Loretta reads Savitri:Five.III "Satyavan and Savitri" part 1

Transcript of:

Savitri: Book Five, Canto III (part 1 of 3)

by Loretta, 2018 (32:49)

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Loretta reads Savitri Book Five: The Book of Love Canto III: Satyavan and Savitri Part 1 of 3, pages 400-404

   

Princess Savitri left her father's palace to drive her golden chariot through the world, to seek her mate. Her father, the great king Aswapati, told her to go; and when she returns to tell her father that she has found her mate (in Book Six, “The Book of Fate”), the king gives this beautiful description of leaving home:

Arisen into an air of flaming dawn

Like a bright bird tired of her lonely branch,

To find her own lord, since to her on earth

He came not yet, this sweetness wandered forth

Cleaving her way with the beat of her rapid wings. (p.423)

We have seen Savitri travel through kingdoms where she slept in the palaces of kings. And then she rose at dawn from a silken couch, to wade her way through remote villages, and simple farmlands. She is following “the fateful orbit of her life” (p.385). And she's travelled in earth's wild places, to far solitudes.

She's spent time in the forest, where great yogis living in caves concentrated on their spiritual practices. They imparted their love and wisdom to the king-children of a coming age. And they help the whole world with their boundless, all-encompassing love.

Here, in the wild places, she rose from her simple rustic couch or mat, impelled to go on her unfinished way. And as Sri Aurobindo told us in the very beginning of Canto I of “The Book of Love”, there came a time when “the destined spot and hour were close; Unknowing she had neared her nameless goal.” (p.389)

For though a dress of blind and devious chance

Is laid upon the work of all-wise Fate,

Our acts interpret an omniscient Force

That dwells in the compelling stuff of things,

And nothing happens in the cosmic play

But at its time and in its foreseen place. (p.389)

And at the very end of Canto I, he says:

A stranger on the sorrowful roads of Time,

Immortal under the yoke of death and fate,

A sacrificant of the bliss and pain of the spheres,

Love in the wilderness met Savitri. (p.391)

In Book Six, when Savitri returns home, she says to the king:

“Father and king, I have carried out thy will.

One whom I sought I found in distant lands;

I have obeyed my heart, I have heard its call.

...

My father, I have chosen. This is done.” (p.424)

In the Author's Note at the beginning of the book, Sri Aurobindo tells us that the tale of Satyavan and Savitri, which is in the ancient Mahabarata, is “a story of conjugal love conquering death” (p.xvii). And then he takes us deeper, and he tells us that in the reality in which we live, Satyavan and Savitri are “incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces”. He says that we can enter into concrete communication with these powers. They take living forms to help us. They show us the way to a divine consciousness and an immortal life.

With this epic poem Savitri, Sri Aurobindo does the work of helping us to become conscious of them – helping us to receive them.

He says that Savitri is the Divine Word. She is the daughter of the Sun. And elsewhere, he has told us that universally, the sun is the symbol of the supramental consciousness: the complete, full, truth-consciousness. Here he says she is the “goddess of the supreme Truth” (p.xvii) who comes down. She is born to save.

Savitri will save her own mate, Satyavan – the partner of her soul, the other half of her being. And here Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself, but descended into the grip of death and ignorance. And we remember that Savitri's father, the great yogi King Aswapati, took the journey through all the inner worlds of being, searching for the Divine Mother. He asked her to come to help mankind to progress faster. And she agreed to come. She has taken birth as the king's daughter, Savitri. She has come down. And now she meets her destined work, as she meets her future husband for the first time in this life.

All through Savitri, Sri Aurobindo speaks about the Supreme Master and the Divine Mother. He speaks of them in many ways. He speaks of their relationship in many forms. And always, it is the eternal love and attraction between them which creates us, which creates our universe, and which creates our lives.

In Book One, in the canto called “The Secret Knowledge”, this is the secret knowledge. He says, “This whole wide world is only he and she” (p.63). And this meeting, between the two soul-mates, filled with love, and filled with memories of love – love past – is the meeting of the Supreme Master and his eternal mate, once again in human form.

We learned all about Savitri's birth and all about her childhood in “The Book of Birth and Quest”. Sri Aurobindo has already described her beauty, her intelligence, her abilities, her love. He has shown us how an education in a king's palace – her experiences growing up there – helped to mould her, to make her into the person that she is.

