Savitri—the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision
The Mother

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Savitri: the Light of the Supreme
In Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri Mantra we have a phrase “Savitŗ, the Light of the Supreme, or in Sanskrit jyotih parasya”. This we have taken for the name of our site which is specifically devoted to Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri. It will be our endeavour to present its various aspects in the course of time. Texts of Savitri, the compositional details, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s writings about it will form one major section for reference purposes. Work on it by others in several other sections will follow in the sequel. It is also hoped that there will be audio-visual presentations in the creative spirit for us to grow more and more in it. Indeed, to live in Savitri who shall give us the truth and the things of the truth shall be the driving motivation behind this effort.

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The linguistic relativity principle (also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) is the idea that the varying cultural concepts and categories inherent in different languages affect the cognitive classification of the experienced world in such a way that speakers of different languages think and behave differently because of it. Roger Brown has drawn a distinction between weak linguistic relativity, where language limits thought, and strong linguistic relativity, where language determines thought.

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In the beginning there was the Spirit only, and nought else. He wished to make worlds out of his being. He made four worlds. Out of the higher waters he gathered the Purusha and gave him shape and substance. Having made the Purusha he brooded over him. Then broke forth the mouth and from the mouth broke Speech and of Speech the fire was born. Similarly came the nostrils and the Breath and the air, the eye and Sight and the Sun, the ears and Hearing and of Hearing the regions, and so on. From the eye of the Virat Purusha came Sight and from it was born the Sun, the guardian deity of that world. It is only by entering into contact with the supreme consciousness and reflecting its nature that the Brahman can be known.

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We are endowed with five senses of action and corresponding perceptions which seem to us arise from them. The present Sankhya or the process of material creation has managed to give them a material reality and all the play of our knowledge, our understanding of things, our cognition is governed by them. But that is not the end of the Sankhya, the end of five elemental states of matter, and of sense and perception. The perfect Sankhya is waiting to be born here, that which has been established in the House of the Spirit. The Mother’s work of physical transformation is connected with it. The ‘new birth’ of the psychic being with them as its material instruments is the thing she was attempting to accomplish. It is the psychic which has to, which will, materialise and give immortality to the physical. It is connected with the new body she was preparing for this purpose. It is there now ready, and the work is going on for its birth in this evolutionary world. Indeed, that which the soul sees as its seeings and that which it hears as its hearings, it is they which have to become a part of the evolving being, including the physical, if there has to be the perfection of the kind that is there in the House of the Spirit.

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In the Vedic Vision the Word-faculty was superior to the Mind-faculty. Brihaspati, the Lord of the Word, was a teacher of Indra, the Lord of Divine Mind. There is a famous story in Mahabhashya of Patanjali, where Indra, who is considered to be the first grammarian, the creator of Language, was a student of Brihaspati, learning from him the original Sanskrit, as it were. The flow of Brihaspati’s Speech was infinite, for the meaning and the sound were identical, the sound itself was the meaning, as it were, so whatever was sounding was true at that particular moment of time in the Infinite; there was no gap in the flow. Indra understood that he could never accomplish his studies, for there was no end to it. So, he stopped the flow of Brihaspati’s speech and cut it into pieces, grams, and created Grammar. He filled the sound-meaning with the mental categories of subject, object, etc., creating Language, separating the meaning and the sound. From now the word, though having its own meaning, could be applied in any context, relevant or irrelevant, indicating the creation of time and space. This act of Indra was seen as the act of creation, the separation of artha and vak, the Heaven and the Earth, and connecting them with the Grammar, the space in-between. Now to understand the meaning of the sound one has to know the language, grammar.

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In Savitri we have a phrase “sense-formed ear”, suggesting that the organs of cognition are the products of the senses, that the faculties develop or give rise to the necessary instruments; first comes the sense and then the organ. It is not the ear that hears, but it is the sense of hearing, behind it the mind or manas, that hears which is then understood in mental terms; it is that sense which creates the ear, the organ for hearing. The ear is only a receiving, a mechanical instrument, with a diaphragm or a vibrating disc, which on impingement of pressure waves causes the appearance of nervous signals; it is an end product of the sense of hearing. First the Spirit brooded over the Purusha and, thus brooded, the ears broke forth and from the ears Hearing, and from Hearing the regions were born. When the mental being arrived, the quarters or the regions became Hearing and entered into the ears. This is how the Aitereya Upanishad explains the process of formation of the instruments of knowledge, the physical organ or instrument coming into existence as a result of the faculty of the manifesting spirit.

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If there is the Speech of our speech, then it is into that Speech our speech must strive to develop, into that perfection which actualises what is ideal and idealises what is actual, the Word of the Real-Idea. But what is “Speech of our speech” in the context of its description of the Brahman? Sri Aurobindo looked into Kena Upanishad with particular interest and wrote a detailed commentary, revealing its deep psycho-spiritual aspects. This was never done with such power of revelation. The problem of instruments of cognition is fundamental to our understanding of things, not only mystico-esoteric but also scientific-metaphysical, and it is that which has been presented by him in his elucidation.

