I had asked the question in reference to the below quotes of Mother posted on post The Ancient Disputants: Earth-Love-Doom—Earth the Darling of the Lord 27 May:

"But it is a speciality of the earth. It is a direct infusion, special and redeeming, in the most inconscient and obscure Matter, so that it might once again awake through stages to the divine Consciousness, the divine Presence and finally to the Divine Himself. It is the presence of the psychic which makes man an exceptional being—I don’t like to tell him this very much, because already he thinks too much of himself; he has such a high opinion of himself that it is not necessary to encourage him! But still, this is a fact—so much so that there are beings of other domains of the universe, those called by some people demigods and even gods, beings, for instance, of what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, who are very eager to take a physical body on earth to have the experience of the psychic, for they don’t have it. These beings certainly have many qualities that men don’t, but they lack this divine presence which is altogether exceptional and exists only on the earth and nowhere else. All these inhabitants of the higher worlds, the Higher Mind, Overmind and other regions have no psychic being. Of course, the beings of the vital worlds don’t have it either. But these latter don’t regret it, they don’t want it. There are only those very rare ones, quite exceptional, who want to be converted, and for this they act without delay, they immediately take a physical body. The others don’t want it; it is something which binds them and constrains them to a rule they do not want.
There are psychic beings only on the earth, precisely because the earth has been created as a symbol for concentrating the problem, and the psychic being, which is the result of the direct intervention of the Supreme, has been created here exactly for the necessities of this symbolic action.
But I have already told you that it is only upon earth that the psychic being gets its experiences to individualise itself. Hence there is an almost absolute interdependence between the psychic world and the earth."

To rephrase the question I am listing below the question from different standpoints:
1. The fact that psychic being gets an opportunity to progress or even to individualise itself is only on earth, implying that it is the specialty of the substance of earth to which we can attribute progress or the possibilities of advancing and ultimately experiencing or expressing directly the divine. Now as Sri Aurobindo has said in Life Divine that we have a double soul of which surface soul is the part which we can attribute to our earthly substance and inner soul or psychic being which is subliminal in us. Now I am trying to infer or identify precisely the thing or specialty in earthy substance and was speculating that surface soul as talked in Life Divine might be that?
2. "....to take a physical body on earth to have the experience of the psychic": Gives the impression to me that the experience of psychic comes automatically with having a physical body? Gods or even Asuras looking for conversion can have experience of psychic by being born in a physical body.
3. From the 'story of creation' standpoint is psychic being the 'inconscient being' on its way to becoming the 'supreme being'? Or what was that descent which resulted in psychic being ?
4. What is the correlation between the divine descent as Love immediately after the Asura descent in 'story of creation' and psychic being?
5. Starting from an original descent as psychic being what are the main landmarks in the life-cycle of psychic being? like first being able to individualise itself, life-expression, mind-expression etc. ?
6. Is Satyavan the symbol of psychic being?
7. "....there is an almost absolute interdependence between the psychic world and the earth.": Can this be elaborated please? The relationship between earth and psychic being? And does acquiring a physical body automatically gives experience of psychic being to any Being whatsoever?
8. Relationship between Satyavan and earth?

I will fill in some of the information here and see how far it answers your questions.

The surface soul in man described in the Life Divine is just the soul of desires. This has nothing to do with Gods and reincarnation. In fact, the chapter states,
"It follows that in this surface or desire-soul there is no true soul-life, but a psychic deformation and wrong reception of the touch of things."

The psychic being projects itself out as the mental, vital or physical Purusha. Those who are strongly developed mentally (intellectuals) see their mental Purusha as the surface soul. Those developed vitally (businessmen) see their vital Purusha as the surface soul. Lastly, athletes the correspondence would be the physical Purusha. It is a mix of all these three in most people. Spiritual life begins when we start searching for the subliminal soul - the psychic being.

Regarding Gods, there are Gods on every plane. Gods from the plane of the mind already have a mental body - a body made of substance of that plane. The Vital Gods have a vital sheath. Gods are akin to energy formations and bear only one sheath while man has all five sheaths of consciousness. Gods are spineless - they lack the spinal cord with Chakras. Hence, Gods can only experience their native plane of consciousness while Man, if he evolves and activates the Kundalini, can potentially experience all planes of consciousness. That is why human body is called pindanda (microcosm) of the brahmanda (universe).