Now we will learn about Satyavan, as he tells Savitri about himself and his life. Even though he grew up alone in the forest, his experiences have brought his consciousness to wisdom, to purity, to light. And he has beauty, and intelligence, and abilities which are similar to hers. When he describes where he grew up and what he did, it sounds like a palace – an environment similar to Savitri's.

He says, “I reigned in a kingdom of a nobler kind” (p.403) than man can build on earth. And he says that he lived in earth's boundless palace. The way he sees nature, and the way he describes it, show the deep sensitivity and openness he has to beauty. He is truly her mate. Each one is what the other one needs. And each one has what the other one needs, to fulfill their divine destiny in this life.

This is a deep truth about what true soul-mates bring to each other. They bring what is necessary to fulfill their dharma – to fulfill their destiny. And if their souls are really developed, it's only a positive experience – a wonderful experience.

So now, let's go back a little bit. We're going to set the scene, of their first conversation and recognition. They've already seen each other; now they're going to start speaking. And they're meeting for the first time in this life.

We will take a few lines from each canto that we've read, that bring us to the point that we're going to go on with when we start reading in Canto III. We begin with Satyavan, as Savitri first saw him at the edge of the sunlit forest glade. Sri Aurobindo writes:

Noble and clear as the broad peaceful heavens

A tablet of young wisdom was his brow;

Freedom’s imperious beauty curved his limbs,

The joy of life was on his open face.

His look was a wide daybreak of the gods,

His head was a youthful Rishi’s touched with light,

His body was a lover’s and a king’s. (p.393)

Savitri is driving her golden chariot through the glade. And even though her whole journey is a search for only him, at first, in this most important moment of her life, she is not thinking about who he might be. She only sees him as a beautiful inhabitant of the natural beauty around her.

It often happens like this in life. And the true love of our life can come when we least expect him or her. And so it was with Savitri. At this moment she's not thinking about looking for him; and Sri Aurobindo writes:

The heedless scout beneath her tenting lids

Admired indifferent beauty and cared not

To wake her body’s spirit to its king.

But the god touched in time her conscious soul.

Her vision settled, caught and all was changed.

For suddenly her heart looked out at him,

The passionate seeing used thought cannot match,

And knew one nearer than its own close strings.

Haled, smitten erect like one who dreamed at ease,

Life ran to gaze from every gate of sense:

Her soul flung wide its doors to this new sun.

An alchemy worked, the transmutation came;

The missioned face had wrought the Master’s spell. (p.395)

And Satyavan looked out from his soul’s doors

And felt the enchantment of her liquid voice

Fill his youth’s purple ambience and endured

The haunting miracle of a perfect face.

He turned to the vision like a sea to the moon

And suffered a dream of beauty and of change

An unknown imperious force drew him to her.

Marvelling he came across the golden sward:

Gaze met close gaze and clung in sight’s embrace. (p.396)

And Sri Aurobindo told us about the eternal truth of love between two soul-mates. He wrote:

In these great spirits now incarnate here

Love brought down power out of eternity

To make of life his new undying base.

On the dumb bosom of this oblivious globe

Although as unknown beings we seem to meet,

Our lives are not aliens nor as strangers join,

Moved to each other by a causeless force.

The soul can recognise its answering soul

A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff,

A bliss is born that can remake our life. (p.398)

Although to sight unknown, though life and mind

Had altered to hold a new significance,

These bodies summed the drift of numberless births,

And the spirit to the spirit was the same. (p.398)

So we're going to hear what these two great souls say to each other as they meet again, after having been together life after life.

Sri Aurobindo beautifully describes how we feel when we meet someone we have loved in past lives. We have met them, but we don't recognize them right away. And he starts this canto by saying:

Out of the voiceless mystery of the past

In a present ignorant of forgotten bonds

These spirits met upon the roads of Time.

Yet in the heart their secret conscious selves

At once aware grew of each other warned

By the first call of a delightful voice

And a first vision of the destined face. (p.400)

He says our mind's ignorance veils the inner sight. Even though there was an utter recognition in their deeps, the remembrance was lost. Their oneness was felt and missed. And this is also an experience that many people have had in their lives: even though they know, it takes time for their outer consciousness to fully realize what is happening.

Here, as they look into each other's eyes, and Satyavan speaks to Savitri, they have loved each other so much that he speaks with love.

