Loretta reads Savitri:Five.II "Satyavan" part 2

Transcript of:

Savitri: Book Five, Canto II (part 2 of 2)

by Loretta, 2018 (24:57)

Listen on Auroville Radio →

Loretta reads Savitri Book Five: The Book of Love Canto II: Satyavan Part 2 of 2, pages 395-399

   

Savitri's road to her destined partner has led her to the edge of the great, wild forest. And here she first sees Satyavan, standing in a sun-lit forest grove. Destiny has drawn her there; and destiny has also drawn Satyavan to the forest edge, away from his accustomed paths of work in the forest. Destiny brings them both to pass through the grove at the same time. And destiny brings them to see each other there.

Savitri has not been thinking about her journey's purpose, even though she's only traveling just to find her mate. She admires the beauty of the forest, and so Satyavan is there, she admires him as a beautiful forest inhabitant. But “suddenly her heart looked out at him”, and knew that he was nearer to her than her own heartstrings. All in Savitri was surprised and seized – all that had lain asleep within her, all her ecstasies, and all her dreams – everything that had been what she wanted in her life, that had not been active but was there within her being, “Broke forth in flame to recreate the world, / And in that flame to new things she was born.” (p.395)

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

In this part of the canto, Sri Aurobindo very beautifully describes what happens to us when we fall in love, and it is with our own Topic::soul-mate. When we realize that this person is our true partner in life. And here, he puts a lot that could happen over time into the first meeting of the two soul-mates. So much happens to each of them, as he describes it. They are deeply awakened, deeply touched, and deeply changed forever, just by looking at each other. We have the feeling that this is only the beginning of a lifetime of love, of deep love, of true growth together.

When Satyavan sees Savitri, he meets in her regard “his future’s gaze, / A promise and a presence and a fire” (p.397).

His self-bound nature foundered as in fire;

His life was taken into another’s life. (p.396)

Some of this feeling about their future together comes because Sri Aurobindo speaks a lot about their past together. He says:

These knew each other though in forms thus strange.

Although to sight unknown, though life and mind

Had altered to hold a new significance,

These bodies summed the drift of numberless births,

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

Savitri begins to realize who they are to each other, but not yet in her surface being. Sri Aurobindo tells us:

Her inner vision still remembering knew

A forehead that wore the crown of all her past,

Two eyes her constant and eternal stars,

Comrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul,

Lids known through many lives, large frames of love. (p.396)

It's clear that Sri Aurobindo is speaking about soul-mates here. He says:

Although as unknown beings we seem to meet,

Our lives are not aliens nor as strangers join,

The soul can recognise its answering soul

Across dividing Time and, on life’s roads

Absorbed wrapped traveller, turning it recovers

Familiar splendours in an unknown face (p.397)

And the poem puts the story of true lovers meeting in the small moment of part of one day only. But these things, and these recognitions, and these realizations, can also happen to people over a longer time. But when we do realize who we are to each other – when it is real, and not a romantic fabrication – we know that it's true. Everything in our being simply knows.

Savitri and Satyavan, as they are depicted here, are highly developed beings. They can more easily recognize the truth, because they are more purified as beings; they have progressed far beyond the falsehood and ignorance that most of us are struggling with. The truth and purity of true love – of love that's not totally tainted with desire and ego, and all the lower parts of the vital being that is just freely doing what it likes without any yogic discipline or any prior development – that truth often takes time to manifest, in this world of ignorance and falsehood. Sometimes people have to go through a lot before they get there.

Even when people know they're soul-mates and that they belong together, sometimes it's a hard road. For people on a spiritual path, this soul-mate relationship becomes part, or all, of the substance and reality of their Yoga. It is in itself a spiritual practice, a spiritual aspiration, and then a spiritual reality as life goes on. Because this is the reality of our own true being – our own soul – this often becomes part of the process of our soul (our psychic being) coming to the forefront of our being. Having these experiences, and changing our whole being and our life.

Sometimes we find our soul-mate when our soul has come forward enough in our being, and is active enough, that we can consciously be in this level of human relationship.

Sri Aurobindo tells us, in this part of the canto, about the falsehoods also. He speaks briefly about the difficulties, more in a general sense – but through his words we understand that he knows and he's explaining to us the source of the difficulties that we have. He says:

[The child-god] Love dwells in us like an unopened flower

Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul,

The child-god is at play, he seeks himself

In many hearts and minds and living forms:

He lingers for a sign that he can know

And, when it comes, wakes blindly to a voice,

A look, a touch, the meaning of a face. (p.398)

But our mind – our dim, bodily mind – acting as the instrument of love and telling us what's happening (or perhaps we could say we're telling ourselves what's happening, with our mind) – has forgotten the heavenly way of seeing. The celestial sight. So instead of seeing the whole being and the truth, we seize on a sign of outward charm, and we take the body for a soul. Sri Aurobindo says:

Too far from the Divine, Love seeks his truth

And Life is blind and the instruments deceive

And Powers are there that labour to debase. (p.398)

But, as Sri Aurobindo says, “Still can the vision come, the joy arrive” (p.398). And here in Savitri – as it can come to all of us, when we are ready – he says:

In these great spirits now incarnate here

Love brought down power out of eternity

To make of life his new undying base. (p.397)

And he teaches us that our immortal soul, wearing a mortal body for delight, “touched by the warning finger of swift love”, “thrills again to an immortal joy” (p.397).