What happens after a God born on Earth leaves his body? Is he reborn? Does he get to keep his psychic being and become a man forever ? Hmmm...

Your question 5. Starting from an original descent as psychic being what are the main landmarks in the life-cycle of psychic being? like first being able to individualise itself, life-expression, mind-expression etc. ?
This is the cycle of evolution wherein the Divine starts out as a tiny psychic presence and evolves through plants, animals and then becomes the psychic being in man.

Well said.

Gods find it unpleasant to take birth in this mortal creation which is in fact a creation for the evolutionary progress. This progress is possible because of the psychic being. Gods find this world too small and curbing for their work. The Mother suggested Durga and Shiva to step into this evolutionary process but they were not inclined to do that. They have no psychic being to put them directly in contact with the Divine. They belong to the typal worlds.

But instead of going into such metaphysics, let us remain, as far as possible, in the context of Savitri alone.

RYD

1. So any Being born on earth gets a psychic spark/presence as part and parcel of the physical body?

2. And the psychic being of Savitri which she discovers in the Book of Yoga, with the three Soul-Forces's (Mother of grief divine, works and force, joy and peace) en route; is that the state of development of psychic being of supremely advanced beings like Savitri only or would it be similar to our psychic beings as well (though with triple Soul-Force's very little developed and poor expressive capacity)?

3. "Then with a magic transformation’s speed
They rushed into each other and grew one." (CANTO V: The Finding of the Soul)

Is the being of Savitri which merges with her Soul the Higher Being who has descended as Savitri or is it surface being or awareness of Savitri?

N: 3. Is it the being of Savitri which merges with her Soul the Higher Being who has descended as Savitri or is it surface being or awareness of Savitri?

RYD: It is the transcendental spirit of Savitri that has rushed into her soul, the secret deity and its human part, the calm immortal and the struggling soul who has accepted the evolutionary travail. They have merged into each other and become one.

> 1. So any Being born on earth gets a psychic spark/presence as part and parcel of the
> physical body?

I made a mistake in my earlier response. The typal beings like Gods, Asuras do not get a psychic being if they are born on Earth. They have a Purusha which supports the formation on Earth.

I will hand this question over to the Master!

Again, what do you mean by a soul? My proposition simply meant that there is no existence which has not the support of something of the Divine behind it. But the word soul has various meanings according to the context; it may mean the Purusha supporting the formation of Prakriti, which we call a being, though the proper word would be rather a becoming; it may mean, on the other hand, specifically the psychic being in an evolutionary creature like man; it may mean the spark of the Divine which has been put into Matter by the descent of the Divine into the material world and which upholds all evolving formations here. There is and can be no psychic being in a non-evolutionary creature like the Asura; there can be none in a god who does not need one for his existence. But what the god has is a Purusha and a Prakriti or Energy of nature of that Purusha. If any being of the typal worlds wants to evolve, he has to come down to earth and take a human body and accept to share in the evolution. It is because they do not want to do this that the vital beings try to possess men so that they may enjoy the materialities of physical life without having the burden of the evolution or the process of conversion in which it culminates. I hope this is clear and solves the difficulty.

The three stages you speak of are stages not of evolution but of the involution of the Divine in Matter. The Devas and Asuras are not evolved in Matter; for the typal being only a Purusha with its Prakriti is necessary – this Purusha may put out a mental and vital Purusha to represent it and according as it is centred in one or another it belongs to the mental or vital world. That is all.

While the Gods cannot be transformed, for they are typal and not evolutionary beings, they can come for conversion – that is to say, to give up their own ideas and outlook on things and conform themselves to the higher Will and supramental Truth of the Divine.

-Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Divine and Hostile Powers

Also check Purani's Evening talks, Second Series, Gods, Page 226

Disciple : Do the Asuras have also the possibilities of man

Sri Aurobindo : No.

Disciple : Is there no progress for the Asura ?

Sri Aurobindo : Not in the sense of evolution of consciousness.

Disciple : But you said that the Asura can be transformed or converted ?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes. They can change their working and open to something higher.

Disciple : Is that what you meant by their being converted ? Then can they help evolution ?

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, they can manifest something higher than their vital nature and become instruments of the Divine. But generally they do not change.

Disciple : What becomes of the Asuras if they are not converted ?

