We may remember that Sri Aurobindo puts together Quietude, Beauty and Wonder—they seem to be at the beginning of the manifestation of the Divine in the Inconscient. It started like that: Quietude, Beauty and Wonder.   more »

This ascent is the evolution that will take so many thousands and thousands of years. But for a very long time it was not measured. It is only when Mind took the form in man, that time began to be measured. And, before that, who can know how long It took to wake up from the complete Unconsciousness? ...   more »

The first vision of Consciousness is compared to “an eye of deity” piercing “through the dumb deeps”. There is then the beginning of life, and soon arrives the thought…   more »

It is the very beginning of aspiration waking up in the Inconscient to return to its conscious Origin. It is the starting-point, the first movement of evolution,—the evolution that is the turning back of the Inconscient to return to the full Consciousness…   more »

The Mother’s Comment: The Origin of Light and Consciousness which it carried in itself could not die—because it is the seed, the very essence of Immortality. And that began waking up.   more »

In spite of division, in spite of obscurity, there is still the seed of Consciousness, and there is still the want to go back to the Origin.   more »

This is a description—a very wonderful description—of the beginning of Aspiration: how in the Nothingness, in the Inconscient, stirred the first movement of Aspiration.

There was no mind, so it did not think. Even the vital was not organised, so it did not know how to be.

But, It stirred slowly to wake up the Inconscient towards something—without knowing what it was.

This is the first vibration which preceded even form, the first beginning of Aspiration towards the possibility of knowing.   more »

For the sake of evolution and the ascension towards Consciousness, earth was formed. But it was formed naturally in the Unconscious… when the earth was created in the Unconscious and the Nothingness, in order to concentrate the effort and the working of evolution—that is the description of the beginning…   more »

Even in the darkest Unconsciousness there was something, like the remembrance of the Divine Origin, and it had an urge to wake up to existence...   more »

As a result of separation of the first four emanations from the Origin, the creation by them had become obscure, inconscient…   more »

The Mother explains: There is an ancient tradition which describes the creation as done by some first emanations of the Supreme Mother, who were four emanations. In the sense and feeling of their supreme Power, they cut connection with the Origin and became independent. And then, these emanations, being separated from their Origin, entered into darkness...   more »

Savitri is the Mantra of Realisation in the mortal world, of Transformation. It is given in a succinct way as follows. The Rishi of the Mantra is Sri Aurobindo himself.

tat savitur varam rūpam jyotih parasya dhīmahi| yannah satyéna dīpayét ||

Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitŗ, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth.

Here the meditation is on the auspicious form of the Sun, the Sun of Divine Light. The Mantra affirms that the Light shall illumine us with the Truth. It shall illumine all the parts of our being, even the very physical. In it shall be our true progress. The threefold reality of Sat-Chit-Ananda shall express itself in this creation. Even the physical shall express the dynamic Truth. The auspicious form of the divine Light, varam rūpam, can alone be the foundation for the divine life in a divine body. The implication, in fact the power of the Mantra is that of physical transformation. This mortal world, mŗtyuloka, is the great concern of Savitri. She must bring down the Truth in this world, must make that Truth dynamically operative in it. She must espouse the Truth howsoever difficult the circumstances, even in the presence of ubiquitous death. The biography of Savitri is the presentation of this work of hers...   more »

The story of Savitri is an ancient story. Perhaps it belongs to the early Vedic times. Perhaps it may go back even to a yet deeper past. It is both myth and pre-history. Its character is occult and its contents are spiritual. Given as a human tale, the story has several connotations and is loaded with supernatural significance. In fact, its symbolic nature is quite suggestive of the issue involved in this mortal creation, mŗtyuloka, the creation to which we belong. The issue is of divine manifestation in an evolutionary way, evolution that has its beginning in Inconscience. This world of ours, this earth, is unique; it is a place where progress is continuous and interminable.

The story of Savitri has such an occult basis as its background and therefore it distinctly foresees the prospects of enlarging consciousness in the splendour of love, beauty, joy, knowledge, power, sweetness, harmony, the creative working of the Truth-Idea in the richly effulgent and ever-growing dimensions of the Infinite. Though not expressly stated so, the suggestions in the story are unmistakable.

