Winter 2014 Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Vol. 39, No. 3

Land and spirit: An American yoga for the 21st Century, continued by John Robert Cornell • The composition of Savitri, part 2 by Richard Hartz • The role of the body in the Integral Yoga, part 2 by Martha Orton • Current affairs • AV almanac • Source material • Poetry • Apropos

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 1 About the cover Title: Vigil (detail).This is a greyscale reproduc- tion of a color painting by Kirti Chankak (kirti- [email protected]). The original painting is watercolor on gauze cloth and paper pulp. It measures 36 x 160 cm (five feet, 3 inches tall), Table of contents and shows the full body down to the feet. Collaboration, vol. 39, no. 3, Winter 2014

The authors and poets From the office ofCollaboration Alan (alan@auroville.org.in) is a long-time Brit- ish Aurovilian who is on the editorial team of Auro- Notes on this issue...... Larry Seidlitz 3 ville Today. He is also a teacher in Auroville. Michael Bonke is a long-time friend and finan- cial contributor of Auroville actively involved in vari- Current affairs ous major projects including the design and construc- tion of the Matrimandir. New offerings of the Institute for Wholistic Education...... John Robert Cornell ([email protected]) is a writ- ...... Santosh Krinsky 4 er and workshop leader living in California. He is Sec- Recent activities at the East-West Cultural Center ...... Anie Nunnally 4 retary of the Sri Aurobindo Association and connected with the Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham in Lodi. Briefs...... 5 Narad Eggenberger ([email protected]) is Recent publications...... 5 a long-time American associate of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville, and various centers in the USA. He is currently building an archive of his interviews with AV almanac various disciples on the Sri Aurobindo Ashram website. Caring for Auroville—The Auroville Health Services...... Alan 6 Richard Hartz ([email protected]) is a member of the Ashram where he works in the Ar- Sri Aurobindo – Selected photos...... Michael Bonke 8 chives and is a scholar on Sri Aurobindo’s thought. Santosh Krinsky ([email protected]) is the Essays founder of Lotus Press, a publisher of books on Sri Au- robindo and the Mother’s teachings, and the President Land and spirit: An American yoga for the 21st Century, continued...... of the Institute for Wholistic Education in Wisconsin. Julian Lines ([email protected]) is president ...... John Robert Cornell 9 of the Matagiri Board of Trustees and a member of The composition ofSavitri , part 2 ...... Richard Hartz 16 Auroville’s International Advisory Council. He is the The role of the body in the Integral Yoga, part 2...... Martha Orton 29 the organizer for AUM 2015 near Matagiri. Rick Lipschutz ([email protected]), a sad- hak, lives in western Massachusetts where he is writing Source material The Soul That Makes Us Matter and participating in a Fate and free-will...... Sri Aurobindo 35 pilot project in Open Dialogue Therapy. Anie Nunnally ([email protected]) resides Freedom and predetermination...... The Mother 36 and works at the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles. She is the author of The Golden Path, interviews with The poetry room senior disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Martha Orton ([email protected]), a The bird of fire...... Sri Aurobindo 38 therapist in Virginia, is the author of The Quest for Knowledge and Mastery, and Oneness; she also is a fa- Shiva...... Sri Aurobindo 38 cilitator of online courses on Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy. Fire on the mountain...... Rick Lipschutz 38 Larry Seidlitz ([email protected]) is the author A simple prayer...... Narad Eggenberger 39 of Transforming Lives: An introduction to Sri Auro- Infinite journey...... Arun Vaidya 39 bindo’s Integral Yoga, is editor of Collaboration, and Let me wake into your beautiful dream...... Larry Seidlitz 39 conducts research for the Indian Psychology Institute. Arun Vaidya ([email protected]) is a re- tired Indian businessman living in the USA with a long- time association with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Apropos ...... 40

2 • Collaboration Winter 2014 From the office of Collaboration Artists Kirti Chandak ([email protected]) graduated from the Ashram’s school, SAICE, e open this issue with Current Affairs, which includes updates on the books then went on to study art at Santiniketan, Baroda and study guides of the Institute for Wholistic Education, and of recent and Paris. She lives in Pondicherry where she visitors and activities at the East-West Cultural Center – The Sri Aurobindo pusues her creative art work and is the Manag- ing Trustee of the Shilpataru Art Foundation and WCenter of Los Angeles. This is followed in Briefs by an announcement of the AUM director for TASMAI, a Centre for Art & Culture. 2015, which is being held jointly this year with the Auroville International Meeting near Karen Cornell has been drawing and paint- Matagiri. There is also an announcement by the Foundation for World Education, and ing since childhood. She was a graphic artist an update of activities at the Auromesa Center in Taos, NM. We also have included an- in the software industry for many years. She nouncements of three new books from the latest SABDA recent publications newsletter. specializes in computer graphics, pen and ink, In AV Almanac, we have an article by Alan of Auroville Today about the Auroville and watercolor. Health Services. After discussing its work in promoting hygienic practices in various Publisher: Collaboration (ISSN 0164-1522) Auroville food service units, the article focuses on the health service’s accomplishments is published by the Sri Aurobindo Association and challenges in dealing with the physical and mental health issues of Auroville’s grow- (SAA), a California nonprofit religious corpora- ing elderly population. This article is followed by an announcement of a new Auroville tion, 2715 W. Kettleman Lane, suite 203-174, Lodi book that has been published of selected photographs of Sri Aurobindo. CA 95242 USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Editor: Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar St., Vaithi- The Essays section begins with the third installment of John Robert Cornell’s previ- kuppam, Puducherry 605101 India; email: lse- ously unpublished book titled “Land and spirit, An American yoga for the 21st Century.” [email protected]. The opinions expressed in Col- This book explores the relation between nature and spirit that John Robert discovered laboration are not necessarily those of the editor while traveling and trekking in the American West with his wife Karen. In this third or the SAA. installment, John Robert and Karen search for the sacred in the canyons of the Navajo Copyrights: Copyright © SAA, 2015. Pho- tos of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, passages Reservation in northern Arizona. There they encounter the Navajo culture, their stories, from their works, and excerpts from the books and their bond with nature. John Robert also gives us a living sensation of these ancient published by the Sri Auro­bindo Ashram Trust are lands and their landscapes—their beauty and their geological development: “Altitude © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust unless otherwise 7300 feet. Nearest city—none. White cumulus clouds float overhead so clear and close noted, and are used here with the kind permission you could nab one with a butterfly net.” Enjoy the tour! of the Ashram. Subscriptions: Send requests to: 2715 W. This is followed by the second of a two-part essay, “The composition of Savitri,” by Kettleman Lane, suite 203-174, Lodi CA 95242 Richard Hartz. A larger version of this work was previously published in Mother India USA, or call Auromere (209-339-3710 ext. 2) with in 50 installments beginning in October 1999. In Part 1, published in the previous issue, your credit card information; A one-year subscrip- Richard provided an overview of Sri Aurobindo’s writing of Savitri from its beginning tion (three issues) is $25 ($35 for airmail outside in 1916 to its final revisions in 1950, with special attention on Books 1 and 2 of the epic. the USA; a patron subscription is $50 or more). For India residents, send requests along with Rs. Part 2, published here, is based on my selections from the Mother India series that spe- 200 in the name of Larry Seidlitz to: Larry Seidlitz, cifically address the composition of Books 3-12. While focusing on the periods in which 39 Vanniar St., Vaithikuppam, Puducherry 605101. the various books and cantos were written, the selections also show parallels in the writ- Submissions: Collaboration welcomes writ- ing of Savitri with the development of Sri Aurobindo’s experiences and consciousness as ing, photos, and artwork relevant to the Integral reflected inThe Record of Yoga, The Mother,and The Life Divine. Richard’s painstaking Yoga and spirituality. Submit material by email to: [email protected]; or by post to Collab- analysis of successive drafts ofSavitri for his work at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives oration, 2715 W. Kettleman Lane, Suite 203-174, is utilized in this work to give us a deeper appreciation of Sri Aurobindo’s masterpiece. Lodi, CA 95242 USA. Collaboration cannot be Our third Essay is the second of a two-part article by Martha Orton on the role of held responsible for loss or damage of unsolicited the body in the Integral Yoga. Martha brings out the important role that the body plays material. Letters and articles may be edited for in the spiritual evolution and in the Integral Yoga specficially. We find how the awaken- style and space considerations. About SAA: The Sri Aurobindo Asso- ing of the body consciousness can greatly facilitate the development of the psychic be- ciation distributes information about Sri Auro- ing, and help to compress into a few years lifetimes of progress. We see how the health bindo, the Mother, and Auroville, and supports of the body reflects the inner consciousness, and learn why the Mother placed so much projects related to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Au- importance on exercise, good hygiene, and proper eating. We learn how we must trans- roville, and Integral Yoga activities in America. form our view and treatment of our own body, so that it may take its proper place in the Current members: Lynda Lester, president; John Robert Cornell, secretary; Ananda, treasurer; Mar- sadhana, and become a fit expression and vehicle of action of the Divine consciousness. garet Phanes, director. In Source Material we have excerpts from Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s writings Contributions: Donations for the work of the on fate and free will, and how to reconcile these two fundamental aspects of our human SAA, Auroville, and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram existence. We also have a selection of fine spiritual poetry, and we close the issue with a may be sent to SAA. Donations are tax exempt series of inspiring Apropos quotations. under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Rev- enue Code.

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 3 Current Affairs Recent activities at the East-West Cultural Center New offerings of the Institute for by Anie Nunnally Wholistic Education he EWCC—Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles saw many visitors for the year 2014 for talks and presentations. by Santosh Krinsky Among those visiting: Our friend from Paris, Veronik TMenanteau, who facilitates a Study Group in her home; Michael he Institute, in collaboration with Lotus Press (www.lotus- and Madhavi Miovic and their son; Joss Brooks from Auroville, press.com), is continuing its development and publishing involved in afforestation and land conservation, who visited of study guides for Sri Aurobindo’s major writings, as well along with Deborah Lawlor; Patrick Bel Dio, Sufi and sculptor Tas development of e-books for a variety of platforms. from Washington, D.C., who spent many months in Pondicherry The major focus at present is converting books of Sri Auro- gathering information on arts and beauty in the Integral Yoga for bindo to additional formats besides just Amazon Kindle, in- his Ph.D. thesis; Rod Hemsell’s 3rd Savitri Intensive was held in cluding Apple itunes, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, etc. June; our Russian friend, Nika, who has visited us several times While the major works have long been available on Amazon’s and is translating Savitri into Russian language; Mikael Spector platform, it is now time to expand the reach of the major writings who has relocated from Auroville to Los Angeles and teaches of Sri Aurobindo as other platforms mature. two classes here now: The Life Divine at Saturday satsangs, and a Readings in Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita, Vol. 2 is now meditation/movement class; Jeanne and Gordon Korstange who available as of 1/1/2015. This book covers the Second Series of were here in October, when Gordon graced us with a beautiful Essays on the Gita and is around 534 pages. As a special offer to South Indian flute concert. Sri Aurobindo study centers located in the USA, we are offering Mikael Spector and Anie Nunnally represented the center one copy to each center that requests one from us for your library at the AUM Conference in Taos, New Mexico in August. The and potential use as a study guide. This is the seventh book in organizers were Paul and Tizia O’Connor offering their Au- the series, the prior books consisting of 3 volumes for Readings romesa Community as the venue. Mikael was a presenter there in Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine, as well as one volume each of giving morning meditation/movement sessions. The clarity and Readings in Rebirth and Karma by Sri Aurobindo, Readings in The beauty of the sky and clouds were remarkable and we were at a Mother by Sri Aurobindo, and Readings in Sri Aurobindo’s Essays 7000 foot altitude in Pueblo Indian country. There were wonder- on the Gita, Vol. 1, First Series. Any center in the USA which has ful presenters and happy connections with old friends and the not yet requested and received their free copies for any of these meeting of new ones. seven volumes should contact us at [email protected]. The Our regular programs continue of Darshan activities, Sat- book is available through distribution for sale as well. Kindle ver- sang with The Life Divine readings on Saturday, a new class in sions are being made available through Amazon for those who Sanskrit studies on Saturday with Harold Walker as the teacher. use either a Kindle Reader or Kindle APP on any other platform. He has been teaching privately for years and also teaches classes The books are also available on Apple iPad, KOBO, Barnes and at the Theosophical Society in downtown Los Angeles. Noble and Google Books (epub) format for those who use Nook Savitri classes are held on Thursday evenings, facilitated by or ipad or other epub based readers. Vikas Bamba, and the continuation of book sales and incense The current book of Sri Aurobindo’s being focused on isThe and ongoing beautifying of the center with recent new carpeting Synthesis of Yoga with daily posts at http://sriaurobindostudies. throughout the house. wordpress.com. Currently we are in the midst of Chapter 1 of Part Dorian continues with his magic touch in the garden, 1, The Yoga of Divine Works, of The Synthesis of Yoga. All prior with new grass lawns and a specific focus on California’s severe posts remain archived and accessible for those who want to study drought situation. The lawn will be enhanced with some roses earlier chapters, as well as any of the earlier volumes in the series. and other flowering plants but mostly with newly purchased The Institute also sponsors regular classes on reiki, levels 1, succulents in unique designs and forms to be planted around the 2 and 3, conducted by Karuna Krinsky. The schedule is regularly periphery of the lawn. updated and can be found at www.reikiteacher.org. Our greatest accomplishment this year was the setting up For more information, contact: Institute for Wholistic Edu- of a Wikipedia biography of Dr. Judith Tyberg, (Jyotipriya), cation, 3425 Patzke Lane, Racine, WI 53405. Ph. 262-619-1798; our founder, that was reworked to accommodate Wiki rules ww.wholisticinstitute.org from a biography written by Mandakini Lucien-Brun serialized in Mother India in the 1980’s. Mandakini received help from Frenchman and writer Pushan (who once worked in Ashram

4 • Collaboration Winter 2014 Archives) on all the many rules of Wiki. So it is a very professional Recent Publications and lovely tribute to our founder. Mandakini has researched new findings on Jyotipriya’s life and work, so please check it out. Soon Reprinted from SABDA Recent Publications, December 2014. we will add photos and some of her Sanskrit chants. Available from the Sri Aurobindo Book Distribution Agency, It has been a busy year and we are looking forward to more Pondicherry. progress and more visits in 2015. We wish all of you a Happy New Year and may you receive many Blessings. Landscapes and Gardens of Auroville The transformation of the land Concept: Franz Fassbender Briefs Publisher: PRISMA, Auroville 171 pp. ISBN 978-81-928152-2-0, Rs. 650 Matagiri Sri Aurobindo Center and AVI-USA are hosting Binding: Soft Cover a joint All USA Meeting and Auroville International Meet- This book, printed entirely on art paper, presents Auroville’s ing at the Menla Center for Health and Happiness near Wood- gardens and landscapes in 310 photographs, with accompanying stock, NY August 20th-23rd, 2015. Menla is nestled in a beautiful text from various sources. Many of the gardens featured in the moutain valley of the Catskill Forest Preserve, about three hours book are inspired by Japanese garden design. The book contains north-west of New York City. It is a full-service retreat and con- essays and pictures on such themes as the creation of the Matri- ference center offering a variety of accommodations and gourmet mandir gardens, Auroville’s afforestation work, and the water vegetarian cuisine. Please reserve the dates and start saving for challenge facing the community. The first sixty pages depict the the trip. Information on accommodations and travel is online at history of the development of the Auroville’s landscape. the retreat website: www.menla.org. Schedule details, prices and speakers will be posted at www.collaboration.org and www.face- Transforming Lives book.com/aumconference. An Introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga The Foundation for World Education (FWE) invites grant Larry Seidlitz applications from individuals, programs and groups who share Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research the vision for a transformed world espoused by Sri Aurobindo 204 pp, ISBN 979-81-901891-5-5, Rs. 250 and the Mother. Our aim is to provide a continuous stream of Binding: Soft Cover funding for current and future generations through responsible This introductory book on the Integral Yoga is based on management of the endowment, receipt of donations and be- the author’s talks and papers, most of which have appeared in quests, and discerning selection of grant recipients. The FWE also Ashram-related journals. The chapters highlight the basic teach- aspires to be instrumental in transmuting financial energy to its ings of the Integral Yoga, its contributions to the Indian spiritual true purpose in the unfolding evolution and manifestation of a tradition, some of its methods and practices, and its concept of greater consciousness on earth. All proposals must be presented an integral psychological perfection. Other essays examine the to the FWE through the auspices of a nonprofit organization and nature of human emotions and how they are to be transformed are subject to review by members of the board before a deci- to serve a higher truth, discuss the true foundations of a spiritual sion is taken. Please email your proposal to the Secretary, Margo activism, and provide glimpses of the Mother’s work on the su- MacLeod at [email protected]. For further pramental transformation of the body. The book includes a glos- information such as application guidelines and submission dates, sary of yogic and Sanskrit terms. please go to www.foundationforworldeducation.org. Auromesa has recently started a Wednesday evening study Sunil: The Mother’s Musician circle that is opened to the community for the study of Tibetan Clifford Gibson Buddhism Bon Teachings. We are exploring ways to fully open Publisher: Kolilaben Mehta to the light of the Mother through this very ancient teaching. The 361 pp., Rs. 275 community has been moved and is showing an amazing persever- Binding: Soft Cover ance for the past eight months. We are planning to start the new This portrait of Sunil Bhattacharya as composer, teacher,sad - year with a continuation of the teachings. Auromesa Ayurveda is hak, and friend consists of his correspondence with the Mother on preparing for a busy year of teachings and healing and the open- his music, and his exchange of letters, dating from the early 1960s ing of the water therapies with our new Watsu pool in late spring. to the late 1990s, with the many friends all over the world who Other plans are to be disclosed when fully agreed upon with other admired his music. Interspersed throughout the story told in these members. On August 15th and 16th we will be having a Savitri im- letters are reminiscences by residents of the Ashram that serve to mersion and celebration of Sri Aurobindo’s birthday. Also in 2015, highlight Sunil’s character and talents. In the first few pages of

Tizia is hoping to return to Auroville for sharing, teaching, heal- the book, Sunil describes his early childhood in Krishnagar, West ing, and learning. more. See: www. auromesa.com Bengal, and his life in Calcutta, where he learned to play the sitar.

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 5 AV almanac

Caring for Auroville— the Auroville Health Services

by Alan

Reprinted from Auroville Today, December 2014 issue.

