Loretta reads Savitri:Six.I "The Word of Fate" part 4

Transcript of:

Savitri: Book Six, Canto I (part 4 of 5)

by Loretta, 2018 (30:57)

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Loretta reads Savitri Book Six: The Book of Fate Canto I: The Word of Fate Part 4 of 5, pages 427-431

   

Savitri has just told her parents about Satyavan. Her father, King Aswapati, has foreseen some darkness ahead which is “Chased by a sudden and stupendous light” (p.424). He tells his daughter that she has done well, and he approves her choice. He is a great yogi, and he has seen the truth. Narad, the divine sage and seer, the all-knowing messenger of the gods, has hinted at an adverse fate – at some kind of doom. Savitri's mother, Aswapati's queen, does not have Aswapati's inner vision. And hearing all these things, she is alarmed. So now she spoke, and she asked Narad for the immortal blessing for her daughter's happy life. But she said that “If wings of Evil brood above that house” (p.426) of Satyavan, they should be warned, so they can avoid the doom.

And Narad has not said anything about the future yet. Instead, he answered the queen's request by saying that nothing can turn Savitri from the path of her mighty aim. But before that, he had said ”What help is in prevision to the driven? / Safe doors cry opening near, the doomed pass on.” (p.426).

So now, after hearing all this, Savitri's mother has become really upset. And we are in high drama here. Heights and depths of human emotion, great passion, flow in the queen's words. They are the type of words and the type of thoughts that we all have, that we all speak, when we are really upset. Sri Aurobindo has told us that the queen aspires to the nature of the gods. Her mind is guarded by mighty thoughts. And protected by lower levels of common thought. Her will comes from a place of wisdom. And she is calm and wise.

But she is still human, and she is the mother of Savitri. So it is as though Narad's words of doom have pierced the queen's bosom; and for awhile, she falls to the level of common man. She opens to lower vital forces. And out of pain and grief, she starts to complain against the inflexible cosmic law that brings her beloved child an adverse fate.

Here, as Sri Aurobindo writes of the queen's cry against cosmic Law, he describes it in the legal terms of the earthly trial courts. He himself spent quite some time as a defendant in the trial court of Alipore, while he was in jail. He was jailed from May 5th, 1908, to May 6th, 1909, because the British charged him with sedition and had him arrested.

During his year in jail, Sri Aurobindo was taken back and forth to court for different court procedures until his trial came up. That is the life of a criminal defendant in a jail. So they learn all about the court procedures. Then Sri Aurobindo was in court every day, until the judge pronounced him to be not guilty, and he was released.

Here, he uses the words for the court procedures to describe how the queen accuses cosmic Law, and how she judges cosmic law. He said the queen ‘arraigned’ the world's impassive will. ‘Arraignment’ is the first criminal court procedure. It is when the defendant is charged for the crime for which he will be tried. The queen accuses the marble godhead of the inflexible Law of being unjust. It is ‘un-just’: injustice. Sri Aurobindo says: “Her heart appealed against the impartial judge (p.427), the impersonal One, the Supreme. And she claims ‘perversity’ – a kind of twisted action.

In a court case, the loser of the case – whether it's criminal or civil – can appeal the judgment of the court because he feels the judge or the jury was wrong. He wants to get a different verdict from a higher court. And so the queen has accused the Law, and asks for a new result. But the queen is not a lawyer. She does not have professional manners. Sri Aurobindo says that she speaks her pain in the ignorant words of the common man who cries out, as he grows weak beneath his load.

The queen's expression is powerful and evocative, and we feel her suffering. We feel her complaint. She starts this very bitter and sad complaint by asking about Savitri's meeting with Satyavan, and she says:

What stealthy doom has crept across her path

Emerging from the dark forest’s sullen heart,

What evil thing stood smiling by the way

And wore the beauty of the Shalwa boy? (p.428)

Then the queen wonders if it is karma from past lives – that Satyavan is an enemy, who was wronged in the past, and now he seeks revenge in this life. And she speaks karmic law when she says:

Here dreadfully entangled love and hate

Meet us blind wanderers mid the perils of Time. (p.428)

She says that we are visited by the results of forgotten deeds. But she also says, the bitter law of karma is useless: we learn nothing, and keep on hurting ourselves, and hurting others. We make our own doom with our own way of thinking about things.