Sri Aurobindo : They can be annihilated ; but if you ask what would happen at the end of the kalpa, well, it is difficult to answer. If they change then they can open themselves to something higher, and try to manifest it .

Disciple : Some of the Asuras are said to have practised Sadhana. What is their kind of Sadhana? You also said that they are very intelligent beings.

Sri Aurobindo : I never said that they have true ideas and great ideals and that they were great mental beings. What I said was that they were clever in carrying out their purpose, they know how to work out results.

Disciple : What is their place in evolution ? Could it go on without them ?

Sri Aurobindo : There is the old idea of devas and asuas – divine beings or Gods, – the titans – struggling to control human evolution. The Asuras are responsible for the great complexity of the world, but in my opinion they are not a necessity. The Asuras realise themselves through revolt, suffering, struggle, and difficulty. But the world could have evolved differently – more like a flower blooming from inside to outside. But the forces of the Asura-type entered the universal play of forces and perverted it. This is the truth known to almost all the religions : the snake – the evil, tempting Prakriti – Eve, – Prakriti deceiving Purusha – Adam. The Purusha consented and they fell : this they speak of as the fall of Adam, the cosmic man.

In India this struggle, – as to who should control the course of human evolution, – between the Devas and the Asuras expresses the same truth.

Disciple : What is then the truth in the Puranic idea of worshipping God through vaira bhava – feeling of "opposition", or hostility?

Sri Aurobindo : In the case of Ravana, and also of Hiranya Kashipu, they were human beings who became Asuras and chose the path of opposition to the Divine. It is really a fall and it shows that the course of evolution for man is not to become an Asura. That is to say, the course of human evolution is not from the animal to the vital being and then to the Asura. Asuric life is regarded as a fall for man. If you got converted Asuric nature then you lose the chance of your evolution.

I found an instance of a typal being who was born as a human in the writings of Amal Kiran. This might help understand how other-worldly beings are born and live on earth. This book is online at sriaurobindoashram.info for those who dont know

Amal Kiran's "Our light and delight" page 170

Not every non-evolutionary force from the occult planes is evil. One embodied typal being, who was neither Titan nor Giant nor Demon, came into touch with me from very nearly the beginning of my stay in the Ashram.

It was a young French girl, the eldest child of a highly cultured lady who belonged to a one-time ruling family in Pondicherry but who became a disciple of the Mother although she was not technically an Ashramite. She had her own house in the town and lived there with her husband, three other daughters and a son. This lady was our tutor in French and sometimes when she could not to teach us her eldest daughter took her place. This girl was seventeen at the time, a very clever person of marked talent and an extraordinary fascination, pretty in an unusual way which mostly affected one through her eyes. She had been regarded as dead at birth but seemed suddenly to come alive, a phenomenon characteristic of cases where a being of some other plane than the earth, most often the Vital Plane, takes hold of an infant body.

The Mother, after seeing her as a young girl, confided to her parents that this child of theirs was not human but a spirit from the world of fairies who had wanted to come into contact with the Mother and so had entered a family which was likely to get associated with her. As normal with such entrants, this one had a tremendous fund of energy and a conquering drive of will, added to her sharp intelligence and charming personality. I was nearly ten years older than she and came to be trusted by her. All her difficulties she used to put before me and she was eager to learn whatever I had to teach her. When she became engaged to a tall Apollo of a Swede, she would invite me in the mornings to talk to her on Ibsen or Tolstoy or some other literary celebrity and she would in the evenings amaze more her fiancé with her versatile knowledge.

Inhabiting a human body she could not escape altogether "the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to" and, in spite of her brilliant gifts and natural force and spell-binding beauty, she suffered a good deal. Her marriage was on the rocks after ten years and fate separated her from all her three children. From Europe where she had made her life she returned to Pondicherry and spent her last years here, resuming her old friendship with me and her physical proximity to the Mother. These years were rather unhappy and troubled, but she never lost her energy and esprit. Every now and again one could feel something strange in her. Especially on certain evenings she would carry an atmosphere that appeared to be filled with unknown influences. My personal editorial office was a flat adjoining the one in which she and her old mother lived. So I had ample opportunity to observe her in all her moods.

