key-note, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence .”¹ Sri Aurobindo “If consciousness is the central secret , life is the outward indication, the effective power of being in Matter; for it is that which liberates consciousness and gives it its form or embodiment of force and its effectuation in material act.”² Sri Aurobindo “But also the central Consciousness in its turn will take up more and more the outer mental activities of knowledge and turn them into a parcel of itself or an annexed province; it will infuse into them its more authentic movement and make a more and more spiritualised and illumined mind its instrument in these surface fields, its new conquests, as well as in its own deeper spiritual empire.”¹⁷ Sri Aurobindo “For the gulf between mind and supermind has to be bridged, the closed passages opened and roads of ascent and descent created where there is now a void and a silence. This can be done only by the triple transformation to which we have already made a passing reference: there must first be the psychic change, the conversion of our whole present nature into a soul-instrumentation; on that or along with that there must be the spiritual change, the descent of a higher Light, Knowledge, Power, Force, Bliss, Purity into the whole being, even into the lowest recesses of the life and body, even into the darkness of our subconscience; last, there must supervene the supramental transmutation, — there must take place as the crowning movement the ascent into the supermind and the transforming descent of the supramental Consciousness into our entire being and nature.”⁸ Sri Aurobindo The central thought, the central secret and central truth of Integral Evolution is identified as Consciousness, which is the real creative Power, the universal Witness, the force of awareness, a play of Energy, an infinite, indivisible Existence moves out of its fundamental purity into the varied play of Force; for whom the world is a field and condition of Divine Life; life is the exterior and dynamic sign and index of that revelation and effectuation; all life is the fundamental poise of its own constituting Consciousness in possession both of unity and of diversity where the former contains and governs the latter; the physical, vital, mind, soul and Supermind are instruments of Consciousness; the accessories or subordinate energies of these instruments are identified as elements of Consciousness; following this line the individual Consciousness fulfils itself by that which is beyond his obscured and limited ego, beyond the thought and speech, a centre of the Divine Life and of the universal Consciousness embracing, utilising and transforming all individual determinations into the Divine harmony; universal Consciousness fulfils itself by variations of numberless individuals and not by suppressing the variations; the Transcendent Consciousness fulfils, contains, manifests, constitutes the cosmos and the individual by its own infinite harmonic varieties and it is the true truth and source of both the Individuality and the Cosmic Being. Consciousness or the power of Being is like the nave of a wheel works through the individual centre, with the Divine Life or transformed Becoming is its circumference, the wheel. The spokes, the radiating bars connecting the wheel and the nave are the instruments of Consciousness responsible for rightly relating the existence with the Supreme through change of consciousness and thus the evolutionary growth of life is accelerated. Consciousness: “An integral consciousness will become the basis of an entire harmonisation of life through the total transformation, unification, integration of the being and the nature…An integral consciousness with a multiform dynamic experience is essential for the complete transformation of our nature.”⁷ Sri Aurobindo “Consciousness is the breath that makes everything live.”¹⁴ The Mother The Highest Consciousness is an awareness of the Spirit by Identity, subordinated by the awareness of the Spirit by Inclusion of Psychic opening and Indwelling of Spiritual opening, which is the very stuff of the Spirit’s triple self-knowledge. We have two fundamental facts – a fact of pure Existence or Being and a fact of world existence or Becomings; to deny one or the other is to bring either narrow limitation to our Spiritual order or an incompetent and restricting physical life and to recognise the facts of Consciousness is to find out their true and fruitful relation. Consciousness is only a bridge of transition in which initially the Spirit becomes partially aware of itself and finally becomes the normal waking trance of luminous Superconscience. The extension of this consciousness can be satisfied by an inner enlargement from the individual consciousness into the cosmic existence and in the Transcendent Consciousness, both the individual and universal find its own fullness, freedom of reality and perfect harmonisation. Therefore, man’s importance in the world is recognised by the development of a comprehensive Consciousness in which Silence and cosmic Activity are reconciled and a transfiguration by a perfect self-discovery becomes possible. We must note that what we mean ordinarily by the superficial man6 is not the inner self, but only a sum of apparent continuous movement of consciousness-force concentrated on the surface in a certain stream of superficial workings or an unequal concentration of consciousness in which there is the beginning of self-division, which does all his works, thinks all his thoughts, feels all his emotions. Behind this stream of energy there is the whole sea of consciousness, the vast sea of Subliminal, Superconscient and Subconscient Self which is aware of the stream but of which the stream is unaware. Yet it is really the hidden sea and not the superficial stream which is doing all the action and the source of all his movement. Instruments of Consciousness: Consciousness is a self-aware force of existence whose middle term is Mind, below it, it sinks into Vital, Physical and Subconscient movements and above it, it rises to Subliminal, Spiritual and Supramental heights. This Consciousness is quite involved in Inconscient Matter, hesitating on the verge between involution and conscious evolution in the non-animal form of life, consciously evolving but greatly limited and hampered in the mind housed in the living body of man, destined to be fully evolved by awakening the Supermind in the embodied fully developed mental being and Nature. The phenomenon of Consciousness is certainly a Force, a formative movement of energies and all material forms are born out of meeting and mutual adaptation between unshaped forces. Subconscient consciousness is the Inconscient vibrating on the borders of consciousness, sending up its motions to be changed into conscious stuff, swallowing into its depths impressions of past experience as seeds of unconscious habit and returning them constantly but often chaotically to the surface consciousness; for surface consciousness is bound down to ego in all its activities and the first formation of egoistic consciousness is the dualities of life and death, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, truth and error, good and evil. The supraphysical plane of consciousness ³ is not governed by the law of Spiritual evolution and from this world, bright and dark forces cast their influence on the physical plane of existence. The enlargement of the superficially active surface consciousness is possible either by some kind of untaught effort and casual ill-ordered effect or by a scientific and well-regulated practice. The surface consciousness is having three appearances; firstly, the material consciousness is a submerged consciousness, self-oblivious, and is lost in the form but really obeys faultlessly the laws of Right and Truth fixed for it by the Divine Will concealed in its own superficial expressive action; this body consciousness is a patient servant and what it craves for is long life, good health, physical strength and comfortable easy life and the right action of the physical consciousness is distorted by the pressure of separative consciousness of physical mind; secondly, the vital consciousness is an emerging consciousness seen as an important part in animal life and intuitively evident in plant, it acts in the cells of the body for purposeful movements, automatic vital function and a process of the growth, activity, attraction, repulsion and decay of form to which our mind is a stranger; it has the same initial reactions of pleasure and pain, sleep and wakefulness as that of mental consciousness but different in constitution of its self-experience; thirdly, the mental consciousness is not the completely illumined consciousness emerged out of the obscuration of Matter but it is the emerged individual limited consciousness, aware of things and forces in their apparent division and opposition to each other but not in their real unity, reflects new ideas as facts of life, modifies comfortably the internal and the external existence of the being; delivers out of its imprisonment but it is not yet master of the act and form and is aware therefore only of a fragmentary movement of its own total progressive activities; it is a many-sided mental effort in order to arrive at an apprehensive knowledge. Apprehensive Consciousness, Prajnana, is a luminous mental activity in the body, sense mind and nerves unconsciously without any notice; it is active, formative of creative knowledge, originative, cognizant as the processor and witness of its own working; it is in its nature truth seeing, truth hearing and truth remembering; apprehensive active consciousness works as an energy throwing up knowledge and activity out of itself; an apprehensive passive consciousness does not act as an energy with absence of force of action; mental waking consciousness is only a small selection of the entire conscious being, it is a perceptive consciousness of waking state where the transcript of physical things and of our contacts with universe are recorded. If we develop our inner being, live more inwardly than most men do, then the balance is changed and a larger dream consciousness opens before us; our dreams can take on a subliminal and no longer a subconscious character and can assume a reality and significance; this is also subliminal consciousness, which is a witness to truth through truth vision, truth hearing, truth discernment, truth touch, truth thought and truth action and its testimony can be confirmed again and again in physical and objective field, it delivers us definitely from circumscription by the material and from the illusion of the obvious; on the border of subliminal consciousness there is Psychic Consciousness ,⁹ which can identify itself with other Souls, can enter into them, can realise its unity with them and this can take place in perfect waking state, observes all distinctions of objective world and exceeds them. Above it there is Spiritual Consciousness ,¹⁰ which is intrinsic, self-existent, more embracing, universal and transcendent, it can take up mind, life and body into its light and give them the immobile and featureless Divine touch; for it has a greater instrumentality of knowledge, a fountain of deeper light, power and will, an unlimited splendour and force of love, joy and beauty; its highest state is Overmind Consciousness , which can hold any number of seemingly fundamental oppositions together in a reconciling global vision. In Sleep Consciousness all the material and sensory experiences cease in the deeper trance when we enter into superconscience, no record from it or transcript of its contents can normally reach us; it is only by a special or an unusual development, in a supernormal condition or through a break or rift in our confined normality, that we can be on the surface conscious of the contacts or messages of the Superconscience. This Consciousness of the upper hemisphere, also known as the Supramental Truth Consciousness¹¹ is at once a total self-awareness and ordering self-knowledge of the Eternal and Infinite and a power of self-determination inherent in that self-awareness by which the One manifests the harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity; its other name, the Gnostic Consciousness is that in which all contradictions are cancelled and fused into each other in a higher light of unified plasticity, self-knowledge and world-knowledge, instead of ego-insistence on personal ideas there would be a unifying sense of a common truth in many forms, a common self in many consciousness and bodies; it is extended as an original and ultimate Consciousness which is a power of unity in diversity, it is integral, all-accepting, all-embracing, all-discriminating, all-determining and an indivisible whole-vision. In this comprehensive Supramental Consciousness, it is equally possible to regard and rank waking, dream and sleep consciousness together as three different orders of one Reality or as three different grades of embodied contact of self-experience and world-experience. If we can develop a causal body or Supramental Sheath, which is not formed in most human beings, then this faculty will remain active in the conscious waking state. Beyond the Supramental Consciousness is the infinite Consciousness of Sachchidananda which must always find and achieve itself in the Divine Bliss, an Omnipresent Self-delight. This highest state of Consciousness of the Self is also called Turiya of pure existence and our absolute state of Being, with which it is difficult to have direct contact. Elements of Consciousness: There are some more terminologies through which the instruments of Consciousness are linked to the Divine Life and we have to understand all of them in relation to Consciousness. Ignorance is an unconsciousness, achiti , of the Truth and Right; it is the non-perceiving principle of our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge; it can only come about as a subordinate phenomenon by some concentration of consciousness absorbed in a part knowledge or a part action of the being and excluding the rest from its awareness; this Ignorance is a frontal power of that all-consciousness which limits itself in certain field, within certain boundaries to a particular operation of knowledge, a particular mode of conscious working, and keeps back all the rest of its knowledge in waiting as a force behind it. Falsehood is a personal attachment to limited consciousness absorbed in part truth and a by-product of world movement. Its necessity becomes inevitable in the fragmentary evolution of Ignorance. Suffering , a great stumbling-block to understand the truth of the universe, is a failure of the consciousness in us to meet the shocks of existence, the incapacity to bear the touch of delight. Evil is a wrong consciousness governed by life ego. Death is a loss of consciousness or failure of consciousness to unite the cells of the body. It is a peaceful transition from one state of surface consciousness to another state of subtle consciousness and can destroy unconsciousness. All Death, Decay and Destruction are the outcome of the arrest of growth of consciousness or the distortion of consciousness. When one enters higher ranges of consciousness beyond mind, he experiences Divine action, creation and Ananda and when one enters lower ranges of consciousness below mind, he experiences undivine action, destruction and suffering. Tamas is the Sanskrit word for the principle and power of inertia of consciousness and the first born of inconscient force:²⁰ a less developed downward depressing consciousness, dull, obscure, sluggish, conservative, unwilling to enlarge itself, recalcitrant to new stimulus of Divine force, barks at all unfamiliar wisdom and light and incompetent in its play is said to be tamasic . Rajas is the principle and power of kinetic force of consciousness impelled by desire and instinct, an intermediate, slow-evolving consciousness, dynamic, possessive, ever restless, governed in its idea not by truth and light, passionate and active; it accepts enjoyment of desire as the ruling human motive. Sattwa is the principle of harmonious upward rising consciousness; a consciousness of limited light, relative freedom, inner satisfaction, happiness, balanced knowledge and eager to possess higher Divine faculties of limitless Wisdom, Love, Delight, Beauty and Silence. Ego is a practical construction of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us; this constant outer ego building is only a provisional device of the Consciousness-Force in things so that the secret individual, the spirit within, may establish a representative and instrumental formation of itself in physical nature; the individual ego is a pragmatic and effective fiction, a translation of the secret self into the terms of surface consciousness, or a subjective substitute for our true self in our surface experience; the limited ego is only an intermediate phenomenon of consciousness necessary for a certain line of development in Ignorance; the nature of the ego is a self-limitation of consciousness by a willed ignorance of the rest of its play and its exclusive absorption in one form, one combination of tendencies, one field of the movement of energies. Memory is only a process and utility of consciousness; it is also a poverty-stricken substitute for an integral direct abiding consciousness of self and a direct integral or global perception of things. Mind, life and body are different organisations and grades of one conscious force of Existence; they are inferior expressions of partial consciousness which strive to arrive in the mould of a varied evolution at that superior expression of itself already existent to the Beyond-Mind. Time experience varies with the variation of state of consciousness and Space is a category of consciousness which arranges the perception of phenomena. Reason is only a messenger, a representative or a shadow of a greater consciousness beyond itself. Mind is a degradation¹⁵ of Supramental Consciousness. (Mental) Maya is the inverse creative movement of the Divine Consciousness and (Supramental) Maya is the forward creative movement of the Eternal Consciousness. Yoga-Maya is the power of Supramental Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; it is a special movement of self-existent direct awareness of Knowledge and it brings to man the brilliant messages from the Unknown. Vision is an instrument of the Consciousness of the dream Self to approach and foresee the Divine action. All evolution is, in essence, a heightening of the force of consciousness in the manifest being so that it may be raised into the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest, from matter into life, from life into mind, from the mind into the Spirit. Nature is the unconscious God whose conscious part is the creative force of consciousness of the Being within us. Being, Purusha, is the conscious God working within Ignorance, is also the static status of the infinite Consciousness. Purusha is a consciousness that observes and can reserve its will power. (Apara) Prakriti is the dynamic state of finite surface consciousness acting within the boundary of three gunas. Prakriti is an energy full of the substance of consciousness that takes the form of knowledge, will and feeling. Para Prakriti, Shakti is the dynamic status of infinite indwelling and over-dwelling Consciousness. Soul is the inner consciousness that aspires to its own complete self-realisation and therefore always exceeds the individual formation of the moment. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time and knows itself in all that exists. Divine Will is the potency of the power of consciousness applying itself to a work and a result. “If knowledge is the widest power of the consciousness and its function is to free and illumine, yet love is the deepest and most intense and its privilege is to be the key to the most profound and secret recesses of the Divine Mystery.”¹⁶ Tapas is the concentration power of consciousness. Samjnana or Supramental Sens e is the contact of Consciousness with its object; its action is the result of extension and vibration of consciousness in a supra-ethereal ether of light, power and bliss. It can be directly aware of all things in all the planes of consciousness without the aid of a sense organ. Knowledge is a potency of Light and Consciousness that possesses the highest Truth in terms of direct perception and self-experience. Knowledge and Will are dual aspects of one Consciousness or the twin power of actions of Consciousness. Ananda is the very substance of Consciousness and is the outcome of the interaction of Knowledge and Will. Equality is that power of consciousness which brings into the whole of our Nature and Being the sense of eternal tranquillity of Self. Life evolves through growth of consciousness or a greater consciousness means greater life. Integral Education , a utilitarian aspect of Integral Yoga, proceeds ahead with effort, askesis and tapasya , which are defined as the concentration energy of Consciousness. Consciousness is the central Truth of Divine Life which is a self-aware force of existence extended from the Inconscient Sheath to the Bliss Sheath. By movement of Consciousness, fullness of Being, fullness of Consciousness and fullness of Life can be attained. Harmony is the inherent Nature of infinite Divine Consciousness and disharmony or limited harmony is the nature of the finite Consciousness of the three gunas . The Law that descends from Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Consciousness is known as Dharma . The Law that enters the human vessel from the tamasic and rajasic mind and from the surrounding world is known as Adharma . Vedantic Sraddha is the pouring down of Divine attributes of infinite Static consciousness into finite dynamic Consciousness of the three gunas through Purusha Yajna, Vedantic self-discipline. Vedic Sraddha is the pouring down of Divine attributes of infinite Dynamic Consciousness into finite dynamic consciousness of the three gunas by Prakriti Yajna . Sincerity is the concentration of finite dynamic Consciousness of the three gunas around the Psychic being. Exclusive concentration is a concentration of separative mental active consciousness absorbed in part knowledge or a part action of the being and excluding the rest from its awareness. Submission of finite dynamic consciousness to infinite static Consciousness is defined as (Vedantic) surrender. Integral Concentration of Consciousness, Tapas , is the inherent power of Consciousness Force. Submission of finite dynamic consciousness to infinite dynamic consciousness is defined as (Vedic) surrender . Equality is gained when the Consciousness goes beyond the finite consciousness of the three gunas. Renunciation is the rejection of finite dynamic consciousness represented by three gunas of apara-prakriti. 'Samyama is a process of pressure on the consciousness by which the secret Truth, the involved intuition is released…’¹³ The Divine Life:¹² “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 “If our souls could see and love and clasp God’s Truth, Its infinite radiance would seize our hearts, Our being in God’s image be remade And earthly life becomes the life divine.” Savitri-663 This world is real precisely because it consists of an observing consciousness and an objective reality and the world action cannot proceed without the witness because the universe exists only in or for the Consciousness that observes and has no independent reality. The individual can be a centre of the whole universal Consciousness and world transcending Consciousness superior to all cosmic existence and the form of the universe is occupied by the entire immanence of the Formless and Ineffable. So, to exist not as self of body only which is subject to death, desire and pain but to consider body as a minor outward arrangement of Self and an out-flowering of life by expansion and elevation of Consciousness is a first condition of the Divine life. The second condition⁴ of Divine Life is to transcend the ignorance, limitation and control of the surface formation of mind which is only a subordinate and instrument of Self. The third condition of the Divine life is to possess and govern the dynamic condition of becoming from an inner eternity of Being and its outcome is the Spiritual self-possession, self-mastery and the manifestation of Divine miracle. As the Consciousness turns more within all obstacles and resistances appear unreal, transient and extremely relative. Out of this living a fourth condition evolves which insists to withdraw from the absorption of material preoccupation, not by rejecting or neglecting life in the body but by a constant living on the inner and higher planes of Consciousness by an ascent and stepping back inward; both these movements are necessary in order to elevate life from the transient life from moment to moment into the eternal life of our immortal Consciousness. The fifth condition of Divine life is the widening of our range of Consciousness, field of action in time and a taking up and transcending of the existing state of our mental, vital and corporeal consciousness and consider them as the instrument and minor outward formation of the Self. Thus, in reality the world lives in us, thinks in us, formulates itself in us; but we imagine and misunderstand that it is we who live, think, formulate separately by ourselves and for ourselves and we claim the universal forces that act in us as our own. In the last condition of Divine living, the Consciousness is at once aware of the Law, Right and Truth of the Individual and All and the two become consciously harmonised in a mutual unity, One knowing itself as the Many and the Many knowing themselves as the One, life obeys the law of Unity and yet fulfils each thing in the diversity according to its proper rule and function; in this Divine Life all the individuals live at once as one conscious Being in many living Souls, one power of Consciousness in many minds, one joy of force in many lives, one reality of Delight fulfilling itself in many hearts and bodies. An integral evolution of Consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form reveals and manifests the indwelling Spirit is then the central significant motive of our terrestrial existence. Savitri and Supramental/Supreme Consciousness: “The All-Conscious ventured into Ignorance, The All-Blissful bore to be insensible.” Savitri-66-67 “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.” Savitri-271 “A great all-ruling Consciousness is there” Savitri-271 “A light was round him wide and absolute, A diamond purity of eternal sight; 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 “For one was there supreme behind the God. A Mother Might brooded upon the world; A Consciousness revealed its marvellous front Transcending all that is, denying none:" Savitri-313 “The one Consciousness that made the world was seen; All now was luminosity and force." Savitri-319 Consciousness is a yearning,⁵ an exploration, an action and a search through every movement, gesture and cry and it hunts in the Inconscient depths and Superconscient heights to find some lost felicity, missed sweetness and manifests itself as Knowledge and limiting that knowledge to such extent to create phenomena of Ignorance acting upon surface consciousness. We are in search of that single beginningless and endless Consciousness for whom this creation is a small incident, which mind cannot touch, speech cannot utter, thought cannot reveal; it has no home on earth and no centre in man and yet is the fount of creation, source and origin of all truth, all things thought and all action done. Delight is the original nature of Consciousness and its deepest form is manifested as Divine Love. This Love labours in the depths as established Consciousness which maintains a growing but firm light in the darkness of original Nescience and exults on the heights and its feet can walk in the naked hardest world. Savitri teaches us this lesson that if the highest Consciousness of Divine Love can be called down to the lowest plane of Inconscient, then the perishable stuff of our body can be transformed into immortal Divine Life and harmonise all the obscure forces of existence that surround and press upon the body. This inner movement of ascension and descent of Consciousness can be carried out by the support of Vedantic and Vedic action of Sacrifice and Faith and can be further intensified by the support of Divine Love. Through the movement of Consciousness, Divine Love can be activated which needs no hand to feel and clasp but this mighty vibration can destroy the falsity in human love and heighten the intimacy of Soul with Soul, which no human love can imagine. OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-856, 2: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1054, 3: CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-473, 4: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1062, 5: “A consciousness that yearned through every cry Of unexplored attraction and desire, It found and searched again the unsatisfied deeps Hunting as if in some deep secret heart To find some lost or missed felicity.” Savitri-674 “He (King) neared the still consciousness sustaining all.” Savitri-32, “The one Consciousness that made the world was seen;” Savitri-319, 6: “Yes, the ordinary consciousness is like an axis with everything revolving around it. An axis fixed somewhere, and everything revolves around it – that's the ordinary individual consciousness. And if the axis shifts, one feels lost. It's like a big axis (more or less big, it can also be tiny) planted straight up in time, with everything revolving around it. The consciousness may be more or less extended, more or less high, more or less strong, but it always turns on an axis. And now for me there is no more axis. ” The Mother's Agenda/14th July 1962, 7: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-753, CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-114, 8: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-924, "All the works of mind and intellect must be first heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domain of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a greater non-mental Intuition, these again transformed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and those transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis. It is this that the evolution of consciousness in the world carries prefigured but latent in its seed and in the straining tense intention of its process; nor can that process, that evolution cease till it has evolved the instruments of a perfect in place of its now imperfect manifestation of the Spirit." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-149, 9: “The soul, the psychic entity , then manifests itself as the central being which upholds mind and life and body and supports all the other powers and functions of the Spirit; it takes up its greater function as the guide and ruler of the nature. A guidance, a governance begins from within which exposes every movement to the light of Truth, repels what is false, obscure, opposed to the divine realisation: every region of the being, every nook and corner of it, every movement, formation, direction, inclination of thought, will, emotion, sensation, action, reaction, motive, disposition, propensity, desire, habit of the conscious or subconscious physical, even the most concealed, camouflaged, mute, recondite, is lighted up with the unerring psychic light , their confusions dissipated, their tangles disentangled, their obscurities, deceptions, self-deceptions precisely indicated and removed; all is purified, set right, the whole nature harmonised, modulated in the psychic key, put in spiritual order.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-941, 10: “This, effected little by little or in a succession of great and swift definitive experiences, is the process of the spiritual transformation . It achieves itself and culminates in an upward ascent often repeated by which in the end the consciousness fixes itself on a higher plane and from there sees and governs the mind, life and body; it achieves itself also in an increasing descent of the powers of the higher consciousness and knowledge which become more and more the whole normal consciousness and knowledge. A light and power, a knowledge and force are felt which first take possession of the mind and remould it, afterwards of the life part and remould that, finally of the little physical consciousness and leave it no longer little but wide and plastic and even infinite. For this new consciousness has itself the nature of infinity: it brings to us the abiding spiritual sense and awareness of the infinite and eternal with a great largeness of the nature and a breaking down of its limitations; immortality becomes no longer a belief or an experience but a normal self-awareness; the close presence of the Divine Being, his rule of the world and of our self and natural members, his force working in us and everywhere, the peace of the infinite, the joy of the infinite are now concrete and constant in the being; in all sights and forms one sees the Eternal, the Reality, in all sounds one hears it, in all touches feels it; there is nothing else but its forms and personalities and manifestations; the joy or adoration of the heart, the embrace of all existence, the unity of the spirit are abiding realities.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-947, 11: “If the spirit could from the first dwell securely on the superior heights and deal with a blank and virgin stuff of mind and matter, a complete spiritual transformation might be rapid, even facile: but the actual process of Nature is more difficult, the logic of her movement more manifold, contorted, winding, comprehensive; she recognises all the data of the task she has set to herself and is not satisfied with a summary triumph over her own complexities. Every part of our being has to be taken in its own nature and character, with all the moulds and writings of the past still there in it: each minutest portion and movement must either be destroyed and replaced if it is unfit, or, if it is capable, transmuted into the truth of the higher being. If the psychic change is complete, this can be done by a painless process, though still the programme must be long and scrupulous and the progress deliberate; but otherwise one has to be satisfied with a partial result or, if one’s own scrupulousness of perfection or hunger of the spirit is insatiable, consent to a difficult, often painful and seemingly interminable action. For ordinarily the consciousness does not rise to the summits except in the highest moments; it remains on the mental level and receives descents from above, sometimes a single descent of some spiritual power that stays and moulds the being into something predominatingly spiritual, or a succession of descents bringing into it more and more of the spiritual status and dynamis: but unless one can live on the highest height reached, there cannot be the complete or more integral change .” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-948, 12: "As it is, the physical body is really only a very disfigured shadow of the eternal life of the Self, but this physical body is capable of a progressive development; the physical substance progresses through each individual formation, and one day it will be able to build a bridge between physical life as we know it and the supramental life that is to manifest." The Mother/ The Mother's Agenda/28.11.1958 “The only hope for the future is in a change of man’s consciousness and the change is bound to come....But it is left to men to decide if they will collaborate in this change or if it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crushing circumstances... So, wake up and collaborate.” The Mother/ The Mother’s Agenda-Vol-5/p-46, “In my Yoga also I found myself moved to include both worlds in my purview, the spiritual and the material, and to try to establish the divine Consciousness and the divine Power in men’s hearts and in earthly life, not for personal salvation only but for a life divine here . This seems to me as spiritual an aim as any and the fact of this life taking up earthly pursuits and earthly things into its scope cannot, I believe, tarnish its spirituality or alter its Indian character. This at least has always been my view and experience of the reality and nature of the world and things and the Divine: it seemed to me as nearly as possible the integral truth about them and I have therefore spoken of the pursuit of it as the integral Yoga. Everyone is, of course, free to reject and disbelieve in this kind of integrality or to believe in the spiritual necessity of an entire other-worldliness excluding any kind of this-worldliness altogether, but that would make the exercise of my Yoga impossible. My Yoga can include indeed a full experience of the other worlds, the plane of the supreme Spirit and the other planes in between and their possible effects upon our life and material world ; but it will be quite possible to insist only on the realisation of the supreme Being or Ishwara even in one aspect, Shiva, Krishna as Lord of the world and Master of ourselves and our works or else the universal Sachchidananda , and attain to the essential results of this Yoga and afterwards to proceed from them to the integral results if one accepted the ideal of the divine life and this material world conquered by the Spirit. It is this view and experience of things and of the truth of existence that enabled me to write The Life Divin e and Savitri . ” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II-375, 13: CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram-308, 14: The Mother’s Agenda-29.06.1966, 15: “Man and the animal are both mentally conscious beings: but the animal is fixed in vital mind and mind-sense and cannot exceed its limitations, while man has received into his sense-mind the light of another principle, the intellect, which is really at once a reflection and a degradation of the supermind, a ray of gnosis seized by the sense-mentality and transformed by it into something other than its source: for it is agnostic like the sense- mind in which and for which it works, not gnostic; it seeks to lay hold on knowledge, because it does not possess it, it does not like supermind hold knowledge in itself as its natural prerogative. In other words, in each of these forms of existence the universal being has fixed its action of consciousness in a different principle or, as between man and animal, in the modification of a lower by a higher though still not a highest-grade principle.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-739, 16: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-149, 17: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-147, 18: “For, as a matter of fact, while the very keyword of the ideal creation is a plenary self-consciousness and self-possession in the infinite Soul and a perfect oneness, the keyword of the creation of which we have present experience is the very opposite; it is an original inconscience developing in life into a limited and divided self-consciousness, an original inert subjection to the drive of a blind self-existent Force developing in life into a struggle of the self-conscious being to possess himself and all things and to establish in the kingdom of this unseeing mechanic Force the reign of an enlightened Will and Knowledge.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-501-502 19: “It is consciousness and life that must be the keywords to what is being thus worked out in Time; for without them Matter and the world of Matter would be a meaningless phenomenon, a thing that has just happened by Chance or by an unconscious Necessity. But consciousness as it is, life as it is cannot be the whole secret; for both are very clearly something unfinished and still in process. In us consciousness is Mind, and our mind is ignorant and imperfect, an intermediate power that has grown and is still growing towards something beyond itself: there were lower levels of consciousness that came before it and out of which it arose, there must very evidently be higher levels to which it is itself arising. Before our thinking, reasoning, reflecting mind there was a consciousness unthinking but living and sentient, and before that there was the subconscious and the unconscious; after us or in our yet unevolved selves there is likely to be waiting a greater consciousness , self-luminous, not dependent on constructive thought: our imperfect and ignorant thought-mind is certainly not the last word of consciousness, its ultimate possibility. For the essence of consciousness is the power to be aware of itself and its objects, and in its true nature this power must be direct, self-fulfilled and complete : if it is in us indirect, incomplete, unfulfilled in its workings, dependent on constructed instruments, it is because consciousness here is emerging from an original veiling Inconscience and is yet burdened and enveloped with the first Nescience proper to the Inconscient; but it must have the power to emerge completely, its destiny must be to evolve into its own perfection which is its true nature. Its true nature is to be wholly aware of its objects, and of these objects the first is self, the being which is evolving its consciousness here, and the rest is what we see as not-self, — but if existence is indivisible, that too must in reality be self: the destiny of evolving consciousness must be, then, to become perfect in its awareness, entirely aware of self and all-aware. This perfect and natural condition of consciousness is to us a superconscience, a state which is beyond us and in which our mind, if suddenly transferred to it, could not at first function; but it is towards that superconscience that our conscious being must be evolving.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1052-1053, 20: “Buddhi , which is simply the determinative power that determines all inertly out of indeterminate inconscient Force, takes for us the form of intelligence and will. Manas, the inconscient force which seizes Nature’s discriminations by objective action and reaction and grasps at them by attraction, becomes sense-perception and desire, the two crude terms or degradations of intelligence and will, — becomes the sense-mind sensational, emotive, volitional in the lower sense of wish, hope, longing, passion, vital impulsion, all the deformations (vikara ) of will. The senses become the instruments of sense-mind, the perceptive five of our sense-knowledge, the active five of our impulsions and vital habits, mediators between the subjective and objective; the rest are the objects of our consciousness, visayas of the senses.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-97, “Therefore, since consciousness is always there even in an apparently inconscient Force, we must find a corresponding psychological power of these three modes which informs their more outward executive action. On their psychological side the three qualities may be defined, tamas as Nature’s power of nescience, rajas as her power of active seeking ignorance enlightened by desire and impulsion, sattwa as her power of possessing and harmonising knowledge.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-427, “But it is dominated by a huge force and impulsion of mute rajasic kinesis which drives it, even in and even by its dispersion and disintegration, to build and create and again by a sattwic ideative element in its apparently inconscient force which is always imposing a harmony and preservative order on the two opposite tendencies. Rajas, the principle of creative endeavour and motion and impulsion in Prakriti, kinesis, pravritti , so seen in Matter, appears more evidently as a conscious or half-conscious passion of seeking and desire and action in the dominant character of Life, — for that passion is the nature of all vital existence.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/428, “The old semi-Buddhistic , semi-Sankhya theory which saw only the Quiescent and nothing else in the world except a constant combination of the five elements (The Gita-18.14) and the three modes of inconscient Energy lighting up their false activity by the consciousness of the Quiescent in which it is reflected, is not the whole truth of the Brahman. We are not a mere mass of changing mind-stuff, life-stuff, body-stuff taking different forms of mind and life and body from birth to birth, so that at no time is there any real self or conscious reason of existence behind all the flux or none except that Quiescent who cares for none of these things. There is a real and stable power of our being behind the constant mutation of our mental, vital and physical personality, and this we have to know and preserve in order that the Infinite may manifest Himself through it according to His will in whatever range and for whatever purpose of His eternal cosmic activity.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-376 Download this file in PDF format: “There must grow up within us or there must manifest a consciousness more and more open to the deeper and the higher being, more and more laid bare to the cosmic Self and Power and to what comes down from the Transcendence, turned to a higher Peace, permeable to a greater light, force and ecstasy, a consciousness that exceeds the small personality and surpasses the limited light and experience of the surface mind, the limited force and aspiration of the normal life consciousness, the obscure and limited responsiveness of the body.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-938

Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir The Temple of the Divine Descent Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir is the temple of adoration of the Divine Mother, not a religious centre of worship but rather a place where all outer aids are substituted by inner aids of concentration, meditation, silencing of the mind and inner adoration which are identified as indispensable method and second step¹ of integral Jnana and Bhakti Yoga . This is further extended as a Spiritual experience of Knowledge by identity and Bliss of union and dynamised as pouring down of Divine Knowledge and Love of the third and fourth steps and the last ascending Spiritual experience of integral Yoga is the highest oneness with the greatest possible depth and height of Consciousness, substituting the world as a temple ground and cry of the devotees for the clasp of God. A BRIEF HINT OF THE TEMPLE: Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir is a partially closed, many-petalled Lotus-shaped structure within a rectangular hall. The structure rests on twelve curved pillars surrounded with eighteen+six rectangular pillars. These rectangular pillars symbolise the twenty-four perfections ² (6x4) of integral Yoga. The twelve pillars form twelve petals or twelve attributes of the Divine Mother that converge into four petals or four Divine Shaktis and finally into a central petal or One Mother, Aditi , representing the perfection of The Mother’s Symbol. This temple also symbolically represents one of the last, the profoundest and the 'grand solution’³ of the opening of the Inconscient Self and calling down the Divine Mother seated in the Inconscient Self’s ‘many-petalled lotus-throne,’⁴ which is an Immobile Centre of many infinitudes, located by the side of Time’s Sea ‘in thousand-pillared temple.’⁴ There is a rectangular corridor, The Mother’s room and a library encircling this meditation hall. The Hall can accommodate approximately 250 devotees for meditation and concentration. The Temple height is 30 feet with an inside hall dimension of 44x50 feet size. A BRIEF HINT OF THE INTEGRAL YOGA: A Sadhaka’s Spiritual life is secured through the complete union of the Soul (Psychic Being) with the Divine. His primary motive is to give Them (dual Divine Consciousness) consecrated service without rest and earthly ease, which will establish him as a slave of all humanity and in the consciousness of the King Child with the extension of the inner and outer Kingdom. His secondary motive is to develop his own path of Yoga through concentration, contemplation and meditation of written Truth and its constant restatement and renovation which will establish him as a disciple of the Lord, Prophet, Pathfinder, Pioneer of new Consciousness and a student of Integral Education. His tertiary motive is to emerge as Lover of the Divine, lover of brother Souls and lover of all creatures and humanity. Thus, his Spiritual life is fulfilled by the emergence of triple overhead energies of Delight, Love and Beauty. Integral Yoga further insists a Sadhaka to remain aware of full account⁵ of his human imperfection. It has been identified that to remain satisfied with partial Divine union is a ‘maimed achievement’ ⁶ and he must strive for integration and perfection of his whole Being and Nature from a higher plane of Consciousness. This Yoga is primarily ‘Yoga of Self-perfection’ of developed Souls and secondarily Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga of developing and developed Souls. Out of these triple paths, integral Yoga is primarily Karma Yoga and secondarily the subordinate action of Jnana and Bhakti Yoga . Integration comes by the reconciliation of triple Yoga and practice of the fourth ‘Yoga of Self-perfection.’ The Consciousness in which an integral Yogi is established is primarily waking trance or entry into multiple subtle bodies/koshas in the waking state and secondarily dream trance, sleep trance and absolute trance of Turiya, ‘to which few can attain and from which not all can return’⁷ to the body. FUTURE VISION: Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir symbolically represents earth as half opened and half-closed aspirant lotus bud, who no longer spins unhelped in Space within the burden of existing Time extending towards Eternity and oblivious of its high and luminous Supreme destiny but it is also a living manifestation of Eternal and Infinite All-existence and it 'Knows that one high step might'⁸ liberate all. This view of accepting this earth as a world of sacrifice and enlargement of this life through sacrifice is further supported by our other view that the Divine Life is the culmination of an evolutionary process and using this phrase implies that our present life is undivine and imperfect. This apparent Earth has to retain her purity through her marriage with Eternity and sole dependency on the Supreme from above. This world is a growing image of Divine creation and it expresses a foreseen Truth, obeys a predetermining Will and realises an original formative self-vision. The existing Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir Project seems to be an ambitious mental construction and can wait for supreme creation related to the invisible descent of Spiritual Force precipitating as a perfect piece of material CREATION and manifestation. Form may be said to be the innate body and the inevitable self-revelation of the Formless. This construction is dependent neither on government machinery, local surroundings, human architects, or generous donors but on the Divine. Its objective is not only to gather together a few zealous aspirants to possess and be possessed by the Divine Beloved but to serve as a means to channel God’s Supreme Light for earth and man. This universal all-pervading Divine Force considers this earth not as a figment of conception in universal Mind but as a conscious birth that can act through the individual concentration to open another dimension of life in its widest and profoundest sense, shows the definite path to distant unknown wandering Souls, who emerge as new-born destined Divine Souls leading them towards their moderate, ascetic and extreme Spiritual fulfillment. Finally, this temple of light will be able to 'bring the glory here of the Absolute’s force,'⁹ serve as a means of enlarging the existing human limitation into 'Light too intense for thought and love too boundless'¹⁰ and can draw brief time into limitless Eternity. It can also become a cradle of a few twice-born Souls, Dvija, to pursue rightly regulated consecration through persistent and rigorous askesis. OM TAT SAT REFERENCES : 1. “But worship is only the first step on the path of devotion. Where external worship changes into (second step) the inner adoration, real Bhakti begins; (third step) that deepens into the intensity of divine love; (fourth step) that love leads to the joy of closeness passes into the bliss of union. Love too as well as knowledge brings us to (fifth step) a highest oneness and (sixth step) it gives to that oneness its greatest possible depth and intensity.” Sri Aurobindo/ CWSA-24/The Synthesis Of Yoga-549, 2. Twenty-four Concentrations of Divine Perfection are taken from sapta-chatustaya : Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Equality: Samata, Shanti, Sukha and Hasya. Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Body: Arogyam, Utthapana, Saundaryam, Vividhanandah . The concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Mind and Supermind: Jnanam, Trikala Dristi, Asta Siddhi and Samadhi . Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Shakti: Viryam, Shaktih, Daivi Prakriti, Sraddha . Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Action: Krishnah, Kali, Kamah, Karma . The concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Brahman: Sarvam Brahma, Anantam Brahmah, Jnanam Brahmah, Anandam Brahmah . 3. “The Inconscient found its heart of consciousness, The idea and feeling groping in Ignorance At last clutched passionately the body of Truth, The music born in Matter’s silences Plucked nude out of the Ineffable’s fathomlessness The meaning it had held but could not voice; The perfect rhythm now only sometimes dreamed An answer brought to the torn earth’s hungry need Rending the night that had concealed the Unknown, Giving to her her lost forgotten soul. A grand solution closed the long impasse In which the heights of mortal effort end.” Savitri-89-90, 4. “The Immanent shall be the witness God Watching on his many-petalled lotus-throne His actionless being and his silent might Ruling earth-nature by eternity’s law, A thinker waking the Inconscient’s world, An immobile centre of many infinitudes In his thousand-pillared temple by Time’s sea .” Savitri-706, 5. “But whatever his (Sadhaka) aim, however exalted his aspiration, he has to begin from the law of his present imperfection, to take full account of it and see how it can be converted to the law of a possible perfection.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis Of Yoga-631, 6. “A Yoga of works, a union with the Divine in our will and acts — and not only in knowledge and feeling — is then an indispensable, an inexpressibly important element of an integral Yoga. The conversion of our thought and feeling without a corresponding conversion of the spirit and body of our works would be a maimed achievement .” CWSA-23/The Synthesis Of Yoga-92, 7: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-395, 8: (Earth) “Knows that one high step might enfranchise all.” Savitri-371, 9: “Toiling to transform the still far Absolute Into an all-fulfilling epiphany, Into an utterance of the Ineffable, She would bring the glory here of the Absolute’s force, Change poise into creation’s rhythmic swing, Marry with a sky of calm a sea of bliss.” Savitri-195-196 10: “A power dwelt in her soul too great for earth, A bliss lived in her heart too large for heaven; Light too intense for thought and love too boundless For earth’s emotions lit her skies of mind And spread through her deep and happy seas of soul.” Savitri-715 The revelation of Supramental Energy in the Inconscient Sheath is ‘a grand solution’ and a confirmation of the acceleration of the individual and universal transformation of nature. This discovery of Inconscient Self is also identified as ‘the last transcendent power’ where ‘Matter still slept empty of its Lord.’ Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir stands primarily as a symbol of this perfection where Divine force rushes into the body, life and mind from the farthest end of the feet and secondarily a symbol of all-pervading Overhead Supramental Energy capturing all the sheaths and can be approached from the two gates of head and feet or ‘Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light.’ (Refer Savitri-page- 90, 405, 531) “Powerful and prolonged penetration of the Supramental forces into the body, it was pressing to enter, from everywhere, but everywhere at the same time… it was not a current flowing in, it was an atmosphere penetrating from everywhere. It lasted for at least four to five hours.” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda, August 28, 1968 "In her confirmed because transformed in her, Our life shall find in its fulfilled response Above , the boundless hushed beatitudes, Below, the wonder of the embrace divine." Savitri-315

The Agenda of Collective Living “India had three fortress of a communal life, the village community, the larger joint family and the order of the Sannyasins ; all these are broken or breaking with the stride of egoistic conceptions of social life; but is not this after all only the breaking of these imperfect moulds on the way to a larger and diviner communism? ” Sri Aurobindo SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-118 “I suppose each man makes or tries to make his own organisation of life out of the mass of possibilities the forces present to him. Self (physical self) and family are the building most make — to earn, to create a family and maintain it, perhaps to get some position in the present means of life one chooses, in business, the profession etc., etc. Country or humanity are usually added to that by a minority. A few take up some ideal and follow it as the mainstay of their life. It is only the very religious who try to make God the centre of their life — that too rather imperfectly, except for a few. None of these things are secure or certain, even the last being certain only if it is followed with an absoluteness which only a few are willing to give. ("Only were safe who kept God in their hearts:" Savitri-211) The life of the Ignorance is a play of forces through which man seeks his way and all depends on his growth through experience to the point at which he can grow out of it into something else. That something else is in fact a new consciousness — whether a new consciousness beyond the earthly life or a new consciousness within it ." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-438 The Agenda of Collective Living “In spiritual life, one is always a virgin every time one awakens to a new love, for in each case it is a new part of the being, a new state of being that awakens to divine Love.”⁶ The Mother "... just as I wanted to tell you what kind of collectivity we wish to realize according to the ideal described by Sri Aurobindo in the last chapter of The Life Divine – a gnostic, supramental collectivity, the only kind that can do Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga and be realized physically in a progressive collective body becoming more and more divine...Sri Aurobindo tells us that a true community – what he terms a gnostic or supramental community – can be based only upon the INNER REALIZATION of each one of its members, each realizing his real, concrete oneness and identity with all the other members of the community; that is, each one should not feel himself a member connected to all the others in an arbitrary way, but that all are one within himself. For each one, the others should be as much himself as his own body–not in a mental and artificial way, but through a fact of consciousness, by an inner realization."³³ The Mother Sri Matriniketan Ashram is one small point of concentration of universe, ("A little point reveal the infinitudes." Savitri-100) one small beginning, ("His small beginnings asked for a mighty end:" Savitri-315) which rests on the conviction that one experiences all Ocean in a drop of water or a finite Self within can explore multiple subtle worlds of infinite Consciousness; all of earth’s longing can be felt within a whirl of the atom and the Eternal can manifest in a time made finite body. Our mortality is justified only as a step towards immortal all life; a smallest and meanest work can be a sweet, glad and glorious sacrament offered to the One and it can be utilised as means for the highest descent of Divine Force. By the support of the Divine’s touch, a childlike immature thought can be ‘flame-wrapped outbursts of the immortal Word’⁷ and ‘the grandeur of its dreams’⁹ can ‘glow through the centuries;’⁸ our earth can be fulfilled only by opening and embracing the purity of heavens beyond; an individual can live Divine life only when he has discovered greater and higher planes of Consciousness. So, all views of both cosmic and individual existence are incomplete accounts of endless truth that 'change circumstances and human natures'; for both depend upon, exist, and are fully satisfied by the constant miracle of the Divine Forces or the invasion of Transcendent Divine Being. The Agenda of Mundane Perfection : The Aim of Mundane Aspiration: Almost all men normally devote the major part of their energy to the earthly life, terrestrial needs, interests, desires, care of the body, sufficient development and satisfaction of the vital and mental being, expansion and refinement of the intellect and knowledge, of the will and power, of ethical character, of aesthetic sensitivity and creativeness, of emotionally balanced poise and enjoyment, of vital and physical soundness, regulated action and just efficiency. Without these things, man could not attain his full manhood. If we unduly neglect, belittle and condemn these material and mental facts behind our life for some other higher Spiritual truth or merit or utility or suitability to certain individual temperament, then we suffer the unfitness of the general and complete rule of human living. The maintenance of material and mental grounds cannot be allowed to go into the background and Mother Nature takes good care so that the human race shall not neglect these aims of terrestrial perfection of mental radiations. These are a necessary part of her evolution to affirm him in Ignorance before he can perfect himself in Knowledge and all that transpires on earth and all that is beyond fall within the total scope and method of the illimitable Divine plan. The integral Yoga practiced at Sri Matriniketan Ashram does not reject any of the above essential mundane aims but enlarges, heightens and magnifies it by finding its true hidden meaning and transfigures it from a limited, earthly and mortal thing to something infinite, eternal and immortal existence. Or 'For, followed more largely and with less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realization of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realization of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realization a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilizable for the projection of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualization and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.'¹⁵ The Method of Mundane Aspiration: The self-discipline of mundane aspiration is an intellectual, volitional, ethical, emotional, aesthetic, and physical training and improvement which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body. Our normal perception, imagination, formulation and cognition of things are mental and of constructed understanding. It is still in the obscured and unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature and pursuit of an ordinary human perfection which is an increasing littleness of its motives, an absorption in an ordinary surface living, oblivious of our natural response to the Divine Being’s larger joy in cosmic existence. It does not aspire beyond the mind to that which is purest reason and brightest Intuition and leaves the Spiritual element either undeveloped or insufficiently satisfied or it falls back before the too intense demand of the Spiritual effort. Still, the method of mundane existence is unconsciously a heightening of the force of consciousness in the narrow circle of manifested nature. The Perfection of Mundane Aspiration: The mundane perfection is conceived of as something outward, social, a thing of action, a more rational dealing with our fellow men and our environment, a better and more efficient citizenship and discharge of duties, a better and more harmonious associated enjoyment of the opportunities of existence. This growth into the full mental being is the first transitional human perfection which does not liberate the soul, but it lifts us one step out of the material and vital absorption and subjection and prepares the loosening of the hold of the limited knowledge. But the Mother-nature has implanted in us some urge which goes beyond this first terrestrial perfection of humanity and to limit ourselves to the present formula of an imperfect humanity is to exclude our Divine potentialities. For this reason, the human race cannot accept or follow for a very long time any view of perfection that ignores the higher and subtler sense and labours to confine us entirely to the purely terrestrial way of living of too mental standard and mental cognition of things are no longer considered sufficient. If we are not satisfied with life as the influence of lower Nature dominates it, then something in us or the Soul within us shall strive for Divine perfection. "In place of the ignorance of the lower Nature absorbed in its outward works and appearances the eye will open to the vision of God everywhere, to the unity and universality of the spirit. The world’s sorrow and pain will disappear in the bliss of the All-blissful; our weakness and error and sin will be changed into the all-embracing and all-transforming strength, truth and purity of the Eternal. To make the mind one with the divine consciousness, to make the whole of our emotional nature one love of God everywhere, to make all our works one sacrifice to the Lord of the worlds and all our worship and aspiration one adoration of him and self-surrender, to direct the whole self Godwards in an entire union is the way to rise out of a mundane into a divine existence. " ¹⁷ Beyond the Mundane Aspiration: Most of the thinking humanity conceived ideal development as mundane change and approach at least to an ideal standard of perfection which his mind is able to conceive, fix before and pursue. It is only the minority who concern themselves with self-development as one of the most important aim of life and very few feel the need of a total Spiritualisation of mundane Nature. They can arrive at a point when they can open themselves to the power and presence of the Spirit and admit its direct Divine working. Brahman is at once the foundation of Supra-mundane Knowledge and self-aware manifestation of mundane Ignorance and by the synthesis of both one arrives at the Integral Knowledge. For the material is not the only truth of our existence; other planes of consciousness there are to which we can attain and not to know and manifest their law in our life is to fall short of the height and fullness of our Being. This entire separation of the Divine foreseen in a mundane life can be a starting point of all our Spiritual pursuits and in the Mother's language, "In the beginning of the Yoga you are apt to forget the Divine very often. But by constant aspiration you increase your remembrance and you diminish the forgetfulness. But this should not be done as a severe discipline or a duty; it must be a movement of love and joy. Then very soon a stage will come when, if you do not feel the presence of the Divine at every moment and whatever you are doing, you feel at once lonely and sad and miserable... Whenever you find that you can do something without feeling the presence of the Divine and yet be perfectly comfortable, you must understand that you are not consecrated in that part of your being. That is the way of the ordinary humanity which does not feel any need of the Divine. But for a seeker of the Divine Life it is very different. And when you have entirely realised unity with the Divine, then, if the Divine were only for a second to withdraw from you, you would simply drop dead; for the Divine is now the Life of your life, your whole existence, your single and complete support. If the Divine is not there, nothing is left.”¹⁶ The Agenda of Moderate Spirituality : The First Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or the Law of Moderation: The world itself is identified as the fortress of moderate Spirituality where every individual has the right to serve and adore the Divine in spite of his many lapses in outer living and enormous intellectual and spiritual timidity. An individual is considered fit to pursue moderate Spirituality when his mundane existence begins to recognise the God concealed in His creation. Here, the Spiritual change begins by the influence of the inner Being, enlargement of the bounds of surface Knowledge-Ignorance, a growth of religious temperament in the heart and piety in the conduct. He experiences Spiritual upliftment or mental illumination through obedience to the law of moderation, and must learn to give full scope to the inner Spirit to develop its own truth and reality and exceeding our present limited Consciousness. "The seeker of the integral state of knowledge must be free from attachment to action and equally free from attachment to inaction....But this state of perfection (master of the physical) arrives later in the Yoga and till then the law of moderation laid down by the Gita is the best for us; too much mental or physical action then is not good since excess draws away too much energy and reacts unfavourably upon the spiritual condition; too little also is not good since defect leads to a habit of inaction and even to an incapacity which has afterwards to be surmounted with difficulty."²⁰ "Verily this Yoga is not for him who eats too much or sleeps too much, even as it is not for him who gives up sleep and food, O Arjuna ."²¹ The Second Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or the Middle Path of Intellect: He chooses the middle path of ‘reason’s vigilant light’¹⁸ which is neither the entire rejection of the ascetic living, nor the entire surrender of the inner and outer life to consecrated living, nor the calling down of the large Divine Descent of high spirituality. His attraction towards world and earthly enjoyment always predominates over attraction towards the Divine. He is to be made fully aware that his endeavour is not directed to become a witness of the miracles of inferior powers and the Spiritual Powers are not meant to be wrongly utilised towards satisfaction of earthly desires and interests but are intended for rightly utilising them for the Divine end, for development of subtle faculties and entry into higher planes of Consciousness. An integral Moderate climbs above the mind and lives in the calm vastness of the One and raises the consciousness to the pure unvanquished Spirit and spreads himself to a wide intense calm and arrives slowly at timeless peace. The Third Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or Generalisation of Spirituality: Sri Aurobindo confirmed that such large communities of moderate Spirituality through Religion have succeeded in India and ‘has been one of the greatest triumphs of Spirit over Matter’¹⁹ and moderately practical and scientific societies in Europe with its habit of conscious change and fixed idea of progress have succeeded and is ‘one of the greatest triumphs of Mind over Matter.’¹⁹ Spirituality can be generalised in the mass through practice of moderate Spirituality but its other disadvantage is that its diffusive movement of intellectual formalization of Spiritual knowledge has resulted in materialisation of living practice into a dead mass of cult, ceremony, ritual and mechanisation by which the Spirit is bound to leave in the course of time from its body and structure. Integral Yoga proposes to take this risk²² of expansive movement as this is an inherent necessity of the Spiritual urge in evolutionary Nature and through the general advancement of the human race the victories of the Spirit can be secured. The transformation from Mental to Spiritual is the destiny of the race and the immediate need is a general admission of the Spiritual ideal, a widespread endeavour, a conscious awareness and intensification of our concentration, which will carry the stream of man’s developing tendency to a definite achievement. The Fourth Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or Reproduction of Liberated Souls: Efforts have been made to accommodate the moderate seekers in the main streams of integral Yoga regardless of their past trends, fixed beliefs and practices. The moderate Ashramites and Devotees will be conversant with the manyfold constraints of integral Yoga from the very beginning of their sadhana life and make their life opulent with the fresh inflow of Spiritual experiences. They receive the immediate Divine call to liberate the Soul and manifestation of the Divine through customary activities like concentration on written truth, Study Circle, Yoga Sadhana camp and other related associations. The objective of this Centre of Moderate Spirituality is to generalise the highest Spiritual aspiration of integral Yoga in humanity or organise an evolutionary general progression through the principle of intensive and concentrated evolution or rigorous Self-control emerging from the secret schools of Spiritual fortress. In the past, the rare Spiritual perfection of the Mystics was generalised in the men in the mass through Religious leaders or this principle of expansion and extension was carried forward with the help of liberated Souls liberating others; for it is the constant upward effort of few towards the vision of this Spiritual change that has kept humanity alive and maintained for it its place in the front of creation. "“This is my word of promise,” cries the voice of the Godhead to Arjuna , “that he who loves me shall not perish.” (The Gita-9.31) Previous effort and preparation, the purity and the holiness of the Brahmin , the enlightened strength of the king-sage great in works and knowledge have their value, because they make it easier for the imperfect human creature to arrive at this wide vision and self-surrender; but even without this preparation all who take refuge in the divine Lover of man, the Vaishya once preoccupied with the narrowness of wealth-getting and the labour of production, the Shudra hampered by a thousand hard restrictions, woman shut in and stunted in her growth by the narrow circle society has drawn around her self-expansion, those too, papa-yonayah, on whom their past Karma has imposed even the very worst of births, the outcaste, the Pariah, the Chandala, find at once the gates of God opening before them. In the spiritual life all the external distinctions of which men make so much because they appeal with an oppressive force to the outward mind, cease before the equality of the divine Light and the wide omnipotence of an impartial Power."²³ "For from all, from the thief and the harlot and the outcaste as from the saint and the sage, the Beloved looks forth and cries to us, “This is I.” “He who loves Me in all beings,” — what greater word of power for the utmost intensities and profundities of divine and universal love, has been uttered by any philosophy or any religion?"²⁴ "If Narayana is without difficulty visible in the sage and the saint, how shall he be easily visible to us in the sinner, the criminal, the harlot and the outcaste?"²⁵ The Agenda of the Ascetics’ Fortress : The First Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress or Law of Renunciation: Five inner rejections of desire, attachment, ego, three gunas and dualities and two outer rejections of initiation of work and old earth-bound association are binding conditions of sane ascetic living, if practiced sincerely one will arrive at the objective of supernormal energising of Consciousness and Will in order to gain some intense and exceptional Spiritual power and mastery. A developed moderate is considered fit to live in Ascetics’ Fortress when he recognises the conquest of lower nature³¹ as a condition of higher Spiritual life. An Ascetic experiences Spiritual upliftment when his tapasya i s consistent with the Law of Renunciation. "Then evidently the straight and simplest way to get out of the close bondage of the active nature and back to spiritual freedom is to cast away entirely all that belongs to the dynamics of the ignorance and to convert the soul into a pure spiritual existence. That is what is called becoming Brahman, brahma- bhuya . It is to put off the lower mental, vital, physical existence and to put on the pure spiritual being. This can best be done by the intelligence and will, buddhi , our present topmost principle. It has to turn away from the things of the lower existence and first and foremost from its effective knot of desire, from our attachment to the objects pursued by the mind and the senses. One must become an understanding unattached in all things, asakta-buddhih sarvatra . Then all desire passes away from the soul in its silence; it is free from all longings, vigata-spruhah . That brings with it or it makes possible the subjection of our lower and the possession of our higher self, a possession dependent on complete self-mastery, secured by a radical victory and conquest over our mobile nature, jitatma. And all this amounts to an absolute inner renunciation of the desire of things, sannyasa . Renunciation is the way to this perfection and the man who has thus inwardly renounced all is described by the Gita as the true Sannyasin . "²⁸ The Second Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress: Individual soul liberation remains the prime concern of an ascetic Ashramite in spite of the limitation of its exclusive seeking. This separate affirmation of the ascetic Ashramite is an indispensable element in human perfection in liberating his vital being from insistent animalism. Then to rise beyond the desire of personal salvation is necessary for the complete rejection of the basis of ego. When he lives inward and arrives at vast equality and peace unnoticed by the reactions of the outer nature, then that is a great but incomplete liberation without the deliverance of outer Nature. Even after the personal deliverance is complete, an Integral Ascetic Sadhaka feels it is insufficient without the deliverance extended to the whole of humanity. "I do not believe that sadhana in the cave is easy — only there the insincerity remains hidden, while in life and action it is revealed. You can look like a Yogi in a cave, but in life the humbugging is more difficult, because you have to behave like a Yogi ."³² The Third Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress: Traditional Shastra preaches three doors of escape; firstly, the renunciation of life itself and of our mundane existence, the entire rejection of world-existence as a lie, an insanity of the Soul; secondly, the Soul’s hunger for individual salvation by escape into farthest height of unalloyed Bliss, its unwillingness to return from the ecstasy of the Divine embrace into the lower field of work, struggle and service of the inferior nature which is bound down to ego in all its activities, chained triply to the stake of differentiated individuality of the gunas ; thus, the exaggeration of the difficulties of combining life of works with Spiritual realisation as impossibility becomes prominent ; a selfishness grows which does not care of what becomes of those who are left behind us; thirdly, the traditional Yoga develops a weakness that shrinks from struggle, disgust and disappointment and baffled by the great cosmic labour and the indifference to the cry that rises up from a labouring humanity. In integral Yoga none of these escape, weakness, and selfishness are valid in its dealings with the surrounding, nor can there grow a mere sympathy, love or the understanding created by mental knowledge, but rather there must be a conscious unity with his fellow beings, a Divine strength, compassion and helpfulness are the very stuff that an integral Ascetic would take upon himself. "The wise man puts away the shrinkings and hesitations of the desire-soul and the doubts of the ordinary human intelligence, that measure by little personal, conventional or otherwise limited standards. He follows in the light of the full sattwic mind and with the power of an inner renunciation lifting the soul to impersonality, towards God, towards the universal and eternal the highest ideal law of his nature or the will of the Master of works in his secret spirit. He will not do action for the sake of any personal result or for any reward in this life or with any attachment to success, profit or consequence: neither will his works be undertaken for the sake of a fruit in the invisible hereafter or ask for a reward in other births or in worlds beyond us, the prizes for which the half-baked religious mind hungers. The three kinds of result, pleasant, unpleasant and mixed, in this or other worlds, in this or another life are for the slaves of desire and ego; these things do not cling to the free spirit. The liberated worker who has given up his works by the inner sannyasa to a greater Power is free from Karma. Action he will do, for some kind of action, less or more, small or great, is inevitable, natural, right for the embodied soul, — action is part of the divine law of living, it is the high dynamics of the spirit. The essence of renunciation, the true Tyaga , the true Sannyasa is not any rule of thumb of inaction but a disinterested soul, a selfless mind, the transition from ego to the free impersonal and spiritual nature. The spirit of this inner renunciation is the first mental condition of the highest culminating sattwic discipline. "²⁹ The Fourth Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress: Similarly an integral ascetic Sadhaka has to exceed the traditional ascetic’s limitation (1) of saintly inactivity by dynamisation of Divine Will and realise God as the Doer of all action who demands action, obedience and subordination from all; (2) the traditional ascetic’s realisation of God’s shadow, Brahma satya Jagat mithya ,¹⁰ is first experienced as indispensable Spiritual foundation and then superseded by the Direct contact with the Divine All, Brahma satya Jagat satya ; (3) the integral Ascetic attains the fullness of surrender by realising the fullness of life and this he realises by accepting and transforming life; (4) he realises the fullness of Divine Love by integrating the Personal, Saguna, and Impersonal, Nirguna, aspect of the Divine; (5) in integral Yoga the triune view of mutually contradictory philosophies, Maya of the Mayavadin , Illusionist, Prakriti of the Sankhya doctrine and the Lila , the Divine Play of the Bhakti movement are perfectly consistent with each other, necessary and complementary and must be accepted as the starting-point for all our understanding of the universe; (6) integral Ascetic links the lower deluding mental Maya of Mayavadin with the Supramental Maya of the Vedic seers in which all is in each and each is in all for the play of existence with existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force, delight with delight; (7) those who come to this ascetic Ashram at an earlier age or those who enter Sannyasa without exhausting the attraction of the outside world, for them adventure into Space through outer wandering become indispensable; so the later Vedantic wandering Eremite for the search of the Divine truth and Divine manifestation is transformed in integral Yoga into the spirit of ancient Vedantic Seers through inner wandering of Soul and in search of higher planes of Consciousness, and become a manifest and manifold power of the Spirit without dropping back the dynamic parts into the indeterminate stuff of Nature. Or after experiencing the ecstatic Divine union an integral ascetic Sadhaka declares in Savitri’s language, “Now of more wandering it has no need”¹ and he begins to understand that he still lives in Matter empty of its Lord and receives the Divine call of illumining the Matter’s depth by manifestation of higher states of Consciousness. His highest Spiritual realisation, while moving towards Supramental status is the entry into the total Nirvana of mentality and mental ego, which is a passage into the silence of the Spirit and in the Void he experiences the Omniscience Supreme. "The true Sannyasa of action is the reposing of all works on the Brahman . “He who, having abandoned attachment, acts reposing (or founding) his works on the Brahman, brahmanyadhaya karmani , is not stained by sin even as water clings not to the lotus-leaf.” (The Gita-5.10) Therefore the Yogins first “do works with the body, mind, understanding, or even merely with the organs of action, abandoning attachment, for self-purification, sangam tyaktvatmasuddhaye . (The Gita-5.11) By abandoning attachment to the fruits of works the soul in union with Brahman attains to peace of rapt foundation in Brahman, but the soul not in union is attached to the fruit and bound by the action of desire.” (The Gita-5.12) The foundation, the purity, the peace once attained, the embodied soul perfectly controlling its nature, having renounced all its actions by the mind, inwardly , not outwardly, “sits in its nine- gated city neither doing nor causing to be done.” For this soul is the one impersonal Soul in all, the all-pervading Lord, prabhu, vibhu , who, as the impersonal, neither creates the works of the world, nor the mind’s idea of being the doer, na kartrutvam na karmani, (The Gita-5.14) nor the coupling of works to their fruits, the chain of cause and effect. All that is worked out by the Nature in the man, svabhava, his principle of self-becoming, as the word literally means."³⁰ The Agenda of the Divine Centre or the Ashram : The First Condition of True Ashram Living or the Law of Sacrifice: The right living in the Ashram begins when one receives the Divine Call of the double movement of the ascent of the Soul and descent of the Divine Shakti and gives his whole life towards the intensification of these double movements. A liberated inner Ascetic (Not a physical ascetism¹⁴) is considered fit to live in a Divine Centre when his practice of inner renunciation or human Tapasya paves the passage clear for equality and consecration. A consecrated child experiences Spiritual upliftment through the practice of the Law of Sacrifice and receives the Divine call to reconcile Matter and Spirit. "A mutual giving and receiving is the law of Life without which it cannot for one moment endure, and this fact is the stamp of the divine creative Will on the world it has manifested in its being, the proof that with sacrifice as their eternal companion the Lord of creatures has created all these existences. The universal law of sacrifice is the sign that the world is of God and belongs to God and that life is his dominion and house of worship and not a field for the self-satisfaction of the independent ego; not the fulfilment of the ego, — that is only our crude and obscure beginning, — but the discovery of God, the worship and seeking of the Divine and the Infinite through a constantly enlarging sacrifice culminating in a perfect self-giving founded on a perfect self-knowledge, is that to which the experience of life is at last intended to lead... Because of this ignorance whose seal is egoism, the creature ignores the law of sacrifice and seeks to take all he can for himself and gives only what Nature by her internal and external compulsion forces him to give. He can really take nothing except what she allows him to receive as his portion, what the divine Powers within her yield to his desire. The egoistic soul in a world of sacrifice is as if a thief or robber who takes what these Powers bring to him and has no mind to give in return. He misses the true meaning of life and, since he does not use life and works for the enlargement and elevation of his being through sacrifice, he lives in vain."²⁶ “They who enjoy the nectar of immortality left over from the sacrifice attain to the eternal Brahman.” Sacrifice is the law of the world and nothing can be gained without it, neither mastery here, nor the possession of heavens beyond, nor the supreme possession of all; “this world is not for him who doeth not sacrifice, how then any other world?”"²⁷ The Second Condition of True Ashram Living: Again, those who live in the Ashram or related with it, without having the above Divine call have two options in their hand, that is either to develop the sense of ownership of the Ashram through practice of pseudo tamasic and rajasic consecration or raise the Being towards The Mother’s Infinite Consciousness through true self-giving, though the latter option is difficult to realise than the former and also it is the latter attitude that draws one towards sane Ashram living. The sense of ownership in Ashram living gives birth to triple internal politics which are internal dialogue between its members by entirely separating themselves from the Divine. Thus, in the first category we observe that one lives in the Ashram without his Soul’s consent but mind, life and body pretend to live a Divine life; in the second category, the Soul has chosen the Divine life but mind, life and body have not wholly consented to such living; in the third category those who support Ashram from outside they carry with them always a behind intention which is not meant for the sole satisfaction of the Divine but the satisfaction of their own desire, ego and interest. So wrong Ashram living leaves an impression on them of God as cruel, hard hearted, immoral, merciless and a monster without noticing that they are precisely like that themselves. So one is considered fit for true Ashram living when he is capable of discerning truth from falsehood and persistently rejects what is false and obscure in him. The Third Condition of True Ashram Living: The true Ashram living emerges when one gives the first priority to the Divine, who is primarily, One, the force of unity, Vijnana , immutable Divine, Nirguna Brahman and secondarily, the manifestation of Many, Saguna Brahman , with whom he has direct contact; the second priority is given to the obedience towards the Law of Divine living, which works out things clearly, decisively and usefully, classify, act, deal with them harmoniously or he is well informed about every nook and corner of the norms of integral Yoga, and he can become a child, replacing the outer law by the inner Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Law; the more he is obedient to inner and external Divine Law the more he is having proximity with the direct Divine contact and the third priority is given to the fellowship with whom the Law is manifested, the collectivity, the source of mutuality. A true individual has an eternal relation with all other individuals, a practical mutuality founded in essential unity which is the basis of perfect universal Divine contact and Divine life. Those who compromise or violate the above order or sequence meet on their path endless falsehood and discord. A true and right Ashram living leaves an impression on them of God as all-Love, all-Light, all-Good and all-Compassion. The Fourth Condition of True Ashram Living: The Yoga Sadhana in Ashram living must first be pursued in secrecy and silence and the high truth of Spirituality need not be brought to the scrutiny before the tribunal¹² of common mentality which has no experience of these things and they consider their incapacity of Spiritual experience as proof of their invalidity and non-existence and demand physically valid proof of Supraphysical facts or what they find difficult to understand or imagine they consider it their right to deny. It has been observed that common men have indulged in the profanation of the Spiritual mysteries and have lost the truth and significance of pure living and their surface nature revolt or deny entry within and reject any inner change. Secondly, a strict mould of Spiritual discipline is enforced on each Sadhaka which will prevent him from the misuse¹¹ of opportunities available in wide and free Ashram living and turns the eye inward in continuous search of the Eternal and lastly, the integral Yoga pursued is meant for few fit initiated destined twice-born Souls or nameless adventurers in Consciousness and the purity of its motive and special object of extension of inborn Spirituality into various experience need not be popularised or generalised with the help of external machinery because by that ‘hundreds and thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence.’