From the Editor’s Desk (Oct 2017)

The October edition of the newsletter examines the Birth of Savitri in the current series of themes based on the epic poem, “Savitri”, by Sri Aurobindo. “One man’s perfection can still save the world,” wrote Sri Aurobindo in the same poem. Ashwapathy subjected himself to a tremendous Tapasya and Yoga that led him to a mighty, “psycho-spiritual transformation”. He offered himself to be made into a fit vessel to invite and bear the powers of the Divine into his human frame as well as seeking a fitting response to his deep aspiration to heal the sorrowing world and lift it towards the Light of the Supreme.  He was a living image of an ardent aspiration and courage that called down the Divine Mother herself unto this earth to rid her of suffering. He finds a response from the worlds yonder. His great feat finds fruition as the Divine Mother herself descends into the world to bring about the transformation of earth nature and enable it to hold the descending force of the Supreme. The Divine Word rings powerfully clear in the spaces of the void - “One shall descend and break the iron Law, Change Nature’s doom by the lone spirit’s power.” – a brilliant, sure shaft of the promising ray of actualization plunged deep into the very heart of Nature. 

Part 2, Book IV of Savitri describes explicitly the divine birth of Savitri in Canto 1. In this canto is the colourful description of the passing of the year with its changing seasons as the earth moved, “towards some undisclosed event.”  - the birth of the Divine Child. There is the suspense of some tremendously significant event silently approaching with the least perturbation, but pregnant with a holy stillness, brimming with the awareness of the sweetness of ecstasy that cares not to reveal itself. Such is the manner in which Sri Aurobindo introduces Savitri symbolically to the world, using powerful imagery to represent the utmost significance of this birth in the whole of Existence, in the sphere of manifestation. 

Canto 2 and 3 then brings us along on a joyous ride on the gently flowing flood of the river of her childhood and youth and a useful glimpse of the nature of the Divine child already on earth to do a great work upon it. Reading these lines over and over again brings a glow of gratitude in the heart, a smile of happiness over the face and a glint of certainty in the eyes poring over the lines thus penned by the master poet-seer.

This seed of the divine advent planted in our consciousness through poetic expression must mean more. There must be a corresponding relevance in the lines of our own lives, of significance to the soul supporting it, whether explicitly or covertly. Just as there is a reference to our struggling human soul as Satyavan, who is this Savitri in our own lives? Could she be this little flame being nurtured silently in us, hidden in the deep cave of our being, this fire, awaiting its birth in Time? The birth of Savitri ought to be visited and revisited by every admirer of Savitri, every student of poetry, every philosopher, every man and woman – a mystic path may just appear, disclose our rightful station.