Summer & Fall 2011 Journal of the of and the Mother Vol. 36, Nos. 1-2

Special double issue on Sri Aurobindo’s , A legend and a symbol

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 1 About the cover “Creation of the gods.” This is a grayscale copy of a painting by Vangara done in Alkyds, Table of contents the most advanced colors from Winsor and Collaboration, vol. 36, nos. 1-2, Summer & Fall 2011 Newton, London. Throughout this issue we fea- ture Shiva’s fine paintings, many of which are based on Savitri. These paintings and others can be viewed in all their exquisite colors on From the office ofCollaboration his blog: http://visionsoncanvas.blogspot.com. Notes on this issue...... Larry Seidlitz 3

The authors and poets Current affairs Anurag Banerjee is the founder and chairman of the Overman Foundation (see http://overman- Sri Aurobindo Learning Center...... Swaha 4 foundation.wordpress.com). His email address is: Auromesa Center...... Tizia O'Connor 5 [email protected]. The Passing of Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna)...... Anurag Banerjee 6 Arabinda Basu, a member of the , is a philosopher and scholar of Integral Briefs ...... 710 7 Yoga, and editor of the journal Gavesana (Quest for Light). He has taught and lectured on comparative philosophy and religion internationally. AV almanac Kalpana Bidwaikar (kalpanacb@rediffmail. About Savitri Bhavan ...... Muriel Ghion 8 com) is an Assistant Professor of English at the Col- lege at Bilaspur (Chattisgarh State). She also lec- tures on the vision and works of Sri Aurobindo and Chronicles the Mother in Chattisgarh and Delhi. Muriel Ghion ([email protected]) is a Savitri: A revelation...... Mona Sarkar 10 newcomer to from Belgium who is working Reading Savitri for progress and delight...... Shraddhavan 13 at Savitri Bhavan. Richard Hartz ([email protected]) is a scholar on Sri Aurobindo’s thought who works in Essays the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives Department on the publication of Sri Aurobindo’s Complete Works. Savitri: A brief introduction ...... Kailas Jhaveri 17 Kailas Jhaveri ([email protected]) is a Two biographies and an autobiography...... Mangesh Nadkarni 25 member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Her biogra- 'A god come down and greater by the fall'...... Arabinda Basu 33 phy, I am with you, was published in two volumes by The everlasting Yes: Savitri, the epic of affirmation...... Richard Hartz 39 the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The late Mangesh Nardkarni (1933-2007) Vision of the future: Supramental transformation....Kalpana Bidwaikar 50 was a gifted and widely-known speaker on Savitri Some key symbols in Savitri...... Larry Seidlitz 59 and other aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s thought. He was connected the Sri Aurobindo Society and often traveled to the US. Source material Tizia O’Connor (tizia@auromesa) is a certified The overmind aesthesis...... Sri Aurobindo 65 Ayurvedic practitioner and co-founder of Auromesa Center in Hondo-Arroyo, NM. On several important passages...... The Mother 67 Mona Sarkar is a senior member of the Sri Au- robindo Ashram. whose outstanding books Sweet Mother: Luminous Notes and The Supreme recount The poetry room (Selections from Savitri) his conversations with the Mother. From "The yoga of the king: The yoga of the soul's release"...... 691 Larry Seidlitz ([email protected]) is a facili- From "The secret knowledge"...... 691 tator of online courses on Sri Aurobindo’s thought at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research From "The descent into Night"...... 701 and editor of Collaboration. From "The gospel of death and the vanity of the ideal"...... 701 Shraddhavan ([email protected]) From "The debate of Love and Death"...... 711 is the director of Savitri Bhavan in Auroville (www. From "The eternal day: The soul's choice and the supreme auroville.org/education/edu_centres/savitribhavan_ consummation" ...... 711 main.htm). She is also the editor of the institute’s journal Invocation, and holds classes on Savitri. Swaha (formerly Kathryn Van Note; svahaus@ Apropos ...... 721 gmail.com) is the new steward of Sri Aurobindo Learning Center in Crestone, CO.

2 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 The artist From the office of Collaboration Shiva Vangara ([email protected]) is from an artist family in Andhra Pradesh. He lived in the n this special issue, we focus exclusively on Savitri, and reproduce a number of excel- Ashram from 1983-1986, and was initiated to Savitri lent articles that have been written on Sri Aurobindo’s great epic poem. In Current by a senior Ashramite. Inspired by the Mother’s Affairs, we have articles on two U.S. centers that specially concentrate onSavitri , the words, his view of art developed. For the past 18 ISri Aurobindo Learning Center near Crestone, CO by Swaha, and Auromesa, near Taos, years he has been working to realize his dream of a NM by Tizia O’Connor. Both centers engage in regular Savitri study, and often have Hollywood adaptation of Savitri, in IMAX 3D, fol- lowed by 7 sequels to cover the entire epic poem. At special Savitri workshops in the summers. Both are located in relatively remote scenic present he lives in Mumbai pursuing the film project. locations not far from each other that readers may like to visit. We also have a report Apart from film and painting, his interests include by Anurag Banerjee on the passing of Amal Kiran, at age 106, who was so instrumental contemporary dance, Bio Technology, Nano Tech- in eliciting Sri Aurobindo’s explanations about the overhead poetry used in Savitri. In nology, and Quantum Physics and Consciousness. Briefs, we report on a Savitri play that was staged at the AUM 2011 in Lodi, CA (more Publisher: Collaboration (ISSN 0164-1522) on the AUM in next issue), and bring news from Matagiri and a new Savitri study group. is published by the Sri Aurobindo Association In AV Almanac, we have an article by Muriel Ghion on Savitri Bhavan, a center of (SAA), a California nonprofit religious corpora- tion, 2715 W. Kettleman Lane, suite 203-174, Lodi Savitri studies in Auroville, home to “all kinds of materials and activities to enrich our CA 95242 USA; e-mail: [email protected]. understanding and enjoyment of Sri Aurobindo’s revelatory epic.” It is also noteworthy Editor: Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar Street, that Savitri Bhavan publishes the Invocation newsletter (more like a journal), from Vaithikuppam, Puducherry, 605012, India; email: which four of the articles included in our special issue have been selected, with the kind [email protected]. The opinions expressed in permission of Shraddhavan, the director. Savitri lovers should consider subscribing. Collaboration are not necessarily those of the edi- tor or the SAA. Our main articles start off in Chronicles with Mona Sarkar’s account of the Mother’s Copyrights: Copyright © SAA, 2011. Pho- discussion with him about Savitri, in which she conveyed its extraordinary importance tos of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, passages and value. Upon reading this recollection, which was written seven years after their from their works, and excerpts from the books discussion, the Mother said that although she could not remember her words, it was published by the Sri Auro­bindo Ashram Trust are correct and true as an appreciation of Savitri, and recommended others to read it. This © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust unless otherwise noted, and are used here with the kind permission is followed by an article by Shraddhavan, in which she discusses various ways in which of the Ashram. to read, study and utilize Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem. These first two articles do not focus Subscriptions: Send requests to: 2715 W. on the content of the poem per se, but on its value and on ways to appreciate and use it. Kettleman Lane, suite 203-174, Lodi CA 95242 The next article, in Essays, by Kailas Jhaveri, provides a stimulating summary of USA, or call Auromere (209-339-3710 ext. 2) with Savitri, recounting the plot and highlights of the spiritual journey that is revealed. Using your credit card information; A one-year subscrip- tion (three issues) is $25 ($35 for airmail outside ample quotes, it gives a synopsis of the poem especially helpful for newcomers, and for the USA, a patron subscription is $50 or more). others it is an excellent review preparatory to the articles that follow. Next comes a talk For India residents, send requests along with Rs. by the late Mangesh Nadkarni, a widely known speaker on Savitri. This is also an overall 200 (for three issues) to Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar summary, but focuses on certain aspects of the poem he found particularly important. It St., Vaithikuppam, Pondicherry 605012. is followed by a talk by Arabinda Basu, one of the Ashram’s great Sri Aurobindo scholars, Submissions: Collaboration welcomes writ- ing, photos, and artwork relevant to the Integral that takes us into the depths of the poem through the immense spiritual and philosophi- Yoga and spirituality. Submit material by email cal significance of one key line, “A god come down, and greater by the fall.” Next comes to: [email protected]; or by post to Collab- a penetrating study by Richard Hartz that not only highlights the affirmative nature oration, 2715 W. Kettleman Lane, Suite 203-174, of Savitri and of Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual philosophy, but examines critical parallels Lodi, CA 95242 USA. Collaboration cannot be between Savitri and The Record of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo’s yogic diary, pertaining to four held responsible for loss or damage of unsolicited material. Letters to the editor may be published inter-related affirmations on which his yoga is founded. This is followed by a study by unless you indicate otherwise. Letters and articles Kalpana Bidwaikar, a chapter from her doctoral thesis, of the supramental transforma- may be edited for style and space considerations. tion as expressed in corresponding ways in Savitri and The Life Divine. The last essay is About SAA: The Sri Aurobindo Asso- by Larry Seidlitz, the only one previously unpublished, on certain key symbols in Savitri, ciation distributes information about Sri Auro- which gathers together a variety of insights from other writers that bring into focus bindo, the Mother, and Auroville, and supports projects related to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Au- fundamental issues in the poem and in the Integral Yoga. roville, and Integral Yoga activities in America. These main articles are followed by important source material from Sri Aurobindo Current officers: Lynda Lester, president; on the nature of overhead poetry, and from the Mother in several extracts from Mother’s Eschner, vice president; John Robert Cornell, sec- Agenda, each bringing out the deeper significances of particular key passages. retary; Kalpana Patel, treasurer. In the Poetry Room, there is a selection of extended passages from throughout the Contributions: Donations for the work of the SAA, Auroville, and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram epic which I believe exemplify the greatness of the poem, and bring home some of the may be sent to SAA. Donations are tax exempt profound wisdom embodied there. In Apropos, I have similarly selected a set of short under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Rev- passages ranging from one to several lines, each expressing a world of meaning. enue Code.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 3 Current affairs

Sri Aurobindo Learning Center

by Swaha

n January 2011, I (Swaha, formerly Kathryn Van Note) became the new Isteward of Sri Aurobindo Learning Center (SALC), pop- ularly known as Savitri House, in Crestone, CO. I took over the reins from Pavita, who had shepherded the Center since Swaha (Photo courtesy Inside the Solar Dome (Photo courtesy www.sriaurobindolc.com) Seyril Schochen’s passing www.sriaurobindolc.com) in December 2006, and had worked to build bridges with the larger community. Seyril had all are invited join. There is also a weekly event that explores Con- founded the SACL in 1986 as an educational foundation. Her scious Evolution, and a monthly study group, currently delving vision was that it be based on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo into collective yoga. The library provides a place to obtain infor- and the Mother, and associated with Auroville. Pavita’s grant- mation and books on the writings of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, writing efforts allowed the Center to become a work study site and Integral Yoga. The SALC also offers occasional meditations, for students from the Crestone Charter School to learn about talks, performances and workshops, all open to the public. renewable energy applications and efficiencies, while moving the The Center has been seeing some long needed maintenance Center toward a lower carbon footprint, and earning the students in the last months—the two bedrooms have been painted and money for their annual school trip. Steve Carter and Brian Dyer re-carpeted, a tube skylight installed in the kitchen, a new wa- were also important during the period following Seyril’s passing ter heater, and the deck is being rebuilt and stained. We have a by helping to complete and upgrade the physical premises, and by beautiful guest room now—clean and light! There is much left their active participation in the spiritual community. to do. We are working on a proposal for a solar hot water system I bring a deep devotion to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, a that will provide both domestic hot water and heating for the passionate love of Savitri, and a wide experience of working in the bedrooms, and that project will again provide an opportunity for complex, international, human unity experiment called Auroville. our local students to learn another renewable energy application. I was first introduced to the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo by The Center’s buildings need substantial weatherization treat- Seyril, whom I met in 1981 while we both were living in Boulder. ments and exterior maintenance, and major appliances need to I have always felt a deep connection to and gratitude for Seyril, be replaced. After our summer intensive, fundraising is the next who represented for me a kind of lighthouse, guiding me to my focus. Donations are greatly appreciated! spiritual home after a decade of searching and exploring various During the last week of July 2011, the SALC is hosting a paths and teachings. I am honored to be the SALC’s new steward. potent retreat experience called an “Integral Soundscapes Inten- My goal is to further the Center as a venue for transformative sive.” Some talented people will guide an exploration of sound/ learning—a laboratory of evolution—and I am experimenting vibration, including Leigh Ann Phillips and her incredible crys- with ways to make the evolutionary teachings of Sri Aurobindo tal bowls; Jillian Klarl Ellzey, leading a powerful practice called and the Mother more accessible to the wider community of seekers. Yoga of the Voice as well as kirtan; and renowned artist Marika The Learning Center sits at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Popovitz, exploring the sound of color. Other planned activi- Mountains just outside Crestone, CO. In addition to the main ties include the yoga mantra of Savitri, sounding with instru- house, where there is a guest room, library and bookstore, there is ments, listening to Nature, the sound of silence, Qi Gong and also a Meditation Dome and Solar Bridge. The Mediation Dome is breathing, delving into the properties and possibilities of water, used mainly during the milder and warmer months for meditation conscious relationship with plants, and experiencing the power (it’s open to anyone) and has been used for summer Savitri Im- of the Solfeggio frequencies. The intention for this gathering mersion workshops that have been led by Rod Hemsell, as well as is a kind of research—a deep exploration and discovery of the for other special events. Savitri is read every Tuesday evening and impacts of sound and vibration, both audible and subtle. In order

4 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 to concentrate attention, we will remain in silence from 6 a.m. to Auromesa Center 6 p.m. each day, except for presenters and any focused inquiry or sounding that is evoked by them. by Tizia O’Connor May 2011 saw the initiation of a Conscious Evolution course at Sri Aurobindo Learning Center. I had been following a course uromesa is a center given by Barbara Marx Hubbard in association with The Shift dedicated to traditional Network, and am so thrilled with the optimism, synergy and col- Ayurvedic treatments lective empowerment that I am experiencing with others world- Aand Integral Yoga. It is perched wide that I wanted to share it locally—and create a Conscious on a high mesa between the Evolution Home Team! A flyer around town describes this course Rockies and the Rio Grande as “midwife training for planetary Birth 2012.” To expand on that in a very small village called a little: There is a tremendous amount of awareness and energy Arroyo-Hondo in New Mexico. globally around the 21 December 2012 date. Predictions and My husband Paul and I built scenarios abound, be it apocalypse, ascension, transition, trans- our home here about 20 years mutation, merging/emerging, destruction and new creation, pole ago, and we started the center shift, new grids, parallel universes, returning to star source, etc. recently with the help of some Some scenarios are hopeful and some provoke fear, but for the others. I offer a wide range of Tizia O’Connor. (Photo courtesy most part they leave us waiting and/or preparing for something Ayurvedic treatment regimes www.auromesa.com) to happen to us. The aim of Barbara and the Shift Network in including various types of massage, aquatic body work, weekend offering this course is to connect and synergize as many people retreats, and panchakarma retreats lasting up to 10 days. Kelly as possible worldwide, to create both a “map of what’s working” Pasholk specializes in flower essence and Reiki energy work for and a pooled field of talents for ecstatic co-creation that is an ex- people and their companion animals. With its scenic location ponentially potent evolutionary force. Whether we are aware of it along the Rio Grande near natural hot springs, it is an awesome or not, we ARE participating in a process of “evolution by choice, place for peace and wilderness lovers. The center also has library/ not by chance.” So, what do we choose? What do we imagine that meditation room and holds weekly meetings involving medita- we CAN choose? tion and readings from Savitri and Mother’s Agenda. The SALC’s aim in mirroring the course locally (with lots of One of the recent additions to the center is our Labyrinth. room for spontaneity) is to create a participatory, resonant field One day in early 2009 we had the dream of building a Labyrinth. of infinite possibility right here, and a co-creative, no-dreams- There are not many distractions in this part of the world and rock barred vision and action plan for the concentric circles of I—indi- gathering is one of the few that we practice intensively. There vidual, family, community, country, planet. Humanity is now em- are many different ways to built Labyrinths. We wanted a Native powered to create the collective reality that we want to live in. This American one and we ‘googled’ quite intensively to find the loca- is the evolution foreseen 100 years ago by Sri Aurobindo—human tion of one, and that one was the only one to be found on the net. will merging with Divine Will, through progressive union with It was carved in a big black mountain rock located a mile away the essential Self (psychic being, indwelling divine)—the whole from us in Arroyo-Hondo. evolving consciously and naturally through each one discovering During a November retreat at our center we gathered with and living the truth of his/her being.

The Center’s regular offerings include:

• Potluck, Savitri reading and meditation, Tuesdays, 6 p.m. • Conscious Evolution Synergy Group, Thursdays, 7 p.m. • Library & Meditation Dome • Guest room w/bath, kitchen privileges, WiFi—$30/night • Cozy space for intimate workshops, functions

SALC is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Since Seyril’s passing, the guest house, donations, rents, grants and programs are the principal means of sustaining its vision. We appreciate donations and invite individuals and groups to use the facilities. Please contact SALC for more information: sriaurobindolc@ gmail.com, or visit the website: www.sriaurobindolc.org. Our phone number is 719-256-4917. Auromesa Center. (Photo courtesy www.auromesa.com)

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 5 The passing of Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna)

by Anurag Bannerjee

Courtesy the Overman Foundation

n Wednesday, 29 June 2011 at 12:15 p.m., Shri Kaikhush- ru Dhunjibhoy Sethna alias Amal Kiran left his physical body. He was 106 years of age. Born on 25 November O1904 in a Parsi family, he had his early education at St. Xavier’s School and College. At college he won in his Intermediate Arts examination of Bombay University the Hughlings Prize in Eng- lish and the Selby Scholarship in Logic. He passed his Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Philosophy and won the Ellis Prize in English. His first book ‘Parnassians’ was published in 1922 and The stone Labyrinth. (Photo courtesy Auromesa) it was a critical analysis of the works of H.G. Wells, George Ber- other devotees of Sri Aurobindo and Mother and built the core nard Shaw, G.K. Chesterson and Thomas Hardy. H.G. Wells had Labyrinth together. It was not so easy, there was lots of geometry remarked about the young writer to the Parsi author A.S. Wadia: involved and while the men were pondering on drawings and di- “Your young man will go far.” rections, the women got impatient and started to build the heart K.D. Sethna joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at the age of of the Labyrinth around the architects’ feet. It took stamina, brain 23 on 16 December 1927. On his request he was given the name and heart. It took climbing up and down the gorge with a huge of ‘Amal Kiran’ meaning ‘The Clear Ray’ by Sri Aurobindo on 3 rock you have fallen in love with—many times—and always with September 1930. From 1949 he was the editor of the monthly Mother smiling her sunshine and strength in our limbs. journal ‘’. In 2010, during a Savitri immersion workshop we added Sri Amal Kiran was a multi-faceted genius; he has penned more Aurobindo’s symbol as the entry way into the Labyrinth. People than fifty scholarly books including volumes on poetry (The Secret brought some precious stones, and there was much love and rev- Splendour, The Adventure of the Apocalypse, Overhead Poetry, Altar erence from everyone involved, some barely knowing who He is. and Flame and Poems by Amal Kiran and ), literary Then, this spring, we decided that something was amiss and criticism (Parnassians, Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare, Sri Auro- built the Mother’s symbol with many stones taken from Cre- bindo—The Poet, The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo, “Two Loves” stone, CO near the Sri Aurobindo center there, and a few that had and “A Worthier Pen”, The Obscure and the Mysterious: A Research been brought back from Auroville in my suitcase. Conglomerates in Mallarme’s Symbolist Poetry, Blake’s Tyger—A Christological that are rare and dreamy, pink stone pad underneath, and white Interpretation, Talks in Poetry, The Inspiration of Paradise Lost, “A quartz to draw the symbol. The Rocks were coming alive. The feel Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”: An Interpretation From India, Adven- of the Labyrinth when finished was amazingly happy. tures in Criticism, The Thinking Corner, Classical and Romantic: An Every Wednesday night before our Savitri immersion, we Approach Through Sri Aurobindo and Sri Aurobindo on Greece), walk through it in silence under the open eye of the heavens. philosophy (Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo, The Spiritual- Birds, light wind, snow and stars are the Labyrinth’s closest ity of the Future, The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo, Aspects of friends. One day a herd of deer visited the Labyrinth and never Sri Aurobindo, The Mandukya Upanishad and The Development displaced a stone; they went to the center and left, only a few of Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual Thought and the Mother’s Contribu- prints were to be found. tion to it), history and culture (Evolving India, The Indian Spirit A Labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It and the World’s Future, The Problems of Aryan Origin, Karpasa combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meander- in Prehistoric India, The Sun and the Rainbow, Ancient India in a ing purposeful path, a journey to our own center and back again New Light, The Beginning of History for Israel, India and the World into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and Scene, Problems of Early Christianity, Teilhard de Chardin and Our tools. As a tool for spiritual growth, the Labyrinth should Time, Problems of Ancient India, The Virgin Birth and the Earliest be approached with reverence during your journey in and out of Christian Tradition etc.) His volumes of epistolary exchanges (Life- its center. This Labyrinth is dedicated to Sri Aurobindo and the Poetry-Yoga, Volumes I-III, A Follower of Christ and a Disciple of Mother. Auromesa is one of Savitri’s many shores. Sri Aurobindo and The English Language and the Indian Spirit) are For further information, please visit our website at: www. a rare treat where the reader comes to know of his profound erudi- auromesa.com, or feel free to email me at [email protected]. tion as well as his wonderful sense of humour.

6 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 The late Jugal Briefs Kishore Mukher- jee had rightly re- marked about Amal A children’s production of Savitri was a highlight of AUM Kiran: “K.D.S.’s 2011 in Lodi, CA. It was based on a script by Chávez, shining complex- the children’s program coordinator. Part I featured Narad as As- ion, his delicate sen- wapathi, and his disciple from New Jersey, Aurovind Ahluwalia. sitive face, two eyes Shree Srinivasan played Savitri whose dancing perfectly radiating a keen and represented the awakening of the New Dawn. Chait Malik, the kind glint of intel- oldest child at age 13, was Satyavan. His father, Pravir Malik, ligence and a sweet was the Voice of the Divine who speaks to Savitri. Falguni Pa- smile as innocent as tel guided the play into Savitri’s search for her soul in Part II. that of a child, can- Her daughter Neeraja was the Goddess of Compassion; Aurolei not but captivate the Braroo and Mirra Singaram respectively played the Goddesses hearts of the visi- of Might and Light. Mirra’s brother, Aravind, played the Lord of tors.” Death, just as his father once had as a child. One of the fore- The family of Ashutosh, Shubhra, Arya and Miransh cre- most sadhaks of ated the props, assisted by Fiona Om Shanti from Australia, and the Aurobindonian stage hand Aditya Malik; Arya was also the MC. Assisted by Lily community, Amal Peryn, Skandha Srinivasan, the youngest participant at age 4, Amal Kiran, (Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Kiran had unre- rang the bell for silence. Ashram. served devotion and Photos were taken by Neeraja’s father, Kant, who post- profound love for Sri ed them online (https://picasaweb.google.com/kant.patel/ Aurobindo and the Mother. He lived for Them and in Them. His AUM2011_20110703). Many others helped, and the audience deep aspiration is reflected in one of his writings where he says: was warm and appreciative. As the children marched off the stage and out of the conference center, the audience followed, all From the very beginning of my stay in the Ashram I have aptly described in the final reading by Pravir of Sri Aurobindo’s sought to quicken to the presence of Sri Aurobindo and the “The sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn.” Mother from the core of my heart… An inner urge…has Matagiri Sri Aurobindo Center has published a new edi- yearned for an Unknown surpassing every object of my senses tion of “Sri Aurobindo and the Mother On Collective Yoga” to and my thought and making nothing worth while unless that honor the 80th birthday of editor, Eric Hughes. It is available Unknown were first found… There is one single wish running from SABDA and Matagiri. Eric is the co-founder of Matagiri through all the years—and that is to be open more and more and continues in his 43rd year of stewardship where he receives to the transforming grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. visitors daily. Devotees come to this beautiful location in the On each birthday it gets an extra spurt. Catskill mountains 100 miles north of New York to visit the I have pledged my whole life to the great Beyond and the meditation room with it’s marble Samadhi throughout the year deep Within and longed to live in the wide Without with but especially on Darshan days and weekends. Eric shares his the ego-swamping light from on high and the ego-refining insights on Integral Yoga. He reads every Saturday morning at 9 warmth from the secret psyche… I have the conviction that a.m. during a meditation open to the public. I am in omnipotent hands which at any moment will lift me Matagiri has initiated a fund raising campaign for new in- out of myself and carry me where Time neighbours Eternity. frastructure which includes a hall for talks, concerts, hatha yoga and “Awareness Through the Body” exercises. This will include Amal Kiran was blessed with a long and fruitful life which was guest and kitchen facilities for visitors, a long-standing wish. A a prayer offered to the Divine. Age could not take away the natural new meditation room is part of the Master plan for the Center. sweetness and warmth which existed in him. Unlike others who Details are available on the Matagiri website: www.matagiri.org. would shriek at the thought of death, Amal Kiran was ready for it The (new) Santa Cruz (CA) Savitri group meets every for a number of years. In his own words: “I am doing my best to live Wednesday 10 -12 to read together, beginning and ending with a long both because I am happy and can give happiness and because time of silence. Afterwards we enjoy a time of conversation and I want as much time as possible to go nearer to Sri Aurobindo’s sharing over tea and snacks. We take turns in meeting in each luminous Truth and the Mother’s radiant Beauty. All the same I others homes. Anyone interested visiting the Santa Cruz or Bay am ready to say ‘Hurrah’ whenever they tell me, “Your time is up.’” Area would be most welcome to join us. Contact June Maher: The Clear Ray is no longer with us physically. But his fond 831-688-4173, [email protected]; or Mateo Needham: memories would always brighten up our lives. 831-331-6850, [email protected].

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 7 AV almanac

About Savitri Bhavan

by Muriel Ghion

avitri Bhavan is a center in Auroville dedi- cated to fostering a living sense of Human Unity through spiritual education based on Sthe vision and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Its central focus is Sri Aurobindo’s The main building was officially inauguraged on 29 September 2006 by Dr. Karan Singh, mantric epic Savitri—A legend and a symbol. the Chairman of the Auroville Foundation. (Photo courtesy Savitri Bhavan) Savitri Bhavan aims to gather and create, to house and share all kinds of materials and From 2005 onwards, work started on the Main Building of activities that will aid a deeper appreciation of Sri Aurobindo’s the Campus, with funding from the Government of India under mantric epic, of the lives, work and vision of Sri Aurobindo and the SAIIER Development Scheme. The completed Main Building the Mother, and of the aims and ideals of Auroville. was opened by Dr. Karan Singh, Chairman of the Governing Activities at Savitri Bhavan are organised to make Sri Auro- Board of the Au- bindo’s vision accessible to people of very varied psychological roville Foundation types and cultural backgrounds. Outreach activities are held on 30 March 2008. in the four languages of Auroville: English, Tamil, French and At Dr. Karan . Learning Materials are created and collected to support Singh’s wish, a these activities. Research projects provide new materials. A team bronze statue of Sri of 18 Aurovilians and seven employees is supported by many Aurobindo, similar volunteers and visiting teachers. It is estimated that during 2010 to those installed in at least 6000 people were involved in or touched by the activities Sri Aurobindo Sad- of the Bhavan. an in Kolkata, the Savitri Bhavan is a project of SAIIER (Sri Aurobindo Interna- Parliament House tional Institute of Educational Research) Auroville, open to the in New Delhi, and interested general public seven days a week all through the year. UNESCO head- quarters in Paris, History was installed out- side Savitri Bhavan The Foundation Stone of Savitri Bhavan was laid by Dr. on 21 February Nirodbaran on 24 November 1995, then a master plan and model 2008, as a gift from for the complex was created by architect Helmut and presented the Auroville Foun- on 24 November 1996. dation to Auroville. At first, all activities took place under the trees near the site of the Foundation Stone. In early 1998, a keet hut was built where Looking ahead gatherings were held until completion of the first permanent Statue of Sri Aurobindo near the entrance to structure, which was inaugurated by Dr. Nirodbaran on 8 August Further ele- the main hall. (Photo courtesy Savitri Bhavan) 1999. This building served as the hub of a growing programme of ments of the Campus are yet to be fully realised: activities over the following years. The hostel: A hostel is under construction and requires fur- In June 2001, Huta entrusted to the Bhavan the entire collec- ther funding for completion—the completion date is projected tion of 472 Meditations on Savitri which she had created under for 24 April 2012. the Mother’s close guidance and instructions from 1961 to 1966, Since accommodation in Auroville is insufficient, and expen- along with many other related materials and paintings. sive for many visitors, the aim is to provide free or very moder- In November 2003, work started on a second permanent ately priced boarding and lodging within the Savitri Bhavan com- structure, a large Hall, which was opened on 21 November 2004. plex to people offering their services in support of Savitri Bhavan, This is used for guest lectures and exhibitions. such as visiting speakers and teachers, students and researchers,

8 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 • Programmes: A programme of regular weekly classes, courses and activities; exhibitions, musical events, guest lectures and film shows, as well as workshops, retreats and orientation sessions, is offered to the interested public. • Publications: Savitri Bhavan publishes two journals of Study Notes on Savitri: Invocation in English, and Prarthana in Tamil, in addition to books, booklets and CDs. • Research

Savitri Bhavan has been created to foster a living research that aids the growth of consciousness. To support all these ac- tivities researchers are engaged in developing materials that will foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of the vision and work of The new hostel is under construction and is expected \to be completed Sri Aurobindo and by April 2012. (Photo courtesy Savitri Bhavan) the Mother and the aims and ideals of Auroville. Assis- and volunteers. A fund-raising appeal has been launched to com- tance is also offered plete the hostel. to students and And also, a Sangam Hall with multimedia facilities will com- researchers in this plete the Main Building. Thereafter it is planned to double the field from around size of the Picture Gallery, to enable all the Meditations on Savitri the world. paintings to be kept there on permanent display, according to the Nirodbaran speaking at the inauguration on 8 Mother’s wish. The Savitri Park is being developed around the The Dream August 1999. (Photo courtesy Savitri Bhavan) buildings, with inspiration and guidance from Narad (Richard Eggenberger). We dream of an environment in Auroville:

Facilities offered by Savitri Bhavan : • that will breathe the atmosphere of Savitri; • that will welcome Savitri lovers from every corner of the • Reception and Information Service: The Reception Desk is world; open from 9-5 daily, 6 days a week, to receive visitors and answer • that will be an inspiring centre of Savitri studies; queries. Queries from students and researchers are also dealt • that will house all kinds of materials and activities to enrich with by e-mail and correspondence. Books, recordings and other our understanding and appreciation of Sri Aurobindo’s revela- learning-materials related to the activities of Savitri Bhavan are tory epic that will be the abode of Savitri, the Truth that has come available from the Information Service. from the Sun. • Picture Gallery: displaying the Meditations on Savitri paintings made by Huta under the guidance of the Mother, Support is welcome from everyone who feels that the vibra- illustrating selected passages from Sri Aurobindo’s poem. tion of Savitri will help to manifest a better tomorrow “for earth • Reading Room: housing a reference collection of books and and men.” For more details, please contact: journals to facilitate study and understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. Savitri Bhavan • Audio-visual Collection: a rich collection of recorded talks, Auroville 605101 video-films and music relating toSavitri, the life and teachings , INDIA of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and the aims and ideals of Phone : +91 (0)413 262 2922 Auroville, for use by groups and individuals e-mail : [email protected] • Maison de l’Agenda de Mere—House of Mother’s Agenda: http://www.auroville.org/education/edu_centres/ created in 1988 to provide access to the Mother’s Agenda—the savitribhavan_main.htm Mother’s record of her sadhana from 1956–1973. The House of Mother’s Agenda has been located at Savitri Bhavan since 2006 Savitri is a Mantra for the transformation of the world. under the care of Gangalakshmi. —The Mother

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 9 It does not matter if you do not under- Chronicles stand Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will Savitri—A revelation get a new glimpse, each time a new experi- ence; things which were not there, things by Mona Sarkar you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision From Mona Sarkar’s book, Sweet Mother: comes up through the words and the lines. Luminous Notes, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Every time you try to read and understand, Pondicherry, 2010. you will see that something is added, some- thing which was hidden behind is revealed hen I went to see the Mother clearly and vividly. I tell you, the very vers- on my 26th birthday, She es you have read once before, will appear spoke to me first about kin- to you in a different light each time you re- Wdling the psychic flame. Then She spoke read them. This is what happens invariably. about Savitri. She had spoken to me about Always your experience is enriched, it is a Savitri earlier, but this time, it was in a revelation at each step. special way, for it was a complete teaching But you must not read it as you read the origin of sound which is OM.... It is the that She revealed. I remained as quiet and other books or newspapers. You must most beautiful thing He has left for man, as concentrated as I could, in order to as- read with an empty head, a blank and va- the highest possible.” So, slowly, bit by bit, similate Her words. cant mind, without there being any other almost the whole of it was written down, Back home, I wanted to note down thought; you must concentrate much, in French. what the Mother had explained to me remain empty, calm and open; then the Later on, I read to the Mother this about Savitri. But something within me words, the rhythms, the vibrations will report written from memory. She heard kept saying that the task was too difficult, penetrate directly to this white page, will it and gave Her blessings. She intended that I would not be capable of rendering put their stamp upon the brain, will explain to work anew on the text and make some it, that it was too beautiful and much too themselves without your making an effort. changes. She started the work but perhaps extraordinary and that I would spoil it all. Savitri alone is sufficient to make you the time to reveal everything had not So I put aside the idea of writing down climb to the highest peaks. If truly one come and the circumstances did not allow what the Mother had explained. knows how to meditate on Savitri, one Her to finish. Years passed, but some phrases kept will receive all the help one needs. For one The Mother found this report— echoing in my mind, words like: “I have who wishes to follow this path, it is a vis- ‘Compte-rendu note de memoire’ as She launched myself in a rudderless boat upon ible help, as though the Lord himself were called it—‘very useful.’ She once wrote to the vastness of the infinite.” The Mother had taking you by the hand and leading you to a disciple: “...years ago I have spoken at spoken to me these magical words of Sri Au- the destined goal. And then, every ques- length about it to Mona Sarkar and he has robindo. And likewise there were many oth- tion, however personal it may be, has its noted in French what I said. Some time ers which came floating in occasionally. But answer here, every difficulty finds here its back I have seen what he has written and even then, I did not like the idea of noting solution, indeed there is everything that is found it correct on the whole.” them down. Then, one day, I was advised by necessary for doing the Yoga. [In the following, we give the English Nolini-da to put down what the Mother had *He has crammed the whole universe in translation of the conversation on Savitri.] told me, and I began my work. a single book.* It is a marvellous work, mag- However, seven years had passed. It nificent and of an incomparable perfection. was a work which I would not have ven- A report noted from memory You know, before writing Savitri Sri tured even in my dreams to undertake. I Aurobindo said to me *'I am impelled to could only try to be as docile and receptive Do you read Savitri? launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant an instrument as possible. I then concen- Yes, Mother. in the beginning, but now I am decided. trated and what the Mother had told me, You have read the whole of it? Still I do not know how far I shall succeed. began to come back gradually: “Each verse Yes, Mother, I have read it twice. I pray for help."* And you know what it of Savitri is like a Mantra which surpasses Have you understood all that you have was? It was—before beginning, I warn you all that man possesses by way of knowl- read? in advance—it was his way of speaking, so edge and is arranged in such a way that Not much, but I like poetry, that is why full of humility and divine modesty. He the sonority of the rhythm leads you to I read it. never... *asserted himself.* And the day