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When the Mother’s yoga-tapasya entered the stage of awakening consciousness of the body’s cells, she found that they started chanting constantly the name of the Lord. They were all the while imploring the Lord for the strength and the beauty, for the harmonious perfection needed to be the divine instruments upon earth. “Om Namo Bhagavate, Om Namo Bhagavate”—that became the specific Word of Realization. The Mother even spoke of the path that was never trod by anyone. Sri Aurobindo had done it in principle, she said. But she also added that the details had to be worked out. To make the body’s cells awake to the divine reality was an unprecedented task and the Mother had to discover the means for accomplishing it. It is here that she found the power of the mantra coming to a definite aid in fixing the higher subtle-luminous in the dark and crude gross. She even suggests that Sri Aurobindo would have recognized its efficacy had he reached this stage of the yoga-tapasya of the body. The constant repetition of the Mantra gives “a kind of precision, a kind of solidity” that is essential to hold that divine reality in the physical. Only Japa or repetition of the Mantra has direct action on the body. While she was engaged in this intense Japa-Yoga, she was actually invoking “the Lord of Tomorrow”. She was doing the Mantra-Japa regularly and making the progress. When the same was tried by Satprem, it cracked. A necessary spiritual ādhāra, a foundational basis, the spiritual support is also needed to do Japa-Yoga. But I suppose there is a difference between the power of the Word the Mother speaks of in the context of the cellular transformation and the Divine Word which creates the worlds in the Transcendent, by which the rhythm and movement of the worlds are set into motion, by which “Brihaspati becomes manifest first of the gods out of the vastness of that Light of the Truth-Consciousness, in that highest heavenly space of the supreme superconscient, maho jyotişah parame vyoman.” That is the perfection which has yet to come to this world of ours. One is the Word of Creation, the other is the Word of Realisation. So, if we have to define true evolution, it would mean the Word of Realisation climbing the ascending slopes of Heaven to arrive at the Word of Creation as much as the other stepping into it. One is the Word of Creation and the other is the Word of Realisation. It is the Word of Realisation that climbs Vamadeva’s Ascending Slopes of Heaven to arrive at the Word of Creation; it has to be as much the other stepping into it.

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Bhrigu the ancient seeker of knowledge had to retire for one year and do focused tapasya. There is the ascending scale of substance, and each step demands its own tools of investigation and cognition. Will the modern Brighu lend himself to climb this ascending series and come to know that Matter really is Brahman? In a certain sense Matter is unreal and non-existent; that is to say, our present knowledge, idea and experience of Matter, is not its truth, but merely a phenomenon of particular relation between our senses and the all-existence in which we move. Bhrigu has to make great strides if Matter has to lend itself for the manifestation of the Spirit in it.

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The gnostic evolution will lift that to its highest and fullest expression, but it will not act for the power, satisfaction, enjoyment of the mental or vital ego, for its narrow possession of itself and its eager ambitious grasp on others and on things or for its greater self-affirmation and magnified embodiment; for in that way no spiritual fullness and perfection can come. The gnostic life will exist and act for the Divine in itself and in the world, for the Divine in all; the increasing possession of the individual being and the world by the Divine Presence, Light, Power, Love, Delight, Beauty will be the sense of life to the gnostic being.

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If in the Perfection’s House, mind is a sun of vision’s rays and if it can shape substance by the sheer brilliance of its thoughts, then we can imagine that imagination has the power to cast its spell on the unknown and make it dwell in it. Under its gainful charm truth would wear rich and bright colours; or else it would sing dream-notes and bring closer to us all that is far, make all that is inaccessible proximate, known, make the Real familiar. The power of imagination can make even the Unknowable tangible, true, graspable, knowable. Through it ountless aspects of manifestation are brought into play. That indeed is something remarkable, something noteworthy of imagination’s power that it can make the potent the actual. Its speech voices the ineffable, its ray reveals the hidden presence, its form discloses the formless, its idea holds the Idea of the Infinite, divine in the house of the divine, it as the Word which has the mantric supremacy to usher the divine experience, to set things in its rhythm and movement, set all that is ready en rapport with the Law of the Truth in the strength of its Time, in the Dynamics of Ritam.

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The perfection of the new creation is brought home to us by the poet-essayist with the help of a few recognizable examples. These give us some idea about its nature and its excellence. Very methodically and in a step by step lucid manner the revelatory thesis develops the theme with these few illustrations. The first example is regarding the mind that can open itself to the thoughts and visions of the spirit, the operation of the superior divine mind. The action of this mind may not be fully successful on the mind of the physical to bring about this transformation, but in the ranges of mind proper it will prepare the necessary mental faculties to effect this process. It is only the direct action of the supermind on the physical mind that can make happen the decisive change. The Mother’s Yoga of the Cells was chiefly concerned with this, and it had progressed to the extent that the cells themselves had started opening to the supramental light and force, experiencing the harmonious self-perfection in the Will of the Divine.

