Loretta reads Savitri:Six.I "The Word of Fate" part 1

Transcript of:

Savitri: Book Six, Canto I (part 1 of 5)

by Loretta, 2018 (25:05)

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Loretta reads Savitri Book Six: The Book of Fate Canto I: The Word of Fate Part 1 of 5, pages 415-418

   

Savitri has found her mate, Satyavan. He is the eternal partner of her soul, her other half. There in the wilderness of the forest, far from the lives of men, they have met and married in their own private wedding: the true union of two beings becoming one.

The wedding of the eternal Lord and Spouse

Took place again on earth in human forms (p.411)

The world has completely changed for them both; and they look forward to a long life of love and happiness together.

Now, Savitri is returning to her father's palace to tell her parents the good news. At the same time as Savitri drives her high carven car over the surface of the earth, Narad, the great sage and singer, respected and admired even by the gods, is approaching the palace from above. Narad is a very well-known personality in all of the Hindu spiritual writings. He is the great divine sage and singer – the messenger of the gods. Narad is famous in all the ancient Vedic texts; he's famous for his knowledge of the Vedas and the Upanishads, for his wisdom, for his knowledge of the whole universe and his knowledge of everything surrounding the universe. He was a master of every branch of learning. All celestial beings worshiped him for his knowledge.

In the ancient Vedic story about Savitri and how she found her mate, Narad, the messenger of the gods, comes to warn her that he is going to die. And here, Sri Aurobindo also uses Narad to teach us more about the subtle planes of the creation. Narad is known to travel; and he travels up and down through all the planes of the universe. Sri Aurobindo shows him coming from the subtle plane of mind into material matter. And also shows us his great wisdom in the song that he sings on the way down.

Every god has his vehicle, or his mount, on which he travels from place to place. Narad's vehicle is called by the name of ‘the magic chappals’ (magic sandals). So he travels on foot, wearing his magic sandals, which carry him to all the inner and outer worlds of being.

In the beginning of Book Six, Sri Aurobindo writes:

In silent bounds bordering the mortal’s plane

Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace

Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise

Came chanting through the large and lustrous air. (p.415)

Sri Aurobindo doesn't say that Narad is “striding” or “walking”, but somehow that is the impression that the reader has. All through Narad's journey to the palace of Savitri's father, no mention is made of how he is traveling. Yet one instinctively feels that he's not riding on some animal, or riding in any kind of a conveyance. As Narad approaches King Aswapati's palace, Sri Aurobindo writes:

He who has conquered the Immortals’ seats,

Came down to men on earth the Man divine.

As darts a lightning streak, a glory fell

Nearing until the rapt eyes of the sage

Looked out from luminous cloud and, strangely limned,

His face, a beautiful mask of antique joy,

Appearing in light descended where arose

King Aswapati’s palace to the winds

In Madra, flowering up in delicate stone. (p.417)

And we still feel that Narad is traveling on foot. He is bringing the word of Fate – Savitri's fate. He is coming to tell Savitri and her parents the fate of Satyavan, and therefore, the fate of the rest of Savitri's life. This opens for us the whole subject of fate and free will, and Divine will.

In this Book, many questions which man has asked for centuries will be answered and explained by the wise sage, as we continue all through his explanations in “The Book of Fate”. In different cantos in Savitri, Sri Aurobindo describes the creation of the universe in many ways. It's all in mystic poetry. It captures us in great beauty, and it brings us the truth – on some level, it gets to us; we know that he's explaining something to us, and we receive it.

Here again, we have a beautiful story of a material creation, through Narad's journey down to earth as he crosses “an intangible border of soul-space” (p.415), and passes from the plane of mind into the plane of matter. As he is traveling, Sri Aurobindo writes:

A secret Spirit drew its mighty breath

Contracting and expanding this huge world

In its formidable circuit through the Void (p.415)

He speaks of the power of the creative Fire building and forming the “Magic foundation and pattern of a world, / Its radiance bursting into the light of stars” (p.415). Narad felt “a sap of life, a sap of death”. “He beheld the cosmic Being at his task” (p.416).