10 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 he actually began it, he told me: *I have can find there all that is needed to realise them, as well as all that awaits him in the launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the Divine. Each step of the Yoga is noted future; all this is found in the depths of the vastness of the Infinite.* And once here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Savitri; but one must have the knowledge having started, he wrote page after page Surely, if one follows sincerely what is re- to discover them,—the experience of the without intermission, as though it were vealed here in each verse one will finally planes of consciousness, the experience a thing already complete up there and he reach the transformation of the Supra- of the Supermind, even the experience of had only to transcribe it in ink down here mental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide the conquest of Death. He has noted all on these pages. who never abandons you; its support is the stages, marked each step needed in In truth, the entire form of Savitri has always there for him who wants to fol- order to advance in an integral way in the descended "en masse" from the highest low the path. Each verse of Savitri is like integral Yoga. region and Sri Aurobindo with his genius a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that All this is his own experience, and only arranged the lines—in a superb and man possesses by way of knowledge, and what is most surprising is that it is also my magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines I repeat this, the words are expressed and own experience. It is my sadhana which were revealed and he has left them intact; arranged in such a manner that the sonor- he has described. Each object, each event, he worked hard, untiringly, so that the ity of the rhythm leads you to the origin of each realization, all the descriptions, even inspiration could come from the highest sound, which is OM. the colours are exactly what I saw and the possible summit. And what a work he has My child, yes, everything is there: mys- words, the phrases are also exactly what created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It ticism, occultism, philosophy, the history I heard. And all this before having read is an unequalled work. Everything is there, of evolution, the history of man, of the the book. I read Savitri many times after- and it is put in such a simple, such a clear gods, of creation, of Nature; how the uni- wards, but earlier, when he was writing he form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid verse was created, why, for what purpose, used to read it to me. Every morning I used and eternally true. My child, I have read so what destiny—all is there. You can find to hear him read Savitri, at night he would many things, but I have never come across there all the answers to all your questions. write and in the morning read it to me. anything which could be compared with Everything is explained, even the future And I observed something strange, that— Savitri. I have studied the best works—in of man and of the evolution, all that no- day after day, the experiences he read out Greek, Latin, English and of course in body yet knows. He has expressed them to me in the morning were those I had had French literature, also in German and all in beautiful and clear words so that spir- the previous night, word for word. Yes, all the great creations of the West and the itual adventurers who wish to solve the the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I East, including the great epics; but I repeat mysteries of the world may understand it had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I it, I have not found anywhere anything like more easily. But the mystery is well hid- heard it, put by him into poetry, into mi- Savitri. All these literary works seem to me den behind the lines and one must rise raculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my empty, flat, hollow, without any deep real- to the required level of true conscious- experiences of the previous night which ity—apart from a few rare exceptions, and ness to discover it. All the prophecies, all he read out to me the following morning. these too represent only a small fraction that is going to happen is presented with And it was not just one day, but for days of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what a precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Au- and days together. And every time I used amplitude, what reality: it is something robindo gives you here the key to find the to compare what he said with my previ- immortal and eternal he has created. I tell Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to ous experiences and they were always the you once again, there is nothing like it in solve the problem of what the universe is. same. I repeat, it was not that I had told the whole world. Even if one puts aside He has also indicated how he has opened him my experiences and that he had noted the vision of the reality, that is, the es- the door of the Inconscience so that the them down afterwards, no, he knew al- sential substance which is the heart of the light may penetrate there to transform it. ready what I had seen. It is my experiences inspiration, and considers only the lines He has shown the path, how to liberate he has presented all along and they were in themselves, one will find them unique, oneself from the Ignorance to climb up also his experiences. It is, moreover, the of the highest classical kind. What he has to the superconscience; each stage, each picture of our adventure together into the created is something man cannot imagine. plane of consciousness, how one can scale unknown or rather into the Supermind. For, everything is there, everything. them, how one can cross the very bar- These are experiences lived by him, re- It may then be said that Savitri is a rier of death and attain Immortality. You alities, supracosmic truths. He experienced revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest will find the entire route in detail, and as all these as one experiences joy and sor- of the Infinite, of the Eternal. If it is read you go forward you can discover things row in a physical manner. He has walked with this aspiration for Immortality, the altogether unknown to man. That is what in the darkness of inconscience, even in reading itself will serve as a guide towards Savitri is, and yet much more. It is truly the neighbourhood of death, endured Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to an experience—reading Savitri. All the se- the sufferings of perdition, and he has practise Yoga, spiritual concentration; one crets that man possesses, he has revealed emerged from the mud, the world-misery,

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 11 to breathe the sovereign plenitude and en- least I do not find them. It is of immense he will reach the final goal. ter the supreme Ananda. He has traversed value—spiritual value and all other val- Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, them all, these realms, borne the conse- ues; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite living, it is all replete, packed with con- quences, suffered and endured physically in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and sciousness, it is the supreme knowledge what one cannot imagine. Nobody till power of execution; it is a unique thing, above all human philosophies, all human today has suffered like him. He has ac- the more you come in contact with it, the religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, cepted suffering to transform suffering higher will you be lifted up. Ah, truly it is Tapasya, Sadhana, everything, in its single into the joy of union with the Supreme. something! It is the most beautiful thing body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, It is something unique and incomparable he has left for man, the highest possible. it sends out vibrations for him who can in the history of the world. It is something What is it? When will man know it? When receive them, the true vibrations of each that has never happened, he is the first to is he going to lead a life of truth? When is stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, have traced the path in the Unknown so he going to accept this in his life? This yet it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri that we may be able to walk with certitude remains to be known. Aurobindo brought down on the earth. towards the Supermind. He has made the My child, everyday you are going to My child, one must try to find the secret work easy for us. Savitri is his whole Yoga read Savitri; read properly, with the right that Savitri represents, the prophetic mes- of transformation, and this Yoga, it is for attitude, concentrating a little before open- sage Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. the first time that we see it appear in the ing the pages and trying to keep the mind This is the work before you, it is hard but earth-consciousness. as empty as possible, absolutely without it is worth the trouble. And I think that man is not yet ready to a thought. The direct road is through receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. that—the heart. I tell you, if you try to re- Mother’s comments on the text He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is ally concentrate with this aspiration you not by the mind that one can understand can light the flame, the psychic flame, the After having heard the full text, the Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in flame of purification in a very short time, Mother said: order to understand and assimilate it. The perhaps in a few days. What you cannot It is good. Only, I do not remember more one advances on the path of Yoga, the do normally, you will do it with the help of what I had said. I never remember what more one assimilates and better. No, it is Savitri. Try and you will see how very dif- I speak. When I speak, it comes down something which will be appreciated only ferent it is, how new, if you read with this like this (gesture). I speak of things which in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of attitude, with this something at the back come down, for the moment, like inspi- which he has spoken in The Future Poetry. of your consciousness; as though it were rations and then it is over. When I have It is too subtle, too refined,—it is not in the an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it spoken once, I do not remember at all. All mind or by the mind, it is in meditation is charged, fully charged with conscious- disappears from my mind. It is so strange that Savitri is revealed. ness; as though Savitri were a being, a real that I do not remember the thing that I And men have the audacity to com- Guide. I tell you, whoever wants to prac- have spoken just a moment ago. It is like pare it and find it inferior in inspiration tise Yoga, if he tries sincerely and feels the this, my child. When I speak, I say many to that of a Virgil or a Homer. They do necessity, he will be able to climb with the things which come at that moment, and not understand, they cannot understand. help of Savitri to the highest rung of the the next minute—it is gone. That is why What do they know? Nothing at all. And it ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the se- I do not remember what I had told you. is useless to try to make them understand. cret that Savitri represents. And this with- Well, I do not know. I do not know what It will be known what it is, but in a distant out the help of a Guru. And he will be able I had said. I do not remember anything future. It is only the new race with the new to practise it anywhere. Savitri by itself at all. consciousness which will be able to under- will be his guide, for all that he needs he But, Mother, how do You find this? stand. I assure you there is nothing under will find in Savitri. If he remains absolutely I find it very good. It is all right. Is it the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is quiet when he is faced with a difficulty, or you who have written it? the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super- when he does not know where to turn in Yes, Mother, I have noted down what epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, order to go forward and how to overcome You had told me. super-vision, it is a super-work even if one obstacles, for all these hesitations and Is it your French? considers the number of lines he has writ- these incertitudes which overwhelm us at What You had told me, that I have writ- ten. No, these human words are not ad- every moment, he will have the necessary ten and then Nolini-da has corrected a bit. equate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs indications, and the necessary concrete It is good. As an appreciation of Savitri superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It help. If he remains absolutely calm, open, it is correct. This isSavitri . But I do not re- is a hyper-epic. No, words express noth- if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as member what I said. That is why, I can say ing of what Savitri is. There are no proper if led by the hand. If he has faith, the will nothing. But all that is said here seems to adjectives to describe what Savitri is, at to give himself and the essential sincerity, me correct. It is true. It is good, my child.

12 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 construction clearly, get an idea of the sur- Reading Savitri for face meaning; and then each of the stu- progress and delight dents has a chance to read for improving their pronunciation. I find that my early students from those first classes in the by Shraddhavan 1980s have amply rewarded my hopes that by learning English through Savitri they From a talk given on 18 August 2001 at Sri would gain a mastery of the English lan- Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research, guage in its richest scope. I remember one Pondicherry, and subsequently published of those students in the beginning com- in the journal Invocation, No. 14, February plaining, “Well, we are reading poetry and 2002, pp. 25-35. Sri Aurobindo, and it’s all very inspiring. But for the work that we are doing we need riends, it’s a great honor for me to be a lot of legal and commercial vocabulary, invited to speak to you about Savitri Photo courtesy Shraddhavan and how are we going to get that?” It was and I would like to invoke the pres- amusing for us all to see how Sri Auro- Fence of the Mother and the Master to be But while this is a practice for individ- bindo answered him, because the passage with us and give their illumination during ual concentration, more and more groups we read that day—I think it was in Canto 4 our time together. are taking up the practice of reading of Book One—was full of exactly this kind Although I am happy to be here, I face Savitri together, whether regularly or on of vocabulary. We find that, just as it is said you with some trepidation, because this special occasions. This practice has been of the ancient Indian epic that what is not is actually the first time that I will be ad- going on in Auroville since the very early in the is not in the world, dressing a large group of informed Au- days there. The Mother gave blessings to the same can be said about Savitri. The robindonians like this. In fact I feel very several different people to read aloud to whole universe with all its planes is there, hesitant to speak about Savitri at all. As groups there regularly. One of those was all human experience is there, and the Ananda mentioned when introducing me, our friend ‘Narad’—the Mother gave him whole width and depth and richness of the my speciality has been reading, and I am that name in 1972—an Aurovilian from English language is there. But of course going to cheat a little and spend the last America, a singer and poet, and a garden- this approach, of reading Savitri for the portion of our time together simply read- er. He was looking after the improvement of English, benefits people ing. The title given for this talk is ‘Read- Plant Nursery, and in that beautiful gar- when they have some inner opening, in- ing Savitri for Progress and Delight’ and den he used to read from Savitri every ner response to it. Then what happens is I hope that together we can make a brief Sunday morning to a small gathering. An- that the lines that we read together and survey of different approaches to reading other was Shyam Sunderji, the Mother’s that they read again for themselves sink Savitri. Secretary for Auroville. I remember that at very, very deep into the consciousness Most of you must be familiar with the a very difficult time in Auroville’s history, and there they do their work—a work that words of Mother on this topic. She told some of us used to gather at his house at includes building up connections in the Norman Dowsett, here in the Ashram, in 8:00 every evening and he would read, and physical brain that enables them at a later the 1960s I believe: what a help and strength that was to us at stage to gain a spontaneous understand- that time. ing and mastery of the language. I have For the opening of the psychic, for the It was shortly afterwards that I made a seen this process take effect many times, growth of consciousness, and even first experiment at the request of a group but as I say it works for those in whom for the improvement of the English of friends, of reading Savitri with them for there is a soul response to Savitri—and it is good to read one or two pages of the improvement of English. I am continu- that is the theme I will be coming back to Savitri each day. ing that now at Savitri Bhavan with people again and again this morning. who feel a deep inner attraction to Savitri, Another way of reading Savitri, which And I am sure that many of you here, but who for various reasons like to have I believe is practised in many groups, par- like Aurobindonians all over the world, some help with understanding Sri Auro- ticularly perhaps here in India, is as a kind are following that practice of reading one bindo’s vocabulary and sentence structure, of sacrifice: to read the whole of Savitri or two pages of Savitri every day individu- and with correct English pronunciation. from beginning to end; this is usually ally at home, as a meditation for your- We read about a page each time. I read done during a particular period of special selves with the aspiration that it will assist first to give the pronunciation, then we days. A practice of continuous reading, you towards opening of the psychic and go through the passage again to look at sometimes for 24 hours a day, covering the the growth of consciousness. difficult words, understand the sentence whole of Savitri. In Auroville too we have

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 13 observed such a practice; for example, the approach of enjoying it for its poetic But we find that the academics in the during the month of February 2000 which beauty. I met a gentleman a couple of universities in England, the professional had 29 days. Starting on the first day of months ago, who told me, “We have faith poetry specialists, have not opened up to that special month, people met regularly, in Sri Aurobindo, but it is so difficult to this. They have not yet accorded Sri Au- reading for an hour or an hour and a half understand his books. We tried with The robindo the recognition that he deserves each day to complete the reading of the Life Divine, we tried with The Synthesis as the supreme poet in the English lan- whole poem during that one month pe- of Yoga but we found them so difficult. guage. This is because he is breaking new riod. At a normal reading speed it takes But when we read Savitri, even though we ground, using techniques that they are not about 40 hours to read all the 49 cantos. don't understand, we get many pictures, familiar with, and above all because they I know some individuals who make many inner experiences, all kinds of in- lack the soul response that would enable this their daily practice: starting at the ner movements.” So this poetic appeal, them to enter into that new thing that he is beginning and reading a canto or half a the beauty and suggestiveness of Savitri doing. So this particular delight is open to canto every day till they reach the end and might be one reason why Savitri has over- only to those whose souls are touched by then starting at the beginning again, and taken The Life Divine as Sri Aurobindo's Sri Aurobindo and his poetic expression. in that way they have gone through the “bestseller.” It used to be that everybody The true role of all art, Sri Aurobindo whole of Savitri many times. When this is who wanted to make an attempt to come tells us, is to go beyond the appearances done in groups there’s really no doubt that close to Sri Aurobindo would buy The Life and surfaces of things and to reveal some- by this going through the whole sound- Divine—perhaps feeling that even if they thing of their deeper truth and power. The body of the epic from beginning to end didn’t manage to read it at least they had true artist is one who is able to reach the aloud, there must be built up a very strong it, and that maybe one day they will read higher levels of his aesthetic being and force field of vibrations. It is definitely of it. So I’m told that now Savitri has taken there gain access to those tracts of glorious benefit to the people who participate in this position. More and more people are beauty and power which have not yet been it. But again I would say that the effect or feeling that although Savitri is such an im- reached by nature's evolutionary process, benefit of this sacrifice will be richer to the mense ocean of mysteries, they can dip which are still lying waiting for us in the extent that the reading is done with un- their toes in it, even if they can't yet swim future. And one thing that the true art- derstanding and above all with soul sur- and revel in its deeper waves. ist can do is to go behind the surface into render. It shouldn’t become a mere ritual. Of course, this kind of poetic appre- those subtle planes, those higher planes, Sri Aurobindo’s mantric lines, repeated ciation will be enhanced by some natural and bring forms from there closer to our one after the other, will always have their capacity to respond to poetry and by some human consciousness. This is so whether power; but the power will be much greater knowledge about poetry. Sri Aurobindo he is working with painting, sculpture, if the mind can participate, and the will has provided us, in this one poem, with music or through words. And when we and the heart. supreme examples of all the different types respond to those artistic creations, we I have also heard of some groups who of poetry that poetry-lovers relish. There is are also participating in that movement select one line that seems to have a par- wonderful nature poetry in Savitri. There of bringing those beings and those pos- ticular mantric power and then within the are wonderful passages of lyrical love po- sibilities from higher and more beautiful group they chant that line many, many etry in Savitri. There is masterly sustained worlds closer to our human world. This is times. They concentrate on that one spe- narrative and story-telling in certain sec- the true role of the artist, and the deepest cial line, and try to take its vibrations deep tions of Savitri. There is supreme philo- value of Art. into themselves. Again I am sure that this sophical poetry carrying profound knowl- Perhaps you know about the work that is very beneficial to those who practice it. edge to satisfy our thought capacity. As he the Mother has done with Huta, of cap- In that way the words enter very deeply has shown in all his poetical output, Sri turing certain images from selected pas- into the consciousness. There they reso- Aurobindo is the supreme Master of every sages of Savitri in painting. At that time nate and do their work, and perhaps not range of poetic expression. And here in his she told Huta, "These are beings. It is not just the surface meaning but the deeper masterwork, which he spent so many years just paint on canvas." Through this con- meaning and the deeper vibrations may of his life perfecting, he has enormously scious work that they have done together reveal their full depth to those who un- expanded the capacities of the English or that the Mother did through Huta's dertake this exercise if it is done with language and created a whole new subtle hands, beings and vibrations from those self-dedication, with a true aspiration to rhythm to carry all these many different other worlds have been fixed in physical internalise the heart of the meaning, not kinds of poetic tones. There is no other poet form. This immense work allows a very just as a mere repetition. in English who has the same special music great enrichment of our understanding At another end of the spectrum of which is characteristic of Savitri. This is and appreciation of Savitri, and we feel possible approaches to Savitri, we can say something that should be appreciated by all deeply honoured by the fact that those there would be the aesthetic approach, lovers of poetry, lovers of English literature. paintings have now been given into the

14 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 care of Savitri Bhavan. At the moment out loud, then at least try to read it word they are in storage with us, but we hope by word at the aloud reading pace, the day will come when we will be able sounding each word in your mind, in to have them all on permanent exhibi- order to get as much as possible the tion as the Mother had wished. Then value of each word, each line. not only will they continue to do their I have also heard of people who work of radiating those subtle levels of write out passages from Savitri in a consciousness into the human atmos- similar spirit. I believe our elder broth- phere, but we will all have permanent er Madhavji Pandit has advised some access to them. This will be a very, very people that if their mind is troubled, great enrichment and mark the fulfil- if they are finding it difficult to con- ment of part of our dream for Savitri centrate, then to sit down and write Bhavan from the very beginning. We out a page or two from Savitri. I can never dared to speak about this dream, personally vouch for the fact that this but there was the hope that if we could does produce a special quality of con- create the proper place perhaps one day centration, for we are involving our they would come to us. And now that body in the concentration. I know of they have been given into our care, we one artist who used to come here to look forward to the day when we will Pondicherry—a wonderful artist from have the very special art gallery where Holland. With immense concentration they can all be on permanent display he has written out the whole of Savitri in ideal and very secure conditions, to on a single large sheet of our Ashram enhance our ever-deeper contact with handmade paper, writing and writing “Earth is the chosen place.” (Painting by Shiva Vangara) the marvel that is Savitri. again and writing over and over again. If we move on from the aesthetic I haven’t seen that sheet of paper, but I aspect, the aspect of artistic beauty and into what Sri Aurobindo is saying there; would like to see it. It must be charged its power, another approach to Savitri, and enjoying as fully as possible all the allu- with immense energy. So we could say another part of our work at Savitri Bhavan, sions that he makes to different literatures that this is a kind of ‘bhakta approach.’ lies in the realm of study. For there is not to enrich his poem, or even just having a Then there is this aesthetic approach only the physical body of this poem with general understanding of the development we spoke of, the enjoyment of beauty at its sound, its rhythms, not only the beau- of the poem—all this can help us very different levels; and thirdly the intellec- tiful images which can delight our sense much. So we make a place for that kind tual level where we study and try to ab- of aesthetic beauty, it also contains and of approach too in our programs at Savitri sorb through our minds as best we can, as carries, translated into terms that human Bhavan, and we are very grateful to all the much as possible of what is Sri Aurobindo minds can access, Supreme Truths. Sri guest speakers who have come and shared is communicating. Aurobindo has brought those high truths with us their insights and the fruits of their There are two other approaches I close to us, in such a way that our minds sacrifice ofSavitri study. Let us just review would like to mention. One perhaps you can get some small touch of those higher these different ways of reading. may know of. The Mother has mentioned truths through the evocative work that he Perhaps that first kind, where the em- that Savitri is an ideal book to consult for has done with mantric language. This in- phasis is on faith and devotion rather than guidance from our higher and innermost tellectual understanding is not the whole understanding, we can call ‘bhakta read- being. We can use it as an “oracle.” If we of the story. It will not be possible even ing.’ We concentrate and aspire that illumi- have some problem we want to receive to grasp it, unless, as with the other kinds nation shall come, and we get the benefit guidance about, we can start by putting of enjoyment, there is a soul opening. But of the sound values whether we read aloud our question to the Divine with some the intellect, the mind, is the highest level or silently to ourselves. In this connection concentration. If we like we may write it that has so far been established in natural two things are important: with all poetry it down, for it is important to formulate our evolution. We human beings carry that is true, but it is particularly and specially question as clearly as possible. Then we power. Sri Aurobindo has emphasized that true with Sri Aurobindo’s poetry that the take up the book and, still with concentra- the mind is not to be left out, in fact it is sound values of the words and rhythm are tion, open it. We may do this with closed to be made an instrument of the future so important in the whole effect that it is eyes, and with the left hand to avoid too development. So reading Savitri with as advisible to read aloud if possible, even much interference from our normal active much intellectual understanding as we can when we are reading alone, to ourselves. everyday mentality. Then we open our eyes manage enables us to enter more deeply And if there are reasons why you can’t read and see the lines before us. In them there

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 15 is likely to be some message that comes it doesn't mean anything else.” Whatever music, playing that music. This is a kind of to us from our own true highest being, intellectual interpretation we may give to listening through identification. Of course a message which our soul can recognize. Savitri, it still has resonances which lie far to start with, it will be only an imagina- Perhaps many of you might have had this beyond our interpretations and which can tive identification; but this may lead us to experience and can confirm it. awaken new understandings in our minds a deeper state of identification with the In this connection, I would also like to and new movements in our beings. So we inner movement of the music. This has a mention the role of translations. I met a should be very careful about this. Now it resemblance too to the way that Mother lady the other day who told me that from is still the early days, for the time being said that she and Huta approached the the first time that she opened Savitri, perhaps we are not really in danger of this. painting work. First they would read the she felt that it represented her own soul But there is a possibility that in the future passage, the Mother would read out the speaking to her. Now this is a very remark- certain interpretations might become passage. If we hear those recordings which able experience, considering that she read fixed and accepted. We should beware of Huta made, around which Sunil-da has Savitri in a German translation. And ever any rigidity of this kind. composed his Savitri music, we can notice since then, her contact to Savitri has been All this amounts to saying that behind with what concentration the Mother has through this German translation—which these various different kinds of approach read those passages. After the reading they informed people consider to be unsatis- and response lies the deeper response of concentrated in silence. Whatever image factory in many respects. This proves, I our souls. If that is missing, the continous came up then, the Mother would describe think, that what we contact most deeply in reading becomes just a ritual, aesthetic ap- it to Huta, giving her instructions how to Savitri is the subtle truth in it, the power preciation may hardly be possible, study paint it; and Huta had to go home and behind, and that the words on the page are and intellectual understanding runs the complete the canvas. So, if you like, we just a help and a channel for that. You may risk of becoming stereotyped. What truly can make a kind of experiment together, know that the Mother herself has trans- attracts us to Savitri, what truly prompts trying to read and listen to Savitri in this lated quite large passages of Savitri into us to read this book as a means of pro- way, in this state of inner concentration. French, and that she concluded that it is gress, is the delight of the soul. Its delight Before we try that, I would like to say impossible, that Savitri cannot be trans- in recognizing, expressed in perfectly ap- that every single one of Sri Aurobindo's lated. There is no way to do it and she was propriate images, rhythms, word-music, books, all his writings, every little letter, not at all satisfied with her translation. its own beauty—the soul’s own beauty, is a window onto a vast coherent body of Nevertheless when people approached her its own depth, its own diversity, its own Truth; and because of the process by which and said, “You know, I really feel the urge knowledge, its own native atmosphere. he has written, all of them are charged to translate Savitri into my own language,” Savitri deserves a type of reading that with the plenary power of his conscious- normally she encouraged them. Because would give us all these things: the power ness. This is what attracts us to Sri Au- this was a way for them to bathe in the of the words and the rhythm, the sound robindo's writings. I recall one friend in atmosphere of Savitri, to come into con- power, the mantric effect, the aesthetic Auroville, who described to me how The tact with it in a very special close relation- delight, the intellectual illumination and Life Divine came into his hands: he said ship. So while I think we have to say that the conscious soul thrill. The soul thrill he couldn't put it down for three weeks. probably all translations cannot but fail to is behind all those other forms of delight, He said he was just totally absorbed in The carry the whole of Savitri, this is no rea- but we would get most delight and most Life Divine. He felt he was swimming in an son for not attempting them and they may progress if we could come into conscious ocean of delight and consciousness. Other be helpful. Translations have their role to contact with that soul thrill. people can tell how a single sentence in play, both in helping people towards an Now it so happens that the Mother has a brief letter has been enough to change intellectual understanding and, as we’ve mentioned, in connection with listening their lives. Even his books like The Human seen in the case of that German lady, some to her music, a method that might help Cycle or The Ideal of Human Unity, which kind of direct soul contact may become us towards that integral kind of reading. are addressed more to the reason and the possible through the channel of an trans- She said that when we are listening to her intelligent will, are carrying an immense lation, even though it is imperfect. organ music, we shouldn't just be hearing charge of soul-electricity from far beyond But we shouldn't consider any of the harmony with our surface ears. We the mind. This is true of all his writings, these translations as definitive, just as we should try to quieten our whole being, but nevertheless the Mother has given a shouldn’t consider any of our readings making it as still as possible, and then lis- special place among the whole body of and understandings and interpretations ten to her music from the deepest heart Sri Aurobindo’s works to Savitri, calling as definitive. There is a passage inSavitri center, in such a way that the movements it “The supreme revelation of Sri Auro- where Sri Aurobindo warns us against ty- and notes of her music would seem to be bindo’s vision.” ing up the sacred book in silken strings taking place within our own conscious- So what is this specially illuminating of interpretation, saying, “It means this, ness, as if we ourselves are creating that and uniquely delightful quality and power

16 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 of this work? My answer for myself is that Savitri is integral in its appeal to all the dif- Essays ferent planes of our being, of our capacity of response and appreciation, and it is of course integral in its scope. You know that Savitri: A brief the Mother has said that “He has packed introduction the entire universe into one book.” You also know, I am sure, that Sri Aurobindo by Kailas Jhaveri spoke of himself as primarily a poet. I think he would have been a remarkable poet even if he had never taken up first This essay was included in Kailas’ book, “I politics and revolution, and then yoga. I am with you,” vols. II-III, published by the think we would still have heard his name Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 2008, as a figure in English literature. Having pp. 426-446. devoted himself to an immense spiritual realization, through Savitri he consciously avitri is a magnificent epic poem of took up the work of giving expression in over 23,803 lines, covering such a poetry to whatever higher levels of con- vast range of Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual sciousness he was able to securely achieve. Sexperiences on all the levels of conscious- And he went on successively revising as ness in the most powerful mantric lan- Kailas in 1970. (Photo courtesy Kailas Jhaveri) more and more capacity of expression be- guage that it beautifully evokes the mystic came available to him. In this immense images of these planes of consciousness. I down upon earth in response to the aspi- work he has surely succeeded in doing would like to quote these passages, but it is ration and the call of terrestrial humanity, what he said the mantra must do. In The difficult to introduce the subjects in such represented by Aswapati, its protagonist Future Poetry he writes : a short space. This is just an introduction, and leader, in order not only to help and which I hope will inspire you to read the save mankind, but to lead it so as to tran- The Mantra is the word that carries the original which contains not only an inex- scend the ego-centric divisive and fum- godhead in it or the power of the god- haustible treasure of knowledge, but many bling mental consciousness and reach to head, can bring it into the conscious- uplifting passages to fill you with an un- the plane of the Truth-Consciousness. ness and fix there it and its workings, surpassable delight. Satyavan is the soul, carrying the di- awaken there the thrill of the infinite, The story of is vine truth of being within himself, but the force of something absolute, per- a classical legend taken from the Maha- unconscious of it due to the soul’s original petuate the miracle of the supreme ut- . Sri Aurobindo turns this legend descent into the grip of the Inconscient terance. (CSWA 26:313) into a beautiful symbol of His own spir- from which it has evolved. He has devel- itual experiences, keeping intact the main oped into a fine being, but his is a search This is what he has done inSavitri. lines of the development of the story. The for reconciliation between the Self and That is why I would request you to legend achieves its most profound signifi- the world or between Spirit and Matter. join me in this little experiment and in- cance in the hands of Sri Aurobindo. It is not by renouncing the world and its dulge me in my delight in reading Savitri. The names of the characters of the forms, but by an active participation in it I would like to read the first four pages story have a meaning appropriate to its that he seeks to establish Truth in the very of Book One Canto One, “The Symbol theme and the role of each character. Here conditions of this terrestrial life. He has Dawn.” And I would request you to try to they are not just personified qualities, but tried to realise this but in vain. However, do this quietening of the consciousness, emanations of the conscious and active he feels the possibility of this realization in listening from the deepest inmost centre Forces working in the universe. The light his meeting with Savitri. and trying to follow from there, through of Truth-Consciousness with which Sri Aswapati means the Lord of Tapasya identification, the movement of dawning Aurobindo has written Savitri, lays bare or Energy. The name literally means the which is described in these four pages, the before us all these forces, their play and Lord of the Horse, but in spiritual par- movement from the dark resistance of our significance in the evolutionary march to- lance the horse signifies energy. Aswapati normal material consciousness, to the first wards the divine life upon earth. by his spiritual askesis represents the con- quiver of aspiration, then the response of Savitri represents an aspect of the trolled and concentrated energy of a spir- the divine light, becoming gradually a Divine Consciousness. The word Savitri, itual endeavour. Sri Aurobindo describes beautiful magical dawn and finally the full being a derivation from , meaning His own spiritual experiences through light of consciousness. the Sun, symbolises the Truth. She comes Aswapati.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 17 The epic of Savitri consists of twelve the Night to make us aware of the state of ings of the earth what can emerge in the books. We must note the title of the first the rock of Inconscient Matter whose deep heavy stupor of Nescience? Book, ‘The Book of Beginnings’, and its first darkness refuses any ray of light to enter. canto, entitled ‘The Symbol Dawn’. Dawn, As Sri Aurobindo says, ‘one who is lost in Earth wheeled abandoned in the in the Indian spiritual tradition, represents that Night does not think of the other half hollow gulfs the first radiance of the new light and of the earth as full of light; to him all is Forgetful of her spirit and her fate. symbolically it represents the beginning night and the earth a forsaken wanderer The impassive skies were neutral, of a cycle of evolution of a new conscious- in an enduring darkness.’ We are poign- empty, still. ness, to manifest a New Creation. antly enlightened by the intensity of His The first canto is vividly and penetrat- spiritual experience and power of creative But the Supreme Consciousness is ingly described in symbolic language, in- faculty which are maintained throughout there involved in its extreme opposite state troducing the central theme of the epic, the epic. of Nescience, secretly waiting to evolve as which is the work Savitri has come to do Besides the images seen in His own a tree waits in its seed. So, by confronting Death, Time and Fate to vision, Sri Aurobindo uses universal sym- establish a promise and a hope for the bols as well as those images peculiar to Something that wished but knew not light of a New Consciousness in the heart the Indian mystics which are often present how to be of the earth. in the . These images are authentic Teased the Inconscient to wake Sri Aurobindo chooses one particular experiences of Sri Aurobindo and there- Ignorance.... night before ‘the day when Satyavan must fore effective in transmitting the force of And a blank Prescience yearned die’ to represent the state of the Inconsci- His experience. He is the drista (seer) who towards distant change.... ent universe before the very beginning sees the vision by the power of His con- Insensibly somewhere a breach of creation. He opens the canto with the sciousness and he is also the kavi (poet) began.... most striking line: who expresses his spiritual experiences in an inspired flow of verse, charged with The goddess Dawn sends out a scout It was the hour before the Gods awake. mantric force carrying all the subtle and of reconnaissance to find out if there is deep vibrations of His experience. a place on earth to receive her, meaning Sri Aurobindo gives a powerful de- As Sri Aurobindo explains: ‘A symbol any opening in the rock of the Inconsci- scription of the Night through many sym- expresses not a play of abstract things ent. Sri Aurobindo gives us a vision of the bols and vividly striking images, created or ideas put into imaged form, but a liv- beginning of creation out of inconscient out of His own spiritual experience: ing Truth or inward vision or experience Matter and its gradual evolution by the of things, so inward, so subtle, so little slow penetration of a ray of the light of Across the path of the divine Event belonging to the domain of intellectual consciousness through a slight crack in The huge foreboding mind of Night, abstraction and precision that it cannot Matter, an opening, revealing its willing- alone be brought out except through symbolic ness to receive it. And we begin to see the In her unlit temple of eternity, images.’ emergence of the goddess Dawn in her Lay stretched immobile upon Silence’ One must read Savitri again and again full glory and splendour, representing a marge. with one-pointed concentration and in promise and a hope for the Supramental silence to feel the impact of ‘the abysm of Light, which is the work Savitri has come One must mark the subtle meaning of the unbodied Infinite’ when ‘a fathomless to fulfil on earth. Thus ‘Dawn built her each chosen word and phrase: ‘foreboding zero occupied the world.’ It was a bottom- aura of magnificent hues’ and left her mes- mind of Night,’ ‘unlit temple of eternity,’ less, unfathomable emptiness or an abysm sage of grandeur and greatness on earth. Lay stretched immobile’ and ‘upon Silence’ of the infinite Zero. But this is not the zero marge.’ There is inertia and unwillingness of the Buddhists—shunya or Nihil. It is the Its message crept through the reluc- in the deep darkness of the night to receive Zero that contains all in its silent bosom. tant hush the light. The mind of the night is secretly In the very beginning the movement Calling the adventure of conscious- aware of the coming event, but dreads of Nature is blind and mechanical— ness and joy.... this since it would disturb the peace of its ‘eyeless’—not knowing the purpose of All can be done if the God-touch is sleep. The earth which is the self-chosen existence or its goal and without any con- there.... temple of a great Divinity was still unlit, scious control over it. It does its work like The persistent thrill of a transfiguring because the foreboding mind of night lay a somnambulist who is unconscious of his touch there stretched out immobile in torpor on acts while in sleep. But this is a creative Persuaded the inert black quietude the brink of Silence. slumber—‘eyeless muse’. Yet one wonders, And beauty and wonder disturbed the It is the most powerful description of out of these seemingly mechanical orbit- fields of God.