One evening she called me and said: "Amal, I feel that I shall die in a week." I laughed off the idea and told her that she had to live for a decade after I was gone. "Please hold my hand for a while," she begged, I did so and cracked some jokes and she was in a better humour when I left. Almost exactly after a week a servant of hers came to my room at about 8 p.m. to say that she was unwell. I left my typing and went to see her. She was in a doze. Knowing that she used to drink beer, I thought she had slightly overdone it and was asleep. I went back to my work. An hour later I was summoned once more. She was still unconscious but was now throwing up watery stuff at intervals. I sent for a doctor who had his residence opposite hers. He was out. I sent for her family doctor. He was not in Pondicherry. I sent to the hospital for a doctor. The reply came that nobody from there could come but an ambulance could be sent. The state of my friend was getting worse: there was breathing difficulty. I asked the ambulance to be sent. A minute before the vehicle stopped at the door my friend ceased to breathe. A few seconds later her heart failed. I did whatever I could to resuscitate her. All in vain. The ambulance men came in with a stretcher. They could give no help. I insisted that she be taken to the hospital. I accompanied her. It was nearly eleven at night. At the hospital I called the doctor in charge to come into the van and examine her. He tried all the possible tests and declared her stone dead. I took her back home.

News was sent to a friend of the family, a Swiss sadhika named Padma. Early next morning she and I went up to see the Mother. I told the Mother the whole story and conveyed the message of my friend's mamma that she wanted her daughter's body to be taken care of by the Ashram and carried by the Ashram people in a coffin to the family's vault.. Later in the day the Mother communicated to the shocked old lady that her daughter had returned to her own world and was having a rest which she had badly needed.

Sri Aurobindo in a letter to Amal had written that Shelley was a non-evolutionary being. No wonder, he complained: "I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed."

RYD

This was in response to Amal's query if Harin was Shelley in a previous birth. Amal went by the nature of their poetry. The Mother used to call Harin "My Blue Bird". She also said that during several of his preceding births he was a poet. Harin was in the Ashram for a couple of years during the early 1930s. When he left the Ashram, he sold his cycle to Amal. It was Dilip Roy who was instrumental in bringing Harin to the Ashram.

RYD

Ques 3. "Then with a magic transformation’s speed
They rushed into each other and grew one." (CANTO V: The Finding of the Soul)

Is the being of Savitri which merges with her Soul the Higher Being who has descended as Savitri or is it surface being or awareness of Savitri?

This seems to be describing the psychic transformation, with the discovery of the psychic being within the heart and then it's union with the surface soul.

P526

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;

And this as well

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.
In body weak, in its heart an invincible might,
It climbs stumbling, held up by an unseen hand,
A toiling spirit in a mortal shape.
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.

The same canto on the next page describes the awakening of the Kundalini

Out of the Inconscient’s soulless mindless night
A flaming Serpent rose released from sleep.
It rose billowing its coils and stood erect
And climbing mightily, stormily on its way
It touched her centres with its flaming mouth;
As if a fiery kiss had broken their sleep,
They bloomed and laughed surcharged with light and bliss.
Then at the crown it joined the Eternal’s space.
In the flower of the head, in the flower of Matter’s base,
In each divine stronghold and Nature-knot
It held together the mystic stream which joins

The awakening of the Sahasrara, Ajna and the throat Chakra is described

In the country of the lotus of the head
Which thinking mind has made its busy space,
In the castle of the lotus twixt the brows
Whence it shoots the arrows of its sight and will,
In the passage of the lotus of the throat
Where speech must rise and the expressing mind
And the heart’s impulse run towards word and act,
A glad uplift and a new working came.

The heart Chakra awakened

In the kingdom of the lotus of the heart
Love chanting its pure hymeneal hymn
Made life and body mirrors of sacred joy

The last two Chakras

In the navel lotus’ broad imperial range
Its proud ambitions and its master lusts
Were tamed into instruments of a great calm sway
To do a work of God on earthly soil.
In the narrow nether centre’s petty parts
Its childish game of daily dwarf desires
Was changed into a sweet and boisterous play,
A romp of little gods with life in Time.
In the deep place where once the Serpent slept,
There came a grip on Matter’s giant powers

Please point out if what I am assuming is right:

A being stood immortal in transience,
Deathless dallying with momentary things,
In whose wide eyes of tranquil happiness
Which pity and sorrow could not abrogate
Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes:
Observer of the silent steps of the hours,
Eternity upheld the minute’s acts
And the passing scenes of the Everlasting’s play.
(Psychic Being?)