Auroville Health Services (AVHS), a team of 8 members, is a non- profit service in the area of public health and health care for seniors.

uroville Health Services was set up by Dr. Beena in 2001. Rebecca, a member of the original team who is still work- team hopes that this is happening but no survey has been done ing with AVHS, remembers that Dr. Beena’s experience to ascertain this. Awith treating villagers in the Multi-Purpose Health Clinic in AVHS also organizes hospital care for Aurovilians. Indian Bharat Nivas made her realize that preventive work in the villages hospitals insist that a patient is accompanied 24 hours a day. was essential. So AVHS set up education programmes in hygiene. “Sometimes family and friends take up this responsibility for the It also raised funds for the Aquadyn project to provide free clean short-term but finding volunteers to take up this work on a shift drinking water in 24 public places in Auroville, and for the first basis for longer hospital stays is a big job for a small team like ambulance for the Auroville Health Centre. ours,” says Alice. “For the past six months we have had at least When Dr. Beena stepped back, Manfred took up her work. one Aurovilian hospitalized at any one time.” “Initially, we continued the work in the villages,” says Manfred. “AVHS, together with the Palmyra Centre for Rural Develop- Medical care for senior Aurovilians ment, constructed 19 compost toilets and provided training in using them in Thenkopakkam village. We also ran a clinic in At present 20 percent of Auroville’s population is over 65 Morattandi for some years. After closing this clinic the AVHS years old and this proportion is likely to grow. The challenge of team decided to again focus upon Auroville instead.” caring for the aging population is another one of the functions of The present team also continued this work of improving the Auroville Health Services (AVHS) team. hygiene in Auroville units. Today they advise and monitor about They were pitched into this some years ago when an older 40 units weekly, including Auroville farms, restaurants, schools Aurovilian developed dementia. Initially there were plans to and units that provide food products. Among other things, they send him back to his home country, but some Aurovilians de- ensure that people cooking food for the public are wearing proper cided they would find a way of caring for him in Auroville. AVHS headgear, and that the sanitation and waste disposal facilities of became involved and organized not only 24 hours nursing care the units are clean and operating correctly. The standards they but also took over his financial, administrative and social care. adhere to are the ones specified by the Government of India. In When a hired nurse proved too expensive, the team started 2007 AVHS organized a contest between all the units. The win- experimenting with volunteers. Aurovilian Friederike, who is a ners were awarded prizes. In the following years, the units fulfill- professional geriatric nurse, coordinated and trained additional ing the conditions were issued certificates. Two members of the caregivers for a number of years. team, Veeramani and Chitra, also provide training on request for Today there are 360 people over the age of 65 in Auroville start-up units. and this figure is projected to increase to 440 by 2018. At present “We have seen a huge improvement in hygiene standards six seniors over the age of 85 years are receiving full-time home- over the years we have been running this scheme,” says Alice, an- care and this number will surely increase in the future. So is the other team member. Now the Government of India makes their team capable of taking on such a responsibility? own inspections. “However, we will continue with our inspec- “The main problem,” says Manfred, “is to find skilled attend- tions,” says Alice. The names of the units that fulfill the conditions ants to work with us in homecare for elder patients.” are published in News and Notes. “People have limitations in their time and energy. This is one Has there been a ‘knock-on’ effect? Have villagers working factor. But I also think some people are scared to work with old in these units taken over what they have learned about hygiene people,” says Dany, the professional geriatric nurse who replaced and waste disposal and practice that in their own homes? The Friederike one year ago. “Not only because they lack the skills, but

6 • Collaboration Winter 2014 also because they are afraid they will become like that themselves. Permanent accommodation for 10 seniors would be provided Even when people are asked to pass by daily for a few minutes to in a complex where they can be cared for on a 24 hour basis. check on someone in their own community, often they don’t do it.” Such a set-up would require less carers per person and medical Personal relationships also play a part here. If someone lacks resources could be shared. friends, it is harder to find people to visit them. However, it is a The project has not been without its difficulties, however. fragile support system when homecare is dependent upon the When AVHS made a survey in 2008 to ascertain how many sen- patients having many friends with the energy to care for them for iors might wish to use such a facility, it proved an unpopular op- what may be months, or even years. tion. Perhaps it smacked too much of “Old Aurovilians’ Nursing Home” and many people did not like the prospect of moving out Medical home care of their own homes. However, when the team ran another survey in 2011, there was a more positive response to the idea. What The new team member, Dr. Amarnath, provides medical caused the change? “I think some people became more aware of treatment around the clock. Kailash Clinic offers a 24 hours what they would need when they got older,” says Alice. The as- ambulance service with emergency doctors on call, while the sisted living project, (estimated to cost Rs 200 lakshs) has been Auroville Health Centre and Kailash Clinic provide out-patient allocated a site in Arka and has a limited seed money. They have consultations in the daytime. site permission, but the building permission is still pending. But neither the Health Centre nor Kailash Clinic has an in- Regarding the financial aspect, Manfred’s ‘dream’ is that patient room for intensive care patients. “As in the past, pallia- all Aurovilians pay extra into the Health Fund, or into a Sen- tive care for dying patients has to be improvised in the patient’s iors Fund, so that homecare has a more secure financial basis. home.” says Dr. Amarnath. When somebody is hospitalized and needs specialized treat- And then there is the financial aspect. Senior healthcare, ment or equipment, this can be very expensive. Intensive care in when it involves professional outside help and specialized equip- a hospital like Apollo, Chennai, can cost up to one lakh rupees ment, can be expensive. Who will pay the bills? a day (approximately $1,500). However, if Auroville purchased Manfred says that in the past, it was a struggle to get financial certain medical equipment, this could lessen costs dramatically. help from Auroville, and even today professional help is not paid “Recently a senior Aurovilian was hospitalized in PIMS. His one for by the Auroville health insurance. “However the attitude has week stay cost Rs. 1,50,000, mainly because he needed oxygen,” changed in our financial services and now the BCC gives us some says Manfred. “But to purchase an oxygen-producing machine financial support. But when an Aurovilian receiving homecare costs only 1 lakh rupees. Auroville needs additional equipment has financial means, we ask for a personal contribution towards like this.” the expenses.” At present Arka community prioritizes two rooms with Does the change in attitude of our financial services reflect bathrooms for convalescent but not for permanent care. In the an increased awareness in the larger community of the need to future more rooms will be needed for medical care for seniors. care for our older people? The team is skeptical. “It is still only the The new Integral Health Centre is being constructed nearby. Will people who are personally involved or who have friends in this rooms be available there? “There are two tiny rooms planned for situation who are concerned.” in-patients,” says Alice, “but they are not really appropriate for our needs. We have to explore the options further.” Responding to the challenges Psychological care for the elderly One of the problems in the past was that volunteer caretak- ers lacked proper training. Recently AVHS started a training AVHS is not only focused upon physical medical care. The programme. At present, six trainees are being taught skills like AVHS team is also concerned with providing psychological care how to give a bed bath, how to lift a patient from a bed to a chair, for all senior Aurovilians. One of the issues here is loneliness. and what to do in an emergency. “It is also important to stress “We know of people who are alone in their communities, who good communication,” says Dany, “like talking to the patient and have nobody to visit them or accompany them in a taxi. I’m very explaining what you are going to do for them.” “Every Auroville saddened by this,” says Manfred. “There have been people who community should have at least once member, ideally trained in have been sick or hungry but we don’t know about them because first aid, to care for community members who need medical help,” they don’t contact us. So we plan that someone from our team says Manfred. will visit all the older people in Auroville in order to find out how The team is aware, however, that there will not be enough they are doing. But, once again, this takes time and energy, and volunteers to provide homecare for individual patients in their we are a very small team.” own houses in the future. “This is where the assisted living home Meanwhile, AVHS has organized computer classes and lec- for seniors comes into play,” says Manfred. This project is for tures for older Aurovilians so that they feel more involved and elders who need some assistance and who wish to live together. less isolated. “Transport is fundamental to allow older people to

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 7 attend films, and enjoy activities,” says Franca, another member of the team, “so we have organized a taxi service for seniors which is proving popular. Our larger vision is to promote collective transport which will benefit everybody in the community.” Another issue is mental health problems, which afflicts not only some seniors. “These problems are getting bigger and big- ger,” says Manfred. “In the past we had a group who looked after these issues, but the group disbanded. Now we would like to set up a helpline for any Aurovilian or Newcomer who needs psychological help. We started this work with a guest who had experience in this specialized work but he left and we are looking for a replacement.” While AVHS is clearly facing many challenges, perhaps one of the key ones is attitudinal. As Alice points out, “the concept of ‘eternal youth’, a ‘youth that never ages’, is a big thing in Auroville.” Does this make it more difficult for some people, particularly those pioneers who came here in their 20s, to acknowledge that they are aging and will require help in their later years? Does a community dedicated to physical transformation find it difficult to face up to the realities of aging? Whatever the reasons, it is time that the dedicated efforts of the AVHS team receives more full- hearted support from the community.

Sri Aurobindo – Selected photos

by Michael Bonke

Reprinted from Auroville Today, December 2014 issue.

our years after publishing a book with selected photos of the Mother, we are happy to present the companion book with pictures of Sri Aurobindo. The basic concept of both tives (there exist three or four such sets) of the Cartier-Bresson Fpublications is the same. We aim at giving access to the depth of photographs; scanned them in Germany; and used them as one spiritual vibration which radiates from Sri Aurobindo’s photos. of the main materials for this publication. During his short stay We are not trying to provide a pictorial biography or satisfy in- in Pondicherry, Cartier-Bresson had not only taken pictures of tellectual curiosity. Therefore we have purposely refrained from Sri Aurobindo, but also of the daily Ashram life. Some of those using a chronological sequence to the pictures. pictures we have reproduced in this book, to let Sri Aurobindo Many of Sri Aurobindo’s photos, which are now being sold, appear in the context of the environment he lived in at that time. have been touched up or restored from the material that was A hint of the timeless planes in which Sri Aurobindo lived available. Sometimes the expression of Sri Aurobindo is thereby inwardly transpires from his physical expression. To capture this distorted and not much is left of his original aura, which is the hint from beyond, and the message it carries, is what we are aim- thing we are hunting for in this book. We have avoided as much ing at. We have had the courage to subordinate all other aspects as possible to repair or improve on the old negatives that we had and compose the material available in such a manner that it gives as the base for this book. Whenever we had several versions of an this element full freedom to manifest itself. The pictures are of a old picture, we have chosen the less altered one. size and quality which will allow the reader to catch something There are four categories of pictures. The “historical” pictures of the profound impact of Sri Aurobindo’s physical appearance. of Sri Aurobindo’s youth in England and of his political period before his imprisonment; pictures of his prison-time in Alipore Sri Aurobindo – Selected photos is published by Mitra, Au- and his early stay in Pondicherry; the pictures taken by Cartier- roville. Hardbound, 200 pages. Price in India approximately Rs. Bresson within a period of just three days in April 1950; and 1900, excluding packing and mailing charges. Available from pictures of his Mahasamadhi. bookshops in Pondicherry and Auroville and from the Auroville We had the great good fortune to receive a full set of nega- online store www.auroville.com.

8 • Collaboration Winter 2014 binds the sandy grains together and wash- Essays es them away during the rains. As they cut down through the layers, the streams froze their original wanderings in place and Land and spirit: gradually chiseled them into immense, ageless stone sculptures. An American yoga To call water a sculptor and the can- for the 21st Century yons a timeless sculpture, however, is to allow a play of the imagination entirely by John Robert Cornell incidental to the geological story. Strictly speaking, geology knows nothing of intent or purpose or art. Instead it chronicles Continued from the last issue... great blind inanimate forces, drivers of na- ture’s formidable machinery, scouring out 3. Behind Navajo eyes this Navajo heartland without regard to the Navajo people, without regard to the It is lovely indeed, it is lovely indeed. people or animals who lived here before I, I am the spirit within the earth, them, without regard to anything living or The feet of the earth are my feet, conscious or purposeful. The legs of the earth are my legs, Photo courtesy John Robert Cornell. It is one story about Canyon de Chelly. The bodily strength of the earth is my Truth be told, it is a European story, or at bodily strength.... But what you see depends on the least a story with roots deep in European stories that you attend to. At Canyon de science. The heart of their land Chelly stories collide. But what story do the Navajo people Geologists tell us one story about tell, they who have lived in intimate and big raven just passed a few feet be- these canyons. How they started as streams respectful communion with Canyon de hind me and then north under the meandering lazily across a flat plain, as Chelly since at least the 1700s? They who branches of the pygmy junipers a creek will do in a meadow. But below speak not only about the earth but to the Abeside our campsite. Late afternoon sun- the topsoil of the plain was sandstone, the earth as Grandfather, the living and con- light slants through limpid air at Navajo beautiful and relatively soft product of an- scious land? National Monument on the Navajo Reser- cient sand dunes. Geologists have found Karen and I spent two days in the vation in northern Arizona. Altitude 7300 clues that the American Southwest was canyon—on Tuesday morning with a feet. Nearest city—none. White cumulus a Sahara-like desert of high, wind-built group tour and all day Wednesday alone clouds float overhead so clear and close dunes 200 million years ago. These dunes with a Navajo guide. I remember both of you could nab one with a butterfly net. became raw materials these days like a Navajo dream.… Our camper is set up. Karen is for the rock-building lounging under the awning with her feet phase that followed. propped up. In this clean and comfort- Overlying deposits of able setting, images from the last few days earth gradually com- catch up with me. pressed the dunes into This morning we left Canyon de stone. Chelly (pronounced deh shay), another When the plain national monument on the reservation. began to rise with the Canyon de Chelly is a multi-fingered rest of the Colorado gorge cut into the sandstone of Defiance Plateau, the streams of Plateau, a hundred miles from our current the Canyon de Chelly camp. Navajo people consider de Chelly complex sliced down the heart of their land. You can drive to through the layers of viewpoints along the north or south rim of earth and stone. Water the canyon and its tributaries to see sheer is the great sculptor. cliffs plunge a thousand feet to miniature It cuts efficiently into trees and fields along a winding wash in sandstone. It dissolves the canyon bottoms. the weak cement that

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 9 Canyon De Chelly With a rhythmic, repetitive ca- dence to his voice, Oscar guides us not Raven was the camp crier this only down the trail but also down into morning, flapping low over the camp- the beliefs and traditions of the Diné ground croaking. I looked out the un- (the People), as the Navajo call them- zipped corner of the camper window. selves. Pink was seeping into the eastern sky. It is as if we are slipping into some The air lay mild and calm in the arms liquid, more like mist near the top but of the dawn. heavier and more substantial as we But now, an hour later, RV gen- descend. At the bottom we are hardly erators all around are shuddering and walking at all. We are dream-walking grinding out electricity for air condi- or swimming. The change is not some- tioners that will battle the desert sun thing obvious that you notice immedi- all day. One can glimpse how these ately like the cottonwood or the yucca RVs, huge steel beetles of ingenuity, plant. It’s more like someone else, more apply the stories of geology and other silent and aware inside you, records the Western sciences, harnessing earth re- sensations and waits for you to notice sources for comfort and convenience, that you are breathing something else shielding their inhabitants from the besides air. naked force of desert and sun. This canyon is setting and anchor A 35-foot Airstream on the east- for the Navajo way. Oscar says that it is ern side of the campground pulls for- that wanders wide and shallow across the the heart and center of the reservation. ward. People circle around it. I hope this is lower canyon floor. Neither of us thought Over the next 48 hours, we get to feel a a departure signal for the armada of RVs of bringing wading shoes to the desert. little of how the Navajo way, their story of that have arrived here over the last few reality, is enmeshed with the landforms of days. But now the driver is backing into After a short personal introduction this place. a site. Instead of departure it is one more in English that is obviously a second lan- Did I see a sacred place in the Navajo arrival. guage, our guide, Oscar, leads us up to the dream of Canyon de Chelly? It is obviously Yesterday we, too, were among the ar- trailhead at the canyon’s edge. sacred to the Diné, at least to those who rivals after nearly a month on the road. Oscar is a substantial man, about six follow the traditional way. There are places Looking back at Zion, we marveled that feet tall and 180 pounds. His red baseball of ceremony throughout the canyon. The the tiny Virgin River had sliced through cap shades an open brown face. He smiles old ways are still alive here. You can hear 2,500 feet of sandstone by itself. At Capi- easily, even when I mispronounce his last the emotion in Oscar’s voice when he talks tol Reef, much of the original uplift has name. Thirteen foreigners piled into his about his grandfather. eroded away leaving a wild jumble of bony pickup for the ride to this trailhead from splits and cross canyons. At de Chelly the the visitor center. About half are German, “Go to school,” he told me. human element takes its place among the but I count myself among the foreigners. “Learn to read and write. massive landforms and the slow turning We are clearly in a different country—dif- But remember the old ways. of the seasons. Whereas human habita- ferent language, different customs, differ- Remember who you are. tion seems incidental or alien at the first ent dress, different way of life. They call it Then you will be all right.” two places, de Chelly is not set aside in Dinétáh, Navajo Nation. its “natural” state. The Navajo people live Now, as we follow Oscar down the Our first destination in the canyon is here. So any visit to the canyon bottom switchbacks that cling to the side of the White House Ruins. The remains of stone is mediated through the eyes and stories canyon, we also slip imperceptibly behind buildings crowd together on a ledge under of a Navajo guide. With one exception, Navajo eyes. Oscar stops and gestures to- the overhanging cliff and spill down to the you must enter the canyon by going into ward a large spiky succulent. edge of the valley floor. White House gets Navajo dream time. its name from a long wall on the ledge cov- Now it’s 7:30, time to prepare for the Navajo people use this plant. We call ered with white plaster. morning adventure. Karen is up, worrying it yucca, Navajo people did not build this stone about what shoes to ruin. We can join a these Navajo people call it yucca. village. It is one of 1200 large and small group tour into the Canyon this morning They use the strings from the leaves to sites abandoned in the canyon long be- at 9 if we get to the visitor center on time. make rope, fore the Navajo began arriving in this area Much of the walking will be in the stream this yucca plant. We make rope with it. sometime in the 18th century. They call

10 • Collaboration Winter 2014 these ancient builders the Anasazi, a word on the canyon floor in the afternoon sun, is where four bands of Navajos agreed that means the ancient ones. Archeologists children shouting and running. to join into a single nation. That bend is believe that these Anasazi people were the Suddenly I remember an Austrian where the Diné first saw the Spanish ex- ancestors of the modern Pueblo tribes. By woman who took a class on a California plorers when they entered the land from the time the Navajo arrived, the Anasazi university campus in the late 1970s. After the south. Oscar points to a cliff with pic- had long left Canyon de Chelly and many a long, silent walking meditation on the tographs of horsemen holding long rifles. of their other villages and cliff dwellings campus grounds, she asked if there was The land is twined into their mythol- throughout the Southwest to settle on the a burial site nearby. It was the first time ogy like yarn in a Navajo rug. And these Hopi Mesas of Northern Arizona and in in America, she said, that she had expe- are not disconnected stories meant only to the Pueblo stone villages along the Rio rienced that sense of otherworldly pres- amuse, unrelated to the circumstances of Grande in New Mexico. ence that was common around the great life. The dream of the Diné lives here. The Traditional Navajos say that touching cathedrals of Europe, many of which were currents of their beliefs and views bathe the Anasazi ruins can bring disease or bad built on sites sacred to the pre-Christian every cliff, every field, every plant from its luck. Consequently, the ruins remained peoples of the area.... seeds to its root as much as the sunlight At this point Karen’s “Hi!” and the rain. Oscar and Kelvin, who will breaks into my reverie. Oscar be our guide tomorrow, grew up in this is calling his group together. canyon. It was their playground and world We follow him down canyon. of exploration when they were boys. And we are here, walking, listening Unlike other national and watching, and then walking some parks, this canyon is not wil- more. The movement of our legs not only derness. It is pasture and farm- carries us down the canyon but also works land framed by sandstone and the stories, the Navajo ambiance of the light. It is the Diné’s history, canyon, into our bodies. their work, their shopping center, their cathedral. This This afternoon, after our hike with ledge—we are looking up at Oscar, Karen and I walked over to the visi- it from the canyon bottom a tor center to arrange another trip into the mile from White House—is canyon for tomorrow. where the Navajos received I spoke to the man behind the desk corn from Black Stone god, about it. I told him that I was looking for Oscar tells us. That immense quiet moments, solitude, time to sit and monolith of cliffs rising from listen to the song of the stone. As he filled the canyon floor over there in the paperwork I slowly realized that he is Navajo Fortress, where a was signing up himself as our guide. I in- handful of the Diné’s warriors troduced myself and we shook hands. His held off the US Army for three name is Kelvin. relatively undisturbed for centuries, until months. The only way the army could de- What time did I want to leave tomor- non-Indians began visiting the canyon in feat them was to starve them out. Right row morning? Seven? OK, he would be the twentieth century. In the visitor center, there, Oscar points out, is where a mother here at the visitor center at 6:45 but I didn’t you can see pictures of White House Ruins jumped off the cliff with her baby to avoid have to be here until seven. Was it just me? before the Park Service put up the six-foot being captured and deported by the sol- I wasn’t sure if Karen was going or not. chain link fence to prevent damage and diers. That was OK with him. We would arrange looting by visitors. the car lift in the morning. Now, standing outside the fence at They say you can still hear the sound White House, I feel that rising conscious- of their cries as they fell. Canyon Del Muerto ness overhead and the opening in the If you listen at night you can still hear chest, despite the presence of a hundred the cry of those voices. At 7:25 a.m. we are riding along the north tourists and the native vendors selling rim in Kelvin and Margaret’s hatchback. jewelry and snacks to them. For a moment Every turn in the creek, every zig of Fifteen minutes ago we dropped off our or two, all that vanishes and I seem to see the canyon has a meaning, a story, a mem- pickup at Tsegi Overlook, where we will and hear a people from another time. It’s ory. This wall we are now passing, with emerge from Canyon de Chelly at the end like a dim, worn video, women working “1878” chiseled into the sandstone face, of the day. I managed to squeeze my walk-