18 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 In the second canto, entitled ‘The Is- not passed through hell.’ But He reminds Aswapati partakes of the Truth, Beauty sue’, Sri Aurobindo begins with its cen- us again and again: and Bliss of this highest plane, but he feels tral theme, which is the destined death himself powerless to help his brethren be- of Satyavan that Savitri has come to solve A deathbound littleness is not all we are: low on earth. He therefore appeals to the by staying the wheels of destiny. He puts Immortal our forgotten vastnesses Divine Mother to send down upon earth in bold perspective this issue. Sri Au- Await discovery in our summit selves; a ray of Her consciousness embodied in a robindo describes in powerful terms the Unmeasured breadths and depths of human form. A Voice speaks to him: character of Savitri who has come with the being are ours. Consciousnes-Force of the great World- O son of strength who climbst Mother to press back the hands of Karmic It is the story of the evolutionary march creation’s peaks... Necessity presented by Fate and win back of man from the Inconscient Matter to the ...but ask no more.... Satyavan from Death. Superconscient Spirit. And as we journey All things shall change in God’s Sri Aurobindo introduces the heroine with this world traveller Aswapati, the transfiguring hour.... of the epic by the most magnificently sub- leader of humanity, to the highest region of I ask thee not to merge thy heart of lime description of Savitri as an emana- Consciousness, presided over by the Divine flame tion of the Divine Mother on earth. It is Mother, we discover the significance of our In the Immobile’s wide uncaring bliss... so powerful in its mantric effect that when birth in Time and find the key to our mag- Aloof from beings, lost in the Alone. read with absolute silence and profound nificent evolutionary destiny. Through this Thy soul was born to share the laden receptivity, one is filled with the power of journey of Aswapati, Sri Aurobindo lets us Force; Savitri’s character. As a matter of fact, all know that this world is neither a chance, Obey thy nature and fulfil thy fate.... knowledge and powers are within oneself, nor a whim, nor an illusion or Maya. There but in order to realise them, one must is a purpose and a plan in human birth and The Divine Mother tells him that man first silence the mind, its narrow, half-lit its struggles which finally lead man to the is not yet ready for such an event: ‘Man knowledge and beliefs, doubts and ques- divine manifestation on earth. Till then, ‘... is too weak to bear the Infinite’s weight. tionings and reach the profound depths never can the mighty traveller rest.... And Truth born too soon might break the im- of one’s being, where the true individual never can the mystic voyage cease.’ perfect earth....All things shall change in godhead lies hidden. God’s transfiguring hour.’ Aswapati boldly After introducing the theme of Savitri, He stood fulfilled on the world’s high- replies: Sri Aurobindo takes us back to review in est line retrospect the necessity which compels Awaiting the ascent beyond the world, ‘I know that thy creation cannot fail.’ the birth of Savitri through the Yoga of Awaiting the Descent the world to But ‘How shall I rest content with Aswapati—Book II—which describes Sri save.... mortal days[?] .... Aurobindo’s own spiritual experiences. Infinity swallowed him into shoreless How long shall our spirits battle with Aswapati travels from the world of sub- trance: the Night[?] ... tle Matter, Life and Mind in their lower As one who sets his sail towards Where in the greyness is thy coming’s and higher planes of consciousness, meets mysteried shores ray? the godheads or the powers of these typal Driven through huge oceans by the Where is the thunder of thy victory’s worlds and describes their influence on breath of God, wings? ... the beings of this world. He shows the The fathomless below, the unknown path of the Integral Yoga one must fol- around, He pleads earnestly with a powerful low for the evolution of consciousness to His soul abandoned the blind star- cry from his heart: transform our egocentric personality to a field, Space. being of truth by the light of the Supra- O Wisdom-Splendour, Mother of the mental Consciousness. For Aswapati this was not the end of universe, We travel with Aswapati, the protago- his search. He had travelled to find an Creatrix, the Eternal’s artist Bride, nist and forerunner of humanity, through answer to the problems of the earth and Linger not long with thy transmuting the typal worlds of Consciousness. We to build the kingdom of heaven on earth. hand descend with him into the abyss of Night He awaits the Word that is born from the Pressed vainly on one golden bar of and enter into the region of the Inconsci- supreme Silence. Time, ent and Ignorance. We see there the world Towards the end of Aswapati’s journey, As if Time dare not open its heart to of Falsehood, meet the Mother of Evil and in Book III, Sri Aurobindo gives us the God.... the sons of Darkness. As Sri Aurobindo most poignantly luminous and inspired Incarnate the white passion of thy writes: ‘None can reach heaven who has revelation of the Divine Mother. Here, force,

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 19 Mission to earth some living form of His look was a wide daybreak of the Fate’s law may change, but not my thee.... gods, spirit’s will. Let a great word be spoken from the His head was a youthful ’s heights touched with light, The queen tries to reason with Savitri: And one great act unlock the doors His body was a lover’s and a king’s.... of Fate. ...the god touched in time her con- Only the gods can speak what now scious soul.... thou speakest. The Mother hears his ardent prayer Her soul flung wide its doors to this Thou who art human, think not like and grants him this boon: new sun.... a god....

One shall descend and break the iron He turned to the vision like a sea to But Savitri replied with steadfast eyes: Law, the moon.... Change Nature’s doom by the lone He met in her regard his future’s gaze, My will is part of the eternal will, Spirit’s power.... A promise and a presence and a fire, My fate is what my spirit’s strength A sweet and violent heart of ardent Saw an embodiement of aeonic can make, calms dreams.... My fate is what my spirit’s strength Moved by the passions of the gods A spell to bring the Immortal’s bliss can bear; shall come.... on earth.... My strength is not the titan’s, it is Nature shall overleap her mortal step; God’s.... Fate shall be changed by an unchang- To live, to love are signs of infinite Only now for my soul in Satyavan ing will. things, I treasure the rich occasion of my Love is a glory from eternity’s spheres.... birth:... Savitri, a portion of the Divine Moth- He is still the Godhead by which all I have seen God smile at me in er, is born as Aswapati’s daughter. We go can change.... Satyavan; through the period of her growth and The mist was torn that lay between I have seen the Eternal in a human face. youth. She searches for a partner equal to two lives; herself among her companions, but in vain: Her heart unveiled and his to find her Here in the ‘Book of Fate’ Sri Auro- turned; ... bindo gives us, through the discussion They could not keep up with her tire- A moment passed that was eternity’s that takes place between the Queen, As- less step;... ray, wapati and Narad, an excellent insight For even the close partners of her An hour began, the matrix of new into the problem of Fate and how it can thoughts Ti m e .” be resolved. Through Narad’s words of Who could have walked the nearest to wisdom to the queen who feels herself to her ray, When she returns home radiant and be ‘a wanderer in this beautiful sorrowful Worshipped the power and light they happy, the heavenly sage Narad is present. world’, where everything seems to her ‘Il- felt in her Savitri reveals her choice to her father who lusion’s reign’, the soul ‘only a dream’ and But could not match the measure of asks Narad for his blessings. Narad praises ‘Eternal self a fiction sensed in trance’, we her soul.... Satyavan but when pressed, reveals that he is receive Sri Aurobindo’s insight: Her greater self lived sole, unclaimed, destined to die at the end of twelve months within. of their marriage. The queen, perturbed by Was then the sun a dream because this revelation, asks Savitri to choose once there is night? Then, her father, Aswapati, king of more. Irrevocably, Savitri replies: Hidden in the mortal’s heart the Madra, sends her out to different coun- Eternal lives:... tries to find her soul-mate. Finally, she Once my heart chose and chooses not O queen, thy thought is a light of the finds Satyavan cutting wood in the forest. again.... Ignorance, The meeting of Satyavan and Savitri is de- My heart has sealed its troth to Its brilliant curtain hides from thee scribed beautifully with a short discourse Satyavan... God’s face.... on love. Its seal not Fate nor Death nor Time Thy mind’s light hides from thee the dissolve.... Eternal’s thought, Erect and lofty like a spear of God Let Fate do with me what she will or Thy heart’s hopes hide from thee the His figure led the splendour of the can; Eternal’s will, morn.... I am stronger than death and greater Earth’s joys shut from thee the Im- The joy of life was on his open face. than my fate.... mortal’s bliss....

20 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Pain is the hammer of the gods to of eternal love’. Why should I lift my hands to the break Finally, Savitri is married to Satyavan shut heavens, A dead resistance in the mortal’s heart, and goes to live in the simple dwelling Or struggle with mute inevitable Fate His slow inertia as of living stone. with Satyavan, son of Dyumatsena, the Or hope in vain to uplift an ignorant If the heart were not forced to want blind and exiled king. The word Dyumat- race and weep, sena literally means a “master of light” and Who hug their lot and mock the The soul would have laid down, “lord of the shining hosts.” Here signifi- saviour Light....” content, at ease. cantly, his luminous mind, encased in the And never thought to exceed the ignorant mental consciousness of man, Savitri is ready to forget man and life, human start has lost the vision of the celestial kingdom. forget even Eternity’s call, and forget God. And never learned to climb towards Savitri performs all her duties grace- The Voice questions her: the Sun.... fully and lovingly, keeping the knowledge Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing of her fate secret to herself and happily “Is this enough, O spirit? men spends her days with Satyavan, inwardly And what shall thy soul say when it To greatness: an inspired labour preparing to meet her destined fate. wakes and knows chisels The work was left undone for which it With heavenly cruelty an unwilling Still veiled from her was the silent came? ... mould.... Being within Cam’ st thou not down to open the O mortal who complainst of death Who sees life’s drama pass with doors of Fate, and fate... unmoved eyes, The iron doors that seemed forever Thou art thyself the author of thy pain. Supports the sorrow of the mind and closed, heart And lead man to truth’s wide and Narad continues his discourse on Fate, And bears in human breasts the world golden road answering Aswapati’s query whether the and fate. That runs through finite things to Power Savitri is born with is not ‘the high A glimpse or flashes came, the Pres- eternity?” compeer of Fate’: ence was hid. She is awakened to the power within A greatness in thy daughter’s soul First, she thinks that if Satyavan dies, which answers to the still voice: resides she too will die with him. What need is left That can transform herself and all for her to live? The human part of Savitri “I am thy portion here charged with around, was still unaware of her inner strength. thy work, But must cross on stones of suffering And when she is sitting silent, a Voice As thou myself seated forever above, to its goal.... touches her and her body becomes a ‘rigid Speak to my depths, O great and O King, thy fate is a transaction done golden statue of motionless trance, a stone deathless Voice, At every hour between Nature and of God lit by an amethyst soul.’ It is as if the Command, for I am here to do thy thy soul spirit seated within questions her: will.” With God for its foreseeing arbiter.... Sometimes one life is charged with “Why camest thou to this dumb A silent communion takes place within earth’s destiny, deathbound earth... her. She hears the command of the Voice: It cries not for succour from the time- Tied like a sacrifice on the altar of bound powers. Time, “Remember why thou cam’st: Alone she is equal to her mighty task.... O spirit, O immortal energy, Find out thy soul, recover thy hid self, O queen, stand back from that stu- If ‘twas to nurse grief in a helpless In silence seek God’s meaning in thy pendous scene.... heart depths, God-given her strength can battle Or with hard tearless eyes await thy Then mortal nature change to the against doom.... doom? divine. Intrude not twixt her spirit and its Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Open God’s door, enter into his trance. force Death.” Cast Thought from thee, that nimble But leave her to her mighty self and ape of Light: Fate. Savitri answers like any ordinary woman: In his tremendous hush stilling thy brain Then Narad leaves, chanting in ‘a high “My strength is taken from me and His vast Truth wake within and know and far imperishable voice... the anthem given to Death, and see.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 21 Cast from thee sense that There was no step of breathing veils thy spirit’s sight: men, no sound, In the enormous emptiness of Only the living nearness of the thy mind soul. Thou shalt see the Eternal’s Yet all the worlds and God body in the world, himself were there... Know him in every voice She felt herself made one with heard by thy soul:... all she saw. All things shall fold thee A sealed identity within her into his embrace. woke; Conquer thy heart’s throbs, She knew herself the Beloved let thy heart beat in God: of the Supreme: Thy nature shall be the These Gods and Goddesses engine of his works, were he and she: Thy voice shall house the The Mother was she of Beauty mightiness of his Word: and Delight... Then shalt thou harbour Then through a tunnel dug in my force and conquer the last rock Death.” She came out where there shone a deathless sun. She looked into herself and A house was there all made of sought for her soul.... flame and light There are greatnesses within And crossing a wall of doorless in our unseen parts living fire That wait their hour to step Then suddenly she met her into life’s front: secret soul. We feel an aid from deep A being stood immortal in indwelling Gods: transience... One speaks within, Light The Spirit’s conscious repre- comes to us from above. First creation. (Painting by Shiva Vangara) sentative, God’s delegate in our humanity, Then, we move with Savitri Comrade of the universe, the discovering the inner countries of Onward she passed seeking the soul’s Transcendent’s ray, sense life, life force and the mental region, mystic cave. She had come into the mortal body’s ‘the home of cosmic certainty’. Savitri sees At first she stepped into a night of room the enormous powers of the mind. But she God. To play at ball with Time and Cir- presses forward crying out to the powers The light was quenched that helps the cumstance.... to reveal to her ‘the birthplace of the oc- labouring world, There was no wall severing the soul cult Fire.’ One of the powers answered her: The power that struggles and and mind, ‘Follow the world’s winding highway to its stumbles in our life; No mystic fence guarding from the source. There in the silence...thou shalt see This inefficient mind gave up its claims of life. the Fire burning...and the deep cavern of thoughts, In its deep lotus home her being sat thy secret soul.’ The striving heart its unavailing As if on concentration’s marble seat, Savitri meets the triple soul-forces of hopes.... Calling the mighty Mother of the Sympathy, Pity and Love, Might or Power In a simple purity of emptiness worlds and Light, who give a temporary relief to Her mind knelt down before the To make this earthly tenement her the problems which besiege humanity, but unknowable.... house. cannot resolve them permanently. Savitri Her self was nothing, God alone was recognises them as parts of herself, though all, A transformation of her being was incomplete. She promises that one day she Yet God she knew not but only knew achieved by which ‘every act of Savitri would return with the perfect force of he was.... became an act of God’. Thus her body be- consciousness to help them. At last a change approached, the came a firm ground for the descending emptiness broke... light and bliss of God. And the mind cries

22 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 out victoriously: ‘A camp of God is pitched Fate, when He inquired what remained it. Savitri outwits all the stratagems of her in human time.’ to be looked into, He was told about the adversary and finally Death is dissolved Then, once when she was trying Book of Death, the Epilogue and The Re- into the Light by the power of Her Truth- to make her joy a bridge between earth turn to Earth. He simply remarked: ‘Oh Consciousness. and heaven, suddenly she experienced that? We shall see about that afterwards.’ Savitri is now given the supreme choice an abyss beneath her heart, saying: ‘I am On the day when Satyavan is to die, to return to the eternal peace and bliss of Death... I am ...I am Maya....’ This was she takes the permission of her mother- life in the Supreme. But she chooses to re- the voice of the Abyss. Then, she hears a in-law to accompany Satyavan to the for- turn to earth with Satyavan and says: greater voice from the heights: est. Satyavan happily shows her the won- ders of this green kingdom, unaware of his I climb not to thy everlasting Day, But not for self alone the self is won... fate. Then, suddenly she sees him flinging Even as I have shunned thy eternal Adventure all to make the whole away his axe like an instrument of pain. Night.... world thine... She came to him. He cried to Her: Earth is the chosen place of mightiest Thou hast come down into a strug- souls; gling world “Such agony rends me as the tree Earth is the heroic spirit’s battlefield, To aid a blind and suffering mortal must feel The forge where the Arch-mason race... When it is sundered and must lose shapes his works. The day-bringer must walk in darkest its life. Thy servitudes on earth are greater, night... Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lap king, And guard me with thy hands from Than all the glorious liberties of ‘...be God’s void...And the miraculous evil fate: heaven. world he has become… Annul thyself Perhaps because thou touchest, death that only God may be.’ Then only can the may pass.” Then, the godhead of Death persuades transformation of Matter be achieved. this ‘too compassionate and eager Dawn’ Savitri passes through the experience Savitri rests his head on her lap. She to abandon the task of raising the earthly of Nirvana. Most of the spiritual realiza- knows that Death is inevitable and is race to a greater Light. For, tions stop here. Forsaking the world and prepared, griefless and strong. Suddenly, its struggles, one desires to live in the ‘an awful hush had fallen upon the place.’ Heaven’s call is rare, rarer the heart peace of this union and opts for Nirvana She knew that visible Death was standing that heeds; or the merging of the soul in the divine to take away the soul of Satyavan. The doors of light are sealed to com- Source. But for Savitri, who has come asks her to release him from her grasp, mon mind… upon earth to bring God into the lives of but Savitri is determined to follow him O miracle where thou beganst there men in order to lead the earth from Dark- wherever Yama takes him. cease.... ness to Light, from Falsehood to Truth, There follows a long, detailed and en- Cast off the ambiguous myth of from Death to Immortality, the choice is lightening dialogue between Yama and earth’s desire, different. Savitri therefore decides to pass Savitri in the Canto entitled: ‘The Debate O immortal, to felicity arise. through the black Void and journeys in an between Love and Death’, which one must Eternal Night, unafraid of the voice of the read. One finds all the arguments of the It is the most captivating dialogue that Darkness. As she finds her soul and the worldly-wise and of those who cannot follows, filled with the power of Truth and strength within, she is fully prepared to see beyond the frontiers of their mind by the indomitable will of Savitri to win back meet her adversary, Death. which Death tests the strength of Savitri. Satyavan from Death. She answers with Now we must bear in mind that the It is a sheer delight to read Savitri’s answer courage and conviction all the arguments Book of Death was not revised by Sri to them: of Death that come in the guise of truth Aurobindo. It is reported by Amal from which looks at an unfinished world. Sri the conversation that took place between Thou speakest Truth but Truth that Aurobindo makes it so convincing and Nirod-da and Sri Aurobindo when He was slays, powerful that one is filled with her in- recasting Savitri to bring it to the state of I answer to thee with the Truth that vincible courage, beauty of true love and perfection in the light of His conscious- saves. the delight of the battle. The text is full of ness: “Some months before passing, Sri memorable lines and must be read in full to Aurobindo as if in foreknowledge of the Yama questions her motives, calls her be filled with its power of beauty andtruth. event, said: ‘I want to finish Savitri soon.’ love transitory, beguiles her in many ways, Savitri asks for that peace, oneness There seemed a race with time.” After and forces her to fight the great battle with and bliss in the midst of the heroic battle revising the second canto of the Book of the inborn strength of her awakened Spir- on earth and power to fulfil God in life

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 23 by invading mortality with the immortal It is when the Fire of aspiration, the Near to the secret of their separate beatitude of Sat-Chit-Ananda and thus inner Flame is lit and we offer in oblation truth become a luminous centre of its conscious all that we are and all that we have to the And know each other as one deity. expression in the world to build a bridge Supreme, invoking the Divine Grace to The Spirit shall look out through between earth and heaven, harmonising lift us out of the Darkness of Ignorance Matter’s gaze Matter and Spirit. to the Light of Knowledge or the Light of And Matter shall reveal the Spirit’s This yearning of Savitri is beautifully the supreme Truth, that we can transcend face.... described in the concluding stanza of her the egoistic consciousness and realise the A divine force shall flow through soul’s choice: unalloyed, invariable bliss of existence. tissue and cell “A mystic is one who sings of the sun- And take the charge of breath and Thy embrace which rends the living rise in the darkness of the night.” And Sri speech and act knot of pain, Aurobindo heralds a Dawn of the New And all the thoughts shall be a glow Thy joy, O Lord, in which all creatures Creation with a new consciousness tran- of suns breathe, scending the mental consciousness, when And every feeling a celestial thrill.... Thy magic flowing waters of deep love, the earth is tired of making its rounds, The spirit shall take up the human play, Thy sweetness give to me for earth spinning in vain and refuses to receive even This earthly life become the life and men. a ray of light. For, man must rise to a higher divine. consciousness if he is to solve the bewilder- The epic Savitri is a spiritual adven- ing problems by which he is gripped and Sri Aurobindo ends the twelfth Book ture, revealing mystery after mystery of the lost in utter confusion and chaos. with an Epilogue, which describes ‘The creation of the universe, Return to Earth’ of its purpose and its glori- Savitri with Satyavan. ous destiny. The Mother The epic Savitri is a spiritual adventure, reveal- Savitri tells Satyavan: once said to Mona Sarkar ing mystery after mystery of the creation of the that to read Savitri is to Our love has grown find help and guidance universe, its purpose and its glorious destiny. greater by that mighty in one’s yoga. For, it is the touch description of Sri Auro- And learned its heav- bindo’s own experiences revealed with the In Savitri Sri Aurobindo gives us the enly significance, mantric force of His most clear, lucid and key to find the truth of our being and live Yet nothing is lost of mortal love’s powerful language. Savitri is replete with all according to the Truth, helping us all the delight. philosophies, knowledge of occultism and way on the path to liberate ourselves from Heaven’s touch fulfils but cancels not descriptions of the hidden realities of forces falsehood and ignorance. He shows us our earth... in all the typal worlds of different planes of how to cross the different planes of con- Consciousness which influence us. sciousness in order finally to climb to the The king Dyumatsena gets back his There is a seeking in each aspiring soul superconscient heights and bring down sight as well as his kingdom and comes for absolute and perfect love, for infallible its truth, power, love, beauty and bliss to the woods with the queen and the light of Truth and everlasting Bliss. Blindly into our life. One has to read Savitri again royal entourage, looking for Savitri and we search for the invariable bliss of exist- and again to imbibe its light of wisdom in Satyavan. And finding them radiantly lu- ence. But trivial amusements distract man every sphere of life, its thoughts, feelings minous and full of bliss, they wondered and waste the energy given to him to grow and activities so as to remould oneself in what has brought about this change. Then, and transcend his egoistic consciousness. the image of its perfection. What I have one among them who ‘seemed a priest and When can we realise this? Sri Aurobindo said is nothing compared to what Sri Au- sage’ asks: warns us in clear terms: robindo offers in Savitri. He transports us to another world of Love, Light and Bliss O woman soul, what light, what In moments when the inner lamps to such an extent that we no longer want to power revealed, are lit belong to any inferior existence. Working the rapid marvels of this day And the life’s cherished guests are left Sri Aurobindo gives us an insight into Opens for us by thee a happier age? outside, the evolution of our consciousness to the Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its next stage: To this Savitri replied: gulfs. A wider consciousness opens then its The Spirit’s tops and Nature’s base Awakened to the meaning of my heart doors... shall draw That to feel love and oneness is to live

24 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 And this the magic of our golden change Two biographies and Is all the truth I know or seek, O sage. an autobiography Savitri is the most potent expression of the poetic genius of Sri Aurobindo by Mangesh Nadkarni with a rhythm and revelation of his own, expressed in a language of symbols, em- From a talk at Savitri Bhavan on 5 March bodying the spiritual wisdom natural to 2003, published in Invocation, No. 19, April the mystics. It is the most perfect example 2003. A new title has been given by the editor. of the poetry of the future. Savitri begins with a magnificent de- e don’t realise sufficiently that scription of Dawn which rises after the the goals Sri Aurobindo de- impenetrable dense darkness of the incon- fined for his yoga were not scient Night and ends with the promise of Wonly revolutionary for his own times, they a greater Dawn after the ‘Night, splendid remain revolutionary even today, since Photo courtesy Anie Nunnally with the moon dreaming in heaven’ de- even today very few thinkers dare set such scribed in the last canto of Savitri: high goals for man’s future on earth. Tra- Sri Aurobindo brought the revolution- ditionally, spiritual paths have had two ary idea that spirituality is not a way to Night, splendid with the moon kinds of goals: finding one’s place in some abrogate life, to cancel life, but to bring dreaming in heaven Vaikuntha or some Kailash, or some spe- fulfilment to life. And he defined his spir- In silver peace, possessed her lumi- cial heaven or paradise where you will be ituality in these terms. He said that spirit- nous reign. waited on by eight damsels, where you will uality should bring fulfilment not only for She brooded through her stillness on have all the comforts of life and no incon- man’s spirit, but also for the instruments of a thought veniences and imperfections, where you man’s spirit, that is, for the mind, the vital Deep-guarded by her mystic folds of will never grow old or fall ill. One is sup- and the body. He defined it as clearly as light, posed to earn this kind of fulfilment for possible. And secondly he maintains that And in her bosom nursed a greater oneself by doing the right kinds of things his aim is not to bring perfection which is dawn. and living the right kind of life while one limited to an individual or to a few indi- lives one’s life here on earth. viduals. His aim is to make this perfection There is a significant difference be- Although this goal has received some accessible to the whole of humanity. What tween the night in the first canto of the attention in the Indian spirituality as well, we want is a new consciousness that settles First Book and that of the last canto of the the Indian tradition has shown its pref- down here and becomes accessible to the Twelfth Book. The night before the fate- erence for another kind of goal, which is whole of humanity. This is something new. ful day when Satyavan must die is opaque merging into Nirvana, getting out of the This collective aspect is the demand of the with the huge foreboding mind unwilling cycle of death and birth. Almost all the Time Spirit. If anything is great and good, to receive the light—a mind that is igno- religious and spiritual traditions swear by you cannot get it just for yourself—if it is rant and obscure, not ready to receive the this goal. If you ask any Indian, whether good and it is great you must also make spiritual light. But the night after Savitri he is learned or an ignoramus, if you catch sure that everybody else can participate in brings back Satyavan is ‘splendid with the him in a spiritual kind of mood and ask it. Sri Aurobindo was ahead of his times. m o on .’ him “What is your life’s greatest ambi- And even in those days he kept saying, “I The moon is the symbol of spiritual tion?” he will say, “My life’s greatest ambi- don’t want the Supramental consciousness realization and hence Night is dreaming tion is to get out of this cycle of birth and as an individual attainment only. It has to peacefully of a greater light. The splen- death.” He hasn’t thought about it, but by be the gain of the whole earth-conscious- dour of the moonlit night is all-pervasive. virtue of being Indian it is in his blood- ness.” This was his definition of the aims It represents a spiritually awakened and stream, he is supposed to say it and he says of his yoga. And his great epic, Savitri, is a enlightened mind which meditates in the it. This whole attitude is one of negation of story of the pursuit of these aims. stillness of its luminous depths and fore- life. By implication it means that once you In Savitri, as you know, there are two sees the Dawn of the divine manifestation become spiritual you have to regard this biographies and one autobiography. It which will destroy all darkness and obscu- life as an error made by God and it is your contains a description of Sri Aurobindo’s rity in a mind ready to abdicate the reign responsibility to correct him by seeking to yoga, which is Aswapati’s yoga, so it has a of the ego and ready to receive the light of withdraw totally into some kind of name- first part that is autobiographical. It is also the Supramental Dawn.” less and featureless existence beyond. a spiritual biography of the Mother. So

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 25 there are many passages in Savitri which you like.” So we have always sought escape Buddha’s life. Legend has it that when the remind us of the Mother, and the Mother from this world, we have always refused Buddha was about to enter Nirvana, he herself in her Agenda and other places has to confront the problem of Ignorance stopped and looked back on life and saw said that much of Savitri is a narration of and Death. We have said, “This cannot the whole of humanity immersed in ig- her own personal experiences. Some of be changed, this is the ultimate dispensa- norance and suffering. He decided to turn these experiences, she says, she had even tion of God here for man and for earth, back to help humanity to liberate itself 30 years before she came to Pondicherry. who are you and I to challenge this?” But from ignorance and suffering. Buddha, She never mentioned these experiences to Savitri has come precisely to challenge of course, had great compassion and love Sri Aurobindo. Yet Sri Aurobindo was able this. This is what these lines tell us. for humanity. But I do not think that he to depict these experiences, write about Then in the following canto, we get had any particular remedy to correct the these experiences in Savitri. Then there is the beginning of Aswapati’s story. Aswa- problems of life. He only thought “I do not a third biography here, and it pertains to pati’s yoga, as you know, takes up about want Nirvana only for myself. I would like you and me—it is our biography, telling us 320 pages, about 12,000 lines. No one can to take with me as many people as pos- how we got here, from where and through write about anyone else’s life or yoga in so sible.” So the only way he had of saving what stages, and where we are supposed to much detail. It is very clear that here Sri mankind was to try to save each human go from here. At this stage, why is our life Aurobindo is writing about his own yoga. individual separately, make him realise in such a mess, and after man, who? And In a letter of 1946 he has given us some that this world is transitory and full of what will ensure our passage to the next indications of what this yoga was about suffering and then persuade him to join stage? Sri Aurobindo deals with all such and what are the different stages we have him in the pursuit of Nirvana. Very laud- questions in his epic. to look for in this yoga. In Cantos Three able indeed, and we must praise him for To start at the beginning, we find that to Five of Book One Aswapati is shown that, and he has been rightly declared an already in the second canto of Book I, Sri achieving his own spiritual self-fulfilment Avatar for that by the Indian tradition. But Aurobindo very beautifully summarizes as an individual, and this part of his devel- how many people can you save like this? the central issue in Savitri’s life: opment consists of two yogic movements, Besides, ultimately what is it that you are first a psycho-spiritual transformation trying to teach them? You are trying to For this she had accepted mortal breath; and then a greater spiritual transforma- teach them how to escape from this life. To wrestle with the Shadow she had tion with an ascent to a supreme power. You are not teaching them anything about come In Book Two we are shown how Aswa- how to bring perfection to this life. And must confront the riddle of man’s pati undertakes an exploration of all the That is something new about Sri Au- birth worlds and planes of consciousness, right robindo. Like Amitabha Buddha, his com- And life’s brief struggle in dumb Mat- from the subtle physical, the vital, through passion for mankind too was boundless ter’s night. the mental and then through the spiritual but he had something more than compas- Whether to bear with Ignorance and worlds. He is in search of the creative prin- sion. It is not enough to have compassion death ciple which will help him or show him how and love because by themselves they do Or hew the ways of Immortality, to transform the nature of life, how to bring not go very far. You need something more, To win or lose the godlike game for perfection to life. In spite of all this explora- you need a power strong enough to trans- man. tion which is contained in the fifteen cantos form human consciousness and through Was her soul’s issue thrown with of Book Two, nearly 200 pages of spiritual it human nature. And Sri Aurobindo had Destiny’s dice. experiences in the various worlds, he is un- discovered this power. He has written But not to submit and suffer was she able to find the secret he was looking for. about it in Savitri and in his other books born; The very dynamics of this upward journey such as The Life Divine. In Savitri, Aswa- To lead, to deliver was her glorious he has undertaken bring him to the door- pati finds that this power is not available in part. (p. 17) step of the Nirvanic experience. This cli- any of the realised worlds, so he goes into mactic moment is described in Canto Two the Transcendental World, where the past, This was the issue of her life: “Whether of Book Three. And this is, I think, a very the present and the future are one, and to bear with Ignorance and death.” We great moment in the spiritual history of there he experiences a world of perfec- humans have always made compromises mankind and particularly of India. This is tion that is waiting to come down. In Book with Ignorance and Death. We have said the moment when Aswapati is on the verge Three we have a wonderful description of to Ignorance and Death, “All right, give of entering Nirvana but something in him this world of perfection which is called the me some relief from your onslaught while says that there is another, a more glorious Supramental World: I am here on earth, however temporary destiny possible for man. it may turn out to be. Let this world be- This moment is in some sense com- A Bliss, a Light, a Power, a flame- long to you, you can reign here as long as parable to a similar moment in Amitabha white Love

26 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Caught all into a sole immense future he is concerned about you and Only we hear the feet of passing embrace; me, and says, “How do I make this world gods.” (p. 341) Existence found its truth on Oneness’ accessible to mankind?” At the same time breast he sees his own small, pitiable little fragile We are all ready to receive gods, we And each became the self and space body, lying at the edge of the world and have kept everything ready; but we hear of all. says “What about that body? That is also only shuffling footsteps, and then some- The great world-rhythms were heart- part of me. Here, the spirit is all fulfilled, body comes and tells us that the gods have beats of one Soul, it has bliss, it has oneness, it has perfec- gone away, we must wait for the next time. To feel was a flame-discovery of God, tion, but shouldn’t my body also be par- Man is reduced to despair and hopeless- All mind was a single harp of many ticipating in this perfection? How can I ness. And if you trust his judgment he will strings, make this possible?” These are Aswapati’s be for ever lost in the labyrinthine mental All life a song of many meeting lives; concerns because they are the concerns of consciousness which he has woven around For worlds were many, but the Self Sri Aurobindo’s yoga. And finally, since he himself. The only solution to this, O Di- was one. cannot figure out any way of bringing this vine Mother, is for You to come down and This knowledge now was made a world down himself, he approaches the take on the responsibility of bringing this cosmos’ seed: Supreme Divine Mother, the Adishtatri new consciousness down. Human effort, This seed was cased in the safety of of this world and of all the worlds, and human power and strength are inadequate the Light, prays to her. In the next canto we see what to do this. Only an Avatar can do this. So It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. Aswapati has to do to bring this world on he prays to the Divine Mother: Then from the trance of that tremen- earth. dous clasp When he sees the Supreme Mother, “Omnipotence, girdle with the power And from the throbbings of that the first thing that she tells him is that of God single Heart man is exactly where he is now because Movements and moments of a mortal And from the naked Spirit’s victory he belongs there: “Don’t try to accelerate will, A new and marvellous creation rose. the progress, because man is not yet ready Pack with the eternal might one human Incalculable outflowing infinitudes to say goodbye to Ignorance. He likes to hour Laughing out an unmeasured happiness wallow in Ignorance. Let him have a long And with one gesture change all Lived their innumerable unity; enough innings—some day he will begin future time. Worlds where the being is unbound to look for this perfection, but not yet.” Let a great word be spoken from the and wide But Aswapati, being Aswapati, says heights Bodied unthinkably the egoless Self; And one great act unlock the doors of Rapture of beatific energies “How shall I rest content with mortal Fate.” (p. 345) Joined Time to the Timeless, poles of days a single joy; And the dull measure of terrestrial The Mother listens to this prayer and White vasts were seen where all is things, agrees to send an emanation, an Avatar wrapped in all. I who have seen behind the cosmic of hers. There were no contraries, no sundered mask parts, The glory and the beauty of thy face? “O strong forerunner, I have heard All by spiritual links were joined to all Hard is the doom to which thou thy cry. And bound indissolubly to the One: bindst thy sons! One shall descend and break the iron Each was unique, but took all lives as How long shall our spirits battle with Law, his own, the Night Change Nature’s doom by the lone And, following out these tones of the And bear defeat and the brute yoke of spirit’s power. Infinite, Death, A limitless Mind that can contain the Recognised in himself the universe. We who are vessels of a deathless Force world. (p. 322) And builders of the godhead of the A sweet and violent heart of ardent race? calms Even in the midst of experiencing the Ever the centuries and millenniums Moved by the passions of the gods glories of this supramental world, Aswa- pass. shall come. pati is still concerned about the earth. Where in the greyness is thy coming’s All mights and greatnesses shall join Even in that new world waiting to be ray? in her; born, he is aware of the need of the earth. Where is the thunder of thy victory’s Beauty shall walk celestial on the Even when he is experiencing this blissful wings? earth,

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 27 Delight shall sleep in the cloud-net of the progress of evolution and only an Ava- Descended into earth’s imperfect mould her hair, tar can clear this; so the Avatar is needed; And wept not fallen to mortality. And in her body as on his homing tree but it looks to me that this time we had to But looked on all with large and Immortal Love shall beat his glorious have twin Avatars—Sri Aurobindo came as tranquil eyes. wings. an Avatar, and the Mother also came as an One had returned from the trans- A music of griefless things shall Avatar. I wonder whether there have been cendent planes weave her charm; any feminine Avatars in the past, although And bore anew the load of mortal The harps of the Perfect shall attune the consciousness of the Mother has been breath, her voice, present on earth in some form whenever Who had striven of old with our The streams of Heaven shall murmur a breakthrough in evolution was about to darkness and our pain; in her laugh, take place. But this time the Supreme Di- She took again her divine unfinished Her lips shall be the honeycombs of vine Mother herself has come down as an task: God, Avatar. This is probably because the change Survivor of death and the aeonic years, Her limbs his golden jars of ecstasy. now contemplated, the transformation an- Once more with her fathomless heart Her breasts the rapture-flowers of ticipated now, is going to be so radical, so she fronted Time. (p. 353) Paradise. unheard-of in the history of evolution. The She shall bear Wisdom in her voice- work to be undertaken this time is not an There are also a number of passages less bosom, ordinary one. The magnitude of the issues further on in Book Four—if you read Strength shall be with her like a involved is such that two Avatars had to them, those of you who were in the Ashram conqueror’s sword come. You should realise that this doesn’t in the 50s and 60s might even begin to And from her eyes the Eternal’s bliss happen very often in the history of evolu- hear the footsteps of the Mother, they are shall gaze. tion. Those of us lived in the last century so closely modelled after the Mother. We A seed shall be sown in Death’s had the enormous good fortune of being can immediately see that this is the person tremendous hour, contemporaries of the first feminine Avatar Sri Aurobindo is describing in these lines. A branch of heaven transplant to on earth. That is something to celebrate, Take these lines, for example, human soil; and I thought I should mention this be- Nature shall overleap her mortal step; cause we are this year celebrating the 125th A friend and yet too great wholly to Fate shall be changed by an unchang- birth anniversary of the Mother. know, ing will.” (p. 346) This marks the culmination of Aswa- She walked in their front towards a pati’s quest, and from then onwards in the greater light, This is the promise made by the Supreme poem it is basically Savitri’s story, starting Their leader and queen over their Divine Mother. with her birth. It is very clear from the way hearts and souls, As you know, in ’s legend of Savitri Sri Aurobindo describes Savitri’s birth that One close to their bosoms, yet divine and Satyavan, Savitri is an exceptionally he saw her as an Avatar. Consider the fol- and far. gifted young woman but there is no refer- lowing lines: Admiring and amazed they saw her ence to her being an avatar. Recent work by stride Richard Hartz and others has shown that In this high signal moment of the gods Attempting with a godlike rush and somewhere around the mid 1920s, Sri Au- Answering earth’s yearning and her leap robindo realised who Mirra Richard really cry for bliss, Heights for their human stature too was. His recognition of her as the Mother, A greatness from our other countries remote as an Avatar of the Supreme Divine Crea- came. Or with a slow great many-sided toil trix, became the seed for the revision that A silence in the noise of earthly things Pushing towards aims they hardly Sri Aurobindo undertook on Savitri after Immutably revealed the secret Word, could conceive; 1926 or 1928. He clearly saw that it was A mightier influx filled the oblivious Yet forced to be the satellites of her sun the Mother’s mission in life to bring down clay: They moved unable to forego her light, the new consciousness. If we look at the A lamp was lit, a sacred image made. Desiring they clutched at her with description of the birth of Savitri that Sri A mediating ray had touched the earth outstretched hands Aurobindo has given, there can be no Bridging the gulf between man’s mind Or followed stumbling in the paths doubt at all that Sri Aurobindo means to and God’s; she made. (p. 363) present her as an Avatar. As we are told in Its brightness linked our transience to Some felt her with their souls and the pages of the Essays on the Gita, an Ava- the Unknown. thrilled with her, tar comes down particularly when there A spirit of its celestial source aware A greatness felt near yet beyond is an impasse, some kind of a blockage to Translating heaven into a human shape mind’s grasp;