There is a long spiritual tradition which carries in its experience the esoteric sense purported by the story. That it has occult-mystical bearings is pretty obvious from its very tone. Actually this implied meaning is written on its face in bright and bold characters. It is perhaps for this reason that its essential core has endured the long passage of time.

The Savitri-tale appears early in the Mahabharata, in the third of the 18 parts of the monumental work. It is placed in the Vana Parva and is called Savitri Upakhyana, a Minor Episode in the Book of the Forest. It has also a subtitle, Pativrata Mahatmya, indicating the nature of the story. The Sanskrit word māhātmya means greatness, grandeur, glory, majesty; it also means a narration of heroic or marvellous deeds, a legend, a romance, an epic. We may quite justifiably say that the Upakhyana is both: it is a noble mini-epic. It describes in great and dignified style the marvellous deeds of a married woman who is faithful and chaste, who observes virtuous rites and rituals, performs diligently the acts of ascetic sacrifices and offerings. Indeed, such a pativratā sees the very presence of divinity in her husband. The story is thus significantly charged with the resplendent and creative dynamism of the Dharma, the path of active and living Righteousness. The word dharma has the sense of the inner law of conduct natural to one’s soul and one’s spiritual build-up, one’s . It promotes superior and richer values, gracious merits which the soul cherishes and carries with itself from life to life. That is the true basis of the Upakhyana.

The metre in which the poem is composed is mostly Anusthtubha and there are exactly 300 ślokas or 600 hemistichs covering the entire story. Vyasa’s recitation of Savitri in this metre moves forward with epic grace and swiftness, rushing from event to event with confident ease.

Savitri the Princess of Madra is of course the most important character in the story. The other persons present are: Savitri’s parents Aswapati and Malawi; then, there is the heavenly sage Narad who pays a purposeful visit to Aswapati at a most crucial juncture in the life of Savitri. This happens when she is about to disclose to her parents her choice of marrying Satyavan; Satyavan, his mother Shaibya and blind father Dyumatsena, once the ruler of the Shalwa country, are staying as exiles in the forest. In the forest there are sages and learned ascetics engaged in holy spiritual practices, one prominent and well-respected among them being the sage Gautama. Yama or the God of Death is at once frightful-dark and kind-gracious in the benignity of the Upholder of the Order of the Worlds. Princess Savitri’s own birth was in response to Aswapati’s prayer to the goddess Savitri who incarnated herself as his daughter in fulfilment of the exceptional boon granted to him, through her, by the Creator-Father Brahma himself. A cosmic-transcendental dimension is thus already set in the story narrated as a simple human tale belonging to early times…   more »

It was the hour before the Gods awake.
Across the path of the divine Event
The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone
In her unlit temple of eternity,
Lay stretched immobile upon Silence' marge.
Almost one felt, opaque, impenetrable,
In the sombre symbol of her eyeless muse
The abysm of the unbodied Infinite;
A fathomless zero occupied the world.
...   more »

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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While commenting upon an early biographer’s attempt to present his life Sri Aurobindo, in the course of a conversation with his attendant-disciples, once remarked as follows: “Nobody except myself can write my life—because it has not been on the surface for man to see.” Yet we should be concerned with a few worldly facts from a certain point of view. And the strange thing is that, for a discerning eye, these facts also bring an intuitive vision which can provide a distant bio-spiritual peep into the secrecies of the person whom we so much admire, a spiritual peep that makes us grow into its magnificences. No wonder, philosophers have described him as the greatest synthesis between the East and the West; critics have acclaimed him as a poet par excellence; social scientists regard him as the builder of a new society based on enduring values of the life of the spirit; devotees throng in mute veneration offering their heart and their soul in a silent prayer that can secure for them the beatitude of the Blissful; Yogins long to live in the sunlight of his splendour to kindle in it their own suns; in the tranquil benignity of his spiritual presence is the fulfilment of all our hopes and all our keenest and noblest aspirations; gods of light and truth and joy and beauty and sweetness are busy in their tasks to carry out his will in the creation; in him the avataric incarnation becomes man to realize the divine in man. Such is the real birth of the Immortal in the Mortal. He comes here as Sri Aurobindo...   more »