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 11 ing stick into the hatchback along with Kelvin pauses near a hogan, the tradi- my own European-based misunderstand- lunch, water and a journal. Karen has de- tional Navajo dwelling. This one is round, ing of the significance of land in Native cided to join us. made from logs and sun-dried mud. Kelvin American cultures. Margaret and Kelvin Kelvin and Margaret spent a few tells us that this is a female hogan. In con- came back, despite the saturating prop- years in Phoenix, until their house burned trast, the male hogan is built with a forked aganda of the majority media with its down. Then they decided to return to the log and shaped like a tipi—but made of commitment to an alien cosmology and reservation to raise their children. They earth and stones instead of poles and ani- utilitarian values. Moreover, a sustained are happy to be back, both of them say. mal skins like the tipis of the Great Plains. and dedicated intimacy with certain land- City life is exciting, but one has no roots The doorway in the female hogans, scapes has brought some people of Eu- there. Without roots, people... the round ones, always faces the east, he ropean ancestry full circle to an insight Margaret’s voice trails off. They shake continues. This physical shape and orien- common to the native peoples living here their heads. tation represent arrival on three different when the Europeans first arrived: That the Soon we turn off the pavement and levels of reality: the emergence of the Peo- land is not merely commodity, not some- meander through a maze of steep and ple into this, the fourth world; the indi- thing only to be possessed and mined deeply-rutted clay backroads. It’s hard to vidual’s birth from his mother; and the for its wealth. Not something merely to see how any vehicle could navigate this red birth of the day. Each morning one goes be carved up and “developed” willy nilly. clay when it rains. After That it is alive and con- 10 minutes Margaret scious. That it is possi- pulls up in a space wide ble, even for us, enough to turn around. The brink of the canyon to approach [it] with is nowhere in sight. The an uncalculating mind, three of us climb out and with an attitude of re- hoist our packs. Kelvin gard. To try to sense the carries only a fanny- range and variety of its pack. We wave goodbye expression—its weather to Margaret. and colors and animals. A short walk brings To intend from the be- us to Twin Trails at ginning to preserve some the lip of Canyon del of the mystery within Muerto, north arm of it as a kind of wisdom the Canyon de Chelly to be experienced, not system. Kelvin leads the questioned. And to be way down. It’s about 700 alert for its openings, feet to the bottom. We for that moment when don’t talk much. A dog barking at the rim out this door to greet the rising sun and something sacred reveals itself within pierces the enclosing silence. The sound give thanks for being born again to a new the mundane, and you know the land echoes down the canyon like the reverb on day. knows you are there.1 an electric guitar. It must be very stabilizing to have Now at the bottom, our senses come cosmology, geography, ancestry, architec- Kelvin may have traced his own full alive to this place. The canyon floor is ture and daily ritual so interwoven. I get a circle by returning. He was born into the wide and spacious, two miles across here glimpse of the rootedness of which Mar- old ways. When he was 18, he was para- where several minor canyons converge. garet spoke. lyzed in an accident with a horse he was The gurgle of running water bounces off Still, there are many forces pulling trying to break. He found himself in a the cliffs and fills the canyon and the spac- against the stability of the old ways. It is wheelchair for six months, his legs a use- es between thoughts. The smell of plowed hard to see how they will survive against less dead weight. I try to imagine this qui- earth sweetens the air. A big cottonwood the assault of the majority culture and its et, wiry man confined to a wheelchair at lounges near the creek, fields crowd on pervasive media. Like Christian funda- the height of youthful exuberance. either side. The creek drills down 10 feet mentalism, the old ways seem to be locked The feeling in his legs began to come below the valley floor along this stretch. into a literalism, in this case specific cul- back to him only after many healing cer- We walk down the canyon, some- tural and historical associations with the emonies. We are listening to someone for times following the stream, sometimes landscape. whom the ceremonials of the old way are a leaving it to skirt a field. But these worries may represent only matter of walking or not walking.

12 • Collaboration Winter 2014 And a matter of ancestry. Kelvin’s witnesses. Nobody else noticed. The sur- their enemies. Kelvin says that many of grandfather was a medicine man, one of face layers of my being didn’t notice im- the goods and skills of the Navajo culture the practitioners of those ceremonials. mediately either. Something inside did, came from this canyon. The stories say The knowledge of a medicine man is or- and then it was gone. that someone planted some seeds found in dinarily passed down within the family, Still I say that, surrounded by magnif- one of the ruins, and that’s how the People he tells us. If none in the family takes it icent cliffs of glowing sandstone with an- got corn. Almost every turn in the canyon up, it dies. Neither Kelvin’s father nor his cient Anasazi ruins around every bend, we has a story. I can see how the people would uncle wanted to follow the medicine way. were treated to the glance of grace from a die if they could not live here in the midst His grandfather started teaching him the wrinkled, 80-year-old face framed in the of their stories. Their links would start knowledge, but did not complete it before window of a weathered pickup. to dissolve and break. Isn’t it the stories he died. Then they were gone around the bend that hold a group of people together, the Now Kelvin is the Walking Guide, in the road, and we are walking again. I remembered experiences that carry the preferring his legs to the jeep or horseback speculate that she was Oscar’s grandmother. group meaning? tours that many other guides prefer. Easily We don’t get to see Kelvin’s grand- he outpaces Karen and me. mother, but he talks about her. She is 97. Kelvin tells us that when a Navajo has She has been tending sheep and cornfields trouble, he may come into the canyon to As we walk down the dirt road beside here for nearly a century. Kelvin tells us be alone for a while and to try to get an- the wash, Oscar drives up in his pickup that her mother was pregnant with her on swers. Some people say it is the spirits of and stops for a chat. An old woman in the long walk from Fort Sumner in New the Anasazi people that give this help. a faded dress sits beside him in the pas- Mexico back to Navajo country when Some come here for answers and stay. senger seat. Oscar and Kelvin converse in the government in Washington finally We are walking along a wide green Navajo. I watch the woman’s face. A sin- allowed the People to return home.2 He field just up-canyon from Antelope Ruin. gular beauty of old age lies there, lining says that he and his brother visited the The man who owns this field lives in the her face with dignity, cliff dwellings when they canyon year round. Most residents live humility, gentleness, explored the canyons as here spring and summer only. Kelvin says humor. boys. The People say that that man started living down here when Then she smiles. touching the ruins is bad his wife left him. Today, however, he Did I see the sa- for you, he explains. You doesn’t seem troubled or alone at all. He cred in Canyon de could get arthritis or an- jokes with Kelvin. He grew up with Kel- Chelly? Unmasked other sickness later if you vin’s father and likes to tease his friend’s from that old face, a put your hand in one of son. The young women and children with heart-stunning light- the Anasazi hand prints the jewelry and snacks for sale near the ning flashes out for on the walls or handle ruins are his children and grandchildren. a moment from that the broken pottery still We stop for lunch. A girl of seven or smile! It’s as if a mo- lying on the ground in eight rides her tricycle over to a cotton- mentary crack in the the cliff dwellings. But wood stump serving as a jewelry display earth released such the two brothers did it and chats with us for a while. Abundant an intense pulse of anyway. They explored black hair sets off a round face and clear, unselfconscious joy all of the ruins. Kelvin smooth skin. Her English is very clear and that you know there points to an example, a easy, like a first language. Karen buys a ju- must be an immense water tank hidden in a niper seed necklace that they say wards off reservoir of grace back there waiting for stone shelf above Ledge Ruin. And she al- bad dreams. an opening. Or for a fleeting instant you ways knew where they had been. “How After lunch, Kelvin and I talk qui- were simply seeing through the veil to the did you know?” they asked her. “Do you etly while Karen draws Antelope Ruin, inexhaustible well of calm, natural radi- follow us?” a prominent cliff dwelling three stories ance that must underlie everything. Kelvin smiles. high. A massive inward-slanting cliff of Having used dramatic terms like “What did she answer?” I ask him. coral sandstone hangs over it. That cliff lightning and immense trying to describe “She didn’t say anything. She just said, must be flaking continually, because there it, I must say once again that outwardly ‘I k n ow.’” are few water stains on it. it was entirely undramatic and natural. It Like yesterday, this is a stories walk. Hazy clouds filter the sun. Voices and was “just” a smile, not even a broad and Everywhere there are stories, practically laughter from the vendors echo off the sustained smile. I don’t think she was even echoing off the walls. We pass fortresses wall above the ruin. Across the stream a looking at us. Karen and I were the only where they made last stands or ambushed Ford pickup sits under three big cotton-

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 13 woods. The wind picks up. Three more Anyone who has seen early John Wayne Amazing things come out of the dried large cottonwoods a little way down can- Western films would recognize it instantly. mud and gold sand at Eye of the Sun Arch. yon shake their leaves. It has taken on a separate life in the cellu- One fleshy green-stemmed plant sprouts We move on, too. Kelvin sets a brisk loid imagination as an icon of the Ameri- six-inch blue leaves coated with a white pace. There is not much time for lingering can West. film. Older leaves shade gradually into and absorbing. I lag behind. Sometimes I It is also a Navajo Tribal Park. The green. The cracked mud below the opening look up from the Navajo dream to listen Diné live here. Some of them call it the in the arch high above us tells of a waterfall for the singing walls of the canyon. As be- “Space between the Rocks.” that comes to life only during a hard rain. fore, the walls and trees and sky leap into Paul is our guide for this trip. He pulls With so much touring and movie clarity and that overhead consciousness up to the visitor center in a weathered blue history here, I’m hard pressed to sense seeps through the cracks in my thought. jeep. At 51 he is already white-haired. He anything else, even from the Eye of the Some of the cliffs chant skyward, like the gets out and comes around to the other Sun. This land is hard—hot, parched, and palisades of Zion. But one long dark- side of the vehicle to open the door for unforgiving. There must be sacred places stained cliff over an emerald field has a Karen. He is about five foot eight, slim here, I tell myself. Maybe you need more deeper rumble. It is more like a mother wiry build, sparse mustache like Kelvin. than a four-hour jeep tour to recognize chant—here am I—than an aspiration We climb in and introduce ourselves and them. No doubt the sacred voices do not arising to somewhere beyond. our hopes for the tour. come easily to the Diné either. And why Here: to be always surrounded by “This is our first time here. We’d like to would the Navajo Nation want to open up containing walls framing a slash of sap- spend some quiet time in out-of-the-way its sacred places to tourists anyway? phire sky. Those vast sandstone scarps that places listening to the rhythms of the cliffs.” Paul doesn’t ask much of us, only a bit sweep up toward sun and stars in coral He looks at the camera. “You want of imagination. With a twinkle, he nods curves from ruins nested on a ledge. Cot- good place for pictures?” toward a long, sloping butte ahead. “Sleep- tonwood leaves rattling and shimmering “Maybe a few, but we are more inter- ing dragon,” he murmurs. Karen sees it in the breeze. Groves of fruit trees. Tracks ested in absorbing the feeling of the place first; the contours of the butte resolve into of bear, deer, beaver, and raccoon pressed than in taking pictures.” the massive back, sloping neck, and finally into wet sand beside the stream. The He is quiet for a moment until he no- the monster’s head resting on the sand. ripple-prints of the water on the stream tices Karen’s sketch pad. The sun warms my back. A breeze bottom—the dark red-brown washes of She holds it up. “I’d like to stop some cruises in from the west. Filmy cirrus sof- fine silt settle between wavy tan ridges in places with interesting things to sketch.” She ten a cobalt sky. When I ask the question, an inch of water that sometimes stretches laughs. “Just about anywhere you turn here.” consciousness rises and widens, plants from wall to wall in the lower canyon. Paul wants to see the drawings in her glow more richly in the afternoon sun, but pad. He speaks English softly, with effort, nothing intimate appears. I feel impatient There must be Navajo people who more in phrases than sentences. Looking for it. Paul, however, is quietly scanning a also hear this singing. Maybe that is one through the drawings, he nods. He tells us flock of sheep strung out in the shade of thing that draws them to this place. Maybe that he grew up here and has spent most Sleeping Dragon Butte. that is one of the teachings that Kelvin’s of his life here. As a boy he herded sheep “They belong to Susie.” grandfather gave him before he died. Byrd at his sister’s place in the valley. He waves We watch for a while in silence. A Baylor offered it to the children of the a hand toward the west. lone sheep dog follows them, ears alert, world when she wrote The Other Way to Bouncing over a sandy track, we tail flicking. The ewe in the lead has a lamb Listen. wind past towers, battleships, and castles back at the corral, Paul offers. They went of sandstone that dwarf the jeep and hum- to Sand Springs this morning and are nib- All I can say is it came straight up ble the imagination. We must have time- bling their way back to Susie’s place. The from those dark shiny lava rocks hum- traveled to the ruins of some prehistoric water at Susie’s place and the lamb waiting ming. It moved around like wind. civilization of gods. The Diné also see the there are pulling that lead ewe like a mag- It seemed to be the oldest sound in mythic figures of their origins in these net. Paul looks for the ram with 4 horns. the world.3 fairy tale fortresses of stone. He seems to know each one individually. Our first stop is Thunderbird Butte, Back in the jeep we snake deeper into Space Between the Rocks its vertical face of black and orange. It the monumental landscape. One can eas- roars. Behind it the desert floor alternates ily imagine walking among the pyramids Monument Valley between mounds of wind-rippled sand and monuments of Egypt. Navajo stories and masses of yellow wildflowers singing tell of holy dancer monoliths that hold Yesterday Karen and I arranged for an the bounty of a wet spring all the way to up the sky and warriors frozen into stone afternoon jeep tour of this famous valley. the horizon. towers.

14 • Collaboration Winter 2014 Karen has taken out the camera, and public school in town so that they can en- ception, the culmination rather than the Paul stops the jeep at likely viewpoints. At joy the advantages of the majority culture everyday experience for us. It remains a one stop a big, black-stained mesa looms as adults. They want the Big Macs, Barbie discipline, an effort, mainly out of reach, on the left. Two more mesas pause on the dolls, and cell phones, evoked in sensuous even in these extraordinary settings. right, huge ships of sandstone with a sandy visions and captivating rhythms by the And the settings can be a two-edged gap caught between them. Straight ahead media wizards of the majority culture, as sword. I remembered an evening walk out another opening reveals more of the val- the natural and obvious rewards of mod- to Bright Angel Point on the north rim of ley behind these nearby formations. Mas- ern life. Who will make sense for these the Grand Canyon under a full moon. The sive domes and arches form a border at children of the clashing values and prac- path from the rim to the point balances on the far end, and pinnacles reach up to the tices of these two different cultures that a knife’s edge of land, with abysmal drop- tableland beyond. A bank of clouds leans they are internalizing by living in both? offs on either side. The air was cold but down to the tableland with the sun’s late As we said goodbye to her, an an- still. I ventured a look over the edge and rays catching the rain falling from them. guished look came over her face. “Don’t recoiled. One slip and you are in the abyss. Sun and clouds alternately silhouette and forget us!” she cried fervently as we turned You are the abyss, a tiny blackness, one set afire the spires and red cliffs as the -af to leave the reservation compound. “Don’t clump of broken matter among millions ternoon fades into twilight. forget us!” Karen called back as we crossed on its sides or bottom. You are part of this back into the other culture. abyss, this vastness, but your precious “I” In three days of walking and riding is gone. with native guides, we had no reasonable The yearning There must be some other way. So you expectation of understanding the Navajo defend yourself from the vastness. You view of Canyon de Chelly or Monument When we left the Navajo Reservation, look away from the edge, you back away. Valley. We don’t understand the technicali- I tried to assess our journey so far. Despite It’s that or me. The separateness remains. ties and intricacies of the geological story our normal distance from the Navajo cul- People walk up the Bright Angel Trail either. Still, it’s clear that they are very dif- ture, we felt a palpable immersion into a from the bottom of the Grand Canyon ferent tales of the same landscape. The sto- different way during our three days with talking about computer glitches in the of- ry of geology has no concept of the sacred Navajo guides. They led us gently to the fice or the pizza they ate last week in town! and no room for the other way of listening doors of their story of the land. We were The grandeur becomes the background. suggested by some of the Navajo stories free to listen and learn and dig deeper if The promise of the sacred recedes. Ordi- that we heard or by the singing cliffs them- we would. And all three of our guides had nariness comes to the foreground as a re- selves. Instead of the Native American an earthy authenticity to them. They were lief and a protection. perception of the land as the living, con- quiet men, no attempt to get us excited or But then the sun turns the failing sky scious repository of power to be revered, it impress us that I could see. They seemed into a molten call and a promise of some- describes a complex puzzle of purely me- willing to share something of what they thing more, some glory to come. And chanical, time-bound, physical processes knew and saw and then to let the land the promise reaches inside and draws me to be solved. And the cultural tension be- speak for itself. back, over and over. I can’t stay away. I tween the two ways of understanding is Did we find the sacred in Navajoland? yearn for it when I am back “safe” in the growing as the RVs and televisions born A sacred place is a refuge, a place that dream of Western city life. of the Western story reach deeper into the puts one into alignment, one’s outside sur- Evidently many other people yearn backwaters of the Indian lands. face with something precious and lasting in- for it—the vastness, the trail of the Oth- Karen and I would see this tension side. A place that opens the heart and makes er through the forests and canyons, the in the face of a young Pueblo mother seeing and compassion more accessible. It deep singing simplicity of stone cliffs and at Taos a week later. After a tour of the leans toward the mystical experience, the mountains. We headed for Taos, New Pueblo compound, we were buying a tape recovery of that which was lost when we Mexico, where we began to look to these of Indian chanting recorded by the wom- came here. It is an intrusion into the present other voices to deepen our own. an’s father when Karen burst into tears. of the past and the future, of where we came The music viscerally summoned Karen’s from and where we are going. It calls the References and Notes own Indian heritage and created a sud- soul to the surface of the personality. den bridge across the cultural divide. To- Many Native Americans in this area 1. B. H. Lopez, Arctic Dreams, p. 228. gether the three of us wondered how the still believe in the sacredness of the land. 2. The Navajo returned from Fort old ways, preserved for 500 years against Still there has been a dichotomy between Sumner in 1868, so perhaps it was another the most violent and repressive European my idea and my experience. Although generation back. intrusions, would survive the next cen- there have been hints and eruptions of 3. B. Baylor and P. Parnell, The Other tury. This mother sends her children to a the sacred in this land, it remains the ex- Way to Listen, p. 26.

