The divine Savitri has taken the human birth; however, in a yet deeper sense she remains unaffected by it. But then this situation raises a perplexing question. It is something as follows. If Savitri is the incarnate Shakti or the Consciousness-Force who has come here with a mission, how is it then that the Power that is seated within her, in her loving and luminous heart, the Guest within is not making any response? one who is the indisputable and infallible guide in all these thousand human predicaments, remaining untouched by our small joys and our small afflictions, as if impervious to everything, big or insignificant, transient and fleeting or sempiternal? Is he indifferent to all this which he has accepted to change it? Why is it that he is not giving any reply to the helpless creature’s cries? If he is not participating with his active involvement, what is he here then for? Let us look into some of these aspects related to the Guest.

The “Guest” is a Vedic-Upanishadic image; in fact he is the true reality sitting in the cave of the heart, hŗdaya-guhā. He is the Divine Agni, the Veda’s Immortal in the Mortal, one living in house and house, damé-damé; he is the Purusha no bigger than the thumb of a man, anguşţha-mātra-puruşah of the Upanishads; he is the eternal portion of the Divine, amśa sanātanah of the Gita; he is the witness, sākşi, and the giver of consent, anumantā, consent or sanction to Prakriti or Nature to do her work. But aloof and apart he lives, that Nature may do her work in the efficacy of her nature.

 

Savitri’s joy once had been the joys of the Vaster Nature, of Para Prakriti; but now she has accepted the conditions of human birth; she has stepped into “the portals of the birth that is a death”. She need not have stepped into this ignominious birth, but it is the power of incontingent love that persuaded her to do so, compelled her to take this mortal ignominious birth. Otherwise there is nothing mortal in her. It should also be noted that there is a difference between the Guest in her heart’s cave and the guest residing in our heart’s cave. She belongs to Ishwarkoti, as Ramakrishna would say, and we to Manushya or Jivakoti, one to the Divine category, the other to the human. Savitri is the “Transcendent’s ray” sent here.

But silent is the Guest within, sitting aloof and apart. The question is: why is he silent? That is because she must first discover him, hidden as he is behind the thick folds of darkness. Human Savitri must throw away the veils that wrap the heavenly Psyche within. Unless that is done by the incarnate Savitri, darkness covering the soul of man cannot be removed. Even as Savitri was commanded to do her Yoga, she steps into the dream-experience, swapna, and sees the subconscient-occult regions and the possibilities that exist for the earth and the human soul: (Savitri, pp. 486-87)

 

A portion of the mighty Mother came

Into her as into its own human part:

Amid the cosmic workings of the Gods

It marked her the centre of a wide-drawn scheme,

Dreamed in the passion of her far-seeing spirit

To mould humanity into God's own shape

And lead this great blind struggling world to light

Or a new world discover or create.

 

Earth must transform herself and equal Heaven

Or Heaven descend into earth's mortal state.

 

But for such vast spiritual change to be,

Out of the mystic cavern in man's heart

The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil

And step into common nature's crowded rooms

And stand uncovered in that nature's front

And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life.

There are two alternatives: earth must transform herself or heaven descend. But in either case the imperative is the emergence of the heavenly Psyche, of the Guest within coming out. Post-human rather trans-human destinies, of whatever kind these be, if they have to bring about a spiritual change, can be truly fulfilled only with this proviso; the rest simply is preparation. For the heavenly Psyche to stand in the nature’s front, Savitri has to do the Yoga of the Discovery of the Soul. She has to follow the world’s winding highway to its source when, in the silence few have ever reached, she shall see the Fire burning on the bare stone and the deep cavern of her secret soul. She has to enter into the deep cavern, the secret cave of the heart, hŗdaya-guhā. Then can the Guest make the response to the call. (Savitri, pp. 526-27)

 

A being stood immortal in transience,

Deathless dallying with momentary things…

 

Observer of the silent steps of the hours,

Eternity upheld the minute's acts

And the passing scenes of the Everlasting's play,

In the mystery of its selecting will,

In the Divine Comedy a participant,

The Spirit's conscious representative,

God's delegate in our humanity,

Comrade of the universe, the Transcendent's ray,

She had come into the mortal body's room

To play at ball with Time and Circumstance…

 

All she could front with the strong spirit's peace.

 

But since she knows the toil of mind and life

As a mother feels and shares her children's lives,

She puts forth a small portion of herself,

A being no bigger than the thumb of man

Into a hidden region of the heart

To face the pang and to forget the bliss,

To share the suffering and endure earth's wounds

And labour mid the labour of the stars.

 

This in us laughs and weeps, suffers the stroke,

Exults in victory, struggles for the crown,

Identified with the mind and body and life,

It takes on itself their anguish and defeat,

Bleeds with Fate's whips and hangs upon the cross,

Yet is the unwounded and immortal self

Supporting the actor on the human scene…

 

This is in us the godhead small and marred;

In this human portion of divinity

She seats the greatness of the Soul in Time

To uplift from light to light, from power to power,

Till on a heavenly peak it stands, a king…

 

Here in this chamber of flame and light they met;

They looked upon each other, knew themselves,

The secret deity and its human part,

The calm immortal and the struggling soul.

Then with a magic transformation's speed

They rushed into each other and grew one.

Her soul and her spirit have merged into one another and become one. The Guest, “God’s delegate” within is now there to step into world action and carry out the divine task for which he accepted “the birth that is a death.”