He saw the eternal labour of the Gods,

And looked upon the life of beasts and men. (p.416)

In solid Matter's dense communion, a change fell upon the singer's mood. “His chant was a hymn of Ignorance and Fate.” (p.416)

He sang … the birth

And joy and passion of the mystic world,

And how the stars were made and life began

And the mute regions stirred with the throb of a Soul. (p.416)

He also sings of the spiritual future of mankind. And when he does, in a few beautiful words, Sri Aurobindo teaches us about the destiny of the adverse forces which hate the Divine. In Book Six, Sri Aurobindo writes about demons: about the Titan, about the Asura. At one point, we will hear Savitri's mother advise her daughter not to follow the way of the Titan, who goes against the law of the eternal Will. And we'll get some description of what the Titan does. And the Titan is one of those demons who battle with the gods.

All the demons come from the Supreme, the same source as all the gods. But the demons are anti-divine beings. Their activity is a divine work, but it is a work of literally slowing down the progress of consciousness, to keep it from returning to its own true nature. Sri Aurobindo and Mother always taught that their work was in its time, and a necessity, and that they would be gone when their time to go came. Demons are non-evolutionary beings. They are created to do their job – not to evolve, or to grow, like humans. Their consciousness does not evolve into the Satchitananda (Supreme) consciousness: the consciousness that man's consciousness can reach.

We are in “The Book of Fate”; demons also have a fate, just like man. It is said that the demons really want to return to their source, just like any spiritual seeker. They want to go back to the Supreme. And they find their own unique and very fast way of doing it, by constantly and endlessly attacking everything divine, until the Divine has to destroy them. And then they return to their source.

There are many demons that have been recognized by the seers – the ancient seers – and they're named in the Puranas, in the Vedas, in the Upanishads. Mother and Sri Aurobindo spoke about the asuric forces, their action in history, their action in sadhana. And they taught that we should be careful of their action.

We have Sri Aurobindo's own words in the book called Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo. On June 1st of 1926, about five months before Sri Aurobindo went into complete seclusion, he answered a disciple's question about demons and their fate. And then he adds to this information here, in the first part of Canto [I]. So we have the dialogue between Sri Aurobindo and the disciple, which another disciple wrote down.

“Disciple: Do the Asuras have also the possibilities of man ?

Sri Aurobindo: No.

Is there no progress of the Asura ?

Not in the sense of evolution of consciousness.

But you said that the Asura can be transformed or converted?

Yes. They can change their working and open to something higher.

Is that what you meant by their being converted? Then can they help evolution?

Yes, they can manifest something higher than their vital nature and become instruments of the Divine. But generally they do not change.

What becomes of the Asuras if they are not converted?

They can be annihilated...”

Here in Savitri, he shows us what will happen when there is no longer any demonic work for demons to do. As Narad descends from the higher realms into the mortals' plane, Sri Aurobindo writes:

He sang of the glory and marvel still to be born,

Of Godhead throwing off at last its veil,

Of bodies made divine and life made bliss,

Immortal sweetness clasping immortal might,

Heart sensing heart, thought looking straight at thought,

And the delight when every barrier falls,

And the transfiguration and the ecstasy. (p.416)

So when Narad sings of reaching the divine life, where the demons have nothing left to do, Sri Aurobindo writes:

And as he sang the demons wept with joy

Foreseeing the end of their long dreadful task

And the defeat for which they hoped in vain,

And glad release from their self-chosen doom

And return into the One from whom they came. (p.417)

Savitri is on her way home. She is filled with love. She is the spouse of the eternal Lord. And their wedding has just taken place again on earth, in human forms. As she approaches, Narad is singing to her father and mother about “the lotus-heart of love / With all its thousand luminous buds of truth,”, and how “one day it shall hear a blissful voice” (p.417),

And in the garden of the Spouse shall bloom

When she is seized by her discovered lord. (p.417)

So, Savitri. Book Six: “The Book of Fate”, Canto I, “The Word of Fate”...