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 15 The composition of One, Sri Aurobindo began to introduce Overmind and Supermind—the former by Savitri name, the latter without using the word— in the late 1920s, long before he described by Richard Hartz these planes in Book Ten. Sri Aurobindo realised progressively the nature of the power that could effect Author’s note: This study of the process of the transformation he intended to sym- Sri Aurobindo’s writing of Savitri began bolise in Savitri. To see how his revision to appear in Mother India: Monthly Re- reflects the development of his realisation view of Culture in October 1999. Its pub- is undoubtedly the most interesting aspect lication continued without interruption for of a study of the composition of the poem. fifty instalments. In November 2003, due to Nowhere is the revision more significant the pressure of other work, the writer was than in the process that led to the creation compelled to suspend the series for the time of Book Three, “The Book of the Divine being. These articles were intended in the heroine of Sri Aurobindo’s epic, who in Mother.” This and other revision of Part beginning to be merely a rewritten presenta- Book Ten reveals herself as an incarnation One fills in the long gap between the first tion of a talk given at the Savitri Bhavan, of the Divine Mother and achieves the work and last phases of Sri Aurobindo’s work on Auroville, on 15 November 1998. Initially it for which she was born. But in early ver- the later books of Savitri. was thought that the substance of that talk sions of the poem, there was nothing cor- The consciousness and force that de- might be expanded into three or four articles. responding to the passage that now forms scend into a human form in Savitri and act However, it was gradually found that the the last half of Book Ten. This passage was through her at the decisive moment evi- subject deserved a deeper and more exten- written in 1947 and contains an explicit dently belong to the world reached by As- sive treatment. Being written serially, month description of the planes from Higher wapati at the end of his untiring search for by month, the plan as well as the scope of Mind to Overmind and Supermind. It is “the almighty source of cosmic change.” the study underwent considerable changes based, therefore, on a knowledge that goes (Savitri, p. 298) In the final version, it which had not been foreseen at the outset. beyond what Sri Aurobindo had realised seems clear that this world must be the su- At present it is not known when it will be when he began to write Savitri. pramental, though the word “Supermind” resumed or how long it will take to complete. According to his own statement, he does not occur in “The Book of the Divine had not distinguished Supermind from Mother.” It is because Aswapati establishes Editor’s note: The present version has been Overmind when he was publishing the an initial contact between human nature abbreviated and rearranged based on the Arya. (Letters on Himself and the Ashram, and the supramental Light and Force that longer version which appeared in Mother p. 145) A study of the revision of The Life Savitri, incarnating that Light and Force, India. Part 1, presented in the previous is- Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga confirms can cancel the decree of Death and change sue of Collaboration, gave an overview of that the references to Overmind occur in man’s destiny by the intervention of a the composition of Savitri. It was essentially passages that were revised or newly writ- higher principle in earthly life. the same as that published in Mother India ten in the 1930s and 1940s. Though much In Sri Aurobindo’s view, each step for- at the start of the series. Part 2, which is was said about “supermind” in the Arya, ward in evolution is accomplished “by two presented in this issue, discusses in greater the meaning of this word there was not co operating forces, an upward tending depth and detail the composition of books exactly the same as what it later came to force from below, an upward drawing and 3-12. It has been compiled by the editor of signify in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, where it downward pressing force from above” (The Collaboration from a selection of material is considered essential to differentiate it Life Divine, p. 821). In the passage from in the original series of articles. clearly from other planes beyond the mind mind to supermind, unlike the previous up to Overmind. Sri Aurobindo clarified evolutionary transitions, the interaction Part 2 that the true Supermind, as he knew it of these two forces can become entirely The composition of by the 1930s, is “quite above” (Letters on conscious. In the symbolism of Savitri it individual books Himself and the Ashram, p. 144) what was is. primarily Aswapati, “the traveller of the described in the Arya and did “not enter upward Way” (p. 210), who represents the Book Three: The Book of the into the scheme” (Savitri, p. 729) of the aspiring movement. Near the summit of Divine Mother first versions ofSavitri . his ascent he has the vision of the Divine This calls for further discussion in re- Mother, whose “upward-drawing and The power that can transform life and lation to the composition of Part One. For downward-pressing force” has sustained conquer death is embodied in Savitri, the in the passages that developed into Part him all along. For she is

16 • Collaboration Winter 2014 The magnet of our difficult ascent,... After Aswapati has the vision of the for the overmind knows the One as The Might of all that never yet came Divine Mother “as in a thunder flash of the support, essence, fundamental down. (Savitri, p. 314) God” (Savitri, p. 315; Book Three, Canto power of all things, but in the dynam- Two), he undergoes a “last and mighti- ic play proper to it it lays emphasis on The first appearance of lines for what est transformation” in the first section of its divisional power of multiplicity.... eventually became Book Three, Canto the next canto (p. 318). His sense of sepa- (Letters on Yoga I, p. 139) Two, “The Adoration of the Divine Moth- rate being is abolished, even his physical er,” from which I have just quoted, can be consciousness is universalised and he is Close parallels can be found if one dated 1927, based on its relationship to prepared to experience the supramental compares passages about the supermind drafts in another notebook which Sri Au- consciousness. in Sri Aurobindo’s later writings with lines robindo used in that year for The Mother In the third and fourth sections depicting the “new and marvellous crea- and other writings. In view of its date, one of Book Three, Canto Three, Sri Auro- tion” in Book Three, Canto Three ofSavitri . might expect it to show signs of the results bindo describes what we can understand In the penultimate chapter of The Life of Sri Aurobindo’s intensive sadhana in the to be the future supramental creation. It Divine, for instance, Sri Aurobindo speaks early 1920s which culminated in his Sid- is called “a world to be” (p. 330), indicat- of the inseparable relation in the super- dhi on 24 November 1926. A study of the ing that from a temporal standpoint it is mind between what to the mind are pairs revision marked on the page reproduced in the future. In another sense we must of opposites, such as oneness and diversity: here does suggest that a new element was take it to be already in existence, “eternal making its entry into Savitri at this time. in unrealised Time” (Savitri, p. 46), oth- Our mental rendering of oneness Savitri looks towards the future, erwise Sri Aurobindo as Aswapati could brings into it the rule of sameness;... though its story is set but the greatest rich- in the distant past. It ness of diversity in is concerned with the In the third and fourth sections of book Three, the self expression destiny of all man- Canto Three, Sri Aurobindo describes what we can of oneness would be kind, though it has the law of the gnos- a small cast of char- understand to be the future supramental creation. It tic life. (p. 1046) acters and its main is called “a world to be” (p. 330), indicating that from events seem to take Evidently, it is place in remote isola- a temporal standpoint it is in the future. to this characteristic tion from the human of the supramental world. But the cos- or gnostic existence mic scope of Sri Aurobindo’s conception not have participated in its tremendous that Sri Aurobindo refers in these lines in emerged gradually. It was only after 1926 movements which are evoked with such Savitri: that this poem began to occupy the central an overwhelming sense of reality. Neither place among his works as the vehicle of his the word “supermind” nor its equivalent There Oneness was not tied to highest realisations and most prophetic “gnosis” occurs in Book Three, though monotone; visions. a “vast Truth Consciousness” (p. 326) is It showed a thousand aspects of “The House of the Spirit and the New referred to. But nothing short of the su- itself.... (p. 324) Creation” is among the most important pramental can be meant by lines such as cantos in this respect. Here the Yoga of As- these: Similarly, the supramental relation wapati ceases altogether to be an individ- between the individual being and the to- ual sadhana and becomes a quest for the Incalculable outflowing infinitudes tality is captured in a concise formula in manifestation of a new world. The middle Laughing out an unmeasured Savitri: sections of this canto began to take shape happiness in the late 1920s. Along with other revision Lived their innumerable unity.... Each soleness inexpressibly held the of what grew into the present Book Three, (p. 323) whole. (p. 324) these passages gave a more far-reaching significance to Savitri’s birth and mission According to Sri Aurobindo, infinity Sri Aurobindo elaborates on this in in fulfilment of the Divine Mother’s boon is the very stuff of the supramental con- The Life Divine: to Aswapati. This change would be re- sciousness, whose nature is an inalienable flected in Sri Aurobindo’s rewriting of the unity expressed in illimitable diversity. The gnostic existence and delight of

later books of the epic when he eventually Thus it differs in a subtle but important existence is a universal and total be- returned to them in the 1940s. way from overmind, ing and delight, and there will be the

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 17 presence of that totality and univer- In Book Three, Canto Three of Savitri, while the idea of the second line has been sality in each separate movement: Aswapati has experienced the supramen- preserved near the end of the speech: in each there will be, not a partial tal world whose descent must one day experience of self or a fractional bit transform life on earth. But the actualities My light shall be in thee, my strength of its joy, but the sense of the whole of the material world contrast starkly with thy force. movement of an integral being and the Truth-creation that has to manifest the presence of its entire and integral here. There is a hiatus between the two, The line about desire has also been shifted bliss of being, Ananda. (p. 1012) a gulf between what is and what must be, to the conclusion of the speech, but with a that seems unbridgeable. Only the heart’s significant change to the past tense which The “sense of the whole movement of faith can persist in believing that this was made when Sri Aurobindo inserted, a an integral being” in each apparently sepa- darkened world could change into an im- few pages earlier, the lines: rate person is expressed in the same pas- age of that luminous one in the not too sage in Savitri where Sri Aurobindo says distant future. Then lest a human cry should spoil that “all were being’s secret integers” (p. In the next canto, the Being whom her Truth, 324) and that each Aswapati has glimpsed on the spiritual He plucked desire up from its tor- summits as the universal Mother appears tured roots Recognised in himself the universe. and speaks in the chambers of his heart. And offered to the Gods the vacant (p. 323) She asks him to go on helping the world place. with his “great lonely days” and to live for The presence of an “entire and integral “the slow-paced omniscient purpose.” (pp. Aswapati is now ready for an untrou- bliss of being” in every individual is like- 335-336) But she seems to discourage, at bled desireless action under a divine im- wise conveyed in the most vivid possible least initially, the hope of an early victory pulsion. His spirit when it came into the terms: of the Spirit over the opposing forces. It world had “housed desire, the troubled is only in response to Aswapati’s impas- seed of things,” since this was an inevitable A splendid centre of infinity’s whirl sioned plea that she consents to incarnate consequence of accepting a human body. Pushed to its zenith’s height, its last her force for an action that will “change all But the Karmayogi finally transcends the expanse, future time.” (p. 345) need for desire as a motive-force. Aswa- Felt the divinity of its own self bliss In Sri Aurobindo’s symbolic interpre- pati is asked to exemplify this higher pos- Repeated in its numberless other tation of the legend of Savitri and Satya- sibility when he returns to action in the selves.... (p. 323) van, the boon given to Aswapati comes to world. represent the direct intervention of the su- The longest part of the Goddess’ In the final version ofSavitri , this de- pramental Force to accelerate the advent of speech was already, in the early typescript, scription of the supramental consciousness a divine life on earth. But this can be grant- a commentary on man’s enigmatic posi- and supramental creation, including mind, ed only when the psychic presence in the tion and challenging role in the immensity life and matter in their supramentalised human heart can invoke it with a sincerity of an unconscious universe. Eventually forms, is the culmination of Aswapati’s and intensity which show that the time has this passage would grow to several pages. ascent through the planes of being. How- come for a higher working to begin. In its present form it leads up to the pros- ever, this passage began to appear in the Sri Aurobindo’s early typescript of pect of the splendid destiny that awaits manuscripts of the poem at a stage when “Book I: Quest” shows how the Goddess’ our afflicted humanity. But it also dwells there was almost no hint of what is now speech took shape during the period up to strongly on the factors responsible for the “The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds.” 1920. There it began: slow pace at which the hidden purpose in Though “The Book of the Divine Mother” things is worked out. is the shortest book in Part One, it is the “O son of Fire who climbst to me most essential of the first three books both from Time, If one were to search for a single line for the story and for the deeper meaning Armed with my light return to be- that sums up the meaning of Savitri, a of the epic. The passages that constitute ing’s fields possible choice might be a line in Book it were among the first to receive Sri Au- And bear desire the troubled seed of Three, Canto Two, where Sri Aurobindo robindo’s concentrated attention when he things.... uses one of those “symbols more veridi- came back to Savitri after 1926 and began cal than fact” (Savitri, p. 30) with which to express through it some glimpses, at The first line later became Savitri abounds—the dragon: least, of the highest knowledge he had at- tained, so far as that was possible through “O Son of Strength who climbst crea- Alone her hands can change Time’s the medium of human speech. tion’s peaks, dragon base. (p. 314)

18 • Collaboration Winter 2014 The inner significance of Savitri’s where they persist and intervene, must descend into Night and journey into victory over Death is the descent of the cannot resist the progress. The past the black Void for the accomplishment of supramental Force into Matter to trans- effects may still continue for a time, their mission. form the Inconscient and give “a secured the future is not theirs. (p. 1261) The “Dragon of the dark foundations” basis for a continuous divine or gnostic is evidently the Vedic Vritra, “the personi- evolution” (The Life Divine, p. 989), the But in spite of his certainty that fication of the Inconscient.” (The Secret of consummation foreshadowed in Book the forces of darkness could not prevail the Veda, p. 322) In The Life Divine, in a Eleven. From 1926 onwards, Sri Auro- against the growing light, Sri Aurobindo’s passage not found in the Arya but added bindo strongly emphasised the role of an struggle with these forces was far from by Sri Aurobindo when he revised the incarnation of the divine Shakti in bring- over. Indeed, it would intensify when he book for the first edition published in ing this about. The fact that Savitri could be began to cross the line between overmind 1939-40, we come across the image of the represented as such an incarnation partly and supermind. dragon in a passage that speaks of the In- explains why a poem that had been a rela- For the integral power of the super- conscient as the apparent foundation of tively minor work up to 1920 was growing mind could not be content with a circum- mind, life and matter: by the 1930s into his magnum opus. scribed spiritual creation in a world left Sri Aurobindo first inserted the above otherwise to its ignorance and misery. The All these three lower powers of being line in the late 1920s or early 1930s in his very basis of material existence had to be build upon the Inconscient and seem fifth version of what was then “The Book transformed—the “dragon base” of the in- to be originated and supported by of Birth.” The words it: the black dragon “dragon base” relate it of the Inconscience unmistakably to two The record of Sri Aurobindo’s contact with the sustains with its vast lines in the sentence lower extreme of the spectrum of consciousness is wings and its back of in Book Three, Canto darkness the whole Four, whose origin at no less significant than the revelation of the super- structure of the a slightly earlier stage nal planes he had reached in the ascending move- material universe; in the composition of its energies unroll Savitri we have already ment of his Yoga. the flux of things, its discussed. In the final obscure intimations text, these lines read: conscience. Sri Aurobindo found himself seem to be the starting-point of before long in the situation he described consciousness itself and the source of The Dragon of the dark foundations in 1936: all life-impulse. (p. 692) keeps Unalterable the law of Chance and No, it is not with the Empyrean that In Savitri as well, in lines that make Death.... (p. 336) I am busy: I wish it were. It is rather their first appearance in the late 1930s, it with the opposite end of things; it is is said clearly enough that the dragon is a We have seen the connection between in the Abyss that I have to plunge to symbol of the Inconscient: these lines and a phrase in an entry in Sri build a bridge between the two. But Aurobindo’s Record of Yoga on 27 January that too is necessary for my work Opponent of that glory of escape, 1927: “the Dragon of the nether founda- and one has to face it. (Letters on The black Inconscient swung its tions who preserves the old Law intact Himself and the Ashram, p. 360) dragon tail till the will of the Supreme is manifested.” Lashing a slumbrous Infinite by its (Record of Yoga, p. 1261) Another sentence The Dragon and the Sphinx are two force in the same entry sheds light on what is of the ominous creatures of the Abyss Into the deep obscurities of form.... meant by the Sphinx, Dragon, Rock and that start to appear in various passages (p. 79) Night, mentioning the “four Powers that of Savitri during this period. The record resisted” in that order without employing of Sri Aurobindo’s contact with the lower In the last two lines, the “inert Soul” the symbols: extreme of the spectrum of consciousness and “somnambulist Force” that are men- is no less significant than the revelation of tioned along with the Dragon in Book The attack of obscurity, resistance of the supernal planes he had reached in the Three, Canto Four, appear as a “slumbrous the universal inconscience, refusal of ascending movement of his Yoga. For the Infinite” and a creative force of the Incon- the universal inertia, obstruction and nature of his work on earth left him little scient such as is described in The Life Di- conservatism of the material nega- leisure for basking in the glory of the su- vine, whose blind energies “unroll the flux tion are beginning to lessen and even pramental Sun. Aswapati and Savitri alike of things.”

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 19 In 1946 Sri Aurobindo introduced the grew in importance as Sri Aurobindo con- The more it stretches, stretches end- dragon at the end of the opening section tinued to work on the poem from the late lessly. (pp. 317-318) of Book Ten. This passage shows the per- 1920s onwards. In the early manuscripts sistence of the Inconscient as a disturbing up to 1920, despite the vividness of the Book Four: The Book of Birth background even after the realm of eternal canto or book called “Night” and the pow- and Quest Night, partially conquered by the light of er of many passages in Savitri’s debate with mind and spirit, has made room for the Death, there was as yet no mention of “the The story of the composition of Part “dream twilight of the ideal.” The final ver- Inconscient;” only as an adjective did the Two, Books Four and Five is related to the sion runs: word “inconscient” occur a few times. In history of Part One. The first five books the final text of the epic, on the other hand, grew out of the canto called “Love” with But on a failing edge of dumb lost there are several dozen references to “the which early versions of Savitri began when space Inconscient.” it consisted of six cantos. The opening pas- Still a great dragon body sullenly In a letter of 1946, Sri Aurobindo sage of that canto, a prologue to the birth loomed; commented on such repetition of “key of Savitri, was the seed of Part One. As we Adversary of the slow struggling ideas, key images and symbols, key words have seen, the development of this short Dawn or phrases” (Savitri, p. 742), defending it passage into the first three books occupied Defending its ground of tortured as part of the technique of mystic poetry Sri Aurobindo for many years. Meanwhile mystery, in general and Savitri in particular. Ad- most of the later books lay dormant. But It trailed its coils through the dead mitting that to the ordinary mind the In- the rest of the original first canto, and es- martyred air conscient and the Ignorance “may be mere pecially the passages that turned into Book And curving fled down a grey slope empty abstractions” and acknowledging Four, shared in the process through which of Time. (p. 601) that these terms “can be dismissed as ir- Part One took shape from the late 1920s to relevant jargon if one has not come into the mid 1940s. The sullenness of the dragon and collision with them or plunged into their The present Part One was designated its “tortured mystery” suggest not only a dark and bottomless reality,” Sri Auro- as such only at an advanced stage, when negation of consciousness, but a perver- bindo pointed out that to him these things Savitri was divided into three parts. Un- sion of the intrinsic delight of being. Since were “realities, concrete powers whose re- til the early 1940s there were two parts, consciousness and bliss are inseparable as- sistance is present everywhere and at all “Earth” and “Beyond”, the first of which ex- pects of Sachchidananda, we may conjec- times in its tremendous and boundless tended to “The Book of Death.” Book One ture that the black dragon of the Inconsci- mass.” (Savitri, p. 737) eventually turned into Part One of a three ent is also the inverse of This being his constant experience, it part scheme. The rest of “Earth” became is not surprising that by the early 1940s we Part Two, while “Beyond” became Part The white fire dragon bird of endless find it expressed in unambiguous terms in Three. But for a long time, even Book One bliss (p. 16)1 Savitri. The following lines are all found in included portions of the present Part Two. the 1944 manuscript of Part One. In the When Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1934 who is Savitri’s “playmate in the sempi- last three lines, which were introduced a that he was “concentrating on the first book ternal spheres.” Its role as the guardian little later than the others, Sri Aurobindo and working on it over and over again,” the of “the law of Chance and Death” may be does not speak of Aswapati but shifts to the “first book” was “The Book of Birth.” As explained on this hypothesis as due to a ta- first person. Here one feels the appalling this title suggests, it included much that masic rasa in the mindless repetition of the difficulty of the task he had undertaken. is now in “The Book of Birth and Quest.” established habits of world-force. Perhaps The coils of the dragon seem to sprawl in- Only the description of Savitri’s “quest,” this also gives a clue to what we can expect terminably, as if darkly imitating the in- now the last canto of Book Four, was then “Time’s dragon base” to be changed into, finitude of the divine Consciousness itself: part of “The Book of Love.” when the transfiguring touch of the Divine Earlier, the first book had been called Mother’s hands restores it to its true and In the texture of our bound human- “Quest” and extended to the end of the original nature and Time becomes ity present Book Four, or even beyond to He felt the stark resistance huge and Savitri’s arrival at the destined meeting- The quivering of the spirit’s endless dumb place. Several complete drafts of “Quest” bliss. (p. 684) Of our inconscient and unseeing and “The Book of Birth” are found among base.... the Savitri manuscripts of the late 1920s But the comparatively few explicit For the Inconscient too is infinite; and early 1930s. During most of this pe- mentions of the dragon in Savitri give only The more its abysses we insist to riod, there is no sign of the other books, a faint idea of how the idea so symbolised sound, except “The Book of Love.”

