Isn’t she the Sun from which we can kindle all our suns?

Re: "'Savitri' by heart," by Sonia Dyne RY Deshpande Tue 16 Jan 2007 05:55 AM PST “If truly one knows how to meditate upon Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs.” The Mother

Thanks for the encouraging responses and I am reassured that the effort has some value and sense, certain pertinence as far as our endeavour to enter into the world of Savitri is concerned. All our faculties, our will and thought and feeling, our spirit and soul must awake to the sun that is Savitri. And, in fact, any one of these can be a way to live in Savitri. The rest will come from Savitri. I heard of a person who could not see but when Savitri was given to him, he ‘saw’ that it was all written in gold. I also recall an occasion what a learned person said in his talk after my presentation in a conference. I had quoted Savitri and soon he said, rather obliquely, that the Mother never liked Savitri being discussed at all. I responded, simply by saying: “I don’t know.” Isn’t she the Sun from which we can kindle all our suns?

There are many aspects of Savitri and there are many ways of looking at Savitri. The most important is of course its affirmation of the Spirit in things, Spirit as the dynamic Truth shaping in its expansive luminous freedom the destiny of this creation. This also implies that, to enter into Savitri, we have to make an extensive, a many-sided preparation as far as our instruments are concerned; we have to also make progress leading to wideness of consciousness, including possibly the yogic-spiritual. While Savitri itself can become a means for that progress, there is needed the right kind of effort from our side. We must be prepared to undertake the hardship of its discipline by keeping ready all the instrumental aspects of our personality—with the mind capable of receiving intimations of a luminous knowledge, and the heart responding to the ardencies of life-movements in their thousand moods of magnificence and dignity, and the will steady in its intent, steady like a bright flame of sacrifice burning upward to heaven. What is it here that cannot be pressed into service for the fullness of realisation that Savitri offers? Indeed, nothing there is that cannot be transformed by Savitri. But, fundamentally, there has to be in us a “call” to live in Savitri which shall give us the Truth and the things of the Truth. With it alone can begin our yogic life in Savitri, of making Savitri as our Book of Yoga.

In the meanwhile, however, we can live in Savitri’s presence in several ways. In Savitri there is spiritual philosophy put in the revealing language of a poet, its expression carrying the inspired and inevitable Word. We have in it mysticism, occult knowledge, religion, metaphysics, arts, sciences, literature, history of man and history of the earth, all that is noble and living, that can impart to our perception the sense of infinity which can give meaning to our daily occupations. Any one of these can become our foundational engagement. In fact, it has thus already opened out an altogether new world of creative action for us.

Based on Savitri we already have Sunil Bhattacharya’s music, and Huta Hindocha’s paintings under the direct guidance of the Mother. These are examples of the new art that is to come in its wake, and there will be many more creations to bring Savitri itself closer to us. We thus envisage the coming of new schools of thought, choreography, poetry, criticism, comparative research and studies, fiction, songs, oratorical dissertations, discourses, recitations and readings, all welling up from this inexhaustible fountain of creativity. The poem has also been translated into several languages, mostly in verse-form, but also at times as prose renderings. Maybe some of these are rudimentary attempts and much will have to be done to achieve some minimum aesthetic satisfaction that is to be expected from a work connected with it. Nonetheless, these attempts do demonstrate the possibilities that have sprung up from Savitri’s world of delight. If around the stone-still statue of Buddha, in Ellora, there is the calm of infinity that nothing can disturb, we shall expect a crystalline stream of sweetness and joy rushing from the marble face of Savitri; halo’d by the moon of beauty, or carved in the heart of amethyst, she shall prove to be “the Sun from which we kindle all our suns.” If only, Satyavan-like, our “mind transfigures to a rapturous seer”!

About approaching Savitri, the Mother says that “the direct road is by the heart.” She told this to young Mona Sarkar in one of his meetings with her. I am posting this talk of the Mother on Savitri separately. It has the power to settle everything for us. She prefaced it by saying: "I shall give you something special; be prepared." The talk begins as follows: “It does not matter if you do not understand it—Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, there will be something new experience; things which were not here, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them.” And she says: “Always your experience is enriched, it is revelation at each step…” Perhaps there is always something special she gives to each individual to be in Savitri. Her demand is: “Be prepared.” RYD