Sri Aurobindo says: the first word of his Yoga is surrender; the last word is also surrender. In between these two happy surrenders it is its power that grows when is kindled the yajna to make our will transcendentally genuine. While we still live under the sway of the lower Nature, as long as we are in it, personal effort is indispensable. In that condition spiritual pursuit is our concern and nobody else is going to do it for us. But as we become conscious in our surrender, in our tyaga, in samarpana to the divine Shakti, it is she who herself leads us to freedom and perfection of the higher Nature. In the degree it becomes wholesome and integral, our progress also gains to that extent an assuring speed of the power who then governs all our activities. In the deepening truth of this divine samarpana we find ourselves actually engaged in Integral Tapasya in the ways of the Divine Shakti. In it the whole being lives only to know and serve the Divine. Lastly, it becomes “What Thou Willest, What Thou Willest.” Not what we think and see for ourselves, but what is thought and seen for us is all that matters. When there is no difference between our will and the Will of the Divine Shakti, then it is she who takes full charge of our life. Then indeed we acquire our genuine free will. That certainly is the object of the Integral Yoga of the Future. In it our masculine tapas-will joined with the feminine tyaga-shakti approaches the Spirit’s Tapas-will served in oneness by his inalienable Tyaga-shakti. In it can then be the truest expression of Krishna-Kali in us. When this is unfalteringly achieved, then the Being of Delight, the Anandamaya Purusha with his Consciousness-Force or Shakti working for his joy comes down wearing a crown of peacock plumes to play on his flute the Song of New Creation.

This song of new creation is born in the death of Death, in his transformation into the Being of Truth, he becoming the unveiled Sat-Purusha. Then begins the real re-creation of the Lord and his Shakti, the play and work of Krishna and Kali. When we participate in that manifestive activity of theirs, we recognize them as our Ishwara and Ishwari, she at his service, as his Dasi, governing a thousand wills of ours in the possibilities of the dynamic Divine. That is the truth of manifestation. “When the Unity has been well founded,” wrote Sri Aurobindo in 1916, “the static half of our work is done, but the active half remains. It is then that in the One we must see the Master and His Power,—Krishna and Kali.” Sri Aurobindo was at that time waiting for the final arrival of the Mother to join him to accomplish the active half of the work.

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The Yogini has transgressed the law and she must pay the price for that indiscretion of hers. She must bear its terrible consequences, the infliction of the terror; she must understand that here operates only the law of negation of life, denial of life as an incontrovertible fact, its non-existence. Yet in the land of Death her soul persists to be. Savitri survives; but she cannot have her Satyavan back. Instead, her exceptional daring can claim gifts from the Lord of Darkness. Whatever her dear Satyavan had wished while he was living, all those pleasures could easily be hers. Or else if he cherished the wish of eyesight for his blind father, or desired that he should have his lost kingdom back,—these could be restored to him. But those gifts and rewards did not mean much to Savitri, nothing, and she rejects them forthwith. Offended Death speaks in threatening terms to her. She is told that her venturesome act would awake the Furies who would put her in danger; she should on the other hand go by the wisdom shown to her by him, she should accept Death’s advice. But Savitri remains undeterred, worshipper of eternal Love only as she is; whatever she has to do she will do only that which is told by him alone, by Love. Indeed, in her birth all his suns were conscient and, replies she, Death should be fully cognizant of it. Death, however, carries in his imperial majesty the sword of ruthless will, the will of destruction, and Savitri, once more a Wanderer in the unending Night, travels through the unyielding vasts. She would not come back without the soul of Satyavan.

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The fated day of Satyavan’s death has arrived and Savitri gets ready well before the sunrise. In that auspicious hour or Mahamuhurta she worships Durga, the Protectress of the World. Then, taking the permission from her parents-in-law, she accompanies her husband to the forest where he has to go for the daily work. Even as they enjoy each other’s company in the happiness of nature, Savitri is at the same time haunted by the foretold doom which will befall on Satyavan when arrives the marked moment. While Satyavan is attending to his job, of cutting the branch of a tree, he suddenly feels exhausted, and there is profuse sweating, as well as intense pain. He comes down from the tree and puts his head in the lap of Savitri. The noon has become dark with the presence of Yama, the God of Death. Savitri knows that Satyavan is there no more now with her.