He tells her that her voice has wakened his heart to an unknown bliss. And then he says that she is so beautiful that he is afraid that she is a goddess. He tells her how he has seen beautiful divine beings, and then he says:

Although to heaven thy beauty seems allied,

Much rather would my thoughts rejoice to know

That mortal sweetness smiles between thy lids

And thy heart can beat beneath a human gaze

And thy aureate bosom quiver with a look

And its tumult answer to an earth-born voice. (p.401)

And without waiting for her to say a word, he asks her to come home with him! She is still standing in her golden chariot, looking at him. “Descend,” he says:

Descend. Let thy journey cease, come down to us. (p.402)

He describes to her his natural rustic forest home. But he describes it as though it is a magnificent palace of a king. It is “clad with the jewelry of earth” (p.402); the trees are kings, the singing birds are a choir singing to his home all day long. Sunlight and shadow are tapestries on the walls.

He tells her that in his home, in the chambers there are “nuptial waters” (p.402) chanting. The dictionary defines the word ‘nuptial’ as ‘a wedding’, or ‘to marry’, or ‘related to marriage or a wedding ceremony’. So even though his outer consciousness does not recognize the eternal mate of his soul, does not see that she is his eternal partner and spouse – as soon as he meets her, as soon as he sees her, and hears her voice, immediately his outer being knows for sure that he wants to marry her. And he has no hesitation in telling her so.

This can happen in real life. But the soul-mates who meet and have this kind of consciousness are already usually very, very developed. Although, life being what it is, certainly people who are not developed can simply have this attraction and move forward without the kind of conscious knowledge that people can have when their soul is developed.

Savitri tells Satyavan that she is the princess of Madra. When she asks him who he is, he tells her that he is a prince, but his father has lost his kingdom and his sight, and now lives with his family in exile in the forest.

Then Satyavan begins to speak of the beauty of his growing up alone in nature. He is a prince who reigned in a kingdom of a nobler kind. He grew up in earth's boundless palace. He has never felt the loss of his father's kingdom. And when we end part 1 of this canto, he says:

My spirit satisfied within me knew

Godlike our birthright, luxuried our life

Whose close belongings are the earth and skies. (p.404)

So, Savitri, Book Five: “The Book of Love”. Canto III: “Satyavan and Savitri”, part 1.

