Narad’s Five Songs and the Theme of Evolution in Savitri
by RY Deshpande on Sun 18 Nov 2007 09:01 PM PST Permanent Link
by RY Deshpande on Sun 18 Nov 2007 09:01 PM PST Permanent Link
The body’s cells holding the Immortal’s flame is the long-awaited evolutionary attainment which first should occur in the individual. And after a long and intense Yoga-Tapasya, after carrying out “a difficult and painful” work Aswapati has the experience: (p. 302)
His brain was wrapped in overwhelming Light,
An all-embracing knowledge seized his heart:
Thoughts rose in him no earthly mind can hold,
Mights played that never coursed through mortal nerves:
He scanned the secrets of the Overmind,
He bore the rapture of the Oversoul.
He has established remarkable perfection in the physical itself, it opening to the flood of brilliant light. “His brain was wrapped in overwhelming light”—that is the physical’s mind receiving the supramental, that is the Mind of Light, the Siddhi Sri Aurobindo received on 8 August 1938, as we might understand from his sonnet The Golden Light. The supramental was entering the physical but what could not be done until then was to fix it in it, it was coming and going and not remaining in it. The Golden Light announces that this was now done. It is in that splendid context that the line from Savitri—“His brain was wrapped in overwhelming light”—assumes great autobiographical significance. The draft in which it appears for the first time is dated 6 September 1942 and therefore this momentous period, these consequential four years between 1938 and 1942, could be taken as when the Mind of Light got established fully in him. In his sonnet The Golden Light we have a very clear statement of this most remarkable siddhi of the Mind of Light achieved by Sri Aurobindo. The sonnet was first written on 8 August 1938 and later revised on 3 March 1944. The revisions are of a few noteworthy verbal type. Here is the poem:
Thy golden Light came down into my brain
And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became
A bright reply to Wisdom’s occult plane,
A calm illumination and a flame.
Thy golden Light came down into my throat,
And all my speech is now a tune divine,
A paean song of thee my single note;
My words are drunk with the Immortal’s wine.
Thy golden Light came down into my heart
Smiting my life with Thy eternity;
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all its passions point towards only Thee.
Thy golden Light came down into my feet:
My earth is now thy playfield and thy seat.
“The earth” of 1938 in the last line became “My earth” in 1944, a significant revision that bears the specificity of achievement in his physical body. This must be considered as the first beginning of the process of physical transformation which started happening from 8 August 1938. On this day the supramental Light and Consciousness and Force appeared dynamically and luminously upon the earth’s playfield.
His brain was wrapped in overwhelming Light,
An all-embracing knowledge seized his heart:
Thoughts rose in him no earthly mind can hold,
Mights played that never coursed through mortal nerves:
He scanned the secrets of the Overmind,
He bore the rapture of the Oversoul.
He has established remarkable perfection in the physical itself, it opening to the flood of brilliant light. “His brain was wrapped in overwhelming light”—that is the physical’s mind receiving the supramental, that is the Mind of Light, the Siddhi Sri Aurobindo received on 8 August 1938, as we might understand from his sonnet The Golden Light. The supramental was entering the physical but what could not be done until then was to fix it in it, it was coming and going and not remaining in it. The Golden Light announces that this was now done. It is in that splendid context that the line from Savitri—“His brain was wrapped in overwhelming light”—assumes great autobiographical significance. The draft in which it appears for the first time is dated 6 September 1942 and therefore this momentous period, these consequential four years between 1938 and 1942, could be taken as when the Mind of Light got established fully in him. In his sonnet The Golden Light we have a very clear statement of this most remarkable siddhi of the Mind of Light achieved by Sri Aurobindo. The sonnet was first written on 8 August 1938 and later revised on 3 March 1944. The revisions are of a few noteworthy verbal type. Here is the poem:
Thy golden Light came down into my brain
And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became
A bright reply to Wisdom’s occult plane,
A calm illumination and a flame.
Thy golden Light came down into my throat,
And all my speech is now a tune divine,
A paean song of thee my single note;
My words are drunk with the Immortal’s wine.
Thy golden Light came down into my heart
Smiting my life with Thy eternity;
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all its passions point towards only Thee.
Thy golden Light came down into my feet:
My earth is now thy playfield and thy seat.
“The earth” of 1938 in the last line became “My earth” in 1944, a significant revision that bears the specificity of achievement in his physical body. This must be considered as the first beginning of the process of physical transformation which started happening from 8 August 1938. On this day the supramental Light and Consciousness and Force appeared dynamically and luminously upon the earth’s playfield.
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