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

To live, to love are signs of infinite things

[Love] is still the godhead by which all can change. (p.397)

The Book of Love, “Satyavan”...

...
[S]uddenly her heart looked out at him,
The passionate seeing used thought cannot match,
And knew one nearer than its own close strings.
All in a moment was surprised and seized,
All in inconscient ecstasy lain wrapped
Or under imagination’s coloured lids
Held up in a large mirror-air of dream,
Broke forth in flame to recreate the world,
And in that flame to new things she was born.
A mystic tumult from her depths arose;
Haled, smitten erect like one who dreamed at ease,
Life ran to gaze from every gate of sense:
Thoughts indistinct and glad in moon-mist heavens,
Feelings as when a universe takes birth,
Swept through the turmoil of her bosom’s space
Invaded by a swarm of golden gods:
Arising to a hymn of wonder’s priests
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.
In the nameless light of two approaching eyes
A swift and fated turning of her days	p.396
Appeared and stretched to a gleam of unknown worlds.
Then trembling with the mystic shock her heart
Moved in her breast and cried out like a bird
Who hears his mate upon a neighbouring bough.
Hooves trampling fast, wheels largely stumbling ceased;
The chariot stood like an arrested wind.
And Satyavan looked out from his soul’s doors
And felt the enchantment of her liquid voice
Fill his youth’s purple ambience and endured
The haunting miracle of a perfect face.
Mastered by the honey of a strange flower-mouth,
Drawn to soul-spaces opening round a brow,
He turned to the vision like a sea to the moon
And suffered a dream of beauty and of change,
Discovered the aureole round a mortal’s head,
Adored a new divinity in things.
His self-bound nature foundered as in fire;
His life was taken into another’s life.
The splendid lonely idols of his brain
Fell prostrate from their bright sufficiencies,
As at the touch of a new infinite,
To worship a godhead greater than their own.
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.
A visage was there, noble and great and calm,
As if encircled by a halo of thought,
A span, an arch of meditating light,
As though some secret nimbus half was seen;
Her inner vision still remembering knew
A forehead that wore the crown of all her past,
Two eyes her constant and eternal stars,
Comrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul,
Lids known through many lives, large frames of love.
He met in her regard his future’s gaze,
A promise and a presence and a fire,	p.397
Saw an embodiment of aeonic dreams,
A mystery of the rapture for which all
Yearns in this world of brief mortality
Made in material shape his very own.
This golden figure given to his grasp
Hid in its breast the key of all his aims,
A spell to bring the Immortal’s bliss on earth,
To mate with heaven’s truth our mortal thought,
To lift earth-hearts nearer the Eternal’s sun.
In these great spirits now incarnate here
Love brought down power out of eternity
To make of life his new undying base.
His passion surged a wave from fathomless deeps;
It leaped to earth from far forgotten heights,
But kept its nature of infinity.
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
Across dividing Time and, on life’s roads
Absorbed wrapped traveller, turning it recovers
Familiar splendours in an unknown face
And touched by the warning finger of swift love
It thrills again to an immortal joy
Wearing a mortal body for delight.
There is a Power within that knows beyond
Our knowings; we are greater than our thoughts,
And sometimes earth unveils that vision here.
To live, to love are signs of infinite things,
Love is a glory from eternity’s spheres.
Abased, disfigured, mocked by baser mights
That steal his name and shape and ecstasy,
He is still the godhead by which all can change.
A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff,
A bliss is born that can remake our life.	p.398
Love dwells in us like an unopened flower
Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul,
Or he roams in his charmed sleep mid thoughts and things;
The child-god is at play, he seeks himself
In many hearts and minds and living forms:
He lingers for a sign that he can know
And, when it comes, wakes blindly to a voice,
A look, a touch, the meaning of a face.
His instrument the dim corporeal mind,
Of celestial insight now forgetful grown,
He seizes on some sign of outward charm
To guide him mid the throng of Nature’s hints,
Reads heavenly truths into earth’s semblances,
Desires the image for the godhead’s sake,
Divines the immortalities of form
And takes the body for the sculptured soul.
Love’s adoration like a mystic seer
Through vision looks at the invisible,
In earth’s alphabet finds a godlike sense;
But the mind only thinks, “Behold the one
For whom my life has waited long unfilled,
Behold the sudden sovereign of my days.”
Heart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;
All strives to enforce the unity all is.
Too far from the Divine, Love seeks his truth
And Life is blind and the instruments deceive
And Powers are there that labour to debase.
Still can the vision come, the joy arrive.
Rare is the cup fit for love’s nectar wine,
As rare the vessel that can hold God’s birth;
A soul made ready through a thousand years
Is the living mould of a supreme Descent.
These knew each other though in forms thus strange.
Although to sight unknown, though life and mind
Had altered to hold a new significance,
These bodies summed the drift of numberless births,	p.399
And the spirit to the spirit was the same.
Amazed by a joy for which they had waited long,
The lovers met upon their different paths,
Travellers across the limitless plains of Time
Together drawn from fate-led journeyings
In the self-closed solitude of their human past,
To a swift rapturous dream of future joy
And the unexpected present of these eyes.
By the revealing greatness of a look,
Form-smitten the spirit’s memory woke in sense.
The mist was torn that lay between two lives;
Her heart unveiled and his to find her turned;
Attracted as in heaven star by star,
They wondered at each other and rejoiced
And wove affinity in a silent gaze.
A moment passed that was eternity’s ray,
An hour began, the matrix of new Time.
END OF CANTO TWO