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Human Savitri remains helpless in a downcast mood. But she is attentive enough to receive the summons from her summit’s being. Her melancholy itself thus becomes a yogic state; it becomes Vishad Yoga, the Yoga of Dejection with the Siddhi of the Grief’s Self becoming calm. She is reminded of the mission she has come to carry out. First she should find out her soul and make in it all her actions the actions of God. She must possess the might that conquers Death. Savitri at once obeys the directive and with that begins her occult inward journey. She witnesses the play of the subconscient forces and also the possibilities that can bring the gods down. If out of Matter and Life emerged Mind, so can a being with diviner faculties arrive here. To mould humanity in God’s shape or discover a new world or create a new world are present as three alternatives and Savitri becomes the centre for the action. In the last alternative the creation established in the House of the Spirit shall become manifest. But for any of these to happen it is essential that first the heavenly soul should be found.

Beyond the Creation, beyond Sachchidananda, beyond the manifest Reality Savitri has reached the ultimate Supreme, Paratpara, the Absolute or the utter Unmanifest, Greater Darkness of the Upanishad wherefrom no return is possible. Had she merged into it it would have been a total laya, dissolution, and her mission would have been on the whole lost. This is a delicate situation, dangerous, but a necessary experience also in her yogic pursuit, that all that is this Nature’s must disappear. By dissolution she would have crossed the realms of death; but Savitri has to enjoy immortality in birth. Her connection with this world is age-old, ancient, and the little hermitage and the forest and the human life have a meaning in her transcendental realization. The Spirit of the Earth would not allow her to depart, disappear altogether. She is all that which holds death and supports the cycles of existence. The creation is a part of that Reality and the functioning its well-meant movement. Savitri has become the full divine Shakti, the Transcendental’s Force working in Space and Time.

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Incontingent love in this world has to face the worldly odds, the bane of mortality. Complex is the web of Destiny, and there is also the higher involvement. Narad has taken upon himself an onerous task. Savitri has come to know Love; but she must also know Death. To timely impart that knowledge, he hastens to Aswapati’s palace and makes known about the impending doom. He comes down from his paradisal home, singing five songs that culminate in the glory and marvel about to be born on earth. He is warmly received. Savitri discloses her meeting with Satyavan; but alas! it has also something ominous in it. Narad skirts the matter in the beginning; but is persuaded to divulge the truth, to reveal which he had actually come. In the sequel he, as if, tightens the grip of adverse fate by speaking out Satyavan’s death one year after the illustrious marriage. However, for Savitri’s mother Malawi this is altogether unacceptable. She pleads to Savitri, in the way of human pragmatism, to make another choice. But Savitri is firm in her resolve, maintaining that it was her soul’s decision and none can reverse it.

The emotion-charged mother, Malawi, questions the way the heavenly powers toy with the human lot. She wonders how at all grief and pain should find a place in good God’s creation. Or could it be that some disastrous power managed to mar his beautiful work? She seems to be miffed by destiny, and is reacting sharply. But Narad reveals the sense of mystery that lies behind it, mystery incomprehensible to human mind. It is pain that shapes the fiery spirit, ultimately to triumph over all obstacles. In any case, it was man’s soul that had longed for adventure, and he should not complain about it. It saw the possibility of a new creation emerging out of Inconscience and Ignorance and opted to participate in it. Narad asserts that Savitri’s will is fully in accord with that original wisdom, and she must be left to live in it. He recommends the marriage. Satyavan’s death is the spirit’s exceptional prospect and the sage effectively tells that such an opportunity should not be squandered away. God-given is her might and she needs no other help to carry out her work. She as the incarnate Shakti must meet Death in order to transform him.

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Designed in the sky but built upon the earth is the place where Satyavan and Savitri are to meet. It is the primo-essential cosmic space and time that shaped its bright emerald reality. The breeze is fragrant, and the mountains serene, and the streams carry the murmuring happiness of life in their crystal flow. If fate should walk through that windswept realm, of wonder and joy, it would do so only to bring the longing souls of love together. There is already the soft rustling air of expectancy, and Nature is awaiting the chosen to come together. The spell of Destiny shall cast its charm on lives of the exceptional two. Unspoiled by thought and pure in its zealous gladness, there burns high the incense of aspiring hope. A small pretty shrine of Shiva is guarding it against inadvertent Time. Here, driven by the unknown voice of the summer, arrives Satyavan to meet Savitri.