This is a good description of what happens to us when we open to lower vital energies of grief, or of sorrow, or of anger, of self-pity. Mother has taught that self-pity is the worst thing that we can feel. The Sanskrit word is abhimana. And that's what she says: she says abhimana is the worst thing that we can feel. We all have things which are most important to us – which we count on, which we want with our whole being. And when we don't get these things, somehow it's a little easier to fall into something like this.

Sri Aurobindo brings up something else that we do, when the queen complains that we are open to the sufferings of others, and our own tragedies are not enough for us. She says we still remain open to other people's miseries. In fact, although we may think we're being very compassionate in feeling these things, in fact we have to develop beyond this – into the truth-consciousness that sees the whole, and sees the actual place of everything in the action of the whole. This consciousness releases us from resonating with the lower vital things around us. We just saw that Aswapati's development has helped him to bear the news of the trouble to come. And we are aspiring to this; and most likely, for most people, yet not achieving such a high state.

As we become more conscious, we become more sensitive to the feelings of others. So it's easy to stay in this thing that Sri Aurobindo's talking about. But it is better than being ignorant and hurting people in ignorance. It is a step on the way to the full truth-consciousness.

So knowing this, perhaps we don't judge the queen for crying and complaining like this. Especially when we hear her say:

Even a stranger’s anguish rends my heart,

And this, O Narad, is my well-loved child. (p.429)

Mother has said that the greatest human love is the love of a mother for her child. So surely worry about one's child having to face a terrible doom can open the door to great human suffering – make a great trial and test of our being, our spiritual growth.

Last time, Aswapati had asked, “must fire always test the great of soul?” (p.423) And maybe we thought he was talking about Savitri, but it looks like he was talking about the queen as well. And maybe about all those whose souls are great enough to really venture onto the path of real yoga.

And now the queen, who really has got grip, and she's got strength, and she cries to Narad, “Hide not from us our doom, if doom is ours.” (p.429) She says how hard it is to feel an unknown danger. And she says, To know is best, however hard to bear. (p.429)

With these words, the queen sets the stage for Narad to speak his first words of fate, the foretelling of the doom that will strike Satyavan, and therefore also strike Savitri. This “Book of Fate” is a long Book. And we will learn a lot more about fate from Narad as we go on. Now Sri Aurobindo says that Narad set free destiny in that hour. His cry pierces the heart of the queen, and forces to steel the will of Savitri.

These are not the first words that set Savitri's feet on the path of her destiny. In Book Four, Canto III: “The Call to the Quest”, Aswapati advises his daughter with these words:

Venture through the deep world to find thy mate.

The second self for whom thy nature asks (p.374)

And he goes on to explain that her mate is waiting for her, and that they will be together all their lives. And Sri Aurobindo writes:

This word was seed of all the thing to be:

A hand from some Greatness opened her heart’s locked doors

And showed the work for which her strength was born. (p.375)

And the next morning, Aswapati's palace awoke to its own emptiness. Savitri was far away. She had gone to search the spacious world for her mate.

Here, Sri Aurobindo has written about a higher force opening Savitri's heart, to open her to her destiny. Soon after that, in Book Four, Canto IV: “The Quest”, he writes so beautifully about the forces that move Savitri closer to this fated meeting. As she's driving her carved chariot, he says:

A guidance turned the dumb revolving wheels

And in the eager body of their speed

The dim-masked hooded godheads rode who move

Assigned to man immutably from his birth,

Receivers of the inner and outer law,

At once the agents of his spirit’s will

And witnesses and executors of his fate.

Inexorably faithful to their task,

They hold his nature’s sequence in their guard

Carrying the unbroken thread old lives have spun.