² The Influence of the highest perfection of the consecrated child or man of Spiritual attainment need not rest satisfied with some intermediate tapasya , no longer confines within the boundary of small collectivity, but he seizes upon one Yogic method after another to realise the single integral Truth and one Supreme experience. His perfection at a single corner point of Ashram can spread across the whole earth and his single disposal towards Truth can change humanity and in order to arrive at the completeness of existence he least depends on external aids. “There is a divine compassion which descends to us from on high and for the man whose nature does not possess it, is not cast in its mould, to pretend to be the superior man, the master-man or the superman is a folly and an insolence, for he alone is the superman who most manifests the highest nature of the Godhead in humanity. This compassion observes with an eye of love and wisdom and calm strength the battle and the struggle, the strength and weakness of man, his virtues and sins, his joy and suffering, his knowledge and his ignorance, his wisdom and his folly, his aspiration and his failure and it enters into it all to help and to heal.”¹³ The Agenda of The Mother’s Virgin Fortress : The First Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: A Virgin’s Mind, Life, Body and Soul, seeks only the Divine and she adores the Divine Mother as the Lord and the Protector of her immaculate white virginity. A consecrated individual is considered fit to live in a Virgins’ Fortress when her consecration begins to enter the Divine union and the sole attraction of the Divine. A virgin Ashramite experiences Spiritual upliftment through fulfillment of the condition of the Law of Virginity and receives the distant Divine call of cellular transformation. The Second Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: It has been pointed out that the Spiritual disciplines in India have entered corruption and decline through the ‘method of self indulgence'³ and have ‘fallen in to discredit’³ with those who were not Sadhakas, or those who were not aware of the truth and practice of original Shastra . Again one cannot be a Sadhaka by intellectual preparation, understanding and reading of Scriptures; ‘for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought of the Infinite and yet we might not know him (the Divine) at all.’⁴ The essential condition of becoming a Sadhaka is ‘a resolute self consecration from deep within,’⁵ ‘a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind.’⁴ The Virgins’ Fortress is born with its extreme Spiritual doctrine to build a strong Spiritual foundation and to meet the inner deficiency and cause of Spiritual fall and a virgin Sadhaka’s tender purity indulges only in things Divine and Eternal. The Third Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: A true Virgin child is she or he in whom the static Divine Union is prolonged and dynamised and the Ishwara becomes the Shakti. She pours herself into the material mould in ever growing intensities and she or he no longer feels herself as a different entity but identifies as a part and portion of the virgin Savitri or the Divine Mother, one with Her Love, Ananda and Consciousness. The Fourth Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: An integrated Virgin is she or he who is capable to direct the gained Divine Consciousness earthward for Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental transformation of Nature. She is preoccupied in entire effort to reveal Savitri, the All Mother in humanity. She discovers the Divine in the Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self and her material life is full of the Presence of the Lord. The Agenda of the World’s (Spiritual) Centre: 1: The First Centre: The First Centre or the World’s Centre in its inception is a deformation of God’s Eternity. 2: The Second Centre: The Second Centre or the World’s Centre in its formation is a deformation of God’s Capacity. 3: The Third Centre: The Third Centre or the World’s Centre in its making represents God’s transparency. 4: The Fourth Centre: The Fourth Centre or the World’s Centre in its developed state channels God’s Light, Love and Force to earth and man. It fulfills and completes the objective of the Divine Centre of liberating humanity and of the Virgins’ Fortress of transforming humanity. Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness : First Condition: The collective Divine living may not be sufficient for an individual who is destined to become a pioneer and precursor in Consciousness. He can isolate himself from collective Divine action and enter exclusively or his all-inclusive movement of Consciousness will cover vertical heights and depths and horizontal wideness capturing the whole earth and the Transcendence and all the nether planes which are identified as undivine. Second Condition: A revolutionary individual effort in Consciousness or a special extreme individual askesis can drag humanity ahead if his subjective and objective preoccupation entirely rests on the highest hinted reconciling, all-embracing and all exceeding Wisdom of the past and the present and his centre of living is shifted more and more within and above leaving far behind the recalcitrant surface consciousness to encircle the whole earth and hews a path towards the future. Third Condition: The World-redeemer’s heavy and mighty task in Consciousness is to make world-life a bridge twixt earth and heaven. The Day-bringer must walk in the darkest night of Hell and he who would save the world, must share its pain. His Soul must be wider than the universe to contain all the suffering of Earth and calls down greater Power and larger Light to world’s Inconscient abysm. Then he can hope to break the Wheels of earth’s doom and then shall be ended here the Law of Pain and all would turn ahead to Wisdom and Immortality. The Mother’s Consciousness : The First Consciousness: Observing Consciousness is defined as many-sided movements of effort in Ignorance and Waking Consciousness is defined as spontaneous action of the Shakti in Knowledge to arrive at comprehensive Knowledge. The Second Consciousness: The normal real life of a true liberated man is the state of oneness with the Supreme and with all beings and the bliss of that state and perfect knowledge of Spiritual atmosphere and the great Soul cannot regard with indifference the suffering of others and the deliverance of others must be felt as intimate to his own deliverance. He lives in a universalized Consciousness where all Death is realised as the Spiritual necessity for evolution of new being; it is also a stair, a stumbling stride, an instrument of perpetual life and change of robe from birth to birth in the immortal All Life or death is a rapid disintegration of cellular consciousness subservient to life’s necessity of change and variation; all Pain is a symbol of unwillingness to change and become one with the Divine, some secret rapture’s tragic mask and a violent backwash of the waters of universal Delight and without pain he would not get all the value of infinite Delight; all Limitation is a turning of the Infinite upon itself; all Evil is in travail of eternal Good and a circling around its own perfection; all error is significant of all possibility and effort of discovery of Supreme Truth; all destruction and war are small transient storm and rapidly clear the field for new good and a more satisfying harmony; all darkness is a veil of self-hidden Light. This Cosmic Consciousness is a meeting place where the Matter is real to the Spirit and Spirit is real to the Matter and illumined harmony of mind, life and body are perfectly realised. The Third Consciousness: The Supramental Consciousness is at once the static self-awareness of the Infinite and Eternal and a dynamic power of self-determination inherent in that self-awareness. In this Consciousness, all contradictions are canceled or fused into each other in the higher light of seeing and being, in unified self-knowledge and world-knowledge. It is the fulfilled existence that will solve all the complex problems of existence created by partial affirmation of Mind and Life emerging from the total denial of the Inconscient. The Divine in its nature is an infinite Consciousness and the nature of infinite Consciousness is a pure and infinite Delight. The Fourth Consciousness: The Mother’s Infinite Consciousness is that which rests on the One and acts in the All and is capable of free power of self-variation producing infinite results in the phenomenon and form or manifesting and playing with Being in Infinite form and movements in order to cast Herself into the world; Her Consciousness transcends All and denies none; sees all but lives for its transcendent task; transcends the Light and the Darkness to merge in the Absolute; becomes All and yet transcends the mystic whole; She is immortal yet suffers the mortal limitation of birth and death; when most unseen She works most mightily; She can uphold in Herself a million universes and pervades each with a single ray of Her Self-light and a single degree of Her ineffable existence; this whole creation lives in a lonely ray of Her Sun and before Her Infinite Chit-Shakti the Supramental Consciousness grows like a shadow. The Agenda of Evolutionary Synthesis: The agenda of the above human aspirations can be satisfying if it can be reconciled by giving equal effort, regard and reverence to all eight institutions. The fundamental urge of mundane perfection to attain harmony in the material existence is to be linked preliminarily with the moderate effort of linking existence with the Source, the Creator. The surface concentration of the Divine touch of the moderate is to be penetrated within by substituting the sole pursuit of the Divine in an Ascetic discipline. The Ascetic ascent of uniting with the Divine is to be rightly related with the descending Shakti in a consecrated Ashram living. The reconciliation of Matter and Spirit in a Divine Centre is to be rightly related with the perfection of material life and the quest for cellular transformation of a Virgins’ Fortress. The individual liberation of the Soul in the Moderate and Ascetics’ Fortress and individual transformation of the Nature of the Divine Centre and Virgins’ Fortress are to be universalised so that individuals can act as a centre of world liberation and world transformation. The mission of the World Centre to act as a channel of Divine Force in liberating and transforming humanity is concentrated further in the movement towards the realisation of the total Consciousness of the Eternal or what we understand as Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness. The descent of total Consciousness is a dynamic state of Brahman , known as The Mother’s Consciousness, which is responsible for the total Divine transformation of humanity. Thus, the Vedic doctrine of disclosing the Godhead in the manifestation of Spirit, Mind, Life and Body is realised. OM TAT SAT References: 1: Savitri-412, 2: 02.10.1934, SABCL-Vol-26/p-375, 3: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-42, “To those who want to practise the integral Yoga, it is strongly advised to abstain from three things: Sexual intercourse Smoking Drinking alcohol” The Mother/12 June 1965/TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-35 4: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-81, 5: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-82, 6: The Mother’s Agenda-Vol-6/p-119-120, 7: Savitri-37, 8: Savitri-259, 9: Savitri-327, 10: “A mighty murmur of immense retreat Besieged the ear, a sad and limitless call (The Spiritual experience of Brahma satya Jagat mithya is sad limitless call.) As of a soul retiring from the world.” Savitri-391, 11: “Let the mind learn to be silent, let it not be eager to profit immediately by the forces which come to us from Thee for the integral manifestation…” The Mother/TMCW-1/Prayers and Meditations/p-201, 12: “The greatest inner discoveries, the experience of self-being, the cosmic consciousness, the inner calm of the liberated spirit, the direct effect of mind upon mind, the knowledge of things by consciousness in direct contact with other consciousness or with its objects, most spiritual experiences of any value, cannot be brought before the tribunal of the common mentality which has no experience of these things and takes its own absence or incapacity of experience as a proof of their invalidity or their non-existence.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-677, 13: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-58, 14: "He (the Lord) discourages the tamasic recoil and the tendency to renunciation and enjoins the continuance of action and even of the same fierce and terrible action, but he points the disciple towards another and inner renunciation which is the real issue from his crisis and the way towards the soul’s superiority to the world-Nature and yet its calm and self-possessed action in the world. Not a physical asceticism , but an inner askesis is the teaching of the Gita." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-55-56, "As a matter of fact, when people talk of Tyaga, of renunciation, it is always the physical renunciation of the world which they understand by the word or at least on which they lay emphasis, while the Gita takes absolutely the opposite view that the real Tyaga has action and living in the world as its basis and not a flight to the monastery, the cave or the hill-top. The real Tyaga is action with a renunciation of desire and that too is the real Sannyasa . ” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-494, 15: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-38-40, 16: The Mother/TMCW-3/Questions and Answers-1929-1931/p-26–27, 17: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-336, “But this exclusive consummation (realisation of Supreme Self) is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realization of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realization of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realization a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilizable for the projection of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualization and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-38-39 18: " The middle path is made for thinking man. To choose his steps by reason’s vigilant light, To choose his path among the many paths Is given him, for each his difficult goal Hewn out of infinite possibility." Savitri-434, 19: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-23- 24, 20: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-348, 21: The Gita-6.16, 22: "Another untoward result or peril of the diffusive movement and the consequent invasion has been the intellectual formalisation of spiritual knowledge into dogma and the materialisation of living practice into a dead mass of cult and ceremony and ritual, a mechanisation by which the spirit was bound to depart in course of time from the body of the religion. But this risk had to be taken , for the expansive movement was an inherent necessity of the spiritual urge in evolutionary Nature." CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-903, 23: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-335, 24: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-208, 25: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-359, 26: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-126-127, 27: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p- 122, 28: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-530, 29: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-497, 30: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-185, 31: “Never forget that, as much outside as in the Ashram, if you want to lead a happy life, you must be the master of your lower nature and control your desires and vital impulses; otherwise there is no end to the miseries and the troubles.” TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-255, 32: TMCW/Vol-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-47, 33: The Mother's Agenda/April 22, 1957, DOWNLOAD THIS WEBPAGE IN PDF FORMAT: THE MESSAGE OF MERRY CHRISTMAS “You know, mon petit, I said one day that in the history of earth, wherever there was a possibility for the Consciousness to manifest, I was there; this is a fact. It's like the story of Savitri: always there, always there, always there, in this one, that one – at certain times there were four emanations simultaneously! At the time of the Italian and French Renaissance. And again at the time of Christ, then too .... Oh, you know, I have remembered so many, many things! It would take volumes to tell it all. And then, more often than not (not always, but more often than not), what took part in this or that life was a particular yogic formation of the vital being – in other words something immortal. And when I came this time, as soon as I took up the yoga, they came back again from all sides, they were waiting. ” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-27 June 1962 NEW YEAR GREETINGS-2025 “He (Sri Aurobindo ) wrote this in a letter, I believe, and he spoke of this system of compensation – for example, those who take an illness on themselves in order to have the power to cure; and then there’s the symbolic story of Christ dying on the cross to set men free. And Sri Aurobindo said, ‘That’s fine for a certain age, but we must now go beyond that.’ As he told me (it’s even one of the first things he told me), ‘We are no longer at the time of Christ when, to be victorious, it was necessary to die.’ I have always remembered this...But things are PULLING backwards – phew, how they pull! ... ‘The Law, the Law, it’s a Law. Don’t you understand, it’s a LAW, you can’t change the Law.’ ‘But I CAME to change the Law.’. .‘Then pay the price.’” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-November 12, 1960, (1) SAVITRI RECITATION ON 24.11.2025 AND (2) DARSHAN DAY(24.11.2025) PROGRAM AT SRI MATRINIKETAN ASHRAM “To concentrate most on one’s own spiritual growth and experience is the first necessity of the sadhak — to be too eager to help others draws away from the inner work. There is also likely to be an overzeal and haste which clouds the discrimination and makes what help is given less effective than it should be. To grow in the spirit is the greatest help one can give to others, for then something flows out naturally to those around that helps them .” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-317, “The idea of helping others is a subtle form of the ego. It is only the Divine Force that can help. One can be its instrument, but you should first learn to be a fit and egoless instrument.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-318, “The best way to help the world is to transform oneself by an integral and intensive yoga.” The Mother TMCW-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277 “If mankind only caught a glimpse of what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all and never rest till they had gained these treasures. But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust and scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature, to forbid the turning away of our feet from her ordinary pastures.” Sri Aurobindo TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-10-11 "A community life must necessarily have a discipline in order that the weaker may not be maltreated by the stronger; and this discipline ought to be respected by all those who wish to live in that community. But for the community to be happy it is necessary that this discipline should be determined by someone or by those who have the greatest broadness of mind and, if possible, by him or by those who are conscious of the Divine Presence and are surrendered to that. For the earth to be happy, power should be in the hands of those alone who are conscious of the Divine Will. But this is impossible at the moment because the number of those who are truly conscious of the Divine Will is negligible and these have necessarily no ambition. To tell the truth, when the hour comes for this realisation, this will come about quite naturally." The Mother TMCW-13/Words of the Mother-I/p-165

The Divine Centre “Action is demanded of man by the Master of the world who is the master of all his works and whose world is a field of action, whether done through the ego and in the ignorance or partial light of limited human reason or initiated from a higher and more largely seeing plane of vision and motive.”¹⁷ Sri Aurobindo “The acceptance of the law of sacrifice is a practical recognition by the ego that it is neither alone in the world nor chief in the world. It is its admission that, even in this much fragmented existence, there is beyond itself and behind that which is not its own egoistic person, something greater and completer, a diviner All which demands from it subordination and service. ”²³ Sri Aurobindo “The Master of the worlds who in the Gita demands of his servant , the bhakta , to be nothing more in life than his instrument, makes this claim as the friend, the guide, the higher Self, and describes himself as the Lord of all the worlds who is the friend of all creatures, sarvalokamahesvaram suhrudam sarvabhutanam ; the two relations in fact must go together and neither can be perfect without the other.”²⁷ Sri Aurobindo "All action must be done in a more and more Godward and finally a God-possessed consciousness; our works must be a sacrifice to the Divine and in the end a surrender of all our being, mind, will, heart, sense, life and body to the One must make God-love and God-service our only motive. This transformation of the motive force and very character of works is indeed its master idea; it is the foundation of its unique synthesis of works, love and knowledge. In the end not desire, but the consciously felt will of the Eternal remains as the sole driver of our action and the sole originator of its initiative."⁴⁹ Sri Aurobindo The Agenda of the Divine Centre The evolution of sevenfold power (triune glory of Sachchidananda, Supermind, Mind, Life and Body) is the Divine destiny of man. The destiny of evolving consciousness must be wholly and perfectly aware of itself, entirely aware of Self and All. An individual seeker’s Psychic and Spiritual destiny is decreed if his centralised faith is established in the Divine, which ‘see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine,’¹ substituting the earlier ordinary faith which concentrates on ‘development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of things.’¹ If this faith is integralised then his destiny is decreed for the Universal action and he experiences the ‘one Self in all through boundless love.’² To be more specific one can elevate his destiny towards Supramental future by learning two lessons systematically; (1) firstly, he will experience love as extended selfishness or of principle of co-operation and mutual help, by entirely renouncing desire; then there is total sincerity to experience Psychic love through practice of true association, mutual self-giving and interfusion of inner substances, builds his Spiritual destiny to experience complete self-giving, absolute certainty of the Knowledge of three time and rapturous fusion of Psychic and Spiritual Soul into the One and finally his Love becomes a capacity for indefinite expansion of Consciousness in all planes including the material substance, followed by limitless plasticity to trace the movement of Soul in becoming; (2) secondly, he realises initially that his individual ego is not a centre of its own universe and is a small fragment and one concentration of the Universal Self, in which and by which he lives, moves and exists in his being and finally his identity with It leads him towards perfect and constant equality. In Supramental life, his Oneness with the Supreme and his fusion with the world coexist voluntarily and are free from all disturbances and disharmonies. An institution is called the Divine Centre , when individuals with the above decreed Gnostic Consciousness decide to live in a group as collective soul-power of the Truth–consciousness, to intensify the double purpose of Divine union through the ascension of Consciousness and the manifestation of Divine through the descent of Divine Consciousness or it is formed when the collectivity, the multiple liberating Souls, the spoke, the radiating bar is rightly and strongly connected to the wheel, the Divine Centre and its nave, the Central representative, the individual liberated Soul centre consciously governed by the Infinite, whose Spiritual evolution in an unchanged environmental existence is intensified to experience the double movement of Divine ascension of Soul and Divine descent of Shakti or he is a psychological centre related with others through the coexistence of the diversely conscious Many in the universal Being. When the nave becomes the channel of the Divine Consciousness in its entirety that contains all or when his centre of self-vision becomes centre of all-vision, then the limited circumference of the Divine Centre becomes the infinite circumference of the World’s Centre or Creation’s Centre, preoccupied in world transformation action. The Divine Centre does not stop short of any great labour, high discipline, difficult or noble enterprise related to the individual, collectivity, or race but rises to the status of their Transcendent Source.²² It does seek that Spirituality, which has the capacity to release, uplift, transform and perfect life and the surrounding world. All the problems of existence are accepted, accommodated and resolved in a Divine Centre by objectively subjective action of three modes of Nature, Gunas , through representative inmates in the form of tamasic or shudra , rajasic or vaisya, rajaso-sattwic or kshatriya , sattwic or brahmin devotee and subjectively objective action through activation of trigunatita state or activation of fourfold Soul forces of Shudra-Shakti, Vaisya-Shakti, Kshetra-Shakti and Brahma-Shakti, identified as the Knower of Brahman . Works of all types, sarvakarmani , must be made a part of God life and the way of action will not be outward and mental, but inward and Spiritual and it will bring into all activities, whatever they are, the spirit of Divine Love, the spirit of adoration and worship, the spirit of gratitude, the spirit of dedication, the spirit of happiness and beauty in the Divine and service of the Beloved. In a Divine Centre, the basis of action is Spiritual Consciousness, perennial, renovating, creative vision, the ability to renew the truth of form always by the fresh flow of Spirit, and the ability to make every action a living symbol of some truth of the Soul. The scope of work of the Divine Centre is defined through the development of a four-fold active human personality and nature or fourfold integral action as envisaged in Integral Yoga, built out of ancient thought of its four types of the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra . The perfection of Brahmana Soul force comes when one is capable of opening to all kinds of revelation, inspiration, intuition, discrimination, and synthesis; and grasps all knowledge with delight, spiritual enthusiasm, ecstasy, full spiritual force, illumination and purity. The perfection of Kshatriya soul force is infinite dynamic courage to which no opposing force can deter the aspiration imposed by the spirit; a high nobility of soul and will be unaffected by any littleness or baseness and moving with certain greatness of spiritual victory over the Powers of Darkness; a spirit never depressed from the faith and confidence in the power that works in the being. An adventure is pursued in multiple subtle bodies and an endless war is fought in darkness with inner and outer wounds that are slow to heal. The ideal character of Vaisya soul powers are the instinct of life to produce, exchange, skill, kausala , possess, enjoy, contrive, put things in order and balance, work out to the best advantage the active relations of existence, skillful devising intelligence, commercial, technical, scientific and utilitarian mind, bent upon efficient exploitation of the world or its surroundings, skillful in the economy, which recognises the great law of interchange and amasses in order to throw out in large return, a power of giving and ample creative liberality, active opulence luxurious of the prolific Ananda of existence. The perfection of Shudra soul force is a universal love that lavishes itself without demand of return, many-sided universal action and service and beneficence guided by Divine Will, absolute self-surrender of the whole being to the Master of our being. All these four Soul Powers can be developed in a single individual for integral perfection or it stands as an indispensable guideline for perfection of the collectivity. So the Divine Centre pushed towards the complete union of the Divine with earth life does give secondary importance to a slow dim long collective preparatory evolutionary mental action of love and beneficent altruistic service in addition to other three types of active mental work of (1) acts of knowledge, (2) acts of will, endeavour and struggle and (3) acts of power and production and creation; and leans on the swift four-fold Spiritual evolution as primary importance to find, know, live and possess the Divine Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in passive mind. In the Divine Centre , the swift individual evolution is accelerated by concentration on the all-inclusive Integral Divine through the practice of Integral Yoga. Integral Divine consists of the triple realisation indicated in the Isha Upanishad that of Brahman is in all things, all things are within the Brahman and all things are made up of the stuff of the Brahman or this realisation in the language of the Gita , that it consists of Manifest mutable Divine, Kshara , Unmanifest immutable Divine, Akshara , and that which exceeds manifest and unmanifest Divine, the Purushottama, Para Brahman , or in the language of Integral Yoga, the realisation of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Divine. It will not stick to the exclusive importance on the manifest Divine or all one-sided philosophical conception of seeing the Divine in a limited personality or personal God of all popular religions which can give birth to monotheistic, polytheistic, sectarian, fanatic and religious institutions; nor can it stick to the exclusive importance on the Impersonal, Unmanifest and Quality-less Divine which may give birth to egoistic, illusionistic and asuric or exclusive Spiritual institution (The desire for personal salvation is the outcome of ego. In Spiritual life the gulf between the Matter and Spirit are not bridged and one discovers Spirit and God by renouncing Life and Matter.); but admits coexistence of both, Saguna Brahman or Self has become all this existence and Nirguna Brahman or Brahman is realised as immobile and immutable Self and both as supreme aspects of one indivisible Reality and transcends them to that which originates and upholds them to experience the Supramental Divine. Enlarging the Spiritual experience towards complete and many-sided comprehensiveness, 'our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite'³² and see and adore one God in all the godheads, men, creatures and objects. At present, The Mother’s International Centre Trust is managing Sri Matriniketan Ashram, consecrated to The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, where ceaseless Japa , nitya smarati, ceaseless consecrated action, nitya Yajna, ceaseless giving, and pouring down of Divine attributes, nitya dana, and ceaseless self-control, nitya sannyasa, are reconciled. One may note that nitya Yajna, nitya sannyasa, nitya japa and nitya dana are linked with the perfection of karmayoga, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga and yoga of self-perfection, respectively. The above vision is now on the way to becoming a reality at a very small corner point of the earth that could spread forth, encircle and seize more and more hearts through love to embrace all the world. It has been identified that with one man’s perfection or one Soul’s specialised extreme effort, tapasya, is an infinitely valuable resource to draw the race towards greater general possibility and complement all other economic and human strengths and it can utilise the least noisy and the least visible triple reversal of Consciousness as the most powerful leverage for world action and transformation. To support and strengthen this inner action it calls very few destined individuals who are at once Moderate, Ascetic, Consecrated and Virgin Souls to participate in the Divine Play of Krishna and Kali, Shiva and Shakti, Brahman and Maya and Sat and Chit of measureless movement or the true Soul is realised as the biune body of the Lord and His Spouse, Ishwara and Shakti, right half male and the left half female, the Hara-Gauri of the Indian iconological symbol. THEIR Ashram is the destined spot of the answering Souls who meet upon their different paths by travelling across limitless planes of Time through many successive births and bodies or it is meant for them those who are initiated to live only for the Divine with the ideal Integral mantra , ‘In the world’s contacts meet his (Divine’s) single touch,’⁸ act only for the Divine with the supporting traditional mantra, ‘Even as I am appointed by Thee seated in my heart, so, O Lord, I act’⁹ and think only for the Divine with the Biblical mantra, ‘My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up’¹⁰ and practice either of the Spiritual disciplines of ‘the Law of Moderation’ or ‘the Law of Tapasya’ or ‘the Law of Sacrifice’ or ‘the Law of Virginity’ and those who do not foresee their clear ‘virginally creative’¹⁸ future and meet the above condition, for them this Ashram can be a place of sojourn for inner preparation of faith, sincerity, gratitude and progress. The Mother’s Ideal Integral School (Residential) is the Ashram’s immediate gateway to the world which has turned into a hot zone of hurtling ground of truth and untruth, straightforwardness and pretension, dedication and selfishness, Divine and undivine. The children are identified as growing gods and pure vessels, who require care, attention and love integrally without losing contact with the World, Self and the Divine. The first object of the Integral Education movement is to accommodate Sri Aurobindo’s unlimited future vision within the limited format and infrastructure of the School in harmony with the Government norm and guiding principle of New Life Education Trust . The second object is to expand the scope of Integral Education through the practice of integral Yoga and its broad highways and narrow bypaths are evolved to provide a safe corridor for higher and deeper studies and experiences. The third objective is to strengthen its research and training activities which include unfolding of both material and spiritual secrets and updating its existing system. The fourth object is insistence on the management of Ashram Trustees and Ashramite teaching faculties to become aware of the object of integral Yoga in its entirety, which is again followed by the insistence on most of the outgoing students through training and education, sikhya , to enable them to fit and accommodate themselves in the mainstream of present world order; few of them receive initiation of the Soul, dikhya , to lead an inner disciplined life and very few of them are privileged to realise the Material and Spiritual fulfillment through practice of integral Yoga. And the last object is that this present phenomenal surface education system is in the process of change in making the vessel ready to expand, hold and manifest the depth, width, height and catholicity of Nature’s most creative Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Education and all their inevitable truth of the Idea. Thus, Integral Education creates an opportunity for each student to choose either a life based on the satisfaction of desire and ego or a life concentrated on the Self and endless unfolding of the Spirit. Sri Matriniketan Ashram is attached with a Medical wing, whose first objective is to provide necessary infrastructure, skill and knowledge towards an improved health, sound physique and indefinitely prolonging life, if not of effecting the entire conquest of death in this Divine community and its surrounding village; its second objective is to link Integral healing with the Integral Yoga and evolve the essential cause of error, suffering and death, by which we might hope to arrive at a mastery over them which should be not relative but entire and thus, we arrive at the essential control of life instead of a more powerful manipulation of circumstances through medical Science; the third objective is an attempt to heal all disease through root knowledge evolved through intervention of Intuition or Divine Grace subordinated by the external or secondary processes developed by doctors and medicines; the last object is to concentrate on the ultimate aim of medical Science of complete eradication and immunization of all disease and to attain physical immortality on earthly body through evolution of subtle faculties that are beyond the cognition of the mind. Another auxiliary unit is Natural farming. The first object of agriculture is to insist on farming with labor-saving appliances and without chemicals, or pesticides, improving soil fertility and its ability to retain water; the second objective is to relate natural farming with the Spiritual health of the community and realises that the healing of the land and purification of the human spirit are single process; the third objective is the acceptance of flower culture as the means of entering into the most plastic and sweet domain of purifying life and prepares the foundation for the highest Spiritual Love; the fourth objective is that it bridges the gulf between the two extreme end of life that of the Matter and the Spirit or as Sri Aurobindo said, "When the supramental Force comes on the earth, there will be a response EVERYWHERE." ³⁷ or as the Mother said, “When the Supramental manifests, an unequalled joy spreads over the earth.” ³⁸ Agriculture is the symbol of the basic need for food, clothing and shelter and the perfecting of the first instrument of the body, Education, the symbol of the development and spreading of fine mental, vital and physical faculties, and Health, is the symbol of sane material life on which the highest Supra-physical knowledge can rest, which constitute the basis of sane living of the civilized humanity are identified as the husk of the truth of the Divine Centre which is again meant for holding strongly its kernel, the accumulated Spiritual concentration directed towards the Supreme and the consequent Divine’s descent into the physical. Or here the subjective mind realities and objective physical realities are seen as things phenomenal and secondary, dependent upon the primary truth of the dynamic Self and the realities of the Spirit. The whole aim of evolution is the continuous enlargement of the existing human vessel. The force or energy that moves the stars and planets, the same force also moves our thoughts and actions. When this inrush of ‘energy is the highest in kind and the fullest in amount’⁴⁷ and works in a perfected human vessel then he has attained the complete and utmost development. To this height all humanity is aspiring, knowingly or unknowingly. The Mother Nature attempts through each individual formation to bridge the gulf between the existing material living and the future Supramental world. She attempted and reattempted this with her best Master Souls and succeeded with Sri Aurobindo. Now after Mother Nature’s success in creating a single Sri Aurobindo, who is a symbol of movement of comprehensive Consciousness, her next great and difficult task is ‘to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.’²⁸ Now it is time for her to universalise her success, by providing the best surrounding atmosphere to the receptive human Souls with perfected minds and bodies who will be able initially to unveil the transcendent activities of the Spirit and finally hold and carry Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness or the total consciousness of the Eternal by the simple formula though difficult to execute that of initially living and experiencing all the norms of Integral Yoga and finally the outer law is substituted by the inner plastic Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Law. Or this intensive evolution of the individual must be preoccupied in entirely changing the mind, life and body in conformity with the truth of the Spirit. This multiplication of total Consciousness of the Eternal may be understood in Sri Aurobindo's language, "The divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in external humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity. That which has been done in the outer human life of earth may be repeated in the inner life of all human beings."⁴⁶ After bridging the gulf between ordinary living and Supramental life, the Mother Nature attempted again to experience cellular transformation of her animal evolutionary form through The Mother’s body. This is her another intermediate victory which has opened for the race another possibility of physical change and a journey toward the ultimate victory of Spirit over Matter. The simple formula to repeat The Mother’s Cellular transformation experience or discovery of immortal principles concealed within the cells of the body is to purify the physical substance to the extent of bearing the pressure of All Delight and the burden of the earth’s Inconscient negations. Or “The dire delight that could shatter mortal flesh,”⁴⁴ and “Almighty powers are shut in Nature’s cells.”⁴⁵ The next difficult task of Mother Nature related to multiplication of individual Cellular transformation may be understood in The Mother’s language, ‘If, for any reason this body (The Mother’s body) becomes unusable, the universal Mother will again start manifesting in hundreds of individualities according to their capacity and receptivity, each one being a partial manifestation of the Universal Consciousness.’²⁹ Now, most of humanity is suffering from the slavery of lower Nature and the slavery of ordinary action. So, first, very few should go beyond these two slaveries by ascending their consciousness to the Psychic, Spiritual and Universal planes and their Spiritual Influence should spread beyond the individual Soul Centre. Sri Aurobindo confirms, "whenever even a single soul is liberated, there is a tendency to an extension and even to an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity..."⁴⁸ Thus, in the long run, the whole of humanity can be liberated and their life can be Divinised. The Evolution of The Mother’s International Centre Trust: “Because men still imagine that in order to do anything useful, they must gather together in groups, it is the caricature (An exaggerated or distorted representation) of organisation…I know the conditions of the country (India). Even if one person could put himself faithfully at the disposal of the Truth, he could change the country and the world.” ⁴³ The Mother 1) ‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust ’ was registered on the auspicious Darshan Day of 24th November, 1997 and its all-necessary form and manifestation was chosen by THEIR Divine Will. The Trust was formed by the pressure of a Supracosmic vision revealed to its Central representative, S. A. Maa Krishna . At the end of the vision a leaf was handed over to her in which it was written ‘Mother’s International Centre’. Sri K. Anurakta , a profound Yogi of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry gave his consent to form a Trust based on this vision by incorporating a small correction, which reads ‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust’ ; this vision was followed by successive meetings of Supraterrestrial Gods and Goddesses, who are cosmic personalities of the World-Play, promising to extend their help in this Divine work. This vision was further fragmented into Truth Sight of Illumined Mind of multitudes of subtle physical experiences and Truth Thought of Higher Mind extending its right relation with the outside world. It was also revealed to her that the Spiritual concentration would be accumulated through silence, a mould of Spiritual discipline and initiation of few fit Souls; it would depend more on the triple reversal of Consciousness which is directed to meet the most difficult issue of resolving the problem of falsehood from within and without and creating a field of protection for the individual’s growth of Spirituality. This exercise is less dependent on external machinery and least depends on things and objects that would lead to the subjection of Nature. 