28 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 To see her was a summons to adore, “psychic approach.” Aswapati’s yoga is the To be near her drew a high commun- yoga of a scientist. Very leisurely, very im- ion’s force. personal, he has all the time at his disposal So men worship a god too great to and he observes unmoved whatever is pre- know, sented to his view, whether he is in the vital Too high, too vast to wear a limiting worlds of the gods or in the world of dark- shape; ness and falsehood. His job is to report, They feel a Presence and obey a his job is to observe, and that is what he might. does. And he goes like a cone of fire as- Adore a love whose rapture invades cending from one level to another level, their breasts; one level to another level. Savitri’s yoga has To a divine ardour quickening the a different kind of tempo. Hers is a more heart-beats, impassioned, more dynamic, more direct A law they follow greatening heart approach. She goes through her psychic and life. (pp. 363-64) being. Through her psychic she makes her way into the Supramental realm. The other Some turned to her against their difference between the two yogas is that nature’s bent; in Aswapati’s yoga you have a description Divided between wonder and revolt, of the psycho-spiritual transformation of Drawn by her charm and mastered by Aswapati—a psychic transformation, and “Happiest who stand on faith as on a rock.” also a spiritual transformation; there is no her will, (Painting by Shiva Vangara) Possessed by her, her striving to description of Aswapati undergoing the su- possess, regarded as a fit subject for poetry, but pramental transformation. But in my view Impatient subjects, their tied longing in Book Five there is wonderful poetry. in Savitri’s yoga we have a description not hearts We have to move on just now because it only of the psychic and the spiritual trans- Hugging the bonds close of which does not immediately concern our present formation of Savitri, but also of her supra- they most complained, frame of reference. mental transformation. And this is to my Murmured at a yoke they would have Book Six, the “Book of Fate,” is also a mind described or indicated in Canto Five wept to lose, very important book and is a testmony to of Book Seven, “The Finding of the Soul.” The splendid yoke of her beauty and Sri Aurobindo’s great gifts as a poet and This is my hypothesis, and I won’t her love: a thinker. But we need not pause here to mind being proved wrong on this. Instead Others pursued her with life’s blind take a closer look at this book since, like of being evasive, it is good to formulate a desires Book Five, it does not address the central hypothesis and leave it for other scholars And claiming all of her as their lonely issue we are pursuing here. to contend with and improve upon. I can’t own, We move on to Book Seven, the Book believe that Savitri was ready to take on Hastened to engross her sweetness of Yoga. As you know, in the original the God of Death as she does in Books meant for all. (pp. 364-65) legend Savitri performs a vrata, a vow, a Nine, Ten and Eleven without having trirathra vrita, for three days and nights, acquired the supramental consciousness After this “Book of Birth and Quest,” close to the day on which that Satyavan is and its powers, that is my first point. The we come to Book Five, “The Book of Love.” destined to die. Sri Aurobindo has taken second is that our psychic being, when it I think that this book belongs primarily this event and transformed it into Savitri’s meets the soul, meets the jivatman. But for to the legend of Satyavan and Savitri. It yoga. Just as Aswapati’s yagna becomes Savitri’s psychic being, the jivatman is the is not directly connected either with the Aswapati’s yoga, and gets an expansion of Supreme Mother herself. So when Savitri’s Mother’s life or her yoga. Sri Aurobindo about 12,000 lines—what Vyasa describes psychic being meets the jivatman, the develops this into a very beautiful book in ten lines, Sri Aurobindo describes soul, it must be merging with the Supreme and 1 have said in many places that if Sri in 12,000 lines—similarly here the aus- Divine Mother. And once you merge with Aurobindo had written nothing else but terities practised by Savitri in the Maha- the Supreme Divine Mother, your con- The Book of Love he would have still left bharata legend get converted into Savitri’s sciousness merges with the Supramental an indelible mark on English literature. yoga. And the description of this yoga, because the Supreme Divine Mother stands Nowhere else in the world’s literature do while reminding us in some of its general for the Supramental. And the descriptions we find such beautiful poetry based on features of the Integral Yoga developed by given in this canto suggest this extraordi- love fulfilled. We have great poetry on Sri Aurobindo, also brings to our mind nary happening. I will just read a little bit to love frustrated, but love fulfilled is hardly many of the special features of the Mother’s illustrate what I have just now said:

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 29 At last a change approached, the A Sun of which all knowledge is a place. For that to happen, we need stronger emptiness broke; beam, gods, more powerful gods. Sri Aurobindo A wave rippled within, the world had A Greatness without whom no life says in one place that the battle between stirred; could be. (p. 525) the and the devas has always been Once more her inner self became her taking place in the quivering theatre of space. There are other descriptions here the human consciousness. Since the hu- There was felt a blissful nearness to which are extraordinary in their impli- man consciousness has emerged from the the goal; cations. At the end of this canto, we are inconscient it still has on it a large stamp Heaven leaned low to kiss the sacred shown the mahakundalini descending of the inconscient. It is in the arena of this hill, into Savitri, and opening up each of her consciousness that gods and divine influ- The air trembled with passion and chakras. This descent of the mahakun- ences, as well as the hostiles and asuric delight. dalini is the descent of the Supramental forces descend and a struggle has been A rose of splendour on a tree of dreams, Force into Savitri—that is how I under- going on for the control of the human The face of Dawn out of mooned stand these lines. consciousness. In spite of our mental al- twilight grew. There is one more thing I would like legiance to the gods, it seems that most Day came, priest of a sacrifice of joy to mention about Savitri’s yoga, and that often it is the asuras who are winning. As Into the worshipping silence of her pertains to the most interesting Canto a result, our world is in such a big mess in world; Four, where Savitri is met by three ma- spite of the gods we worship. Either there He carried immortal lustre as his robe, donnas—the Madonna of Compassion must be something lacking in the gods Trailed heaven like a purple scarf and and Love, the Madonna of Might, and we worship, or there must be something wore the Madonna of Wisdom. Each of these wrong in the way we receive these gods As his vermilion caste-mark a red madonnas comes to Savitri and says that within us. It doesn’t matter which gods sun. (p. 523) she is her soul. What is interesting is that we worship, what is important is which after each madonna finishes whatever she gods we incarnate in our own life. And Another passage which describes this has to say to Savitri, an egoistic perver- so a time has now come, not to discard scene is equally suggestive: sion of each madonna complains to Savitri the overmental gods, but to invoke more A sealed identity within her woke; about how the world has ill-treated that powerful gods. Somebody once asked the She knew herself the Beloved of the particular being. Now it seems to me that Mother, “Mother, once we are in this new Supreme: these madonnas, who are godheads like yoga, should we still be worshipping old These Gods and Goddesses were he and and Kali and so on, gods?” And the Mother gave a reply which and she: are overmental godheads. And if Savitri is simple and yet very subtle. She said, The Mother was she of Beauty and after meeting these godheads goes beyond “Once you are in this yoga and you start Delight, them, it can only be into the Supramental getting the real experiences of this yoga, The Word in ’s vast creating realm. you will never be satisfied by worshipping clasp, The other interesting implication of all the old gods, either individually or all The World-Puissance on almighty this is equally important. The overmen- of them put together.” So a time has now Shiva’s lap,— tal gods and goddesses have been with us come for us to focus on new gods, because The Master and the Mother of all lives for a very long time. To these gods and we need a new consciousness to come Watching the worlds their twin regard goddesses we have been praying, we have down. And ultimately the gods will not had made, been offering our adoration and worship. be able to destroy the asuras around us. And and for ever Yet these gods and goddesses have proved, We have to do it ourselves and the godly entwined in bliss, by and large, ineffectual in remedying the forces that we receive now are too weak to The Adorer and Adored self-lost and basic inadequacies of human conscious- accomplish this task. one. ness. They have been able to give to their The Mother makes a very interesting In the last chamber on a golden seat chosen devotees money, fame, success, comment in one place. She says, “Durga, One sat whose shape no vision could long life, health, progeny, etc.; that is why Mahishasuramardini, comes down and define; they are honored as gods. But I don’t think slays the demon Mahishasura. But then Only one felt the world’s unattainable that these overmental godheads have been she has to come again the following year to fount, effective in cleansing the human heart of do the same thing. She has to come down A Power of which she was a straying things which have darkened human exist- and do this every year.” Why does she have Force, ence here—namely, jealousy, greed, lust, to come every year? Once she comes and An invisible Beauty, goal of the pride, hatred, and egoism of all kinds that destroys the demon, we get busy; after she world’s desire, have made our world such a miserable has destroyed it, we ourselves recreate or

30 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 resuscitate the demon. It is something in see around us, our spiritual track is all full does not negate or ignore any of the other us that feeds these asuric propensities. of frozen yogis; there are as it were frozen philosophies. Take for example Marxism. And that is why the Buddha once said that yogis all over, who don’t want to move, Sri Aurobindo says that Marxism is not all when a vibration of evil comes to the hu- who don’t want to stir because they are all wrong, the only problem with Marxism man heart, the human consciousness does big with their own siddhis. But at every is that it is incomplete. Similarly Freud’s not have the capacity to convert it into its stage, once you have acquired a siddhi, you psychology—it is not wrong but it is in- opposite. have to learn to offer it back to the Divine complete. Similarly Darwin’s biology and It only strengthens it and sends it back. so that there is space in you for a further all the theories based on it—they are not Buddha did not know how to avoid do- siddhi. Savitri therefore goes through this wrong, but they are one-sided and there- ing this; the remedy he suggested was that process of emptying herself and finally at- fore suffocatingly incomplete. This is the we should sever all relationship with the tains what is called the Cosmic Conscious- stance of Sri Aurobindo: that every one world. Then only will we be safe. But we ness, and then she becomes an effective of these philosophies contains a kernel of don’t want to do that. Our aim is to con- channel through which the higher force truth, but that there is a tendency to exag- tinue to live in this world and to bring per- begins to come down on earth. gerate things. And for each one Sri Au- fection to life here. So all this indicates that This completes the description of robindo brings the completion for it. The a time has come for us to take a new step Savitri’s yoga. Then comes Book Eight same thing Savitri does again and again if we want to ward off all the asuric and where we meet the god of Death, and af- with the arguments of Death until finally hostile forces that manifest themselves ter that, there are Books Nine, Ten and all his philosophies are exhausted. in Hitlers or Stalins, or Idi Amins or in Eleven. These Books describe the con- There are many wonderful passages in Osama Bin Ladens. They are all fed on the frontation between the God of Death and this part of the epic poem, and if I begin life-blood of our own consciousness, we Savitri. We studied these three books in to read those passages the organizers will are all responsible for them in some sense. some detail in the study camps held dur- begin to feel jittery and start thinking “Oh It is no use thinking “I am very pure, I am ing in recent years, so I do not wish to deal dear, probably all these people will stay on very holy, I have nothing to do with them.” with them here except very briefly. for dinner tonight, and we haven’t organ- We all connected from within. And if we Somewhere there is a reference in the ised any dinner!” I won’t go that far. But want really to get rid of them, we need to writings of the Mother to these three books one or two passages must be read. Other- be able to receive the new gods, we need to as the collective yoga of the Mother. Death wise it would be an injustice to a book like receive into our consciousness the victori- is not just the negation or disintegration of this in a place like this. ous power of the supramental conscious- physical existence. Death comes to us in One of the favourite debating points ness. That is what I see as the message of many forms. Very often death comes to us the God of Death uses is the fickleness and this particular canto, Canto Four of Book in the glorified form of temporarily cap- physicality of much that goes in the name Seven, “The Triple Soul Forces.” tivating intellectual philosophies which of human love. He says that love is just a Savitri has then, after Canto Five, still hold us spellbound and do not let us move glandular disorder, it is a physical attrac- a long journey ahead of her. She is asked into the higher regions. They blind us tion embellished with imagination. Savitri to go through an experience of emptying with the light they bring with them, and does not deny this at all. But she says that herself. Savitri is reminded that she has as a result we can’t see beyond them. They it is only partly true. Love has other more not come down on earth to manifest the say, “You have reached here, you are high refined, sublime, and less physical expres- supramental consciousness only in her- enough.” The intellect has a way of fas- sions. In one of these passages, she asserts self, but to become a channel through cinating the human mind because man the great value of love in these words: which this new force, its light and power is primarily manomaya, a mental being. can flow and spread through the whole When the intellectual solution comes we For Love must soar beyond the very world. For this Savitri had to undergo the feel thrilled. We do not even ask what pur- heavens discipline of emptying herself. This is de- pose such solutions serve. So there are var- And find its secret sense ineffable; scribed in Canto Six and the word Nirvana ious philosophies: idealism, pragmatism, It must change its human ways to in the title of this canto refers to this pro- realism, nihilism and so on. And then we ways divine, cess of emptying oneself, of surrendering see in Savitri that Death can profess any Yet keep its sovereignty of earthly bliss. one’s siddhis to the Divine. There are two philosophy to badger Savitri with—Bud- O Death, not for my heart’s sweet kinds of nirvana. One is the nirvana of dhist philosophy, Adwaita philosophy, etc. poignancy the Adwaitic and Buddhist kind, but in Sri None of the philosophies he professes is Nor for my happy body’s bliss alone Aurobindo’s yoga there is a nirvana where completely false, but each one of them is I have claimed from thee the living after reaching a particular siddhi you offer incomplete. And Savitri completes each of Satyavan, this siddhi to the Divine and empty your- the philosophies he professes. The integral But for his work and mine, our sacred self. Otherwise, as I said jocularly, as we philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, as you know, charge.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 31 Our lives are God’s messengers Its green delight break into emerald tions of you.” He predicts that because of beneath the stars; leaves what she has done, one day everything will To dwell under death’s shadow they And its laughter of beauty blossom in change, a new world will be born, and this have come the flower, life will turn into the life divine. Savitri Tempting God’s light to earth for the If sense could wake in tissue, nerve then returns to earth with Satyavan’s soul ignorant race, and cell clutched to her heart. His love to fill the hollow in men’s And Thought seize the grey matter of hearts, the brain, All then shall change, a magic order His bliss to heal the unhappiness of And soul peep from its secrecy come the world. through the flesh, Overtopping this mechanical universe. For I, the woman, am the force of How shall the nameless Light not leap A mightier race shall inhabit the God, on men, mortal’s world. He the Eternal’s delegate soul in man. And unknown powers emerge from On Nature’s luminous tops, on the My will is greater than thy law, O Nature’s sleep? Spirit’s ground, Death; Even now hints of a luminous Truth The superman shall reign as king of My love is stronger than the bonds of like stars life, Fate: Arise in the mind-mooned splendour Make earth almost the mate and peer Our love is the heavenly seal of the of Ignorance; of heaven, Supreme. Even now the deathless Lover’s touch And lead towards God and truth I guard that seal against thy rending we feel: man’s ignorant heart hands. If the chamber’s door is even a little And lift towards godhead his mortality, Love must not cease to live upon the ajar, A power released from circumscribing earth; What then can hinder God from bounds, For Love is the bright link twixt earth stealing in Its height pushed up beyond death’s and heaven, Or who forbid his kiss on the sleeping hungry reach, Love is the far Transcendent’s angel soul? (pp. 648-49) Life’s top shall flame with the Immor- here; tal’s thoughts, Love is man’s lien on the Absolute. Finally, Death is vanquished. At this Light shall invade the darkness of its (p. 633) point something very significant happens. base. Savitri does not conquer her own death. Then in the process of evolving Time I don’t think that even Shakespeare has Savitri conquers death for Satyavan. Who All shall be drawn into a single plan, comparable lines on love although he is is Satyavan? We have been told by Sri Au- A divine harmony shall be earth’s law, supposed to be a great poet of love. robindo that Satyavan is the Earth-Soul, Beauty and joy remould her way to There is another equally wonderful pas- Man’s soul in evolution. So in granting live; sage. Often people ask, “How do you know Satyavan freedom from death what Savitri Even the body shall remember God. that the supramental will come? So far it has has done is to grant to the whole of man- (pp. 706-707) not come.” That’s a very profound argument kind the potential for immortality. We isn’t it? “So far it hasn’t come, so how do you have all been rendered potentially immor- Nature shall live to manifest secret know that it will come in future? How do tal by this great gift of Savitri. God, you know?” Death is asking that question, Well, we have now reached the final The Spirit shall take up the human and Savitri’s answer is very simple. stage of this drama. The God of Death play. is vanquished, but he comes back as the This earthly life become the life How sayst thou Truth can never light Supreme Divine himself, and once again divine. (p. 710) the human mind tests Savitri, offering her a special world, And Bliss can never invade the a special heaven of peace and bliss to It is extremely difficult to summarize mortal’s heart live in with Satyavan. Savitri rejects that this immense and magnificent epic in 50 Or God descend into the world he offer saying “I have come down with minutes, but I have been foolish enough made? Satyavan to help mankind reach perfec- to try it. I hope I have achieved what I set If in the meaningless Void creation rose, tion. I don’t want any solitary happiness out to do in some small measure. Hasn’t If from a bodiless Force Matter was for just the two of us.” When Savitri passes it been said of the Divine’s Grace that it born, this last test as well, the Supreme Lord is can make the dumb eloquent and the lame If Life could climb in the unconscious very pleased with Savitri and says to her, scale the top of a mountain? Thank you tree, “Savitri, you have fulfilled all my expecta- very much.

32 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 ‘A god come down fall, because in the fall itself there is a sig- nificance, a meaning, a purpose, which is and greater by the fall’ not there in the higher worlds, not even in the highest. This is a very challenging by Arabinda Basu statement. The sentence where this line occurs says: “I know there shall inform the in- Based on the talk given at Savitri Bhavan conscient cells,...” Not in the supramental on 9 August 1998, and published in Invo- world, if there is such a thing, but “in the cation, No. 2, February 1999. inconscient cells,” here on the earth, in the body, the material physical frame. “At one hildren of the Mother, this morn- with Nature and at height with Heaven”— ing I would like to talk about one implying: Don’t abandon Nature, don’t single line. This line occurs in the renounce Heaven, but bring the two to- Ccanto entitled “The Vision and the Boon”. gether in the inconscient cells, making Photo courtesy Savitri Bhavan The passage runs: them superconscient. phrase indicates a deliberate choice. This Sri Aurobindo also says that “We live This strange irrational product of the suggests that we have voluntarily exiled self-exiled from our heavenlier home.” mire, ourselves from our true Self, deliberately, (p. 262) The normal idea is that man has This compromise between the beast by choice. Why? And how is it that we are fallen because he has disobeyed God’s and god, greater by the fall? Sri Aurobindo seems command. Or in , Jainism, Bud- Is not the crown of thy miraculous to say that because you have fallen you dhism we find the idea that one has karma world. have become greater, at least potentially. from previous lives, and has come down to I know there shall inform the incon- So the question is not about getting back exhaust that karma. Judaism doesn’t insist scient cells, to where you came from, but of doing so much on the idea of the original sin, At one with Nature and at height with something here. This is absolutely fresh but Christianity does. And because of this heaven, and original. Our greaterness consists not original sin of pride, hubris, disobedience A spirit vast as the containing sky in rebecoming what we were before we towards God, we have fallen. But here And swept with ecstasy from invisible fell, but in doing something here, on this there is no such idea at all: We are “self- founts, earth. As far as I know, this does not exist exiled”—we have come down deliberately, A god come down and greater by the in any other spiritual discipline or phi- voluntarily. There must be some purpose fall. (p. 343) losophy or yoga. in this, for nobody would by choice come This idea occurs already in the first down to a life which, as Sri Aurobindo This last line is a very very significant canto of Savitri, where Sri Aurobindo says, is condemned to an imperfect body one, which seems to me to turn the whole speaks of “The godhead greater by a hu- and mind, living in the inconscient with history of spirituality upside down. The man fate.” Here also he uses the word all the indignities of the physical life. Yes, ideal of spiritual pursuit that is expressed “greater,” and in connection with “a hu- there is indignity, there is dishonour, there in this particular line has never been man fate.” So a god has become greater, or is a lack of bliss, even of pleasure: we are all expressed before. This morning I will at- perhaps potentially greater, by becoming born into a world of division and discord, tempt to explain this startlingly original human. ambition and frustration, failure and fu- idea: “A god come down and greater by And yet all yoga insists upon the hu- tility; of knowledge ringed by ignorance, the fall.” man not remaining forever human; its aim and pleasure by pain. This is our life. How The entire history of spirituality has is to become more than human, super- can it be greater than the existence that we asserted that as a human being you are a human, superman. How do we combine had before we fell? We will find the answer fallen creature, whatever explanation may these two ideas? Sri Aurobindo insists that in the poem itself. be given for the fall, and that you have unless you know the Self which is one in Can God be incomplete? The Upani- to get back to where you came from.... all, you cannot attain to the Supermind. shad tells us that he is full there and here, whether from God or Brahman or what- And if you cannot attain to the Super- and that if we subtract fullness from that ever. You have to regain union with your mind, you cannot transform life here on fullness, what remains is still full. So God source. All spirituality has aimed at getting earth. So all these ideas have to be com- in himself is complete, full, fulfilled. And back to the source from which we came. bined together. yet Sri Aurobindo dares to say: “A god But here Sri Aurobindo speaks of “A Nevertheless, this line suggests that come down and greater by the fall.” We god come down.” It seems to me that this eventually we will become greater by the shall see that this is because God has a def-

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 33 inite purpose in descending Yes, you have to become into matter. liberated, for you are like a This means that in the prisoner, so you must come light of what Sri Aurobindo out of the prison, and you says, the ancient Indian go out into the open market concept of Maya appears or the open field and you to be an incomplete knowl- say, “Yes! I am free—what edge. Taking his terms from a lovely life now!” But what Indian spiritual thought Sri about the prison? You have Aurobindo says that we can left it in the lurch, you have look at creation from three condemned all the other points of view: as Prakriti, prisoners to the conditions Maya and Lila. Prakriti, in they live in, which are less the Sankhya philosophy, re- than human. What if I take fers to inconscient Nature, the mission of becoming a creative power without free, in order to go back any trace of consciousness into the prison and make it in it at all. There is Puru- into a palace? This is god’s sha, or pure consciousness, mission in the world. which is static, and there is The canto called “The Prakriti who is unconscious Pursuit of the Unknowable” but dynamic. You can see shows Ashwapati shooting the world as the evolution vertically up to the Abso- of Prakriti—which it is, to lute. Life is too much with a very great extent. Then him, the world is too im- there is the concept of perfect, life is not worth liv- Maya, which says that the ing in the world. He wants world isn’t really there—it his self, the Self in all, and only seems to be there. Ac- Evolution. (Painting by Shiva Vangara) the Absolute. So he tries to cording to this philosophy, realise the Absolute, forget- Brahman is purely static, it who knows Vasudeva as all, such a great ting the world, renounc- has no creative power, no quality, no fea- soul is very very very rare. And Sri Au- ing it, abandoning it. There is a magnifi- ture, no nothing as Americans would say. robindo in the jail became one of those cient description of the outcome of this So the world is Maya, the world doesn’t ex- very very rare great souls because he was pursuit: ist, it only seems to exist. This too is a truth seeing the divine reality everywhere. This of a certain plane of experience—even for was after his experience of Nirvana, please Thought falls from us, we cease from those who are trying to practice Integral remember—Nirvana which showed him, joy and grief, Yoga. Sri Aurobindo says that every inte- in his own language, that everything was The ego is dead; we are freed from gral yogin must go through this experi- materialised shadows: no essence, no real- being and care, ence sooner or later. At some time in your ity, just floating material shadows. Those We have done with birth and death sadhana, you must know that the world is material shadows became instinct, in- and work and fate. (p. 310) nothing, absolutely nothing. Only when formed with reality in each core of them. you know that the world is nothing at all, In this view, the universe is called But the Mother accosts him, asks him, can you be utterly and completely free of Lila—a play. It is a free act. God is not “What are you doing? where are you go- attachment. compelled to create, he is not compelled to ing?” There are other things to do which But this is not a complete experience. manifest himself. He does it as a free act, Ashwapati does not know about. She tells Because later you find that where you as a play of delight and bliss.The - him: felt there was nothing, the Divine pours vata Purana says it is the dance of a child into every atom. This was Sri Aurobindo’s who just dances because he sees his own O soul, it is too early to rejoice! Vasudeva vision in the jail. The Gita says shadow. It is a shadow, but a shadow of a Thou hast reached the boundless “Vasudeva sarvam iti.” Vasudeva means reality, a shadow of a light. silence of the Self all-pervasive, ubiquitous, omnipresent— Sri Aurobindo adds to this idea of Thou hast leaped into a glad divine that is the meaning of the word . One Lila: he says that this play has a purpose. abyss;

34 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 But where hast thou thrown Self’s cance, without meaning. It is meaningful, down, and they are “greater by the fall.” mission and Self’s power? (p. 310) full of significance, full of possibility and Now this fall: Why is it a fall? It is a fall potentiality because the Divine himself in the sense that we have lost our native So the Self has a mission. And that has a purpose in the world. We have to spiritual status in God. We are no longer mission can be accomplished by a very understand this meaning and to make it united with him. Nevertheless, Sri Auro- special kind of power, manifest. This is the mission the Supreme bindo says, very daringly, “No more exist- Mother gives to Ashwapati. What is this ence seemed an aimless fall.” There is an But where hast thou thrown Self’s meaning? What is God’s purpose? aim, a purpose, a goal. mission and Self’s power? On what dead bank on the Eternal’s In absolute silence sleeps an absolute No more existence seemed an aimless road? Power fall One was within thee who was self and Awaking, it can wake the trance- Extinction was no more the sole world, bound soul release. What hast thou done for his purpose And in the ray reveal the parent sun: The hidden Word was found, the in the stars? (p. 310) It can make the world a vessel of long-sought clue, Spirit’s force, Revealed was the meaning of our There is a purpose in the stars. The It can fashion in the clay God’s perfect spirit’s birth. (p. 313) constellations were not created without shape. any purpose. So this is the Mother’s scold- To free the self is but one radiant Again we come across the words ing, if you like: “Where are you going? pace; (pp. 311-12) ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’. “Revealed was What are you doing? Losing yourself in the meaning of our spirit’s birth.” At pre- the Absolute? What about the purpose of Yes, you have to realise the Self, it is an sent, because of assuming birth in the God in the world? Who will accomplish absolute necessity, it is one radiant pace, world, the spirit is: it? I have not sent you down here just to but what else is there? go back to where you came from, to lose Condemned to an imperfect body yourself in the Absolute, forgetting your Here to fulfil himself was God’s and mind own individuality, your potentiality, your desire. (p. 312) In the inconscience of material things possibility of divine life. You can’t do that.” And the indignity of mortal life. To fulfil himself. We think of God be- (p. 313) Escape brings not the victory nor the ing fulfilled in his own scheme of existence crown! (p. 310) eternally, but how does he fulfil himself The body is subject to disease and ul- in the world, what does that mean? God timately to death, the mind is ignorant, This is an escape—escape from the also has a desire: not that every creature, seeking after knowledge and hardly ever obligation, the responsibility, the duty of every child of his will find salvation or lib- reaching it. This is what the Spirit is born “a god come down.” So Ashwapati is asked eration or moksha or whatever you call it. into. But this is not the last chapter of the to turn back to the world, and he accepts No. Each child will become God. This is drama, the last act. The curtain hasn’t the mission with the Mother’s command; his mission and that is his purpose in the fallen yet. Creation is not yet a finished and he is the one who is debating with the world. And he wants it to happen here on product. It still goes on. This ongoing pro- Mother in the Canto of “The Vision and earth, not on the highest plane of heaven. cess is the one by which God’s desire will the Boon.” And please note the end of the Recently I read a sentence where Sri be fulfilled. name of the Canto—the Boon. The Boon Aurobindo says that we certainly have to is: “One will descend, to break the iron realise God and embrace Him, but what When earth was built in the uncon- law”—the iron law of subjection to Death. is far more important is to become that scious Void reality. And although that can be achieved, And nothing was save a material A high and blank negation is not all, and has been achieved, even by numerous scene, A huge extinction is not God’s last word, devotees and yogis and saints and mystics, Identified with sea and sky and stone Life’s ultimate sense, the close of be- on the plane of God, nobody has yet done Her young gods yearned for the ing’s course, it on this plane, where God has become release of souls The meaning of this great mysterious matter—deliberately, by choice, in order Asleep in objects, vague, inanimate. world. (p. 311) to fulfil his mission and purpose. They cried to Life to invade the sense- Those who will fulfil this desire of God less mould There is a meaning of this great mys- will do it here on earth, not somewhere And in brute forms awake divinity. terious world. It is not without signifi- else, they are the gods who have come (p. 129)

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 35 What does it really mean in practical itself fallen. It always keeps its nature of Elsewhere he tells us that we can’t terms—“In brute forms awake Divinity”? spirituality and divinity, and yet it has leave unfulfilled the world’s miraculous Don’t abandon the forms in order to get assumed, deliberately, all the limitations fate. The world has a fate. It is going to be a back to Divinity. No—awake Divinity in of the material physical life. How is this new creation, something marvellous that the forms, where it is concealed, sleeping, possible? has never happened before. dormant, involved. That is where we have to awake divinity. Not only to achieve di- In her nature housing the Immortal’s As yet thought some high spirit’s vinity in soul and space, but even exter- power dream, nally, superficially, on the surface, in brute In her bosom bearing the eternal Or a vexed illusion in man’s toiling forms we have to awake divinity. This is Will. (p. 128) mind one of Sri Aurobindo’s favourite ideas and A new creation from the old shall it comes in many places. For example on This tells us how. And it means that rise... (p. 330) page 121, in the same Canto: it is possible for the creature to house the immortal’s power and bear the eternal Here, on this earth. This is the crea- Our human ignorance moves towards will. Each of us can do it, through Savitri’s tion. In God there is no creation. Sri Au- the Truth work in the world. Through the unsparing robindo tells us over and over again that That Nescience may become omni- distribution of her grace. Through them in God there is no progression. But then scient... we can receive it. The Grace is here, it is where is progression, where is evolution, doing its work, but we don’t pay any heed where is movement? Where God has lim- The spiritual attempt has always been to it. We are so busy getting our salvation ited himself. to leave ignorance and get knowledge. that we have forgotten about God’s mis- As you know, philosophically speak- Here we have a new idea. Nescience will sion in the stars. ing, this world is a result of God limiting become omniscient. And this is possible himself. If the Absolute remained Absolute because nescience is nothing but a forma- A spirit ignorant of the world it made, always, there would be no relative. If God tion of the omniscient. The lowest is noth- Obscured by Matter, travestied by Life did not give up his unity, there would be ing but a formation of the highest. What Struggles to emerge, to be free, to no Many. If the Divine did not renounce Sri Aurobindo is now trying to do is to know and reign; (p. 329) his divinity there would be no humanity. make the lowest into the highest. This is So this is the holocaust of the soul, the Su- the challenge. To reign over what? This world, this preme Soul, a self-sacrifice that is made physical life, which is at the moment most for the sake of a result and a fruit. And that Our human ignorance moves towards awful. Therefore we want to escape. We fruit is the world becoming a new world, the Truth want to escape for our own benefit, to get the creation assuming a novelty, a fresh- That Nescience may become omni- out of this trouble, this tribulation. But ness, a spiritual fulfilment. scient who listens to God? What does he want us Transmuted instincts shape to divine to do? Am I ready to give what He wants? Merged into the Unknowable’s thoughts Because Sri Aurobindo tells us, “A mutual mystery Thoughts house infallible immortal sight debt binds man to the Supreme.” (p. 67) Lay unfulfilled the world’s miraculous And Nature climb towards God’s God has assumed humanity, it is humani- fate. identity. (p. 121) ty’s obligation to assume divinity. We must As yet thought only some high spirit’s become as he is, as perfect as he is. This is dream Don’t leave Nature in the lurch: make the mutual debt. Or a vexed illusion in man’s toiling it divine—because Nature is concealed He has not assumed humanity without mind divinity. a purpose, just as a joke—no. He has done A new creation from the old shall rise, We would expect a fall to be debas- it with a very serious purpose—a joyful, A Knowledge inarticulate find speech, ing, but the poet says: “No fall debased blissful one, but nevertheless a very seri- Beauty suppressed burst into paradise the godhead of her steps.” (p. 128) Where ous purpose. He means business, says a bloom is our share in this? In a brilliant line, Sri colloquial phrase, and God’s business in Pleasure and pain dive into absolute Aurobindo says: “In her gold liberty of di- assuming humanity was to make human- bliss. vinity all had a share.” As we take to Savitri ity divine. And humanity is here on earth, A tongueless oracle shall speak at last as a refuge, we will share in her golden- not in heaven. In this mutual interchange The Superconscient conscious grow coloured splendour. “No fall debased the between God and man, God descending, on earth godhead of her steps”—the godhead has man ascending, the meeting point is a new The Eternal’s wonders join the dance come down to what is fallen, but it is not creation, a marvellous new world. of Time. (p. 330)

