From the Editor’s Desk (Sep 2017)

The September issue of the Newsletter turns its attention towards The Divine Mother with reverence, having dealt with Sri Aurobindo’s yoga lived out in the epic, ‘Savitri’ through Ashwapathy, King and Savitri’s human father. Savitri stands too as a symbol of The Mother’s sadhana, as she hews with Him, a path in the virgin forest, overcoming obstacles presented by nature placed along her path and in working out the descent of the Supreme Spirit down onto earth and transforming matter. In her own words, The Mother says, “It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realization, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard.” In fact, this association of The Mother in Savitri was so astute that The Mother noted that what Sri Aurobindo read out to her in the morning of what he wrote in the night was exactly what she would have seen, lived through during her experiences of the night. In the words of The Mother, “It is my experiences He had presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.” With this information in our hand, Saviri then becomes quite another experience for the children of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother; Savitri becomes alive with the consciousness of the Dual-Masters-in-One we adore, revere, cherishing the hope, in the end, to chart out our path in life after life towards the Truth about existence and our purpose in it and to realize and actualize that purpose in life. If one were to take a cursory glance at the way the poem is organised, it becomes clear that Ashwapathy’s Yoga and Savitri’s Yoga are given equal treatment and exposure and proceed alongside each other like two majestic rivers, from the source to the destination.

The book opens with the eternal quest placed before Savitri, the issue at hand clarified and then begins Ashwapathy’s Yoga. Then from Part 2, Book 4 onwards, Savitri’s life and journey from birth to the Savitri, in The World Mother’s guise unfolds, where she finally vanquishes Death in a debate that ensues between the two. A new world of wonder, mystery and even joyous anticipation fills us as we open the pages before us, as we approach Savitri, with the knowledge that it is The Mother’s Yoga that is worked out in the epic poetry through Savitri. Each page becomes a secret door that opens into a cave of discoveries or leads into treasure troves lying further and further ahead. There are portions therein incomprehensible in their magnitude which lay the road to higher realisations in us, if only the true call is in us, the call of the soul to open to this yoga, and walk the path hewn by Her and Sri Aurobindo. This is The Mother’s advise to Her children,  “What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri.”

Reading Savitri, alongside The Mother’s Prayers and Meditation and Sri Aurobindo’s The Mother, brings us closer to the Mystery that is The Mother. She waits for us to turn, even a little towards Her, with sincerity, all ready to seize us and engulf us with Her Love.  Such is the presence of The Mother in Savitri.