It is Satyavan who has to make advances and court Savitri, she the sunlight who had driven herself unto him. Such things of joy and beauty he had seen, but was amazed that here was one approaching him from the heavens of happiness. He entreats her to step down from her swift-yoked chariot, and visit the creepered hermitage, ready to receive her. There, in that forest-grove, he read things of eternity with the eyes of the spirit. There, he conversed with Nature. There, he felt oneness with all that exists. But he also carried with him a sense of sorrowing despondency, that body and soul have so far remained disunited. Yet he had the secret conviction that, one day, even the physical shall discover the true meaning of existence. It is that hope which is now getting kindled in him. It is Savitri who shall bring about that miracle. In the union of Satyavan and Savitri shall be the union of Spirit and Matter. In the happy authenticity of such an intuition, in their souls they pledge to join together. And the Gods of Nature and the Sky rejoicing from above shower marriage blessings on them.

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The six tropical seasons have speeded through the year and the Goddess of eternal Time has stepped into earthly cycles. Savitri’s arrival, marking a signal moment of the gods, is a beauty’s festival in the bright and colourful Spring, the chosen season who brings joy to our mortal life. In it shall happen happier and wondrous things, unblemished by death. Indeed, in her birth the heavenly charm and wonder have taken a human body. She has accepted our transient lot, and its travail, accepted in order to accomplish the divine task here. Savitri grows, becomes a student, and a scout, and a brave warrior. She is dear to everyone in every respect. In every act and thought and feeling of hers is expressed more and more of nobility of the high spirit. An invisible sunlight flows in her veins and her movements display the large significances of life. Her worship, and prayer, and aspiration become a call which draws an answer from absolute Destiny moulding our mortality.

But long is the quest and many-winding the path. She has to cross rivers and mountains in search of the joy she came to greet and affirm. Savitri has to take the lyric routes and has to climb the slopes of spiritual universality and wideness. She has to meet the urban gods and visit the secluded shrines in the forests. Driven from within, she has to follow her slow lingering road. Where she is going to be led, of that she has no knowledge; but she has the certitude that an invisible magnet of love is leading her to the destined place. It is in the Land of Tapasya that Man and Nature can awake to their eminent reality. Not the crowded cities of mind but god-listening silences of the woods can give to the spirit its wonder of deathlessness. Presently, when the sun is bright in the summer sky, she comes to a grove from where she need not go anywhere else.

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Aswapati sits expectantly with a prayer in his silent heart, but nothing happens. He is puzzled and must find if something in him was still resisting the great advent. He is aware that even the least element could spoil the work. He traces its roots and extracts them out completely. He is free and enters into the superconscient state. There Nature’s afflictions disappear and in the deep hush is the anticipation of an answering voice. Aswapati’s solitary concern is the good of the grieving creature. His long tapasya was for that purpose. Indeed, it is out of it that sprang up a new creation in the transcendent. But it ought to become a part of the evolutionary reality. For that to happen the Spirit’s disdainfulness towards Matter should disappear. Behind the present world Aswapati sees a world to be and the question is to make it actual. He knows that it can be done only by the divine Power. He must call her.

There is a sudden flow of energy and Aswapati feels its rush into all parts of his being, down to the very physical. Now spirit and body identify with each other, even as the radiant Goddess stands in front of him. She counsels him not to force mortality’s issue; he should instead leave all to the course of the evolving Time. He is told that Man is too weak to bear the burden of the Truth and he must graduate himself to receive her gifts. In the meanwhile, however, Aswapati should help this struggling creature on his heavenward march. She is ready to grant a boon to Aswapati, with the assurance that all things shall happen in God’s transfiguring hour. But the Siddha Yogi makes himself bold and holds out an alternative. He knows that a new creation in the House of the Spirit is waiting to be born and the Goddess should incarnate herself to make it real here. Saying ‘Be it so’ the Goddess withdraws and, glad, Aswapati returns to attend to his worldly duties.

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The Vishva Yoga begins. Here is a Universe well-planned and many-tiered. It has limits neither in Space nor in Time. Experience after experience displays the rainbow moods of the Power that brought it into existence. It is as if from one string issued out numberless harmonies, each with its own frozen perfection. They climb one above the other and disappear in the original Hush. It is up on these ascending slopes of Heaven that the aspiring soul of man moves. So too these worlds influence in several ways the working of this earth, her grief and her joy. Our souls were attracted by its mystery and accepted the travail. In the process slowly the meaning of the cosmic scheme itself becomes evident. The Seer is born within and whatever knowledge is necessary is received. In the exploration of this scheme no term has been fixed for Aswapati and his march is towards the indiscernible end. He sees Nature’s climbing hierarchy and sets himself on the way.