36 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 The earthly creature is not supposed abilities, in all of them God’s power lurks. Why? to become superconscient where the Su- But it is hidden, it needs to be brought out, perconscience is, on the superconscient manifested, expressed. In one sense we can That to his divine measure we might planes... no, it will grow superconscient say that evolution is really the emergence rise; here on earth, in matter, through the new of the hidden powers of the Divine in man. This transfiguration is earth’s due to creation. There is the evolution of the soul, but there heaven: The Divine Mother gives Aswapati the is also, parallel to it, the evolution of nature, A mutual debt binds man to the vision of the birth of that new creation: and nature means all the physical, vital, Supreme: mental powers and abilities or potentialities. His nature we must put on as he put The great world-rhythms were heart- ours; beats of one Soul, All-knowing he accepts our darkened We are sons of God, and must be even To feel was a flame-discovery of God, state, as he; All mind was a single harp of many Divine, wears shapes of animal or His human portion, we must grow strings, man; divine. (pp. 66-67) All life a song of many meeting lives; Eternal, he assents to Fate and Time, For worlds were many, but the Self Immortal, dallies with mortality. He has become human, we humans was one. The All-Conscious ventured into must become divine. This is the Secret This knowledge now was made a Ignorance Knowledge. cosmos’ seed... The All-Blissful bore to be insensible. Then he talks of the seeker: Incarnate in a world of strife and A new cosmos is being created. This pain, Late will he know, opening the mystic knowledge, that worlds are many but the He puts on joy and sorrow like a robe script, Self is one, is being made the seed of a new And drinks experience like a Whether to a blank port in the cosmos. And: strengthening wine. (pp. 66-67) Unseen He goes or, armed with her fiat, to This seed was cased in the safety of All experience can be turned into this discover the Light, strengthening wine, if we know the magic A new mind and body in the city of It needed not a sheath of Ignorance. of it. God.... (p. 72) Then from the trance of that tremen- dous clasp He whose transcendence rules the Earlier on we read that he is con- And from the throbbings of that pregnant Vasts demned to an imperfect body and mind. single Heart Prescient now dwells in our sublimi- But here we have a transfiguration. What And from the naked Spirit’s victory nal depths will happen to the body and mind? He A new and marvellous creation rose. A luminous individual Power, alone. goes on to discover a new mind and body (p. 323) (p. 67) in the city of God. So we will have a new mind and a new body, to embody the di- Meanwhile evolution is still going on. Where is he? In our subliminal depths. vine here on earth— Evolution still has to continue because In order to bring him out, express him, God has not yet fulfilled himself. As Sri manifest him for all to see, all experience And enshrine the Immortal in his Aurobindo says somewhere else, only half is there to be endured and enjoyed. This is glory’s house God’s cosmic work is done. Creation is a magnificent passage and one can keep And make the finite one with Infinity. not a finished product, it is an on-going reading it over and over again. (p. 72) process. But if, in Sri Aurobindo’s vision, only half God’s cosmic work is done, it is The Absolute, the Perfect, the Im- Again the emphasis is on the finite bound to be done. This is certain because: mune, becoming one with Infinity—not leaving One who is in us as our secret self the finite to go into infinity. The finite it- The master of existence lurks in us Our mask of imperfection has as- self has to put on infinity. Therefore, since And plays at hide-and-seek with his sumed, this is God’s own vision and purpose, the own Force; He has made this tenement of flesh seeker cannot rest. He has no refuge until In Nature’s instrument loiters secret his own, he finds his goal. God. (p. 66) His image in the human measure cast (p. 67) And never can the mighty Traveller In all your instruments, your powers and rest

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 37 And never can the mystic voyage self-discovery of the Divine in conditions cease that are not elsewhere.” (Letters on Yoga, Till the nescient dusk is lifted from pp. 254-55) When all God’s cosmic work is man’s soul done, that will be the result of his mission And the morns of God have over- and desire being fulfilled: a triumphant taken his night. new self-discovery of the Divine, in condi- As long as Nature lasts, he too is there, tions which are here and nowhere else. For this is sure that he and she are Please note the phrase “a self-discov- one; (p. 72) ery of the Divine.” This is not a matter of man discovering the Divine. It is a self- (That is, the Divine and his force are one.) discovery of the Divine, the Divine dis- covering himself. And where? In matter. Even when he sleeps, he keeps her on In the physical being. In the Inconscience. his breast: The Superconscient grows aware in the Whoever leaves her, he will not inconscient. depart... All of these concepts come together —the Divine Consciousness. (Photo in one. Each is a facet of the one central courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram) For there is a deep purpose in all this: notion. It means that God is trying to do clear and unambiguous words all that I something here on the earth, in the physi- There is a plan in the Mother’s deep have been talking about rather vaguely and cal being, in the inconscience: a self-dis- world-whim, imperfectly. He is talking of the different covery. On the divine plane where he is, A purpose in her vast and random planes and worlds, from the subtle physi- he doesn’t know that he is material. This game. cal up to the highest. He says that each of is why Sri Aurobindo speaks in another This ever she meant since the first them has its own distinctive character- place of God knowing himself as the ma- dawn of life, istics, so that there are qualities in those terial divine. God still has something to This constant will she covered with worlds which are not here, and which can’t discover, to know: another facet of his her sport,... be reproduced here. He says in the letter own being, his own power, his personality; that there is an idea in God’s mind, that is and what is that? It is the material divine. Right from the beginning, when he in the Supermind, the world of real ideas The Divine that is in matter. Not trying to first thought of creation, of expressing that is rooted in Reality; and that is a real get out of matter and back to where it be- himself, there was this intention: idea which God wants to express, to mani- gan, where it was divine... No. Discovering fest, and in and through it ultimately to himself as the material divine in matter. To evoke a Person in the impersonal manifest himself, and he gives the example This cannot be done unless matter is Void, of the subtle physical plane, which is clos- spiritualized, supramentalized, divinized. With the Truth-Light strike earth’s est to the physical and most like it, but still How is this to be done? The answer to this massive roots of trance, has a lot of things that this world of ours, is the main theme of the whole epic, of the Wake a dumb self in the inconscient the physical world, has not: He says it has: legend and the symbol which is Savitri, depths “a freedom, plasticity, intensity, colour, and it can be summed up in a few lines And raise a lost Power from its python wide and manifold play... of which, as yet, from page 314: sleep we have no possibility on earth. And yet That the eyes of the Timeless might there is something here, a potentiality of A burning Love from white spiritual look out from Time the Divine which the other, in spite of its founts And the world manifest the unveiled greater liberties, has not, something which Annulled the sorrow of the ignorant Divine. makes creation more difficult, but in the depths; For this he left his white infinity last result justifies the labour.” That is what Suffering was lost in her immortal And laid on the spirit the burden of makes the creation worthwhile. That is smile. the flesh, what he says. He talks about a supramental A Life from beyond grew conqueror That Godhead’s seed might flower in creation, and asks, rhetorically so to speak: here of death; mindless Space. (pp. 72-73) “What would be the utility of a supramen- tal creation on earth if it were just the same This conquering Life and this burning This is the mission of God. thing as a supramental creation on the spiritual Love that can achieve the trans- I will end by reading from a letter of supramental plane? It is that in principle, formation of the material world is Savitri Sri Aurobindo where he states in very but yet something else, a triumphant new incarnate.

38 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 been spiritualised in the same bright The everlasting Yes: sources and have undergone the puri- Savitri, the epic of fication, the katharsis, spoken of by the Greek critic. . . . affirmation The ancient Indian critics defined the essence of poetry as rasa and by This essay was given as a talk at Savitri that word they meant a concentrated Bhavan on 19 March 2011 and was pub- taste, a spiritual essence of emotion, lished in Invocation, No. 34, April 2011. an essential aesthesis, the soul’s pleas- ure in the pure and perfect sources of by Richard Hartz feeling. The memory of the soul that takes in, broods over and transmutes uch of the world’s great litera- the mind’s thought, feeling and expe- ture dwells on the tragic aspect rience, is . . . only a common way by of human experience. Normally which we get at something that stands Mwe try to keep our contact with this un- behind, the spiritual being in us which Photo courtesy Richard Hartz happy side of existence to a minimum. Yet has the secret of the universal delight it has always attracted poets, dramatists, surviving every phenomenal change”2 and and the eternal beauty of existence.7 novelists and their audiences. In Western as “tending toward the shattering of the culture, the choice of a tragic theme has individual and his fusion with the original Tragic fate in Ilion and Savitri often been regarded as a sign of serious- Oneness.”3 Keenly aware of the “tragedy ness of purpose, as if tales of fate, suffer- at the heart of things, . . . the contrariety When this passage in The Future Poetry ing and death revealed the true nature of at the center of the universe,”4 Nietzsche was published in 1920, Sri Aurobindo had things in a way that is missed by a more found the Dionysian key to the psychol- been working for a number of years on the optimistic use of the imagination. Most ogy of tragic literature in the act of “saying two epics, Ilion and Savitri, which are his critics would agree that Aeschylus sound- Yes to life even in its strangest and hardest most substantial contributions to the poet- ed depths unknown to Aristophanes, problems, the will to life rejoicing over its ry of the English language. In both epics he and that Shakespeare’s genius expressed own inexhaustibility even in the very sac- came to grips with the tragic dimension of itself more powerfully in Macbeth than in rifice of its highest types.”5 life, collective or personal, represented in Much Ado about Nothing. In India a sup- In India, from the global vantage point one case by the fall of Troy and in the other posedly pessimistic worldview produced of the early twentieth century, Sri Auro- by the death of Satyavan. But the sense of no comparable tradition of tragic drama, bindo drew on several past views, Eastern the inescapability of fate that overshadows but we find tragedy in works as central and Western, in order to explain “why the Ilion is overcome in Savitri. to the culture as the and the poet is able to transmute pain and sorrow In Ilion, Sri Aurobindo depicts life Mahabharata. and the most tragic and terrible and ugly with all its vicissitudes as a divine Lila or Thinkers everywhere have pondered things into forms of poetic beauty.”6 Greek cosmic game in which something in us over the appeal of tragedy. Why should and Indian aesthetics, Vedantic philoso- takes an irrepressible delight. Listen, for the presentation of catastrophic events phy and Nietzschean affirmation meet in example, to Helen’s words to Paris: be conducive to the highest art? Various Sri Aurobindo’s account of the secret of answers were given in ancient times, from poetry: “Yes, it is good,” she cried, “what the Aristotle’s theory of katharsis to the rasa gods do and actions of mortals; concept of Sanskrit poetics. More recent- The mental and vital interest, pleasure, Good is this play of the world; it is ly, Schopenhauer reflected his Vedantic pain of thought, life, action is not the good, the joy and the torture. . . . and Buddhist affinities when he wrote: source of poetic delight and beauty Never can Death undo what life has “What gives to everything tragic . . . the and can be turned into that deeper done for us, Paris. characteristic tendency to the sublime, is thing only when they have sunk into Nor, whatsoever betide, can the hour the dawning of the knowledge that the the soul and been transmuted in the be unlived of our rapture. world and life can afford us no true satis- soul’s radiant memory into spiritual This too is good that nations should faction, and are therefore not worth our experience,—that perhaps was what meet in the shock of the battle, attachment to them.”1 Nietzsche, deeply the Greeks meant when they made Heroes be slain and a theme be made influenced by Schopenhauer though he Mnemosyne the eternal mother of the for the songs of the poets, rejected his asceticism, saw tragedy as muses; the passions can only change Songs that shall thrill with the name pointing “to the eternity of true being into poetic matter when they have of Helen, the beauty of Paris.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 39 Well is this also that empires should on earth as a natural and logical outcome This iron, brute, gigantic helpless toy fall for the eyes of a woman; of the continuing evolution of conscious- They call a world, this thing that Well that for Helen Hector ended, ness. turns and turns Memnon was slaughtered, It seems significant that, as far as we And shrieks and bleeds and cannot Strong Sarpedon fell and Troilus can ascertain, Sri Aurobindo began Savitri stop, this victim ceased in his boyhood. immediately after writing a chapter that Broken and living yet on its own wheel, Troy for Helen burning, her glory, is so directly relevant to the fundamental And if a Will created this, what name her empire, her riches, issues at the heart of the poem. In “The Shall best blaspheme against that This is the sign of the gods and the Knot of Matter,” he approaches the prob- tyrant God?11 type of things that are mortal. . . .”8 lem created by matter’s apparent denial of the spirit by first setting out to state the To be sure, this Promethean outburst Ilion pulsates with the Nietzschean and difficulty “entirely, trenchantly, with exag- against the notion of an extra-cosmic Dionysian “Yes” to life even at its strangest geration, if need be, rather than with dimi- Creator expressed only the mood of a and hardest. But this, even in a Vedantic nution.” In so doing, he temporarily sets moment; for the poet goes on to affirm form, was far from being the whole of Sri aside the detachment of the philosopher the “One, multitudinous, nameless, yet a Aurobindo’s message. Ananke, the Greek and resorts to language whose intensity Name”12 and the poem ends in ecstasy. But personification of adamant Necessity, has is closer to that of poetry than metaphys- we see that, whether in poetry or prose, the final word in Ilion. But the story of ics. Identifying himself with the plight of Sri Aurobindo had the dramatist’s gift for Troy’s downfall could not provide a frame- half-conscious beings in an unconscious taking opposite viewpoints, affirmative work for Sri Aurobindo to convey what he world, he writes: and negative, and expressing them with was ultimately seeking, the discovery of a equal force. “greater luminous spiritual Necessity and For this is the monstrous thing, the its sovereign imperative” which “alone can terrible and pitiless miracle of the The Debate with Death displace or entirely penetrate, transform material universe that out of this into itself and so replace the blind Ananke no-Mind . . . minds emerge and find We see this method employed with the of the Inconscience.”9 Consequently he themselves struggling feebly for light, greatest power in the epic debate of Savitri turned from Greek to Indian legend. There helpless individually, only less help- and Death. A sketch of parts of that de- he found the symbol of a more integral af- less when in self-defence they associ- bate can be found in the draft of the poem, firmation in the myth of Savitri, the young ate their individual feeblenesses in the consisting of a few hundred lines, begun woman who follows the god of death into midst of the giant Ignorance which in August 1916 and revised and recopied the realm of eternal darkness in order to is the law of the universe. Out of this by November of that year. At this stage win back the life of her husband, Satyavan. heartless Inconscience and within its much of the eventual epic is only in an rigorous jurisdiction hearts have been embryonic form. But even in this com- “The knot of matter” and born and aspire and are tortured and paratively undeveloped version, Savitri is the genesis of Savitri bleed under the weight of the blind as much an incarnation of the spirit of af- and insentient cruelty of this iron firmation as Death is a personification of The opening of the first known manu- existence, a cruelty which lays its law the negation of things. script of Savitri is dated the 8th and 9th of upon them and becomes sentient in After Satyavan is struck down by August, 1916. Sri Aurobindo must have their sentience, brutal, ferocious, hor- Death’s invisible hand, the contest of wills just completed the chapter of The Life Di- rible.10 gets under way with the appearance of the vine entitled “The Knot of Matter,” which god of death himself in a form perceptible was published in that month’s issue of In the midst of a seemingly abstract philo- to Savitri’s inner sight. In Sri Aurobindo’s the Arya (scheduled to come out on the sophical exposition, here is the voice of fair copy of the first manuscript this pas- 15th). In this chapter he probes the nature the poet who three years earlier, in “The sage is shorter than the final text, but we of matter to understand why life in the Meditations of Mandavya”, had enter- find much of it already in its definitive physical world is “stricken with death and tained a vision of the world as form. Here Death’s entry is described in pain” and whether it could be different. these imposing lines: He concludes that indeed it could be, if ...only a dumb Void that belches forth certain conditions were fulfilled. These are Numberless larvae and phantasmal Something stood there unearthly, explained in the remainder of the thou- shapes sombre, grand, sand and more pages to which his major Into a void less happy than itself A limitless denial of all being philosophical work eventually grew, justi- Because this feels. O if this dream That wore the wonder of a shape. The fying the possibility of a transformed life were true, Form

40 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Bore the deep pity of destroying gods I commune not with human eye and . . . In these moments of insight, we In its appalling eyes. Eternal Night ear; lose all eagerness of temporary desire, In the dire beauty of an immortal face Only thy thought gave a figure to my all struggling and striving for petty Pitying arose, receiving all that lives void. ends, all care for the little trivial things Into its fathomless heart for ever. Its Because, O aspirant to divinity, that, to a superficial view, make up the limbs Thou calledst me to wrestle with thy common life of day by day; we see, sur- Were monuments of transience and soul, rounding the narrow raft illumined by beneath I have assumed a face, a form, a voice.16 the flickering light of human comrade- Brows of unwearying calm large god- ship, the dark ocean on whose rolling like lids Sri Aurobindo exercised his poetic abili- waves we toss for a brief hour; . . . all Silent beheld the writhing that is life. ties to the utmost in evoking the formi- the loneliness of humanity amid hos- The two opposed each other with dable figure of Death, as much as in por- tile forces is concentrated upon the their eyes, traying Death’s indomitable antagonist, individual soul, which must struggle Woman and universal god.13 Savitri. Death’s ironic critique of human alone, with what of courage it can hopes and ideals is devastating. His argu- command, against the whole weight In an age when the gods are normally ments, whether drawn from scientific ma- of a universe that cares nothing for its dismissed as old wives’ tales, the god of terialism or life-negating mysticism, often hopes and fears. . . . Brief and pow- death as depicted by Sri Aurobindo has seem unanswerable. He makes a plausible erless is Man’s life; on him and all his few of the trappings of mythology. The case against the whole project of evolution race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless suspension of disbelief demanded of the championed by his opponent: and dark. Blind to good and evil, reck- modern mind is minimal. Moreover, less of destruction, omnipotent matter Death is represented as the archetypal When all unconscious was, then all rolls on its relentless way. . . .18 materialist with whom today’s materialist was well. is often likely to agree, as when he de- I, Death, was king and kept my regal While Sri Aurobindo dissented from the scribes man’s proclivity for creating gods state, pessimism of the materialistic worldview in his own image: Designing my unwilled, unerring and its limited assessment of human pos- plan. . . . sibilities, he did not underestimate the He sees above him with a longing Then Thought came in and spoiled aspect of life on which it takes its stand. heart the harmonious world: The central question raised in his epic is Bare spaces more unconscious than Matter began to hope and think and whether that discouraging aspect is the himself feel, whole picture, or whether there is after That have not even his privilege of Tissue and nerve bore joy and agony. . . . all something in us that is not as isolated, mind, A trouble rocked the great world’s transient and powerless as our surface And empty of all but their unreal blue, blind still heart consciousness—something that, as it And peoples them with bright and And Nature lost her wide immortal struggles for survival in an inhospitable merciful powers. calm. universe, not only can feel the mystery For the sea roars around him and Thus came this warped incomprehen- of existence, but whose inner strength is earth quakes sible scene. . . .17 potentially a match for matter’s seeming Beneath his steps, and fire is at his omnipotence. The presence of this incal- doors, A certain tragic grandeur in the ma- culable factor is what Sri Aurobindo sug- And death prowls baying through the terialistic vision is conveyed in several gests through his heroine’s response to her woods of life.14 of the speeches Sri Aurobindo has put in husband’s doom: the mouth of Death. At times the picture Any lingering suspicion of anthropomor- of the human condition painted in these Across the awful march no eye can see, phism in the representation of Death as a speeches brings to mind the most moving Barring its dreadful route no will can being with whom Savitri can interact— passages in Bertrand Russell’s celebrated change, though a cosmic being, whose “shape was essay, “A Free Man’s Worship:” She faced the engines of the universe; nothingness made real” and whose voice A heart stood in the way of the driv- “seemed the whole adverse world’s”15—is In the spectacle of Death, in the endur- ing wheels: dispelled when Death says: ance of intolerable pain, . . . there is Its giant workings paused in front of a sacredness, an overpowering awe, a a mind, I have no body and no tongue to feeling of the vastness, the depth, the Its stark conventions met the flame of speak, inexhaustible mystery of existence a soul.19

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 41 The two negations Where Matter is all, there Spirit is a this effort for development, progress, dream: the flowering of the faculties, if it is to Though there is an archaic element If all are the Spirit, Matter is a lie. . . . come to a diminution ending in de- in Savitri that links it to an ancient tradi- cline and disintegration?...” Some feel tion, Sri Aurobindo was preoccupied with The mutual exclusion of the two poles of a revolt in them, others less strong feel contemporary realities as much as with existence makes the problem of life in- despair and always this question arises: timeless truths. The challenge to spiritu- soluble and leaves extinction, physical or “If there is a conscious Will behind all ality posed by rationalistic materialism spiritual, as the only way out: that, this Will seems to be monstrous.” was a reality that could not be ignored. Sri Aurobindo was concerned not merely Two only are the doors of man’s The Mother acknowledged that this pro- with refuting the materialist position, escape, cess of perpetual destruction and new however, but with disengaging the truth Death of his body Matter’s gate to creation can be looked at as a game that from which it derives its force and incor- peace, Nature enjoys, even if we do not. But she porating that in a larger synthesis. In his Death of his soul his last felicity. believed that it is possible “to convince poetry, furthermore, intellectual truth had In me all take refuge, for I, Death, am Nature that there are other methods than to be transfigured into artistic revelation. God.21 hers.” She added: “This looks like madness, In Savitri, the materialist’s denial of the but all new things have always seemed like spirit is voiced by Death with all the in- Remaking the universe madness before they became realities.”23 spired force of language and image at the Madness or not, there is an epic sub- poet’s command. At the same time, the Convincing as Death’s nihilism may be limity in Savitri’s defiance of Death for truth and attraction of the ascetic refusal to the logical mind and however tempting which one could not easily find a parallel which is the mirror image of that denial to the disillusioned and the world-weary, in recent poetry. When he warns her of are given an equally compelling statement, there is something deep within us that can the divine retribution awaiting those who as in Death’s admonition to Savitri: hardly fail to leap up at Savitri’s response. violate the law of things, she replies: Remaining silent at first, when she finally The One lives for ever. There no speaks it is to assert the unconquerable- “Who is this God imagined by thy Satyavan ness of the human soul in a world where night, Changing was born and there no Death seems all-powerful: Contemptuously creating worlds Savitri disdained, Claims from brief life her bribe of joy. “I bow not to thee, O huge mask of Who made for vanity the brilliant There love death, stars? Came never with his fretful eyes of Black lie of night to the cowed soul of Not he who has reared his temple in tears, man, my thoughts Nor Time is there nor the vain vasts Unreal, inescapable end of things, And made his sacred floor my human of Space. . . . Thou grim jest played with the im- heart. If thou desirest immortality, mortal spirit. . . .”22 My God is will and triumphs in his Be then alone sufficient to thy soul: paths, Live in thyself; forget the man thou Sri Aurobindo anticipates here the tone of My God is love and sweetly suffers lov’st. a talk given years later, after his passing, all. . . . My last grand death shall rescue thee by the Mother who was undoubtedly his A traveller of the million roads of life, from life; model for the character of Savitri. Call- His steps familiar with the lights of Then shalt thou rise into thy unmoved ing death a “macabre joke of Nature,” she heaven source. 20 commented on the reactions that the first Tread without pain the sword-paved contact with it arouses in individuals with courts of hell; The two negations, materialistic and spir- a somewhat awakened consciousness: There he descends to edge eternal joy. itual, contradictory though they appear to Love’s golden wings have power to fan be, agree in ruling out the possibility of the In persons who are sensitive, it pro- thy void: fulfilment of the spirit in matter. By split- duces horror; in others, indignation. The eyes of love gaze starlike through ting reality into incompatible parts that There is a tendency to ask oneself: death’s night, reject each other, both serve the purpose “What is this monstrous farce in The feet of love tread naked hardest of Death, the great divider. As he points which one takes part without wanting worlds. out, to, without understanding it? Why are He labours in the depths, exults on we born, if it is only to die? Why all the heights;

42 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 He shall remake thy universe, mations come up repeatedly in the O Death.”24 Record. In an entry dated a year after they were first received, the The remaking of the universe three groups are referred to as the would seem to require divine in- “four Brahma affirmations”, the tervention in the cosmic process, “three Krishna affirmations” and but what individuals can do is to the “two Prakriti affirmations.”26 remake themselves. By the time Frequently only seven affirma- Sri Aurobindo took up Savitri, tions are mentioned, however, the this self-refashioning had been his last two being perceived as de- principal occupation for several pendent on the perfection of the years. We cannot begin to under- other seven. stand his epic without an idea of The division of the first seven the spiritual practice and realiza- affirmations into those concerned tions that led to its composition with Brahman and with Krishna, and make it something more than with the impersonal and the per- a work of literature. Some of his sonal experience of the divine prose writings, his other poetry, Reality, is a helpful simplification; his letters and especially his diary, but in practice Sri Aurobindo the Record of Yoga, give glimpses found that these aspects could not of the Yogi’s inner life. They con- be separated. They are combined firm the largely autobiographical in the second affirmation of the nature of Savitri, his final self- first group, which was later placed revelatory masterpiece, which first: complements and completes these other sources. The universal sense of the Anan- damaya Lilamaya Krishna in the Affirmations of the Brahmadrishti as the continent of developing God all the conscious activity.27

“Descent of the Truth-Consciousness.” (Painting by Shiva Vangara) Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana fol- Here we get a clue to the reason for lowed an inner guidance rather than characteristic of Savitri. the prominence of Krishna in the an established tradition, though the San- On June 10th and 12th, 1914, Sri Au- affirmations—for Sri Aurobindo was not a skrit terminology he employed shows his robindo listed nine items in his diary which Vaishnava and there was nothing sectarian indebtedness to the ancient spiritual cul- he described as “affirmations, stomah, of in his references to Krishna. Krishna is the 25 ture of India. Under this inner guidance, the developing God.” We will come back lord of the Lila, the divine play. The sense the formulation of his personal system of to the precise meaning of the Vedic term of the world as Lila was strong in Sri Au- Yoga took a significant turn in June 1914. stoma in connection with Savitri. For now robindo’s consciousness at this time, evi- This was a little over two years before he let us take a glance at some of these affir- dently due to the increasing intensity of his started to write Savitri and two months mations. They were written down in three realization of the Brahman as Ananda, the before the publication of the first issue of groups under the heading “Script.” Script eternal and universal delight of being. This the Arya, the monthly philosophical review in the Record of Yoga was a communica- brought with it a heightened awareness of in which for the next few years he would tion, received through a process resem- the living Personality behind all things. He present his thought and vision to the world bling automatic writing, from a source explains in The Life Divine that the world in works such as The Life Divine and The which was often identified as the Master can be seen in terms of Maya if we regard Synthesis of Yoga. In fact, the introduction of the Yoga, Sri Aurobindo’s inner guide. it “in its relation to pure, infinite, indivis- of what he called the “affirmations” into his Four affirmations were given first, ible, immutable Existence” (Sat). Or if we sadhana coincided with the beginning of with an indication that there were more look at it in relation to pure consciousness his work for the Arya. This development in to come; the next three followed on the (Chit), it is natural to view the world as a his Yoga was to influence perceptibly some same day and the last pair two days later. movement of Force, as Prakriti. But world- of the writings that appeared in the Arya, The original grouping into four, three and existence can also be experienced “in its especially The Life Divine, and is relevant to two was to remain important throughout relation to the self-delight of eternally ex- appreciating the spirit of affirmation that is the coming year, during which the affir- istent being.” In that case,

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 43 we may regard, describe and realise vision. The words he saw were “Ecstasy major feature of the Record of Yoga only it as Lila, the play, the child’s joy, the . . Love . . God.” Later in the same entry he for a year or so. During that period the poet’s joy, the actor’s joy, the mechani- commented: “Love . . ecstasy . . God is the last pair of affirmations lagged behind the cian’s joy of the Soul of things eternally formula of fulfilment of the second group other seven. These two final affirmations young, perpetually inexhaustible, of affirmations.”30 The last item in this implied an expansion of the scope of the creating and re-creating Himself in group affirms the acceptance of alle xperi- Yoga, an acceleration of its pace and a Himself for the sheer bliss of that self- ence as “a slave & instrument of the Lover.”31 more decisive application to life. Only a creation, of that self-representation,— When he drafted the first version of Savitri preparation for this was possible while the Himself the play, Himself the player, in 1916, Sri Aurobindo described this con- foundation outlined in the other affirma- Himself the playground.28 dition of rapturous surrender in a passage tions was being laid. But the twin Prakriti near the end, where a divine voice speaks affirmations anticipated subsequent de- When Sri Aurobindo drafted his first ver- to Savitri: velopments in Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana sion of Savitri, he evoked the vision of this that figure prominently in Savitri. The Lila using imagery traditionally associ- Thou shalt drink down my sweetness eighth affirmation is: ated with Krishna. The final text of this unalloyed passage differs little from what it was in And bear my ruthless beauty una- Siddhi must be on the basis of the 1916: bridged largeness in the five worlds & not a Amid the world’s intolerable selective & limited siddhi.33 One who came love and lover and wrongs . . . . beloved Insistent, careless of thy lonely right, This was rephrased six months later in a Eternal, built himself a wondrous field My creatures shall demand me from manner that again brought in the sense of And wove the measures of a marvel- thy heart. Lila and connected the Prakriti affirma- lous dance. All that thou hast shall be for others’ tions with the preceding Krishna affirma- There in its circles and its magic turns bliss; tions: Attracted he arrives, repelled he flees. All that thou art shall to my hands . . . belong. The field of play of Krishna the five His bliss laughs to us or it calls I will pour delight from thee as from worlds working themselves out in the concealed a jar fifth, Bhurloka.34 Like a far-heard unseen entrancing And whirl thee as my chariot through flute the ways A detailed account of the worlds was From moonlit branches in the throb- And use thee as my sword and as my not part of the original scheme of Savitri, bing woods, lyre but was introduced in the late 1920s into Tempting our angry search and pas- And play on thee my minstrelsies of what eventually became the longest of the sionate pain.29 thought. twelve books of the epic. Sri Aurobindo And when thou art vibrant with all did not pursue or expound the knowledge The affirmations in theRecord are of ecstasies of the supraphysical planes in the spirit interest to us here mainly as part of the And when thou liv’st one spirit with of an otherworldly mysticism, however. background of the composition of Savitri. all things, As the reformulated affirmation suggests, For our immediate purpose, therefore, the Men seeing thee shall feel my siege what preoccupied him was the worlds of affirmation of Krishna’s Ananda and Lila of joy, life, mind, supermind and Sachchidanan- in the vision of Brahman can be taken to And nearer draw to me because thou da “working themselves out” in the world represent the first group of four. We will art. . . . of matter represented by the earth (“Bhur- come back to two other affirmations in This shalt thou henceforth learn from loka”). In Savitri, the impact on the ter- this group in connection with The Life thy heartbeats, restrial plane of the subtle forces proper to Divine. The three Krishna affirmations That conquering me thou art my cap- higher grades of substance and conscious- proper, pertaining to the personal relation tive made, ness is the subject of much of the Book with the Lord and Lover, form the second And who possess me are by me pos- of the Traveller of the Worlds. This inter- group. A convenient summary of them is sessed. connectedness is indicated in the opening found in an entry within a month after the For ever love, O beautiful slave of canto of Book Two, “The World-Stair:” affirmations were initially recorded. On God.32 7 July 1914, Sri Aurobindo noted an in- Our earth is a fragment and a residue; stance of what he termed “lipi,” or etheric The affirmations as formulated in June Her power is packed with the stuff of writing seen with the faculty of subtle 1914 and restated in December were a greater worlds

44 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 And steeped in their colour-lustres But Savitri insists on a dynamic view of was printed above the title of the chapter. dimmed by her drowse; the process of time, invoking the lives of In the text itself, significant occurrences An atavism of higher births is hers, heroes and geniuses, prophets and incar- of the word “affirmation” begin with the Her sleep is stirred by their buried nations to support her optimism: second paragraph: memories Recalling the lost spheres from which Ever to the new and the unknown These persistent ideals of the race are they fell. press on at once the contradiction of its nor- Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move; The speeding aeons justifying God. mal experience and the affirmation of They are partners of her greater grow- What were earth’s ages if the grey higher and deeper experiences. . . . 41 ing fate restraint And her return to immortality. . . .35 Were never broken and glories sprang Although Sri Aurobindo later substituted not forth “Omnipresent Reality and the Universe” The final affirmation deals with the Bursting their obscure seed, while for “The Affirmations of Vedanta” as the question of time. This was crucial if the man’s slow life title of Book One, the idea of affirmation thoroughgoing transformation envisaged Leaped hurried into sudden splendid and the Vedantic interpretation of it con- by Sri Aurobindo was to be achieved with- paths tinued to be a persistent feature of The Life in the span of a single life. In its original By divine words and human gods Divine, found even in passages he added form, the ninth affirmation reads: revealed? . . . or rewrote when he revised and expanded I claim from Time my will’s eternity, it to its present dimensions twenty-five Time must be no longer a determina- God from his moments.37 years after its serial publication began in tive, but only an instrumental factor the Arya. The best explanation of what he in the siddhi. So also with Space & The affirmations of Vedanta meant by “the affirmations of Vedanta” oc- Circumstance.36 curs in such a passage, first published in Ten days after writing out the first the 1940 edition of Book Two: In Savitri’s dialogue with Death, her seven affirmations, Sri Aurobindo noted adversary rebukes her as one of those in his diary: “the first Book of the Life In the , in the inspired spirits who Divine begun (the Vedantic Affirma- scripture of the most ancient Vedanta, tions).”38 His major philosophical work we find the affirmation of the Abso- Have come into the narrow bounds was thus initiated in the spirit of the prin- lute, the experience-concept of the ut- of life ciple he had adopted in his personal sad- ter and ineffable Transcendence; but With too large natures overleaping hana, summed up in the third affirmation we find also, not in contradiction to time. in the Record of Yoga: “The principle of it but as its corollary, an affirmation Affirmation to replace the principle of re- of the cosmic Divinity, an experience- Death argues for respecting the estab- jection & denial.”39 A statement in The Life concept of the cosmic Self and the be- lished order and letting time take its me- Divine suggests the underlying rationale coming of Brahman in the universe. andering course: of this “principle of Affirmation” justi- Equally, we find the affirmation of fying its inclusion among the “Brahma the Divine Reality in the individual: The wise think with the cycles, they affirmations:” this too is an experience-concept; it hear the tread is seized upon not as an appearance, Of far-off things; patient, unmoved All affirmations are denied only to but as an actual becoming. In place of they keep lead to a wider affirmation of the same a sole supreme exclusive affirmation Their dangerous wisdom in their Reality. All antinomies confront each negating all else than the transcend- depths restrained, other in order to recognise one Truth ent Absolute we find a comprehensive Lest man’s frail days into the un- in their opposed aspects and embrace affirmation carried to its farthest con- known should sink by the way of conflict their mutual clusion: this concept of Reality and of Dragged like a ship by bound levia- Unity. Brahman is the Alpha and the Knowledge enveloping in one view than Omega. Brahman is the One besides the cosmic and the Absolute coincides Into the abyss of his stupendous seas. whom there is nothing else existent.40 fundamentally with our own. . . .42 Lo, how all shakes when the gods tread too near! When the opening chapter of The In Savitri, these “experience-concepts” All moves, is in peril, anguished, torn, Life Divine appeared on 15 August 1914 are affirmed in the evocative language of upheaved. in the first issue of the Arya, the heading poetry. In a well-known passage in “The “Book I / The Affirmations of Vedanta” Secret Knowledge,” for instance, we meet

