Re: 03: The Foreknown and Fatal Morn RY Deshpande Sun 28 Jan 2007 01:47 AM PST
A solitary mind, a world-wide heart, To the lone Immortal's unshared work she rose. Savitri is the incarnation of the divine Shakti which took place in “far past times when the whole thing had to be opened so as to hew the ways of Immortality,” says Sri Aurobindo in one of his early letters on Savitri. She has taken the mortal birth to do “the lone Immortal’s unshared work”. The Mother herself once declared: “Since the beginning of the earth, wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of the Consciousness, I was there.” When the “earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs, forgetful of her spirit and her fate,” it was necessary for Savitri to come down. She came down as a link between the two Nothingnesses, the Superconscient and the Inconscient, the Non-manifest and the Un-manifest. She is the golden bridge joining the two extremes, of Existence and Non-existence; she is the mediatrix between God and Nature; she is the executrix of the sanction of the Supreme when the call of the individual soul rises to him; she by her sacrifice gives sense of Infinity to this world as much as persuades the Infinite to live in the finite, in the spaces of Time and the moments of Space. But before all that happens, she has a lot to do. The greatest she has to do is to remove the stone-block present across the path of the divine Event. Was the “lone Immortal” supposed to do all that, without sharing it with anyone? Perhaps he was doing it already, as the Inconscient Purusha and the Somnambulist Prakriti in one. But in order to hew the ways of immortality, it was necessary for the divine Shakti to step into the process. She came down in far past times. At first nothing seemed to take place, nothing seemed to happen. Not even did the grief awake in her. Insensitive like a rock and kind of cold like the unawakened star, she lived. The hammer-beats of pain and the cutting-saw of anguish would not bring to her the imperative of what she had come to do. She was not even aware that death would come to her lover sooner than later. “Inert, released into forgetfulness, prone she reposed.” But slowly things started happening. The work of millennia started acquiring sense and significance. Life came, but she carried the ancient ache in her dim breast. She touched her bosom and felt that it had become a nest for pain. The purpose of this pain she could not yet understand. In fact, she did not know whence it had come. The powers of mind were yet fast asleep, and the instruments of knowledge, sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, remained obtuse and obscure, the torch unlit—because the primary sense, manas, had not come into operation. “Only a vague earth-nature held the frame.” But suddenly Savitri came to know that the day of Satyavan’s death had arrived. Decisive progress had been made. When Savitri awoke, everything changed. She prayed: “O Lord, awaken my entire being that it may be for Thee the needed instrument, the perfect servant.” The Lord had commanded her: “Plunge into Matter and identify thyself with it: it is there that I would manifest.” And she did it. A great advance was made. She had awakened fully. Once the Mother was asked: “When the Supreme Lord told you to make the world, how did you know what had to be done?” She answered: “I had nothing to learn for that, because the Supreme Lord contains everything in Himself: the whole world, the knowledge of the world and the power to make it. When He decided that there should be a world, He first brought forth the knowledge of the world and the power to make it and that is me, and then He commanded me to make the world.” On which day did she get that knowledge? “This was the day when Satyavan must die.” RYD
A solitary mind, a world-wide heart, To the lone Immortal's unshared work she rose. Savitri is the incarnation of the divine Shakti which took place in “far past times when the whole thing had to be opened so as to hew the ways of Immortality,” says Sri Aurobindo in one of his early letters on Savitri. She has taken the mortal birth to do “the lone Immortal’s unshared work”. The Mother herself once declared: “Since the beginning of the earth, wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of the Consciousness, I was there.” When the “earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs, forgetful of her spirit and her fate,” it was necessary for Savitri to come down. She came down as a link between the two Nothingnesses, the Superconscient and the Inconscient, the Non-manifest and the Un-manifest. She is the golden bridge joining the two extremes, of Existence and Non-existence; she is the mediatrix between God and Nature; she is the executrix of the sanction of the Supreme when the call of the individual soul rises to him; she by her sacrifice gives sense of Infinity to this world as much as persuades the Infinite to live in the finite, in the spaces of Time and the moments of Space. But before all that happens, she has a lot to do. The greatest she has to do is to remove the stone-block present across the path of the divine Event. Was the “lone Immortal” supposed to do all that, without sharing it with anyone? Perhaps he was doing it already, as the Inconscient Purusha and the Somnambulist Prakriti in one. But in order to hew the ways of immortality, it was necessary for the divine Shakti to step into the process. She came down in far past times. At first nothing seemed to take place, nothing seemed to happen. Not even did the grief awake in her. Insensitive like a rock and kind of cold like the unawakened star, she lived. The hammer-beats of pain and the cutting-saw of anguish would not bring to her the imperative of what she had come to do. She was not even aware that death would come to her lover sooner than later. “Inert, released into forgetfulness, prone she reposed.” But slowly things started happening. The work of millennia started acquiring sense and significance. Life came, but she carried the ancient ache in her dim breast. She touched her bosom and felt that it had become a nest for pain. The purpose of this pain she could not yet understand. In fact, she did not know whence it had come. The powers of mind were yet fast asleep, and the instruments of knowledge, sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, remained obtuse and obscure, the torch unlit—because the primary sense, manas, had not come into operation. “Only a vague earth-nature held the frame.” But suddenly Savitri came to know that the day of Satyavan’s death had arrived. Decisive progress had been made. When Savitri awoke, everything changed. She prayed: “O Lord, awaken my entire being that it may be for Thee the needed instrument, the perfect servant.” The Lord had commanded her: “Plunge into Matter and identify thyself with it: it is there that I would manifest.” And she did it. A great advance was made. She had awakened fully. Once the Mother was asked: “When the Supreme Lord told you to make the world, how did you know what had to be done?” She answered: “I had nothing to learn for that, because the Supreme Lord contains everything in Himself: the whole world, the knowledge of the world and the power to make it. When He decided that there should be a world, He first brought forth the knowledge of the world and the power to make it and that is me, and then He commanded me to make the world.” On which day did she get that knowledge? “This was the day when Satyavan must die.” RYD
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