Aswapati, after such a wonderful experience on the border touching the Transcendent, returns to the things of Time. Now wherever he goes he carries along with him the consciousness of Passive Brahman, the quiescent Sachchidananda as a foundation for all of his activities in the world. He sees the powers that supervise the world and beyond them looks for that which can bring about a cosmic change. He makes a total yogic surrender to the Reality which sustains the Earth, the Mid-region, and Heaven,—Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar. In that sacrifice he is newborn and even his body partakes in its joy. Yet this supernal birth is his alone and cannot be of great avail for the collective on the earth. The individual’s supernal birth has to become a larger supernal birth. Its key is with the Divine Mother and therefore Aswapati must approach her. With this Siddhi attained, and with the cosmic forces now under his control, he becomes the Lord of Life. Hence onward his march is towards that transcendence where is her home.

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Here is an attempt to present Savitri in brief stanza-like compositions, each with just twelve lines. Savitri is a poem written in pentametric blank verse form, mostly with end-stopped lines, running almost to twenty-four thousand in number. Divided into twelve books, as was the tradition for a classical epic, it has forty-eight cantos plus an epilogue. Part I consisting of the first twenty-four cantos was published in September 1950, just a couple of months before Sri Aurobindo’s passing away in December of that year; Part II and Part III as a single tome comprising of the remaining twenty-four cantos and the epilogue appeared in May 1951. The poet was occupied with its composition for a number of years, for more than thirty years though with some long gaps in between. He also took Savitri as a means of expression of the higher truth yogically experienced and realised by him, expression turned towards fixing it here more and more with all the spiritual contents in it. It is an expression of the wonderful sovereignty itself, and hence becomes most valuable. Even in its outward character it is encyclopaedic. Therefore to think of putting such a work in scarcely six hundred lines is a perilous task, fully loaded with the question if this should be done at all. The comprehensive epic possesses simultaneously several dimensions and yet moves through region after luminous region with remarkable swiftness. Also, it was planned and executed with great artistic care, with the essential “power of architectural construction.” So to compress it by a factor of forty is to tell stories, if not desecrate the magnificence of its structural design. More serious objection will be the want of spiritual authenticity when we are not in touch with the truth of inspiration that is there behind it. It will be presumptuous on our part even to speak of fidelity to the text charged as it is with occult-yogic knowledge.

Savitri begins with the primordial Darkness when the gods are still asleep. Out of it has to come a fuller divine manifestation upon earth. But obstructing its path there is the mind of ominous Night and nothing can happen as long it is present. Many were the attempts made earlier but the success was only partial. At times something had stirred on the borderline of dream and waking, but too feeble was the awareness. Again and again the dawn had come with her gifts and had to go back as there was no sufficient response. It is in this circumstance that Savitri, the Daughter of the Sun-God, takes human birth. She identifies herself with this death-bound earthly creation with all its suffering. Keeping her spirit open to the Spirit in all she takes up the issue. To make the anguished body a receptacle of heavenly joy has been her ancient mission. She recalls it and yogically prepares herself to confront the Adversary. This shall be on the day of Satyavan’s death.

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Savitri becomes acutely aware of the very question of man’s life—its purpose, its goal, if any.

The sacrifice of suffering and desire
Earth offers to the immortal Ecstasy
Began again beneath the eternal Hand.

A perpetual sacrifice is going on in which the earth offers its desire and suffering to God, to the immortal Ecstasy. Now once again, through the agency of Savitri, under the auspices of the Divine, that sacrifice commences.

Awake she endured the moments' serried march
And looked on this green smiling dangerous world,
And heard the ignorant cry of living things.

Savitri does not start up all of a sudden. As she wakes, she becomes aware of all the movements around. She bears the march of time, moment by moment; moments pass in their battalions. She looks on this world which is green, fresh of life, attractive but at the same time dangerous. She not only watches but hears the ignorant cries of the living creatures on earth.

Amid the trivial sounds, the unchanging scene
Her soul arose confronting Time and Fate.

All these sounds are indeed trivial in the long run. Every day it is the same scene, people rushing to participate in this dangerous enticing world, full of cries of joy and pain. In this background Savitri’s soul arises challenging Time and Destiny. Everyone has to face the compulsions of Time and Fate without escape. But Savitri stands up to them defiantly.