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.
(Psychic Being/Transcendent's-ray and being addressed as a She?)


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.
(Surface Soul put out BY Psychic Being?)

It's good somebody is asking questions.

To be honest, I don't know the meaning of every symbol or phrase Sri Aurobindo employed in Savitri. It is like a journey of discovery. At times, I come across something in the Agenda, Vedas or Life Divine which suddenly provides the context of a particular phrase in Savitri.

For example, in this same canto on p523, it says "Heaven leaned low to kiss the sacred hill". Why does Sri Aurobindo call it hill ? Because this is Vedic imagery where man's being is called the hill.
Same applies to "Day came, priest of a sacrifice of joy". This is the Vedic Agni. There is also the "mystic cavern" used on p523, which is the hidden cave of the heart. This is the Hridaye Guhyam described somewhere else. So much of this canto talks about the psychic being.

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.
(Surface Soul put out BY Psychic Being?)

The "being no bigger than the thumb" is how the Katha Upanishad describes the psychic being. Sri Aurobindo has used the same imagery here.

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.
(Psychic Being/Transcendent's-ray and being addressed as a She?)

She refers to the Divine Mother putting out a delegate, a ray of itself within us. Again, this is the psychic being.

A being stood immortal in transience,
Deathless dallying with momentary things,
In whose wide eyes of tranquil happiness
Which pity and sorrow could not abrogate
Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes:
Observer of the silent steps of the hours,
Eternity upheld the minute’s acts
And the passing scenes of the Everlasting’s play.
(Psychic Being?)

This seems more like a description of the Akshara Purusha who stands apart from Prakriti.

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.

Apropos of these lines the question asked is whether the psychic being puts out the surface soul—Surface Soul put out BY Psychic Being.

Assuming it to be so for a moment, what sense will then the passage convey? Of course “a being no bigger than the thumb of man” is the Upanishadic anguşţhmātra puruşa.

RYD

yes, i presume it can be read as the surface soul projected by the psychic.

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 in the human scene.
Through this she sends us her glory and her powers,
Pushes to wisdom’s heights, through misery’s gulfs;
She gives us strength to do our daily task
And sympathy that partakes of others’ grief
And the little strength we have to help our race,
We who must fill the role of the universe
Acting itself out in a slight human shape
And on our shoulders carry the struggling world.

Psychic is the divine element in man, the “unwounded and immortal self”, and it cannot project falsehood; the surface soul is essentially full of error and ignorance, limitations.

RYD

It appears that there are three different elements: surface soul, struggling soul and secret soul.

Surface soul has also been referred as desire-soul and is definitely not part or projection of psychic being. The relation is rather of psychic Person replacing desire-soul at maturity of psychic being's growth. (Page 240 Life Divine: If the secret psychic Person can come forward into the front and, replacing the desire-soul, govern overtly and entirely and not only partially and from behind the veil this outer nature of mind, life and body, then these can be cast into soul images of what is true, right and
beautiful and in the end the whole nature can be turned towards the real aim of life, the supreme victory, the ascent into spiritual existence.)

Occurrence of 'surface soul' in Savitri:

1. An hour arrives when fail all Nature’s means;
Forced out from the protecting Ignorance
And flung back on his naked primal need,
He at length must cast from him his surface soul
And be the ungarbed entity within:
That hour had fallen now on Savitri. (Page 12)

2. Lending her speech to the surface soul on earth
She uttered the suffering in the world’s dumb heart
And man’s revolt against his ignorant fate. (Page 437)

Following extract from Savitri:
There suddenly she met her secret soul.

A being stood immortal in transience,
Deathless dallying with momentary things,
In whose wide eyes of tranquil happiness
Which pity and sorrow could not abrogate
Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes:
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.
A joy in the world her master movement here,
The passion of the game lighted her eyes:
A smile on her lips welcomed earth’s bliss and grief,
A laugh was her return to pleasure and pain.
All things she saw as a masquerade of Truth
Disguised in the costumes of Ignorance,
Crossing the years to immortality;
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;
CANTO V: The Finding of the Soul 527
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 in the human scene.
Through this she sends us her glory and her powers,
Pushes to wisdom’s heights, through misery’s gulfs;
She gives us strength to do our daily task
And sympathy that partakes of others’ grief
And the little strength we have to help our race,
We who must fill the role of the universe
Acting itself out in a slight human shape
And on our shoulders carry the struggling world.
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.
In body weak, in its heart an invincible might,
It climbs stumbling, held up by an unseen hand,
A toiling spirit in a mortal shape.
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.

is sandwiched between following two lines:
There suddenly she met her secret soul.
They rushed into each other and grew one.