2) After the formation of the Trust, the scope of the work and the direction in which the Trust would extend its function was defined by the publication of seven volumes of the ‘Working Manual of The Mother’s International Centre Trust’ of around one thousand pages, identifying the best part of Their Teachings and dividing them into four different areas in which we can long concentrate and become accountable. These are (1) Divine Action which is an outcome of Divine union, (2) Identification of the unfinished work of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in Consciousness extending over all the manifold planes, worlds and sheaths; The Mother’s physical embodiment was missioned, ‘to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here’;³⁰ so to carry The Mother’s unfinished work ahead means to enter subtle physical experiences extending its ranges from Bliss Self to Inconscient Self; (3) Knowledge on the subtle physical world and higher worlds as a passage for Spiritual Transformation, (4) Danger of the path and study of the reasons of Their earthly departure and the lessons we have learned. (Most of the soft copy lost due to file corruption and few are retained.) This aspiration paved the passage clear for the descent of greater truth through the revelation of a vision that showed that the south block of Sri Matriniketan Ashram’s main building was joined with the north block of Sri Aurobindo’s room at Pondicherry and a secret door opened to Sri Aurobindo’s room at Pondicherry and a free communication to either side was restored. A voice from above informed that now the gulf is bridged and a direct golden link with Sri Aurobindo is established, confirming that from here Their purest vibration will radiate towards the world. Another complementary vision was that a piece of land of Sri Matriniketan Ashram has entered towards Sri Aurobindo’s Samadhi at Pondicherry from the north-east side; both the surfaces were shining with white marble and the radiating vibration of both the lands were almost the same. 3) The new land of Sri Matriniketan Ashram was registered initially on the Darshan day, 21st February 2000, around eleven kilometres away from Brahmapur , at village Ramachadrapur . The place has been chosen to pursue sadhana in double seclusion²¹ as hinted in Savitri, that of an outcaste from the outer light of the world and to renounce the five galloping hooves of sense enjoyment through sound, touch, sight, taste and smell. These two solitudes also symbolise the persuation of integral Jnana Yoga and integral Bhakti Yoga in isolation, whose highest perfection is realised by becoming an integral Karma Yogi . This transient and momentary Divine manifestation in a fugitive existence and passing world is offered to hold the vast Truth and direct its working in the Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths. The main Ashram building along with meditation hall, class rooms, guest room and medical unit, is accommodated in its campus. Sri Matriniketan Ashram (which is a Sanskrit translation of its earlier English name The Mother’s Foundation ) is aware of its special mission through the psycho-spiritual link in which The Mother and Sri Aurobindo appear in a most concrete overhead vision, command and wisdom confirming that They are constantly present here in carrying Their Work in Their own way and in Their own Time. Their each appearance is directed to overcome the transition in sadhana, indicating our limitations of Nature, the capacity of surrender to which we have to elevate, the scope of physical transformation and reminding of Their yet unfinished and unfulfilled limitless impossible task and vision. 4) In October--2000, a quarterly magazine, ‘The Descent ’ was launched whose objective was to restate the Spiritual experience and establish a link between Sri Aurobindo’s early sadhana at Pondicherry and The Mother’s last cellular transformation. This restatement fulfils the Injunctions issued in integral Yoga that each Sadhaka must trace his own path of Yoga. This new path is strengthened by opening more and more towards the descent of overhead Divine Will, Divine Knowledge and Divine Love. The intervention of Divine will can bring new creation and manifestation in material life, which is unimaginable by the mind. Overhead wisdom is so simple and so all-embracing that even a fool²⁶ can understand it and can undergo change without notice. The new descent of overhead wisdom will bring completeness to understand the existing written truth. A brief touch of Divine Love can erase all our past Karma, change our destiny, and bring immense hope and sweetness in this strange and struggling world. This action proceeds in conformity with a vision, which shows an arrival of French letter from Sri Satprem , one of the Secretaries of The Mother . In that letter, it was written that the Mother had told Satprem that in one of the Centres in Orissa, Her true and comprehensive action would be executed. He got the information that Sri Matriniketan Ashram is emerging as such centre. If the content of this vision is accepted true in spirit and reality, then ‘The Descent’ will witness a significant role in strengthening contact with the Divine and world transformation. 5) The Mother’s International Centre Trust (pan card no-AABTT5264G) received tax exemption certificate U/s 80G (5) of the I.T. Act 1961 vide memo no. ITO(Tech)/80G-277/2006-07/5354-57, dated the Bhubaneswar, 06th September, 2007 for the financial year 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, from CIT, Government of India, and this notification requires no periodic renewal as one-time approval is granted vide circular no. 7/2010 [F.NO.197/21/2010-ITA-1], dated 27.10.2010. The Trust functions as per the objective guidelines of the Government of India and the subjective guidelines of Sri Aurobindo's principal Teachings, The Synthesis of Yoga. They are: (1) "Accept everything, but cling to nothing," (p-) (2) "our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities," (p-) (3) "To arrive by the shortest way at the largest development," (p-) (4) "virginally creative at each moment," (p-637) (5) "All Life is Yoga."(p-8) 6) The health of any institution is dependent on its expansion of research activity and constant renovation of its existing system and setup. The same exercise can make up the deficiencies of the Divine Centre, but still greater identity is required for their fulfilment by the fresh inflow of Spiritual experiences and wisdom to all the realms of life. So, the mental activity of research in Spiritual matters and utilisation of this facility as a passage to Spiritual experiences are undertaken here consistent with the norms of Integral Yoga that insists to ‘sum up in himself all its best and completest possibility’²⁴ and not to loiter on formative issues, formative writings, mechanised system of mind which cut and select to build all that does not fit within the closed system and ‘truth and practice too strictly formulated.’³ It further provides guidelines ‘to discover and understand the workings of the Divine Consciousness-Puissance in man and creatures and things and forces… to enter into the ways of the Divine and his processes, to know the materials and means for the work given to us so that we may use that knowledge for a conscious and faultless expression of the spirit’s mastery, joy and self-fulfilment.’⁴ Here are some of the following issues of academic interest: 6a. The root knowledge of the Veda, the Upanishad and the Gita has been identified as a perennial Source for the ultimate human destiny. Our object is not to develop results arrived at by these ancient Shastra, but to uncover some of their principal conclusions which are considered the best initial foundation in resolving the problem of the Divine Life. These old treasures are recognised as our initial capital, the seed Truth and rich Aryan culture that can most advantageously proceed to accumulate the largest gains in our new commerce with the ever-changeless and ever-changing Infinite. 6b. From these hints of old light, assess how the new light of integral Yoga would emerge and old expression has to be replaced to a certain extent by new expressions suited to a present mentality; as dawn succeeds dawn. 6c. Recognised Sri Aurobindo's Essays of the Gita as a book with the message of Strong Spirituality and its Truth is linked with the highest hinted truth of the original text of the Bhagavad Gita . This exercise helps to explore the wisdom that Sri Aurobindo hinted and developed in His four major works, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Life Divine, The Mother and Savitri . To restate, synthesise and integrate the highest truth and self-vision of the above four Shastras , strongly pave the passage clear for the Truth of self-action, new suggestions, new creations and new manifestation in harmony with the Supreme. 6d. Identified the areas of Truth that Sri Aurobindo hinted at but did not develop in The Synthesis of Yoga , and identified the development of these hinted portions from The Life Divine and Savitri. Similarly, the areas of Truth that Sri Aurobindo hinted at and did not develop in The Life Divine are identified and their possible developments were traced in Savitri. Lastly, all that Sri Aurobindo hinted at but never developed during His lifetime were identified and kept as a pending issue for concentration and development. A similar exercise will repeat in exploring The Mother's Agenda and The Mother's Centenary Works . Efforts are made to identify how an Ashram in the twenty-first century can handle the crisis of collective living, how all the inmates can be well informed about every nook and corner of the norms of integral Yoga, dynamise its living force so that crisis of experiment of past collective living will not repeat to the present condition and the Presence of Their new Divinity will wholly possess the entire atmosphere. Then work out how perfection at a single point can spread across the whole earth so that the effect of the highest achievements of individual perfection will not rest satisfied with some intermediate Godhead, no longer confined within the boundary of a small collectivity. All the above issues are not mental ideas, not according to an imposed law of conduct or a constructive thought but Spiritual experience; each of its steps is dictated by an innate Spiritual vision, a comprehensive and exact penetration into the truth of all and the truth of each thing and one can enter inner or higher ranges of Consciousness in order to discover more secrets behind our creation which is an endless process. Sri Aurobindo proposes that for 'this evolutionary miracle'⁴⁰ the central representative of the Divine Centre must have complete union with the Supreme Sachchidananda and the collectivity must have Gnostic Consciousness and the relation between them inside the Divine Centre and with others must be established 'only through the divine consciousness and not through the mental nature.”⁴¹ This will replace the inferior relation of human love of ordinary earth-bound life of the three Gunas . 7) Importance is given here to the Psychic Being which can ‘set the world ablaze with the inner Fire.’¹³ It imposes on life the law of sacrifice on every action and enlarges the smallest action with the sense of the Infinite. We can enter objective action through subjective experience and we know the subjectively objective nature of Supermind only by its brief touch. Partial and fragmentary action is still not disengaged from the lower movement of consciousness and therefore not easily recognisable. The gulf between mind and Supermind has to be bridged by rending¹⁹ the veil between the surface and subliminal part and by ascent and descent of dynamic Consciousness. Through this movement, many closed passages are opened, which are now in us void and mute. And after passing through many linking hierarchies of Consciousness, we can become aware of the Supermind, whose universal action is key to all lesser mysteries and activities. It can also be pursued through intuitive action, which is activated by the passive silence of the Witness Spirit; it compels all things to travel in Ignorance and division towards a yet unrealised Divine goal of unity. Intuition as our first teacher brings those brilliant, rare overhead messages from the Unknown and Reason as our second teacher gives us what profit it can have from the shining intuitive harvest and vision. Intensification of Intuition is the Supramental Force, which has the capacity to prevent all destruction, heal all disease, transform all opposition into mutual help, is supremely positive and creative and provides the opportunity for the largest development in the shortest path and heals the gulf between the World, Self and God and perfects the creation. There are many stations from which The Mother’s work can be pursued and Sri Matriniketan Ashram has chosen either to act from the Psychic or Spiritual or Universal station through imperative vision and revelation, the working and direct intervention of the Supreme Mother Force, with a conviction that all is done for the best, the progress assured, the victory inevitable. In this vision-dependent Ashram , all action is born out of ascending and descending Divine union, fulfilling its own inherent power. Its movement is calm, self-possessed, spontaneous, plastic and a harmonic identity of the truth intimately one with all that is included in its cognition of existence. 8) Integral Yoga can succeed with a twice-born soul if he has 'the true Guide within and without.' ³⁹ If his Psychic and Spiritual being are open, then he can enter direct contact with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo from within and it is identified as an exceptional privilege ³⁵ to have a Spiritual fosterer without. In Sri Matriniketan Ashram, those whose destinies are in the preparatory and formative stage of Sadhana (once-born Soul) and are not yet decreed for Spiritual and higher attainment, they enter indirect contact with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and are not comfortable with the living Spiritual fosterer. Because the predominance of lower nature plays a pivotal role and they are not ready to accept the fact that the foundation of this Yoga is 'truthfulness and virginity'⁴² and they covertly search for a safe passage to satisfy their suppressed desire. Through this search, the gulf between once-born disciple and twice-born Teacher multiplies. In the Spiritual history of earth, this increase of the gulf gave birth to the crucifixion of Lord Christ. So, the Ashram becomes a field of repetition of old history. Until one has not discovered his Psychic being in the heart centre and Spiritual being above the head, for him ‘rest and earthly ease’²⁰ are forbidden. His primary motive is to make Divine realisation²⁵ as one and only aim of life and to obey the Divine through external means in the form of the Guru and adore and worship Him in the Avatar and the Divine Mother. The secondary aim is to extend this effort towards inner obedience to the omnipotent Spirit within and inner adoration and consecration to the Divine within. One feels secure in preserving his separative identity and his obedience to the Central representative of the Ashram is no longer an indispensable part of his sadhana life, whose variation is dependent on his satisfaction of personal will, want and interest and his regard and reverence to her is restricted by subjection to lower Nature. If an individual aspirant Soul's lower Nature is active, then he 'does Nature’s inferior works; he assures the basis for her higher activities; but not to him easily are opened the glories of her second birth.'³³ 9) Integral Yoga further identifies that for a twice-born Soul, a Spiritual Fosterer is indispensable.³⁵ So, the Divine must depute for him a Spiritual fosterer (like King Aswapati in the life of Savitri) or he must trace him out from a distant land (like Satyavan in the life of Savitri). Vedanta insists on following consistently the guidelines to know, be and possess the Divine in thyself first, then in others and 'the heart’s worship given to the Teacher, whether to the divine Teacher within or to the human Master in whom the divine Wisdom is embodied, — for that is the sense of the reverence given to the Guru .'³¹ In Sri Matriniketan Ashram , the destiny of a twice-born Soul is decreed for Spiritual and higher attainment and fulfilment; he approaches the Divine through subjectively-objective Self-discipline, proceeding from essential self-knowledge to the whole cosmic self-knowledge and from the whole integral knowledge to the knowledge of the parts of the objective world. Its primary aim as proposed in Integral Jnana Yoga is to know himself as ‘the Self, the Spirit, the Eternal’¹¹ by drawing back from mind, life and body or as proposed in Savitri , ‘The One he worshipped was within him now’¹⁴ and the concentration on this life and written truth are shifted to concentration on triple time of all life and the Soul in Mind and Heart. Then he has a secondary aim, which is ‘to establish the true relation between this eternal self that we are and the mutable existence and mutable world.’¹¹ Thus, in fulfilling this secondary aim of complete realisation of the Divine in all things and to know Him everywhere equally without distinction, he has identified as to enter voluntary ideal right relation with its Central representative, the virgin Soul Centre, as ‘a child leading children’¹⁵ and a strict obedience to her 'wise and intuitive leading'³⁴ is normal and necessary for harmony of outer Ashram life. For the fulfillment of universalised living and comprehensive harmony, a certain form of reverence, adoration and the right relation is nurtured with its surrounding nature which includes flowers, children, trees, dogs, cows, crows, pigeons and birds as the Self in all Beings, Sarvabhutastha atmanam ;¹⁶ for the full possession of the Transcendence and the most comprehensive harmony, we enter the true relation with the Mother Soul Sri Radha and the Master Soul Sri Krishna within by whose Grace we have found refuge at the Lotus Feet of Their Supramental Incarnation, The Mother and Sri Aurobindo , the Supreme-Mother-Ishwari-Maya-Chit-Shakti is becoming One with the Supreme-Purushottama-Ishwara-Sat-Brahman , descended from the plane of Sachchidananda into the lower world as Paraprakritir Jivabhuta⁵ and Mamaibansa Jivabhuta ,⁶ and extension of this relation as all pervading Brahman in the form of ‘of the Self, by the Self and in the Self’, atmani atmanam atmana⁷ or ‘Living for me, by me, in me they shall live. ’¹² Thus, an effort is made to practice Sri Aurobindo's Teachings rigorously and live a life based on Divine action. To hold together the boundless Mother and limitless Sri Aurobindo in the heart and all other planes of Consciousness are identified as the highest perfection of this endeavour. THEY have chosen and owned Sri Matriniketan Ashram as a field of THEIR direct special Divine transformation work, development of the highest hinted Truth of Integral Yoga, generalisation of Spirituality through Integral Education, on whom we can depend totally for our life, action, thought, feeling, existence and Ananda . OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-72, 2: Savitri-381, 3: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-22, 4: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-142, 5: The Gita-7.5- this passage indicates that the Divine Mother has become the Jiva in the heart, 6: The Gita-15.7- this passage indicates that the Supreme Purushottama has become Jiva in the heart, 7: The Gita-13.24, 8: Savitri-476, 9: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-252, 10: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-58, 11: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-368, 12: Savitri-699, 13: Savitri-597, 14: Savitri-334, 15: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-67, 16: The Gita-6.29, 17: Essays on the Gita/SABCL/Vol-13/P-436, 18: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-637, 19: “His spirit breathed a superhuman air. The imprisoned deity rent its magic fence.” Savitri-82, “Rent man’s horizons into infinity.” Savitri-359, “To rend the veil of the last mysteries.” Savitri-360, “The knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemisphere, is where mind and supermind meet with a veil between them. The rending of the veil is the condition of the divine life in humanity; for by that rending, by the illumining descent of the higher into the nature of the lower being and the forceful ascent of the lower being into the nature of the higher, mind can recover its divine light in the all-comprehending supermind, the soul realise its divine self in the all-possessing all-blissful Ananda, life repossess its divine power on the play of omnipotent Conscious-Force and Matter open to its divine liberty as a form of the divine Existence.” CWSA/21/The Life Divine-279, “An early illumination from above or a rending of the upper velamen can come as an outcome of aspiration or some inner readiness, or it may even come uncalled-for or not called for by any conscious part of the mind, — perhaps by a secret subliminal necessity or by an action or pressure from the higher levels, by something which is felt as the touch of the Divine Being, the touch of the Spirit, — and its results can be exceedingly powerful.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-944, “If it is Thy will it should be so, Thou must rend the last veil and Thy splendour in all its purity must come to transfigure the world!” Prayers And Meditations/p-269/TMCW-1/p-223, 20: “There is no rest for the embodied soul... Forbidding to him rest and earthly ease, Till he has found himself he cannot pause.” Savitri-339, 21: “Outcast from empire of the outer light, Lost to the comradeship of seeing men, He (King Dyumatsena ) sojourns in two solitudes, within And in the solemn rustle of the woods.” Savitri-403, 22: “The truth is not that God moves round the ego as the centre of existence and can be judged by the ego and its view of the dualities, but that the Divine is itself the centre and that the experience of the individual only finds its own true truth when it is known in the terms of the universal and the transcendent.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-59, 23: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-106, 24: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-22, 25: “Only a realisation independent of all outer circumstances, free from all attachment and all understanding, however high, is a true realisation, a valuable realisation. And the only such realisation is to unite with Thee integrally, closely, definitively.” The Mother/Prayers and Meditations-17.07.1914, 26: “I know it would create a furor if I wrote this book! Because any fool could read it like a story and feel perfectly satisfied – and he wouldn’t even notice it taking hold of him inside and changing him.” The Mother’s Agenda-20.12.1961, “The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality…It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.” TMCW/Vol-8/Questions and Answers-1956/p-126, “Above her brows where will and knowledge meet A mighty Voice invaded mortal space. It seemed to come from inaccessible heights And yet was intimate with all the world And knew the meaning of the steps of Time And saw eternal destiny’s changeless scene Filling the far prospect of the cosmic gaze.” Savitri-574, 27: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-565, 28: “We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God’s intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-29, 29: The Mother, The Mother’s Agenda-11/p-346, , “And if you do not want your body to fail you, avoid wasting your energies in useless agitation. Whatever you do, do it in a quiet and composed poise. In peace and silence is the greatest strength.” The Mother’s Agenda-8/p-365, 30: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-50, 31: CWSA-19/Essays of the Gita/p-414-415, 32: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-82 33: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-23 34: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940-941, 35: “The ordinary man who wishes to reach God through knowledge, must undergo an elaborate training. He must begin by becoming absolutely pure , he must cleanse thoroughly his body, his heart and his intellect, he must get himself a new heart and be born again; for only the twice born can understand or teach the Vedas . When he has done this he needs yet four things before he can succeed, (1) the Sruti or recorded revelation, (2) the Sacred Teacher, (3) the practice of Yoga and (4) the Grace of God.” CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-169, "This will be to him his (a Sadhaka of Integral Yoga) exceeding good fortune if he can meet one who has realised or is becoming That which he seeks for and can by opening to it in this vessel of its manifestation himself realise it." Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130, 36: Savitri-237, 37: "I don’t know if it’s our perception that progresses, or if really, as Sri Aurobindo said, "When the supramental Force comes on the earth, there will be a response EVERYWHERE." It seems to me to be that, because these flowers are so, so vibrant, full of life. In the morning I always arrange them (it’s a work that takes me at least three quarters of an hour, there are more than a hundred flowers in different vases that I have to arrange, and to each person I give a special sort of flower – I arrange all that), and in the vases, some flowers say, "Me!" And indeed they are just what I need. They call out to me to say, "Me!" ... But that’s not new, because when I was in Japan, I had a large garden and I had cultivated part of it to grow vegetables; in the morning I would go down to the garden to get the vegetables to be eaten that day, and some of them here, there, there (scattered gesture) would say, "Me! Me! Me!" Like that. So I would go and pick them. They literally called me, they called me...That’s a long time ago, nineteen hundred and ... when was it? It was in 1916-17, so that’s ..." The Mother's Agenda/February 7, 1968, 38: TMCW-15/Words of the Mother-III/p-91, 39: "Two rules alone there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger. One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru, the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga... A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-187, "A strict obedience to the wise and intuitive leading of a Guide is also normal and necessary for all but a few specially gifted seekers.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940-941, "For other paths of sadhana, especially those which like the Gita accept the reality of the individual soul as an “eternal portion” of the Divine or which believe that Bhagavan and the bhakta are both real, the help of the Guru has always been relied upon as an indispensable aid .” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-200, "I am here with thee in thy chariot of battle revealed as the Master of Existence within and without thee and I repeat the absolute assurance, the infallible promise that I will lead thee to myself through and beyond all sorrow and evil. Whatever difficulties and perplexities arise, be sure of this that I am leading thee to a complete divine life in the universal and an immortal existence in the transcendent Spirit.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p- 557, 40: "Another possible conception akin to the religious solution is the guidance of society by men of spiritual attainment, the brotherhood or unity of all in the faith or in the discipline, the spiritualisation of life and society by the taking up of the old machinery of life into such a unification or inventing a new machinery. This too has been attempted before without success; it was the original founding idea of more than one religion: but the human ego and vital nature were too strong for a religious idea working on the mind and by the mind to overcome its resistance. It is only the full emergence of the soul, the full descent of the native light and power of the Spirit and the consequent replacement or transformation and uplifting of our insufficient mental and vital nature by a spiritual and supramental supernature that can effect this evolutionary miracle." CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1096, 41: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-210-11, 42: “(Q:) I have been here for one and a half years but I know nothing of the sadhana. I meditate, but nothing happens in the meditation. I feel there is no love in me towards the Mother. What shall I do to feel this love? (Ans.) Become truthful, pure, sincere, straightforward.”Sri Aurobindo/1 July 1935/ CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother/p-462, 43: The Mother's Agenda/25th October 1967/19th April 1969, 44: Savitri-237, 45: Savitri-370, 46: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-160, 47: “The ancient Aryans knew that man was not separate from the universe, but only a homogeneous part of it, as a wave is part of the ocean. An infinite energy, Prakriti, Maya or Shakti, pervades the world, pours itself into every name and form, and the clod, the plant, the insect, the animal, the man are, in their phenomenal existence, merely more or less efficient adharas of this Energy. We are each of us a dynamo into which waves of that energy have been generated and stored, and are being perpetually conserved, used up and replenished. The same force which moves in the star and the planet, moves in us, and all our thought and action are merely its play and born of the complexity of its functionings. There are processes by which man can increase his capacity as an adhara. There are other processes by which he can clear of obstructions the channel of communication between himself and the universal energy and bring greater and greater stores of it pouring into his soul and brain and body. This continual improvement of the adhara and increase in quantity and complexity of action of the informing energy, is the whole aim of evolution. When that energy is the highest in kind and the fullest in amount of which the human adhara is capable, and the adhara itself is trained utterly to bear the inrush and play of the energy, then is a man siddha, the fulfilled or perfect man, his evolution is over and he has completed in the individual that utmost development which the mass of humanity is labouring towards through the ages.” CWSA-1/Early Cultural Writings/p-370 48: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-45, 49: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-104, Download this WEB PAGE in PDF format: FLOWER DECORATION, SRI MATRI DHYANA MANDIR “Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistakable terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed. Grant that we may be worthy of this marvellous Presence and that henceforth every- thing in us be concentrated on the one will to be more and more perfectly consecrated to the fulfilment of Thy sublime Work." The Mother The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-13/p-6 THE MOTHER'S RELICS & PADUKA "The goal of Yoga is always hard to reach, but this one (integral Yoga) is more difficult than any other, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness to face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to progress towards an entire selflessness, desirelessness and surrender." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-27 THE WORLD HINDU SUMMIT-II “I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a religion, a faith; I say that it is the Sanatana Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatana Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatana Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatana Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatana Dharma it would perish.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-8/Karmayogin/p-11-12 (The message is from Sri K. Anurakta, our Spiritual Guide) 15.08.2006 THE MOTHER AND SRI AUROBINDO’S VERY SPECIAL LOVE LIGHT, BLISS AND BLESSINGS TO THE MOTHER’S INTERNATIONAL CENTRE TRUST SRI MATRINIKETAN ASHRAM FOR ALL SINCERE AND DEDICATED, TRUE AND ILLUMINED WORK THAT IS BEING DONE FOR THE WORK OF THE MOTHER AND SRI AUROBINDO IN THE PHYSICAL, VITAL AND SPIRITUAL INNER CONSCIOUSNESS. THIS DEDICATION IS WONDERFULLY IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE. “We are here in the Ashram to do this work together with the help of Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge and force, in an attempt to realise a community that is more harmonious, more united, and consequently much more effective in life.” The Mother TMCW/12/On Education/p-355

Integral Bhakti Yoga “ The Path of Devotion aims at the enjoyment of the supreme Love and Bliss and utilises normally the conception of the supreme Lord in His personality as the divine Lover and enjoyer of the universe. The world is then realised as a play of the Lord, with our human life as its final stage, pursued through the different phases of self-concealment and self-revelation. The principle of Bhakti Yoga is to utilise all the normal relations of human life into which emotion enters and apply them no longer to transient worldly relations, but to the joy of the All-Loving, the All-Beautiful and the All-Blissful. Worship and meditation are used only for the preparation and increase of intensity of the divine relationship. And this Yoga is catholic in its use of all emotional relations, so that even enmity and opposition to God, considered as an intense, impatient and perverse form of Love, is conceived as a possible means of realisation and salvation. This path (of traditional Bhakti Yoga), too, as ordinarily practised, leads away from world-existence to an absorption, of another kind than the Monist’s, in the Transcendent and Supra-cosmic.... But, here (in integral Yoga) too, the exclusive result is not inevitable. The Yoga itself provides a first corrective by not confining the play of divine love to the relation between the supreme Soul and the individual, but extending it to a common feeling and mutual worship between the devotees themselves united in the same realisation of the supreme Love and Bliss. It provides a yet more general corrective in the realisation of the divine object of Love in all beings not only human but animal, easily extended to all forms whatsoever. We can see how this larger application of the Yoga of Devotion may be so used as to lead to the elevation of the whole range of human emotion, sensation and aesthetic perception to the divine level, its spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards love and joy in our humanity. " Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-39 The Injunction issued to the Seekers of integral Yoga of Devotion: “Wherever love and light and largeness lack, These crooked fashioners take up their task.” Savitri-153 "Her eternal Lover is her action’s cause;... Her will is to shut God into her works And keep him as her cherished prisoner That never they may part again in Time.” Savitri-181-182 “Wrong could not come where all was light and love.” Savitri-314 “In the kingdom of the lotus of the heart Love chanting its pure hymeneal hymn Made life and body mirrors of sacred joy And all the emotions gave themselves to God.” Savitri-529 “Love’s golden wings have power to fan thy void: The eyes of love gaze starlike through death’s night, The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds. He labours in the depths, exults on the heights; He shall remake thy universe, O Death.” Savitri-592 “One who came love and lover and beloved Eternal, built himself a wondrous field And wove the measures of a marvellous dance.” Savitri-613 “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.” Savitri-614 “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-633 “If our souls could see and love and clasp God’s Truth, Its infinite radiance would seize our hearts, Our being in God’s image be remade And earthly life become the life divine.” Savitri-663 “Three are the words that sum up the first state of the Yoga of devotion, faith, worship, obedience. Three are the words that sum up the second state of the Yoga of devotion, adoration, delight, self-giving. Three are the words that sum up the supreme state of the Yoga of devotion, love, ecstasy, surrender.”⁵⁸ Sri Aurobindo The integral Bhakti Yoga is the extensive extension of the Gita’s teachings of traditional Bhakti Yoga. It points out that a developing Soul’s adoration of personal Divine will deform the catholicity of Spirituality into a narrow religion.³⁶ So, as a corrective measure, a developing Soul must give more importance to Divine’s impersonal Form³⁵ than the adoration of His personal manifestation. As the Soul develops and he becomes the adult Soul, then he can adore and enter contact with the Divine’s seven-fold personal relation, which is for him more important³⁷ than the relation with the Divine’s impersonal Form. Thus, the Spiritual value of integral Yoga is secured from entry into Religion’s clutch, which makes the evolution slow and tardy. 1) All Life is Yoga of Nature through Love. ‘All life turned into this cult of love, all actions done in the love of the Divine and in the love of the world and its creatures seen and felt as the Divine manifested in many disguises become by that very fact part of an integral Yoga.’²⁷ The three stages through which all life is transformed are; firstly, the Integral Bhakti Yoga turns all transient worldly normal emotional relation of human life into the joy of the All-Loving, the All-Beautiful and the All-Blissful. Worship, prayer and meditation are used only for the preparation and increase of intensity of the divine relationship. Integral Bhakti Yoga is catholic in its use of all emotional relations, so that even enmity and opposition to God, considered as an intense, impatient and perverse form of Love, is conceived as a possible means of realisation and salvation. ‘It is for this reason that the worship of god, the worship of idol, the human magnet or ideal are not to be despised; for these are steps through which the human race moves towards that blissful passion and ecstasy of the Infinite which, even in limiting it, they yet represent for our imperfect vision when we have still to use the inferior steps Nature has hewn for our feet and admit the stages of our progress. Certain idolatries are even indispensable for development of our emotional being; the man who knows be hasty at any time to shatter the images unless he can replace it in the heart of the worshipper by the Reality it figures.’²⁸ Secondly , Integral Bhakti Yoga recommends development of seven fold Divine personalities during its contact and active personal relation with the Divine as All Friend and All Master of Integral Karma Yoga , All Guru of Integral Jnana Yoga , All Father or Paramatma or Prajapati Brahma of Integral Vedantic teaching, All Mother or Para-Shakti of Integral Tantric Yoga , All Playmate and All Lover of Integral Bhakti Yoga . Thirdly , All Love, Human and Divine, has Spiritual force veiled and revealed respectively. It is an adoration offered initially to a limited and ignorant object and form and culminates in an all-inclusive and all-embracing Integral Divine. Human love is defined as the entry into exclusive enjoyment by entire separation from World, Self and God. This love begins with the craving of the flesh and when it tries to become Divine through complete self-giving, it culminates with the realisation of one Soul in two bodies (Spiritual realisation) and rapturous fusing of two Souls into one body (Psychic realisation). The Divine love is defined as entry into the same exclusive enjoyment without separation from World, Self and God. It begins with the realisation where human love ends and culminates with the realisation of all Souls in one body and realisation of all bodies in one Soul. The former is realised through Vedic sacrifice of adoration and consecration of all as the becoming of the Divine and the latter is realised through Vedantic sacrifice of adoration and consecration of all as the Being of the Divine. In Supramental Consciousness, the object of all emotion would be fully satisfied by embracing all contact of human relations in a purified flame Force. 2) Bhaktya mamvijanati jaban jaschasmi tatwatah, (The Gita-18.55) by devotion, he comes to know Me, who and how much I am in all reality and principles of My being. Bhakti is that which regards, adores, loves the Divine alone in all things, by that Bhakti He can be known, seen, and ever entered into. The Gita further confirms that of all Yogin, he who with all his inner self given up to Me, for Me has love and faith, him I hold to be the most united with Me in Yoga . Integral Bhakti is considered as the greatest power of Integral Yoga, which is the crown of Integral Karma Yoga and the flowering of the Integral Jnana Yoga. 3) The traditional Bhakti Yoga leads away from world-existence to an absorption in the Transcendent and Supra-cosmic. The path of Integral Bhakti Yoga aims at the enjoyment of the supreme Love and Bliss and utilises normally the conception of the supreme Lord in His personality as the divine Lover and enjoyer of the universe. The world is then realised as a playfield of the Lord, with our human life as its final stage, pursued through the different phases of self-concealment and self-revelation. This larger application of Yoga of Devotion may be so used as to lead to the elevation of the whole range of human emotion, sensation and aesthetic perception to the Divine level, its Spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards love and joy in our humanity. As in the other Yogas, so in integral Yoga, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all one’s inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported by the primary force of emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the Spirit and its members. 4) So, the method with which Bhakti Yoga can begin is simple and straightforward, which is always a seeking after the Divine, a longing after some kind of touch, closeness or possession. When this comes upon us, the adoration becomes always primarily an inner worship; we begin to make ourselves a temple of the Divine, our thoughts and feelings a constant prayer of aspiration and a seeking, our whole life an external service and inner worship. It is with this change, this new soul tendency grows, ‘that the religion of the devotee becomes Yoga, a growing contact and union. It does not follow that outward worship will necessarily be dispensed with, but it will increasingly become only a physical expression or outflowing of the inner devotion and adoration, the wave of the Soul throwing itself out in speech and symbolic act.’⁴² ‘Therefore that there may be at all any possibility of a Yoga of devotion, we must assume first (first method of Yoga of Integral Bhakti) that the supreme Existence is not an abstraction or a state of existence, but a conscious Being; secondly, that he meets us in the universe and is in some way immanent in it as well as its source,--otherwise, we should have to go out of cosmic life to meet him; thirdly , he is capable of personal relations with us and must therefore be not incapable of personality; finally, that when we approach him by our human emotions, we receive a response in kind.’²⁹ ‘The more intimate yoga of Bhakti resolves itself simply into these four movements, (first) the desire of the Soul when it turns towards God and the straining of its emotion towards him, (second) the pain of love and the divine return of love, (third ) the delight of love possessed and the play of that delight, (fourth) and the eternal enjoyment of the divine Lover which is the heart of celestial bliss.’³⁰ ‘There are supposed by those who systematise to be three stages of seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the Divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly , the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality; thirdly , the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation.’³¹ 5) ‘The way of the integral Yoga of Bhakti will be to universalise this conception of the Deity, to personalise him intimately by a multiple and an all-embracing relation, to make Him constantly present to all the being and to devote, give up, surrender the whole being to Him, so that He shall dwell near to us and in us and we with Him and in Him. Manana and darsana , a constant thinking of Him in all things and seeing of Him always and everywhere is essential to this way of devotion.’³² ‘On the contrary, the sadhaka of the integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception, seen his own Ishta Devata in all others, unified all Avatars in the unity of Him who descends in the Avatara , welded the truth in all teachings into the harmony of the Eternal Wisdom.’