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The poet now describes the various stages of Savitri’s waking up on the fateful morning:

At first life grieved not in her burdened breast:
On the lap of earth's original somnolence
Inert, released into forgetfulness
Prone it reposed, unconscious on mind's verge,
Obtuse and tranquil like the stone and star.

At first she is still restful in the sleepy hours of the earth; life in her is still inert, forgetful, stretched out in full repose. Life has not yet come in the mental awareness. It is dull of sensation like the stone and serene like the star. Grief is not yet felt on the surface though the breast carries the load of the impending doom.

In a deep cleft of silence twixt two realms
She lay remote from grief, unsawn by care,
Nothing recalling of the sorrow here.

She is still in a deep belt of silence between the two states of sleep and wakefulness, lying untouched by grief, unscratched by care, unaware of the sorrow in the world.

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Savitri lived caught in the net of earthly destinies. In the circumstances prevailing, the natural happiness and joy which she brought with her could not be very active. She is outcast from the felicity which is inborn with her. She consents to wear the dark earthly robe. Her real self is not revealed even to those whom she loves. Normally we do not hide things, we reveal ourselves to those whom we love, those who are near. But Savitri does not. Thus does she wait for the moment of supreme trial. Nobody else is let into her secret. Though she is of the Gods, she has accepted a human fate. Normally we would think that she has diminished her stature by taking on human nature. But she is greater for that very reason. This is an important concept of Sri Aurobindo. Elsewhere also he speaks of how a god descended upon earth, taking upon himself the load of human Karma, is greater than his compeer who is content to stay in his paradise. He has all the consciousness of heaven, plus something special to the earth-experience. So when the god returns to his home is richer than the gods who have never left it. That is also Sri Aurobindo’s explanation as to why God should have bothered at all to put forth this manifestation whereas he could very well have rested content in his glory. Why all this toil, going through the round, taking the challenge of opposites, God’s consciousness itself grows richer. The labour and effort of the adventure increase the stature of God. He is rich for having come down and participated in the labour of the earth’s evolution. Earth is the field of progress. There is no progress of our kind on the higher planes. Sri Aurobindo cites a passage from Vishnu Purana where it is said that even the gods, if they want to rise higher, have to come down to earth and take a human birth. That is the purport of ‘the godhead greater by a human fate’.

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The central idea here is of the divine sacrifice. The earliest mention of sacrifice in our tradition occurs in the Veda which speaks of the cosmic Person, the thousand-headed Purusha, sacrificing himself so that this creation might come into existence. The Bhagavad Gita also speaks of sacrifice: after creating the gods, creating the peoples, the Supreme God created Yajna as a means for their interchange. He charged the gos and people to promote each other by means of sacrifice, yajna. We do not need to say that this understanding has not been honoured from our side. The sacrifice continues from above, but from below we are not doing our part of the sacrifice; we appropriate everything to ourselves, what properly belongs to the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo speaks in a memorable passage in the book The Mother, of the supreme holocaust of the divine Mother: She sacrifices herself, comes down into this world of suffering and darkness in order that it may be uplifted. In several other passages of his writings, particularly in this epic, he refers to the sacrifice of God as an Avatar: all the hardship and struggle that is implied in the birth of an Avatar, and the reluctance of the world to receive the message that the Avatar brings.

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Every bit of earth that springs into life needs the sap, the life-giving essence of pleasure and tears. This duality is the way of earth-life. Life maintains itself on this mixture. Only joy would be boring, only sorrow will be smothering. When both are there, earth gets enough excitement. Such an earth refuses what Savitri has brought with her, the boon of undying rapture. This rapture is not pleasure. It is an intense delight. It may or may not be caused by outer circumstances. But pleasure is always the result of excitation. This rejection of the higher boon by the earth-grain is not all.

Offered to the daughter of infinity
Her passion-flower of love and doom she gave.

Savitri is verily the daughter of Infinity. In exchange for her boon of power and delight, earth gives her passion-flower of love and doom. Passion-flower is the flower resembling the crown of thorns placed on the head of Christ. As you know, his love for God expressed in in pain and tears is called the Passion-play. The love on earth, the human love is a veritable passion-flower. It has always thorns around it. Earth gives this love and its sequel doom, death, to Savitri.

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The conditions in our world are such that the light of God cannot sty unadulterated, undeflected for more than a little while. It is obliged to withdraw. But the little that it stays, makes all the difference to our life.

Spiritual beauty illumining human sight
Lines with its passion and mystery Matter's mask
And squanders eternity on a beat of Time.

