To live with grief, to confront death on her road,—

The mortal's lot became the Immortal's share.

 

We have seen how despite all the greatness that Savitri has brought to earth, she is rewarded with sorrow, struggle and fall. As a result, though she has come from the land of immortality, she has to share what is normally the lot of the mortal: to live with grief. Grief is inseparable from our human life. She has also to encounter death.

 

Thus trapped in the gin of earthly destinies,

Awaiting her ordeal's hour abode,

Outcast from her inborn felicity,

Accepting life's obscure terrestrial robe,

Hiding herself even from those she loved,

The godhead greater by a human fate.

 

Abode is the past tense of abide. Thus lived Savitri 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’.

 

A dark foreknowledge separated her

From all of whom she was the star and stay;

Too great to impart the peril and the pain,

In her torn depths she kept the grief to come.

 

She has been the hope and support of a large number of people. Even from them she is separated by the dark foreknowledge of the coming doom which she alone has. It is always a characteristic of great persons that they do not speak of their grief or pain to others. They don’t share, they keep the pain to themselves, they loftily endure by themselves. It is common people who rush to speak of their miseries and difficulties to others; they feel somewhat lightened when they do that. But the great ones don’e impose their burden on others. Savitri keeps the grief in her own depths which are indeed torn because she suffers inside. It is gnawing at her vitals. In spite of it, she is composed and aloof.

 

As one who watching over men left blind

Takes up the load of an unwitting race,

Harbouring a foe whom with her heart she must feed,

Unknown her act, unknown the doom she faced,

Unhelped she must foresee and dread and dare.

 

Savitri takes up the load of humanity which is not conscious of that fact. She is compared to one who is charged with looking after blind people. She has to attend to everything concerning them, but they are not aware of it. They are blissfully unaware of all the worry and trouble that the person is undergoing on their account. She has to hold in herself an enemy whom she must feed with her heart. None knows of this her heroism, of the doom of death that she is facing. She has to do all single-handed—to foresee, watch in dread and dare to oppose.

 

The long-foreknown and fatal morn was here

Bringing a noon that seemed like every noon.

 

This day when she wakes up, she knows the twelve months have passed and death is due to take place. Outwardly it is a day like any other day, it is a morning being followed by a noon like any other noon. Here Sri Aurobindo makes an observation:

 

For Nature walks upon her mighty way

Unheeding when she breaks a soul, a life;

Leaving her slain behind she travels on:

Man only marks and God's all-seeing eyes.

 

Nature has large mighty movements, and when she unrolls herself, there may be one person dead here, one life stamped out elsewhere; but she does not pause to see what has happened, she goes on. There is a storm, there is an earthquake, countless creatures die. Nature goes on unconcernedly. Only man who is involved takes note. Also, it does not escape the all-seeing eyes of God.

 

Even in this moment of her soul's despair,

In its grim rendezvous with death and fear,

No cry broke from her lips, no call for aid;

She told the secret of her woe to none.

 

The hour of confrontation with death has arrived, yet, despite all the fear and despair of the moment, she does not cry out, she does not call for any help. She does not share her woe with anyone.

 

Calm was her face and courage kept her mute.

 

Her appearance is calm. She is silent. Only the courageous can be silent. Those who are afraid need to speak, to articulate their fear and thereby seek support.

 

Yet only her outward self suffered and strove;

Even her humanity was half divine.

 

Even in this crisis, her suffering is confined only to her external self which is struggling from moment to moment. Within, she divine, even her apparent humanity is half-divine.

 

Her spirit opened to the Spirit in all,

Her nature felt all Nature as its own.

 

Both at the level of self and the at level of nature, she is one with all. It is more difficult to be united in nature than in the soul. But Savitri is all in both the statuses.

 

Apart, living within, all lives she bore;

Aloof, she carried in herself the world.

 

She lives within herself, but she is not self-centred and lost in herself. From that vanyage ground, she bears all that lives, carries all the world. That is, she identifies herself, supportively, with all, though living within. Truth to tell, it is only by living within that we can feel one with all. By living on the surface, we live in division. In her solitude, Savitri carries the whole world in her being.

 

Her dread was one with the great cosmic dread,

Her strength was founded on the cosmic mights;

The universal Mother's love was hers.

 

There is an uncertainty, there is a fear in the cosmos, the dread of disintegration, decay, death. Savitri’s dread reflects this pervading dread in the universe. Similarly her strengths bases itself on the cosmic strength. Her force is one with the cosmic force. All this is possible, because she embodies love which is the sure basis of identity and oneness. This love is all-embracing love of the universal Mother.

 

Against the evil at life's afflicted roots,

Her own calamity its private sign,

Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword.

 

She is not overcome by the evil that is staring t her in a personal way. She faces it as an individual sign of the Evil that has struck at the roots of life generally. With this awareness, she converts her own crisis, her own pain into a sharp mystic sword with which to cut the knot.

 

A solitary mind, a world-wide heart,

To the lone Immortal's unshared work she rose.

 

In the mind she may be aloof, but in the heart she is wide, world-embracing. This is the key to every spiritual seeker: one must be detached in the mind, but the heart must spread itself, become universal.

 

Thus does she rise to do that work of God, all alone. The task is unique and she who takes it up is also unique.