Attendants on his destiny’s measured walk

Leading to joys he has won and pains he has called,

Even in his casual steps they intervene. (p.377)

So here, once again, Savitri will have an experience that will have a powerful influence on her life and her future action. It comes from what Narad tells them all about Satyavan. And this experience happens to all of us, as Sri Aurobindo writes:

A single word lets loose vast agencies;

A casual act determines the world’s fate. (p.429)

And we can take this as both the fate of ‘the world’ – the universal World, because Savitri is the Divine Mother, with a great task – and we can take this as the fate of our world: our own individual world that we care about, that we have to live in, that we live in the reality of our own wants, and our own dreams, and the things that come to us.

So Narad describes Satyavan for Savitri's parents. He says Satyavan's figure is “the front of Nature’s march” (p.429). So he is at the forefront of human development. Narad says “His single being excels the works of Time.” (p.430) To ‘excel’ means ‘to surpass’, ‘to be better than’. So Satyavan's whole being is ahead of his time, in the future – a development that man has not reached yet.

Narad describes Satyavan's nature in beautiful, beautiful terms, using words like ‘delightful’, words like ‘divinity’ and ‘kingliness’. He says Satyavan is brilliant, gentle, pure, sweet, true, strong. Satyavan takes by surprise spirit and sense.

His speech carries a light of inner truth (p.430)

His sweetness and his joy attract all hearts

His strength is like a tower built to reach heaven (p.431)

And then, he says, how sad would it be: the loss of Satyavan. A being so rare, so divine a make. He says:

Heaven’s greatness came, but was too great to stay.

Twelve swift-winged months are given to him and her;

This day returning Satyavan must die. (p.431)

So, Savitri, Book Six, “The Book of Fate”. Canto I: “The Word of Fate”. Narad has just said to Savitri's parents:

None can refuse what the stark Force demands:

Her eyes are fixed upon her mighty aim;

No cry or prayer can turn her from her path.

She has leaped an arrow from the bow of God. (p.427)