² ⁶ ‘We may keep even our relation with the personal Deity in His forms and names; if for instance, our work is predominantly a work of Love it is as the Lord of Love that we can seek to serve and express Him, but we shall have at the same time an integral realisation of Him in all His names and forms and qualities and not mistake the front of Him which is prominent in our attitude to the world for all the infinite Godhead.’³³ 6) "Adoration fulfilled in love, love in Ananda, the surpassing love, the self-wrapped ecstasy of transcendent delight in the Transcendent which awaits us at the end of the path of Devotion, — has for its wider result a universal love for all beings, the Ananda of all that is; we perceive behind every veil the Divine, spiritually embrace in all forms the All-Beautiful. A universal delight in his endless manifestation flows through us, taking in its surge every form and movement, but not bound or stationary in any and always reaching out to a greater and more perfect expression. This universal love is liberative and dynamic for transformation; for the discord of forms and appearances ceases to affect the heart that has felt the one Truth behind them all and understood their perfect significance. The impartial equality of soul of the selfless worker and knower is transformed by the magic touch of divine Love into an all-embracing ecstasy and million-bodied beatitude. All things become bodies and all movements the playings of the divine Beloved in his infinite house of pleasure. Even pain is changed and in their reaction and even in their essence things painful alter; the forms of pain fall away, there are created in their place the forms of Ananda ."⁸⁹ 7) ""Love is the power and passion of the divine self-delight and without love we may get the rapt peace of its infinity, the absorbed silence of the Ananda , but not its absolute depth of richness and fullness. Love leads us from the suffering of division into the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that joy of the act of union which is the soul’s greatest discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a long preparation. Therefore to approach God by love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment. " ⁹⁰ 8) How integral Bhakti Yoga is different from traditional Bhakti Yoga is observed from Sri Aurobindo's following letter, “Revolt and impatience mean always that there is a part of the being or something in the being which does not submit, has not given itself to God, but insists on God going out of his way to obey it. That may be very well in the Bhakti-marga , but it will not do on this Way (means here in integral Yoga). The revolt and impatience may come and will come in the heart or the prana when these are still subject to imperfection and impurity; but it is then for the will and the faith in your buddhi to reject them, not to act upon them . If the will consents, approves and supports them, it means that you are siding with the inner enemy . If you want rapid progress, the first condition is that you should not do this ; for every time you do it, the enemy is strengthened and the shuddhi postponed.” CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-229, Recapitulation: “Or from the gold eye of her paramour” Savitri-349 “An incense floated in the quivering air, A mystic happiness trembled in the breast As if the invisible Beloved had come Assuming the sudden loveliness of a face And close glad hands could seize his fugitive feet And the world change with the beauty of a smile.” Savitri-290 “Our error crucifies Reality To force its (Reality’s) birth and divine body here, Compelling, incarnate in a human form (the Avatara) And breathing in limbs that one can touch and clasp, Its Knowledge to rescue an ancient Ignorance, Its saviour light the inconscient universe.” Savitri-170-71 “The Lover winds around his play mate’s limb, Choosing his (Spirit’s) tyranny, crushed in his embrace? To seize him better with her (Matter’s) boundless heart She (Matter) accepts the limiting circle of his (Spirit’s) arms, Bows full of bliss beneath his mastering hands And laughs in his rich constraints, most bound, most free.” Savitri-653 “To bring the Divine Love and Beauty and Ananda into the world is, indeed, the whole crown and essence of our Yoga. But it has always seemed to me impossible unless there comes as its support and foundation and guard the Divine Truth — what I call the Supramental — and its Divine Power.”⁵⁹ Sri Aurobindo “By Bhakti as by knowledge, as the Gita tells us, we arrive at unity with the Purushottama , the Supreme who contains in himself the impersonal and numberless personalities, the qualitiless and infinite qualities, pure being, consciousness and delight and the endless play of their relations.”⁶ ⁵ Sri Aurobindo In the traditional Bhakti Yoga , the relation between the Lover and the Beloved is considered closest of all relationships and it proceeds through different stages that are Sangsaya , fear of loss of love leading one to state of doubt, Viraha , sorrow of separation Abhimana, anger and jealousy of separation, Bichheda , the state of complete separation, Vyakulata , passion to reunite again and the end is Milana , complete union. The means through which the love is activated are: - Sammohona , attraction, Uchhatana , excitation Sosana , possession, Vikhyovana , disappointment and Dahana, burning sensation. Fear, doubt, anger, jealousy, grief, dissatisfaction and passion are the vital impurities. Integral Yoga rejects the vital being’s union with the Divine through the above-mentioned means as there is a danger of inrush of the lower nature and unpurified emotions; rather it experiences the same Divine union by directing purified emotions through the gate of the Psychic being which is a flowering of joy, union, confidence, self-giving and Ananda or one gets impersonal Spiritual Love by rejecting the personal egoistic limitations. The fundamental difference between the exclusive love of the traditional Bhakti Yoga and the comprehensive love of the integral Yoga is that in the former, the Divine union begins from vital sheath by turning vital emotions towards the Divine to arrive at Psychic (as that of Sri Chaitanya ) and Spiritual union (as that of Sri Krishna) ; whereas the latter aims at constant union and control of Divine at every moment in all the ten sheaths and Divine union in the mental, vital and physical sheaths are perfected by the pressure of Psychic, Spiritual, Universal and Supramental Love. Love, Psychicised and Spritualised, necessarily offers a twofold fulfillment; the lover and Beloved enjoy their infinite variety of Divine union in difference and they throw themselves finally into an absolute and intense ecstasy of divine Oneness. The sense of this Oneness paves the passage of discovery of the Supramental. The prolongation of this ascending union and oneness establishes the Supramental concentration. When the Supramental concentration is established, the personal relation with the Divine is utterly satisfied and the Divine Beloved lives permanently with His visible material vibration. That is the experience of constant union and highest union, milana, with the Divine Beloved. A traditional Bhakti Yogi is considered great when he reconciles his devotion with sacrificial action and realises the Kshara Purusha or the Psychic being in the heart. A Greater Bhakti Yogi reconciles his devotion of the personal Godhead with the Impersonal Godhead of Jnana Yoga and realises Akshara Purusha or Spiritual Being in addition to the earlier realisation of Kshara Purusha . The greatest Bhakti Yogi realises Kshara and Akshara Purusha’s union with the Purushottama , who finally consents to live in the heart, which is also the dual meeting ground of Uttama Purusha and Para Prakriti . The realisation of this dual Godhead in the heart is the beginning of realisation of the Bliss Self, which is beyond the Supramental action on earth. An integral Bhakti Yogi will direct the Supramental energy dynamised due to his relatively stronger part of Divine Love, Beauty and Delight towards relatively weaker parts of his untransformed volitional and intellectual Nature. His consciousness will move between the triple fire of Kshara, Akshara and Purushottama Consciousness and the heart will be the centre of these triple actions. OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-375, 2: “Among the virtuous ones who turn towards Me (the Divine) with devotion, O Arjuna, there are four kinds of bhaktas , the suffering, the seeker for good in the world, the seeker for knowledge, and those who adore Me with knowledge, O Lord of the Bharatas . Of those the knower, who is ever in constant union with the Divine, whose bhakti is all concentrated on Him, is the best, he loves Me perfectly and is My beloved.” The Gita-7.16, 17, “The Gita distinguishes between three initial kinds of Bhakti, that which seeks refuge in the Divine from the sorrows of the world, arta, that which, desiring, approaches the Divine as the giver of its good, artharthı, and that which attracted by what it already loves, but does not yet know, yearns to know this divine Unknown, jijnasu ; but it gives the palm to the Bhakti that knows. Evidently the intensity of passion which says, “I do not understand, I love,” and, loving, cares not to understand, is not love’s last self-expression, but its first, nor is it its highest intensity.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-550, 3: The Gita-2.4, 4: The Gita-2.45, 5: The Gita-7.20, 6: The Gita-7.20 to 7.25, 7: “Even those who sacrifice to other godheads with devotion and faith, they also sacrifice to Me, O son of Kunti, though not according to the true law, avidhipurbakam.” The Gita-9.23, “Men are led away by various outer desires which take from them the working of the inner knowledge, they resort to other godheads and they set up this or that rule, which satisfies the need of their nature.” The Gita-7.20, “The sacrifice not performed according to the right rule of the Shastra , vidhi-hina , without giving of food, without the mantra , without gifts, empty of faith, is said to be tamasic .” The Gita-17.13, 8: The Gita-4.34, 9: The Gita-13.8, 10: The Gita-17.24, 11: The Gita-8.13, 12: The Gita-17.14, 13: “For the seeker of the integral Yoga… will meet him (the Divine) in the faces of the Gods, his cosmic personalities supporting the World-Play, detect him behind the mask of the Vibhutis, embodied World-Forces or human Leaders, reverence and obey him in the Guru, worship him in the Avatar.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130, 14: “When I knew nothing, then I abhorred the criminal, sinful and impure, being myself full of crime, sin and impurity; but when I was cleansed and my eyes unsealed, then I bowed down in my spirit before the thief and murderer and adored the feet of the harlot; for I saw that these souls had accepted the terrible burden of evil and drained for all of us the greater portion of the churned poison of the world-ocean.” Sir Aurobindo, SABCL/17/The Hour of God-94-95. This statement of Sri Aurobindo is a restatement from the following words of the Gita and Essays on the Gita, “Those who take refuge in Me, O Partha, be they out-castes, born from the womb of sin (even a man of very evil conduct, The Gita-9.30), women, Vaisysas , even Shudras, they also attain to the highest Goal.” The Gita-9.32. “A divine compassion for the ignorance of the struggling mind, a divine will to pour forth on it all light and power and happiness there will be, indeed, for the apparent man; but for the divine Soul within him there will be more, there will be adoration and love. For from all, from the thief and the harlot and the outcaste as from the saint and the sage, the Beloved looks forth and cries to us, “This is I.” “He who loves Me in all beings,” — what greater word of power for the utmost intensities and profundities of divine and universal love, has been uttered by any philosophy or any religion?” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-208. “If Narayana is without difficulty visible in the sage and the saint, how shall he be easily visible to us in the sinner, the criminal, the harlot and the outcaste?” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-359, (Thus equal adoration of all, is the condition of becoming the greatest Yogi.) 15: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1022, 16: The Gita-8.7, 17: The Gita-17.4, 18: The Gita-9.29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 19: The Gita-11.48, 53, 54, 20: The Gita-8.28, 21: The Gita-14.26, 22: The Gita-18.54, 55, 23: The Gita-4.11, 7.21, 22, 23, 24: The Gita-6.32, 25: “Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit. Whoever turns from it in the weakness of his lower members, as did Arjuna in the beginning, — therefore was his shrinking condemned as a small and false pity, an inglorious, an un-Aryan and unheavenly feebleness of heart and impotence of spirit, klaibyam, ksudram hridaya-daurbalyam, — is showing not true virtue, but a want of spiritual courage to face the sterner truths of Nature and of action and existence. Man can only exceed the law of battle by discovering the greater law of his immortality.” CSWA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-384-85, 26: “On the contrary, the sadhaka of integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception, seen his own Ishta Devata in all others, unified all Avatars in the unity of Him who descends in the Avatar, welded the truth in all teachings into the harmony of the Eternal Wisdom.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-66, 27: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-165, 28: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-159, 29: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-557, 30: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-571, 31: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-574, 32: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-601, 33: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-382, 34: The Gita-3.3, 35: “The Divinity mentioned by Sri Aurobindo is NOT A PERSON, but a condition to be shared and lived by all those who prepare themselves for it.” The Mother’s Agenda-4th May-1967, “Petty minds think of Me, the unmanifest, as being limited by manifestation, because they know not my supreme nature of being, imperishable, most perfect.” The Gita-7.24, 36: “Buddhism only became a popular religion when Buddha had taken the place of the supreme Deity as an object of worship.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-556, “I don’t want to put a photo of Sri Aurobindo or books (in Auroville) because it will look as if we want to start a new religion—I don’t want religions, an end to religions!” The Mother’s Agenda-9/110, “I am told that you (in Auroville) intend to distribute a reproduction of the portrait you did of me. It would be better not to introduce in this gathering anything personal that might suggest the atmosphere of nascent religion.” The Mother’s Agenda-11/353 37: “The Blessed Lord said those who are constantly most united, nityayukta , with Me and adore My manifest form, Saguna Brahman , emotional mind settled in Me and possessed of supreme faith of Bhakti Yoga, I consider them to be the greatest Yogi. And those Jnana Yogis, who seek after the Immutable, the Infinite, the Unmanifest, Nirguna Brahman, the Omnipresent, the Unthinkable, the high-seated Self, the Immobile, the Permanent, all their senses under control, equal visioned everywhere, intent on welfare of all beings, they also attain to My Purushottama state.” The Gita-12.2, 3, 4, “Discipleship to God the Teacher, sonship to God the Father, tenderness of God the Mother, clasp of the hand of the divine Friend, laughter and sport with our comrade and boy-Play-fellow, blissful servitude to God the Master, rapturous love of our divine Paramour, these are seven beatitudes of life in the human body. Canst thou unite all these in a single supreme and rainbow-hued relation? Then hast thou no need of any heaven and thou exceedest the emancipation of the Adwaitin.” SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-137. (Above line indicates that a seven-fold personal relation with the Divine in Supramental plane is more valuable than the realisation of impersonal Divine in the Spiritual plane of the Adwaitin.) 38: The Gita-3.15, 39: ““Of those the knower, who is ever in constant union with the Divine, nitya Yukta, whose bhakti is all concentrated on Him, is the best, he loves Me perfectly and is My beloved.” The Gita-7.17, “He who continually remembers Me, thinking of none else, the Yogin, O Partha, who is in constant union with Me, finds Me easy to attain.” The Gita-8.14, “Always adoring Me, steadfast in spiritual endeavour, bowing down to Me with devotion, they worship Me ever in Yoga.” The Gita-9.14, “To those men who worship Me making Me alone the whole object of their thought, to those constantly in Yoga with Me, I spontaneously bring all types of inner and outer opulence.” The Gita-9.22, “The Lord said: Those who found their mind in Me and by constant union, possessed of a supreme faith, seek after Me, I hold to be the most perfectly in union of Yoga.” The Gita-12.2, “Let the Yogin practice continually union with the Self (so that that may become his normal consciousness) sitting apart and alone, with all desire and idea of possession banished from his mind, self-controlled in his whole being and consciousness.” The Gita-6.10, “Ultimately, nothing but omnipotence could convert the world, convince the world. The world isn't ready to experience supreme Love. Supreme Love eliminates all problems, even the problem of creation: there are no more problems, I know it since that experience [of April 13, 1962]. But the world isn't ready yet, it may take a few thousand years. Although it is beginning to be ready for the manifestation of supreme Power (which seems to indicate that this will manifest first). And this supreme Power would result from a CONSTANT identification…But this "constancy" isn't yet established: one is identified and then one isn't, is and then isn't, so things get delayed indefinitely. You wind up doing exactly what you tell others not to do – one foot here and one foot there! It just won't do.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-04.07.1962, 40: “But you need not be distressed when the pramada comes and the state of fall or clouded condition seems to persist, for there is no fear for you of a permanent fall since God himself has taken entire charge of you and if you stumble, it is because it is best for you to stumble, as a child by frequent stumbling and falling learns to walk. The necessity of apramattata disappears when you can replace the memory of the yoga and its objects by the continual remembrance of God in all things and happenings, the nitya anusmaran.a of the Gita. For those who can make the full surrender from the beginning there is no question; their path is utterly swift and easy.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga-p-86-87, “There fore at all times remember me and fight; for if thy mind and thy understanding are always fixed on and given up to Me, to Me thou shalt surely come.” The Gita-8.7, “All the doors of the senses closed, the mind shut in into the heart, the life-force taken up out of its diffused movement into the head, the intelligence concentrated in the utterance of the sacred syllable OM and its conceptive thought in the remembrance of the supreme Godhead, he who goes forth, abandoning the body, he attains to the highest status.” The Gita-8.12, 13, “He who continually remembers Me, nitya smarati, thinking of none else, the Yogin, O Partha, who is in constant union with Me, finds Me easy to attain.” The Gita-8.14, “Repeat my name whenever you have little time to spare…” The Mother, “It is by the constant remembrance that the being is prepared for the full opening. By the opening of the heart the Mother’s presence begins to be felt and by the opening to her Power above the Force of the higher consciousness comes down into the body and works there to change the whole nature.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-167 41: “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, 42: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-572, 43: “We see in the teaching of the Gita how subtle a thing is the freedom from egoism which is demanded. Arjuna is driven to fight by the egoism of strength, the egoism of the Kshatriya; he is turned from the battle by the contrary egoism of weakness, the shrinking, the spirit of disgust, the false pity that overcomes the mind, the nervous being and the senses, — not that divine compassion which strengthens the arm and clarifies the knowledge. But this weakness comes garbed as renunciation, as virtue: “Better the life of the beggar than to taste these blood-stained enjoyments; I desire not the rule of all the earth, no, nor the kingdom of the gods.” How foolish of the Teacher, we might say, not to confirm this mood, to lose this sublime chance of adding one more great soul to the army of Sannyasins, one more shining example before the world of a holy renunciation. But the Guide sees otherwise, the Guide who is not to be deceived by words; “This is weakness and delusion and egoism that speak in thee. Behold the Self, open thy eyes to the knowledge, purify thy soul of egoism.” And afterwards? “Fight, conquer, enjoy a wealthy kingdom.”” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-331-332, “As a result he turns towards renunciation. Better the life of the mendicant living upon alms than this dharma of the Kshatriya, this battle and action culminating in undiscriminating massacre, this principle of mastery and glory and power which can only be won by destruction and bloodshed, this conquest of blood-stained enjoyments, this vindication of justice and right by a means which contradicts all righteousness and this affirmation of the social law by a war which destroys in its process and result all that constitutes society.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-55, “Better to live in this world even on alms than to slay these high-souled Gurus. Slaying these Gurus, I should taste of blood-stained enjoyments even in this world.” The Gita-2.5, 44: “...that is the Japa I do now—I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time.’ The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-4/p-131, “He who continually remembers Me, thinking of none else, the Yogin. O Partha, who is in constant union with Me, finds Me easy to attain.” The Gita-8.14, 45: The Gita-5.3, 46: The Gita-2.45, 47: “There is not an entity, either on the earth or again in heaven among the gods, that is not subject to the workings of these three qualities (Gunas), born of nature.” The Gita-18.40, (This statement is not applicable to Avataras, janma karama cha me divyam.), 48: “The psychic and the spiritual opening with their experiences and consequences can lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-943, 49: “A dual Power at being’s occult poles Still acted, nameless and invisible: Her divine emptiness was their instrument.” Savitri-553 “He (Divine) dwells in me (Savitri), the mover of my acts, Turning the great wheel of his cosmic work. I am the living body of his light, I am the thinking instrument of his power, I incarnate Wisdom in an earthly breast, I am his conquering and unslayable will. The formless Spirit drew in me its shape; In me are the Nameless and the secret Name.” Savitri-634, “One man who earnestly pursues the Yoga is of more value than a thousand well-known men.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-35/Letters on Himself And The Ashram/p-691, "Therefore, besides the great solitaries who have sought and attained their self-liberation, we have the great spiritual teachers who have also liberated others and, supreme of all, the great dynamic souls who, feeling themselves stronger in the might of the Spirit than all the forces of the material life banded together, have thrown themselves upon the world, grappled with it in a loving wrestle and striven to compel its consent to its own transfiguration." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-27 50: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940-941, 51: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-116, 52: The Gita-18.62, 53: The Gita-17.18, 54: CWSA-24/ The Synthesis of Yoga/p-776, 55: “What X quotes about the limitation of the power of the Guru to that of a teacher who shows the way but cannot help or guide is the conception of certain paths of Yoga such as the pure Adwaitin and the Buddhist which say that you must rely upon yourself and no one can help you; but even the pure Adwaitin does in fact rely upon the Guru and the chief mantra of Buddhism insists on s´aran.am to Buddha. For other paths of sadhana, especially those which like the Gita accept the reality of the individual soul as an “eternal portion” of the Divine or which believe that Bhagavan and the bhakta are both real, the help of the Guru has always been relied upon as an indispensable aid.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-200, 56: The Mother’s Agenda- 18.04.1961, The Mother’s Agenda-4/p-131, 57: TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-219, 58: CWSA-12/Essays Human and Divine/p-348, 59: CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-837, CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-333, 60: “In fact, the creative Consciousness-Force in our earth existence has to lead forward, in an almost simultaneous process but with a considerable priority and greater stress of the inferior element, a double evolution. There is an evolution of our outward nature, the nature of the mental being in the life and body, and there is within it, pressing forward for self-revelation because with the emergence of mind that revelation is becoming possible, a preparation at least, even the beginning of an evolution of our inner being, our occult subliminal and spiritual nature... But if her intention is a comprehensive change of the being, this double evolution is intelligible and justifies itself; for it is for that purpose indispensable.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-890, “There is a state of being experienced in Yoga in which we become a double consciousness, one on the surface, small, active, ignorant, swayed by thoughts and feelings, grief and joy and all kinds of reactions, the other within calm, vast, equal, observing the surface being with an immovable detachment or indulgence or, it may be, acting upon its agitation to quiet, enlarge, transform it.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-360, “Or, again, we can posit a double consciousness of Brahman the Reality, one static and one dynamic, one essential and spiritual in which it is Self perfect and absolute, another formative, pragmatic, in which it becomes not-self and with which its absoluteness and perfection have no concern of participation; for it is only a temporal formation in the timeless Reality.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-415 61: The Mother’s Agenda-07.07.1961, 62: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-13, 63: “Thus awakening by the understandings to the Highest which is beyond even the discerning mind, putting force on the self by the self to make it firm and still, slay thou, O mighty-armed, this enemy in the form of desire, who is so hard to assail.” The Gita-3.43, 64: “This is a difficult lesson to learn, but you must learn it. I do not find fault with you for taking long over it, I myself took full twelve years to learn it thoroughly, and even after I knew the principle well enough, it took me quite four years and more to master my lower nature in this respect. But you have the advantage of my experience and my help; you will be able to do it more rapidly, if you consciously and fully assist me, by not associating yourself with the enemy Desire; jahi kaˆmam duraˆsadam, remember that utterance of the Gita, it is a keyword of our Yoga.” CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-229, 65: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-550, 66: “What then are the lines of Karmayoga laid down by the Gita? Its key principle, its spiritual method, can be summed up as the union of two largest and highest states or powers of consciousness, equality and oneness. The kernel of its method is an unreserved acceptance of the Divine in our life as in our inner self and spirit. An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine, supports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us oneness. But this must be a oneness in dynamic force and not only in static peace or inactive beatitude.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-95, (oneness in dynamic force is seen in Savitri, where Paraprakriti Savitri’s Viswarupa became active and her Light and Fire partially possessed Death. (“His body was eaten by light, his spirit devoured.” Savitri-667) In the Gita, Arjuna only saw the Viswarupa of the Lord but its Light ad flame did not possess Arjuna.) 67: The Gita-6.31, 68: “On Me repose all thy mind and lodge all thy understanding in Me; doubt not that thou shalt dwell in Me, mayi nivasisyasi, above this mortal existence.” The Gita-12.8, 69: “For there is a caste of the soul which is truer and deeper than that of the body. Through four soul-stages a man must pass before he can be perfect; first, as a Sudra, by service and obedience to tame the brute in his being; then, as a Vaishya to satisfy within the law of morality the lower man in him and evolve the higher man by getting the first taste of delight in well-doing to others than himself and his; then, as the Kshatriya, to be trained in those first qualities without which the pursuit of the Eternal is impossible, courage, strength, unconquerable tenacity and self-devotion to a great task; last, as the Brahmin, so to purify body & mind and nature that he may see the Eternal reflected in himself as in an unsoiled mirror. Having once seen God, man can have no farther object in life than to reach and possess Him.” CWSA-17/Isha Upanishad/p-195-196, 70: “Satyakama must have known perfectly well that he was the illegitimate son of a serving woman, but he wished to know his father’s name and gotra because he would have to tell it to his guru. Even after knowing the worst, he persisted in his intention of taking up spiritual studies, so that he can have had no fear of being rejected on account of his base origin. His guru, impressed by his truthfulness, says, “None but a Brahmin would have the moral strength to make such an avowal.” It can hardly be meant by this that Satyakama’s father must have been a Brahmin, but that since he had the Brahmin qualities, he must be accepted as a Brahmin. Even the Kshatriya would have hesitated to speak so truthfully, because the Kshatriya is by nature a lover of honour and shuns dishonour, he has the sense of mana and apamana; but the true Brahmin is samo manapamanayoh, he accepts indifferently worldly honour and dishonour and cares only for the truth and the right. In short the Gautama concludes that, whatever may be Satyakama’s physical birth, spiritually he is of the highest order and especially fitted for a sadhaka; na satyad agat, he did not depart from the truth.” CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-267, 71: “The ordinary man who wishes to reach God through knowledge, must undergo an elaborate training. He must begin by becoming absolutely pure, he must cleanse thoroughly his body, his heart and his intellect, he must get himself a new heart and be born again; for only the twice born can understand or teach the Vedas. When he has done this he needs yet four things before he can succeed, (1) the Sruti or recorded revelation, (2) the Sacred Teacher, (3) the practice of Yoga and (4) the Grace of God.” CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-169, 72: “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, 73: Collected from Nalini Da’s talk on 26.10.1976, 74: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-4, 75: “He (the Lord) discourages the tamasic recoil and the tendency to renunciation and enjoins the continuance of action and even of the same fierce and terrible action, but he points the disciple towards another and inner renunciation which is the real issue from his crisis and the way towards the soul’s superiority to the world-Nature and yet its calm and self-possessed action in the world. Not a physical asceticism, but an inner askesis is the teaching of the Gita.CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-55-56, 76: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-106, 77: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-565, 78: “But usually the representative influence occupies a much larger place in the life of the sadhaka. If the Yoga is guided by a received written Shastra, — some Word from the past which embodies the experience of former Yogins, — it may be practised either by personal effort alone or with the aid of a Guru. The spiritual knowledge is then gained through meditation on the truths that are taught and it is made living and conscious by their realisation in the personal experience; the Yoga proceeds by the results of prescribed methods taught in a Scripture or a tradition and reinforced and illumined by the instructions of the Master. This is a narrower practice, but safe and effective within its limits, because it follows a well-beaten track to a long familiar goal.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-55, 79: “The natural attitude of the psychic being is to feel itself as the child, the son of God, the Bhakta; it is a portion of the Divine, one in essence, but in the dynamics of the manifestation there is always even in identity a difference. The Jivatman, on the contrary, lives in the essence and can merge itself in identity with the Divine; but it too, the moment it presides over the dynamics of the manifestation, knows itself as one centre of the multiple Divine, not as the Parameshwara. It is important to remember this distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatara…” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-61, “But still the Vibhuti is not the Avatar; otherwise Arjuna, Vyasa, Ushanas would be Avatars as well as Krishna, even if in a less degree of the power of Avatarhood. The divine quality is not enough; there must be the inner consciousness of the Lord and Self governing the human nature by his divine presence. The heightening of the power of the qualities is part of the becoming, bhutagrama, (The Gita-8.19, 9.8) an ascent in the ordinary manifestation; in the Avatar there is the special manifestation, the divine birth from above, the eternal and universal Godhead descended into a form of individual humanity, atmanam srijami, (The Gita-4.7) and conscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature.” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-161, 80: “There is a state of being experienced in Yoga in which we become a double consciousness, (1) one on the surface, small, active, ignorant, swayed by thoughts and feelings, grief and joy and all kinds of reactions, (2) the other within calm, vast, equal, observing the surface being with an immovable detachment or indulgence or, it may be, acting upon its agitation to quiet, enlarge, transform it.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-360, 81: “We may say that here in India the reign of Intuition came first, intellectual Mind developing afterwards in the later philosophy and science. But in fact the mass of men at the time, it is quite evident, lived entirely on the material plane, worshipped the Godheads of material nature, sought from them entirely material objects. The effort of the Vedic mystics revealed to them the things behind through a power of inner sight and hearing and experience which was confined to a limited number of seers and sages and kept carefully secret from the mass of humanity secrecy was always insisted on by the mystics.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-267, “A still deep sea, he laughs in rolling waves; Universal, he is all, — transcendent, none. To man’s righteousness this is his cosmic crime, Almighty beyond good and evil to dwell Leaving the good to their fate in a wicked world And evil to reign in this enormous scene.” Savitri-657, “All person perished in its namelessness.” Savitri-308, “Sri Aurobindo once said (jokingly, as it were), while talking with those around him (I was there and we were talking about Christianity and the "new Christ"), he told them, "Oh, if the new Christ comes, the Church will crucify him!"” The Mother’s Agenda-October-7, 1967, “Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task; The world itself becomes his adversary, Those he would save are his antagonists: This world is in love with its own ignorance, Its darkness turns away from the saviour light, It gives the cross in payment for the crown.” Savitri-448, “Inconscient traders in bundles of contraries, They did what in others they would persecute; When their eyes looked upon their fellow’s vice, An indignation flamed, a virtuous wrath; Oblivious of their own deep-hid offence, Moblike they stoned a neighbour caught in sin.” Savitri-209 “There is no necessity to reveal one’s plans and movements to those who have no business to know it, who are incapable of understanding or who would act as enemies or spoil all as a result of their knowledge. Secrecy is perfectly admissible and usual in spiritual matters except in special relations like that of the Shishya to the Guru. We do not let people outside know what is going on in the Ashram but we do not tell any lies about it either. Most Yogis say nothing about their spiritual experiences to others or not until long afterwards and secrecy was a general rule among the ancient Mystics. No moral or spiritual law commands us to make ourselves naked to the world or open up our hearts and minds for public inspection. Gandhi talked about secrecy being a sin but that is one of his many extravagances.” SABCL-26/On Himself/p-380 82: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-544, 83: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-452, 84: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-741, 85: “The individual spirit exists and ever existed beyond in the Eternal, for it is itself everlasting, sanatana. It is evidently this idea of the eternal individual which leads the Gita to avoid any expression at all suggestive of a complete dissolution, laya, and to speak rather of the highest state of the soul as a dwelling in the Purushottama, nivasisyasi mayyeva. If when speaking of the one Self of all it seems to use the language of Adwaita, yet this enduring truth of the eternal individual, mamam sah sanatanah, adds something which brings in a qualification and appears almost to accept the seeing of the Visishtadwaita, — though we must not therefore leap at once to the conclusion that that alone is the Gita’s philosophy or that its doctrine is identical with the later doctrine of Ramanuja. Still this much is clear that there is an eternal, a real and not only an illusive principle of multiplicity in the spiritual being of the one divine Existence.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-445 86: Sri Aurobindo/Champaklal Speaks/p-191-192, 87: “Nevertheless, there is somewhere an absolute control, a real Ishwara. He is aware of it and knows that if he can find it, he will enter into control, become not only the passive sanctioning witness and upholding soul of her will, but the free powerful user and determiner of her movements. But this control seems to belong to another poise than the mentality. Sometimes he finds himself using it, but as a channel or instrument; it comes to him from above. It is clear then that it is supramental, a power of the Spirit greater than mental being which he already knows himself to be at the summit and in the secret core of his conscious being. To enter into identity with that Spirit must then be his way to control and lordship. He can do it passively by a sort of reflection and receiving in his mental consciousness, but then he is only a mould, channel or instrument, not a possessor or participant in the power. He can arrive at identity by an absorption of his mentality in inner spiritual being, but then the conscious action ceases in a trance of identity. To be active master of the nature he must evidently rise to some higher supramental poise where there is possible not only a passive, but an active identity with the controlling spirit. To find the way of rising to this greater poise and be self-ruler, Swarat, is a condition of his perfection." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-637-638, 88: “In this self-development the soul finds that it has accomplished on this line the object of the whole integral Yoga, union with the Supreme in its self and in its universalised individuality. So long as he remains in the world-existence, this perfection must radiate out from him, — for that is the necessity of his oneness with the universe and its beings, — in an influence and action which help all around who are capable of it to rise to or advance towards the same perfection, and for the rest in an influence and action which help, as only the self-ruler and master man can help, in leading the human race forward spiritually towards this consummation and towards some image of a greater divine truth in their personal and communal existence. He becomes a light and power of the Truth to which he has climbed and a means for others’ ascension.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-642, 89 CWSA-23/ The Synthesis of Yoga/p-160-161, 90 CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-547, "There are two other letters: "To bring the Divine Love and Beauty and Ananda into the world is, indeed, the whole crown and essence of our yoga. But it has always seemed to me impossible unless there comes as its support and foundation and guard the Divine Truth – what I call the supramental – and its Divine Power...." (CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-333) Here it's clear: he (Sri Aurobindo ) says that what he calls the "Supramental" is the Divine Truth, and that it must come first, and the rest comes afterwards... And yet, for some time now and increasingly, there has been an extremely concrete Response to a kind of aspiration (a call or prayer) in which I say to the Lord, "Supreme Lord, manifest Your Love." (It comes at the end of a long invocation in which I ask Him to manifest all His aspects one after another, one after another, and it ends like that.) But then, remarkably enough, at that moment there comes a Response which is growing clearer and clearer, stronger and stronger.... But Sri Aurobindo says that Truth should be established first, and that what he calls the Supramental is the supreme Truth, the Divine Truth. It corresponds to what I noticed while translating that last chapter on "the perfection of the being" in the "Yoga of Self-Perfection": I kept thinking, "But that's only the aspect of Truth; all that he expresses is the aspect of Truth; always and everywhere, it's the angle of Truth; and his supramental action is an action of Truth."... I didn't know he had said it, but it's written clearly here: "... But it has always seemed to me impossible unless there comes as its support and foundation and guard the Divine Truth – what I call the supramental – and its Divine Power. Otherwise Love itself blinded by the confusions of this present consciousness may stumble in its human receptacles and, even otherwise, may find itself unrecognised, rejected or rapidly degenerating and lost in the frailty of man's inferior nature. But when it comes in the divine truth and power, Divine Love descends first as something transcendent and universal and out of that transcendence and universality it applies itself to persons according to the Divine Truth and Will, creating a vaster, greater, purer personal love than any the human mind or heart can now imagine. It is when one has felt this descent (of purer personal love) that one can be really an instrument for the birth and action of the Divine Love in the world." (CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-333) The Mother The Mother's Agenda/July 24, 1963 “Someone who has experienced love for the Divine can no longer love anything but the Divine, and it is the Divine he loves in all those for whom he feels affection; besides, this is the best way to love, because in this way one can be a powerful help for others to become conscious of the Divine who manifests in them." The Mother TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/333

This poetry book “Tattvamasi” is the "Song of Soul..." of S. A. Maa Krishna and parts aside the veil slightly to give a brief glimpse of her intense Sadhana and of her Soul’s triple union of the Divine in Supra-Physical, Supra-Terrestrial and Supra-Cosmic planes. The Seeker will be able to identify that all the personal relationships with the Divine as Play-mate, Friend, Master, Mother, Lover and Beloved have been experienced. In it stands the realisation of the Divine as the Impersonal and Absolute Brahman as well as the child in the lap of his Mother to the union with the Supreme as the Beloved. The poems voice the integral aspiration of the Soul within each of us and marks the journey to experience the Individual, Cosmic and Transcendent Divine that awaits us all as we plunge into the Yoga of the Lord Sri Aurobindo and the Divine Mother. To read, contemplate and meditate in the atmosphere of this book will allow the Sadhaka to be open to the transformative higher Consciousness of the Divine Mother that descends, purifies and spreads within all.