20 • Collaboration Winter 2014 By the late 1930s, the sections on As- the opposite conclusion, that Death is more that he would finish “The Book of Fate,” wapati had grown out of proportion to the powerful. Therefore Book Five, “The Book the last book of Savitri to be completed. rest of “The Book of Birth.” A rearrange- of Love,” though it is one of the shortest of A notebook Sri Aurobindo used in ment was needed, and Book One became the twelve books, is of central importance. 1927 contains three pages of what was then “The Book of Beginnings.” At this point, Passages in it received Sri Aurobindo’s at- the third book, called “Fate.” Otherwise, al- “The Book of Birth and Quest” came into tention in every phase of his work on the most no evidence has been found that he existence as Book Two in the scheme of the poem, even during the period when he had worked on any book after “The Book of poem. Sri Aurobindo referred to it by this set aside most of the later books to concen- Love” between 1920 and 1945. When he took name in 1937, but he does not appear to trate on what is now Part One. up “The Book of Fate” and the later books have worked on it at that time. Unlike Book Four, which Sri Aurobin- for revision in the last phase of the compo- The last to be set aside, this was the do brought to its present form by revising a sition of Savitri, he started from versions first of the later books to be taken up again. single final manuscript and typed copies of that he had written at least 25 years earlier. In the notebook that contains the 1942 it, the published text of Book Five is based During this long gap, Part One had version of “The Book of Beginnings,” we on manuscripts from different periods. Sri taken shape and Sri Aurobindo’s concep- find a complete version of “The Book of Aurobindo began to write out a fair copy tion of the scope of the poem had altered Birth and Quest,” with four sections cor- of this book around 1943 in the notebook radically. When he set about revising what responding to the present cantos. There is he had already used for Book Four. But this he had written so many years before, he also a fragment of a third book, “The Book version breaks off after the first hundred transformed some passages almost beyond of Love and Fate.” lines of the second canto. When he dic- recognition by making changes and addi- In 1943, “The Book of Beginnings” tated the revision of the fifth book around tions which he drafted in chit-pads and was divided into the three books that now 1945, Sri Aurobindo reverted at this point dictated to his scribe. Not infrequently he form Part One. “The Book of Birth and to his last version of “The Book of Love” would reject a passage altogether and re- Quest” thus became the fourth book. Sri from the 1930s. But this also was incom- place it by something quite different. But at Aurobindo wrote out a complete version plete. He had to go back to a manuscript other times, pages of the early manuscripts of it, which he later revised by dictation. from before 1920 for most of Canto Three. were incorporated into the final version Typed copies of the revised manuscript re- This canto still needed substantial work with little modification. ceived further dictated revision. The sepa- and he drafted new passages for it in the The dramatic dialogue that now forms rate cantos of Book Four were first pub- chit pads he was using in the mid-1940s. Book Six, Canto One, has remained simi- lished in instalments in the quarterly The Book Five was first published, after further lar in many ways to what Sri Aurobindo Advent, beginning in April 1950. light revision of typescripts and proofs, in had worked out in his first few versions the 1950 issue of Sri Aurobindo Circle. of the poem. Some of the most important Sri Aurobindo’s account of the meet- differences are connected with the intro- Book Five: The Book of Love ing of Savitri and Satyavan contained in- duction of the queen. In the early versions, spired lines even in its earliest form. But some of Aswapati’s speeches had voiced Love conquering death is the theme it took years for his description of what the ordinary reactions of the human mind of the legend of Savitri and Satyavan. But happened at that moment to attain its full and heart to the blows of fate. By the 1940s, what kind of love has the power to overcome amplitude and inevitability of expression. this would have been inconsistent with the death? In the Mahabharata, Savitri armed The immortality of love, in the sense of its spiritual stature Aswapati had attained in with intelligence, virtue and strength of survival of death, was briefly but memo- Part One. Accordingly, this part of his role character wins boons from Yama, but does rably evoked from the beginning. But the was assigned to the queen and the speech- not defeat the principle of death. Sri Auro- transformative power of love was brought es in question were transferred to her. bindo’s interpretation of the myth starts from out only gradually. The most important result of the work a deeper Vedic symbolism which points to a on Book Six in the 1940s was the elabora- more radical conquest. But the characters of Book Six: The Book of Fate tion of a short passage on pain into one of his epic are living beings, not figures in an the longest cantos in the epic, “The Way of allegory. Moreover, his treatment of the After dictating the revision of his Fate and the Problem of Pain.” Sri Auro- story goes beyond even the Vedic symbol- manuscripts of Books Four and Five, Sri bindo’s final revision of this canto was the ism on the basis of his own realisations. Aurobindo turned to Book Six, “The Book last work he did on Savitri, shortly before To make the victory of Love artisti- of Fate.” In a letter written in 1946, he de- his passing. cally convincing and spiritually inevitable scribed this book as “almost complete.” In Even before Savitri was divided into was perhaps the greatest challenge Sri Au- that year he must have done much of the cantos or books, the scene in which Narad robindo faced in writing Savitri; for almost work of bringing Book Six close to its pre- foretells the death of Satyavan had grown the whole of human experience points to sent form. But it was not until late in 1950 rapidly from the first draft, where it was

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 21 not much more than a hundred lines, to dictated some revision of the last part of a inal narrative poem, sensitive readers may the “first fair copy,” where it was almost manuscript of “Canto III: Death,” which was feel that there is an abrupt change between three hundred. Its length had nearly dou- used for Book Eight, “The Book of Death.” Books Seven and Eight. The discontinu- bled again by the time Sri Aurobindo The last manuscript of this section of ity is due to the juxtaposition of passages wrote out “Fate” as “Canto II.” “Death,” which was revised to become Book written thirty years apart. Seven, Canto One, is incomplete. This ver- It is partly for this reason that “Death Book Seven: The Book of Yoga sion, called “Book III,” stops before reach- in the Forest” has been called “Canto Three” ing the day when Satyavan dies. At this in editions of Savitri, though Book Eight Just as in the early versions there was point, Sri Aurobindo went back to an ear- has no other cantos. The designation of it virtually no Yoga of Aswapati, likewise lier “Canto III,” whose second half became as “Canto Three” can be taken to refer to Savitri’s Yoga was not part of the concep- the manuscript for “The Book of Death.” the origin of the passage as part of the third tion of the poem until quite late in its for- His dictated revision of the manu- canto of an early version of the poem in six mation. Except for its first canto, the Book script of “Canto III” is much lighter than cantos.2 The footnote necessitated by the of Yoga was added only in 1947, three his revision of the manuscripts of the anomalous numbering serves to alert the years before the completion of Savitri... books that precede and follow it. It was readers to the fact that Sri Aurobindo did This included fairly extensive rewrit- evidently intended to be only the first step not fully work this canto into the final text... ing of the passage from the old “Book III: towards the final text of Book Eight. It was, “The Book of Death” is the shortest of Death” that became the first canto of Book in fact, about “The Book of Death” and the the twelve books of Savitri. Yet the prob- Seven with the long title “The Joy of Un- Epilogue [Book Twelve] that Sri Auro- lem of death, representing the ultimate ion; the Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of bindo reportedly said, in the last session of negation of the Spirit’s freedom to express Death and the Heart’s Grief and Pain.” his work on Savitri in 1950, “We shall see itself in Matter, is central to the theme of Under the heading “Death,” he had about that later on.” (Twelve Years with Sri the epic. We do not know how much or originally narrated not only the day of Aurobindo, p. 266). in what way Sri Aurobindo would have Satyavan’s death, but also Savitri’s year in the Other evidence also suggests that expanded Book Eight if he had come back forest leading up to this event. Savitri’s Yoga “The Book of Death,” in the form in which to it. But even as it is, its brevity does not had not yet been introduced, but the de- Sri Aurobindo left it, was not finished. A contradict its importance in the scheme scription of her life with Satyavan later be- letter written in 1946 provides a glimpse of the poem. came the first canto of “The Book of Yoga.” of his plans for Books Seven and Eight. It is not inappropriate that “The Book Here he outlined the structure of Part Two of Death” simply presents, through a Book Eight: The Book of Death and summarised the progress he had made straightforward poetic narration, the fact with it. After referring to the first three of death as it affects the surface human con- After 1945, much of Sri Aurobindo’s books of this part as completed or almost sciousness. It is left to Part Three to explore work on Parts Two and Three consisted complete, he continued: the deeper questions raised by this “Unreal, of revising what he had written nearly inescapable end of things.” (Savitri, p. 588) thirty years earlier. His suspension of lit- Two others, the Book of Yoga and Book Eight serves as a gateway to realms erary activity during the 1920s had been the Book of Death, have still to be beyond, where Savitri’s confrontation with followed by a long period when most of written, though a part needs only a the force behind death takes place. his attention to Savitri was concentrated thorough recasting. (Savitri, p. 733) on what eventually became Part One. The Book Nine: The Book of Eternal sections that developed into Books Four ...But the passage that was renamed “The Night and Five were also included to some ex- Book of Death” remained similar to what tent in his work during this period. But it it was in 1917-18. Though Sri Aurobindo To win back the soul of Satyavan, was only around 1946 that Sri Aurobindo made minor stylistic changes in a few plac- Savitri must first follow Death into his began to take up again the books or cantos es and added a number of lines near the own realm, the Night of the Inconscient he had previously entitled “Fate,” “Death,” beginning and the end, this revision seems out of which our world has emerged. There “Night,” “Twilight” and “Day.” to fall far short of the “thorough recasting” Death is king. From there the destroying We have seen that he took the second he had said this passage needed. force derives its hitherto uncontested right canto of an old six-canto version of Savitri Sri Aurobindo’s reference to “The to impose its law on all that exists in the as a starting-point for “The Book of Fate.” Book of Death” as having “still to be writ- material universe. But Savitri was born to After revising the manuscript of “Fate,” Sri ten” implies that he wanted to do much challenge the omnipotence of Death and Aurobindo must have asked his scribe to more with it. One can only speculate the reign of material laws and to assert the read to him the next section of the early about what he had in mind. But as a result freedom and power of the embodied spir- poem. It was probably at this time that he of his leaving it substantially as in the orig- it. To do this, she must pursue the spirit of

22 • Collaboration Winter 2014 Death into regions from which none has The two dates evidently mean that were not connected together and there is returned alive. the passage which ends with these lines nothing that corresponds to the Epilogue. It is in Books Eight, Nine and Ten was written on the 17th and revised on The first draft of the poem thus remained that Savitri encounters, debates with and the 18th. Possibly what was written and incomplete. Extending to about eight hun- triumphs over Death. Sri Aurobindo’s first revised on those days began about fifty dred lines, it proved to be the first sketch draft of the passages that developed over lines earlier, where there is a blank space of an epic that grew ultimately to thirty the years into those three books seems to in the manuscript after the line: times that length. have been written with extraordinary flu- Within a year or two, the length of ency during a period of three days, from Swiftly the fatal day came striding on. this portion of the poem had quadrupled the 17th to the 19th of October, 1916. These and “Night” had become the fourth of six dates in the earliest known manuscript of Supposing this to be where Sri Au- cantos into which Savitri was then divid- Savitri are among the few precise dates that robindo began on 17 October, the second ed. In 1946, Sri Aurobindo took an early can be given in the long history of the com- occurrence of that date a few pages after manuscript of “Canto IV: Night” and, dic- position of the epic. The fact that Sri Auro- its first occurrence would seem to indicate tating extensive revisions and insertions bindo dated these particular pages suggests that on this day he wrote nearly a hundred in some places, but leaving other passages that he was observing the rapid progress of and fifty lines, the first draft of what was almost as they were, turned it into Book the poem at this stage with special interest. to become Book Eight and the first canto Nine in two cantos. Subsequent revision On 8-9 Au- marked on the gust 1916, he had fair copy and written a draft It is in Books Eight, Nine and Ten that Savitri encounters, the typescript of the opening debates with and triumphs over Death. Sri Aurobindo’s first was relatively of Savitri con- light. Finally, in sisting of a little draft of the passages that developed over the years into those November 1949 more than a hun- three books seems to have been written with extraordinary and February dred lines. Then 1950, Book Nine he started again fluency during a period of three days, from the 17th to the (misnumbered from the begin- 19th of October, 1916. “Book Seven” ning, a couple of for some rea- pages later in the same notebook, but did of Book Nine. On the 18th, he rewrote the son) came out in The Advent and in sepa- not date this version until he reached the last hundred or so lines of what he had rate fascicles. In the second canto, three twelfth complete page on October 17th. drafted on the previous day and wrote new lines not found in the typescript, as Where the first draft of the opening breaks almost two hundred new lines which he well as half a dozen changes in wording, off, work on the poem may have been in- revised the next day. show that Sri Aurobindo had given it a last terrupted, perhaps accounting for the gap The dates “Oct 18, 19” occur at the end revision before it appeared in print. between August and October. Nothing in of this draft of Savitri’s debate with Death If one compares “The Book of Eternal the manuscript suggests a discontinuity in the worlds symbolised by night and twi- Night,” as published, with what Sri Auro- between the undated portions of the long- light—the present Book Nine, Canto Two, bindo had written before 1920, one discov- er version and the dated passages that fol- and Book Ten. Below these dates, there are ers that here he left his early version intact low. So it seems likely that Sri Aurobindo’s two lines that break off abruptly: in an unusual number of places. When first almost complete draft ofSavitri was he came back to this part of the poem written more or less continuously in the Even as she spoke, they left the twilit in the 1940s, evidently he found that his month of October, 1916. world. original inspiration had often achieved al- It is not certain exactly where in the It ended not; it vanished. Savitri most from the start a perfection that could manuscript the passage written on Oc- hardly be improved upon, though it might tober 17th begins. The notation “Oct 17. After this, instead of continuing and be expanded. A typical example will illus- 18—1916” is found at the bottom of a page finishing the first draft, Sri Aurobindo re- trate the relationship between the earlier below lines that are almost the same in the turned to passages he had already written and later versions. final version of Book Eight: and began the process of rewriting, ex- By the time Sri Aurobindo wrote the panding and perfecting that was to go on version entitled “Canto IV: Night,” Savitri’s Sometimes her eyes looked round as during the next thirty-four years. The last last two-line speech in the passage from if their orbs part of the notebook includes some pas- the first draft quoted above had become Might see the dim and dreadful god sages related to the eventual Book Eleven, eight lines. When that manuscript was approach. “The Book of Everlasting Day,” but these read to him in 1946, Sri Aurobindo did

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 23 not make any change in these lines he had Death has taken place in Book Nine, Canto And flut’st alluringly to tired hopes written so many years before. However, he Two, against the background of the ever- Thy falsehoods mingled with sad inserted six new lines. In the early version, lasting Nothingness that appears to be the strains of truth....” (p. 612) the speech began: source and destiny of all things. In that dead realm, the soul of a living being was Do human ideals and aspirations “When I have loved for ever, I shall an intruder. Death’s voice was “a fatal iron point beyond themselves to a realisa- know. hearted roar” (Savitri, p. 585) and his power tion on earth of the dreams of the spirit, Love in me knows the truth all seemed unchallengeable. He did not hesitate as Savitri maintains? Or are these ideals, changings mask. to resort to intimidation, threatening the as her opponent insists, the fantasies of a I know that knowledge is a vast mortal woman with a terrible retribution self-deceiving mind, inevitably falsified in embrace: for her trespass on his forbidden domain: practice because they are contrary to the nature of things? This is the issue in the The lines dictated in the 1940s en- Dread lest in skies where passion next round of the debate. large upon this. They answer the life- hoped to live, It was on 18-19 October 1916 that Sri negating Vedanta ascribed to Death with The Unknown’s lightnings start and, Aurobindo wrote and revised the hundred- the integral God-vision of Sri Aurobindo’s terrified, line section of his first draft ofSavitri that no less Vedantic life-affirming realisation, Lone, sobbing, hunted by the hounds ultimately expanded to twenty-five times expressed in the impassioned language of of heaven, that length and became Book Ten, “The the heart: A wounded and forsaken soul thou Book of the Double Twilight.” Already, he flee had a clear vision of what he would later I know that every being is myself, Through the long torture of the cen- call “the dream twilight of the ideal.” He In every heart is hidden the myriad turies.... (p. 591) described it in much the same manner as One. in the final text, though more briefly: I know the calm Transcendent bears Yet Savitri has not turned back. She is the world, rewarded with a first victory, insufficient And now into a misty twilit world The veiled Inhabitant, the silent in itself, but setting the scene for a more They came; vague fields, vague Lord: decisive confrontation. In the eternity of hedges, rainy trees, I feel his secret act, his intimate fire; night, Death was in his natural element White cattle vague roamed glimmer- I hear the murmur of the cosmic and the unconscious Void seemed the one ing through the mist, Voice. all swallowing reality. Now the darkness Vague spirits wandered with a bodi- gives way to a twilight full of the dreams less cry, Savitri’s reply to Death concludes and ideals of the mind that has, after Through vague ideal lands roamed memorably with lines that, like so many all, emerged out of the inertia of Matter. happily lines in Book Nine, are already found in Among these intangible visions, Death is Forms of half luminous cloud. Yet their final form in a manuscript dating a formidable intruder whose alien figure in it all from the first year or two of Sri Auro- enhances by contrast “this beauty as of A strange consistency of shapes bindo’s work on the poem: mind made visible:” prevailed, A victory of initial light, a spirit I know my coming was a wave from The sombre Shadow sullen, implacable Of faery beauty and ungrasped God. Made beauty and laughter more delight For all his suns were conscient in my imperative.... (p. 605) That sweeter seemed than any birth, ecstasy And one who loves in us came veiled Death changes his tone and tactics, That either earth or heaven can hope by death. arguing philosophically in an attempt to to seize, Then was man born among the mon- expose the hollowness of all idealism. The Strange sweet beginnings of perfec- strous stars thunder of his voice becomes subdued and tion, first Dowered with a mind and heart to seductive, so that Savitri can even compare Happy desires of a heavenly world. conquer thee.” it to a flute: Here through its magic lanes that fled the feet Book Ten: The Book of the Double “A dangerous music now thou findst, Past vanishing hedges, moved she Twilight O Death, silently Melting thy speech into harmonious Assailed by sweetness of its voices The first round of Savitri’s debate with pain, dim.

