Re: 10: Across the Silence of the Ultimate Calm by RY Deshpande on Tue 08 May 2007 07:05 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link What she decides and the Supreme sanctions
Did the divine executive Shakti get the consent from the Supreme before she granted the boon to Aswapati? This aspect is very clear in the Savitri-tale narrated by Vyasa in the Mahabharata, when she told him that she is giving him the boon of a radiant daughter in the authorization of the great Father-Creator Brahma himself, bhagavān pitāmaha. But it seems to be absent in Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri. If, as we have in his The Mother, “nothing can be here or elsewhere but what she decides and the Supreme sanctions,” then this difference between the two narratives assumes importance of a fundamental character; in a certain sense, it becomes crucial also, absolutely central. Vyasa’s Aswapati approaches Goddess Savitri with the intention of getting a son, that by the righteous conduct the order of the worlds be maintained in its functioning, that the dharma of the eternal truth which upholds the creation, which holds it together and which makes it move forward is maintained. It is in that context that the Goddess obtains the sanction from the Supreme, from the Father-Creator Brahma, bhagavān pitāmaha.
- Did in a similar way, or in some other manner the divine Shakti in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri receive such a sanction from the Supreme?
- Did she already have it with her before her meeting with the Son of Strength, one who had climbed the creation’s peaks?
Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri does not speak of it in any specific way. Perhaps extremely significant occult-spiritual factors, aspects of the yogic will are present in the profound issue and they need to be looked into with attention. Perhaps bringing the theme of “sanction” into the presentation could be incongruous in more than one respect.
Possibly, as one immediate answer, it could be for the reason that Sri Aurobindo’s Aswapati meets someone who is “infinite and absolute”, who came from beyond the limitless Unknowable, came “breaking the vacancy and voiceless hush”, the most positive Void poised for dynamic Action, the Void supreme with his face turned towards creation-manifestation, one who came from the utter Non-Manifest, Parātpara. In that eventuality, to speak of her getting a “sanction” could be inapt or inappropriate. Perhaps we could explore this aspect in more detail when we should reach Book Three Canto Four describing the Vision and the Boon.
It is in this regard, however, we might briefly look into what Rod Hemsell says apropos of the Adoration of the Divine Mother in his Savitri, Surrender and the Void:
“One can easily imagine that this second canto of Book 3 is the expression of the central theme of the yoga of Sri Aurobindo, and therefore it is particularly important. I think this is so. It is perhaps an ultimate, or at least a penultimate, statement of the absolute necessity and profound significance of the idea of Surrender. Sri Aurobindo makes it extremely clear and explicit in this canto what the word or idea of Surrender means, and yet it is still, inherently, a very difficult movement to grasp integrally, and to practise.”
Certainly, this canto could easily be “the expression of the central theme of the yoga of Sri Aurobindo.”
But the aspect of yogic surrender has many facets. When Barin, Sri Aurobindo’s younger brother asked him as to what he felt when the Mother met him for the first time on 29 March 1914 and bowed down in front of him, the reply in effect was: “I knew at once that it is possible to make complete surrender even to the last bit of the physical.” When Savitri’s Mantra of Surrender, in Book Eleven, becomes essentially “What Thou Willest, What Thou Willest”, it cannot be considered as the Mantra of Surrender of Aswapati. Our own mantra of surrender will be yet of another kind, bearing another quality, perhaps differing from individual to individual. RYD
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