Canto One
The Word of Fate
In silent bounds bordering the mortal’s plane
Crossing a wide expanse of brilliant peace
Narad the heavenly sage from Paradise
Came chanting through the large and lustrous air.
Attracted by the golden summer-earth
That lay beneath him like a glowing bowl
Tilted upon a table of the Gods,
Turning as if moved round by an unseen hand
To catch the warmth and blaze of a small sun,
He passed from the immortals’ happy paths
To a world of toil and quest and grief and hope,
To these rooms of the see-saw game of death with life.
Across an intangible border of soul-space
He passed from Mind into material things
Amid the inventions of the inconscient Self
And the workings of a blind somnambulist Force.
Below him circling burned the myriad suns:
He bore the ripples of the etheric sea;
A primal Air brought the first joy of touch;
A secret Spirit drew its mighty breath
Contracting and expanding this huge world
In its formidable circuit through the Void;
The secret might of the creative Fire
Displayed its triple power to build and form,
Its infinitesimal wave-sparks’ weaving dance,
Its nebulous units grounding shape and mass,
Magic foundation and pattern of a world,
Its radiance bursting into the light of stars;
He felt a sap of life, a sap of death;
Into solid Matter’s dense communion
Plunging and its obscure oneness of forms
He shared with a dumb Spirit identity.	p.416
He beheld the cosmic Being at his task,
His eyes measured the spaces, gauged the depths,
His inner gaze the movements of the soul,
He saw the eternal labour of the Gods,
And looked upon the life of beasts and men.
A change now fell upon the singer’s mood,
A rapture and a pathos moved his voice;
He sang no more of Light that never wanes,
And oneness and pure everlasting bliss,
He sang no more the deathless heart of Love,
His chant was a hymn of Ignorance and Fate.
He sang the name of Vishnu and the birth
And joy and passion of the mystic world,
And how the stars were made and life began
And the mute regions stirred with the throb of a Soul.
He sang the Inconscient and its secret self,
Its power omnipotent knowing not what it does,
All-shaping without will or thought or sense,
Its blind unerring occult mystery,
And darkness yearning towards the eternal Light,
And Love that broods within the dim abyss
And waits the answer of the human heart,
And death that climbs to immortality.
He sang of the Truth that cries from Night’s blind deeps,
And the Mother-Wisdom hid in Nature’s breast
And the Idea that through her dumbness works
And the miracle of her transforming hands,
Of life that slumbers in the stone and sun
And Mind subliminal in mindless life,
And the Consciousness that wakes in beasts and men.
He sang of the glory and marvel still to be born,
Of Godhead throwing off at last its veil,
Of bodies made divine and life made bliss,
Immortal sweetness clasping immortal might,
Heart sensing heart, thought looking straight at thought,
And the delight when every barrier falls,	p.417
And the transfiguration and the ecstasy.
And as he sang the demons wept with joy
Foreseeing the end of their long dreadful task
And the defeat for which they hoped in vain,
And glad release from their self-chosen doom
And return into the One from whom they came.
He who has conquered the Immortals’ seats,
Came down to men on earth the Man divine.
As darts a lightning streak, a glory fell
Nearing until the rapt eyes of the sage
Looked out from luminous cloud and, strangely limned,
His face, a beautiful mask of antique joy,
Appearing in light descended where arose
King Aswapati’s palace to the winds
In Madra, flowering up in delicate stone.
There welcomed him the sage and thoughtful king,
At his side a creature beautiful, passionate, wise,
Aspiring like a sacrificial flame
Skyward from its earth-seat through luminous air,
Queen-browed, the human mother of Savitri.
There for an hour untouched by the earth’s siege
They ceased from common life and care and sat
Inclining to the high and rhythmic voice,
While in his measured chant the heavenly seer
Spoke of the toils of men and what the gods
Strive for on earth, and joy that throbs behind
The marvel and the mystery of pain.
He sang to them of the lotus-heart of love
With all its thousand luminous buds of truth,
Which quivering sleeps veiled by apparent things.
It trembles at each touch, it strives to wake
And one day it shall hear a blissful voice
And in the garden of the Spouse shall bloom
When she is seized by her discovered lord.
A mighty shuddering coil of ecstasy
Crept through the deep heart of the universe.	p.418
Out of her Matter’s stupor, her mind’s dreams,
She woke, she looked upon God’s unveiled face.
Even as he sang and rapture stole through earth-time
And caught the heavens, came with a call of hooves,
As of her swift heart hastening, Savitri;
Her radiant tread glimmered across the floor.
A happy wonder in her fathomless gaze,
Changed by the halo of her love she came;
Her eyes rich with a shining mist of joy
As one who comes from a heavenly embassy
Discharging the proud mission of her heart,
One carrying the sanction of the gods
To her love and its luminous eternity,
She stood before her mighty father’s throne
And, eager for beauty on discovered earth
Transformed and new in her heart’s miracle-light,
Saw like a rose of marvel, worshipping,
The fire-tinged sweetness of the son of Heaven.
...

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