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Editor's Note I offer this work, ‘Savitri understanding of Auroprem’ at the Lotus Feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo for Their Divine Manifestation, our Divine transformation and for Their sole satisfaction only. We have accepted Savitri as a book of pure Spiritual experience where knowledge on this terrestrial objective World, the Supraterrestrial world linking the Terrestrial with Supracosmic and Supracosmic Source are extensively explored. In this paper, an effort has been made to open towards the Lord’s limitless vision and higher Words from above and it may not be considered as the final verdict on the unfathomable Mysteries but as an initial preliminary approach of our building relation and contact with the Supreme. Here also many of the emotional feelings of Auroprem are taken into account because the Divine takes care of our Personal and Impersonal needs and He suffers through our limitations to lead us toward His Absolute state. I offer this paper again at Their Lotus Feet, to transform this initial approach as an occasion and field of constant renovation and restatement and with each revision we are able to overcome some errors related to our understanding of the book. These errors were observed while identifying the planes of Consciousness from which each line of Savitri has descended. I also issue this declaration that like Auroprem , I too am a beginner and learner in Savitri’s eternal unfolding of Truth and all our visions, observations, understandings and comments require change with our new revelation, realisation, elevation, sublimation and reversal of Consciousness. We have taken this Savitri study as part of our Sadhana (1) to illumine those parts which are having direct Contact with the Divine and this Spiritual endeavour is subordinated by (2) intellectual action of partly understanding the mysteries and truths and hierarchies of Consciousness it has explored. In order to understand each line of Savitri, we have gathered together and taken the task of collecting the complementary lines from the same book and The Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s other writings published in the Centenary Edition and The Mother’s Agenda. We have narrated our understanding on them based on the limitation of our Spiritual experience. This exercise continued through decades and now we are going through its third revision. During each revision, we discover our error and limitation and particularly we have amended our stand related with planes of Consciousness from which each line of Savitri has descended. This exercise we understand as a means of tracing a path of own sadhana and a means of transcending our existing limitations through the movement of Consciousness. We have identified ten planes of Consciousness. They are in the following ascending order: 1: Inconscient Self and Inconscient Sheath 2: Subconscient Self and Subconscient Sheath 3: True Physical Being and Subtle Physical Sheath 4: True Vital Being and Subtle Vital Sheath 5: True Mental Being and Subtle Mental Sheath 6: Psychic Being and Psychic Sheath 7: Spiritual Being and Spiritual Sheath 8: Universal Being and Universal Sheath 9: Supramental Being and Supramental Sheath 10: Bliss Self and Bliss Sheath Our approach towards written truth is guided by The Mother And Sri Aurobindo’s following directives: 1: “Only those Scriptures, religions, philosophies which can be thus constantly renewed, relived, their stuff of permanent truth constantly reshaped and developed in the inner thought and spiritual experience of a developing humanity, continue to be of living importance to mankind. The rest remain as monuments of the past, but have no actual force or vital impulse for the future....The traditions of the past are very great in their own place, in the past, but I do not see why we should merely repeat them and not go farther. In the spiritual development of the consciousness upon earth the great past ought to be followed by a greater future…” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita-5 CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-480 2: “…all truth and practice too strictly formulated becomes old and loses much, if not all, of its virtue; it must be constantly renovated by fresh streams of spirit revivifying the dead and dying vehicle and changing it, if it is to acquire a new life.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA/23 The Synthesis of Yoga-p-5 3: “In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/THE SYNTHESIS OF YOGA-46-47 4: “So also one may say that the perfection of the integral Yoga will come when each man is able to follow his own path of Yoga, pursuing the development of his own nature in its upsurging towards that which transcends the nature. For freedom is the final law and the last consummation.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/THE SYNTHESIS OF YOGA-57 5: “The ways have been built, the capacity to follow them has been developed, the goal or last height of the creation is manifest; all that is left is for each soul to reach individually the right stage and turn of its development, enter into the spiritual ways and pass by its own chosen path out of this inferior existence. But we have supposed that there is a farther intention, — not only a revelation of the Spirit, but a radical and integral transformation of Nature.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-22/THE LIFE DIVINE-922-923 6: “This depends a great deal on the degree of the sadhak’s development, you see. If he is developed and conscious enough to be in direct contact with the spiritual Force which is working behind the words, then the word is only an excuse. But if for him it must pass through his mental understanding in order to have its effect, then the word takes on a much greater importance. It depends on the degree of development… If one is capable of receiving directly, then one opens a book for instance, finds a sentence and has an illumination; because it was just the word one was waiting for in order to put himself into contact with the Force he needed to take the next step…Otherwise one must take a book, study it, read it sentence by sentence, word by word, and then reflect and then understand it and then assimilate it and then, later, very slowly, after the assimilation and understanding, it begins to have an effect on the character and one makes some progress…In one case it is a direct contact, you see, and just one sentence, one word... one reads a word, reads a sentence, and has an illumination. And then one receives all the Force that one needs. The other is the path of the learned man, the scholar, who is an intellectual being and needs to learn, reflect, assimilate, reason about all he has learnt, in order to make progress. It is long, it is laborious.” The Mother TMCW-7/Questions and Answers-1955/p-341-342, 7: “The importance of Savitri is immense. Its subject is universal. Its revelation is prophetic. The time spent in its atmosphere is not wasted. Take all the time necessary to see this exhibition. It will be a happy compensation for the feverish haste men put now in all they do.” The Mother TMCW-13/Words of the Mother-I/p-26 10 February 1967 8: “Every time I read Savitri , I feel as if I am reading it for the first time, really. It’s not that I understand differently, it’s that its completely new: I never read it before! It’s odd. Its at least the fourth time I read it. And truly there’s everything in it. All the things I’ve discovered lately were there. And I hadn’t seen it. It’s odd. The first time I read it was a revelation; it hung together perfectly well from beginning to end, and I felt I had understood (I did understand something). The second time I read it, I said to myself, “But this isn’t the same thing as what I read!...” It hung together, it made up a whole – and I understood something else. Then, recently when I read, at every passage I said to myself, “How new this is! And how the things I have found since are there!” Today again, that’s how it is, as if I read it for the first time! And it puts me into contact with the things I have just discovered. It’s a miraculous book! (The Mother laughs) We’ll continue in the same way.” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-6th June-1970 9: “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 10: “He (Sri Aurobindo) has made the work easy for us. "SAVITRI" is his whole Yoga of transformation, and this yoga now comes for the first time to the earth consciousness. I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it for it is not by the mind that one can understand "SAVITRI". It needs spiritual experiences to understand and assimilate it. The more one advances on the path of Yoga the more one assimilates.” The Mother The Mother’s Talk to Mona Sarkar/ page-5-6 11: “And for Sri Aurobindo’s writings (not all), it is the same; there are certain things I had truly understood, in the sense that they were already understood far more deeply and truly than even an enlightened mentality understands them—they were already felt and lived—and now, they take on a completely different meaning. I read some of those sentences or ideas that are expressed in few words, three or four words, in which he does not say things fully: he simply seems to let them fall like drops of water; when I read them at the time (sometimes not long ago; sometimes only two or three years ago), I had an experience which are far deeper or vaster than that of intelligence, but now...a spark of Light suddenly appears in them, and I say, “Oh, but I had not seen that!” And it’s the whole understanding or CONTACT with things that I had never had before. It happened to me again just yesterday evening. And I said to myself, “But then...then there are in that certain things...we still have a long, long, long way to go to truly understand them.” Because that spark of Light is something very, very pure— very intense and very pure — and it contains an absolute. And since it contains that (I have not always felt it; I have felt other things, I have felt great light, I have felt a great power, I have felt something that already explained everything, but this is something else, it is something which is beyond), so I concluded (laughing), “Well, we still have a long way to go before we can understand Sri Aurobindo! ”” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-5/p-197-98, The complementary line related with the Mother’s above Spiritual experience: “As when before the eye that wakes in sleep Is opened the sombre binding of a book, Illumined letterings are seen which kept A golden blaze of thought inscribed within, A marvellous form responded to her gaze Whose sweetness justified life’s blindest pain; All Nature’s struggle was its easy price, The universe and its agony seemed worth while.” Savitri-679 This ‘Auroprem’s Savitri Study’ i s still very far from the above mentioned vision. It has made an initial effort to live in Their untiring Divine influence, Divine company and Divine atmosphere which can substitute the tiring transitory human influence, human company and fragile human love. Savitri gives us this message that all aspiring man can ascend from mere man to the consciousness of ascending integral Godhead and this journey towards imperishable Light and lost lucent immensity, which can begin with the faint wealth of ecstasy and prayer, even when we lie embedded in ordinary earthly consciousness and fail to look into our Souls and culminates life that reposes in the Law of exceeding ecstasy. It has transcended the four kinds of exclusive Spiritual experiences followed by four-fold exclusive Ananda of traditional schools of Yoga and declares firmly that a joy becomes imperfect if it is not shared by all. It has identified the power of human love and effort as vain to ‘break earth’s seal of ignorance and death’ and the all powerful Divine Love as ‘sealed book’ for developing Souls or the beginners of integral Yoga and does not rule out the transformation of human love into Divine Love through consecration and activation of higher instrumentation of the Spirit. The Power of Love has opened the door of swift Spiritual Evolution but has not yet intensified to conquer Death. Savitri drives Souls of strong to uncover that shadow-less Love to which Death and Fate will submit and capable of bridging the gulf between the surface-physical life as we know it and the Supramental Ananda that will manifest. To recapitulate, this Auroprem’s Savitri study has emerged as a cradle of our Spiritual endeavour. We offer this study to the Lord and pray to Him to grant this temporary platform as a Soul-saving cradle of the long beginning of the Spiritual journey and help us to build a permanent platform within. Lastly, I offer this incomplete and unending exercise of ‘Auroprem’s Savitri Study’ at Their Lotus Feet. OM TAT SAT At T heir Feet, S.A. Maa Krishna The Mother “....I am waiting—I am millions of years old and I am waiting (to complete the Divine task).” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-6/347, “Since the beginning of the earth, wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of the Consciousness, I was there.” The Mother The Mother’s Centenary Works/13/p-37, 1 / Book 1, Canto 1 - The Symbol Dawn 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 identified as the hour of 'a greater dawn.' (Savitri-724) 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 2 / Book 1, Canto 2 - The Issue Summary or A Brief Restatement: This Canto makes us aware of 'An absolute supernatural darkness' (Savitri-11) 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.' (Savitri-12) 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 3 / Book 1, Canto 3 - The Yoga Of The Soul's Release 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 “Hardly for a moment glimpsed viewless to Mind, (Brief Supramental experience.) As if a torch held by a power of God, The radiant world of the everlasting Truth Glimmered like a faint star bordering the night Above the golden Overmind’s shimmering ridge.” Savitri-41 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 ) 4 / Book 1, Canto 4 - The Secret Knowledge 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, a Vedantic sacrifice. Prakriti Yajna is a very important sadhana for developed Souls. How the Creator is taking care of creation, and 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 the fourth 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 benefit most from 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 a world Adventurer and Voyager of multiple unknown oceans representing ten subtle bodies or sheaths and a Cosmologist exploring the obscure geography of three firm lands of surface life, mind and body. A Sadhaka must be a Kshetriya Soul force, having the courage 'to affront the far-off perilous man' (Savitri-70) and to fight outer and inner endless war and ready to bear inner and outer wounds that are slow to heal till he traces a path to the Supramental world with a new or transformed body and mind. Till this discovery, he carries Divine Mother's sealed orders and sails 'on Inconscient's fathomless sea.' (Savitri-71) 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 5/ Book 1, Canto 5 - The Yoga Of The Spirit's Freedom and Greatness 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’ (Savitri-74) and ‘all that the Gods have learned is there self known.’ (Savitri-74) 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.' (Savitri-76) Second part: He entered the experience of Vedantic ascent to ‘unseen spiritual heights’ (Savitri-76) 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, and 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 sacrific e (occupied a 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 ,' (Savitri-90) due this discovery of the Inconscient Self, closed the long impasse; the music and perfect rhythm were 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 6/ Book 2, Canto 1 - The World Stair A Brief Restatement: This Book-2, Canto-1, hints King’s established state in universalized (infinity Around) and Transcendent (Unknowable above) Consciousness which stand as precondition of exploring multiple planes of consciousness and of pursuing the Yoga of the earth. During the movement of consciousness in these two planes, he could realise 'oneness of all things' and Space as 'a vast experiment of Soul.' Thus: "All could be seen that shuns the mortal eye, All could be known the mind has never grasped; All could be done no mortal will can dare. A limitless movement filled a limitless peace." Savitri-95 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) Thus in this universal plane: "His universal Power at work display In plots of pain and dramas of delight The wonder and beauty of her will to be. All, even pain, was the soul’s pleasure here; Here all experience was a single plan, The thousandfold expression of the One." Savitri-95-96 This universalized consciousness drags King beyond the limitation of mortal eye, mental knowledge and personal will and he experiences limitless peace, the descent of immortal timeless Word, extreme purity, sovereign sweetness, violent overhead poetry, the 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 unities, many meeting worlds, ordered plan, unfathomed loneliness, mute and single strength, formless Stillness, white immobile Ray, eternal Silences and bare summit of created things. 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 the Psychic Being, Jivatma is recognized as the means of the largest Supramental action. The activation of Supramental energy in our external earthly life ensures three things. They are the inherent order of all things, great harmony and oneness with Self, World and Divine. 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 this material birth into 'deep adventure' (Savitri-99) and individual activity to world action. He makes us aware that the Spirit 'is within, below, without, above.' (Savitri-98) Or Spirit is within us as Psychic being, true physical Being, true vital Being and true mental Being, below the feet as Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self, without as Cosmic Self and above the head as Spiritual, Supramental and Bliss Self. OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: "Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme. The great World-Mother by her sacrifice Has made her soul the body of our state; Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness Divinity’s lapse from its own splendours wove The many-patterned ground of all we are." Savitri-99 "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 7/ Book 2, Canto 2 - The Kingdom Of Subtle Matter 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 in which 'high and low worlds' (Savitri-105) are made one. 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: The first part defines that subtle physical is our eternal substance extending over 'all life,' which is Spirit's first transparent robe. It does not live by the flesh and greatly supports the gross physical substance. This is a world of lovelier form where all things are beautiful, faultless and true. Its subtle eye is a door to celestial sense, subtle ear is sweet music, subtle touch is full of charm and transfiguring hue and the subtle heart draws a deeper breath of power. The Mighty breath of the Divine is intercepted and slowly inrushes as bright dews drip through a subtle physical sheath. This Canto proposes that the true physical being or annamaya Purusha can be utilised as a meeting ground of Spirit and Matter and it can also be uplifted as a meeting ground of the highest Supramental plane and the lowest Inconscient plane for transformation action. The task of subtle physical is to transform common material things and by its influence 'even earth's mud grows rich and warm with the skies' (Savitri-107) and 'It guards deathless' (Savitri-106) flames in the perishing body. Out of the Spiritual fall of subtle Matter, that plunges lost in the inconscient base, the denser Matter is born. Second Part: In this part, gross Matter is identified as Spiritual fall of the subtle Matter. This fallen world is the 'immortal godhead's perishable parts' (Savitri-107) in which the Soul is nurtured and must evolve the mind, life and body's giant energies. This brute half-conscious body becomes a means of evolution of Divine life and the mind must recover the lost Wisdom and this bound Spirit, annamaya Purusha, will one day emerge as Nature's King. Third Part: Through a subtle physical sheath, a fragment of the Eternal is caught for heaven's design. Here 'the response to Truth is swift and sure' (Savitri-111) and 'Achieve perfection by the magic throb.' (Savitri-112) All we attempt through Soul activation in this imperfect world cannot go in vain. our Spirit must travel back to illumine the past obscurities and Spirit must travel forward to call down Timeless and Spaceless energies. Thus all imperfections are seized by their absolutely perfect state and Matter is able to hold permanently Divine's Presence or 'To fix the eternal’s touch in time-made things.' (Savitri-108) Thus, with subtle physical assistance, a brilliant passage is made 'in the gross walls of nerve and brain,'(Savitri-108) for the descent of infallible Flame and thus, we could 'hope for greater life.' (Savitri-108) If we can climb above our surface life then 'A line of Transcendent meets on our road' (Savitri-110) which brings us godlike acts and descents inevitable words and 'thoughts that never die.' (Savitri-110) Fourth Part: This subtle physical world is identified as 'the House of Days' and 'material Paradise.' It exists without fear, grief, pain, defeat, fault, or failure and is 'Exempt from the ordeal and the test.' (Savitri-113) This subtle material world 'had no wings for wide and dangerous flight,' 'no peril of sky or of abyss,' 'no vistas and no mighty dreams, No yearning for her lost infinitudes.' (Savitri-115) This Canto proposes that in order to build a Spiritual passage, the subtle physical is to be made pure, transparent and dense and must develop the constant aspiration to possess the Highest plane. 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 8/ Book 2, Canto 3 - The Glory And Fall Of Life 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 (and also fall) 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' (Savitri-116) of untransformed subtle vital life where all was doubt, unsatisfied, unsure, toilsome, unsolved problems and 'uncertain of the ground he trod.' (Savitri-116) Here 'every change prolonged the same unease,' 'in the new saw the face of old,' and 'the fierce lust that brings a dead fatigue.' (Savitri-118) 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.' (Savitri-118) 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 ceaseless 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,' (Savitri-123) and 'To force on them the happiness they refuse' (Savitri-123) and of transforming earth life through his experience: 'Heaven’s joys might have been earth’s if earth were pure.' (Savitri-123) 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.' (Savitri-123) 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.' (Savitri-127 ) 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.' (Savitri-130 ) 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 9/ Book 2, Canto 4 - The Kingdoms Of The Little Life A Brief Restatement: This Book 2 Canto-4 gives the message that after exhaustion of multiple material enjoyments of life, Spiritual life begins and we have to understand that “Physical life exhausts itself by too much giving and ruins itself by too much devouring..." (The Life Divine-216) We also get the hint that after the opening of the Spiritual being, "His gates to the world were swept with seas of light. ” (Savitri-236) and thus a higher life begins. "Insatiate seeker, he has all to learn: He has exhausted now life’s surface acts, His being’s hidden realms remain to explore. He becomes a mind, he becomes a spirit and self; In his fragile tenement he grows Nature’s lord. In him Matter wakes from its long obscure trance, In him earth feels the Godhead drawing near." Savitri-133 This Canto 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.’ (Savitri-146) The First Creation: Subconscious evolution is a faint and dim beginning of a crude child soul crying 'for toys of bliss.' (Savitri-136) In this stage 'a random shapeless energy drove towards form and took each whisp-fire for a guiding sun.' In this preliminary evolution of man, sense-pleasure and sense- pangs are caught and are found to be lost soon and their desire-driven will bring 'poor and sad results.' Life becomes an outcome of 'meaningless suffering and grey unease.' The King experienced in this Nature's twilit room, that Matter and Spirit 'embrace and strive and each know each' (Savitri-141) as eternal playmates. 'In Nature he saw the mighty Spirit concealed' and 'Watched the weak birth of a tremendous Force.' (Savitri-141) " It (All Nature) turns in us to finite loves and lusts, The will to conquer and have, to seize and keep, To enlarge life’s room and scope and pleasure’s range, To battle and overcome and make one’s own, The hope to mix one’s joy with others’ joy, A yearning to possess and be possessed, T o enjoy and be enjoyed, to feel, to live." Savitri-139-140 The Second Creation: In this kingdom, the dwarf animal self arose and the experiment began of a solitary brute in a human body without any life-plan. This is a life exclusively for outward purposes, for the satisfaction of body's want and responds to outward touches without an aim. The body is unaware of annamaya Purusha within, mind is exclusively preoccupied with the objective world and thoughts are open to sense instincts of animal desire and 'To enjoy and to survive was all their care.' (Savitri-143) Not in this life, but in all life this dim being must learn by failure and grow in light and force 'And rise to his higher destiny at last.' (Savitri-146) "It captured not the spirit in the form, It entered not the heart of what it saw; It looked not for the power behind the act, It studied not the hidden motive in things Nor strove to find the meaning of it all." Savitri-143 The Third Creation: This small thinking man (of third creation) has no upward gaze, no inward look, no loftier aim, no deeper cause to live, satisfied awhile with 'dwarf lusts and brief desires,' (Savitri-149) interested to utilize truth and power only for outward use. His life is limited like animal’s feeding-space and he opposes all adventures of the Unseen and Soul’s journey through unknown infinity. "It knew not the Immortal in its house; It had no greater deeper cause to live. In limits only it was powerful; Acute to capture truth for outward use, Its knowledge was the body’s instrument; Absorbed in the little works of its prison-house It turned around the same unchanging points In the same circle of interest and desire, But thought itself the master of its jail." Savitri-149-150 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 the total transformation of the earth’s Subconscient and Inconscient plane. In Savitri, the first Spiritual experience of the evolving man is identified as the 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 will 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 as 'The first writhings of the cosmic serpent Force.' (Savitri-138) 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 consciously visit in a trance. In integral Yoga, the gulf created between lower life and the Supramental life is bridged by discovering the Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self as 'sleeping memories' that are 'Oblivious of their flame of happy truth.' (Savitri-139) "Impure, degraded though her motions are, Always a heaven-truth broods in life’s deeps; In her obscurest members burns that fire." Savitri-139 (fire of Subconscient Self) This Canto foresees the coming of ‘some tremendous dawn of God’ (Savitri-137} 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. This Canto proposes to work out the 'adventure of the Unseen And the soul's tread through unknown infinities.' (Savitri-148) OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: "In the enigma of the darkened Vasts, In the passion and self-loss of the Infinite When all was plunged in the negating Void, Non-Being’s night could never have been saved If Being had not plunged into the dark Carrying with it its triple mystic cross. Invoking in world-time the timeless truth, Bliss changed to sorrow, knowledge made ignorant, God’s force turned into a child’s helplessness Can bring down heaven by their sacrifice." Savitri-140-141 “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 10/ Book 2, Canto 5 - The Godheads Of The Little Life A Brief Restatement: First part: (page 151 to 154) This Book-2, Canto-5 gives us input regarding the lower vital beings/little deities (or tamasic and rajasic beings) that dominate largely our untransformed life and are the cause of all lust, anger, massacre, suicide, disorder, disease, accident, division, and disharmony in men These vital beings are identified as elfin, imps, goblin, faery and genni . They are 'Ignorant and dangerous wills but armed with power, Half-animal, half-god their mood, their shape.' (Savitri-152) They take shelter in our twilight untransformed nature and 'Wherever love and light and largeness lack.' (Savitri-153) In the event of disease of most difficult kind also is an attack of these dark world and they can be removed by occult means or Yogic power/Subconscient purification and transformation without the aid of any medicine. “The Mother used to say that when Sri Aurobindo cured some body, one often saw a subtle hand come with a current of blue force and seize, as it were, the vibration of illness or disorder between its fingertips.” (The Mother's Agenda/24th February-1962) "Its seed of joy they curse with sorrow’s fruit, Put out with error’s breath its scanty lights And turn its surface truths to falsehood’s ends, Its small emotions spur, its passions drive To the abyss or through the bog and mire: Or else with a goad of hard dry lusts they prick, While jogs on devious ways that nowhere lead Life’s cart finding no issue from ignorance. To sport with good and evil is their law; Luring to failure and meaningless success, All models they corrupt, all measures cheat, Make knowledge a poison, virtue a pattern dull And lead the endless cycles of desire Through semblances of sad or happy chance To an inescapable fatality." Savitri-152 In the evolution of Nature, they also like Asuras , demons, and Pisachas , wait for the hour of Divine transformation or 'Till they have learned their secret in their source, In the light of the Timeless and its spaceless home.' (Savitri-153) They make our evolution slow which binds life and invites doom. When our Soul attain freedom from lower life, then our Soul force travels back in time of this birth and past births and illumine the obscurities of nether untransformed life. "A slowly changing order binds our will. This is our doom until our souls are free. A mighty Hand then rolls mind’s firmaments back, Infinity takes up the finite’s acts And Nature steps into the eternal Light. Then only ends this dream of nether life." Savitri-154 The Second Part: (Page 154 to 160) This Canto also hints about the human love of sattwic mind which can give brief ‘Joy that forgot mortality for a while’ (Savitri-159) 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 toward uninterrupted joy and immortality. "A fragile human love that could not last, Ego’s moth-wings to lift the seraph soul, Appeared, a surface glamour of brief date Extinguished by a scanty breath of Time; Joy that forgot mortality for a while Came, a rare visitor who left betimes, And made all things seem beautiful for an hour, Hopes that soon fade to drab realities And passions that crumble to ashes while they blaze Kindled the common earth with their brief flame." Savitri-159 The third Part: (Page 160 to 163) 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 . “Our instruments have not that greater light, Our will tunes not with the eternal Will, Our heart’s sight is too blind and passionate.” Savitri-161 The Fourth Part: (Page 163 to 167) This Canto hints that without vital transformation, the King can hold the Divine Presence for a brief period. If the tamasic, rajasic and sattwic mind are not purified sufficiently, then one experiences Divine Will, Divine Wisdom and Divine Ecstasy of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga briefly. A Bliss that sleeps in the Inconscient and Subconscient Self do not open to give the experience of Oceans of Bliss. "A new life dawns, he looks out from vistas wide; The Spirit’s breath moves him but soon retires: His strength was not made to hold that puissant guest. All dulls down to convention and routine Or a fierce excitement brings him vivid joys:" Savitri-165 “His knowledge dwells in the house of Ignorance; His force nears not even once the Omnipotent, Rare are his visits of heavenly ecstasy. The bliss which sleeps in things and tries to wake, Breaks out in him in a small joy of life:” Savitri-165 The Fifth Part: (Page 167 to 172 This Canto hints the transformation of lower Nature by 'Calling the powers of a bright hemisphere' through Vedantic Sacrifice and thus sheding the discredit of inferior life. A path is traced in the inner world which 'Make the abysm a road for Heaven's descent.' (Savitri-172) "There is a deeper seeing from within And, when we have left these small purlieus of mind, A greater vision meets us on the heights In the luminous wideness of the spirit’s gaze. At last there wakes in us a witness Soul That looks at truths unseen and scans the Unknown; Then all assumes a new and marvellous face: The world quivers with a God-light at its core, In Time’s deep heart high purposes move and live, Life’s borders crumble and join infinity." Savitri-168 "An Infant nursed on Nature’s covert breast, An Infant playing in the magic woods, Fluting to rapture by the spirit’s streams, Awaits the hour when we shall turn to his call." Savitri-169 In this study, we will get mysteries of demon gods, flickering ghosts of lower vital plane that largely dominate earthly existence who prefer to live in 'The vague Inconscient’s dark and measureless cave.' (Savitri-172) The King trod the soil of vital plane 'that failed beneath his feet' and 'His only sunlight was his spirit’s flame.' (Savitri-172) 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 surrounding the annamaya Purusha , (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. To recapitulate, this Canto proposes 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 Messengers’ (Savitri-170) who are responsible for the carrying out the cellular transformation. This also hints (in successive Cantos) 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). 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 “Each part in us desires its absolute.” Savitri-170 “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 11/ Book 2, Canto 6 - The Kingdoms And Godheads Of The Greater Life A Brief Restatement: This Book-2, Canto-6 gives us input regarding the action of higher vital beings, the action of higher Nature of Para-prakriti which can give us the 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) The First Part: (From Page 173 to175) This Canto gives a hint to learn the lesson to open towards the Divine’s constant touch or 'a touch of sure delight in unsure things' (Savitri-173) In this higher plane, life was a search but finding of the Supreme Truth never came. " The souls came there that vainly strive for birth, And spirits entrapped might wander through all time, Yet never find the truth by which they live. All ran like hopes that hunt a lurking chance; Nothing was solid, nothing felt complete: All was unsafe, miraculous and half-true. It seemed a realm of lives that had no base." Savitri-175 The Second Part: (From Page 175 to176) 'Some hue of the Absolute could fall on life,' (Savitri-176) 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 Divine touch will help in the long run to open towards Divine's embrace or Supramental Sunlight. " In an outbreak of the might of secret Spirit, In Life and Matter’s answer of delight, Some face of deathless beauty could be caught That gave immortality to a moment’s joy, Some word that could incarnate highest Truth Leaped out from a chance tension of the soul, Some hue of the Absolute could fall on life, Some glory of knowledge and intuitive sight, Some passion of the rapturous heart of Love." Savitri175-176 The Third Part: (From Page 176 to179) It speaks primarily of self-concentration through endless unfolding of Truth, utilizes subjective time as an endless pilgrimage and secondarily of self-expansion of working out timeless mysteries in Time and utilizes objective space for Divine creation and manifestation. " For by the form the Formless is brought close And all perfection fringes the Absolute. A child of heaven who never saw his home, Its impetus meets the eternal at a point: It can only near and touch, it cannot hold; It can only strain towards some bright extreme: Its greatness is to seek and to create." Savitri-179 The Fourth Part: (From Page 179 to181) We have to be aware of the Divine action of Paraprakriti in the midst of darkness. This Divine Shakti works even when we are most unconscious and feel our development deeply arrested. This Power working amid darkness is also identified as 'crucified God.' "Even nescient, null, her sleep creates a world. When most unseen, most mightily she works; Housed in the atom, buried in the clod, Her quick creative passion cannot cease. Inconscience is her long gigantic pause, Her cosmic swoon is a stupendous phase: Time-born, she hides her immortality; In death, her bed, she waits the hour to rise. Even with the Light denied that sent her forth And the hope dead she needed for her task, Even when her brightest stars are quenched in Night, Nourished by hardship and calamity And with pain for her body’s handmaid, masseuse, nurse, Her tortured invisible spirit continues still To toil though in darkness, to create though with pangs; She carries crucified God upon her breast." Savitri-179-180 The Fifth Part: (From Page 181 to183) The Divine Mother draws world-shunning and heaven-seeking liberated souls earthward to fill in their Nature and Soul with the equal Divine Presence. This Canto defines Jivatma's constant union with Para-prakriti and if their bond is strong then time cannot separate them. This union is further extended as the constant union of Paramatma with Paraprkriti in the heart centre. " Her eternal Lover is her action’s cause; For him she leaped forth from the unseen Vasts To move here in a stark unconscious world. Its acts are her commerce with her hidden Guest, His moods she takes for her heart’s passionate moulds; In beauty she treasures the sunlight of his smile." Savitri-181 "Although she is ever in him and he in her, As if unaware of the eternal tie, Her will is to shut God into her works And keep him as her cherished prisoner That never they may part again in Time." Savitri-181-182 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. "There every thought and feeling is an act, And every act a symbol and a sign, And every symbol hides a living power. A universe she builds from truths and myths, But what she needed most she cannot build; All shown is a figure or copy of the Truth, But the Real veils from her its mystic face. All else she finds, there lacks eternity; All is sought out, but missed the Infinite." Savitri-183 The Sixth Part: (From Page 183 to184) In this part, we find invisible beings of higher planes assist a Sadhaka in pursuing his Spiritual quest. They whisper to the ear and bring a flash of sunlight to the eye. "The beings of that world of greater life , Tenants of a larger air and freer space, Live not by the body or in outward things: A deeper living was their seat of self. In that intense domain of intimacy Objects dwell as companions of the soul; The body’s actions are a minor script, The surface rendering of a life within." Savitri-183 “In all who have risen to a greater Life , A voice of unborn things whispers to the ear, To their eyes visited by some high sunlight Aspiration shows the image of a crown: To work out a seed that she has thrown within, To achieve her power in them her creatures live.” Savitri-183-184 The Seventh Part: (From Page 184 to188) This part gives the message that with the opening of our Soul, destiny is rewritten and ordinary destiny is changed to Spiritual destiny. " As if thought-out eternal characters, Entire, not pulled as we by contrary tides, They follow the unseen leader in the heart, Their lives obey the inner nature’s law. There is kept grandeur’s store, the hero’s mould; The soul is the watchful builder of its fate; None is a spirit indifferent and inert; They choose their side, they see the god they adore." Savitri-184 The Eighth Part: (From Page 188 to191 ) This part reveals the King's unfolding of Spiritual Love and Wisdom. " In her covert lanes, bordering her chance field-paths And by her singing rivulets and calm lakes He found the glow of her golden fruits of bliss And the beauty of her flowers of dream and muse. As if a miracle of heart’s change by joy He watched in the alchemist radiance of her suns The crimson outburst of one secular flower On the tree-of-sacrifice of spiritual love." Savitri-190 "A comrade of Silence on her austere heights Accepted by her mighty loneliness, He stood with her on meditating peaks Where life and being are a sacrament Offered to the Reality beyond, And saw her loose into infinity Her hooded eagles of significance, Messengers of Thought to the Unknowable." Savitri-190-191 The Ninth Part: (From Page 191 to195) We find here the Para-prakriti's influence of Love, Beauty and Delight on individual Jivatma . " In her mazes of approach and of retreat To every side she draws him and repels, But drawn too near escapes from his embrace; All ways she leads him but no way is sure. Allured by the many-toned marvel of her chant, Attracted by the witchcraft of her moods And moved by her casual touch to joy and grief, He loses himself in her but wins her not. A fugitive paradise smiles at him from her eyes: He dreams of her beauty made for ever his, He dreams of his mastery her limbs shall bear, He dreams of the magic of her breasts of bliss." Savitri-193 The Tenth Part: (From Page 195 to 201) In this part, the King claimed 'a panacea for all Time’s ills' (Savitri-198) through the reconciliation of the highest Sachchidananda consciousness with the lowest Abyss. " 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 This Canto proposes that the only business or 'heart's business' (Savitri-181) of a Sadhak is to call down Paramatma (Supreme Purusha) and Paraprakriti (Supreme Mother) to heart centre 'And keep him close to her breast in her world-cloak' (Savitri-181) ceaselessly. This will avoid the risk of escape from her arms and 'turn to his formless peace' (Savitri-181) of param Dham . King Aswapati's this Supramental union is also confirmed symbolically in Savitri's Yoga as 'Unwilling to loose his (Paramatma) body from her (Paraprakriti) breast.' (Savitri-471) OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “ “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.) 