24 • Collaboration Winter 2014 After two more lines, Death begins to supports himself alternately by arguments ing a few words here and there. But how speak. This passage had more than dou- drawn from scientific materialism and as- much the final form of Book Ten differs, bled in length by the time Sri Aurobindo cetic spirituality, besides appealing to the as a whole, from the early manuscripts of wrote it out again three weeks later near discouraging facts of common experience. “Twilight” is suggested by the fact that the the back of the same notebook, dating it Savitri answers him with a deeper inter- next lines seen in the facsimile eventually “Nov 9.” It underwent slight further ex- pretation of the nature of man, the truth came to be separated from this speech by pansion in what has been called his first of love, the purpose of evolution and the twenty five pages. fair copy of the earliest version of Savitri. relation between the world and the Divine. Sri Aurobindo revised the concluding This is undated, but was probably written Most of the longer speeches in these line of the speech by dictation. In the line soon after the previous version. two cantos were written in 1946-47. In he had written in the manuscript, Death When Sri Aurobindo divided Savitri these pages, a major part of the history of was addressed as “god:” into six cantos, and then into six or later life and thought is summed up in its es- seven books, he enlarged the description sence and re-evaluated with reference to I cherish, god, the fire and not the of this dream world gradually through ten fundamental questions about the meaning dream. or so manuscripts of the canto or book en- of existence. The setting of this debate is titled “Twilight.” But in all these versions, “the dream twilight of the ideal,” an elusive The revision consisted merely of written between 1916 and 1920, the transi- region which corresponds to the higher changing the punctuation and the capi- tion from night to twilight was made in a yearnings and formations of the heart and talisation and substituting “not God” for few lines at the most. Only in the 1940s mind that are perpetually baffled when “and not.” But these small alterations had a did Sri Aurobindo write the opening sec- they seek concrete realisation. dramatic effect. The line became: tion of the present Book Ten, Canto I cherish God the One, where the in- Most of the longer speeches in these two cantos were Fire, not God the ner logic behind the written in 1946-47. In these pages, a major part of the Dream. movement out of darkness into light history of life and thought is summed up in its essence K. D. Sethna is developed with a and re-evaluated with reference to fundamental ques- has commented strong sense of spir- on the conse- itual inevitability. tions about the meaning of existence. quences of this But even in the revision: first few drafts, though they passed from But in the tenuous domain of mental night to twilight with almost no bridge, ideals, there could be no decisive outcome. The full potentiality of the penetrat- there was a phrase that indicated the pre- Death can show the element of illusion in ing revelatory idea is released, the cise significance of twilight in the scheme these formations, but cannot disprove the expression acquires the utmost of the poem’s symbolism. As we have seen, truth to which they point. Savitri vindi- intensity, the rhythmic movement an those versions referred to the twilight as a cates that truth, yet declares that she her- absolute concentration. And in the “victory of initial light.” The phrase implies self does not belong to this realm: closing phrase, with its capitalised that twilight is a first stage in the victory of “G” and the term “God” ringing consciousness over the Inconscient which ... Advance, O Death, out twice, the speaker’s soul at its is the divine event depicted in Savitri. But Beyond the phantom beauty of this profoundest is laid bare and star- since this is only an “initial light,” the vic- world; tlingly suggests without the least veil tory is partial, even if it carries in itself the For of its citizens I am not one. that even in spirituality there can promise of a total conquest. Death is put be a crucial choice between divine on the defensive, but is not defeated by the The manuscript [in which these lines truths, on which may hinge the soul’s survival of the ordeal of night and were written] is an early version of “Twi- entire destiny of man the evolution- by the invasion of the darkness with the light,” the fifth of six cantos that formed, ary aspirant. (Mother India, August half light of the dreaming mind. However along with an epilogue, the text of Savitri 1981, p. 426) beautiful these dreams, Satyavan is still in half-way through the initial period of its Death’s grip and the debate must go on. composition (1916-20). Sri Aurobindo In the early manuscript, Savitri’s in- In the second and third cantos of dictated the final revision of this passage sistence on the fiery authenticity of the Book Ten, Savitri defends the irrepressible probably in late 1946 or early 1947. He spirit’s Truth, rejecting the illusory dream- idealism of the dreamer in man against left this particular speech almost as it aspect of human ideals, led directly to a Death’s cynical realism. Her adversary was, only adding some lines and chang- phase of the dialogue that is now found in

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 25 Book Ten, Canto Four, “The Dream Twi- She ceased and all compelled went images and forms afterwards. What was light of the Earthly Real.” Choosing the gliding on. heard first in the tone of Death’s voice, fire rather than the dream as the symbol of Still was the order of those worlds as he identifies himself with the toiling her aspiration, she compelled Death to see reversed, spirit of life on earth, came to be visual- her as a force to be reckoned with. Conse- The mortal led, the god and spirit ised by the poet as a dreamlike panorama quently, he shifts his ground. He no longer obeyed; of fleeting forms in the twilight of the disputes the intrinsic validity of her aims, For she behind was leader of their “earthly real.” Most of the description of but questions the wisdom and practicality march this twilight was written soon after the of seeking to impose them on this imper- And they in front were followers of manuscript [described] here. fect world, now or in the foreseeable future. her will. The remainder of the page ... can be In Death’s speech on the next page of Onward they journeyed through the transcribed as follows: the manuscript, he dwells on the danger of drifting ways disturbing the established order with ideas Vaguely companioned by the glim- Then rang again a calmer cry of and forces for which the earth is not ready: mering mists. Death. Around her the pale magic twilight It bore no more its first tremendous See how all shakes when the gods moved, sound, tread too near! But faster now all fled as if perturbed, But seemed like Life in its enormous Escaping from the clearness of her field He advises patience and caution, soul. Toiling for ever and achieving warning against any premature attempt to nought change things: The final turning-point approaches, Because of birth and change, its when Death will be defeated or trans- mortal powers Be calm and tardy in the slow wise formed and mind’s twilight fade into By which it lasts: around old term- world.3 the spiritual sunlight already radiating posts fixed from Savitri’s soul. But it would take Sri It turns in a wide circling race and The very sound of Death’s voice is al- Aurobindo some thirty years from the seems tered as he abandons his former aggressive time when he wrote these lines until he As if its course for ever wheeled posture. No longer the thunderous roar formulated the definitive account of this unchanged. that had filled with dread the kingdom of victory. His revision of Book Ten, Canto Assured of the vanity of the gains she eternal night, it loses also the sharp edge Four in the 1940s will be discussed shortly. won, of irony that assailed the mind’s idealism. There it will be shown how the distinc- Pressed by the load of ignorance and Death takes on now the voice of life itself in tion between Overmind and Supermind, doubt the endless cycles of its frustrated endeav- which had not yet been made when Sri Which knowledge seems but to our. But behind the new note of resigna- Aurobindo began to write Savitri, was in- increase, growth to enlarge, tion that is heard, there is still a formidable troduced in the middle and later phases The earth’s mind sinks and it de- resistance to the acceptance of a higher law. of the composition of the epic. It figures spairs and looks The manuscript page ... shows a stage most prominently in this canto where it is Old, weary and discouraged on its in the composition of Savitri when no essential to the spiritual truth of the cul- work. change of setting yet corresponded to the minating event. Yet was all nothing then or vainly change in Death’s tone and the shift in the First, the origin and significance of achieved? focus of the dialogue. Only a single twi- “the dream twilight of the earthly real” Some great thing has been done, light was described, not the double twi- itself must be explained. As has already some light, some power light found in the present Book Ten. But been indicated..., there was no such sec- Delivered from the huge Inconsci- already there were some lines that later ond twilight in the version of “Canto V: ent’s grasp. developed into the transitional passage at Twilight.” After the lines quoted above, It has emerged from night; it sees its the end of Canto Three. (They were can- we find a passage introducing a speech dawns celled during the dictated revision of the of Death that in the final text occurs sev- Circling for ever though no dawn manuscript..., since a subsequent expand- eral pages into Book Ten, Canto Four. can stay. ed version was used for the final text.) The Here only a change in Death’s voice is This change was in the godhead’s far vague twilight of half-enlightened ideals described, not a change of scene. But in flung voice.... is depicted here as slipping away from the the creative process of poetry—as in the clear vision of Savitri, who at this point is process of cosmic creation according to The “foiled cinema of lit shadowy effectively in command: the Sankhya theory—sound arises first, shapes” that unrolls in the opening para-

26 • Collaboration Winter 2014 graph of Book Ten, Canto Four, illustrates faced by those who, like Savitri, claim to light of the Ideal,” where much of Savitri’s in the manner of a stupendous motion bring a higher principle into play in the debate with Death took place. The draft picture this aspect of life “Toiling for obscure rigidity of material existence. stops abruptly at the point where the twi- ever and achieving nought.” The sense light vanishes: of futility it induces is mitigated by the Book Eleven: The Book of perception that perhaps, after all, “Some Everlasting Day Even as she spoke, they left the twilit great thing has been done....” Yet in the world. end, Death’s pessimism may seem over- The phrase “slave of God” occurs in a It ended not; it vanished. Savitri whelmingly justified by the spectacle that speech of the Godhead into whom Death is summed up in the concluding lines of is transformed after Savitri’s victory, a pas- The remainder of the notebook was the first section of “The Dream Twilight sage that is now part of Book Eleven, “The used mostly for the rewriting of passages of the Earthly Real:” Book of Everlasting Day.” But this passage that had already been drafted. This was the in its original form, which already in- beginning of the long process of revising The rolling cycles passed and came cluded the line in question, was written as and expanding Savitri, which would con- again, early as 1916. It is found in the notebook tinue until 1950. But there are also some Brought the same toils and the same used by Sri Aurobindo for his first known passages for the concluding section of the barren end, draft of the poem, consisting of some poem, where Death is transfigured into Forms ever new and ever old, the eight hundred lines and not yet divided a luminous God. Among these passages long into books or cantos. This nearly complete is a speech of this God to Savitri, a flight Appalling revolutions of the world. draft of what would evolve into an epic of of sustained inspiration which, as we can thirty times that length is preceded in the see from a study of Sri Aurobindo’s Record Against this awesome backdrop, the small notebook by a three page draft of of Yoga, has an exact relation to his state issue between Savitri and Death has finally the opening—dated, on the second page, of consciousness at the time when it was to be decided. “August 8th 9th 1916”—beginning with written. Here is a substantial part of this Like “the dream twilight of the ide- the lines: extraordinary passage: al”, this too is a “dream twilight.” Exactly what kind of reality should be ascribed to In a huge forest where the listening Mirror of Nature’s secret spirit made, these twilight realms is difficult to say, in Night Thou shalt not shrink from any the absence of an explicit commentary by Heard solitary voices and a tread brother soul Sri Aurobindo. The description of them That had no sound for the rich heart But live attracted helplessly to all, as “dream twilights” and “symbol worlds” of day.... Drawn to me on the bosom of thy and their close resemblance to aspects friend of earthly life suggest that these are not After breaking off on the third page, And forced to love me in thy enemy’s typal planes that exist in their own right at the point where Savitri arrives at the eyes. in the hierarchy of the worlds, as do the place where she will meet Satyavan, Sri Thou shalt drink down my sweetness subtle-physical, vital and mental planes Aurobindo started again in almost the unalloyed that Aswapati passes through in Book same way, possibly a couple of months And bear my ruthless beauty una- Two. A clue to their status in the scheme later. This time he continued and, after bridged of things may perhaps be found in Sri Au- some time, began dating the draft every Amid the world’s intolerable wrongs, robindo’s recognition of the capacity of few pages. It was perhaps due to the unu- Mid the long discord and the clash man’s image-creating faculty to produce sual flow of inspiration he was experienc- of search, “environments of a half-unreal character ing that he became interested at this stage Thou shalt discover the one and which are rather self-created envelopes in recording the progress he was making quivering note of his conscious mind and life than true with the poem from day to day. The dates And be the harp of all its melodies worlds.”4 in the margins of the manuscript—Oc- And be my splendid wave in seas of If the dreamlike nature of the “twi- tober 17, 18 and 19—show that on three love. light of the earthly real” deprives it of a days in 1916 he drafted much of what Insistent, careless of thy lonely right, certain kind of objective reality, it makes eventually became Books Eight, Nine My creatures shall demand me from it all the more symbolic and therefore sig- and Ten of the epic, “The Book of Death,” thy heart. nificant for the purposes of poetry. Being “The Book of Eternal Night” and “The All that thou hast shall be for others’ a dream representation of what are usu- Book of the Double Twilight.” However, bliss; ally considered concrete realities, it ex- there was no double twilight as yet, but All that thou art shall to my hands pressively figures the crux of the problem only something like “The Dream Twi- belong.

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 27 I will pour delight from thee as from there might have been some mention of the 2At the place in the manuscript where a jar poem Sri Aurobindo was then beginning to the present Book Eight begins, a roman nu- And whirl thee as my chariot write.) When the diary resumes on 9 Janu- meral “III” was written by the scribe under through the ways ary 1917, we read in the first entry: “Shakti the heading “Book of Death”, as if “Death And use thee as my sword and as my on the basis of dasya is well founded.” in the Forest” was meant to be the third lyre Now, dāsya is the term used in the canto of that book. It is possible that when And play on thee my minstrelsies of Record of Yoga for the state described in Sri Aurobindo revised this manuscript, he thought. Savitri as being a “slave of God.” Dāsya is, had begun to envisage a description of the And when thou art vibrant with all literally, the condition of being a slave, a Yoga of Savitri, but had not yet conceived ecstasies dāsa (masculine) or dāsī (feminine); the of “The Book of Yoga” as a separate book. And when thou liv’st one spirit with latter word, dāsī, is used by Sri Aurobindo “The Book of Death” would then have be- all things, when he wishes to make the image of the come an expanded version of the whole of Men seeing thee shall feel my siege slave explicit. Submission and surrender the old canto entitled “Death”, and would of joy, are English equivalents of dāsya, but they have been numbered Book Seven. Its first And nearer draw to me because thou occur only occasionally in the Record, canto might have been similar to the pre- art. while dāsya occurs hundreds of times. sent Book Seven, Canto One. The second Enamoured of thy spirit’s loveliness, The “slave of God” passage inSavitri canto could have been an account of Savit- They shall embrace my body in thy is a vivid description of what is called in ri’s Yoga much shorter than what was even- soul, the Record of Yoga “the dasya of the su- tually written, while “Death in the Forest” Hear in thy life the beauty of my preme degree which obeys helplessly the would have been the third canto. But this laugh, direct impulse of the Master.” Paradoxi- explanation is purely speculative. Know the thrilled bliss with which I cally, this slavery is the key to liberation 3Cf. Savitri (1993), p. 651, where made the world. in action, this defeat and surrender of the “calm” has been replaced by “still” in Sri This shalt thou henceforth learn ego are the victory of the spirit and this Aurobindo’s final version of this line. On from thy heartbeats helplessness is the secret of omnipotence. the same page, “See” has become “Lo,” in That conquering me thou art my the previous line. captive made, Book Twelve: Epilogue 4This passage in The Life Divine (1970, And who possess me are by me pos- p. 790), was first published in theArya in sessed. Outwardly, the principal events in the July 1918, around the time when Sri Au- For ever love, O beautiful slave of story of Savitri are the death of Satyavan at robindo was working on the versions of God. the end of Part Two and his resuscitation Savitri discussed here. at the end of Part Three. These events are This passage was ultimately expanded recounted in “The Book of Death” and the References by twenty lines or so, with a number of Epilogue, the shortest of the twelve books changes in the order and wording of the of the epic and the only books that did Sri Aurobindo (2011). Letters on lines. But compared with the drastic muta- not receive the final revision Sri Auro- Himself and the Ashram, The Complete tions undergone by many other passages bindo apparently intended to give them. Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA), Vol. 35. in Savitri in the course of Sri Aurobindo’s His relative lack of attention to these two Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. quest for a spiritually revelatory perfection, books suggests that neither the common Sri Aurobindo (2011). Letters on Yoga it came relatively close to its final form at fact of death nor the rare phenomenon of I, CWSA, Vol. 28. Pondicherry: Sri Auro- what seems to have been the first writing. the return to life was what interested him bindo Ashram. The reason for this must be that what most, but the forces behind these surface Sri Aurobindo (2005). The Life Di- is expressed here is something Sri Auro- happenings. vine. CWSA, Vols. 21-22. Pondicherry: Sri bindo had realised in its full intensity Aurobindo Ashram. fairly early in his sadhana and, moreover, Notes Sri Aurobindo (2001) Record of Yoga, something that was essential to his original CWSA, Vols. 10-11. Pondicherry: Sri Au- conception of Savitri. The Record of Yoga 1This line originally appeared in a robindo Ashram. supports the first part of this explanation. somewhat different form in a version of Sri Aurobindo (1993). Savitri: A leg- Sri Aurobindo began Savitri during a long “Book I: Quest” that seems to have been end and a symbol. Pondicherry: Sri Auro- gap in the Record extending from March the first to be written after November bindo Ashram. 1916 up to January 1917. (In one sense, 1926. This is the earliest known occur- Sri Aurobindo (1998). Secret of the this is unfortunate for us, because if the rence of the word “dragon” in the manu- Veda, CWSA, Vol. 15. Pondicherry: Sri Record had continued through that period scripts of Savitri. Aurobindo Ashram.

28 • Collaboration Winter 2014 its increasing consciousness and, with the The role of the body awakening of consciousness in the body, in the Integral Yoga the body becomes a conscious, willing and active participant in the yoga. It is thus the best of all possibilities and enables the by Martha Orton spiritual seeker to advance on the path as completely and swiftly as possible. continued from the previous issue... Furthermore, with the awakening of the consciousness in the body, the body’s Part 2 aspiration becomes a force in itself, as the Mother states: aving established that it is cen- tral to the integral yoga of Sri There comes a moment when the Aurobindo and the Mother that body itself finds that there is nothing Hmatter must be transformed in order for in the world which is so worth living the spiritual journey of humanity and life for as this transformation; that there in the world to be complete, that only in is nothing which can have as great an the full divinization of the world will the concentration of the consciousness interest as this passionate interest of Truth-Consciousness be completely es- all these experiences in a very short transformation. It is as though all the tablished in the manifestation, let us look time and gain lives, do in a few years cells of the body were athirst for that more closely at issues related more spe- what could take a fairly consider- Light which wants to manifest; they cifically to the transformation of the body. able number of lives to achieve. The cry out for it, they find an intense joy One compelling point regarding the body psychic being goes progressively in it and are sure of the Victory. (The is that the awakening of the conscious- through all these experiences to- Mother’s Vision, 587) ness in the body actually serves to advance wards its full maturity and complete the progress of the inner being. This is the independence, its liberation—in the With this intensity of yearning and absolute reverse of what human beings sense that it no longer needs any new collaboration of the body at the cellular would generally expect, especially in view life. If it wants to come back to the level, the goal of transformation is greatly of the traditional resistance to including physical world, it returns, because enabled. the body in the spiritual life. In this regard, it has something to do there and it Life in the body therefore has a mis- the Mother states: chooses freely to return. But till then, sion to be transformed and also has a till this liberation, it is compelled to role which, in and of itself, supports the The psychic, when it has an influence return to have all the experiences it transformation of consciousness. This is on the outer life, brings to it light, needs. Well, if it happens that once the reason for the existence of a physical order and quietude and the joy of the the physical being is developed and life on the earth, the reason for this state divine contact. But also the physical conscious enough and has enough of existence in the universe. The Mother being, the body-consciousness, if it is goodwill to be able to become fully tells us that “…what adds to the interest identified with the psychic con- aware of the psychic being, it can of the thing is that this kind of work, this sciousness, and through that learns then and there create all the circum- harmonisation and organisation of the be- what kind of experience the psychic stances, the outer experiences neces- ing around the divine Centre can only be being wants to have, can help it to sary for the psychic being to attain done in a physical body and on earth. That have these experiences in a very brief its maturity in this very life. (The is truly the essential and original reason time, and not only save time but save Mother’s Vision, 447-448) for physical life. For, as soon as you are no many lives for the psychic being. It is longer in a physical body, you can no long- a mutual help. This statement describes a wonderful er do it at all.” (The Mother’s Vision, 518) In brief, this is what yoga means. collaboration of the body with the psy- Contemplating this statement leads to Yoga helps you to become fully chic being and, therefore, offers a fuller considerably greater respect for the body conscious of your destiny, that is, description of the integral nature of the and greater understanding of the oppor- your mission in the universe, and yoga. With body and soul supporting tunity that human life on earth provides. not only at the present moment but each other towards the goal, all aspects Even with all the torments of human life what it was in the past and what it are incorporated in the sadhana. The considered, it is a unique and precious op- will be in the future. And because of soul becomes master of nature, leading portunity, since it is therefore only in the this knowledge you can gather by a the individual’s spiritual evolution with form of life in a human body that beings

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 29 have the opportunity to participate in the physically.” (The Mother’s Vision, p. 304) unclear to us what this actually means. We evolution of consciousness. The Mother This statement provides additional indica- know that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother describes this further: tion of the significance of the body, both have brought down this new conscious- as an essential component of integral yoga ness, the supramental consciousness, to And what is still more remarkable is and the spiritual realization sought in this earth, enabling it to be active in the life that only human beings can do it, for process and also as a means of spiritual ex- of the world, offering the promise of the only human beings have at their cen- pression. This can be regarded as the body transformation of matter and transcend- tre the divine Presence in the psychic and matter expressing their divine quali- ing death. We know that they themselves being. For example, this work of self- ties through harmony and beauty, further manifested it. We can read of the marve- development and organisation and enriching life and giving evidence of the lous event of 29 February 1956, when the becoming aware of all the elements is Divine in the world. Expression of spir- Mother had the concrete experience of the not within the reach of the beings of itual experience through the body can also supramental upon earth, and contemplate the vital and mental planes, nor even be seen as the fully surrendered body be- its meaning. We also read that the Mother of the beings who are usually called coming more completely the instrument was working on the transformation of the “gods”; and when they want to do it, of the Divine in the world, becoming a cells in her own body. Nevertheless what when they really want to organise means of furthering the general transfor- this means to human beings in their own themselves and become completely mation according to the individual nature individual lives can seem uncertain and conscious, they have to take a body. of the being. The Mother asserts that “the possibly confusing. The following state- (The Mother’s Vision,p. 518) physical should be disciplined, organized ment by the Mother gives clarification on enough to be able to express the deep ex- many central points of the matter: Therefore the body is central to We speak of trans- spiritual evolution ...with the awakening of the body consciousness, the formation vaguely, and transformation, body is also the active collaborator of the spirit and in this way; it gives for without it there us the impression would not be the then spirit and body mutually support each other in of something that opportunity to or- their growth of consciousness and transformation. is going to happen ganize the parts of which will see to it the being around a that all is well—I center of divine consciousness, the psy- perience, in the movements of each day think it comes to that approximately. chic being, and without the organization and each moment, and live it integrally.” If we have difficulties, the difficulties and harmonization of the being, spiritual (The Mother’s Vision, p. 304) Accordingly, will disappear; those who are ill— growth and progress would not be viable. Sri Aurobindo writes of the body’s role their illness will vanish; and again, Interestingly, this is quite the opposite of as both instrument and manifestation if there are physical shortcomings, the traditions which hold that the body is of the Divine: “I put a value on the body these will disappear, and so on. But it an obstacle to the spirit. Instead it can be first as an instrument, dharmasadhana, is all very hazy, it’s just an impression. a true instrument of the spirit, not only or, more fully, as a centre of manifested There is something quite remark- providing the initial opportunity and basis personality in action, a basis of spiritual able: the physical consciousness, for the spirit’s advance, but also becoming life and activity as of all life and activity the body-consciousness, cannot its active instrument. Ultimately, with the upon the earth, but also because for me know a thing with precision, in all awakening of the body consciousness, the the body as well as the mind and life is a its details, except when it is on the body is also the active collaborator of the part of the Divine Whole, a form of the point of being realised. And this spirit and then spirit and body mutually Spirit and therefore not to be disregarded will be a sure indication when, for support each other in their growth of con- or despised as something incurably gross instance, one can understand the sciousness and transformation. and incapable of spiritual realisation or of process: through what sequence of Consequently all aspects of the being spiritual use.”(Letters on Himself and the movements and transformations will participate in its spiritual seeking, aspira- Ashram CWSA, pp. 497-498) the total transformation come about, tion and growth of consciousness. In doing While we read of the transformation in what order, in what way, to put it so they achieve integral realization. In the of the body, of its divinization, made pos- thus. What will happen first? What words of the Mother: “If we are to be total, sible by the advent of the supramental con- will happen later?—all that, in all its complete beings, to have an integral re- sciousness, we necessarily must acknowl- details. Each time you see a detail alisation, we should be able to express our edge that this is something completely out- with exactitude, it means that it is on spiritual experience mentally, vitally and side human experience and that it is quite the point of being realised.