Beauty is of many kinds: physical beauty of form, vital beauty of life, aesthetic beauty. Here the poet speaks of spiritual beauty. Matter is a mask that has an outside and an inside. This mask of matter is lined inside with spiritual beauty. The mystery element in matter which our reasoning cannot explain and the intensity of movement that articulated dead inert matter with life and activity are due to this spiritual element. This supernatural beauty squanders, throws out, eternity on a beat of time. A single beat of time, a moment, a second, contains in itself the whole eternity. To us it looks like a passing moment, but it is a throb of eternity in a moment of time.

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Whatever we believe to be true, whatever is accepted as truth, there is always a doubt around it. Truth is seated on the ‘shadowy back of doubt’; further on he speaks of the face of knowledge turbaned with doubt. As long as it is a mental knowledge, there is always the possibility of of its not being true and some part of the mind questions it. At times it may be a wrong doubt, making possible revision of the truth. This is the characteristic of life on earth.

This earth is a field of toil, kurukşetra; ‘precarious’ because we can never be sure whether it will be completed or whether the work will yield its result. It is ‘anguished’ because there is always some kind of anxiety, there is no certainty and security. This field of toil that is earth is ‘outspread beneath’, below. Some Eye of heaven, some gaze, say of a god, is looking at it. That gaze is not overconcerned with the moment-to-moment changes and movements on earth. The gaze of supernature is an impartial witness, it does not interfere, it only watches all our joys and our miseries, happiness and unhappiness, it is a sākşi. The ray of light, the ray of dawn is received here on such a field, on a ‘prostrate soil’. Till now the soil was lifeless, asleep, not active. The action of the ray awakens this arid, helpless soil.

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Our earth as it was, was without life, without sensation, without mind, an Inane. Now a solitary splendour from a destination which is yet invisible, is flung upon this vast emptiness through which light could hardly pass.

Once more a tread perturbed the vacant Vasts;
Infinity's centre, a Face of rapturous calm
Parted the eternal lids that open heaven;
A Form from far beatitudes seemed to near.

Once before when there was the stir and the longing for a change became articulate, there was a tread. Now again, with the arrival of the light, the dawn, there is a tread that vibrates. After the phenomenon of dawn, the Face of a Deity appears. She is the mother of light, Usha, as she is called in the Veda. When her eyelids open, they open the heavens; her face is the centre of Infinity. Infinity has no circumference, no form, but it has a centre. It is a Face of rapturous calm. It is very difficult to conceive of a ‘rapturous calm’. Normally, if there is rapture, there is no calm; and where there is calm, there is no rapture. But with the Divine both go together. Sri Aurobindo describes later on—
A heart of silence in the hands of joy.

The Deity opens her eyes. It is a form that seems to be approaching from far regions of bliss.

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The previous cycle has been blotted out. In that oblivion the crowded records of the past have been completely lost. All that old experience has to be gained once again. The sense may have awakened, the thought may have risen, but all of the old achievement has been wiped out. To revive it is a formidable task, but not impossible, for,

All can be done if the God-touch is there.

However impossible, however challenging a task may appear, it is so only to the human eye, only to human effort. If the will of God is there, Grace is there, all can be achieved.

This line is what we would call an epigram. There are hundreds of epigrams in Savitri, single-line epigrams. An epigram is a pithy saying in a sentence or a line summing up a profound message, a deep wisdom. I remember, some years ago those of us who were studying Savitri here, collected about 300 of these epigrams, it was issued as Epigrams in Savitri. And this is the first epigram in the poem. Nothing is impossible. It is only when we depend upon ourselves that things are difficult. But if we invoke the Grace and link ourselves to it, the situation changes. So leave out nothing simply because it appears impossible; call in the help of God.

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There is no mind, there is no light. The ray of light intervenes, its message breaks through that condition. There is a hush, silence, everywhere; it is a reluctant hush, it does not to admit anything of that light. In spite of it, the message of the scout, the message of light, creeps through, calling everything to wake up and have the adventure of joy and consciousness; it prods and calls all that is around to the adventure ahead. The message is the coming adventure of consciousness and joy. It spreads and conquers all reluctance.

Nature is not in a very cooperative mood, because earlier it has been disillusioned. Its earlier illusion of Glory, Immortality and Light has been shattered. But this message conquers even that Nature’s disillusioned breast. It compels a consent once again, ‘consent to see and feel’. Seeing is connected with consciousness, feeling with joy. A consent has been forced and extracted from Nature.

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