12/ Book 2, Canto 7 - The Descent Into Night A Brief Restatement: This Descent into Night and 'falsity's endless net' (Savitri-210) of Book-2, Canto-7, is forbidden in traditional Spirituality and King Aswapati entered this prohibited dark 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 or 'For the key is hid and by the Inconscient kept.' (Savitri-68) The First Part: (From Page 202 to 205) Life has turned into Death in the Inconscient and Immortality in the Superconscient. Or ' A Death figuring as the dark seed of life, Seemed to engender and to slay the world.' (Savitri-202) In Integral Yoga this negation of Death is transformed into affirmation of Immortality. The other two negations of life are desire or hunger and incapacity and which is transformed into satisfied delight and Omnipotence. " He saw the fount of the world’s lasting pain And the mouth of the black pit of Ignorance; The evil guarded at the roots of life Raised up its head and looked into his eyes." Savitri-202 " All glory of life was dimmed, tarnished with doubt; All beauty ended in an aging face; All power was dubbed a tyranny cursed by God And Truth a fiction needed by the mind: The chase of joy was now a tired hunt; All knowledge was left a questioning Ignorance." Savitri-205 The Second Part: (From Page 205 to 206) In this Night King Aswapati met threatening energies and dark goddesses whose very gaze invited calamity. " A peril haunted now the common air; The world grew full of menacing Energies , And wherever turned for help or hope his eyes, In field and house, in street and camp and mart He met the prowl and stealthy come and go Of armed disquieting bodied Influences. A march of goddess figures dark and nude Alarmed the air with grandiose unease; Appalling footsteps drew invisibly near, Shapes that were threats invaded the dream-light, And ominous beings passed him on the road Whose very gaze was a calamity:" Savitri-205 The Third Part: (From Page 206 to 208) King's experience of the dark world is that ‘There all could enter, ' wandering like a lost soul' (Savitri-211) 'but none stay for long.' (Savitri-206) Similarly, all can enter 'Supermind’s huge store' (Savitri-187) 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 tract he reached unbuilt and owned by none: There all could enter but none stay for long. It was a no man’s land of evil air, A crowded neighbourhood without one home, A borderland between the world and hell." Savitri-206 “A Power that laughed at the mischiefs of the world, An irony that joined the world’s contraries And flung them into each other’s arms to strive, Put a sardonic rictus on God’s face.” Savitri-207 “Falsehood came laughing with the eyes of truth; Each friend might turn an enemy or spy, The hand one clasped ensleeved a dagger’s stab And an embrace could be Doom’s iron cage.” Savitri-207-8 The Fourth Part: (From Page 208 to 211) Those developing Souls 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 an ‘aging face.' (Savitri-205) " He saw a city of ancient Ignorance Founded upon a soil that knew not Light. There each in his own darkness walked alone: Only they agreed to differ in Evil’s paths, To live in their own way for their own selves Or to enforce a common lie and wrong; There Ego was lord upon his peacock seat And Falsehood sat by him, his mate and queen: The world turned to them as Heaven to Truth and God." Savitri-208-209 "Inconscient traders in bundles of contraries, They did what in others they would persecute; When their eyes looked upon their fellow’s vice, An indignation flamed, a virtuous wrath; Oblivious of their own deep-hid offence, Moblike they stoned a neighbour caught in sin ." Savitri-209 The Fifth Part: (From Page 211 to 214) This part describes King's entry into the darkest plane of Inconscient sheath. " A greater darkness waited, a worse reign, If worse can be where all is evil’s extreme; Yet to the cloaked the uncloaked is naked worst. There God and Truth and the supernal Light Had never been or else had power no more." Savitri-211 The Sixth Part: (From Page 214 to 216) King Aswapati met the proletariats of his kingdom who were high in their thought and speech but harboured animal lower Nature and like insects crawling among other ephemeral insects. Modern society is described as 'Shudra society of labour' (Essays on the Gita-523) and its disproportionate increase in the present time is a real threat to the survival of the human race. "In street and house, in councils and in courts Beings he met who looked like living men And climbed in speech upon high wings of thought But harboured all that is subhuman, vile And lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl." Savitri-215 The Seventh Part: (From Page 216 to 219) 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. King Aswapati had experience of death without dying: “A formless void oppressed his struggling brain, A darkness grim and cold benumbed his flesh, A whispered grey suggestion chilled his heart; Haled by a serpent-force from its warm home And dragged to extinction in bleak vacancy Life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath; Lapped was his body by a tenebrous tongue.” Savitri-218 “A dense and nameless Nothing conscious, mute, Which seemed alive but without body or mind, Lusted all beings to annihilate That it might be for ever nude and sole.” Savitri-217 This Canto proposes that Sadhaks become 'Heroes and soldiers of the army of Light' (Savitri-211) and walk safely and securely in this dangerous dark world only by keeping 'God in their hearts.' (Savitri-211) This Canto also proposes that for Subconscient transformation ceaseless Japa is indispensable. “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 OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “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 13/ Book 2, Canto 8 - The World Of Falsehood, The Mother Of Evil And The Sons Of Darkness A Brief Restatement: In Book-2, Canto-8, King Aswapati challanged 'the darkness with his luminous soul' (Savitri-227) and .dared to adventure into the dark ocean of Subconscient and Inconscient plane with Supramental energy at his disposal. The First Part: (From Page 220 to 222) 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 for immortality on earth must confront this dark antagonist Force. "There in the heart of vain phenomenon, In an enormous action’s writhen core He saw a Shape illimitable and vague Sitting on Death who swallows all things born. A chill fixed face with dire and motionless eyes, Her (Mother of Evil) dreadful trident in her shadowy hand Outstretched, she pierced all creatures with one fate." Savitri-222 The Second Part: (From Page 222 to 225) This Canto also hints about twice born Soul known as Divine Child (Savitri-224). He needs a congenial atmosphere in which he can survive and flower and 'he needs yet four things before he can succeed, (1) the Sruti or recorded revelation, (2) the Sacred Teacher, (3) the practice of Yoga and (4) the Grace of God.” (CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-169) Unfortunately ‘world’s Spiritual Shrines’ (Savitri-226) are largely occupied by dark 'terrible agencies.' ‘Assuming names divine they guide and rule’ (Savitri-226) and they cunningly slay the Soul of the Divine children in the cradle. Savitri book proposes that when a Dvija is born, then either the Divine deputes for him a living Teacher/Spiritual fosterer (like King Aswapati , the Guru and father of Savitri ) or he has to find him out in a distant land. (like the discovery of Satyavan in the deep forest) "Alarmed for her rule and full of fear and rage She prowls around each light that gleams through the dark Casting its ray from the spirit’s lonely tent, Hoping to enter with fierce stealthy tread And in the cradle slay the divine Child." Savitri-224 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, after a brief time passed, the subtle body and subtle mind leave the body. " A silence falls upon the spirit’s heights, From the veiled sanctuary the God retires, Empty and cold is the chamber of the Bride; The golden Nimbus now is seen no more, No longer burns the white spiritual ray And hushed for ever is the secret Voice. Then by the Angel of the Vigil Tower A name is struck from the recording book; A flame that sang in Heaven sinks quenched and mute; In ruin ends the epic of a soul. This is the tragedy of the inner death When forfeited is the divine element And only a mind and body live to die." Savitri-225 The Third Part: (From Page 225 to 227) Those who want to lead a Spiritual life or want to become the 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 the earth a playfield of heaven. "Armoured, protected by their lethal masks, As in a studio of creative Death The giant sons of Darkness sit and plan The drama of the earth, their tragic stage. All who would raise the fallen world must come Under the dangerous arches of their power; For even the radiant children of the gods To darken their privilege is and dreadful right. None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell." Savitri-226-227 The Fourth Part: (From Page 227 to 232) So world problems can be resolved by opening towards 'superconscient Fire', 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, cells of the body are exulted, the dark antagonist Forces are slain and 'Healed were all things that Time’s torn heart had made.' (Savitri-232) Thus, ‘sorrow could live no more in Nature’s breast.’ (Savitri-232) The previous Canto makes a Sadhak aware that 'The world turned to them (falsehoods) as Heaven to Truth and God' (Savitri-209) and suggests in this Canto that for the transformation of Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths, ceaseless Japa of Divine's name is indispensable. "Arousing consciousness in things inert, He imposed upon dark atom and dumb mass The diamond script of the Imperishable, Inscribed on the dim heart of fallen things A paean-song of the free Infinite And the Name , foundation of eternity, And traced on the awake exultant cells In the ideographs of the Ineffable The lyric of the love that waits through Time And the mystic volume of the Book of Bliss And the message of the superconscient Fire." Savitri-232 The Canto makes a Sadhak aware that 'hell as a short cut to heaven’s gates' (Savitri-231) and further hints that like King Aswapati he has to confront with dark forces and bear 'the fierce inner wounds that are slow to heal.' (Savitri-230) 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 (Subconscient Self) And built the world not knowing what it built.” Savitri-231 14/ Book 2, Canto 9 - The Paradise Of The Life Gods A Brief Restatement: This Canto begins with the message of King Aswapati's movement of Consciousness between the Psychic and Spiritual planes. “A lustre of some rapturous Infinite, It held in the splendour of its golden laugh Regions of the heart’s happiness set free, (Psychic) Intoxicated with the wine of God, (Spiritual) Immersed in light, perpetually divine.” Savitri-233 In this Book-2, Canto-9, King Aswapati, entered a higher world in cosmic Consciousness, ('As one who sees in the World-Magician’s glass.' (Savitri-234) 'Around him shone a great felicitous Day' (Savitri-233)) known as Overmind. The Canto indicates that one can enter this higher cosmic Consciousness either through the Psychic being (And make the heart wide as infinity (Savitri-235)) or through the Spiritual Being (And lay on the breast of universal love (Savitri-233)) or through the movement of both the Selves. (A touch supreme surprised his hurrying heart.(Savitri-237)) "In sudden moments of revealing flame, In passionate responses half-unveiled He reached the rim of ecstasies unknown; A touch supreme surprised his hurrying heart, The clasp was remembered of the Wonderful, And hints leaped down of white beatitudes." Savitri-236-237 This Overmental world is free from fear, grief, shocks of fate, adverse circumstances, free from our body’s poor health ‘inviting death,’ (Savitri-233) and free ‘from our danger-zone of stumbling Will.’ (Savitri-233) 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 foreknowledge transformed into the 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. "And, lapped in a magic flood of sorrowless hours, Healed were his warrior nature’s wounded limbs In the encircling arms of Energies That brooked no stain and feared not their own bliss." Savitri-235 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 extreme delight that could shatter mortal cells. Thus, Immortality captured Time and Space and carried forward the rhythm of all life. "It shrank no more from the supreme demand Of an untired capacity for bliss, A might that could explore its own infinite And beauty and passion and the depths’ reply Nor feared the swoon of glad identity (Samadhi experience) 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-237 OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “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 15/ Book 2, Canto 10 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind 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. What is pigmy Tamasic (Physical) Mind? The normal waking state is dominated by the physical mind, which is the assured base, close to earthly nature, first status of slow ascent and lowest sub-plane of intellect, the starting point of the movement of that apparent material world. It contradicts and opposes the vital mind by inertia, indolence and dullness and intellect by narrowness, precarious thought, ignorance and obscurity. “At its low extremity held difficult sway A mind that hardly saw and slowly found; Its nature to our earthly nature close And kin to our precarious mortal thought That looks from soil to sky and sky to soil But knows not the below nor the beyond, [Physical mind is not aware of the truth of the existence in Subconscient and Superconscient planes.] It only sensed itself and outward things.” Savitri-239 “The slow process of a material mind Which serves the body it should rule and use And needs to lean upon an erring sense, Was born in that luminous obscurity.” Savitri-240 "A twilight sage whose shadow seems to him self,” Savitri-240 “One sees it (physical mind) circling faithful to its task, Tireless in an assigned tradition’s round; In decayed and crumbling offices of Time It keeps close guard in front of custom’s wall, Or in an ancient Night’s dim environs It dozes on a little courtyard’s stones And barks at every unfamiliar light As at a foe who would break up its home, A watch-dog of the spirit’s sense-railed house Against intruders from the Invisible, Nourished on scraps of life and Matter’s bones In its kennel of objective certitude.” Savitri-246 What is the muddy and deceptive Rajasic (Vital) Mind? The man’s vital mind is an instrument of desire, the troubled seed of things, which hunts after unrealised possibilities, burns all hearts with ambiguous fire, enlarges always passion and craving, creates dissatisfaction, an unrest, a seeking for something more than what life seems able to give it, a constant demand for more and always more, a quest for new worlds to conquer, an incessant drive towards an exceeding of the bounds of circumstance and a self-exceeding. It is not satisfied with physical and objective enjoyment only but seeks to a subjective, imaginative, a purely emotive satisfaction, enjoyment and pleasure, which are dependent on external things, external sense contacts and concerned with the practical, the immediately realizable and possible events, the habitual, the common and average. “Thence sprang the burning vision of Desire . A thousand shapes it wore, took numberless names: A need of multitude and uncertainty Pricks it for ever to pursue the One On countless roads across the vasts of Time Through circuits of unending difference. It burns all breasts with an ambiguous fire.” Savitri-247 "Ardent to find, incapable to retain, A brilliant instability was its mark, To err its inborn trend, its native cue." Savitri-248 What is the purposeful and laborious Sattwic Mind (Intellect)? Mind is essentially the faculty of Supermind, which measures and limits and fixes a particular centre for cosmic movement and action and only very indirectly and partially illumined and it can look upward and receive the Supramental communication and passes it on to the other lower members. And since man is a mental being, so thought is at least his most constant, normal, immediate and effective means for enlightening his Ignorance. “In her high works of pure intelligence, In her withdrawal from the senses’ trap, There comes no breaking of the walls of mind, There leaps no rending flash of absolute power, There dawns no light of heavenly certitude.” Savitri-251 “In this small mould of infant mind and sense Desire is a child-heart’s cry crying for bliss, Our reason only a toys’ artificer, A rule-maker in a strange stumbling game. But she her dwarf aides knew whose confident sight A bounded prospect took for the far goal.” Savitri-257 “Reason cannot tear off that glimmering mask, Her efforts only make it glimmer more; In packets she ties up the Indivisible; Finding her hands too small to hold vast Truth She breaks up knowledge into alien parts Or peers through cloud-rack for a vanished sun:” Savitri-257 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 to eradicate 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 continuing 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: Psychic Transformation: We will have to remember that Divine wisdom does not visit man as a guest from outside but it is slowly accumulated from within through the blows of life. Similarly, Divine Love does not visit as a guest from outside but it evolves from within from the disgust of precarious human relation and human love. Both Love and Wisdom are necessary for the fulfillment of life. "For knowledge comes not to us as a guest Called into our chamber from the outer world; A friend and inmate of our secret self, It hid behind our minds and fell asleep And slowly wakes beneath the blows of life; The mighty daemon lies unshaped within, To evoke, to give it form is Nature’s task." Savitri-244 “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 Psychic and Spiritual Transformation: " Above in a high breathless stratosphere, Overshadowing the dwarfish trinity, Lived, aspirants to a limitless Beyond, Captives of Space, walled by the limiting heavens, In the unceasing circuit of the hours Yearning for the straight paths of eternity, And from their high station looked down on this world Two sun-gaze Daemons witnessing all that is. " Savitri-258 Supramental Transformation: " A fire shall come out of the infinitudes, 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 OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “Accustomed to a blue infinity, (Overmental infinity or preliminary Supramental) It (Overmind) 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 16/ Book 2, Canto 11 - The Kingdoms And Godheads Of The Greater Mind A Brief Restatement: This Canto appears to be the continuation of previous Canto, where the King standing on the Overmental Cosmic Consciousness ' saw afar the unreached Immortal’s home And heard afar the voices of the Gods.' (Savitri-258) The King enters the triple planes of Cosmic Consciousness through 'meditation's mounting edge of trance' (Savitri-264) and from a long distance 'he saw the joining' of lower and higher hemispheres. Here the Higher, Illumined and Intuitive minds are universalised and meet the godheads of those Superconscient worlds, who are respectively 'mighty wardens,' 'subtle archangel race' and 'sovereign Kings of Thought.' The universalised Higher and universalised Illumined Minds get their source from the universal Intuitive plane which in turn is sourced from the fourth plane of 'bright Gods' (Savitri-274) of Overmind. The key difference between these higher triple planes and our (lower) mind is that in these former planes, one does not grope around in the darkness and twilight planes 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 triple lower mortal mind. But even these higher planes do not capture the whole Truth, only some fragments of it. In these triple realms, there is harmony, truth and courage. The triple realms are: (1) 'small beginning of immense ascent;' (Savitri-264) (2) 'a light of liberating knowledge;' (Savitri-268) (3) 'wide summit of triple stair' (Savitri-271) respectively. Let us meet the Godheads or emanations of these triple planes with their ascending capacity: Godheads of Universalised Higher Mind: " The mighty wardens of the ascending stair Who intercede with the all-creating Word, There waited for the pilgrim heaven-bound soul; Holding the thousand keys of the Beyond They proffered their knowledge to the climbing mind And filled the life with Thought’s immensities." Savitri-265 "Iridescent, bodying the invisible, The guardians of the Eternal’s bright degrees Fronted the Sun in radiant phalanxes. Afar they seemed a symbol imagery, Illumined originals of the shadowy script In which our sight transcribes the ideal Ray, Or icons figuring a mystic Truth, But, nearer, Gods and living Presences." Savitri-265 "In front of the ascending epiphany World-Time’s enjoyers, favourites of World-Bliss, The Masters of things actual, lords of the hours, Playmates of youthful Nature and child God, Creators of Matter by hid stress of Mind Whose subtle thoughts support unconscious Life And guide the fantasy of brute events, Stood there, a race of young keen-visioned gods , King-children born on Wisdom’s early plane, Taught in her school world-making’s mystic play." Savitri-266 Godheads of Universalised Illumined Mind: "Above stood ranked a subtle archangel race With larger lids and looks that searched the unseen. A light of liberating knowledge shone Across the gulfs of silence in their eyes; They lived in the mind and knew truth from within; A sight withdrawn in the concentrated heart Could pierce behind the screen of Time’s results And the rigid cast and shape of visible things." Savitri-268 Godheads of Universalised Intuitive Mind: "August and few the sovereign Kings of Thought Have made of Space their wide all-seeing gaze Surveying the enormous work of Time: A breadth of all-containing Consciousness Supported Being in a still embrace. Intercessors with a luminous Unseen, They capt in the long passage to the world The imperatives of the creator Self Obeyed by unknowing earth, by conscious heaven; Their thoughts are partners in its vast control." Savitri-271 Overmind and the bright Godheads: Here we find the universalised consciousness where the relation of Jivatma with Paraprakriti is established and it is described in the following symbolic language. Through the descent of D ivine Mother's touch, the mortal head is illumined and a golden nimbus becomes visible surrounding the head. "Or as a lover clasps his one beloved, Godhead of his life’s worship and desire, Icon of his heart’s sole idolatry, She now is his and must live for him alone: She has invaded him with her sudden bliss,... Incarnating her beauty in his clasp She gave for a brief kiss her immortal lips And drew to her bosom one glorified mortal head : She made earth her home, for whom heaven was too small. In a human breast her occult presence lived; He carved from his own self his figure of her: She shaped her body to a mind’s embrace." Savitri-274-275 Paraprakriti is here the Divine Mother and the 'The whole world lives in a lonely ray of her sun.' (Savitri-276) If a Sadhak will 'Dare to surrender to her absolute' (Savitri-276) then a new Manifestation will take place. Even he adores her to possess her Divinity, 'But she remains herself and infinite' (Savitri-276) or 'A distance severed her from those most close.' (Savitri-366) This Canto projects a Sadhak as 'citizens of that mother State' (Savitri-262) or Spiritual fosterer and his Soul as 'Immaculate in white virginity.' (Savitri-274) In order to adventure into 'Matter's night' he 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 “Ourselves are citizens of that mother State 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 and ceaseless descent of Divine Wisdom and Love. 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 (“No silent peak is found where Time can rest.” Savitri-197) and that Bliss which can persuade the past perfect hours to live again with greater intensity or 'A new charm brings back the old extreme delight.' (Savitri-275) Adventure into Supramental consciousness promises endless new discoveries in the material world, endless opulence, beauty and harmony in the surrounding world. It also promises to put pressure on common man or on humanity to reveal their Soul. This Canto also gives the message that the Sadhak must also have the highest Brahmin Soul force in his frontal Nature which is a ceaseless rejection of falsehood and ceaseless acceptance of overhead Truth. This Canto hints at the establishment of 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 limitations 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. Thus ' Joy dares to grow upon forbidden soil.' (Savitri-630). This is also a condition to meet and confront with world’s Ignorance, Falsehood, Suffering and Death. "A happiness it brings of whispered truth; There runs in its flow honeying the bosom of Space A laughter from the immortal heart of Bliss, And the unfathomed Joy of timelessness, The sound of Wisdom’s murmur in the Unknown And the breath of an unseen Infinity." Savitri-264 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 (Discovery of Inconscient Self.) 17/ Book 2, Canto 12 - The Heavens Of Ideal 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 ascent is identified as Purusha yajna or Vedantic sacrifice. "It left known summits for the unknown peaks:" Savitri-277 "Its worlds are steps of an ascending Force:" Savitri-280 "Only the Eternal’s strength in us can dare To attempt the immense adventure of that climb And the sacrifice of all we cherish here." Savitri-280 Here we find an account of the movement of Consciousness in higher planes of Consciousness, particularly in between Psychic and Spiritual plane. "Each stage of the soul’s remote ascent was built Into a constant heaven felt always here." Savitri-277 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 "A million lotuses swaying on one stem, World after coloured and ecstatic world Climbs towards some far unseen epiphany." Savitri-279 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 intermediate siddhi beyond Supramental 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 the movement of Consciousness. They become one and further ‘Aspired to reach the Being’s absolute.’(Savitri-279). This sense of Oneness with all existence is a movement towards Cosmic and Supramental Consciousness and the King met in those planes ‘radiant children of Eternity’ (Savitri-282) who can assist a Sadhaka to establish himself in that plane. This Canto also confirms a Sadhak that Spiritual fall can be avoided if Karma Yoga is reconciled with Jnana Yoga . "Happy the worlds that have not felt our fall , Where Will is one with Truth and Good with Power ; Impoverished not by earth-mind’s indigence, They keep God’s natural breath of mightiness, His bare spontaneous swift intensities; There is his great transparent mirror, Self, And there his sovereign autarchy of bliss In which immortal natures have their part, Heirs and cosharers of divinity." Savitri-281 "There is the secrecy of the House of Flame, 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 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: "Yet were there regions where these absolutes met And made a circle of bliss with married hands; Light stood embraced by light, fire wedded fire, But none in the other would his body lose To find his soul in the world’s single Soul, A multiplied rapture of infinity." Savitri-281-282 18/ Book 2, Canto 13 - In The Self Of Mind 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. "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; That must be reached from which all knowledge comes." Savitri-284 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.’ "Our sweet and mighty Mother was not there 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. A greater Spirit than the Self of Mind (greater Spirit is Supermind.) Must answer to the questioning of his soul." Savitri-286-287 This Canto also proposes to become immortal by constantly renewing the mortality though the Spiritual Being is unable to confront Death in the inconscient plane. "Two firmaments of darkness and of light Opposed their limits to the spirit’s walk; It moved veiled in from Self’s infinity In a world of beings and momentary events Where all must die to live and live to die. Immortal by renewed mortality," Savitri-287-288 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 the dynamic Spirit and a comprehensive solution to the world's problems. "To be was a prison, extinction the escape." Savitri-288 OM TAT SAT The Important Secret of this chapter: “Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice, But answered nothing to a million calls; The soul’s endless question met with no response.” Savitri-283 “Silence (of Spiritual Being), the mystic birthplace of the soul (Psychic Being).” Savitri-287 (Psychic being’s silence is a suffusion from Spiritual being.) “The Silence knew itself and thought took form:” Savitri-284 “There (state of equality) he could stay, the Self, the Silence won: His soul had peace, it knew the cosmic Whole.” Savitri-284 (cosmic consciousness) 19/ Book 2, Canto 14 - The World-Soul A Brief Restatement: This Book-2, Canto-14 represents King Aswapati’s Spiritual experience of cosmic Self which is the same 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 the Supermind where the World, Self and Divine are reconciled. 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). "Above them all she stands supporting all, The sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask; The ages are the footfalls of her tread, Their happenings the figure of her thoughts, And all creation is her endless act. His spirit was made a vessel of her force; Mute in the fathomless passion of his will He outstretched to her his folded hands of prayer." Savitri-295 In all the previous Cantos, King Aswapati had the experience of Cosmic Consciousness, but in this Canto his cosmic Self is Supramentalised and the Divine revealed himself in his personal form. The King's Consciousness continues to move between the universal and transcendent Self. "An incense floated in the quivering air, A mystic happiness trembled in the breast As if the invisible Beloved had come Assuming the sudden loveliness of a face And close glad hands could seize his fugitive feet And the world change with the beauty of a smile." Savitri-290 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 This Canto proposes a Sadhak on how to enter relation with other Souls by activation of the cosmic Self. Here, the subtle touch of one soul with another soul is given much importance by extension and universalisation of subtle body and a touch of gross 'bodies were needed not' (Savitri-292) to establish this Divine Love. "Life was not there, but an impassioned force, Finer than fineness, deeper than the deeps, Felt as a subtle and spiritual power, A quivering out from soul to answering soul, A mystic movement, a close influence, A free and happy and intense approach Of being to being with no screen or check, Without which life and love could never have been. Body was not there, for bodies were needed not, The soul itself was its own deathless form And met at once the touch of other souls Close, blissful, concrete, wonderfully true." Savitri-292 This Cosmic Self is the home and training ground of dead Souls through internatal trance and one enters the right relation with the world, fellow brothers, dead kith and kin and material things through direct contact with this higher consciousness. "In trance they (dead Souls) gathered back their bygone selves, In a background memory’s foreseeing muse Prophetic of new personality Arranged the map of their coming destiny’s course: Heirs of their past, their future’s discoverers, Electors of their own self-chosen lot, They waited for the adventure of new life." Savitri-293 "The (dead) spirit wandering from state to state Finds here (Cosmic Self) the silence of its starting-point In the formless force and the still fixity And brooding passion of the world of Soul... Ever they (Dead Souls) change and changing ever grow, And passing through a fruitful stage of death And after long reconstituting sleep Resume their place in the process of the Gods Until their work in cosmic Time is done." Savitri-294 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 . "His soul passed on, a single conscious power, Towards the end which ever begins again, Approaching through a stillness dumb and calm To the source of all things human and divine. There he beheld in their mighty union’s poise The figure of the deathless Two-in-One, A single being in two bodies clasped, A diarchy of two united souls, Seated absorbed in deep creative joy; Their trance of bliss sustained the mobile world." Savitri-295 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 20/ Book 2, Canto 15 - The Kingdoms Of The Greater Knowledge A Brief Restatement: Book-2, Canto-15 gives the message of the Supramental plane, which becomes active after one is established in the movement of Consciousness between the Universal and the Transcendent Self which succeeds the movements of Consciousness between the waking trance of the Psychic and non-waking trance of the Spiritual plane. "He scanned the secrets of the Overmind, He bore the rapture of the Oversoul. A borderer of the empire of the Sun, Attuned to the supernal harmonies, He linked creation to the Eternal’s sphere." Savitri-302 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 unique path of our own. “A thousand roads leaped into Eternity... The Known released him (King ) from its limiting chain; He 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 appearance. 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 During King's Psychic and Spiritual opening, he became a twice-born Soul and the first Psychic and second Spiritual reversal of Consciousness was experienced. So a Dvija can hold the Divine's Presence for a brief period and we mark King's this particular brief Spiritual experience and brief Supramental experience in the previous Book-2, Canto-5 and Book-1, Canto-3: “A new life dawns, he looks out from vistas wide; The Spirit’s breath moves him but soon retires: His strength was not made to hold that puissant guest.” Savitri-165 “Hardly for a moment glimpsed viewless to Mind, (Brief Supramental experience.) As if a torch held by a power of God, The radiant world of the everlasting Truth Glimmered like a faint star bordering the night Above the golden Overmind’s shimmering ridge.” Savitri-41 The King experienced another new birth and establishment in a third reversal of Consciousness during this Supramental opening: "In the kingdom of the Spirit’s power and light, As if one who arrived out of infinity’s womb He came new-born, infant and limitless And grew in the wisdom of the timeless Child; He was a vast that soon became a Sun." Savitri-301 In this context, we can note The Mother's following experience: " When we begin living the spiritual life, a reversal of consciousness takes place which for us is the proof that we have entered the spiritual life; well, yet another occurs when we enter the supramental world...And probably each time a new world opens up, there will again be a new reversal. This is why even our spiritual life, which is such a total reversal compared to ordinary life, seems something still so ... so totally different when compared to this supramental consciousness that the values are almost opposite....I can explain the phenomenon like this: successive reversals such that an EVER NEW richness of creation will take place from stage to stage, making whatever came before seem so poor in comparison. What to us seems supremely rich compared to our ordinary life, appears so poor compared to this new reversal of consciousness. Such was my experience." The Mother's Agenda-15.11.1958 We also observe in this Canto, the nature of Supramental action which complements earlier representations of Psychic and Spiritual 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 “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 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’ (Savitri-297) and Pioneer of new Consciousness by tracing a new path; Supramental Love makes his life exceedingly joyful 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 Supramental Consciousness) “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 Emanations 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 “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, 21/ Book 3, Canto 1 - The Pursuit Of The Unknowable 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, ' Uncreating, uncreated and unborn, The One by whom all live, who lives by none.' (Savitri-309) Its dynamic state is not revealed here. The King was able to enter this absolute plane after bridging the gulf between this world and the Supramental world, about which we get hints from the previous Book-2, Canto-3, 10, 11 and Book-3, Canto-1 & 2. 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 "It saw afar the unreached Immortal’s home And heard afar the voices of the Gods.' Savitri-258-259 "Far-off he saw the joining hemispheres." Savitri-264 “But who that mightiness was he knew not yet.” Savitri-306 “But what That was, no thought nor sight could tell.” Savitri-308 "And still the last inviolate secret hides Behind the human glory of a Form, Behind the gold eidolon of a Name. A large white line has figured as a goal, But far beyond the ineffable suntracks blaze: What seemed the source and end was a wide gate, A last bare step into eternity." Savitri-311 In the initial phase of the Sadhana, King was able to enter the last perfection (siddhi) of integral Yoga, known as Truth Supreme, but showed his inability to stay in that world for a longer period: “Upbuoyed upon winged winds of rapid joy, Upheld to a Light it could not always hold, It left mind’s distance from the Truth supreme And lost life’s incapacity for bliss.” Savitri-43-44 A similar difficulty is marked in Savitri's Spiritual experience of arriving at Supramental and Bliss Consciousness: "Then this too paused; the body seemed a stone. All now was a wide mighty vacancy, But still excluded from eternity’s hush; For still was far the repose of the Absolute And the ocean silence of Infinity." Savitri-543-544 A similar difficulty is observed in Satyavan's Sadhana while trying to bridge the gulf between this world and the Supramental world: "I lived in the ray but faced not to the sun. I looked upon the world and missed the Self, And when I found the Self, I lost the world, My other selves I lost and the body of God, The link of the finite with the Infinite, The bridge between the appearance and the Truth, The mystic aim for which the world was made, The human sense of Immortality. But now the gold link comes to me with thy feet And His gold sun has shone on me from thy face." Savitri-407-408 How can we enter this world of Bliss through the 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' (Savitri-305-306) fulfilled, purified, transformed and perfected. 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 the 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 a Sadhak becomes egoless and becomes one with the Bliss Self or 'The separate self must melt or be reborn Into a Truth beyond the mind’s appeal.' (Savitri-307) By the influence of its Supreme 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.” (Savitri-308) This Oneness of pure existence is safe from the falsehood of ‘thought and mood’ and pure Consciousness is ‘unshared immortal bliss’ (Savitri-309) and dwelt alone, aloof, unique, bare and unutterably sole. This Being is formless, featureless, mute, occult, impenetrable, infinite, eternal, unthinkable and alone. 9) After the prolongation of this static realisation of the Supreme Self, King Aswapati became fit to meet the Dynamic state of the Divine Mother in Person or in Her personal embodied Form for a brief period, who alone can bridge the gulf between Matter and Spirit or Death and Immortality in their entirety. “All he had been and all towards which he grew Must now be left behind or else transform (by dynamisation of Supreme Self) Into a self of That which has no name.” Savitri-307 “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 (This is the point at which Supreme Self is dynamised.) This Canto gives the message to a Sadhak that by realisation of static Supreme Self one will recoil from world problems and escape into the supreme Abode of Param Dham and by dynamisation of Supreme Self through prolongation of static realisation, the world problems can be resolved and untransformed Nature can be Divinised. OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “A cave of darkness guards the eternal Light.” Savitri-305 (Here eternal Light is the Subconscient and Inconscient Self) “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 22/ Book 3, Canto 2 - The Adoration Of The Divine Mother A Brief Restatement: The Book-3, Canto-2, begins with the vast static silence state of Supreme Self, Turiya, Bliss Self, which can abolish and swallow the burdening tamasic need, the rajasic sense urge and limited sattwic knowledge without transforming that life. In this state, ego is dead with boundless silence of the Supreme Self but oblivious of Supreme Self's Power and world transforming Mission. This realisation is an escape from life's problems and does not bring victory and crown of integral Yoga. This realisation does not define the mystery of Avatar's Divine birth and Divine action, leaving unbroken the 'last chapter's seal' and 'still the last inviolate secret' (Savitri-311) and 'last bare step' is hidden. By the pressure of static Supreme Self, 'The soul’s ignorance is slain but not the soul:' (Savitri-311) This hints that by activation of the static Supreme Self Ignorance and Falsehood can be destroyed but cannot be transformed. In the absolute silence of static supreme realisation, 'an absolute Power' sleeps and the Sadhak's task is to awaken the trance-bound Soul linked with this static realisation and 'make the world a vessel of Spirit's force' (Savitri-312) and mould the clay into 'God's perfect shape.' (Savitri-312) The dynamic state of the Supreme Self 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 King here meets the Supreme Mother or Creatrix Bliss Mother as: "A being of wisdom, power and delight, Even as a mother draws her child to her arms, Took to her breast Nature and world and soul.... The Power, the Light, the Bliss no word can speak Imaged itself in a surprising beam And built a golden passage to his heart Touching through him all longing sentient things." Savitri-312 "A Mother Might brooded upon the world; A Consciousness revealed its marvellous front Transcending all that is, denying none:” Savitri-313 "The undying Truth appeared, the enduring Power Of all that here is made and then destroyed, The Mother of all godheads and all strengths Who, mediatrix, binds earth to the Supreme." Savitri-313 "The Formless and the Formed were joined in her: Immensity was exceeded by a look, A Face revealed the crowded Infinite." Savitri-314 The speciality of this Canto is the manifestation of the Supreme Self's dynamic Divine Love which can transform without slaying the desire Soul surrounding Psychic being and can transform the darkness of Subconscient and Inconscient sheaths: “But where is the Lover’s everlasting Yes,” Savitri-310, “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 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 “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 must be torn out and slain And crushed the many longings (of desire Soul) for whose sake We lose the One (Divine Love) for whom our lives were made. Now other claims (of desire Soul) had hushed in him their cry:" Savitri-316 The Divine Love is a supremely affirmative dynamic energy defined as ‘Lover’s everlasting Yes’ (Savitri-310) which can transform Inconscient/Subconscient negations known as ‘everlasting No’ (Savitri-310) without rejecting and destroying them, without slaying the Soul’s Ignorance, can transform the wheel of earth’s doom known as ‘cosmic whirl.’ (Savitri-310) 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, and transform falsehood. Before its Presence error of mind and wrong action cannot materialise and the mind becomes a faultless instrument of the Divine. All discords of life move towards harmony, all darkness of suffering is healed and this Divine Love can transform superseding earlier static Divine realisation which can crush and silence the many longing desires of mind, life and body. The Spiritual and Psychic Love can reject falsehood, Supramental and Bliss Love can transform falsehood and save the Soul, Mind, Life and Body. So, King Aswapati’s single-minded quest longed and yearned only the Supreme Divine Mother’s Presence in the form of Soul saving Truth, Love and Joy and ‘vast surrender.’ "All Nature dumbly calls to her alone To heal with her feet the aching throb of life And break the seals on the dim soul of man And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things." Savitri-314 "Once seen, his heart acknowledged only her . Only a hunger of infinite bliss was left. All aims in her were lost, then found in her; His base was gathered to one pointing spire." Savitri-315 "This Light 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-315-316 "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 This Canto gives the Sadhak , the task that, after stabiliastion of his consciousness in the Psychic, Spiritual and Universal planes, he has to ascend and enter the Supreme Self in absolute silence and dynamises it to meet the Supreme Mother in Her Personal form. This will help him to receive the fourth Divine Call of Paraprakriti's union with Apara-prakriti of transforming the nether Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths. "In her confirmed because transformed in her, Our life shall find in its fulfilled response Above, the boundless hushed beatitudes, Below, the wonder of the embrace divine ." 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 23/ Book 3, Canto 3 - The House Of The Spirit And New Creation A Brief Restatement: In the Book-3, Canto-3, King was able to dynamise the Supramental Force of having four consequences through ‘downward look’ (Savitri-322) 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 sheaths. 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 transform 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’ (Savitri-329) can penetrate the Subconscient and inconscient sheaths. 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 The perfection’s law promises movement in between ‘hierarchy of lucent planes’ (Savitri-326) of Consciousness and ensures swift Spiritual evolution. 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. To tear desire from its Inconscient root is identified as 'A last and mightiest transformation' (Savitri-318) of King Aswapati . A similar mighty transformation visited Savitri when 'The world’s darkness had consented to Heaven-light.' (Savitri-664) "Then lest a human cry should spoil the Truth He tore desire up from its bleeding roots And offered to the gods the vacant place. Thus could he bear the touch immaculate. A last and mightiest transformation came. " Savitri-318 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 24/ Book 3, Canto 4 - The Vision And The Boon 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’ (Savitri-334) of the Divine Mother in his heart. This also symbolises that the King’s Psychic Being is Supramentalised. "An Influence had approached the mortal range, A boundless Heart was near his longing heart, A mystic Form enveloped his earthly shape.... The One he worshipped was within him now:" Savitri-334 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 a static Soul realisation of later Vedantists and the influence of three gunas of ordinary life 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' (Savitri-339) are forbidden. "The goal recedes, a bourneless vastness calls Retreating into an immense Unknown; There is no end to the world’s stupendous march, There is no rest for the embodied soul. It must live on, describe all Time’s huge curve. An Influx presses from the closed Beyond Forbidding to him rest and earthly ease, Till he has found himself he cannot pause." Savitri-399 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’ (Savitri-340) with the aid of his ‘spirit’s wide omnipotent urge.’ (Savitri-340) Any impatience towards fulfilment of the highest human aspiration can draw King Aswapati towards Titan's 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 (Light floated round the marvellous Vision’s brow. Savitri-346) to fulfil his aspiration for earth and men. King saw ‘Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers,’ (Savitri-343) ‘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’ (Savitri-344) 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 to the Divine Mother to ‘Mission to earth some living form’ (Savitri-345) of Her 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) "She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom, Strength shall be with her like a conqueror’s sword And from her eyes the Eternal’s bliss shall gaze. A seed shall be sown in Death’s tremendous hour, A branch of heaven transplant to human soil; Nature shall overleap her mortal step; Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.” Savitri-346 Thus, King was the 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 the bounded universe and can reconcile Spirit with Matter. The literal meaning of King’s name is ‘The Lord of Life’ (Savitri-348) 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) Their task is to repeat King Aswapti's following Subconscient transformation experience: "A divinising stream possessed his veins, His body’s cells awoke to spirit sense, Each nerve became a burning thread of joy: Tissue and flesh partook beatitude. Alight, the dun unplumbed subconscient caves Thrilled with the prescience of her longed-for tread And filled with flickering crests and praying tongues." Savitri-334 This Canto proposes a Sadhak to become 'A wanderer from the occult invisible suns' (Savitri-348) substituting the earlier habit of outer wandering. King Aswapati's outer wandering reduced after his realisation of universal Self or 'Humanity framed his movements (outer wandering) less and less.' (Savitri-26) This we notice in Savitri after she discovered Divine Love from without in the form of Satyavan , she declared firmly, 'Now of more wandering it has no need.' (Savitri-412) 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 25/ Book 4, Canto 1 - The Birth And Childhood Of The Flame 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 her 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. "A mind of light , a life of rhythmic force, A body instinct with hidden divinity Prepared an image of the coming god; And when the slow rhyme of the expanding years And the rich murmurous swarm-work of the days Had honey-packed her sense and filled her limbs, Accomplishing the moon-orb of her grace, Self-guarded in the silence of her strength Her solitary greatness was not less." Savitri-357 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. "A scout of victory in a vigil tower, Her aspiration called high destiny down; A silent warrior paced in her city of strength Inviolate, guarding Truth’s diamond throne ." Savitri-358 "Many high gods dwelt in one beautiful home; Yet was her nature’s orb a perfect whole, Harmonious like a chant with many tones, Immense and various like a universe." Savitri-358 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 26/ Book 4, Canto 2 - The Growth Of The Flame 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 "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 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: “A friend and yet too great wholly to know, She walked in their front towards a greater light, Their leader and queen over their hearts and souls, One close to their bosoms, yet divine and far. ” Savitri-363 “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 “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." Savitri-367 “All worshipped marvellingly (Savitri), none dared to claim.” Savitri-368 4: Desperate effort to bridge the gulf between herself and her admirers: “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: 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 “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 “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-363-364 “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 “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 5: Spiritual fall: After meeting Savitri , those unable to recognise and hold her Divine Presence experienced a 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 of people, lakasangraha, for a Divine purpose. It proposes to utilise time and space exclusively to accumulate Spiritual energy (Self-concentration) and by the movement of Spiritual consciousness, he does good of all creatures (Self-expansion). 