All the extraneous stuff from the Mother’s Agenda must go. Nolini never approved publishing the Record of Yoga

A Spiritual Biography of Savitri -- Three Questions about Savitri-Agenda
by RY Deshpande on Tue 04 Sep 2007 05:04 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Before I can respond to Arun, let me take the three questions a journalist-cum-author friend of mine, Prabhakar Nulkar, has asked. These questions are as follows:

• Is the Mother’s Agenda a Supplementary to Savitri?

• Is it a ‘must’ for Savitri studies?

• Can it be termed as a prose Savitri?

Difficult questions. I mean, they are so observant and elegant, also insightful, that we can generally answer them in the affirmative. And yet it is not quite so. Answers to these questions are not available in the Prashnopanishad and we can go only by our deepest perceptions, our enlightened intuition of things in its authenticity.

Sri Aurobindo had two very major spiritual experiences in just one year at the beginning of his spiritual calling, and that was during his hectic political days, around 1908. More or less following it, at a very early stage, he was given the Adhyatma Yoga in the nature of the Sapta Chatushtaya, leading to the Yoga of Self-Perfection. When the Yoga progressed in the course of the years Sri Aurobindo, in the 1930s, wrote that only a part of what was given earlier could be applied to things which were happening during this period, the Letters-period. During the Savitri-era, the 1940s, he had established in himself the Mind of Light, the physical’s mind opening to the supramental, the Siddhi necessary towards the transformation of the physical. If Savitri is the Record of his Yoga-Siddhis belonging to it, then we should take note of the above three questions from that point of view, answer them in that context. We must recognise that firstly Savitri is the revelation of these attainments.

But Savitri is not just a Word-document, in the MSFT edit-format. It is a living-breathing Word. In fact, Savitri is the Word of Truth with its Truth-dynamism and, being so, it does not come to a stop, does not stop with the 1950. It grows, it expands, it conquers newer worlds, in the spirit and the soul of a supramental Yogi it explores the dimensions of the supramental, its powers which are ready to descend upon earth; in its wake newer possibilities open out, the possibilities of a new manifestation. Savitri is not a frozen experience. While it contains what is experienced, it has the supremacy to give rise to experiences—they entering into life with an unfolding drive and force.

Agenda is not a supplement to Savitri, an auxiliary, ancillary, an addendum to it. It has an independent status, more concerned with the working of the supramental in the physical. Is the Letters on Yoga a supplement to the Synthesis of Yoga? Is Matri Mandir a ‘supplement’ to the Ashram? But while the Mother was revealing all those wonderful, as well as painful, experiences Sri Aurobindo was constantly, all the while, present with her; he was expressing himself through her, willing and doing whatever had to be willed and done for the Yoga of Transformation.

Is Agenda a ‘must’ for Savitri? and the Vedas and the authentic scriptures and the knowledge of the worlds? and the philosophies and the Arts and the Literature and the findings of Sciences? Whatever can make us perceptive to the inner reality and bring to us the truths of the spiritual domains, all that is relevant to Savitri. Ultimately Savitri shall give us the truth and the things of the truth. It is the Word of the Age, the Age of the Ageless, it is Yuga-Vakya.

Agenda is sheer poetry. Its rasa, its essence is the Glory of the Lord himself. But not all that we have in the present Agenda—all the extraneous stuff from it must go. The Mother didn’t want to publish it in that form. She had instructed it to be edited by André before publishing it. This was not done. A similar thing could be said about the Record of Yoga. It is said that this was done with the approval of Nolini. But not really. He had given the papers to be just typed out, and that’s all, typed without taking a copy. The original papers had become brittle and just to preserve the contents, he had permitted these to be typed. And that’s all.

After the Record-period the yoga-tapasya of Sri Aurobindo had progressed so much that we should be careful not to mix it with the later Siddhis. The parameters of operation had changed, had progressed, one founded on the other—it was the House of the Spirit that was being built upon Earth. The further great change took place in the Agenda. We might say that Savitri envisions it, the Agenda, but the aspect of realisation is in the Agenda. What is the realisation of the Agenda? The physical itself saying “What Thou willest, what Thou willest”, its surrender to the Supreme. Is that the Mantra of Savitri? Not quite. In any case, Savitri is its foundation.

In our spiritual pursuit we have to understand what is it exactly that we need and we will find that that help is indeed available. Savitri is there to give that help—and it is founded on that that we have the Agenda. RYD