Canto Three
Satyavan and Savitri
Out of the voiceless mystery of the past
In a present ignorant of forgotten bonds
These spirits met upon the roads of Time.
Yet in the heart their secret conscious selves
At once aware grew of each other warned
By the first call of a delightful voice
And a first vision of the destined face.
As when being cries to being from its depths
Behind the screen of the external sense
And strives to find the heart-disclosing word,
The passionate speech revealing the soul’s need,
But the mind’s ignorance veils the inner sight,
Only a little breaks through our earth-made bounds,
So now they met in that momentous hour,
So utter the recognition in the deeps,
The remembrance lost, the oneness felt and missed.
Thus Satyavan spoke first to Savitri:
“O thou who com’st to me out of Time’s silences,
Yet thy voice has wakened my heart to an unknown bliss,
Immortal or mortal only in thy frame,
For more than earth speaks to me from thy soul
And more than earth surrounds me in thy gaze,
How art thou named among the sons of men?
Whence hast thou dawned filling my spirit’s days,
Brighter than summer, brighter than my flowers,
Into the lonely borders of my life,
O sunlight moulded like a golden maid?
I know that mighty gods are friends of earth.
Amid the pageantries of day and dusk,
Long have I travelled with my pilgrim soul
Moved by the marvel of familiar things.
Earth could not hide from me the powers she veils:	p.401
Even though moving mid an earthly scene
And the common surfaces of terrestrial things,
My vision saw unblinded by her forms;
The Godhead looked at me from familiar scenes.
I witnessed the virgin bridals of the dawn
Behind the glowing curtains of the sky
Or vying in joy with the bright morning’s steps
I paced along the slumbrous coasts of noon,
Or the gold desert of the sunlight crossed
Traversing great wastes of splendour and of fire,
Or met the moon gliding amazed through heaven
In the uncertain wideness of the night,
Or the stars marched on their long sentinel routes
Pointing their spears through the infinitudes:
The day and dusk revealed to me hidden shapes;
Figures have come to me from secret shores
And happy faces looked from ray and flame.
I have heard strange voices cross the ether’s waves,
The Centaur’s wizard song has thrilled my ear;
I have glimpsed the Apsaras bathing in the pools,
I have seen the wood-nymphs peering through the leaves;
The winds have shown to me their trampling lords,
I have beheld the princes of the Sun
Burning in thousand-pillared homes of light.
So now my mind could dream and my heart fear
That from some wonder-couch beyond our air
Risen in a wide morning of the gods
Thou drov’st thy horses from the Thunderer’s worlds.
Although to heaven thy beauty seems allied,
Much rather would my thoughts rejoice to know
That mortal sweetness smiles between thy lids
And thy heart can beat beneath a human gaze
And thy aureate bosom quiver with a look
And its tumult answer to an earth-born voice.
If our time-vexed affections thou canst feel,
Earth’s ease of simple things can satisfy,	p.402
If thy glance can dwell content on earthly soil,
And this celestial summary of delight,
Thy golden body, dally with fatigue
Oppressing with its grace our terrain, while
The frail sweet passing taste of earthly food
Delays thee and the torrent’s leaping wine,
Descend. Let thy journey cease, come down to us.
Close is my father’s creepered hermitage
Screened by the tall ranks of these silent kings,
Sung to by voices of the hue-robed choirs
Whose chants repeat transcribed in music’s notes
The passionate coloured lettering of the boughs
And fill the hours with their melodious cry.
Amid the welcome-hum of many bees
Invade our honied kingdom of the woods;
There let me lead thee into an opulent life.
Bare, simple is the sylvan hermit-life;
Yet is it clad with the jewelry of earth.
Wild winds run — visitors midst the swaying tops,
Through the calm days heaven’s sentinels of peace
Couched on a purple robe of sky above
Look down on a rich secrecy and hush
And the chambered nuptial waters chant within.
Enormous, whispering, many-formed around
High forest gods have taken in their arms
The human hour, a guest of their centuried pomps.
Apparelled are the morns in gold and green,
Sunlight and shadow tapestry the walls
To make a resting chamber fit for thee.”
Awhile she paused as if hearing still his voice,
Unwilling to break the charm, then slowly spoke.
Musing she answered, “I am Savitri,
Princess of Madra. Who art thou? What name
Musical on earth expresses thee to men?
What trunk of kings watered by fortunate streams
Has flowered at last upon one happy branch?	p.403
Why is thy dwelling in the pathless wood
Far from the deeds thy glorious youth demands,
Haunt of the anchorites and earth’s wilder broods,
Where only with thy witness self thou roamst
In Nature’s green unhuman loneliness
Surrounded by enormous silences
And the blind murmur of primaeval calms?”
And Satyavan replied to Savitri:
“In days when yet his sight looked clear on life,
King Dyumatsena once, the Shalwa, reigned
Through all the tract which from behind these tops
Passing its days of emerald delight
In trusting converse with the traveller winds
Turns, looking back towards the southern heavens,
And leans its flank upon the musing hills.
But equal Fate removed her covering hand.
A living night enclosed the strong man’s paths,
Heaven’s brilliant gods recalled their careless gifts,
Took from blank eyes their glad and helping ray
And led the uncertain goddess from his side.
Outcast from empire of the outer light,
Lost to the comradeship of seeing men,
He sojourns in two solitudes, within
And in the solemn rustle of the woods.
Son of that king, I, Satyavan, have lived
Contented, for not yet of thee aware,
In my high-peopled loneliness of spirit
And this huge vital murmur kin to me,
Nursed by the vastness, pupil of solitude.
Great Nature came to her recovered child;
I reigned in a kingdom of a nobler kind
Than men can build upon dull Matter’s soil;
I met the frankness of the primal earth,
I enjoyed the intimacy of infant God.
In the great tapestried chambers of her state,
Free in her boundless palace I have dwelt	p.404
Indulged by the warm mother of us all,
Reared with my natural brothers in her house.
I lay in the wide bare embrace of heaven,
The sunlight’s radiant blessing clasped my brow,
The moonbeams’ silver ecstasy at night
Kissed my dim lids to sleep. Earth’s morns were mine;
Lured by faint murmurings with the green-robed hours
I wandered lost in woods, prone to the voice
Of winds and waters, partner of the sun’s joy,
A listener to the universal speech:
My spirit satisfied within me knew
Godlike our birthright, luxuried our life
Whose close belongings are the earth and skies.
…