30 • Collaboration Winter 2014 One can have the In considering both vision of the whole. the how and why of the For instance, it is divinization of matter, the quite certain that the answers can be found in transformation of the the descriptions which Sri body-consciousness Aurobindo and the Mother will take place first, give of the involution of the that a progress in the Divine in matter. Through mastery and control these descriptions we learn of all the movements that the Divine has placed of the body will come Himself in matter, is in- next, that this mastery volved, inherent in matter, will gradually change in order to awaken mat- (here it becomes more ter to consciousness and vague), gradually, into enable its return to its di- a sort of transforma- vine origin. Therefore the tion of the movement divinization of matter is itself: alteration and preordained, since the Di- transformation—all vine is inherent in matter that is certain. But except when you do it. Don’t you see, and matter is not alien to what must happen in the end, what when you have done it well, you know the Divine in its nature. With the Divine Sri Aurobindo has spoken about it, understand it, but not before that. already existing in matter, it can be awak- in one of his last articles [i.e., “The Physical knowledge is the power of ened and reveal its innate divinity. The Divine Being” in The Supramental doing. Well, that applies to every- Mother explains this beautifully: Manifestation] in which he says thing, including transformation. that even the organs will be trans- A certain number of years But I could speak to you of a very formed, in the sense that they will must pass before we can speak old tradition, more ancient than the be replaced by centres of concentra- with knowledge of how this is go- two known lines of spiritual and oc- tion of forces (of concentration and ing to happen, but all that I can cult tradition, that is, the Vedic and action of forces) of different quali- tell you is that it has begun. (The Chaldean lines; a tradition which ties and kinds which will replace all Mother’sVision, 543-544) seems to have been at the origin of the organs of the body—that, my these two known traditions, in which children, is much more distant, that From this statement we gain the un- it is said that when, as a result of the is, it is something which... one can- derstanding, most relevant in our present action of the adverse forces—known not yet grasp the means of doing it. lives, that the action of the transformation in the Hindu tradition as the Asuras Take, for instance, the heart: by what has begun, that it is sure, even though it —the world, instead of developing means is this function of the heart may not be apparent to us, and that we can according to its law of Light and which makes the blood flow through have faith that it will manifest in time. We inherent consciousness, was plunged the whole body going to be replaced also learn that the human body will even- into the darkness, inconscience and by a concentration of forces? By what tually become extraordinarily different ignorance that we know, the Crea- means will the blood be replaced by from what it is today. The difference will tive Power implored the Supreme a certain kind of force, and all the be so significant that a considerable length Origin, asking him for a special rest? By what means will the lungs be of time is imagined. Mother speaks to this intervention which could save this replaced by another concentration point: “So, if one has resolved to transform corrupted universe; and in reply to of forces, and what forces, and with the body, well, one must wait with all the this prayer there was emanated from what vibrations, and in what way?... necessary patience—three hundred years, the Supreme Origin a special Entity, All that will come much later. It can- five hundred years, a thousand years, it of Love and Consciousness, who not yet be realised. One can have an does not matter—the time needed for the cast himself directly into the most inkling of it, foresee it, but... change. As for me, I see that three hun- inconscient matter to begin there the For the body, to know is to have dred years is a minimum. To tell you the work of awakening it to the original the power to do. I shall give you an truth, with the experience I have of things, Consciousness and Love. example that’s just at hand. You do I think it is truly a minimum.”(The Moth- In the old narratives this Being not know a gymnastic movement er’s Vision, p. 544) is described as stretched out in a

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 31 deep sleep at the bottom of a very order to awaken this Matter to the is the result of all the others, for the dark cave, and in his sleep there receptivity of the Divine Forces. other principles have all descended emanated from him prismatic rays The intervals separating these vari- into Matter to create the physical of light which gradually spread into ous incarnations seem to become universe, and every particle of what the Inconscience and embedded shorter and shorter, as if, to the we call Matter contains all of them themselves in all the elements of this extent that Matter became more and implicit in itself; their secret action, Inconscience to begin there the work more ready, the action could ac- as we have seen, is involved in every of Awakening. (The Mother’s Vision, celerate and become more and more moment of its existence and every pp. 52-53) rapid in its movement, more and movement of its activity. And as Mat- more conscious too, more and more ter is the last word of the descent, so Therefore deep within the incon- effective and decisive. it is also the first word of the ascent; scienceitself are the seeds of light which And it will go on multiplying and as the powers of all these planes, will awaken it to consciousness and enable intensifying until the entire universe worlds, grades, degrees are involved matter to manifest its inherent divinity. becomes the total Avatar of the in the material existence, so are they This action of the Divine imbuing matter Supreme. (The Mother’s Vision, pp. all capable of evolution out of it.... with a part of Himself is only one way in 53-54) Nor can this evolution end with which the Divine has given himself to the the first meagre formulation of life, creation in order to help it along its path. Therefore this great sacrifice of the mind, Supermind, spirit conceded to For the Mother tells us that the Divine in Divine in matter takes place on all levels of these higher powers by the reluctant the form of the Being described above creation, on a small individual basis and a power of Matter. For as they evolve, is the origin of the avatars on earth. She vast universal basis, becoming completely as they awake, as they become more states: “He is, so to say, the first universal pervasive in its ultimate fulfillment. As active and avid of their own poten- Avatar who, gradually, has assumed more the Mother tells us, “…the great Sacrifice tialities, the pressure on them of the and more conscious bodies and finally of the Divine in Matter is the sacrifice of superior planes, a pressure involved manifested in a kind of recognised line involution which must culminate in the in the existence and close connection of Beings who have descended directly total revelation of the Divine in Matter it- and interdependence of the worlds, from the Supreme to perfect this work of self.” (The Mother’s Vision, p. 605) must also increase in insistence, preparing the universe so that, through a The Mother also describes a succes- power and effectiveness. Not only continuous progression, it may become sion of involutions: “So, there have been must these principles manifest from ready to receive and manifest the supra- what might be called ‘successive involu- below in a qualified and restricted mental Light in its entirety.” (The Mother’s tions’ in Matter, and a history of these emergence, but also from above they Vision, p. 53) involutions. The present result of these must descend in their characteristic Thus the Divine has given greatly of involutions is the appearance of the Su- power and full possible efflorescence Himself to the manifestation, sacrificing permind emerging from the inconscience; into the material being; the mate- Himself in coming to earth in human but there is nothing to indicate that after rial creature must open to a wider form as well as imbuing matter with di- this appearance there will be no others... and wider play of their activities in vine light, enabling life and the world to for the Supreme is inexhaustible and will Matter, and all that is needed is a manifest fully its divine nature one day always create new worlds.” (The Mother’s fit receptacle, medium, instrument. and complete its cycle of return to its ori- Vision, p. 31) In contemplating this, one That is provided for in the body, life gin in the Divine. The Mother describes cannot but be struck by a sense of the im- and consciousness of man. (The Life the progressive fulfillment of the Divine mensity of the divine play and of the Di- Divine, pp. 272-273) in the world: vine’s commitment to transforming the manifestation. In this statement Sri Aurobindo suc- In every country, every tradition, the Sri Aurobindo, writing in The Life Di- cinctly describes the very purpose for hu- event has been presented in a special vine, describes the involution of the Di- manity’s existence in its role as medium way, with different limitations, dif- vine in life and matter and the evolution for the evolution of matter to manifest its ferent details, particular features, which follows: innate divinity. In contemplating this one but truly speaking, the origin of all necessarily concludes that the inclusion of these stories is the same, and that is …The manifestation of the Spirit the body in the integral yoga is essential what we could call a direct, con- is a complex weft and in the design and one can find inspiration for collabo- scious intervention of the Supreme and pattern of one principle all rating in this process. in the darkest matter, without going the others enter as elements of the Having therefore recognized that the through all the intermediaries, in spiritual whole. Our material world body has an essential role to play in the

32 • Collaboration Winter 2014 integral yoga, next one can consider how body through exercise intended for this The body not only needs to be recep- to include it. Two steps can be seen in the purpose, for the Mother explains: “Physi- tive to the influence of the Divine, but also process, the first of which is the attitude cal culture is the best way of developing strong in order to bear the force for which one takes towards the body. The second is the consciousness of the body, and the the aspiration calls. The Mother tells us how one treats and uses the body, based more the body is conscious, the more it is that, “You must have a strong body and on one’s attitude towards it. The Mother capable of receiving the divine forces that strong nerves. You must have a strong ba- and Sri Aurobindo explain to us that the are at work to transform it and give birth sis of equanimity in your external being.” body is not only the instrument of the to the new race.”(Health and Healing in (Health and Healing in Yoga, p. 206) This is spirit and therefore precious in this way, Yoga, p. 205) The Mother also describes important as well as strength and equanim- but that it is also imbued with the spirit the importance of the body’s aspiration: ity in the mind and vital, to be able to con- and divine in its essence, since the Divine “It is good to do exercises and lead a sim- tain and make appropriate use of the force is involved in all matter. We have seen ple and hygienic life, but for the body to be without developing disharmony or imbal- that they regard the body as essential in truly perfect, it must be subject only to the ance in one or more parts of the being. the process of the evolution of conscious- divine influence, it must aspire constantly Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ex- ness, that without life in a body on earth to realize the Divine.” (Health and Healing plain that disequilibrium of the inner be- the soul cannot evolve. We have also seen in Yoga, p. 205) ing manifests as disharmony and illness in that the ultimate destiny for the body is its The interaction of the body and the the physical body, giving further indica- divinization and transformation. There- soul is mutual and reciprocal, as we have tion of the linkage between the conscious- fore the significance of the body indicates seen in Sri Aurobindo’s explanation of ness and the body. Regaining health is seen that it should be valued highly and treated how the growing consciousness of the in- as primarily a process of re-establishing with great respect. Consequently one has dividual awakens the body-consciousness harmony and equilibrium within oneself, the responsibility of maintaining good and that once the body itself has become establishing peace and calm within the be- health in the body ing, particularly in as well as the mind, the part of the in- attending to the Our treatment of our body is determined by our level ner being wherein body as well as as- of consciousness and our body, as instrument of our con- the disharmony pects of oneself and lies, and calling one’s life which are sciousness, reflects the inner state of the being. We can on the Divine for more generally as- regard the body as a living symbol of our consciousness. assistance. The sociated with spir- Mother describes itual aspiration and this: practice. In this way the yoga becomes more truly inte- conscious it, in turn, can actively support Each spot of the body is symbolical gral, incorporating all the parts of the and collaborate with the aspiration of the of an inner movement; there is there being, the physical as well as the mental, soul in its growth. The Mother explains a world of subtle correspondences.... vital and psychic. further the application of the principle The particular place in the body af- The Mother and Sri Aurobindo give involved: “Here, it is very easy if we know fected by an illness is an index to the practical advice related to caring for the one thing, that the method we use to nature of the inner disharmony that body and emphasize the importance of deal with our body, maintain it, keep it has taken place. It points to the ori- doing so. For example, the Mother states: fit, improve it and keep it in good health, gin, it is a sign of the cause of the ail- “Do not forget that to succeed in our yoga depends exclusively on the state of con- ment. It reveals too the nature of the one must have a strong and healthy body. sciousness we are in; for our body is an resistance that prevents the whole For this, the body must do exercise, have instrument of our consciousness and this being from advancing at the same an active and regular life, work physically, consciousness can act directly on it and high speed. It indicates the treatment eat well, and sleep well. It is in good health obtain what it wants from it.”(Health and and the cure. If one could perfectly that the way towards transformation is Healing in Yoga, p. 146) Therefore the in- understand where the mistake is, found.” (Health and Healing in Yoga, p. terrelation of soul and body is clear. Our find out what has been unreceptive, 145) Along with proper care of the body, treatment of our body is determined by open that part and put the force and receptivity to the divine force and influ- our level of consciousness and our body, the light there, it would be possible ence is emphasized. The body itself must as instrument of our consciousness, re- to re-establish in a moment the har- awaken in consciousness and aspire to re- flects the inner state of the being. We can mony that has been disturbed and alize the Divine. Emphasis is given in the regard the body as a living symbol of our the illness would immediately go. yoga to the physical development of the consciousness. (Health and Healing in Yoga, p. 26)

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 33 In recognizing the interconnection nurturance of the body follows the It is quite true that the surrender and interdependence of spirit and body, growth of the spirit and is informed and the consequent transformation one can see a process in the integral yoga and driven by this. The Mother explains of the whole being is the aim of the which consists of pursuing the life of the that the process begins with purifying Yoga—the body is not excluded, spirit according to one’s sense of what the mind and vital and then addressing but at the same time this part of this is to be in terms of one’s sadhana and changes in the body, reinforcing once the endeavour is the most difficult incorporating an active awareness of the again the integrality of the progress that and doubtful—the rest, though not role of the body. The latter element then is to be done: facile, is comparatively less difficult consists of having respect for the body to accomplish. One must start with as an instrument of the Divine’s action in Certainly it is better to purify one’s an inner control of the consciousness one’s life and sadhana, as a temple of the mind and purify one’s vital before over the body, a power to make it Divine, and acting on this understanding thinking of purifying one’s body. For obey more and more the will or the by caring well for the body. The Mother even if you take all possible precau- force transmitted to it. In the end as gives force to the importance of this in tions and live physically taking care a higher and higher Force descends her statement that “One must submit to not to absorb anything except what and the plasticity of the body in- the austerity of a sensible and regular life, will help to subtilise your body, if creases, the transformation becomes concentrating all one’s physical attention your mind and vital remain in a state possible. (Letters on Yoga, SABCL, on building a body that comes as close to of desire, inconscience, darkness, Vol. 24, p. 1234) perfection as possible.” (Health and Heal- passion and all the rest, that won’t ing in Yoga, p. 155) The Mother also em- be of any use at all. Only, your body In this description Sri Aurobindo phasizes the higher reason for doing so: will become weak, dislocated from puts forth once again the movement of “A decisive choice has to be made between the inner life and one fine day it will consciousness, with spirit becoming lending the body to Nature’s ends in obe- fall ill. master of nature, the body, and in their dience to her demand to perpetuate the One must begin from inside, I union fulfilling the ultimate goal of the race as it is, and preparing this same body have already told you this once. One yoga. Throughout Sri Aurobindo and the to become a step towards the creation of must begin from above, first purify Mother’s writings which relate to matter the new race. For it is not possible to do the higher and then purify the lower. and the body, we see that seekers on the both at the same time; at every moment I am not saying that one must in- path of the integral yoga are charged with one has to decide whether one wants to dulge in all sorts of degrading things including in their aspiration and progress remain part of the humanity of yesterday in the body. That’s not what I am all the parts of the being, with special em- or to belong to the superhumanity of to- telling you. Don’t take it as an advice phasis being placed on the significance of m or row.” ( Health and Healing in Yoga, pp. not to exercise control over your the body. This unique aspect of the inte- 158-159) desires! It isn’t that at all. But what I gral yoga offers extraordinary challenges This statement implies a definite re- mean is, do not try to be an angel in and the possibility of extraordinary fulfill- sponsibility for making a choice. If one the body if you are not already just ment. understands the significance of the body a little of an angel in your mind and and its role in the integral yoga, there is vital; for that would dislocate you in Bibliography necessarily a responsibility to respond a different way from the usual one, to this knowledge through the decisions but not one that is better. We said the The Mother. Health and Healing in and actions one takes, making these ex- other day that what is most impor- Yoga. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ash- pressions of the developing conscious- tant is to keep the equilibrium. Well, ram, 1979. ness within. This consists of attempting to keep the equilibrium everything The Mother. The Mother’s Vision. to make the body receptive to the divine must progress at the same time. You Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, influence, to dedicate it actively to the di- must not leave one part of your be- 1993. vine work, both consecrating it in one’s ing in darkness and try to bring the Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga, SAB- aspiration and caring for it and develop- other into light. You must take great CL, vol. 24. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo ing it through healthy use and exercise care not to leave any corner dark. Ashram, 1970. according to one’s level of consciousness. There you are. Health( and Healing in Sri Aurobindo. The Life Divine, In these ways the seeker can participate Yoga, pp. 195-196) CWSA, Vols. 21-22. Pondicherry: Sri Au- more fully and integrally in pursuing the robindo Ashram, 2005. path of the integral yoga and, ultimately, Sri Aurobindo, in writing of the aim Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Himself in the transformation. of the yoga, also describes the sequence of andn the Ashram, CWSA, Vol. 35. Pondi- Ideally the attitude of respect and the action mentioned above: cherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2011.