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If there is a faultless world with dazzling and colourful inhabitants, then one would like to know whether it is an archetypal world, or it is the evolutionary perfection poised for manifestation. Here are Masters of creation, perfect in joy because they are sovereign in truth, sovereign in truth because they are perfect in joy. The possibility is that of the bursting of a greater secret Consciousness. “A first formation of a gnostic consciousness and nature will be the consequence.”

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The eternal Goddess moved in her cosmic house
Sporting with God as a Mother with her child:
To him the universe was her bosom of love,
His toys were the immortal verities.
All here self-lost had there its divine place.
The Powers that here betray our hearts and err,
Were there sovereign in truth, perfect in joy,
Masters in a creation without flaw,
Possessors of their own infinitude.

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Moses—Pythagoras—Michael Angelo—Victor Hugo—Amrita and in between Brihaspati and Hermes and Rudra entering into the birth doing the Yoga of Self-Perfection—that is the wonderful march in the Adhyatmayoga! That is the soul preparing itself to get into the new creation. That is the stream of crystalline births readying itsef to receive the rush of the oceanic flood, the flood of light and life and love, the sachchidanandaic possibilities of manifestation. This human potential is of another kind and needs centuries of preparation under the day-bright Abundance of the Divine Benevolence.

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The transition from mind to supermind entails two features: in it is the scope and reach of acquiring a superior instrument of thought and knowledge; but, and more importantly, it effects the conversion of the whole consciousness, opening it more and more to the supramental. In it is also born the supramental thought, will, sense, feeling. The working of these faculties begins with the mind, mind proceeding to the formation of the luminous mind, it eventually becoming wholly intuitivised. The final stage of the change comes “when the supermind occupies and supramentalises the whole being and turns even the vital and physical sheaths into moulds of itself, responsive, subtle and instinct with its powers. Man then becomes wholly the superman.” Obviously, the last cannot happen unless there is the ‘archetypal’ support available for it to come into existence in the evolutionary unfolding. There is the necessity of the new creation being present in the transcendent, the bright mother to bring out issues in this play of manifestation. It must precede the appearance of the superman on the earth. Sri Aurobindo’s whole work, although it has several subsidiary objectives as aspects of its overall dynamics, of its pragmatism, is concerned chiefly with it, with the gnostic race, and it is to that he was throughout committed.

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The creation of the new world is connected with the integral perfection. That perfection is possible only when, first, the mind of the physical opens to the higher light, light beyond intuitive mind, beyond overmind, when it opens to the supramental light and force. The physical mind’s opening to the supramental light and force is the necessary condition for the new creation to manifest upon earth. It has happened in the luminous subtle-physical; it must happen in the gross. But then it is more an aspect of manifestation than of creation which has already happened, happened in the transcendent. Our own part is, to open ourselves to it, in every respect, open the physical, the vital, the mental, the spiritual, the psychic to it, every dimension of the human potential lending itself to the process of manifestation. Perfection will not impose itself upon us, we have to open ourselves to it, allow it to work in us in the fulfilment of the human potential, in the expression of our true individuality, the swabhāva of our soul.

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To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action.

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The Yoga of Self-Perfection associated with the creation of the new world in the Divine Will has its early foundation in the Sapta Chatusthaya, the seven elements or seven tetrads. Sri Aurobindo had received it when he was in the Alipore Jail as an under-trial prisoner for his alleged act of sedition against the British government in India. A note says: “These mantras along with the notes which accompany them were written down by Sri Aurobindo, probably after his release from prison in May, 1909, and certainly before his departure from Chandernagore on March 31, 1910.” Sri Aurobindo was acquitted and released from the jail; however, the British were still after him. Soon he had to go in hiding. This he did after receiving an inner command, ādeśa; first he was in Chandernagore for two and a half months, and then he left for Pondicherry. Both the towns were French settlements at those days. Sri Aurobindo remained in Pondicherry ever since then, the place having become his Cave of Tapasya. It is here that the Mother was soon to join in the great work they had come to do together. The early seeds of the great work, from the point of view of Adhyatmayoga, were in these Chatusthayas, precise in their formulation, almost like Yoga Aphorisms.

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In the creation of the supramental world in us by the Divine Will, both are needed: constant expansion and self-perfection. Aswapati’s Yoga of Self-Perfection has to take care of the second term. He had become vast by his largeness; he must achieve self-perfection required for it. The aspect of self-perfection is the aspect of not only rising above all the workings of the blind lower inconscient Nature or Andhaha Prakriti in us, but also to make her receptive to the divine working in her, she lending herself to the action of the Consciousness-Force who alone can make such a creation possible. In fact it is she who, in the Divine Will, can establish a new world, the supramental world. The Mother’s stipulation of “expansion of consciousness”, of becoming vast by our largeness has now to accompany the “constant personal progress”, of opening ourselves to the greater possibilities of our soul and our spirit.

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