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 45 first the transcendent Absolute, but not as materialist denial and the refusal of the poise of being in Mind and in the Life an “exclusive affirmation negating all else:” ascetic, are contrasted in the second and which we see emerging out of this denial, third chapters of The Life Divine. Each bewildered by it, struggling . . . against The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone affirms what the other rejects, but both the thousand and one problems involved Has called out of the Silence his mute affirmations are radically incomplete and in this perplexing apparition of man the Force vitiated by their own one-sidedness. As Sri half-potent conscient being out of the Where she lay in the featureless and Aurobindo observes: omnipotent Inconscience of the material formless hush universe.” But this unsatisfactory state of Guarding from Time by her immobile Liberty pursued by exclusion of the affairs is not the end of the matter. Sri Au- sleep thing exceeded leads along the path of robindo continues: The ineffable puissance of his solitude. negation to the refusal of that which God has accepted. Activity pursued by The fourth relation is the poise of be- This leads to the affirmation of the same absorption in the act and the energy ing in Supermind: it is the fulfilled ex- Absolute as the cosmic Self that becomes leads to an inferior affirmation and the istence which will eventually solve all the universe: denial of the Highest.44 this complex problem created by the partial affirmation emerging out of the The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone In place of these limiting alternatives, Sri total denial; and it must needs solve it Has entered with his silence into Aurobindo proposes a complete affirma- in the only possible way, by the com- space: tion. He explains its nature most clearly in plete affirmation fulfilling all that was He has fashioned these countless “The Problem of Life,” a chapter ofThe Life secretly there contained in potential- persons of one self; Divine originally published in the Arya in ity and intended in fact of evolution He has built a million figures of his May 1916, three months before he com- behind the mask of the great denial.45 power; menced his work on Savitri. He lives in all, who lived in his Vast “All life,” he writes, “depends for its na- This brief summary of Sri Aurobin- alone; ture on the fundamental poise of its own do’s philosophy provides a framework in Space is himself and Time is only he. constituting consciousness. . .” Conscious- which to interpret Savitri. The entire epic ness can take any of four poises. First there can be understood in these terms—not Finally, the divine Reality in the individual is its poise in the unity of Sachchidananda, surprisingly, since the whole of existence is affirmed: the infinite existence-consciousness-bliss appears to be encompassed in this all-in- that is the source of all. At the other end of clusive scheme. Numerous passages in the The Absolute, the Perfect, the Im- things, consciousness seems to disappear poem could be cited pertaining to each of mune, in the enormous machinery of material the four poises. But what is symbolized in One who is in us as our secret self, nature. Out of this self-oblivion has arisen Savitri as a whole is the “complete affirma- Our mask of imperfection has as- the third poise, the divided consciousness tion” belonging to the poise in Supermind sumed, of mind, “limiting itself in various cen- (Vijnana) where consciousness and force He has made this tenement of flesh tres, . . . aware of things and forces in their are reunited as inseparable equals. This his own, apparent division and opposition to each integral affirmation is not envisioned as an His image in the human measure cast other but not in their real unity.” The final exit from the manifestation and a return That to his divine measure we might possibility is consciousness “in possession to the starting-point in undifferentiated rise. . . .43 of both the diversity and the unity,” whose Sachchidananda. Rather, it corresponds to nature is “the One knowing itself as the the “Vijnanamaya Sachchidananda” men- The everlasting No and Many and the Many knowing themselves tioned in a reformulation of the fourth the everlasting Yes as the One.” affirmation in the Record of Yoga, which Force has a different relation to con- is to bring “the fulfilment of mind, life & Meanwhile, the mask of our imperfec- sciousness in each of these poises. In Sach- body”.46 tion hides very effectively whatever divin- chidananda they are one. In the material The occurrences of the verb “affirm” ity is within us. This fact has led to two world, characterized by Sri Aurobindo as in Savitri will provide us with a sample of opposite conclusions. At one extreme of “the great denial of Sachchidananda by passages illustrating the kinds of affirma- the spectrum of thought are those who Himself,” we see “the utter apparent sepa- tion proper to the various poises of con- deny the divinity altogether. At the other ration of Force from Consciousness, the sciousness in the universe and beyond. But extreme are those who, while affirming specious miracle of the all-governing and first it may be observed that, though the the divinity, reject not only the mask, but infallible Inconscient.” The third relation noun “affirmation” itself does not occur in the tenement. These two negations, the describes our own condition. It “is the the poem, we find its opposites, “denial,”

46 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 “negation,” “refusal”—often in connection has to be approached through experi- This is one of four occurrences of “affirm- with Death, who personifies the cosmic ence. It can be approached through an ing” or “affirmed” in Savitri. Interestingly, opposition to the spirit of affirmation absolute negation of existence, as if it these can be correlated with the four embodied in Savitri herself. We have al- were itself a supreme Non-Existence, poises of consciousness outlined in The ready seen Death described as a “limitless a mysterious infinite Nihil. It can be Life Divine. The “all-affirming Absolute” denial of all being.”47 Let us look at a few approached through an absolute affir- would belong to the first, the poise of more of these negative expressions: mation of all the fundamentals of our consciousness in the infinity of Sachchi- own existence. . . . 54 dananda. Across the fruitless labour of the Another occurrence of “affirming” is worlds Consequently there is a certain ambiva- in “The Book of the Divine Mother.” It re- His huge denial’s all-defeating might lence in Sri Aurobindo’s use of the word lates to Sachchidananda’s aspect of eternal Pursued the ignorant march of dolor- “No” in Savitri. He describes the all-negat- delight, but only as a concealed presence ous Time. 48 ing Absolute as in the unconscious and insentient uni- verse where life has evolved. This is the Immutable, Death’s denial met her An endless No to all that seems to be, second poise: cry . . .49 An endless Yes to things ever uncon- ceived Affirming in life a hidden ecstasy A great Negation was the Real’s face And all that is unimagined and It held the spirit to its miraculous Prohibiting the vain process of unthought. . . .55 course; Time. . . .50 Carrying immortal values to the hours Nevertheless, as we saw in the Record of It justified the labour of the suns.58 On all that claims here to be Truth Yoga, Sri Aurobindo’s approach was to re- and God place the principle of rejection and denial “Affirming” is found a third time (revers- And conscious self and the revealing as far as possible by the principle of af- ing the order in which these passages oc- Word firmation. Accordingly, after the canto in cur in the poem) in “The Kingdoms and And the creative rapture of the Mind Book Three entitled “The Pursuit of the Godheads of the Greater Life”, the sixth And Love and Knowledge and heart’s Unknowable,” a powerful evocation of the canto of Book Two: delight, there fell “stillness absolute, incommunicable” that The immense refusal of the eternal “makes unreal all that mind has known” is All powers of Life towards their No. 51 followed by the warning: godhead tend In the wideness and the daring of that As the last phrase suggests, “Yes” and “No” Only the everlasting No has neared air, are of course equivalent to affirmation and And stared into thy eyes and killed Each builds its temple and expands negation or refusal. Their occurrences thy heart: its cult, should also be included, therefore, in a But where is the Lover’s everlasting And Sin too there is a divinity. study of Savitri as the epic of affirmation. Yes. . . ?56 Affirming the beauty and splendour But here we have to take into account a of her law complexity in the idea of negation which The epic of affirmation She claims life as her natural enriches at the same time the concept of domain. . . . 59 affirmation. In The Life Divine, Sri Auro- After Savitri experiences Nirvana in bindo refers to a “superior Negation” as the “all-negating Absolute,” she seems to Sin and evil, as we experience them, well as an “inferior negation.”52 The in- be on the verge of the “last annulment,” clearly belong to the “partial affirma- ferior one evidently corresponds to the when a very different spiritual outcome is tion” of a consciousness divided against “great denial” and the “immense refusal” suggested: itself, emerging with its “thousand and we have already encountered. With regard one problems” out of matter’s negation of to the superior negation, Sri Aurobindo Even now her splendid being might Sachchidananda.60 But these lines in “The points out that “it is through both a su- flame back Book of the Traveller of the Worlds” ex- preme affirmation and a supreme nega- Out of the silence and the nullity, press an occult truth explained in The Life tion that we can arrive at the Absolute.”5 3 A gleaming portion of the All-Won- Divine: He elaborates on this elsewhere: derful, A power of some all-affirming Abso- Those life impulses which are to earth- The Absolute is in itself indefinable lute. . .57 nature inordinate and out of measure by reason, ineffable to the speech; it and appear here as perverse and ab-

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 47 normal, find in their own province of The passage concludes a few lines later accompanied that work, he explained the being an independent fulfilment and with the bursting of “the bounds of con- meaning of stoma as he understood it: an unrestricted play of their type and sciousness and Time.” We are reminded of principle. . . Here on earth these things the last affirmation in theRecord of Yoga, By expression then we create and exist in an unsatisfied and therefore which insists that time, space and circum- men are even said to create the gods unsatisfactory and obscure state of stance must be no longer “determinative”, in themselves by the mantra. Again, struggle and mixture, but there reveal but only “instrumental.”63 that which we have created in our their secret and their motive of being Much of what we find in Savitri is consciousness by the Word, we can fix because they are there established in explained in Sri Aurobindo’s prose writ- there by the Word to become part of their native power and full form of na- ings in ways that may seem more acces- ourselves and effective not only in our ture in their own world and their own sible to the logical mind. Undoubtedly a inner life but upon the outer physical exclusive atmosphere.61 comparison with these writings is helpful world. By expression we form, by af- for understanding the meaning of Savitri. firmation we establish. As a power of Every aspect of existence in this and But in the end, it is not to convey logical expression the word is termed gīh or other worlds finds a place in Sri Auro- ideas that it was written. In the first chap- vacas; as a power of affirmation, stoma. bindo’s epic. In a sense, all is affirmed be- ter of the work that was originally called In either aspect it is named manma or cause behind all there is a truth, however The Psychology of Social Development and mantra. . . 66 partial. By itself this might lead only to a later revised and published as The Human Nietzschean “Yes” to life even at its strang- Cycle, Sri Aurobindo spoke in passing of Affirmation of the truth—in the sense of est and hardest. The aesthetic apprecia- the higher function of poetry in ancient fixing or establishing it in our conscious- tion of tragedy gives a kind of meaning to times. It is worth noting that along with ness—was, then, part of the function of reality as it is. But Sri Aurobindo goes on “The Knot of Matter,” quoted earlier, this the Vedic mantra according to Sri Auro- to posit a fourth poise of consciousness, appeared in the Arya in the month when bindo. This idea also enters into his broad- where the reaffirmation of Sachchidan- he began to draft what we now know as er concept of the Mantra as extended to anda in Supermind—the “Vijnanamaya Savitri: poetry in general, where it designates “the Sachchidananda” of the Record of Yoga— highest power of the inspired word.”67 It is expected to solve the myriad problems To us poetry is a revel of intellect and was probably in 1950, when he was occu- that have arisen in the third poise. fancy, imagination a plaything and pied with the final revision of Savitri, that The introduction of a supramental caterer for our amusement, our enter- Sri Aurobindo dictated a paragraph on the consciousness into the scheme of things is tainer, the nautch-girl of the mind. But Mantra for The Future Poetry. The Mantra, grounded in experience as well as philoso- to the men of old the poet was a seer, a he says here, “is the word that carries the phy. This factor distinguishes Savitri from revealer of hidden truths, imagination godhead in it or the power of the godhead, Ilion. It also justifies the story’s happy end- no dancing courtesan but a priestess can bring it into the consciousness and fix ing as something more than a fairy tale; in God’s house commissioned not to there it and its workings, awaken there the for the Supermind would heal the division spin fictions but to image difficult and thrill of the infinite, the force of something between consciousness and force, ena- hidden truths. . . .64 absolute.”68 bling the illumined and empowered will In this sense we can speak of Savitri to override the decrees of Ananke. The It was as “a revealer of hidden truths,” as the epic of affirmation, a Vedic stoma result of this Siddhi is symbolized by the like the of the Vedic age, that Sri on a grand scale. Affirming our divine victory of Savitri over Death. The poem’s Aurobindo wrote Savitri. But besides the potential, it can bring the godhead into climactic event is anticipated at the end of disclosure of mystic truth, Vedic poetry our consciousness and “fix there it and its the second canto, “The Issue.” Here, sig- had a closely related intention. The Vedic workings;” yet it does not reject or dispar- nificantly, is the remaining occurrence of sūkta was also called a stoma, translated by age our humanity, which is a mask but also the verb “affirm:” Sri Aurobindo as “hymn of affirmation.”65 a tenement of God. Sri Aurobindo’s epic, Incidentally, as we have seen, he applied the like its heroine, is “the living body of his A living choice reversed fate’s cold same word, stoma, to the affirmations which light.” Like her, the poem houses the Name dead turn, played an important role during a substan- and the Nameless, “the Word or Name Affirmed the spirit’s tread on Circum- tial period of his sadhana as recorded in vibrating out of the nameless Silence.”69 stance, his diary. During this period he began to Challenging Death’s power over aspiring Pressed back the senseless dire revolv- write and publish, in monthly instalments, humanity, Savitri’s words epitomize the ing Wheel several of his major works including The spirit of affirmation she represents—the And stopped the mute march of Secret of the Veda. In one of the first com- everlasting Yes: Necessity.62 mentaries on selected Vedic hymns which

48 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 “Yes, I am human. Yet shall man by me, 11. Collected Poems, p. 513. 36. Record of Yoga, p. 488. Since in humanity waits his hour the 12. Ibid., p. 515. 37. Savitri, pp. 650–52. Cf. Mother India, God, 13. “Sri Aurobindo’s First Fair Copy of His vol. 34, no. 1 (January 1982), pp. 5–6. Trample thee down to reach the im- Earliest Version of Savitri”, Mother India: 38. Record of Yoga, p. 504. mortal heights, Monthly Review of Culture, vol. 33, no. 11 39. Ibid., p. 484. Transcending grief and pain and fate (November 1981), p. 622. Cf. Savitri: A 40. The Life Divine, p. 38. and death. Legend and a Symbol (Pondicherry: Sri 41. Ibid., p. 4. First published in Arya, vol. Yes, my humanity is a mask of God: Aurobindo Ashram, 1993), p. 574. 1, no. 1 (August 1914), p. 2. He dwells in me, the mover of my acts, 14. Savitri, pp. 586–87. 42. The Life Divine, pp. 661–62. This pas- Turning the great wheel of his cosmic 15. Ibid., pp. 574–75. sage is the revised version of the following work. 16. Ibid., p. 593. sentence in the Arya, vol. 3, no. 8 (March I am the living body of his light, 17. Ibid., p. 617. 1917), p. 452: “On the other hand in the I am the thinking instrument of his 18. Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Wor- Isha Upanishad we find the tendency of power, ship”, http://www.skeptic.ca/Bertrand_ comprehensive affirmation carried to its I incarnate Wisdom in an earthly Russell_Collec–tion.pdf. farthest conclusion and a point of view breast, 19. Savitri, p. 20. arrived at which coincides with our own.” I am his conquering and unslayable 20. Ibid., pp. 593–94. Cf. Mother India, vol. 43. Savitri, p. 67. will. 33, no. 12 (December 1981), p. 696. 44. The Life Divine, p. 46. The formless Spirit drew in me its 21. Savitri, p. 635. 45. Ibid., pp. 223–25. shape; 22. Ibid., p. 588. 46. Record of Yoga, p. 765. In me are the Nameless and the secret 23. The Mother, Questions and Answers 47. Savitri, p. 574. Nam e .” 70 1957–1958 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo 48. Ibid., p. 643. Ashram, 2004), pp. 33–36. 49. Ibid., p. 654. Notes 24. Savitri, pp. 591–92. Cf. Mother India, 50. Ibid., p. 600. vol. 33, no. 12 (December 1981), p. 695. 51. Ibid., p. 583. 1. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as 25. Sri Aurobindo, Record of Yoga (Pondi- 52. The Life Divine, p. 53. Will and Representation, vol. 2, trans. E. cherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2001), p. 53. Ibid., p. 663. F. J. Payne (New York: Dover, 1966), pp. 485. 54. Ibid., p. 493. 433–34. 26. Ibid., p. 880. 55. Savitri, p. 547. 2. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Trag- 27. Ibid., p. 484. 56. Ibid., p. 310. edy, in The Birth of Tragedy and The Ge- 28. The Life Divine, pp. 109–11. First pub- 57. Ibid., p. 549. nealogy of Morals, trans. Francis Golffing lished in Arya, vol. 1, no. 12 (July 1915), 58. Ibid., p. 313. (New York: Anchor Books, 1956), p. 53. pp. 706–8. In a summary of the state of 59. Ibid., p. 185. 3 Ibid., p. 56. his sadhana at the beginning of the month 60. The Life Divine, pp. 224–25. 4 Ibid., p. 64. in which this chapter (“Delight of Exist- 61. Ibid., pp. 813–14. 5 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of ence: The Solution”) appeared in theArya , 62. Savitri, p. 21. the Idols, in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Sri Aurobindo observed: “The Anandam 63. Record of Yoga, p. 488. Walter Kaufman (New York: Penguin Brahma is now fixed in the vision of all 64. The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Hu- Books, 1976), p. 562. things and only occasionally goes back man Unity, War and Self-Determination 6. Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, with for a moment into the Anantam Jnanam (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, On Quantitative Metre (Pondicherry: Sri Brahma. Along with this finality there is 1997), p. 9. First published in Arya, vol. 3, Aurobindo Ashram, 1997), p. 259 also the finality of the Lilamaya darshana no. 1 (August 1916), p. 30. 7. Ibid., p. 262. First published in Arya: A in all existences. . . .” (Record of Yoga, p. 65. The Secret of the Veda, with Selected Philosophical Review, vol. 6, no. 8 (March 883) Hymns (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ash- 1920), pp. 506–7. 29. Savitri, pp. 613–14. Cf. Mother India, ram, 1998), p. 270. 8. Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems (Pondi- vol. 33, no. 12 (December 1981), p. 699. 66. Ibid., p. 271. First published in Arya, cherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2009), p. 30. Record of Yoga, pp. 535–36. vol. 1, no. 2 (September 1914), p. 34. 397. 31. Ibid., p. 485. 67. The Future Poetry, p. 240. 9. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (Pondi- 32. Mother India, vol. 34, no. 2 (February 68. Ibid., p. 313. cherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2005), p. 1982), pp. 82–83. Cf. Savitri, pp. 700–702. 69. The Life Divine, p. 165. 997. 33. Record of Yoga, p. 488. 70. Savitri, p. 634. 10. Ibid., p. 258. First published in Arya, 34. Ibid., p. 766. vol. 3, no. 1 (August 1916), pp. 6–7. 35. Savitri, pp. 99–100.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 49 We shall shed the discredit of our Vision of the future: mortal state, supramental Make the abysm a road for Heaven’s descent, transformation Acquaint our depths with the super- nal Ray by Kalpana Bidwaikar And cleave the darkness with the mystic Fire. (p. 171) From Transformation of Consciousness in Savitri, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Cen- But what is the supramental transfor- tre for Advanced Research, 2011. mation? Sri Aurobindo says, “the supra- mental transformation [is that] in which he seer-vision of Sri Aurobindo all becomes supramentalized in the divine comprehends that “Man is a tran- gnostic consciousness. It is only with the sitional being; he is not final, for last that there can begin the complete Tin him and high beyond him ascend the (Photo courtesy Kalpana Bidwaikar) transformation of mind, life and body—in radiant degrees which climb to a divine adequately able to express it in its external my sense of completeness.”3 Supramental supermanhood. The step from man to- activities. This can be made possible only connotes the Truth-Consciousness and wards superman is the next approaching after a further ascent towards the Super- this transformation means that the en- achievement in the earth’s evolution,”1 The mind and its descent bringing about the tire being, the inner and even the most terrestrial manifestation is progressive supreme perfection At that level of con- outer being receives the descent of the and evolutionary and the present condi- sciousness, one attains a true identity with Supermind and there is no place for in- tion of man with its heavy load of miseries God and fully possesses the spirit and its conscience or obscurity or falsehood in of pain and suffering cannot be the last power in the outer person and nature for any part of the being. However, for the de- act of manifestation. Sri Aurobindo points a perfect living in the Divine. In order to scent of the Supermind one has to ascend out in Savitri, achieve this perfect perfection one has to towards the higher planes. ascend into the gnostic (truth-conscious- The Supermind is the dynamic prin- Since God has made earth, earth must ness) plane and bring down its greatness ciple and infinite Wisdom and of the Su- make in her God; and glory into the terrestrial life for its preme Sachchidananda through which the What hides within her breast she supreme fulfillment. Sri Aurobindo says, creation came into being. The Supermind must reveal. (p. 693) “As the psychic change has to call in the is a perfect “Truth-Consciousness” that is spiritual to complete it, so the first spir- in possession of the integral knowledge of This world is a creation of God and itual change has to call in the supramental both Self and the world. Here the seem- must reveal the god himself. The spiritual transformation to complete it.”2 This is his ing opposites of matter and Self, finite and transformation turns the mental man famous triple transformation about which infinite, the One and the Many appear as wholly to the consciousness of a spiritual he has also written in Savitri, different aspects of the same reality. The being but even this is the middle step. The truth of the Divine is no more hidden in consciousness is joyously freed, uplifted But first the spirit’s ascent we must manifestation but realized as an expres- and illumined through the spiritual trans- achieve sion of the One and the Infinite in his formation of the being. After this trans- Out of the chasm from which our many forms. The Supermind has a com- formation one is united with the Cosmic nature rose. plete and indivisible knowledge which is Divine; and enjoys a universal Peace, The soul must soar sovereign above not affected by the principle of division of Light, Power, and Bliss but even all these the form the lower mental planes. cannot entirely transform and conquer And climb to summits beyond mind’s Sri Aurobindo through his yogic re- the ignorant nature. The Spirit is free but half-sleep; alizations found that the mind cannot the nature remains in bondage and is full Our hearts we must inform with ascend directly to the Supramental con- of imperfections. The cosmic conscious- heavenly strength, sciousness. This change would be too vast ness is able to liberate but does not have Surprise the animal with the occult for man to bear, and he “cannot by his own the dynamic power which will bring down god. effort make himself more than man; the the highest knowledge to change the outer Then kindling the gold tongue of mental being cannot by his own unaided actions of life. The inner being is full of sacrifice, force change himself into a supramental higher Knowledge and Power and Bliss Calling the powers of a bright hemi- spirit. A descent of the Divine Nature can after this change, but the outer being is not sphere, alone divinize the human receptacle.”4

50 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Overmind is an intermediary level of con- its divine power and the body possess its the consciousness should shift its position sciousness for the spiritual seeker when divine essence and liberty. All the parts of from the outer to the inner self and all the one moves from mind to Supermind. The the being undergo a change which is pow- actions should be guided from the inner spiritual transformation achieves the uni- erfully expressed. The psychic expresses its self and its will and action. The psychic versalization of human consciousness and originality of true and pure love. The mind should take over the mental being and widens and illumines the human nature. no more dwells in ignorance but becomes exercise its full control over the nature. However, the union and communion with luminous with the Supreme Light. The life This control of the psychic over the in- the Cosmic Divine at the level of Over- also attains a larger significance and be- ner and outer being should increase with mind consciousness cannot transform the comes vast, calm, intense, powerful and a conscious participation in the action whole human nature into the superna- sheds its old narrow self of petty impulse of the Universal Nature. “The individual ture. The human mind may consider the and desire. The body no longer adheres to purusha would become the master of his achievement of the spiritual transforma- its animality and tamasic nature and be- executive energy and at the same time a tion to be exceptionally high and rare, but comes a conscious and a willing servant of conscious partner, agent, instrument of it is inadequate to the fulfillment of the the Spirit. When one ascends into the Su- the Cosmic Spirit in the working of the ideal that Sri Aurobindo has placed before permind one is raised in consciousness of universal Energy.”7 us. He says, “A Divine life in a divine body the divine gnosis and the descent of Light Sri Aurobindo says that one cannot is the formula of the ideal that we envis- and Truth brings about a divine integra- overleap any of the intermediary stages a g e .” 5 tion and perfection of the dynamic nature. to reach the supramental. All the planes Sri Aurobindo discovered that there The power of the Supermind is described of consciousness have to be attained. The is an omniscient power which he calls the in Savitri thus, Overmind descent is indispensable for Supermind and which bringing about the he wanted to bring In order to approach, realize and attain the supra- supramental change. down onto earth as it Nevertheless, Sri Au- alone could bring a mental, man must first consent to be spiritualized. robindo was aware of decisive change in the He must have a true attitude, a psychic realization, the difficulty to bridge evolution of the earth the gap between earth consciousness. He says, open only to the Divine... and heaven,

I am seeking to bring some principle How shall earth-nature and man’s of inner Truth, Light, Harmony, Peace An Immeasurable cast into many nature rise into the earth-consciousness; I see it forms, To the celestial levels, yet earth abide? above and know what it is—I feel it A miracle of the multitudinous One, Heaven and earth towards each other ever gleaming down on my conscious- There is a consciousness mind cannot gaze ness from above and I am seeking to touch, Across a gulf that few can cross, none make it possible for it to take up the Its speech cannot utter nor its thought touch, (p. 689) whole being into its own native power, reveal. instead of the nature of man continu- It has no home on earth, no centre in In order to approach, realize and attain ing to remain in half-light, half-dark- man, the supramental, man must first consent ness. I believe the descent of this Truth Yet is the source of all things thought to be spiritualized. He must have a true at- opening the way to a development of and done, titude, a psychic realization, open only to divine consciousness here to be the The fount of the creation and its the Divine and his whole being should live final sense of the earth evolution.6 works, (p. 705) only in the Divine. He should be open to the Intuition and the Overmind so that his The Supermind while transforming The one essential condition of the as- whole nature is ready for the supramental and divinizing the lower principles of cent to the Supermind is the emergence change. But how many are ready to give up mind, life and body effectuate their perfect of the psychic or the inner being. There the human nature that is grounded in the integration with one another. The differ- should be the psychic development and Inconscient base? Sri Aurobindo explains ent parts of our being which govern the the change of nature first, because then, how man likes to cling to his human type, will and action, knowledge, thinking be- it will be safe for one to receive the de- ing, life attain their perfect harmony in the scent of the higher consciousness and the Human I am, human let me remain gnostic plane. The action of the Supermind spiritual transformation without which Till in the Inconscient I fall dumb and helps the soul to realize the divine bliss, the supramental realization would not be sleep. (p. 520) the mind regain its divine light, the life possible. It is of utmost importance that

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 51 Man does not consent to be changed from the outer to the inner and prepare tions do not seem to originate in the body, as he is contented to live in ignorance al- himself for the higher consciousness. but are felt as the waves from the vast cos- though his inner being strives for the glo- When man proceeds towards a further mic existence. As the ego dissolves, one is ry of the heaven. He is so caught up by the evolution from Nature to Supernature he not limited to the individual person and is activities of the outer mind, life and body will feel the working of the Divine free from separative thoughts and feelings that he does not pay any attention to the more and more in himself. As a result, the that create conflict. A divine harmony and call of his soul and keeps on ignoring it. being would emerge and put on a Divine an infinite oneness pervades in the be- nature; at the same time the higher nature ing. There is a feeling of an overpowering Heaven’s call is rare, rarer the heart would emerge in and descend into the be- peace, silence, joy and bliss that is beyond that heeds; ing. The psychic would then be conscious expression, as well as a sense of immortal- The doors of light are sealed to com- of its work and become an instrument ity and eternity. mon mind participating in the transformation of the The knowledge of the Overmind is an And earth’s needs nail to earth the nature, while as a person he would be one inner experience that can bring liberation human mass, with his universal and supreme Self. This but cannot achieve the transformation of Only in an uplifting hour of stress opening of the psychic being and its par- nature. As one ascends the higher planes Men answer to the touch of greater ticipation in the higher transformation is one finally discovers the vastness of the things: (p. 689) indispensable for the transition from Na- truth in the realm of the Supermind. ture to Supernature. When there is a call from the higher One should not rest content with the Ascending out of the limiting regions the human nature acts as a resist- spiritual realization but aspire to ascend breadths of mind, ance that impedes the action of transfor- further towards the higher levels of con- They shall discover the worlds huge mation. The human nature refuses to offer sciousness because, design itself for the change. “Unhappy is the man And step into the Truth, the Right, or the nation which, when the divine mo- There is a fire on the apex of the the Vast. (p. 704) ment arrives, is found sleeping or unpre- worlds, pared to use it, because the lamp has not There is a house of the Eternal’s light, Sri Aurobindo promises that the level been kept trimmed for the welcome and There is an infinite truth, an absolute of the Overmind also will be transcended; the ears are sealed to the call.”8 Neverthe- power. this is his affirmation for the future. In -or less, man has to resolve this difficulty of his The Spirit’s mightiness shall cast off der to enter the realm of the Supermind, and give his consent to rise to the higher its mask; the inner knowledge is not sufficient -be levels of consciousness for his betterment. Its greatness shall be felt shaping the cause the Supermind works on the prin- The mind of man works as an instrument world’s course: (p. 704) ciples of both Knowledge and Will for of the soul to drive it out of ignorance. In dynamic change and perfection. In the Savitri Sri Aurobindo says, Mind is not the summit of man’s con- long ascent to Supermind, the truths of sciousness. It is not able to grasp the in- the Intuition and the Overmind must be Mind the thought-driven chariot of finite Truth and the absolute Power. And allowed to rule the active life and they the soul hence, he has to ascend from the spiritu- should take hold of our relations with Carrying the luminous wanderer in alized mind to the Supermind by rising the outward world. The external life and the night through a series of ranges or planes of activities must be fully governed by the To vistas of a far uncertain dawn, consciousness. He rises through the four power of the consciousness of these high- To the end of the Spirit’s fathomless main degrees of consciousness, namely er planes. The Overmind change is the desire, the higher mind, illumined mind, Intui- penultimate stage in the dynamic spiritual To its dream of absolute truth and tion and the Overmind, each with its own transformation. It heightens the workings utter bliss. (p. 704) intrinsic light and power. of the previous grades and also adds to The Overmind is the last in the grada- them a wideness of consciousness and The actual role of the mind is to show tion. It is more original and dynamic than force and a greater harmony of knowledge man the road towards divinity. Due to this the lower planes. One opens here to the and a delight of being. However, the Over- influence of the mind there is a hidden cosmic consciousness and becomes aware mind does not have the supreme unity and urge, an aspiration in man which is a sure of the play of the cosmic forces. When the the harmony of knowledge of the Super- sign of conscious evolution and there is a Overmind descends, the ego is abolished mind. It cannot rise altogether beyond the natural inner will for a higher way towards and is replaced by a cosmic perception ignorance which is the result of the sepa- its fulfillment. This is why it is so impor- and a feeling of boundless universal Self. ration of mind, life and matter from the tant that he should shift his consciousness The thoughts, feelings, actions and sensa- Supreme origin. Secondly, the Overmind

52 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 descent cannot wholly transform the mental mind is often involved in the inconscience. The original darkness conflict with the ideal of right or the of the inconscient and the subcon- intellectual knowledge. The mind scient levels would still remain and is aware of what is good and right would invade and even expel the but it is often found to lack power to newly evolved light and truth from its make it effective in active life. There very kingdom. A last transition from may be an incapacity to work out the Overmind to the Supermind is in living form and action the ideal therefore indispensable for an inte- that inspires the mind or the truth gral transformation. that one feels in his consciousness In the lower creation the will of the The sun-orb of mind’s fragmen- individual is not always in harmony tary rays, with the Universal Will. It often de- Infinity’s heaven that spills the viates and asserts itself against the rain of God, Universal Will, but in the supramen- The Immense that calls to man to tal plane the will is in complete har- expand the Spirit, mony with the Universal Will. The wide Aim that justifies his The supramental change is the narrow attempts, ultimate stage in the process of A channel for the little he tastes spiritual transformation. The lower of bliss. (p. 705) planes of consciousness have an in- ferior power and hence are unable to The Supermind is the divine bring about a radical change in the gnosis that is the all-seeing and all- human consciousness. The power powerful wisdom and will of the of these higher planes decrease on Divine. It is the infinite and eternal descending due to the obscurity of Knowledge-Will of the divine Con- the lower nature. The Supermind is sciousness-Force. It is the Power and the omnipotent power of the divine Light of the divine Will and the di- which alone can act with full power vine Consciousness. The Supermind in the obscure physical plane. And is the realm of all knowledge; it has Sri Aurobindo declares in Savitri “Aspiration-Answer.” (Painting by Shiva Vangara) the complete, perfect and infallible that, truth of the Self and the world, about all actions, things and persons. As evident, faultless and absolute. The knowl- The supermind shall claim the Sri Aurobindo says, “Supermind is the edge contains spiritual sight that is able world for Light vast self-extension of the Brahman that to see the invisible truth of all things and And thrill with love of God the enam- contains and develops.”9 Supermind is even the force behind them. The gnosis oured heart the very truth-consciousness which is thus discloses all the truths of the same re- And place Light’s crown on Nature’s absolutely free from the ignorance and ality and also the phenomenon by a direct lifted head it is also the foundation of the present contact and vision. The experience of the And found Light’s reign on her evolutionary existence. Its knowledge is a Supermind is therefore a positive, direct unshaking base. (p. 707) spiritual identity with the truth, with the and a living experience of the Supreme object of knowledge. The object seen here Infinite, the Brahman which is the culmi- It is the supramental power that can is not something outside the Self but is nation of divine knowledge and the source deal effectively with the unyielding sub- contained in its consciousness. of all divine delight and all divine living. conscient parts of the human nature. The Supermind not only has the full And there is no other power which can Knowledge shall bring into the consciousness of the truth but also a will penetrate and transform the inconscience aspirant Thought and a force that can make the conscious- that is the base of our existence. The Su- A high proximity to Truth and God. ness effective. The supramental will is ‘a permind alone can dispel the ingrained (p. 707) conscious force of the eternal knowledge’ ignorance and bring the higher light down that acts and creates as well as knows. It in these nether regions. The Supermind The integral Truth is seen in the Self has the power and vision to create and ex- on descending into the adhar would take and by the Self and therefore it is self- ecute all things faultlessly. The will of the direct control of the evolving nature. On

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 53 account of the descent of the Supermind Only those who have prepared them- that is ready for the new transformation. the process of transformation of the hu- selves for the descent shall be able to re- man nature would be accelerated. This ceive it and they will be the forerunners When superman is born as Nature’s would result in a transition from the nature who will take upon themselves the re- king of ignorance to the luminous Supernature sponsibility to deliver the ignorant human His presence shall transfigure Matter’s of the Divine. As a result of the gnostic race and lead it towards the new light. world: change, there will be a complete reversal The mind dwells in ignorance and He shall light up Truth’s fire in Na- of the human consciousness. A new being works on the principle of division and ture’s night, will arrive as a result of this change. does not have the true sense of unity. But He shall lay upon the earth Truth’s the Supermind is a supreme principle that greater law; There is a being beyond the being of unites and harmonizes everything and Man too shall turn towards the Spirit’s mind, (p. 705) sees things in the light of oneness. There- call. (p. 708) fore, the gnostic being that would emerge But Sri Aurobindo clarifies that the su- after the gnostic change would live in an The emergence of the gnostic individ- pramental descent will not be experienced intimate sense of unity in his inner and ual would be the fulfillment of the spiritu- by all but will only be received by those outer life or the life of the community. The al man. Not only in his inner life he would who are ready for it. He says, ideas, feelings and sense of the gnostic be- realize the Individual, Universal and the ing will be based on oneness and his ac- Transcendent which are the three aspects It is not . . . that all humanity would tion will proceed from that basis, of the Spirit, but the whole being will be rise in a block into the supermind; intimately one with this integral reality. at first those only might attain to the Then shall the embodied being live He would be a conscious being finding its highest or some intermediate height as one self-expression in Nature. The whole of of the ascent whose inner evolution Who is a thought, a will of the Divine, his life, with its thoughts, feelings, actions has fitted them for so great a change A mask or robe of his divinity, would be based upon that consciousness or who are raised by the direct touch An instrument and partner of his which constitutes the truth of the being. of the Divine into its perfect light and Force, Sri Aurobindo mentions that, “The gnos- power and bliss.10 A point or line drawn in the infinite, tic individual would be in the world and of A manifest of the Imperishable. (p. the world, but would also exceed it in his It is vain to think that even while cling- 706) consciousness and live in his Self of tran- ing to ignorance the common man with scendence above it; he would be universal his ordinary consciousness will also expe- The gnostic being would possess the but free in the universe, individual but not rience the supramental descent. In order cosmic consciousness and be united with limited by a separative individuality.”11 to receive this descent it is indispensable all things and beings in the world. He will The gnostic being would not be allured by to rise to the highest summits of one’s see and feel all as himself and constantly personal joys, griefs and desires but would consciousness and reject the demands live and act in that sense. His individual be above them and yet share the joys and and desires of the lower nature. The one will would be in perfect harmony with the sorrows of others. Nothing would be able who has undergone this evolution of con- universal will and his individual action to disturb or hinder his intimate com- sciousness will only be able to bring about with the universal action. The feeling of munion and supreme identity with the the supramental descent. The seer-poet oneness would be such that he will feel the “supracosmic reality.” There will be a radi- says in Savitri, whole world in himself and also its forces cal change in his consciousness from that and movements as part of himself. This of ignorance to knowledge which will re- Some shall be made the glory’s will create a better order on earth which sult in a dynamic unity with the Supreme. receptacles will be based on universal love and har- Another result of the gnostic change And vehicles of the Eternal’s lumi- mony as the right law of existence. The es- will be that the ignorant nature will be nous power. tablished mental consciousness and power delivered form the incessant flux of its dif- These are the high forerunners, the shapes the race of mental beings and takes ferent elements. The different elements of heads of Time, up into all the earthly nature that is ready nature bind us down to the inferior nature. The great deliverers of earth-bound for the mental change. With the establish- The separation of the soul from the nature mind, ment of the Truth-Consciousness or the helps in delivering us from the lower na- The high transfigurers of human clay, Supermind on earth, a race of gnostic ture. The soul draws back from the nature The first-born of a new supernal race. spiritual beings will take shape in the form and observes the action of the different (p. 705) of a new race. The new supramental con- modes but does not accept or interfere sciousness will take over the earth nature with their course, and thereby remains