34 • Collaboration Winter 2014 Source Material

Fate and free-will by Sri Aurobindo

The will of man is the agent of the Eternal for the unveiling of his secret meaning in the material creation. Man’s mind takes up all the knots of the problem and works them out by the power of the spirit within him and brings them nearer to the full force and degree of their individual and cosmic solutions. This is his dignity and his greatness and he needs no other to justify and give a per- fect value to his birth and his acts and his passing and his return to birth, a return which must be—and what is there in it to grieve mix in and become a power of the one common life. His mind at or shun?—until the work of the Eternal in him is perfected or is a form and action of the universal mind. His call is not to be the cycles rest from the glory of their labour. busy and concerned only with his own growth and perfection This view of the world is the standpoint from which we must and natural destiny or spiritual freedom. A larger action too regard the question of man’s conscious will and its dealings with claims him. He is a worker in a universal work; the life of others life, because then all things fall into their natural place and we is his life; world-consequence and the world-evolution are also escape from exaggerated and depreciated estimates. Man is a his business. For he is one self with the selves of all other beings. conscious soul of the Eternal, one with the Infinite in his inmost The dealings of our will with Karma and consequence have being, and the spirit within him is master of his acts and his fate. to be envisaged in the light of this double truth of man’s individu- For fate is fatum, the form of act and creation declared beforehand ality and man’s universality. And seen in this light the question of by a Will within him and the universe as the thing to be done, to the freedom of our individual will takes on another appearance. be achieved, to be worked out and made the self-expression of his It becomes clear enough that our ego, our outward personality spiritual being. Fate is adrsta, the unseen thing which the Spirit can be only a minor, a temporal, an instrumental form of our holds hidden in the plan of its vision, the consequence concealed being. The will of the ego, the outward, the mentally personal from the travailing mind absorbed in the work of the moment will which acts in the movement cannot be free in any complete by the curtained nearnesses or the far invisible reaches of Time. or separate sense of freedom. It cannot so be free because it is Fate is niyati, the thing willed and executed by Nature, who is bound by its partial and limited nature and it is shaped by the power of the Spirit, according to a fixed law of its self-governed mechanism of its ignorance, and again because it is an individu- workings. But since this Eternal and Infinite, our greater Self, is alized form and working of the universal energy and at every also the universal being, man in the universe is inseparably one moment impinged upon and modified and largely shaped by with all the rest of existence, not a soul working out its isolated environing wills and powers and forces. But also it cannot so spiritual destiny and nature while all other beings are nothing but be free because of the greater Soul in us behind the mind which his environment and means or obstacles,—that they are indeed, determines works and consequence according to the will in its but they are much more to him,—which is the impression cast being and the nature, its power of being, not in the moment but on the mind by the thought or the religions that emphasise too in the long continuities of Time, not solely by the immediate much his centre of individuality or his aim of personal salvation. adaptation to the environment, but by its own previous intention He is not indeed solely a portion of the universe. He is an eternal which has shaped the environment and already predetermined soul which, though limited for certain temporal purposes in its in great part the present act and consequence. The inward will in outward consciousness, has to learn to enlarge itself out of those the being which is in intimacy with that Power is the real will and limits, to find and make effective its unity with the eternal Spirit this outward thing only an instrumentation for a working out who informs and transcends the universe. That spiritual necessity from moment to moment, a spring of the karmic mechanism. is the truth behind the religious dogma. That inward will we find when we get back to it, to be a free But also he is one in God and one in Nature with all beings will, not armoured in a separate liberty, but free in harmony with in the cosmos, touches and includes all other souls, is linked to the freedom of the Spirit guiding and compelling Nature in all all powers of the Being that are manifest in this cosmic working. souls and in all happenings. This thing our outward mind cannot His soul, thought, will, action are intimate with the universal soul, see easily because the practical truth which it feels is the energy of thought, will and action. All acts on and through him and mixes Nature at once working on us from without and forming too our with him and he acts too on all and his thought and will and life action from within and reacting upon herself by the mental will, her

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 35 instrument, to continue her self-shaping for farther Karma and far- Freedom and predetermination ther consequence. Yet are we aware of a self and the presence of this self imposes on our minds the idea of someone who wills, someone who shapes even the nature and is responsible for consequence. by the Mother To understand one must cease to dwell exclusively on the act and will of the moment and its immediate consequences. Our Can it be said in justification of one’s past that whatever has present will and personality are bound by many things, by our happened in one’s life had to happen? physical and vital heredity, by a past creation of our mental na- ture, by environmental forces, by limitation, by ignorance. But Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not our soul behind is greater and older than our present personality. have been, if it had not been intended. Even the mistakes that The soul is not the result of our heredity, but has prepared by its we have committed and the adversities that fell upon us had to own action and affinities this heredity. It has drawn around it these be, because there was some necessity in them, some utility for environmental forces by past karma and consequence. It has cre- our lives. But in truth these things cannot be explained mentally ated in other lives the mental nature of which now it makes use. and should not be. For all that happened was necessary, not for That ancient soul of long standing, sempiternal in being, purusah any mental reason, but to lead us to something beyond what purānah sanātanah, has accepted the outward limitation, the out- the mind imagines. But is there any need to explain after all? ward ignorance as a means of figuring out in a restriction of action The whole universe explains everything at every moment and from moment to moment the significance of its infinity and the a particular thing happens because the whole universe is what sequence of its works of power. To live in this knowledge is not to it is. But this does not mean that we are bound over to a blind take away the value and potency of the moment’s will and act, but acquiescence in Nature’s inexorable law. You can accept the past to give it an immensely increased meaning and importance. Then as a settled fact and perceive the necessity in it, and still you can each moment becomes full of things infinite and can be seen tak- use the experience it gave you to build up the power consciously ing up the work of a past eternity and shaping the work of a future to guide and shape your present and your future. eternity. Our every thought, will, action carries with it its power of future self-determination and is too a help or a hindrance for the Is the time also of an occurrence arranged in the Divine Plan spiritual evolution of those around us and a force in the universal of things? working. For the soul in us takes in the influences it receives from others for its own self-determination and gives out influences All depends upon the plane from which one sees and speaks. which the soul in them uses for their growth and experience. Our There is a plane of divine consciousness in which all is known individual life becomes an immensely greater thing in itself and is absolutely, and the whole plan of things foreseen and prede- convinced too of an abiding unity with the march of the universe. termined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of the And karma and consequence also get a wider meaning. At Supramental; it is the Supreme’s own vision. But when we do not present we fix too much on the particular will and act of the possess that consciousness, it is useless to speak in terms that moment and a particular consequence in a given time. But the hold good only in that region and are not our present effective particular only receives its value by all of which it is a part, all way of seeing things. For at a lower level of consciousness noth- from which it comes, all to which it moves.We fix too much also ing is realised or fixed beforehand; all is in the process of making. on the externalities of karma and consequence, this good or that Here there are no settled facts, there is only the play of possibili- bad action and result of action. But the real consequence which ties; out of the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has the soul is after is a growth in the manifestation of its being, an to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse enlarging of its range and action of power, its comprehension of one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn delight of being, its delight of creation and self-creation, and not away from another. And that we can do, even though what is only its own but the same things in others with which its greater actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined becoming and joy are one. Karma and consequence draw their in a higher plane. meaning from their value to the soul; they are steps by which it The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, moves towards the perfection of its manifested nature. And even because everything is realised there in her eternity. But for the when this object is won, our action need not cease, for it will keep sake of her play and in order to carry out actually on the physical its value and be a greater force of help for all these others with plane what is foreordained in her own supreme self, she moves whom in self we are one. Nor can it be said that it will have no here upon earth as if she did not know the whole story; she works self-value to the soul grown aware of freedom and infinity; for as if it was a new and untried thread that she was weaving. It who shall persuade me that my infinity can only be an eternal full is this apparent forgetfulness of her own foreknowledge in the stop, an endless repose, an infinite cessation? Much rather should higher consciousness that gives to the individual in the active infinity be eternally capable of an infinite self-expression. (The life of the world his sense of freedom and independence and Problem of Rebirth, In CWSA, Vol. 13, pp. 352-355) initiative. These things in him are her pragmatic tools or devices,

36 • Collaboration Winter 2014 and it is through this machinery that the movements and issues planned and foreseen elsewhere are realised here. It may help you to understand if you take the example of an actor. An actor knows the whole part he has to play; he has in his mind the exact sequence of what is to happen on the stage. But when he is on the stage, he has to appear as if he did not know anything; he has to feel and act as if he were experiencing all these things for the first time, as if it was an entirely new world with all its chance events and surprises that was unrolling before his eyes.

Is there then no real freedom? Is everything absolutely deter- mined, even your freedom, and is fatalism the highest secret?

Freedom and fatality, liberty and determinism are truths that obtain on different levels of consciousness. It is ignorance that down too upon earth something of the above,—some light, some makes the mind put the two on the same level and pit one against power that transforms or tends to transform its old nature. And the other. Consciousness is not a single uniform reality, it is com- then these things that were distinct, disconnected and disparate plex; it is not something like a flat plain, it is multidimensional. from each other—the higher in you and the lower, the inner and On the highest height is the Supreme and in the lowest depth is the outer strata of your being and consciousness—meet and are matter; and there is an infinite gradation of levels of conscious- slowly joined together and gradually they fuse into one truth, ness between this lowest depth and the highest height. one harmony. In the plane of matter and on the level of the ordinary con- It is in this way that what are called miracles happen. The sciousness you are bound hand and foot. A slave to the mecha- world is made up of innumerable planes of consciousness and nism of Nature, you are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in each has its own distinct laws; the laws of one plane do not hold that chain, whatever happens is rigorously the consequence of good for another. A miracle is nothing but a sudden descent, a what has been done before. There is an illusion of independent bursting forth of another consciousness and its powers—most movement, but in fact you repeat what all others do, you echo often it is the powers of the vital—into this plane of matter. There Nature’s world-movements, you revolve helplessly on the crush- is a precipitation, upon the material mechanism, of the mech- ing wheel of her cosmic machine. anism of a higher plane. It is as though a lightning flash tore But it need not be so. You can shift your place if you will; through the cloud of our ordinary consciousness and poured instead of being below, crushed in the machinery or moved like a into it other forces, other movements and sequences. The result puppet, you can rise and look from above and by changing your we call a miracle, because we see a sudden alteration, an abrupt consciousness you can even get hold of some handle to move ap- interference with the natural laws of our own ordinary range, parently inevitable circumstances and change fixed conditions. but the reason and order of it we do not know or see, because the Once you draw yourself up out of the whirlpool and stand high source of the miracle lies in another plane. Such incursions of the above, you see you are free. Free from all compulsions, not only worlds beyond into our world of matter are not very uncommon, you are no longer a passive instrument, but you become an active they are even a constant phenomenon, and if we have eyes and agent. You are not only not bound by the consequences of your know how to observe we can see miracles in abundance. Espe- action, but you can even change the consequences. Once you see cially must they be constant among those who are endeavouring the play of forces, once you raise yourself to a plane of conscious- to bring down the higher reaches into the earth-consciousness ness where lie the origins of forces and identify yourself with these below. dynamic sources, you belong no longer to what is moved but to that which moves. Has creation a definite aim? Is there something like a final end This precisely is the aim of Yoga,—to get out of the cycle of to which it is moving? Karma into a divine movement. By Yoga you leave the mechanical round of Nature in which you are an ignorant slave, a helpless and No, the universe is a movement that is eternally unrolling miserable tool, and rise into another plane where you become a itself. There is nothing which you can fix upon as the end and one conscious participant and a dynamic agent in the working out of aim. But for the sake of action we have to section the movement, a Higher Destiny. This movement of the consciousness follows a which is itself unending, and to say that this or that is the goal, double line. First of all there is an ascension; you raise yourself for in action we need something upon which we can fix our aim. out of the level of material consciousness into superior ranges. But (Questions and Answers 1929, Collected Works of the Mother, Vol this ascension of the lower into the higher calls a descent of the 3, pp. 27-32) higher into the lower. When you rise above the earth, you bring

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 37 Above it a mountain of matted hair Poetry room Aeon-coiled on that deathless and lone head In its solitude huge of lifeless air Round, above illimitably spread. The bird of fire A moon-ray on the forehead, blue and pale, Gold-white wings a throb in the vastness, the bird of flame went Stretched afar its finger of chill light glimmering over a sunfire curve to the haze of the west, Illumining emptiness. Stern and male Skimming, a messenger sail, the sapphire-summer waste of Mask of peace indifferent in might! a soundless wayless burning sea. Now in the eve of the waning world the colour and splendour But out from some Infinite born now came returning drift through a blue-flicker air back to my Over giant snows and the still face breast, A quiver and colour of crimson flame, Flame and shimmer staining the rapture-white foam-vest of Fire-point in immensities of space. the waters of Eternity. Light-spear-tips revealed the mighty shape, Gold-white wings of the miraculous bird of fire, late and slow Tore the secret veil of the heart’s hold; have you come from the Timeless. Angel, here unto me In that diamond heart the fires undrape, Bringst thou for travailing earth a spirit silent and free or Living core, a brazier of gold. His crimson passion of love divine,— White-ray-jar of the spuming rose-red wine drawn from the vats This was the closed mute and burning source brimming with light-blaze, the vats of ecstasy, Whence were formed the worlds and their star-dance; Pressed by the sudden and violent feet of the Dancer in Life sprang, a self-rapt inconscient Force, Time from his sun-grape fruit of a deathless vine? Love, a blazing seed, from that flame-trance.

White-rose-altar the eternal Silence built, make now my nature —Sri Aurobindo wide, an intimate guest of His solitude, But golden above it the body of One in Her diamond sphere Fire on the mountain with Her halo of star-bloom and passion-ray! Rich and red is thy breast, O bird, like blood of a soul climbing It was him back there, the hard crag-teeth world, wounded and nude, he had come back for me, A ruby of flame-petalled love in the silver-gold altar-vase of when I shattered the mountain rock with my cry. moon-edged night and rising day. He was there on the mountain, while it trembled and burned, O Flame who art Time’s last boon of the sacrifice, offering- Sri Aurobindo, flow er held by the finite’s gods to the Infinite, with bells on. O marvel bird with the burning wings of light and the unbarred lids that look beyond all space, What precious little chance One strange leap of thy mystic stress breaking the barriers of all this had to come to be. mind and life, arrives at its luminous term thy flight; The precious little chance Invading the secret clasp of the Silence and crimson Fire that he has come to me. thou frontest eyes in a timeless Face. To bless this bare semblant tinder of burnt offering. —Sri Aurobindo The one some of his friends Shiva once called: Fire-Spark. The Inconscient Creator We met in the endless moment A face on the cold dire mountain peaks where mind is not Grand and still; its lines white and austere and this living death never was Match with the unmeasured snowy streaks and nothing one Cutting heaven, implacable and sheer. could ever want

38 • Collaboration Winter 2014 would even matter. When all thy work on earth is done Only there, is the ardor of the Flame. Let me serve thee still, Not the mind that thinks. To live in thee, for thee alone Not the life that swims. Thy love my soul to fill. But the soul that makes us Matter. Where is this place? —Narad Eggenberger Empty, and full of love. Standing in and out of time. Infinite journey Where an essence that doesn’t change mingles with Existence My self-actualization odyssey is infinite. that is only change, With a smile and faith in my heart who art by Love forever changes. I wholly offer my being to Thee. What am I here doing? What has been the work. As thy loving hands remould me, It was building this soul into a being. I surrender sincerely to transform But there were burning grades of light Discovering evermore myself as Thine. that would only begin after some Divine Will Rishi Kutsa Angirasa had seared me down Ascended to Heaven with Indra to a divine spark. But nothing else changed.

Couldn’t the Divine Will have gone in some other way? I aspire for the descent of Supermind Fulfilling humanity’s aeonian aspirations; Comfort’s gone, Enable a collective divine life on earth. plans crippled. Cruel, mindless family ghosts. I am Thine as Thou will. Yet by his honorable magic Reveal my true being and soul’s quest I was graciously escorted Facilitate my oneness with Thee. into a respectable adulthood. Let me become what Thou decree; —Rick Lipschutz Resonating with equanimity and harmony I am in Thy servitude with humility and delight. A simple prayer Mythical Arun – charioteer of the Sun The little that I give of me Inspiring others to Truth, Beauty and Bliss; Shall by thy grace increase Enable me, My Lord, to serve Thee on Earth. For I am meant for none but thee My labor shall not cease. —Arun Vaidya

An instrument awakened now Let me wake into your beautiful dream To all that must be done That truth may reign and night shall know Let me wake into your beautiful dream The radiance of thy sun. And see the colors of that luminous day. Tune my hapless heart to harmonies of love, The ages called to thee, “Come down,” Carry me along like a sweetly-sung song. The earth in sorrow weeps, Speak to me softly your secrets of life, Evil’s tenacity has grown Visit me often in my visions at night. And man unconscious, sleeps Take with me you on your travels above, Show me the magic of those wondrous worlds. Unknowing as the golden day Illumine my way with your diamond ray, Grows brighter in the east; Open my sight to your vast golden sun. Our hearts shall bear the brilliant ray That kills the raging beast. —Larry Seidlitz

Winter 2014 Collaboration • 39 The heart is like a garden. It can grow And when he sees Me in all and he sees all Apropos compassion or fear, resentment or love. in Me, then I never leave him and he never What seeds will you plant there? —Buddha leaves Me. —Bhagavad Gita

By remaining psychically open to the Every breath we take, every step we make, Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a Mother, all that is necessary for work or can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live Sadhana develops progressively, that is We need only to be awake, alive in the pre- its whole life believing that it is stupid. one of the chief secrets, the central secret sent moment. —Thich Nhat Hanh —Albert Einstein of the Sadhana. —Sri Aurobindo To live a spiritual life we must first find the I believe people are in our lives for a rea- There are no words that can explain the courage to enter the desert of our loneli- son. We’re here to learn from each other. magnificence of the Grace, how the whole ness and to change it by gentle and per- —Gillian Anderson is combined so that all may go as quickly sistent efforts into a garden of solitude. as possible. —The Mother —Henri Nouwen How people treat you is their karma... how you react is yours. —Wayne Dyer When your life is filled with the desire to We need silence to be alone with God, to see the holiness in everyday life, some- speak to him, to listen to him, to ponder Change the way you look at things and the thing magical happens: ordinary life be- his words deep in our hearts. We need things you look at change. —Wayne Dyer comes extraordinary, and the very process to be alone with God in silence to be re- of life begins to nourish your soul! —Rabbi newed and transformed. Silence gives us We would never learn to be brave and pa- Harold Kushner a new outlook on life. In it we are filled tient if there were only joy in the world. with the energy of God himself that makes Think of all the beauty still left around Every hardship, every joy, every tempta- us do all things with joy. —Mother Teresa you... and be happy. —Anne Frank tion is a challenge of the spirit, that the hu- man soul may prove itself. The great chain Silence of the heart is necessary so you We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t of necessity wherewith we are bound has can hear God everywhere—in the closing come as a result of getting something we divine significance, and nothing happens of a door, in the person who needs you, in don’t have, but rather of recognizing and which has not some service in working the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the appreciating what we do have. —Frederick out the sublime destiny of the human soul. animals. —Mother Teresa Koenig —Elias A. Ford All wilderness seems to be full of tricks A man is the facade of a temple wherein Learn to get in touch with the silence and plans to drive and draw us up into all wisdom and all good abide....the soul, within yourself and know that everything God’s light. —John Muir whose organ he is, would he let it appear in this life has a purpose. There are no through his action, would make our knees mistakes, no coincidences. All events are When we try to pick anything out by itself, bend. When it breathes through his intel- blessings given to us to learn from. —Eliz- we find it hitched to everything in the lect, it is genius; when it breathes through abeth Kübler-Ross Universe. —John Muir his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love. —Ralph Waldo Love is patient, love is kind. It does not When we pay attention, whatever we are Emerson envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is doing...is transformed and becomes part not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not eas- of our spiritual path. —Rick Fields Beauty is not in the face. Beauty is a Light ily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. in the heart. —Kahlil Gibran Love does not delight in evil but rejoices If the doors of perception were cleansed with the truth. It always hopes, always per- everything would appear to man as it is, He is truly happy who makes others happy. severes. —The Bible infinite. —William Blake Those who face that which is actually be- fore them, unburdened by the past, undis- Compassion...is an understanding of the Those who are awake live in a state of con- tracted by the future, these are those who unity of all things. It is an awareness that stant amazement. —Buddha live, who make the best use of their lives, I is not separate from thou, that whatever these are those who have found the secret is happening to the planet, or to another You never change something by fighting of contentment. —Alban Goodier person, is happening to me. Compassion the existing reality. To change something, is total empathy, an absolute sense of con- build a new model that makes the existing The words that enlighten the soul are more nection. —Paul Rezendes model obsolete. —Buckminster Fuller precious than jewels. —Hazrat Inayat Khan

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