...
His words were theirs who live unforced to grieve
And help by calm the swaying wheels of life
And the long restlessness of transient things
And the trouble and passion of the unquiet world.
As though her own bosom were pierced the mother saw
The ancient human sentence strike her child,
Her sweetness that deserved another fate
Only a larger measure given of tears.
Aspiring to the nature of the gods,
A mind proof-armoured mailed in mighty thoughts,
A will entire couchant behind wisdom’s shield,
Though to still heavens of knowledge she had risen,
Though calm and wise and Aswapati’s queen,
Human was she still and opened her doors to grief;
The stony-eyed injustice she accused
Of the marble godhead of inflexible Law,
Nor sought the strength extreme adversity brings
To lives that stand erect and front the World-Power:
Her heart appealed against the impartial judge,
Taxed with perversity the impersonal One.
Her tranquil spirit she called not to her aid,
But as a common man beneath his load
Grows faint and breathes his pain in ignorant words,
So now she arraigned the world’s impassive will:
“What stealthy doom has crept across her path	p.428
Emerging from the dark forest’s sullen heart,
What evil thing stood smiling by the way
And wore the beauty of the Shalwa boy?
Perhaps he came an enemy from her past
Armed with a hidden force of ancient wrongs,
Himself unknowing, and seized her unknown.
Here dreadfully entangled love and hate
Meet us blind wanderers mid the perils of Time.
Our days are links of a disastrous chain,
Necessity avenges casual steps;
Old cruelties come back unrecognised,
The gods make use of our forgotten deeds.
Yet all in vain the bitter law was made.
Our own minds are the justicers of doom.
For nothing have we learned, but still repeat
Our stark misuse of self and others’ souls.
There are dire alchemies of the human heart
And fallen from his ethereal element
Love darkens to the spirit of nether gods.
The dreadful angel, angry with his joys
Woundingly sweet he cannot yet forego,
Is pitiless to the soul his gaze disarmed,
He visits with his own pangs his quivering prey
Forcing us to cling enamoured to his grip
As if in love with our own agony.
This is one poignant misery in the world,
And grief has other lassoes for our life.
Our sympathies become our torturers.
Strength have I my own punishment to bear,
Knowing it just, but on this earth perplexed,
Smitten in the sorrow of scourged and helpless things,
Often it faints to meet other suffering eyes.
We are not as the gods who know not grief
And look impassive on a suffering world,
Calm they gaze down on the little human scene
And the short-lived passion crossing mortal hearts.	p.429
An ancient tale of woe can move us still,
We keep the ache of breasts that breathe no more,
We are shaken by the sight of human pain,
And share the miseries that others feel.
Ours not the passionless lids that cannot age.
Too hard for us is heaven’s indifference:
Our own tragedies are not enough for us,
All pathos and all sufferings we make ours;
We have sorrow for a greatness passed away
And feel the touch of tears in mortal things.
Even a stranger’s anguish rends my heart,
And this, O Narad, is my well-loved child.
Hide not from us our doom, if doom is ours.
This is the worst, an unknown face of Fate,
A terror ominous, mute, felt more than seen
Behind our seat by day, our couch by night,
A Fate lurking in the shadow of our hearts,
The anguish of the unseen that waits to strike.
To know is best, however hard to bear.”
Then cried the sage piercing the mother’s heart,
Forcing to steel the will of Savitri,
His words set free the spring of cosmic Fate.
The great Gods use the pain of human hearts
As a sharp axe to hew their cosmic road:
They squander lavishly men’s blood and tears
For a moment’s purpose in their fateful work.
This cosmic Nature’s balance is not ours
Nor the mystic measure of her need and use.
A single word lets loose vast agencies;
A casual act determines the world’s fate.
So now he set free destiny in that hour.
“The truth thou hast claimed; I give to thee the truth.
A marvel of the meeting earth and heavens
Is he whom Savitri has chosen mid men,
His figure is the front of Nature’s march,
His single being excels the works of Time.	p.430
A sapphire cutting from the sleep of heaven,
Delightful is the soul of Satyavan,
A ray out of the rapturous Infinite,
A silence waking to a hymn of joy.
A divinity and kingliness gird his brow;
His eyes keep a memory from a world of bliss.
As brilliant as a lonely moon in heaven,
Gentle like the sweet bud that spring desires,
Pure like a stream that kisses silent banks,
He takes with bright surprise spirit and sense.
A living knot of golden Paradise,
A blue Immense he leans to the longing world,
Time’s joy borrowed out of eternity,
A star of splendour or a rose of bliss.
In him soul and Nature, equal Presences,
Balance and fuse in a wide harmony.
The Happy in their bright ether have not hearts
More sweet and true than this of mortal make
That takes all joy as the world’s native gift
And to all gives joy as the world’s natural right.
His speech carries a light of inner truth,
And a large-eyed communion with the Power
In common things has made veilless his mind,
A seer in earth-shapes of garbless deity.
A tranquil breadth of sky windless and still
Watching the world like a mind of unplumbed thought,
A silent space musing and luminous
Uncovered by the morning to delight,
A green tangle of trees upon a happy hill
Made into a murmuring nest by southern winds,
These are his images and parallels,
His kin in beauty and in depth his peers.
A will to climb lifts a delight to live,
Heaven’s height companion of earth-beauty’s charm,
An aspiration to the immortals’ air
Lain on the lap of mortal ecstasy.	p.431
His sweetness and his joy attract all hearts
To live with his own in a glad tenancy,
His strength is like a tower built to reach heaven,
A godhead quarried from the stones of life.
O loss, if death into its elements
Of which his gracious envelope was built,
Shatter this vase before it breathes its sweets,
As if earth could not keep too long from heaven
A treasure thus unique loaned by the gods,
A being so rare, of so divine a make!
In one brief year when this bright hour flies back
And perches careless on a branch of Time,
This sovereign glory ends heaven lent to earth,
This splendour vanishes from the mortal’s sky:
Heaven’s greatness came, but was too great to stay.
Twelve swift-winged months are given to him and her;
This day returning Satyavan must die.”
...