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 When a high Soul takes birth on earth, it becomes difficult for him to find an equal Soul, who can help him in accomplishing his Divine Mission of fourfold Divine union. Till the arrival of an equal companion or till the finding of a complementary Soul, he must live alone with his Psychic Being. The effort made to create, nurture and build an equal Soul is identified here as a waste of time. 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 , that they should not waste their time in building Soul of their own kind but to utilise time to accumulate Spiritual energy and 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 27/ Book 4, Canto 3 - The Call To The Quest 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’. King Aswapati again confirmed his mission for earth and men related to 'shadowless bliss.' (Savitri-340, 369) “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’ (Savitri-375) received Divine transformation. The King got a blueprint of how he will realise the 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’ (Savitri-372) 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 Father and the Guru of Savitri , gave her double tasks of finding the Divine without and within. Firstly, she will tread a brief golden path with her second Self Satyavan , 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 extreme 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. “The Wise who know see but one half of Truth, (sattwic men) The strong climb hardly to a low-peaked height, (tamasic men) The hearts that yearn are given one hour to love.” (rajasic men) Savitri-372 “Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self Are seized unutterably and he (King) 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 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. "For somewhere on the longing breast of earth, Thy unknown lover waits for thee the unknown. Thy soul has strength and needs no other guide Than One who burns within thy bosom’s powers. There shall draw near to meet thy approaching steps The second self for whom thy nature asks, He who shall walk until thy body’s end A close-bound traveller pacing with thy pace, The lyrist of thy soul’s most intimate chords Who shall give voice to what in thee is mute." Savitri-374 OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: (Earth) “Knows that one high step might enfranchise (liberate) all” Savitri-371 28/ Book 4, Canto 4 - The Quest 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 leaves the palace in search of her ‘only Lord’ (Savitri-637) who can hold her comprehensive 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 to receive Savitri’s full Divine Love, he must develop/integrate the following twelve exclusive attributes (or twelve types of liberated Souls) 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 opportune moment of 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 29/ Book 5, Canto 1 - The Destined Meeting Place 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. "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 "These knew each other though in forms thus strange. Although to sight unknown, though life and mind Had altered to hold a new significance, These bodies summed the drift of numberless births, And the spirit to the spirit was the same." Savitri-398-399 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 of Supreme Self 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 Sadhak to become ascetic within symbolised as 'a soul retiring from the world' (Savitri-391) and ‘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: "The Mighty Mother lay outstretched at ease. All was in line with her first satisfied plan; Moved by a universal will of joy The trees bloomed in their green felicity And the wild children brooded not on pain... Behind the rapt smile of the Almighty’s dance." Savitri-390 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 30/ Book 5, Canto 2 - Satyavan A Brief Restatement: Satyavan's surface personality was built from the accumulation of Soul Forces from his past births. " Noble and clear as the broad peaceful heavens A tablet of young wisdom was his brow; Freedom’s imperious beauty curved his limbs, The joy of life was on his open face. His look was a wide daybreak of the gods, His head was a youthful Rishi’s touched with light, His body was a lover’s and a king’s." Savitri-393 Satyavan’s early days in the Shalwa’s forest land were to think, act, enjoy and breathe like other mundane man and yet he had a brief partial glimpse of his deeper Self. If an individual's thoughts, actions and emotions are activated without the support and help of the Divine, then he is identified as a Mundane "Once were my (Satyavan’s) days like days of other men: To think and act was all, to enjoy and breathe; This was the width and height of mortal hope:” Savitri-406-407, Then a ‘truth was felt’ in his moderate life ‘that screened its shape from mind.’ (Savitri-407) A moderate is oblivious of future doom and is preoccupied with present moments. An awareness of future doom comes through vision, and by consecration, Divine union is experienced and the doom changes. 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, ('I lived in the ray but faced not to the sun.' Savitri-407) 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, he 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 Sun light, 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 mundane man incarnating to the integral ascending Godhead of the race or ‘the soul of man climbing to God,’ (Savitri-703) and its destined saviour. Satyavan’s 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 dark Godhead in Death’s Night. Through this sacrificial action, the highest Divine Consciousness of the Avatar is reconciled with the lowest consciousness of the earth. Sri Aurobindo reveals Satyavan as a symbol of Divine Love (masculine Power). Divine love is an overhead energy that 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. The dwarf mind, life and body cannot hold the ineffable Divine Love in its pure form. Still, this Divine Love is held by 'A soul made ready through a thousand years' (Savitri-396) and 'He is still the godhead by which all can change.' (Savitri-397) Through this Canto, we can concentrate on dual Avatara’s supreme relation of Krishna and Kali 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 brief Supramental experience of uninterrupted intense immortal joy. The mortal body learns with much difficult training to wear this intense delight. This bliss is born after the awakening of the last Godhead of the Inconscient Self and it can transform and remake our all life. This Book-5, Canto-2 symbolically proposes a Sadhak to 'meet the ancient Mother ' (Savitri-393) and live in the matrix of new triple Time and new universalised Space of Cosmic Consciousness, where an incalculable amount of Divine Force, Truth, Light, Ananda, Love, Beauty, Peace and Silence invades into earth's atmosphere 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. "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 (dual Avatar) now incarnate here Love brought down power out of eternity To make of life his new undying base." Savitri-397 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 The Most Important Secret of this chapter: "A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff, A bliss is born that can remake our life.” Savitri-397-398 31/ Book 5, Canto 3 - Satyavan And Savitri 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 32/ Book 6, Canto 1 - The Word Of Fate 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. In this Book-6, Canto-1 (and also Canto-2) a reconciliation of moderate Spirituality represented by Savitri’s birth Mother, ancient Vedantic Spirituality represented by King Aswapati and Savitri , Overmental Spirituality of God represented by Narad are observed. Moderate Spirituality aims at escaping from problems of existence and extreme adversity through partial Divine union whereas ancient Vedantic Spirituality aims at resolving the problems of existence and confronting with extreme adversity of life through comprehensive Divine union. Overmental Gods have a role of helping men through foreknowledge and strengthening the Soul force of strong Souls and forcing weak Souls to experience Spiritual fall. Narad proposes that if one could live in the exceeding joy of the Self then doom might sleep in his life; this doom hunts and captures men when they remain unconscious of their Divine existence; if Savitri’s heart could be permanently imprisoned in the Supramental world and if she could live in the highest consciousness and exceeding bliss in her conscious waking state then doom might have slept permanently in her life and subsequently from earth’s life. He also proposes that this exceeding Bliss must be routed to man’s life through the opening of the Inconscient Self and the discovery of Divine Love hidden in the Inconscient Sheath or ‘Love that broods within the dim abyss.’ (Savitri-416) Narad’s arrival also calls down the future Supramental world and the promise of transformation of dark energies of the Subconscient and inconscient world: “And as he sang the demons wept with joy Foreseeing the end of their long dreadful task And the defeat for which they hoped in vain, And glad release from their self-chosen doom And return into the One from whom they came.” Savitri-417 Ancient Vedantists have the conviction ‘Only for good the secret Will can work’ (Savitri-424) and ‘I am stronger than death and greater than my fate.’ (Savitri-432) Others do not have this faith as they have no strong direct contact with the Divine. Here the King speaks of the double destiny of men. One is that of fixed destiny born out of ‘blindness of our will,’ our Karma or bounded action and the other is our changeable Spiritual destiny which is born out of oneness with Divine Will, Divine Wisdom and Divine Love. So, this Canto gives the message that one can escape untimely death and can live a long secure life if his Psychic being opens. For these Psychic and Spiritual Self opened Souls Death is not a curse but a passage and choice (iccha mrityu) for higher life. "Death is our road to immortality." Savitri-424, “Our death is made a passage to new worlds,” Savitri-194, “Death is a passage, not the goal of our walk:” Savitri-197, Savitri was able to trace her Lord in the distant land. Here, Savitri is identified as Para-prakriti or the virgin Mother and her meeting with Paramatma Satyavan can bring perfection in life and perfection in delight. Thus, we discover the Mahamantra of Savitri whose repetition can bring our Souls to the front: “Virgin who comest perfected by joy,” Savitri-424 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 Aswapat i, 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 of transforming Subconscient and Inconscient darkness 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 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 33/ Book 6, Canto 2 - The Book Of Fate, The Way Of Fate And The Problem Of Pain Summary Restated: In this Book-6, Canto-2 we meet three personalities. First one is the human personality of Savitri’s Mother, who seems to be concerned and blind with her own interest in an easy, comfortable and long happy human life. She does not bother for the world's misery and suffering and its irradiation from earth life. Due to her partial union with the Divine and satisfaction with that achievement, she was unaware of Divine’s comprehensive world plan, unaware of Divine Grace which acts during danger and difficulties of human life, unaware of dynamic Divine Power which can descend to change individual and collective destiny. King Aswapat i, due to his hard life of concentrated Tapasya could get a brief glimpse of Savitri’s past, present and future and also earth’s past, present and future. A detailed foreknowledge of the above issue was available to Narad , due to his Overmental God status. None of the above three have the capacity to change Savitri’s destiny and hence earth’s destiny. So, Savitri’s Psychic Being is identified as a greater God, and enjoys greater power and privilege than God and the Guru . Narad confirms that man is the author of his fate/doom and he can rewrite his fixed fate by opening the Psychic being through long sacrifice. He also issues the same proposal of hard sacrifice for Avatara for achieving his task of earth’s redemption. One can note the following two verses from Savitri: “Even if he (Avatara ) escapes the fiercest fires, Even if the world breaks not in, a drowning sea, Only by hard sacrifice is high heaven earned: He must face the fight, the pang who would conquer Hell.” Savitri-447 “Thy (common man) fate is a long sacrifice to the gods Till they have opened to thee thy secret self (Psychic Being) And made thee one with the indwelling God (Psychic Being).” Savitri-458 Narad identifies three dwarves, tamasic mind, rajasic mind and sattwic mind as the ‘hidden foe.’ Through these three inconscient energies the dark and hostile forces of the nether world enter into our life. The ordinary destiny can be changed if one can go beyond their influence. “There is no visible foe, but the unseen Is round us, forces intangible besiege, Touches from alien realms, thoughts not our own Overtake us and compel the erring heart; Our lives are caught in an ambiguous net. An adversary Force was born of old: Invader of the life of mortal man, It hides from him the straight immortal path. A power came in to veil the eternal Light, A power opposed to the eternal will Diverts the messages of the infallible Word, Contorts the contours of the cosmic plan: A whisper lures to evil the human heart, (whisper of vital and physical mind) It seals up wisdom’s eyes, the soul’s regard, It is the origin of our suffering here, It binds earth to calamity and pain. This all must conquer who would bring down God’s peace. This hidden foe lodged in the human breast Man must overcome or miss his higher fate. This is the inner war without escape.” Savitri-447-448 The main participants who partake in uncovering this topic (mystery) are restated with more deeper meaning: 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 was 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 34/ Book 7, Canto 1 - The Book Of Yoga, The Joy Of Union 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. Subtle physical relations increase by changing the centre of living from the surface to deep within. 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 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 35/ Book 7, Canto 2 - The Parable Of The Search For The Soul 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 36/ Book 7, Canto 3 - Entry Into The Inner Countries A Brief Restatement: The Book-7, Canto-3 concentrates on the 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 the 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 37/ Book 7, Canto 4 - The Triple Soul Forces 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 38/ Book 7, Canto 5 - The Finding Of The Soul 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 and transform himself, the collectivity and the world. But to realise this perfection is a long patient 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 : . (Savitri's experience) “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 (Savitri's experience) "Many high gods dwelt in one beautiful home; Yet was her nature’s orb a perfect whole, Harmonious like a chant with many tones, Immense and various like a universe." Savitri-358 (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 39/ Book 7, Canto 6 - Nirvana And The Discovery Of The All Negating Absolute 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,' (Savitri-534) and the other is Soul saving affirmation or 'a greater Voice came down' (Savitri-536) 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 an 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. This realisation is a little different from escapist later Vedantic doctrine. “The Divine alone is true – all the rest is falsehood. The Divine alone is real – all the rest is illusion. The Divine alone is life – all the rest belongs to the kingdom of death. The Divine alone is light – all the rest is semi-obscurity. 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/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 40/ Book 7, Canto 7 - The Discovery Of The Cosmic Spirit And The Cosmic Consciousness 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 of ascetic peace’ (Savitri-551) 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 realised her cosmic Self which is identified as the second fundamental realization of integral Yoga. In this Consciousness Divine becomes dynamic and one lives in waking trance. 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 the 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 (Spiritual opening) “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 are 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 41/ Book 8, Canto 3 - Death In The Forest Summary or Brief Restatement: This Canto speaks symbolically 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. Savitri was supremely aware of the day in which Satyavan would leave his body. "Now has a strong desire seized all my heart To go with Satyavan holding his hand Into the life that he has loved and touch Herbs he has trod and know the forest flowers And hear at ease the birds and the scurrying life That starts and ceases, rich far rustle of boughs And all the mystic whispering of the woods." Savitri-562 This gives a clear message to a Sadhak , instead of following the escapist solution of Moderate and later Vedantist , he must prepare and accumulate Soul force in his inner life all the time to confront Death which is experienced by Sayavan as follows: "But as he worked, his doom upon him came. The violent and hungry hounds of pain Travelled through his body biting as they passed Silently, and all his suffering breath besieged Strove to rend life’s strong heart-cords and be free. Then helped, as if a beast had left its prey, A moment in a wave of rich relief Reborn to strength and happy ease he stood Rejoicing and resumed his confident toil But with less seeing strokes. Now the great woodsman Hewed at him and his labour ceased: lifting His arm he flung away the poignant axe Far from him like an instrument of pain. She came to him in silent anguish and clasped, And he cried to her, “Savitri, a pang Cleaves through my head and breast as if the axe Were piercing it and not the living branch. Such agony rends me as the tree must feel When it is sundered and must lose its life. Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lap And guard me with thy hands from evil fate: Perhaps because thou touchest, death may pass.” Savitri-564 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 an accidental 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 and becomes strong through Sadhana . By breaking the weak bond fostered through human love, Death succeeds in carrying human Souls to its home. The awareness of Satyavan’s death will make a Sadhaka supremely conscious of the brief Time he is given in this birth and utilis es 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. "Wordless but near she watched, no turn to lose Of the bright face and body which she loved . Her life was now in seconds, not in hours, And every moment she economised (every moment is utilised to call down Divine energy.) Like a pale merchant leaned above his store, The miser of his poor remaining gold. But Satyavan wielded a joyous axe. He sang high snatches of a sage’s chant That pealed of conquered death and demons slain, And sometimes paused to cry to her sweet speech Of love and mockery tenderer than love:" Savitri-563-564 This Canto also hints that during death 'the bright spirit’s luminous gaze' was withdrawn and 'Only the dull and physical mind was left.' (Savitri-565) Integral Yoga proposes that before meeting physical death, the dwarf physical mind must be illumined and transformed. This is a difficult task and the Mother declared, "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’s Centenary Works/13/62-63 OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “Like the strong sun that serves earth from above.” Savitri-562 “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 42/ Book 9, Canto 1 - Towards The Black Void 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. Savitri also visited the Inconscient world without dying. (Death said to Savitri) “O mortal, turn back to thy transient kind; Aspire not to accompany Death to his home, As if thy breath could live where Time must die." Savitri-580 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,’ (Savitri-581) ‘against fixed destiny and the grooves of’ (Savitri-581) Iron Law and there Satyavan met her with his wonderful bright eyes. "Then, to that chill sere heavy line arrived Where his feet touched the shadowy marches’ brink, Turning arrested luminous Satyavan Looked back with his wonderful eyes at Savitri ." Savitri-580 OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “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 43/ Book 9, Canto 2 - The Journey In Eternal Night And The Voice Of The Darkness 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 the 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 backwards in Time in order to illumine the 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 suggests 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 her Subconscient transformation. The purpose of entry into this dark Inconscient world is to bridge the gulf with the aid of her golden relation with Satyavan which calls down (‘But now a silent gulf between them came’ (Savitri-584) ‘In vain thou (Death) hast dug the dark unbridgeable gulf,’ (Savitri-648)) large scale invasion of Divine Love. Now this action of Divine Love is still remote from the Inconscient plane or ‘Even from herself cast out, from love remote.’ (Savitri-584) How can the gulf between them be bridged by the movement of Consciousness? The most crucial gulf is identified as the border of Subconscient and Inconscient Sheath where Savitri lost Satyavan for a brief period while journeying along with Death. Due to this gulf, ‘Her eyes had lost their luminous Satyavan ’ (Savitri-584) or ‘The soul of the beloved now seen no more.’(Savitri-585) Ordinary human love cannot bridge this gulf, so death becomes inevitable. After the gulf is bridged in isolation/loneliness and deep meditation/sleep state in the Inconscient sheath she again restores her relation with Satyavan through a series of Spiritual experiences: ‘Her husband, grew into a luminous shade;’ (Savitri-585) ‘I will bear with him the ancient Mother’s load I will follow with him earth’s path that leads to God.’ (Savitri-590) ‘For I (Savitri) who have trod with him (Satyavan ) the tracts’ (Savitri-590) of all Time; ‘Wherever thou (Death) leadst his (Satyavan’s) soul I shall pursue.’ (Savitri-590) This is identified as the great victory of Savitri in the Inconscient world. “The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds. He (Divine Love) labours in the depths, exults on the heights; He (Divine Love) shall remake thy universe, O Death .” (Savitri-592) This victory can meet other extreme danger, “Let not the inconscient gulf swallow man’s race” (Savitri-687) or “Her mouth of darkness swallowing all that is.” (Savitri-585) 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. "Love’s golden wings have power to fan thy void: The eyes of love gaze starlike through death’s night, The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds. He labours in the depths, exults on the heights; He shall remake thy universe, O Death .” Savitri-592 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 44/ Book 10, Canto 1 - The Dream Twilight And The Ideal 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 ‘a morning twilight of the gods’ (Savitri-601) 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 the eyeless dark’ (Savitri-602) has 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' (Savitri-602) 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 its 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. "Their bold formations are too absolute; Carved by an anguish of divine endeavour They stand up sculptured on the eternal hills, Or quarried from the living rocks of God Win immortality by perfect form. They are too intimate with eternal things: Vessels of infinite significances, They are too clear, too great, too meaningful; No mist or shadow soothes the vanquished sight, No soft penumbra of incertitude." Savitri-603-604 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…. "Half-vanquished by the dream-happiness around, Awhile she moved on an enchantment’s soil, But still remained possessor of her soul. Above, her spirit in its mighty trance Saw all, but lived for its transcendent task, (Realisation of Cosmic and Transcendent Divine.) Immutable like a fixed eternal star." Savitri-606 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 45/ Book 10, Canto 2 - The Gospel Of Death And Vanity Of The Ideal 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.) A Sadhak , who does not wear the face of Paramatma Satyavan within the heart centre has no issue, no charm and glory and his life is symbolically revealed as experiencing the sorrow of widowhood or 'Like love when the beloved's face is gone.' (Savitri-306) This is the most difficult Spiritual task before a Sadhak but there is none else. When King Aswapati asked Savitri 'somewhere on the longing breast of earth, Thy unknown lover waits for thee the unknown,’ (Savitri-374) Savitri went across the world to meet her Lord. She met twelve types of exclusive liberated great Souls before meeting Satyavan but they were not fit to hold Savitri’s Comprehensive Divine Love. To hold Savitri’s comprehensive Divine Love, one has to reconcile twelve exclusive Divine attributes of liberated Souls. So he can ‘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 46/ Book 10, Canto 3 - The Debate Of Love And Death 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. "A spirit moved in black immensities And built a Thought in ancient Nothingness; A soul was lit in God’s tremendous Void, A secret labouring glow of nascent fire." Savitri-622 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. "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. The heavens accept our broken flights at last. On our life’s prow that breaks the waves of Time No signal light of hope has gleamed in vain.” Savitri-638 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) "Yet Light is there; it stands at Nature’s doors: It holds a torch to lead the traveller in. It waits to be kindled in our secret cells; It is a star lighting an ignorant sea, A lamp upon our poop piercing the night. As knowledge grows Light flames up from within: It is a shining warrior in the mind, An eagle of dreams in the divining heart, An armour in the fight, a bow of God." 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. "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 This Canto also proposes that Subconscient transformation can only be experienced in deep meditation or non-waking trance. Entry into Subconscient plane is a terrible battle against the forces of darkness and in the Mother’s language, “I am given the awareness of how huge this thing (Divine descent) is one drop at a time…so I won’t be crushed,” (The Mother’s Agenda, July 15, 1961,) and this Subconscient transformation could be done ‘only in deep meditation…and not in any other time, in activity or even in concentration.’ (The Mother’s Agenda, December 11, 1963) "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 A Sadhak of integral Yoga must understand that before conquering Death from without Savitri must conquer Death from within accompanied with mighty calmness. “O Death, I have triumphed over thee within ; I quiver no more with the assault of grief; A mighty calmness seated deep within Has occupied my body and my sense: It takes the world’s grief and transmutes to strength, It makes the world’s joy one with the joy of God." Savitri-633 OM TAT SAT The Most Important Secret of this chapter: “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 47/ Book 10, Canto 4 - The Dream Twilight And The Earthly Real 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 and 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 f or the completeness of his Spiritual life. Here in this Canto-IV, book-10, Savitri, the Divine Mother had possessed Death by Her dynamic Viswa rupa. Death God is projected here as a temporary dark instrument of the Divine. This is also the message for a Sadhak of integral Yoga that he has to realise the vision of Viswarupa of the Gita through his third eye and be possessed by the Viswarupa of the Divine Mother, 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. (Death's Viswa rupa experience) "Weighed on his unbowed head and stubborn breast; Light like a burning tongue licked up his thoughts, Light was a luminous torture in his heart, Light coursed, a splendid agony, through his nerves; His darkness muttered perishing in her blaze. Her mastering Word commanded every limb And left no room for his enormous will That seemed pushed out into some helpless space And could no more re-enter but left him void. He called to Night but she fell shuddering back, He called to Hell but sullenly it retired: He turned to the Inconscient for support, From which he was born, his vast sustaining self; It drew him back towards boundless vacancy As if by himself to swallow up himself: He called to his strength, but it refused his call. His body was eaten by light, his spirit devoured." Savitri-667 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.’ (Savitri-657) 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.' (Savitri-663) 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 48/ Book 11, Canto 1 - The Soul's Choice And The Supreme's Consummation 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 moves 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, reminds 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 He offers her, let that be provided to all of Earth and man, not just to her. One key difference I (Auroprem) 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 Aswapati, 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 the highest planes of Consciousness 'through immense extinction in eternity'. (Savitri-696) (This also hints at the 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 through 'A thousand doors of oneness', (Savitri-695) 'force her will on fate,' (Savitri-694) 'stamp her will on Time' (Savitri-695) and her joy becomes imperfect if 'not shared by all.' (Savitri-686) "A virgin unity, a luminous spouse, Housing a multitudinous embrace To marry all in God’s immense delight, Bearing the eternity of every spirit, Bearing the burden of universal love, A wonderful mother of unnumbered souls." Savitri-695 Divine says that after Savitri prepares the Earth it will then be able to bear the descent of the Supreme Mother, the last Avatar . 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 The Most Important Secret of this Canto: "A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell And take the charge of breath and speech and act And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns And every feeling a celestial thrill. Often a lustrous inner dawn shall come Lighting the chambers of the slumbering mind; A sudden bliss shall run through every limb A nd Nature with a mightier Presence fill. Thus shall the earth open to divinity And common natures feel the wide uplift, Illumine common acts with the Spirit’s ray And meet the deity in common things. Nature shall live to manifest secret God, The Spirit shall take up the human play, This earthly life become the life divine.” Savitri-710 49/ Book 12, Epilogue - The Return To Earth 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 Download the above synopsis We must pursue Sadhana by outwardly becoming a mere man of action like the woodsman status of Satyavan and inwardly like King Aswapati, who drops all his separative identity in the Divine, possesses the highest objective of Jnana and Bhakti Yoga by becoming a Karma Yog i. We must note that while pursuing this difficult Yoga if we experience Spiritual fall then, also we can again pursue this Sadhana of Karma Yoga like King Dyumatsena , in double seclusion that of an outcast from the privilege of light of the outer world and renouncing the enjoyment of five senses symbolised here as loss of eyesight. We must learn to consecrate our Soul’s childhood near the Mother Soul, here identified as Savitri , who serves earth and her children from below like a slave and from above like Sunlight. Her ceaseless consecration and ceaseless Divine union could not satisfy and fulfill life because there is always the threat of an inrush of Ignorance, Falsehood, Suffering and Death from below. They can abruptly end all the charm of life. The remedy lies in her Subconscient and Inconscient transformation through a collaboration of a few prepared universalised individual vessels.

Journal in Brief “The idea of the supermind, the Truth-Consciousness is there in the Rig Veda according to Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation and in one or two passages of the Upanishads , but in the Upanishads it is there only in seed in the conception of the being of knowledge, vijnanamaya purusha , exceeding the mental, vital and physical being; in the Rig Veda the idea is there but in principle only, it is not developed and even the principle of it has disappeared from the Hindu tradition. It is these things among others that constitute the novelty of Sri Aurobindo’s message as compared with the Hindu tradition, the idea that the world is not either a creation of Maya or only a play, lıla , of the Divine, or a cycle of births in the ignorance from which we have to escape, but a field of manifestation in which there is a progressive evolution of the soul and the nature in Matter and from Matter through Life and Mind to what is beyond Mind till it reaches the complete revelation of Sachchidananda in life. It is this that is the basis of the Yoga and gives a new sense to life.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-444-445 "In the supramental consciousness, there are no problems — the problem is created by the division set up by the Mind. The Supramental sees the Truth as a single whole and everything falls into its place in that whole. The Supramental is also spiritual, but the old Yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence) absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-existence absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the supramental plane.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-133-134 Words are the powers of Brahman ; if rightly used, they will save the Soul and will assist in Soul flowering; if wrongly used, they can slay the Soul. The Mother insisted⁵¹ that if writing related to Spiritual truth has to inspire a wider dimension for a long period, it must descend from the very high impersonal and universal plane and must be received by the intellect without the least distortion. For a swiftly evolving developed Soul, all new descent of Knowledge will be obsolete after some time. So, he has to shift his consciousness from mutable time to an immutable timeless state where eternal Wisdom is constantly renovated by fresh instreaming knowledge. Again, in the immutable timeless state, there are hierarchies of ascending Consciousness and truth descended from one plane of Consciousness necessitates change when one ascends still higher ranges of Consciousness. ‘The knowledge comes from above like the light and peace and everything else…it comes from a higher and higher level.’¹³¹ All these higher activities of Intuitions are ‘first manifested in the mind itself as descents, irruptions, messages or revelations of a superior power.’¹²³ A Spiritual knowledge from above begins to pour ‘in waves and currents’¹³⁰ and it descends ‘frequently, constantly, then uninterruptedly, and to manifest in the mind’s quietude or silence; intuitions and inspirations, revelations born of a greater sight, a higher truth and wisdom, enter into the being, a luminous intuitive discrimination works which dispels all darkness of understanding or dazzling confusions, puts all in order…’¹³⁰ The Synthesis of Yoga book discourages Sadhaka’s inscription and exceptional oration of ‘the examples of outward acts...of personal⁴¹ character;’²⁵ proposes that to relinquish though ‘these have their place and their utility;’²⁵ but his writings can most stimulate others’ aspiration if he can focus on ‘the central fact of the divine realisation within him governing his whole life and inner state and all his activities.’²⁵ Thus, he becomes a light and power of the Truth to which he has climbed and a means for others’ ascension.’⁸⁰ His writing must reproduce the creative and developing part of his own plastic Being, which may descend from above as a word, a message, a voice of the Self,⁶³ vani, adesh , instead of an inadequate intellectual thought, ‘repetitive word’⁵³ and ‘an imitation from outside.’²⁵ If the feeling of emotion, thought-power and will-force expressed through the word is entirely purified to recognise intuition, then the power of lonely thought ‘reverses the whole order of the mind’s thinking’⁶⁴ and it rises towards knowledge by Identity, Omnipotence, Omniscience and the preservation of the Brahman consciousness. The thought of the intuitive mind proceeds wholly by four powers¹²² that shape the form of the written truth, (1) (truth-touch) an intuition that suggests its idea in the form of the descended word, a direct and illumining inner idea of truth, a bright memory of self-existent truth, (2) (truth-discrimination) an intuition that sets the truth-idea in its right place and exact relation of truth to truth; it discriminates Soul slaying truth and Soul saving truth and rejects the former, (3) (truth-hearing, pratykhya-shruti) an inspiration that brings in its voice of truth word and something of its greater substance, brief lightning lighting up many dark provinces and (4) (truth-sight, pratykhya-dristi ) an inner vision, a revelation that shapes to the sight its very face and body of reality. If the restatement of Their (The Mother and Sri Aurobindo's ) Impersonal and Universalised Teaching or written truth is cast rightly through calling down of fresh immortal thought, then the combined wisdom of past and present descended truths can awake new future immensities and the unfinished integral Yoga can move ahead beyond the limitation of customised Religion. If a Power from the chamber of the Soul has interfered, inspired, guided and commanded at every step and in every detail, then he can discover the true Mantra of life or the ‘sole timeless Word.’²⁶ ‘It is as if the eye of the poet and artist had replaced the vague or trivial unseeing normal vision, but singularly spiritualised and glorified, — as if indeed it were the sight of the supreme divine Poet and Artist in which we were participating and there were given to us the full seeing of his truth and intention in his design of the universe and of each thing in the universe.’¹¹⁸ A Psychic opening can transform every thought into ‘a sweet burning god’¹²⁹ and every feeling into ‘Eternal’s mighty child.’¹²⁹ A touch of Spiritual or Overmental Truth can immortalise⁹⁰ the momentary actions, thoughts and emotions. By a touch of Supreme Sunlight, a childlike immature thought can richly turn into ‘luminous patterns of’⁵⁷ Soul’s deep truth. Or ‘Even the youngest child-thought of the mind’⁸⁷ can incarnate ‘some touch of highest things.’⁸⁷ Supreme words can pour into the plastic language with Light, Power and Force and this can be easily and freely done by a rare gifted Soul whose intellect is completely pacified, separation is affected between intuitive and intellectual elements of thought and physical consciousness, sense organs and mind have been sufficiently purified. The Mother pointed out that all future books carrying the Supreme vibration are ‘not a teaching, not even a revelation’⁴⁷ but they must convey the forceful message and feeling of decisive and ‘formidable action coming direct from the Supreme.’⁴⁷ The Mother further defined that a book carrying the Supreme vibration would be simple and all-embracing and ‘any fool could read it like a story and feel perfectly satisfied – and he wouldn’t even notice it taking hold of him inside and changing him.’⁸⁹ It appears that the Mother was not interested in preserving the knowledge⁴⁸ that descended to Her from the Supramental plane but rather She was keen to carry out the mighty Supramental action that could drag ahead the Divine race. If any action has the Supramental support, then even a small beginning moves towards ‘a mighty end’⁷⁸ or ‘In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks…(and) It grows and is a conqueror and a sage.’¹²³ And if writing is limited to teaching only then one can draw profit from it ‘if it is lived while it is being given;’⁵³ and if writing is a descent from the Supreme plane like ‘flame-wrapped outbursts of the immortal Word’⁷⁹ then ‘the glory of its thoughts’⁹⁵ and ‘the grandeur of its dreams’⁹⁵ will ‘never die’⁹⁶ and ‘glow through the centuries’⁹⁶ and 'the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.'⁸⁹ The greatest utility of self-expression and self-fulfillment, either through writing or through oration, is to utilise it as a means of movement of the ascent of the Soul to travel ‘beyond the world’⁸⁸ and descent of Divine Shakti to ‘save the world.’⁸⁸ The Synthesis of Yoga book proposes that a Sadhak’s action, writing and feeling must be ‘virginally creative at each moment.’¹³² OM TAT SAT References are available in the book ‘The Mother’s Manifestation’ (page 270-271). Download this WEB PAGE as PDF file: JOURNAL IN DETAIL “For writing, even more than for speaking, if you aspire to remain in the best attitude for advancing swiftly towards the Divine, you should make it a strict rule to speak (and even more to write) only what is absolutely indispensable. It is a marvellous discipline if you follow it sincerely.” The Mother TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-207 "Knowledge is a child with its achievements; for when it has found out something, it runs about the streets whooping and shouting; Wisdom conceals hers for a long time in a thoughtful and mighty silence." Sri Aurobindo CWSA – 12 /Essays Divine and Human/p– 436 READ MORE >> STUDY CIRCLE Study Circle for us is Prakriti Yajna . If it is done rightly then there will be large descent of Divine Will, Divine Wisdom and Divine Love. It is a means of collective Divine Union. The Earlier trend of using this as a platform of giving upadesha (advise) and lokasamgraham (gathering together of people) have renewed their significance before the new movement of Consciousness through Prakriti Yajna or Vedic sacrifice. In Study circle our firm motive is to “Ask for nothing but the divine, spiritual and supramental Truth, its realisation on earth and in you and in all who are called and chosen and the conditions needed for its creation and its victory over all opposing forces…Where there is affinity to the rhythms of the secret world-bliss and response to the call of the All- Beautiful and concord and unity and the glad flow of many lives turned towards the Divine, in that atmosphere she (Mahalakshmi) consents to abide.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-32/The Mother and Letters on the Mother/p-8, 21 READ MORE >> THE DESCENT "There is no value at all in these things (Magazine and articles) — people read and forget. As for propaganda I have seen that it is perfectly useless for us — if there is any effect, it is a very trifling and paltry effect not worth the trouble. If the Truth has to spread itself, it will do it of its own motion; these things are unnecessary." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-35/Letters On Himself and the Ashram/p-690-691 Our objective in The Descent is to trace out a Spiritual path of our own by constantly restating and renewing the written truth by fresh inflow of overhead Wisdom. READ MORE >> Written truths can be rightly understood after the opening either of the Psychic Being in the heart or of the Spiritual being above the head and if we live within the boundary of three Guna s, ‘at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might not know him at all.’ All Shastra s are incomplete accounts of the eternal unfolding of endless truth and they can be utilised either as a seed of a mighty banyan tree or a temporary scaffold in ascending and descending movements of consciousness. The office of their largescale utility can be superseded by building a permanent ladder within through the inner movement of Psychic and Spiritual Consciousness. (Refer: CWSA-23-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-81, 191, 777) "It has already been said that so long as the seeker has no inner light, he must govern himself by the best light he has, and duty, a principle, a cause are among the standards he may temporarily erect and observe....In the ordinary life a personal, social or traditional constructed rule, standard or ideal is the guide; once the spiritual journey has begun , this must be replaced by an inner and outer rule or way of living necessary for our self-discipline, liberation and perfection, a way of living proper to the path we follow or enjoined by the spiritual guide and master, the Guru , or else dictated by a Guide within us. But in the last state of the soul’s infinity and freedom all outward standards are replaced or laid aside and there is left only a spontaneous and integral obedience to the Divine with whom we are in union and an action spontaneously fulfilling the integral spiritual truth of our being and nature." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-273 “The ordinary man who wishes to reach God through knowledge, must undergo an elaborate training. He must begin by becoming absolutely pure, he must cleanse thoroughly his body, his heart and his intellect, he must get himself a new heart and be born again; for only the twice-born can understand or teach the Vedas . When he has done this he needs yet four things before he can succeed, (1) the Sruti or recorded revelation, (2) the Sacred Teacher, (3) the practice of Yoga and (4) the Grace of God.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-169