54 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 untouched by the actions of the nature. The Immanent shall be the witness God of the unlimited force of the Supreme. The In this way, the soul regains its natural Watching on his many-petalled lotus- will of the individual would be united with spiritual freedom, but the nature remains throne the Divine Will and act for the manifesta- in bondage due to the workings of the dif- His actionless being and his silent tion of his glories on earth. Then even the ferent modes of the lower nature. In order might most insignificant actions would become to liberate the nature, the inferior unequal Ruling earth-nature by eternity’s law, a movement of truth and become part of lower modes must pass into the greater A thinker waking the Inconscient’s the integral perfection. The result of the modes of the divine nature. The lower na- world, advent of the Supermind and its impact on ture has to transcend and uplift itself in or- An immobile centre of many infini- nature is described in Savitri thus, der to be transformed into a higher divine tudes supernature. This can only be achieved by In his thousand-pillared temple by The supermind shall be his nature’s the descent of the Supermind which alone Time’s sea. (p. 706) fount, can deliver the nature by uplifting and re- The Eternal’s truth shall mould his moulding it into a higher spiritual status. With the advent of the Supermind, the thoughts and acts, The descent of the Supermind will raise being will not only be transformed into The Eternal’s truth shall be his light the lower nature from its dense obscurity a higher Divine consciousness but into a and guide. towards eternal calm, light, force and bliss larger divine existence. The elements of All then shall change, a magic order of the divine nature. the lower nature will undergo a complete come Here the soul is free and a dynamic transformation and also attain to their ut- Overtopping this mechanical uni- transformation of the nature takes place. most perfection. The mind will become a verse. (p. 706) The body receives directly the spirit’s force luminous channel for the Divine Knowl- and responds to its The descent demands. The vital of the Supermind power consents to The being would be filled with the divine Ananda would release the tireless action, and and rapture even in the very cells of the body. body from its ob- the mind opens to scurity and inertia. the new light and The movements consciousness and of the body would the self-existent bliss. There is a free play edge and will know the inner as well as not be directed by the ignorant nature but of action and knowledge as the inertia the outer phenomenon through intuitive would be governed by the spirit. The body is replaced by peace and tranquility. The vision and identity. will become supple due to higher spir- desire for possession will not exist and itual power and also experience a fuller there will be no impulsive drive for ac- For knowledge shall pour down in life-force and a diviner strength and ease. tion. One can experience a limitless power radiant streams There would be a greater control of the of action based on unshakable calm, peace And even darkened mind quiver with higher consciousness and also a greater and bliss. The mind will no more dwell in new life equality of the spirit. The being would be the inferior light and will not seize and And kindle and burn with the Ideal’s filled with the divine Ananda and rapture imprison the truth by its limited knowl- fire even in the very cells of the body. edge. It will experience a direct knowledge And turn to escape from mortal The greatest achievement of the de- that comes straight from its source. There ignorance. (p. 710) scent of the Supermind will be the trans- will always be the living presence of the formation of the gross matter which is Supreme Divine Shakti and one shall be- The sense mind will directly perceive the most undivine. The supramental come a part of her eternal light, force and and receive the thoughts and sensations change of this gross physical is the most bliss as a result of the new creation. The and the physical and subtle senses would difficult and it is the ultimate stage in the descent of the Supermind will result in the be illumined so as to perceive the true supramental transformation. The physical illumination of the mind, the heart and sense of things. The Supermind delivers is a storehouse of obscure forces which life and these will become an expression the feelings and emotions from their errors act as a bar for the inner progress. This of the Divine. The rule of the inconscience and perversions. They would be turned obstruction towards the true movement will disappear as the inconscience will be into the forms of love and delight and feel- will disappear as the light and power of changed by the Supermind into “a sea of ings of devotion. As a result of the integral the Supermind will grow in one’s being. the superconscience.” Sri Aurobindo says transformation the vital being would be When the power of the Supermind pen- in Savitri that due to the descent of the delivered from its desires and lower ele- etrates into the physical it will integrate Supermind, ments and would become an instrument the experiences and the developments of

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 55 the mind and vital. With the descent of ized. Consequently, the cells would obey On Nature’s luminous tops, on the the Supermind the gross physical would the higher conscious spiritual will. When Spirit’s ground, be divinized and would become aware of the very cells of the body are transformed, The superman shall reign as king of the divine and also feel its concrete pres- they will be fully conscious of the Presence life, ence. The body consciousness will be filled and in obeisance to the divine Will and Make earth almost the mate and peer with the Divine consciousness and there will live in the divine Bliss. of heaven, will be the feeling of the concrete presence The supramental transformation And lead towards God and truth of the divine in the body consciousness. which results in the transformation of the man’s ignorant heart The higher Peace, Light and Ananda will body will be the final stage in the spiritual And lift towards godhead his mortal- pour through the whole being and take evolution. It implies a complete change of ity. (p. 706) possession of the whole nature: “... we the ordinary human consciousness into shall feel the light, power or Ananda flow- the divine and supramental. “The mental Sri Aurobindo described this supra- ing through the body, the limbs, nerves, man that we are is changed into the gnos- mental race in The Life Divine as follows. blood, breath and, through the subtle tic soul, the truth-conscious godhead.”13 body, affecting the most material cells and The human being would be transformed A supramental or gnostic race of be- making them conscious and blissful and into a superman, a divine man. With a di- ings would not be a race made ac- we shall sense directly the Divine Power vine life in a divine body man would attain cording to a single type, moulded in a and Presence.”12 The supramental trans- perfection with a transformed mind, life single fixed pattern; for the law of the formation which will not only affect the and body free of the obscurity, falsehood, Supermind is unity fulfilled in diver- mind but also the gross body has been death and suffering of the present worldly sity, and therefore there would be an explicitly described in Savitri thus, existence. As Sri Aurobindo says, infinite diversity in the manifestation of the gnostic consciousness although A divine force shall flow through Then shall the earth be touched by the that consciousness would still be one tissue and cell Supreme, in its basis, in its constitution, in its And take the charge of breath and His bright unveiled Transcendence all-revealing and all-uniting order.14 speech and act shall illumine And all the thoughts shall be a glow The mind and heart and force the life He says that there will be variation in the of suns and act new race and individuals would not be of a And every feeling a celestial thrill. To interpret his inexpressible mystery single type. They would be different from (p. 710) In a heavenly alphabet of Divinity’s each other and unique in their own way. signs. (p. 705) As a result of the manifestation of the The action of the Supermind will deal Supermind, there will be an emergence of radically with the physical nature. The The light and power of the Supermind immortality. Death would become alien physical being in man today labours un- will affect not only the life of the individ- for the Superman who has risen to the der the inconscience and the ignorance ual but also the collective life on earth. A supramental consciousness, but would re- but with the coming of the Supermind the gnostic evolution will result in a new kind main for the man who lives in ignorance. body will cease to be gross and inert. The of being that is the gnostic being and a The coming of the new race or the Super- very cells of the body which are the most new collective life with a new conscious- man will influence the man living in igno- inconscient part of the system would be ness, There will be a new race of supra- rance and lead him towards God because illumined. Before Sri Aurobindo came on mental beings which will inhabit the earth he would then be a channel of the divine the scene, the established idea was that the with a fuller Light, Love and Power. These Force. The power and light of the Super- body could never be organized or divin- beings of the new race will lead a life that mind will thereby invade the subconscient ised by the action of a higher Conscious- is guided by an inner spiritual force of love and the inconscient on earth. In the due ness and Will from above as the cells are and sympathy for others. The supramental course of time, one would witness miracu- in a state of constant flux and movement. consciousness will be the governing prin- lous changes on earth. Disharmony will But Sri Aurobindo asserts that this can be ciple of the inner and the outer individual no more be earth’s governing law, but will achieved with the supramental transfor- and collective life. Their action will be an be replaced by a greater law of harmony, mation. Even the very cells, having come expression of the Divine and the victory of from the Divine, are essentially conscious the divine Will upon the earth. The advent All shall be drawn into a single plan, of the divine Presence and eagerly as- of the new race is described in Savitri thus, A divine harmony shall be earth’s law, pire for it. The cells allow the force to act Beauty and joy remould her way to live: without intervening and also yield to the A mightier race shall inhabit the Even the body shall remember God, persistent pressure, in order to be divin- mortal’s world. (p. 707)

56 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 There will be a greater and edge might enter into the forc- profounder truth that will es of the material universe... reign supreme on earth which evolution would itself evolve, will lead the thought and gov- but it would not be perturbed ern the life and act. An immor- or founder.”15 Sri Aurobindo tal fire will be experienced by does not rule out the possibil- the aspiring soul. ity of a resistance caused by the anti-divine forces, but af- A soul shall wake in the firms that the secret truth shall Inconscient’s house; manifest itself in its fullness. The mind shall be God- The anti-divine forces have to vision’s tabernacle, give way to the full manifes- The body intuition’s instru- tation of the greater truth. Sri ment, Aurobindo emphatically says And life a channel for that the advent of the Super- God’s visible power. mind cannot be stopped by (p. 707) anything whatsoever because “the supramental change is a The mind in the future will thing decreed and inevitable become the temple of God and in the evolution of the earth the body will have its own intu- consciousness; for its upward itive strength. The life itself will ascent is not ended and mind have a new meaning. With his is not its last summit.”16 How- enigmatic sense of the future, ever, he states that the greater Sri Aurobindo conveys that, truth must first establish itself the god shall himself reside on on earth and there should be this earth and as a result of that a strong aspiration in man for man shall not consent to mor- the change. He should strive tality. The occult world would for the higher power and also manifest itself on earth. Even find his inner being. Even the process of evolution would though he gives this as a pre- then change. Presently in the condition, yet he promises process of evolution the incon- with full certainty that this too science is in front, but in the shall take place and a new life future there will be the release shall be there on earth. Not of the wisdom that is hidden only is the supramental advent below. The Superconscient and decreed, but even the end of not the Inconscient will rule death and ignorance is sure to the world. The nature hides the follow, Spirit behind the mind, life and body but in the future nature The hour must come of the itself will reveal the hidden Transcendent’s will: “Conquest of inertia.” (Painting by Shiva Vangara) godhead. Sri Aurobindo says All turns and winds towards in Savitri, his predestined ends In Nature’s fixed inevitable The outward world disclose the Truth The advent of the Supermind will bring course it veils; unimaginable change on earth. “One result Decreed since the beginning of the All things shall manifest the covert of the intervention of Supermind in the worlds God, earth’s nature, the descent of the supreme In the deep essence of created things: All shall reveal the Spirit’s light and creative Truth-Power, might well be a Even there shall come as a high crown might change in the law of evolution, its method of all And move to its destiny of felicity. and its arrangement—a larger element of The end of Death, the death of Igno- (p. 708) the principle of evolution through knowl- rance. (p. 708)

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 57 The ignorance and falsehood is pres- The Spirit shall look out through References ently the high crown of nature but the fu- Matter’s gaze ture will belong to the Truth. It will be an And Matter shall reveal the Spirit’s face. 1. Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God, ocean of Light, Ananda and Bliss in which Then man and superman shall be at one SABCL 17. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo the forms and beings would be suffused And all the earth become a single life. Ashram, 1972) p. 8. with the greater Light and Truth. Sri Au- (p. 709) 2. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, robindo is certain that the Superconscient SABCL 19. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo truth will establish itself on earth and The ordinary human being shall grow Ashram, 1972) p. 917. into the spiritual being because of the su- 3. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, It shall make earth’s nescient ground pramental consciousness pervading the SABCL 22. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Truth’s colony, earth. The great knowledge of the Super- Ashram, 1972) p. 95. Make even the Ignorance a transpar- conscient will be known to them and the 4. Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God, ent robe collectivity will bear the splendour of the SABCL 17. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Through which shall shine the bril- divine’s rush. All shall feel as if lifted up Ashram, 1972) p. 71. liant limbs of Truth in consciousness. At the same time, Sri 5. Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental And Truth shall be a sun on Nature’s Aurobindo clarifies that, Manifestation, SABCL 16. (Pondicherry: head Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972) p. 20. And Truth shall be the guide of All touched by it might not be able 6. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, SABCL Nature’s steps to embody it fully, but each would 26. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, And Truth shall gaze out of her give some form to it according to his 1972) p. 143. nether deeps. (p. 708) spiritual temperament, inner capacity, 7. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, the line of his evolution in Nature: he SABCL 19. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo When the Superman arrives on earth would reach securely the perfection Ashram, 1972) p. 924. his presence will have its influence on mat- of which he was immediately capable 8. Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and ter itself. He will guide humanity and help and he would be on the road to the full Human, CWSA 12. (Pondicherry: Sri Au- man progress towards Light. The higher possession of the truth, of the Spirit robindo Ashram, 1997) p. 146. truth from above will wake up the truth and of the truth of the Nature.17 9. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, embedded below. The Superman shall be SABCL 18. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo a channel to connect the Inconscient and Sri Aurobindo affirms and declares Ashram, 1972) p. 128. the Superconscient so that that the life of man has to become a mani- 10. Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental festation of the Spirit. The secret intention Manifestation, SABCL 16. (Pondicherry: Even the dumb earth become a of the evolutionary nature is to manifest Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972) p. 22. sentient force. the Spirit involved in it. The coming of the 11. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Spirit’s tops and Nature’s base new race is the harbinger of the divine life SABCL 19. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo shall draw in a perfected consciousness in the form of Ashram, 1972) p. 972. Near to the secret of their separate first the gnostic being and then the higher 12. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, truth supramental being. Sri Aurobindo’s vision SABCL 22. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo And know each other as one deity. of the future culminates in Savitri in the Ashram, 1972) p. 351. (p. 709) following lines, 13. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL 20. (Pondicherry: Sri Au- The Spirit is luminous and its lumi- Thus shall the earth open to divinity robindo Ashram, 1972) p. 456. nosity would be there but matter also will And common natures feel the wide 14. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, become luminous, transparent and full of uplift, SABCL 19. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo consciousness. There would be no antago- Illumine common acts with the Ashram, 1972) p. 971. nism between Matter and Spirit. The form Spirit’s ray 15. Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental would change according to the character And meet the deity in common things. Manifestation, SABCL 16. (Pondicherry: of the consciousness it embodied. It is Nature shall live to manifest secret Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972) p. 52. noteworthy that this change would not be God, 16. Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, SAB- limited to one individual, but would affect The Spirit shall take up the human CL, 25, (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ash- the collectivity in general. This is the ma- play, ram, 1972) p. 40. jor difference between the man of the past This earthly life become the life 17. Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental and the man of the future. In the future, as divine. (p. 710) Manifestation, SABCL 16. (Pondicherry: prophesizd by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972) p. 52.

58 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 human soul, like Satyavan, even though Some key symbols inwardly free, is subject in its expression in Savitri in the outer life to ignorance and death. The forces of ignorance and the inconsci- ent basis of the material body resist, deny by Larry Seidlitz and oppose the growth of consciousness. But the tie of love between the Divine n this essay I consider some of the cen- Consciousness and the human soul draws tral symbols in Savitri. Let me begin the divine Light and Power down into the by quoting Sri Aurobindo’s Author’s depths of the Inconscient, eventually en- INote, printed at the beginning of most lightening it and vanquishing death. editions of the poem: The many symbols in Savitri do not re- fer simply to intellectual abstractions. Sri The tale of Satyavan and Savitri is re- Photo courtesy Larry Seidlitz Aurobindo said, “To the mystic there is no cited in the Mahabharata as a story trated on deciphering the main symbols such thing as an abstraction. Everything of conjugal love conquering death. of the Vedas, and the second work was which to the intellectual mind is abstract But this legend is, as shown by many an English translation of much of the Rig has a concreteness, substantiality which features of the human tale, one of the Veda in a form that reveals its spiritual is more real than the sensible form of an many symbolic myths of the Vedic cy- and psychological significance. There are object or of a physical event.” (“Letters on cle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the many similarities between the Vedas and Savitri,” in Savitri, 1973 edition, p. 736). divine truth of being within itself but Savitri, especially their common central He said that “Savitri is the record of a see- descended into the grip of death and theme of the battle between the forces of ing, of an experience which is not of the ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, Light and Darkness. In addition to the common kind and is often very far from daughter of the Sun, goddess of the symbolism associated with the main char- what the general human mind sees and supreme Truth who comes down and acters, there are other symbols in Savitri experiences.” (p. 794) He added, “I have is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of that allude back to the Vedas that I will not anywhere in Savitri written anything the Horse, her human father, is the touch on in this essay. for the sake of mere picturesquesness or Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated en- But first I would like to emphasize the merely to produce a rhetorical effect; what ergy of spiritual endeavour that helps last point of this passage. Sri Aurobindo I am trying to do everywhere in the poem us to rise from the mortal to the im- says that this is not a mere allegory, these is to express exactly something seen, mortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of characters are not simply personified quali- something felt or experienced; if for in- the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, ties, but emanations or incarnations of liv- stance, I indulge in the wealth-burdened is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, ing and conscious Forces with whom we line or passage, it is not merely for the losing its celestial kingdom of vision, can enter into concrete touch; they even pleasure of the indulgence, but because and through that loss its kingdom of take human bodies in order to help hu- there is that burden, or at least what I con- glory. Still this is not a mere allegory, mankind rise to a divine consciousness and ceive to be that, in the vision or the experi- the characters are not personified immortal life. This suggests something of ence.” (p. 794) qualities, but incarnations or emana- the real power behind this epic. The char- tions of living and conscious Forces acters can inspire us not only through the The Dawn with whom we can enter into concrete depiction of their magnificent courage and touch and they take human bodies in heroism in the story; but by putting us into The epic begins, interestingly enough, order to help man and show him the contact with divine Beings and Powers that with a canto named “The symbol Dawn.” way from his mortal state to a divine can help us in our spiritual endeavor. Dawn here seems to signify the dawn of a consciousness and immortal life. Although not a mere allegory, the psy- new, momentous day in the life of Savitri, chological and spiritual significances Sri and the dawn of creation, the first awaken- Sri Aurobindo refers to the tale as Aurobindo attaches to these characters ing of the universe out of inconscience: belonging to one of the symbolic myths points to a level of meaning in the overall of the Vedic cycle. Sri Aurobindo spent a story that should not be overlooked. The A wandering hand of pale enchanted considerable time delving into the ancient tapasya or spiritual endeavor of the soul, light Vedas and deciphering its symbolism. Re- represented by Aswapati, and its complete That glowed along a fading moment’s sults of this work were published in two surrender to the Divine, calls down the brink, books, The Secret of the Veda, and Hymns grace of the Divine Consciousness into the Fixed with gold panel and opalescent to the Mystic Fire. The first work concen- darkness of the outer consciousness. The hinge

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 59 A gate of dreams ajar on mystery’s last resort the supramental Truth.” (p. 957) in our present era, as the incarnation of the verge. In the Secret of the Veda, he writes, “Dawn Divine Mother bringing the supramental One lucent corner windowing hidden comes as a bringer of the Truth, is herself Light and Force to earth. It is also interest- things the outshining of the Truth. She is the di- ing from a psychological perspective to Forced the world’s blind immensity vine Dawn and the physical dawning is note the distinction in the Vedas between to sight. only her shadow and symbol in the mate- Aditi, the undivided Infinite conscious- The darkness failed and slipped like a rial universe.” (p. 125). ness, and Diti, the divided consciousness, falling cloak What we can take from this is that the who is the mother of Vritra—an enemy of From the reclining body of a god. dawn in this first canto of Savitri is not the gods and of man in his progress. The Then through the pallid rift that only the start of a new day or even the start spiritual Light is a power of the undivided seemed at first of the creation, it is the breaking out of Divine Consciousness. Hardly enough for a trickle from the the Divine Light of Truth in the world of In the Veda there are connections of suns, darkness and ignorance. It concerns not Usha, the Dawn, with various psychologi- Outpoured the revelation and the only a dawn of the past, but the outpour- cal and spiritual qualities. There is a close flame. ing of divine Light into the world today. It connection between the Dawn and the The brief perpetual sign recurred concerns not only the coming of Savitri, Truth. For example, in Sri Aurobindo’s above. an incarnation of the Divine Mother in translations in Secret of the Veda, Usha is A glamour from unreached tran- remote Indian history, but the incarnation described as “following effectively the path scendences of the Divine in our own time. Sri Auro- of the Truth,” (p. 131) and “She moves ac- Iridescent with the glory of the Unseen, bindo and the Mother have emphasized cording to the path of the Truth and, as A message from the unknown im- that their avataric mission was to bring one that knows...” (p. 132) She is also as- mortal Light down the supramental consciousness sociated with the Vast. For example, one Ablaze upon creation’s quivering edge, upon earth. As in the story, so in the pre- Vedic verse reads, “Dawn true in her being Dawn built her aura of magnificent sent, it is an incarnation of the Divine that with the gods who are true, vast with the hues comes to manifest and bring the divine Gods who are vast.” (p. 133) Dawn is also And buried its seed of grandeur in the Light here and to conquer ignorance and associated with an “awakening to vision, hours. death and found a divine life on earth. perception, right movement.” (p. 128). For An instant’s visitor the godhead shone The dawn also carries a personal sig- example, one verse reads, “the goddess ... On life’s thin border awhile the Vision nificance, the revelation of divine Light in fronts and looks upon all the worlds, the stood the individual consciousness that occurs eye of vision shines with an utter wideness; And bent over earth’s pondering through yoga. At present, for most of us, awakening all life for movement she dis- forehead curve. our consciousness is only half-lit. There covers speech for all that thinks.” (p. 134) Interpreting a recondite beauty and remain dark shadows, aspects of our na- Further, in another verse, she represents bliss ture still obscure, areas not yet open to the the perception of Immortality, and in oth- In colour’s hieroglyphs of mystic Truth that follow their own unconscious ers, of Truth and Bliss. She is constantly sense, routines. We should read Savitri with an put in conflict with the Night, a symbol It wrote the lines of a significant myth eye toward experiencing the dawning of in the Veda for the obscure consciousness Telling of a greatness of spiritual the divine Light within our own life and full of ignorance, stumblings of will and dawns, consciousness. action, and consequently of evil, sin, and A brilliant code penned with the sky To more deeply understand this psy- suffering. For example, there is the line for page. (pp. 3-4) chological significance of the symbol “Dawn comes divine repelling by the Light dawn, of this inner opening to the spiritu- all darknesses and evils.” (pp. 134-135) “Dawn” is also an important symbol al Light, it may be useful to turn to Sri Au- She is also the bringer of spiritual wealth in the Vedas, and it is in this context that robindo’s Secret of the Veda. In the Veda, and happiness. Interpreting several verses we can bring out some of its associations. Usha is the goddess of the dawn. Sri Au- of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo writes, “The Of course, dawn is the rising of the sun, robindo says that Usha is a form or power Dawn is the inner dawn which brings to and in the Vedas, according to Sri Auro- of the Supreme Light, of the supreme Con- man all the varied fullnesses of his widest bindo, the sun was a symbol of the Divine sciousness, of Aditi, the Divine Mother. being, force, consciousness, joy; it is radi- Truth. In a section on symbols in his Let- This connection helps us tie together the ant with its illuminations, it is accompa- ters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo writes, “The symbols of this first canto—specifically, the nied by all possible powers and energies, sun is the symbol of the concentrated light symbol of the dawn and the descent of the it gives man the full force of vitality so that of Truth,” and in another letter he says, Divine Mother at the beginning of crea- he can enjoy the infinite delight of that “The Sun is the Truth from above, in the tion, later as an incarnation in Savitri, and vaster existence.” (p. 136)

60 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 The connection between the character and Darkness in the very first lines of the Hartz suggests an interesting theory Savitri and the spiritual Light is inherent poem. that ties together several of the character- in the name itself. Sri Aurobindo translat- istics surrounding these symbols of the ed the word Savitri in his mantra It was the hour before the Gods Night. An important piece of the theory as the Light of the Supreme. The mantra as awake. is the close connection of the terms Night a whole is translated as: “Let us meditate Across the path of the divine Event and Death in the poem. In several places, on the most auspicious form of Savitri, on The huge foreboding mind of Night, the terms coincide in a single line suggest- the Light of the Supreme, which shall il- alone ing their close identity. For example: lumine us with the Truth.” Traditionally, In her unlit temple of eternity, the masculine form of the word is used Lay stretched immobile upon Silence’ The voice of Night that knew and in the mantra to refer to the Sun-god. marge. Death that thought” (p. 586) The feminine form, Savitri, used for the Almost one felt, opaque, impenetrable, One whom her soul had faced as character in the Mahabharata legend and In the sombre symbol of her eyeless Death and Night. (p. 678) Sri Aurobindo’s epic, refers to his female muse descendent. The abysm of the unbodied Infinite; Hartz suggests that “mind of Night” In the first canto of the poem, the con- A fathomless zero occupied the in the opening passage refers to Death. nection between the dawn and the charac- world. (p. 1) He further notes that Death is repeatedly ter Savitri is made through a rather abrupt referred to in the poem as a god, with such juxtaposition. After describing the dawn, On a cosmic level, this primordial phrases as “a dreadful god,” “a universal and then the absorption of the Light by Night represents a kind of reverse sym- god,” “the dire god,” or simply “the god.” the Inconscient turning it into the “light bol of the Infinite. Sri Aurobindo calls Death even claims to be God himself in of common day,” and “man lifting up it an “unbodied Infinite,” “a fathomless the line, “In me all take refuge, for I, Death, the burden of his fate,” comes the abrupt zero.” In a line that follows it is referred am God.” (p. 635) And Savitri grants a cer- transition, “And Savitri too awoke among to as “A mute featureless semblance of tain truth in this claim when she responds, these tribes,” and the description of her the Unknown,” suggesting the notion of that follows. Later, in Canto 2, the connec- an empty, featureless symbol or figure of O Death, thou too art God and yet tion is made more explicit, when Savitri is the Unknown. As the word “Unknown” is not he, described as having: capitalized, it seems to refer to the Infinite But only his own black shadow on his or Absolute. Shortly afterwards, the words path A body like a parable of dawn, Nought and Nothingness are applied to it, As leaving the Night he takes the That seemed a niche for veiled Divinity which are also capitalized. And later, in upward Way Or golden temple door to things the third line on page 2, as this Nothing- And drags with him its clinging beyond. (p. 15) ness is beginning to awake, Sri Aurobindo inconscient Force. (p. 586) calls it by the psychological term, “the In- Another passage in Canto 2, when conscient.” Hartz suggests that Death and Night Savitri is reviewing her past in memory, Richard Hartz, in his long, penetrating represent the duality of Purusha and also makes reference to the Dawn: article titled “the Composition of Savitri,” Prakriti at the level of the Inconscient, an which was published serially in the jour- opposite reflection of the duality Ishwara- As in a many-hued flaming inner nal Mother India (October 1999-Novem- Shakti. Death represents the Purusha dawn, ber 2003), affirms this view of the Night. aspect and Night the Prakriti aspect. He Her life’s broad highways and its He suggests (see the October 2001 issue) notes the association of the Inconscient sweet bypaths, that the inconscience and the Void of with “God’s plunge into the Night.” and a Lay mapped to her sun-clear record- non-being came about as a consequence suggestive line that follows says, “A Being ing view… (p. 9) of what Sri Aurobindo has called in The woke and lived in the meaningless void.” Life Divine “the great denial of Sachchi- (p. 107). Night and Death dananda by Himself.” (p. 211) This sug- But “mind of Night” implies a con- gests that this the Spirit of the Night who sciousness, and Night, we have seen, rep- I now turn to the opposite symbol of denies God and soul is ultimately God resents the Inconscient. To reconcile this Night and Darkness. I have mentioned himself denying His own existence. This apparent contradiction, Hartz suggests that Night in the Veda is a symbol for an connection also helps us to understand that the term “mind of Night” may refer obscure consciousness full of evil, sin, and the paradoxical twist in Book 11 in which to a mental Purusha, a mental being. He suffering. We are introduced to the cen- Death was tranfigured into a beautiful and supports this possibility with a reference tral conflict between these powers of Light luminous god. to Death in the poem as a “cosmic mind”

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 61 with “its immense destroying thought,” to be originated and supported by it: in the Book of the Divine Mother, refer- and the names used by Savitri to refer to the black dragon of the Inconscience ring to the giant powers in league against Death, such as, “Death, who reasonest” sustains with its vast wings and its back the human advance towards Light: and “dark-browed sophist of the universe.” of darkness the whole structure of the Hartz adds that mind is the faculty of di- material universe; its energies unroll On his long way through Time and viding consciousness, and that Death is the flux of things, its obscure intima- Circumstance the “ruling spirit of its oppositions.” tions seems to be the starting-point of The grey-hued riddling nether consciousness itself and the source of shadow-Sphinx, The Dragon and the Sphinx all life-impulse. (pp. 665-666) Her dreadful paws upon the swallow- ing sands, Hartz, in his analysis of Night and Finally, there is one other mention of Awaits him armed with the soul- Death in Savitri, revealed interesting as- the dragon in Savitri that occurs in Book slaying word… (p. 336) pects of two related symbols: the dragon 10, even as the Light penetrates the In- and the sphinx. The following line, Hartz conscient: Hartz interprets this dark sphinx as suggested, may best sum up the epic: “the power of the Inconscient to withhold “Alone her hands can change Time’s drag- A golden fire came in and burned and obscure the knowledge of the truth of on base.” (p. 314) The dragon appears in Night’s heart; our being and all being, thus turning life several other places as well. Her dusky mindlessness began to in this world into an impenetrable enig- dream; ma.” (Mother India, July 2001, pp. 516-17) The Dragon of the dark foundations The inconscient conscious grew, Hartz suggests that the Night’s resist- keeps Night felt and thought. ance to the Light is supported by a will of Unalterable the law of Chance and Assailed in the sovereign emptiness of denial put forth by a fallen spirit or spirits Death. (p. 336) its reign within it. This spirit and will of denial as- The intolerant Darkness paled and sumes great importance in the epic. There There is also this passage from Book I, drew apart are many references to it in the canto, “The Canto 5 regarding Aswapati’s rapid ascent: Till only a few black remnants stained World of Falsehood...” that Ray. Opponent of that glory of escape, But on a failing edge of dumb lost space Opponents of the Highest they have The black Inconscient swung its Still a great dragon body sullenly come dragon tail loomed; Out of their world of soulless thought Lashing a slumbrous Infinite by its Adversary of the slow struggling Dawn and power force Defending its ground of tortured To serve by enmity the cosmic scheme. Into the deep obscurities of form: mystery, Night is their refuge and strategic Death lay beneath him like a gate of It trailed its coils through the dead base. sleep. (p. 79) martyred air Against the sword of Flame, the And curving fled down a grey slope of luminous Eye, Regarding the significance of the drag- time. (p. 601) Bastioned they live in massive forts of on, Hartz noted the following entry in Sri gloom, Aurobindo’s Record of Yoga, a diary of his This last line suggests a retreat of the Calm and secure in sunless privacy: sadhana: “the Dragon of the nether foun- darkness and obstruction of the Inconsci- No wandering ray of Heaven can dations who preserves the old Law intact ent, a shrinking, but still a survival and enter there. till the will of the Supreme is manifested.” perhaps a consolidation of its diminished Armoured, protected by their lethal Another sentence in the same entry re- power for its continued action and fu- masks, fers to the Dragon as “representing the ture battles. Hartz notes that the phrase As in a studio of creative Death resistance of the universal inconscience.” “tortured mystery” suggests not only a The giant sons of Darkness sit and plan (quoted in Mother India, June 2001) Hartz negation of consciousness, but a perver- The drama of the earth, their tragic also noted the following passage from The sion of the intrinsic delight of being. In stage. (pp. 226-227) Life Divine, where Sri Aurobindo writes of this context, he suggests that it may be the the Inconscient as the apparent founda- dark shadow of another dragon described The following passage illustrates the tion of mind, life, and matter: in Savitri, “The white-fire dragon-bird of work of these opposing forces in the world endless bliss.” (p. 684) at large: All these three lower powers of being Another symbol associated with the build upon the Inconscient and seem Inconscient is the Sphinx. It is mentioned Nature they fill with evil’s institutes,

62 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Turn into defeats the victories of Truth, She keeps her will that hopes to and Savitri represents at one level the love Proclaim as falsehoods the eternal divinise clay; between the human soul and the Divine. laws, Failure cannot repress, defeat o’erthrow; I would now like to expand on this sym- And load the dice of doom with Time cannot weary her nor the Void bolic aspect of the love between Savitri wizard lies; subdue, and Satyavan. Some of these points were The world’s shrines they have occu- The ages have not made her passion brought out by Themi, a poet and long- pied, usurped its thrones. (p. 226) less; time resident of the Sri Aurobindo Ash- No victory she admits of Death or ram in Pondicherry, in an article on the More personal, closer to our individu- Fate. internet called “Some rambling thoughts al and human experience, is the following on Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri.” (http://www. passage from the same canto. It is refer- Another important facet of the symbol auromusic.org/online%20books/articles/ ring to a dark spirit rising from the Void of Night is suffering. This is also brought savitri/OnSavitriByThemi.html) retarding the human advance: out in the first canto of the poem. At the heart of the symbolism is this notion that the Satyavan’s and Savitri’s Arresting the passion of the climbing All came back to her: Earth and Love love represents the love between the hu- soul, and Doom, man soul and the Divine. But now I would She forced on life a slow and faltering The ancient disputants, encircled her like to emphasize the word “human,” and pace; Like giant figures wrestling in the stretch its significance even further to in- Her hand’s deflecting and retarding night: clude the earth and matter. Consider, for weight The godheads from the dim Inconsci- example, this passage from the canto, “The Is laid on the mystic evolution’s curve: ent born Destined Meeting Place,” where Savitri The tortuous line of her deceiving Awoke to struggle and pang divine, first meets Satyavan: mind And in the shadow of her flaming The Gods see not and man is impotent; heart, There expectation beat wide sudden Oppressing the God-spark within the At the sombre centre of the dire wings soul debate, As if a soul had looked out from She forces back to the beast the human A guardian of the unconsoled abyss earth’s face… (p. 389) fall. (pp. 223-224) Inheriting the long agony of the globe, A stone-still figure of high and god- And consider how Satyavan first ap- Fate, sorrow and suffering like Pain pears to her, embedded in the earthly Stared into Space with fixed regard- scene. Night and Death are also connected in less eyes the poem with the concept “Fate,” which That saw grief’s timeless depths but As might a soul on Nature’s back- assumes a prominent place in the epic. Of not life’s goal. (pp. 9-10) ground limned course, the fate that Savitri confronts and Stand out for a moment in a house of eventually triumphs over is Death. The This is a powerful passage that con- dream close connection between fate and death veys the author’s sensitivity to the sorrow Created by the ardent breath of life, in the poem is brought out in various and suffering of life with such phrases So he appeared against the forest places. For example, in the Book of the as “unconsoled abyss,” “long agony,” and verge Traveler of the Worlds, Aswapati, in the “grief’s timeless depths.” We see here other Inset twixt green relief and golden world of falsehood, sees a being, powers of the Inconscient: pain, grief, and ray. (p. 393) doom, the latter signifying a destiny of de- Sitting on Death who swallows all struction or calamity. It is interesting that Note the significance of this last line, he is things born. “pain” is put at the “sombre center” of the inset between the earth, or matter, and the A chill fixed face with dire and mo- “dire debate,” of the problem that Savitri golden ray, the divine Truth. tionless eyes, must confront. How is it to be confronted? Then note what Satyavan says when he Her dreadful trident in her shadowy Through “love.” first speaks to Savitri, and notice in par- hand ticular the repeated use of the word ‘earth’: Outstretched, she pierced all creatures The significance of ‘love’ with one fate. (p. 222) Although to heaven thy beauty seems Let us consider more deeply then this allied, Or, referring to the Divine Mother in- symbol of love. We have already alluded to Much rather would my thoughts carnating in the life of Savitri: the notion that the love between Satyavan rejoice to know

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 63 That mortal sweetness smiles between He calls her into to his life, her cham- wed, or rather unite. It is a beautiful de- thy lids ber and shrine, into his woods, beneath scription of the soul of the earth uniting And thy heart can beat beneath a the dim rustling arches. And continuing: with the Divine, creating a new world. human gaze And thy aureate bosom quiver with Then down she came from her high In a wide moment of two souls that a look carven car meet And its tumult answer to an earth- Descending with a soft and faltering She felt her being flow into him as in born voice. haste; waves If our time-vexed affections thou Her many-hued raiment glistening in A river pours into a mighty sea. canst feel, the light As when a soul is merging into God Earth’s ease of simple things can Hovered a moment over the wind- To live in Him for ever and know His satisfy, stirred grass, joy, If thy glance can dwell content on Mixed with a glimmer of her body’s Her consciousness grew aware of him earthly soil, ray alone And this celestial summary of delight, Like lovely plumage of a settling bird. And all her separate self was lost in his. Thy golden body, dally with fatigue Her gleaming feet upon the green- As a starry heaven encircles happy Oppressing with its grace our terrain, gold sward earth, while Scattered a memory of wandering He shut her into himself in a circle of The frail sweet passing taste of earthly beams bliss food And lightly pressed the unspoken And shut the world into himself and Delays thee and the torrent’s leaping desire of earth her. wine Cherished in her too brief passing by A boundless isolation made them Descend. Let thy journey cease, come the soil. (p. 409) one; down to us. (p. 402) He was aware of her enveloping him Notice the word “soil.” Note also the And let her penetrate his very soul Notice also how he refers to her “gold- symbolism of the green-gold sward: her As is a world by the world’s spirit en body.” Gold, we may recall, is symbolic moon-gold feet touch the green earth, and filled of the supramental. Note also the last line, it becomes a green-gold sward. As the mortal wakes into Eternity, “Descend. Let thy journey cease, come As the finite opens to the Infinite. down to us.” He repeats this word “de- Then down the narrow path where Thus were they in each other lost scend,” about six pages later when he says, their lives had met awhile, He led and showed her her future Then drawing back from their long Descend, O happiness, with thy world, ecstasy’s trance moon-gold feet Love’s refuge and corner of happy Came into a new self and a new world. Enrich earth’s floors upon whose solitude. Each now was a part of the other’s sleep we lie. (p. 408) At the path’s end through a green cleft unity, in the trees The world was but their twin self- Note the symbolism here of “earth’s She saw a clustering line of hermit- finding’s scene floors, upon whose sleep we lie.” What is roofs Or their own wedded being’s vaster the sleep of the earth’s floor? The incon- And looked now first on her heart’s frame. (p. 410) science of matter. And he continues: future home, The thatch that covered the life of This is really the key to the whole puz- O my bright beauty’s princess Savitri, Satyavan. (p. 411) zle, the solution to the whole problem of By my delight and thy own joy the Inconscient, of death and evil: this compelled Here we see symbols of the earth: “down opening of the finite to the Infinite, this Enter my life, thy chamber and thy the narrow path,” that is, the path lead- merging into God, this penetration of the shrine. ing into the depths of matter, “at the path’s soul and life by the divine Light and Bliss. In the great quietness where spirits end through a green cleft in the trees,” “the And it is not simply the soul, the inner meet, thatch that covered the life of Satyavan.” psychic being, that must surrender—but Led by my hushed desire into my This word “thatch” is repeated two more the whole earth, all our life and mind and woods times in this one-page passage. body. Thus united with the Divine, we will Let the dim rustling arches over thee Finally, in this same canto, is this won- come into a new world, a transformed lean… (p. 408) derful passage where Satyavan and Savitri world, our “wedded being’s vaster frame.”

64 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Source Material

The overmind aesthesis

by Sri Aurobindo

et us … come back to the overmind aesthesis. By aesthesis is meant a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, Cartier-Bresson’s 1950 photo of Sri Aurobindo. (Photo courtesy Sri Lsomething that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing Aurobindo Ashram) through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the descent is an always diminishing power of its intensity, intensity soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than of being, intensity of consciousness, intensity offeree, intensity mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of the spirit's delight of the delight in things and the delight of existence. So too as of existence, Ananda. Poetry, like all art, serves the seeking for we ascend towards the supreme level, these intensities increase. these things, this aesthesis, this Rasa, Bhoga, Ananda; it brings us As we climb beyond Mind, higher and wider values replace the a Rasa of word and sound but also of the idea and, through the values of our limited mind, life and bodily consciousness. Aes- idea, of the things expressed by the word and sound and thought, thesis shares in this intensification of capacity. The capacity for a mental or vital or some-times the spiritual image of their form, pleasure and pain, for liking and disliking is comparatively poor quality, impact upon us or even, if the poet is strong enough, of on the level of our mind and life; our capacity for ecstasy is brief their world-essence, their cosmic reality, the very soul of them, and limited; these tones arise from a general ground of neutrality the spirit that resides in them as it resides in all things. Poetry which is always dragging them back towards itself. As it enters may do more than this, but this at least it must do to however the Overhead planes the ordinary aesthesis turns into a pure small an extent or it is not poetry. Aesthesis therefore is of the delight and becomes capable of a high, a large or a deep abiding very essence of poetry, as it is of all art. But it is not the sole ele- ecstasy. The ground is no longer a general neutrality, but a pure ment and aesthesis too is not confined to a reception of poetry spiritual ease and happiness upon which the special tones of the and art; it extends to everything in the world: there is nothing we aesthetic consciousness come out or from which they arise. This can sense, think or in any way experience to which there cannot is the first fundamental change. be an aesthetic reaction of our conscious being. Ordinarily, we Another change in this transition is a turn towards univer- suppose that aesthesis is concerned with beauty, and that indeed sality in place of the isolations, the conflicting generalities, the is its most prominent concern: but it is concerned with many mutually opposing dualities of the lower consciousness. In the other things also. It is the universal Ananda that is the parent of Overmind we have a first firm foundation of the experience of aesthesis and the universal Ananda takes three major and original a universal beauty, a universal love, a universal delight. These forms, beauty, love and delight, the delight of all existence, the things can come on the mental and vital plane even before those delight in things, in all things. Universal Ananda is the artist and planes are directly touched or influenced by the spiritual con- creator of the universe witnessing, experiencing and taking joy in sciousness; but they are there a temporary experience and not its creation. In the lower conscious-ness it creates its opposites, permanent or they are limited in their field and do not touch the sense of ugliness as well as the sense of beauty, hate and repul- the whole being. They are a glimpse and not a change of vi- sion and dislike as well as love and attraction and liking, grief and sion or a change of nature. The artist for instance can look at pain as well as joy and delight; and between these dualities or as things only plain or shabby or ugly or even repulsive to the or- a grey tint in the background there is a general tone of neutral- dinary sense and see in them and bring out of them beauty and ity and indifference born from the universal insensibility into the delight that goes with beauty. But this is a sort of special which the Ananda sinks in its dark negation in the Inconscicnt. grace for the artistic consciousness and is limited within the All this is the sphere of aesthesis, its dullest reaction is indiffer- field of his art. In the Overhead consciousness, especially in ence, its highest is ecstasy. Ecstasy is a sign of a return towards the Overmind, these things become more and more the law of the original or supreme Ananda: that art or poetry is supreme the vision and the law of the nature. Wherever the Overmind which can bring us something of the supreme tone of ecstasy. spiritual man turns he sees a universal beauty touching and For as the consciousness sinks from the supreme levels through uplifting all things, expressing itself through them, moulding various degrees towards the Inconscience the general sign of this them into a field or objects of its divine aesthesis; a universal

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 65 love goes out from him to all beings; he feels the Bliss which has feel a poetic and aesthetic joy in the expression of the true as well created the worlds and upholds them and all that is expresses to as in the expression of the beautiful. He does not make a mere him the universal delight, is made of it, is a manifestation of it intellectual or philosophical statement of the truth; it is his vision and moulded into its image. This universal aesthesis of beauty of its beauty, its power, his thrilled reception of it, his joy in it that and delight does not ignore or fail to understand the differences he tries to convey by an utmost perfection in word and rhythm. and oppositions, the gradations, the harmony and disharmony If he has the passion, then even a philosophical statement of it he obvious to the ordinary consciousness; but, first of all, it draws can surcharge with this sense of power, force, light, beauty. On a Rasa from them and with that comes the enjoyment, Bhoga, certain levels of the Overmind, where the mind element predom- and the touch or the mass of the Ananda. It sees that all things inates over the element of gnosis, the distinction between truth have their meaning, their value, their deeper or total significance and beauty is still valid. It is indeed one of the chief functions of which the mind does not see, for the mind is only concerned with the Overmind to separate the main powers of the consciousness a surface vision, surface contacts and its own surface reactions. and give to each its full separate development and satisfaction, When something expresses perfectly what it was meant to ex- bring out its utmost potency and meaning, its own soul and press, the completeness brings with it a sense of harmony, a sense significant body and take it on its own way as far as it can go. It of artistic perfection; it gives even to what is discordant a place can take up each power of man and give it its full potentiality, in a system of cosmic concordances and the discords become its highest characteristic development. It can give to intellect part of a vast harmony, and wherever there is harmony, there is a its austerest intellectuality and to logic its most sheer unsparing sense of beauty. Even in form itself, apart from the significance, logicality. It can give to beauty its most splendid passion of lu- the Overmind con- minous form and the sciousness sees the The Overmind looks also straight at and into the consciousness that object with a totality receives it a supreme which changes its ef- soul of each thing and not only at its form or its sig- height and depth of fect on the percipient nificance to the mind or to the life; this brings to it not ecstasy. It can cre- even while it remains ate a sheer and pure the same thing. It sees only the true truth of the things but the delight of it. poetry impossible for lines and masses and the intellect to sound an underlying design which the physical eye does not see and to its depths or wholly grasp, much less to mentalise and analyse. which escapes even the keenest mental vision. Every form be- It is the function of Overmind to give to every possibility its full comes beautiful to it in a deeper and larger sense of beauty than potential, its own separate kingdom. But also there is another that commonly known to us. The Overmind looks also straight action of Overmind which sees and thinks and creates in masses, at and into the soul of each thing and not only at its form or its which reunites separated things, which reconciles opposites. On significance to the mind or to the life; this brings to it not only that level truth and beauty not only become constant compan- the true truth of the thing but the delight of it. It sees also the one ions but become one, involved in each other, inseparable: on that spirit in all, the face of the Divine everywhere and there can be level the true is always beautiful and the beautiful is always true. no greater Ananda than that; it feels oneness with all, sympathy, Their highest fusion perhaps only takes place in the Supermind; love, the bliss of the Brahman. In a highest, a most integral ex- but Overmind on its summits draws enough of the supramental perience it sees all things as if made of existence, consciousness, light to see what the Supermind sees and do what the Supermind power, bliss, every atom of them charged with and constituted of does though in a lower key and with a less absolute truth and Sachchidananda. In all this the overmind aesthesis takes its share power. On an inferior level Overmind may use the language of and gives its response; for these things come not merely as an idea the intellect to convey as far as that language can do it its own in the mind or a truth-seeing but as an experience of the whole greater meaning and message but on its summits Overmind being and a total response is not only possible but above a certain uses its own native language and gives to its truths their own level imperative. supreme utterance, and no intellectual speech, no mentalised I have said that aesthesis responds not only to what we call poetry can equal or even come near to that power and beauty. beauty and beautiful things but to all things. We make a distinc- Here your intellectual dictum that poetry lives by its aesthetic tion between truth and beauty; but there can be an aesthetic re- quality alone and has no need of truth or that truth must depend sponse to truth also, a joy in its beauty, a love created by its charm, upon aesthetics to become poetic at all, has no longer any mean- a rapture in the finding, a passion in the embrace, an aesthetic joy ing. For there truth itself is highest poetry and has only to appear in its expression, a satisfaction of love in the giving of it to others. to be utterly beautiful to the vision, the hearing, the sensibility of Truth is not merely a dry statement of facts or ideas to or by the the soul. There dwells and from there springs the mystery of the intellect; it can be a splendid discovery, a rapturous revelation, a in-evitable word, the supreme immortal rhythm, the absolute thing of beauty that is a joy for ever. The poet also can be a seeker significance and the absolute utterance. (“Letters on Savitri,” in and lover of truth as well as a seeker and lover of beauty. He can Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972, pp. 809-813)

66 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 On several important passages

The Mother

(Mother shows a sketch she has just drawn to illustrate the passage in “Savitri” in which Sri Aurobindo speaks of the “sardonic rictus on God’s face.”)

wanted to see this “sardonic laugh” of the Lord! So I looked, and instead of a sardonic laugh, I saw a face ... with such a deep sorrow—so deep, so grave—and full of such compassion.... It’s Iafter that that I said (you remember, it was over there, [In the mu- sic room, on December 31, 1963.] I was seeing that): “Falsehood Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram is the sorrow of the Lord.” It was naturally based on the experience progressive descent ... there may have been one, I don’t know— that everything is the Lord—there is nothing that cannot be the there have been so many perceptions of what happened, some- Lord. So what is this “sardonic” smile? ... I was looking at that, and times contradictory, always incomplete and humanized), but if then I saw this face. you consider the aspect of evolution, you tend to consider a far So, as I am supposed to do sketches for H.’s paintings, I did the end from which you proceed to another far end (it’s obviously sketch: Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord. childish, but anyway ...), or an extreme way of being that grows (Mother shows the sketch representing the Lord’s sorrowful towards the opposite Extreme Way of Being; well, what seems face. Long silence) to me the blackest and most inert, the total negation of “that” to Sri Aurobindo had the feeling or the sensation that what was which we aspire, is what constitutes Falsehood. farthest from the Lord (I always base myself now on that experi- In other words, this is perhaps what I call Falsehood; because ence, which is very concrete in its sensation, of the “nearness” or falsehood in the human way is always mixed with all kinds of “farness”—it isn’t a farness in feelings, not that, it’s like a material things—but Falsehood proper is this. It is the assertion that the fact; yet it isn’t located in space), well, Sri Aurobindo, for his part, Divine does not exist, Life does not exist, Light does not exist, felt that the farthest was cruelty. That’s what he felt farthest from; Love does not exist, Progress does not exist—Light, Life, Love do that vibration seemed to him the farthest from that of the Lord. not exist. [Mother is not referring to an intellectual and human And yet, it sounds bizarre but in cruelty one can still feel, negation, but to a material fact that one finds at the very roots of distorted, the vibration of Love; far behind or deep within that life, in the most material consciousness, and which shows itself vibration of cruelty, there is still, distorted, the vibration of Love. as an abyss of black and stifling basalt. It is intimately linked with And Falsehood - the real Falsehood that doesn’t arise from fear or death. It is the very secret of death.] A negative nothingness, a anything of the sort, that has no reason behind it—real Falsehood, dark nothingness. And it may be this that clung to evolution and the negation of Truth (the WILLED negation of Truth), is, to me, made Darkness, which denied Light, Death, which denied Life, something completely black and inert. That’s the feeling it gives and Hatred, Cruelty and all that, which denied Love —but this me. It is black, blacker than the blackest coal, and inert—inert, is already diluted, it’s already in a diluted state, there has already without any response. been a mixture. When I read that description in Savitri, [“A tract he reached Oh, if we wanted to make poetry (it’s no longer a philosophi- unbuilt and owned by none....” II.VI1.206 (See conversation of cal or spiritual way of seeing, but a pictorial way), we could December 31, 1963.)] I felt a sorrow which I thought I had been imagine a Lord who is a totality of all the possible and impossible unable to feel for a long time—a long time. I thought I was (how possibilities, in quest of a Purity and Perfection that can never be shall I put it?) cured of that possibility. And last time, when I saw reached and are ever progressive ... and the Lord would get rid that, I saw it was still there; and while I was looking, I saw this of all in the Manifestation that weighs down His unfolding—He same sorrow in the Lord, in His face, His expression. would begin with the nastiest. You see it?... Total Night, total The deliberate negation of all that is divine—of all that we call Unconsciousness, total Hatred (no, hatred still implies that Love divine. exists), the incapacity to feel. Nothingness. The Divine, for us, is always the perfection not yet manifested, We’re on the way. I still have a little bit of it [that total Uncon- all the marvels not yet manifested, and which must keep on grow- sciousness] left. ing, of course. Ah, let’s get to work. (Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 5, January 8, The far end of the Manifestation (assuming that there was a 1964, pp. 22-24)

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 67 (Mother reads a few lines from “Savitri” which she prepares to (Regarding a passage in “Savitri” in which Sri Aurobindo describes translate into French. It is Savitri’s heart that speaks:) the universe as a play between He and She. “This whole wide world is only he and she,” He, the Supreme in love with her, her servitor; The great stars burn with my unceasing fire She, the creative Force.) And life and death are both its fuel made. Life only was my blind attempt to love: As one too great for him he worships her; Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory. (X. III . 638) He adores her as his regent of desire, He yields to her as the mover of his will, She says, Life and death are the fuel, then, In my blind attempt He burns the incense of his nights and days LIFE ONLY was my attempt to love. [Mother later stressed again, Offering his life, a splendour of sacrifice.... “It’s not Life was only, but Life only.”] Because my attempt to love In a thousand ways he serves her royal needs; was blind, I limited it to life—but I won the victory in death. He makes the hours pivot around her will, It’s very interesting. (Mother repeats:) Makes all reflect her whims; all is their play: This whole wide world is only he and she. (I.IV. 62) Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory. What a marvelous work! Yet, earth should see the victory? The victory should be on He goes into a completely different region, so much above earth, shouldn’t it? thought! It’s constant vision, it isn’t something thought out— Yes, but she couldn’t win the victory on earth because she with thought everything becomes flat, hollow, empty, empty, just lacked heaven—she couldn’t win the victory in life because she like a leaf; while this is full, the full content is there, alive. lacked death and she had to conquer death in order to conquer It’s an explanation of why the world is as it is. At the start he life. says, He worships her (here again, there are no words in French: That’s the idea. Unless we conquer Death, the victory isn’t Il lui rend un culte, but that makes a whole sentence). He wor- won. Death must be vanquished, there must be no more death. ships her as something far greater than Himself. And then you That’s very clear. are almost a spectator of the Supreme projecting Himself to (silence) take on this creative aspect (necessarily, otherwise it couldn’t According to what he says here, it is the principle of Love that be done!), the Witness watching His own work of creation and is transformed into flame and finally into light. It isn’t the princi- falling in love with this power of manifestation—you see it all. ple of Light that is transformed into flame when it materializes: And ... oh, He wants to give Her her fullest chance and see, watch it’s the flame that is transformed into light. all that is going to happen, all that can happen with this divine The great stars give light because they burn; they burn be- Power thrust free into the world. And Sri Aurobindo expresses cause they are under the effect of Love. it as though he had absolutely fallen in love with Her: whatever Love would be the original Principle? She wants, whatever She does, whatever She thinks, whatever She That seems to be what he is saying. wills, all of it—it’s all wonderful! All is wonderful. It’s so lovely! I didn’t remember this passage. But I told you, my experi- And, I must say, I was observing this because, originally, the ence [The experience of the “great pulsations” of divine Love (in first time I heard of it, this conception shocked me, in the sense April, 1962).] is that the last thing as one rises—the last thing that ... (I don’t know, it wasn’t an idea, it was a feeling), as though beyond light, beyond consciousness, beyond ... —the last thing it meant lending reality to something which in my conscious- one reaches is love. “One,” this “one” is ... it’s the “I”—I don’t know. ness, for a very long time (at least ... millennia perhaps, I don’t According to the experience, it’s the last thing to manifest now in know), had been the Falsehood to be conquered. The Falsehood its purity, and it is the one that has the transforming power. that must cease to exist. It’s the aspect of Truth that must manifest That’s what he appears to be saying here: the victory of Love itself, it’s not all that: doing anything whatsoever just for the fun seems to be the final victory. of it, simply because you have the full power.... You have the (silence) power to do everything, so you do everything, and knowing that He said, Savitri, A Legend and a Symbol; it’s he who made it there is a Truth behind, you don’t give a damn about consequenc- a symbol. It’s the story of the encounter of Savitri, the principle es. That was something ... something which, as far back as I can of Love, with Death; and it’s over Death that she won the victory, remember, I have fought against. I have known it, but it seems to not in life. She could not win the victory in life without winning me it was such a long, long time ago and I rejected it so strongly, the victory over Death. saying, “No, no!” and implored the Lord so intensely that things I didn’t know it was put so clearly here. I had read it, but only may be otherwise, beseeched Him that his all-powerful Truth, once. his all-powerful Purity and his all-powerful Beauty may manifest It’s very interesting. (Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 6, September 8, and put an end to all that mess. And at first I was shocked when 1965, pp. 235-238) Sri Aurobindo told me that; previously, in this life, it hadn’t even

68 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 crossed my mind. In that sense Theon’s explanation had been much more (what should I say?) useful to me from the standpoint The poetry room of action: the origin of disorder being the separation of the primal Powers—but that’s not it! HE is there, blissfully worshipping all this confusion! From Savitri, “The yoga of the king: And naturally this time around, when I started translating it The yoga of the soul’s release” came back. At first there was a shudder (Mother makes a gesture Thus came his soul’s release from Ignorance, of stiffening). Then I told myself, “Haven’t you got beyond that!” His mind and body’s first spiritual change. And I let myself flow into the thing. Then I had a series of nights A wide God-knowledge poured down from above, with Sri Aurobindo ... so marvelous! You understand, I see him A new world-knowledge broadened from within: constantly and I go into that subtle physical world where he has His daily thoughts looked up to the True and One, his abode; the contact is almost permanent (at any rate, that’s how His commonest doings welled from an inner Light. I spend all my nights: he shows me the work, everything), but still, Awakened to the lines that Nature hides, after this translation of Savitri he seemed to be smiling at me and Attuned to her movements that exceed our ken, telling me, “At last you have understood!” (Mother laughs) I said, He grew one with a covert universe. “It isn’t that I didn’t understand, it’s that I didn’t want it!” I didn’t His grasp surprised her mightiest energies’ springs; want, I don’t WANT things to be like that any more, for thousands He spoke with the unknown Guardians of the worlds, of years I have wanted things to be otherwise! Forms he descried our mortal eyes see not. The night before last, he had put on a sari of mine. He told me His wide eyes bodied viewless entities, (laughing), “Why not? Don’t you find it suits me!” I answered, “It He saw the cosmic forces at their work suits you beautifully!” A sari of brown georgette, lustrous bronze, And felt the occult impulse behind man’s will. with big golden braid! It was a very beautiful sari (I used to have Time’s secrets were to him an oft-read book; it, it was one of my saris), and he was wearing it. Then he asked The records of the future and the past me to do his hair. I remember seeing that the nape of his neck and Outlined their excerpts on the etheric page. his hair had become almost luminous—his hair was never quite One and harmonious by the Maker’s skill, white, there was an auburn shimmer to it, it was almost golden, The human in him paced with the divine; and it stayed that way, very fine, not at all like the hair people have His acts betrayed not the interior flame. here. His hair was almost like mine. So while I was doing his hair, This forged the greatness of his front to earth. I saw the luminous nape of his neck, and his hair, so luminous! A genius heightened in his body’s cells And he said to me, “Why shouldn’t I wear a sari!” That knew the meaning of his fate-hedged works That opened up a whole new horizon.... We’re always so Akin to the march of unaccomplished Powers closed, you know. Beyond life’s arc in spirit’s immensities. Of course, it [this vision or conception] isn’t allowed into Apart he lived in his mind’s solitude, action, because when you start accepting everything and loving A demigod shaping the lives of men: everything and seeing Glory everywhere—why change!? This One soul’s ambition lifted up the race; is why the Force that had been in me for so long for the world A Power worked, but none knew whence it came. to progress further made me reject precisely all that legitimized The universal strengths were linked with his; things as they are by putting you into contact with the inner joy Filling earth’s smallness with their boundless breadths, of living—as he puts it, His Joy is there, everywhere, so nobody He drew the energies that transmute an age. wants to leave the world.... Immeasurable by the common look, In short, I was able to see the situation from above, a little He made great dreams a mould for coming things higher than the creative Force—from the other side. (Mother’s And cast his deeds like bronze to front the years. Agenda, Vol. 4, February 15, 1963, pp. 45-47) His walk through Time outstripped the human stride. Savitri: the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo's vision Lonely his days and splendid like the sun’s. (pp. 44-45) 1) The daily record of the spiritual experiences of the indi- vidual who has written. From Savitri, “The secret Knowledge” 2) A complete system of yoga which can serve as a guide for those who want to follow the integral sadhana. The master of existence lurks in us 3) The yoga of the Earth in its ascension towards the Divine. And plays at hide-and-seek with his own Force; 4) The experiences of the Divine Mother in her effort to adapt In Nature’s instrument loiters secret God. herself to the body she has taken and the ignorance and the The Immanent lives in man as in his house; falsity of the earth upon which she has incarnated. —The Mother He has made the universe his pastime’s field,

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 69 A vast gymnasium of his works of might. An iron decree in crooked uncials written All-knowing he accepts our darkened state, Imposed a law of sin and adverse fate. Divine, wears shapes of animal or man; Life looked at him with changed and sombre eyes: Eternal, he assents to Fate and Time, Her beauty he saw and the yearning heart in things Immortal, dallies with mortality. That with a little happiness is content, The All-Conscious ventured into Ignorance, Answering to a small ray of truth or love; The All-Blissful bore to be insensible. He saw her gold sunlight and her far blue sky, Incarnate in a world of strife and pain, Her green of leaves and hue and scent of flowers He puts on joy and sorrow like a robe And the charm of children and the love of friends And drinks experience like a strengthening wine. And the beauty of women and kindly hearts of men, He whose transcendence rules the pregnant Vasts, But saw too the dreadful Powers that drive her moods Prescient now dwells in our subliminal depths, And the anguish she has strewn upon her ways, A luminous individual Power, alone. Fate waiting on the unseen steps of men The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone And her evil and sorrow and last gift of death. Has called out of the Silence his mute Force A breath of disillusion and decadence Where she lay in the featureless and formless hush Corrupting watched for Life’s maturity Guarding from Time by her immobile sleep And made to rot the full grain of the soul: The ineffable puissance of his solitude. Progress became a purveyor of Death. The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone A world that clung to the law of a slain Light Has entered with his silence into space: Cherished the putrid corpses of dead truths, He has fashioned these countless persons of one self; Hailed twisted forms as things free, new and true, He has built a million figures of his power; Beauty from ugliness and evil drank He lives in all, who lived in his Vast alone; Feeling themselves guests at a banquet of the gods Space is himself and Time is only he. And tasted corruption like a high-spiced food. The Absolute, the Perfect, the Immune, A darkness settled on the heavy air; One who is in us as our secret self, It hunted the bright smile from Nature’s lips Our mask of imperfection has assumed, And slew the native confidence in her heart He has made this tenement of flesh his own, And put fear’s crooked look into her eyes. His image in the human measure cast The lust that warps the spirit’s natural good That to his divine measure we might rise; Replaced by a manufactured virtue and vice Then in a figure of divinity The frank spontaneous impulse of the soul: The Maker shall recast us and impose Afflicting Nature with the dual’s lie, A plan of godhead on the mortal’s mould Their twin values whetted a forbidden zest, Lifting our finite minds to his infinite, Made evil a relief from spurious good, Touching the moment with eternity. The ego battened on righteousness and sin This transfiguration is earth’s due to heaven: And each became an instrument of Hell. A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme: In rejected heaps by a monotonous road His nature we must put on as he put ours; The old simple delights were left to lie We are sons of God and must be even as he: On the wasteland of life’s descent to Night. His human portion, we must grow divine. All glory of life was dimmed, tarnished with doubt; Our life is a paradox with God for key. (pp. 66-67) All beauty ended in an aging face; All power was dubbed a tyranny cursed by God And Truth a fiction needed by the mind: From Savitri, “The descent into Night” The chase of joy was now a tired hunt; All knowledge was left a questioning Ignorance. (pp. 203-205) Out of the chill steppes of a bleak Unseen Invisible, wearing the Night’s grey mask, From Savitri, “The gospel of Death and vanity Arrived the shadowy dreadful messengers, of the Ideal” Invaders from a dangerous world of power, Ambassadors of evil’s absolute. Then pealed the calm inexorable voice: In silence the inaudible voices spoke, Abolishing hope, cancelling life’s golden truths, Hands that none saw planted the fatal grain, Fatal its accents smote the trembling air. No form was seen, yet a dire work was done, That lovely world swam thin and frail, most like

70 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Some pearly evanescent farewll gleam His bliss to heal the unhappiness of the world. On the faint verge of dusk in moonless eves. For I, the woman, am the force of God, “Prisoner of Nature, many-visioned spirit, He the Eternal’s delegate soul in man. Thought’s creature in the ideal’s realm enjoying My will is greater than thy law, O Death; Thy unsubstantial immortality My love is stronger than the bonds of Fate: The subtle marvellous mind of man has feigned, Our love is the heavenly seal of the Supreme. This is the world from which thy yearnings came. I guard that seal against thy rending hands. When it would build eternity from the dust, Love must not cease to live upon the earth; Man’s thought paints images illusion rounds; For Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven, Prophesying glories it shall never see, Love is the far Transcendent’s angel here; It labours delicately among its dreams. Love is man’s lien on the Absolute.” (p. 633) Behold this fleeing of light-tasselled shapes, Aerial raiment of unbodied gods; From Savitri, “The eternal day: The soul’s choice A rapture of things that never can be born, and the supreme consummation” Hope chants to hope a bright immortal choir; Cloud satisfies cloud, phantom to longing phantom “O beautiful body of the incarnate Word, Leans sweetly, sweetly is clasped or sweetly chased. Thy thoughts are mine, I have spoken with thy voice. This is the stuff from which the ideal is formed: My will is thine, what thou hast chosen I choose: Its builder is thought, its base the heart’s desire, All thou hast asked I give to earth and men. But nothing real answers to their call. All shall be written out in destiny’s book The ideal dwells not in heaven, nor on the earth, By my trustee of thought and plan and act, A bright delirium of man’s ardour of hope The executor of my will, eternal Time… Drunk with the wine of its own fantasy. Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will, It is a brilliant shadow’s dreamy trail. Because thou hast chosen to share earth’s struggle and fate Thy vision’s error builds the azure skies, And leaned in pity over earth-bound men Thy vision’s error drew the rainbow’s arch; And turned aside to help and yearned to save, Thy mortal longing made for thee a soul. I bind by thy heart’s passion thy heart to mine This angel in thy body thou callst love, And lay my splendid yoke upon thy soul. Who shapes his wings from thy emotion’s hues, Now will I do in thee my marvellous works. In a ferment of thy body has been born I will fasten thy nature with my cords of strength, And with the body that housed it it must die....” (pp. 607-608) Subdue to my delight thy spirit’s limbs And make thee a vivid knot of all my bliss From Savitri, “The debate of Love and Death” And build in thee my proud and crystal home. Thy days shall be my shafts of power and light, “O Death, I have triumphed over thee within; Thy nights my starry mysteries of joy I quiver no more with the assault of grief; And all my clouds lie tangled in thy hair A mighty calmness seated deep within And all my springtides marry in thy mouth. Has occupied my body and my sense: O Sun-Word, thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light It takes the world’s grief and transmutes to strength, And bring down God into the lives of men; It makes the world’s joy one with the joy of God. Earth shall be my work-chamber and my house, My love eternal sits throned on God’s calm; My garden of life to plant a seed divine. For Love must soar beyond the very heavens When all thy work in human time is done And find its secret sense ineffable; The mind of earth shall be a home of light, It must change its human ways to ways divine, The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven, Yet keep its sovereignty of earthly bliss. The body of earth a tabernacle of God. O Death, not for my heart’s sweet poignancy Awakened from the mortal’s ignorance Nor for my happy body’s bliss alone Men shall be lit with the Eternal’s ray I have claimed from thee the living Satyavan, And the glory of my sun-lift in their thoughts But for his work and mine, our sacred charge. And feel in their hearts the sweetness of my love Our lives are God’s messengers beneath the stars; And in their acts my Power’s miraculous drive. To dwell under death’s shadow they have come My will shall be the meaning of their days; Tempting God’s light to earth for the ignorant race, Living for me, by me, in me they shall live....“ (pp. 698-99) His love to fill the hollow in men’s hearts,

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 71 He stood on a wide arc of summit Space Her spirit saw the world as living God; Apropos Alone with an enormous Self of Mind It saw the One and knew that all was He. Which held all life in a corner of its vasts. (p. 556) Time’s message of brief light was not for (p. 283) her. (Savitri, p. 6) Easy the heavens were to build for God. In God's supreme withdrawn and time- Earth was his difficult matter, earth the All came back to her: Earth and Love and less hush glory Doom, A seeing Self and potent Energy met; Gave of the problem and the race and The ancient disputants, encircled her The Silence knew itself and thought took strife. (p. 653) Like giant figures wrestling in the night; form: (p. 9) Self-made from the dual power creation A Truth supreme has forced the world rose. (p. 284) to be; She faced the engines of the universe; It has wrapped itself in Matter as in a A heart stood in the way of the driving For I know now why my spirit came on shroud, wheels: earth A shroud of Death, a shroud of Igno- Its giant workings paused in front of a And who I am and who he is I love. (p. 435) rance. (p. 658) mind, Its stark conventions met the flame of a Was then the sun a dream because there Around her lived the children of God’s day soul. (p. 20) is night? In an unspeakable felicity, Hidden in the mortal’s heart the Eternal A happiness never lost, the immortal’s ease, A flaming warrior from the eternal peaks lives: A glad eternity’s blissful multitude. (p. 673) Empowered to force the door denied and He lives secret in the chamber of thy soul, closed A light shines there nor pain nor grief Heaven in its rapture dreams of perfect Smote from death’s visage its dumb absolute can cross. (p. 442) earth, And burst the bounds of consciousness Earth in its sorrow dreams of perfect and Time. (p. 21) Pain is the hammer of the gods to break heaven. (p. 684) A dead resistance in the mortal’s heart, A pointing beam on earth’s uncertain roads, His slow inertia as of living stone. Ascend, O soul, into thy blissful home. His birth held up a symbol and a sign; (p. 443) (p. 685) His human self like a translucent cloak Covered the All-wise who leads the This hidden foe lodged in the human breast All grace and glory and all divinity unseeing world. (p. 22) Man must overcome or miss his higher fate. Were here collected in a single form; This is the inner war without escape. All worshipped eyes looked through his Thus taken was God’s plunge into the Night (p. 448) from one face; This fallen world became a nurse of souls He bore all godheads in his grandiose Inhabited by concealed divinity. (p. 107) Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task; limbs. (p. 680) The world itself becomes his adversary, The light of God she has parted from his His enemies are the beings he came to For ever love, O beautiful slave of God! dark save. (p. 448) O lasso of my rapture’s widening noose, To test the savour of bare opposites. (p. 122) Become my cord of universal love. (p. 702) All the world’s possibilities in man This huge world unintelligibly turns Are waiting as the tree waits in the seed: O Savitri, thou art my spirit’s Power, In the shadow of mused Inconscience; His past lives in him; it drives his future’s The revealing voice of my immortal Word, It hides a key to inner meanings missed, pace; The face of Truth upon the roads of Time It locks in our hearts a voice we cannot His present’s acts fashion his coming fate. Pointing to the souls of men the routes to hear. (p. 160) (p. 482) God. (p. 703)

Out of the sorrow and darkness of the Thus man in his little house made of But when the hour of the Divine draws near, world, earth’s dust The Mighty Mother shall take birth in Time Out of the depths where life and thought Grew towards an unseen heaven of And God be born into the human clay are tombed, thought and dream In forms made ready by your human lives. Lonely mounts up to heaven the death- Looking into the vast vistas of his mind Then shall the Truth supreme be given to less Flame. (p. 279) On a small globe dotting infinity. (p. 486) men. (p. 705)

72 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011