So it appears all the lines in between are elaboration of the secret soul and struggling soul. Savitri as struggling soul met her secret soul.
Now struggling soul as suggested in the above lines of Savitri is a projection of psychic Person. Following extract from Life Divine suggests that the struggling soul is 'psychic personality' of the secret soul or psychic Person:
"this inmost entity also, taking form in us as the psychic Person, puts forward a psychic personality which changes, grows, develops from life to life; for this is the traveller between birth and death and between death and birth, our nature parts are only its manifold and changing vesture." (Page 239)

Following lines refer to psychic Person or calm immortal:
A being stood immortal in transience,
Deathless dallying with momentary things,
In whose wide eyes of tranquil happiness
Which pity and sorrow could not abrogate
Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes:
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.
A joy in the world her master movement here,
The passion of the game lighted her eyes:
A smile on her lips welcomed earth’s bliss and grief,
A laugh was her return to pleasure and pain.
All things she saw as a masquerade of Truth
Disguised in the costumes of Ignorance,
Crossing the years to immortality;
All she could front with the strong spirit’s peace.

Following refer to struggling soul or psychic personality:
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;
CANTO V: The Finding of the Soul 527
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 in the human scene.
Through this she sends us her glory and her powers,
Pushes to wisdom’s heights, through misery’s gulfs;
She gives us strength to do our daily task
And sympathy that partakes of others’ grief
And the little strength we have to help our race,
We who must fill the role of the universe
Acting itself out in a slight human shape
And on our shoulders carry the struggling world.
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.
In body weak, in its heart an invincible might,
It climbs stumbling, held up by an unseen hand,
A toiling spirit in a mortal shape.

> It appears that there are three different elements: surface soul, struggling soul and secret soul.

Based on my reading of other texts, I am willing to bravely state that there are just two, not three souls.

Surface soul is the same as struggling soul because it doesn't have light and lives in ignorance. Sometimes two different phrases can mean the same entity.

We have to "deconstruct the essentials in an expanding sphere of pluralism" as some scholarly Aurobindonians say as part of our "interpretative autonomy".

We can not say that the surface soul is same as the struggling soul. The struggling soul, as referred by Sri Aurobindo in Canto V Book VII, is the projection of the soul ('She puts forth a small portion of herself) 'Into a hidden region of the heart'. Whereas the surface soul is different and named as desire-soul. The desire-soul is not in the hidden region of heart.

Sri Aurobindo goes on explaining this struggling soul (Though he has used the words 'struggling soul' later on - 'the calm immortal and the struggling soul'). It has been put forth 'to face the pang and to forget the bliss', 'to share the sufereing and endure earth's woulds', 'this in us laughs and weeps, suffers the stroke,', 'Identified with the mind and body and life,', 'It takes on itself their anguish and defeat', etc, etc.

ABPurani has clarified this in his summary of this canto as 'This projected part of the soul is the human personality in Nature which we see acting in life. It is supported by the "unwounded and immortal self" from behind. The soul give the human being the power to live and act.'

Also, Sri Aurobindo has used the word 'soul' and not the 'psychic being', therefore, we should not use 'psychic being' here as 'psychic being' is different from 'soul' as has been clarified by Sri Aurobindo in the Letters on Yoga. The use of 'psychic being' is confusing in this context.

Therefore, there are three different elements as initially mentioned by Auroman.

N 6. Is Satyavan the symbol of psychic being?

RYD: Satyavan is the Divine Love who plunged directly into the inconscient Void when the horror of separation was seen in the Story of the Creation. He is the permanent Avatar, says the Mother. Savitri's work is to bring him out of this condition, that is, establish the possibility of divine manifestation, the manifestation of Love.

So Satyavan staying in the wilderness of Earth is a symbol of the fact that manifestation of divine love on earth has not taken hold of life of earth, even though he is of royal birth?

Then in the above context what is the meaning of death of Satyavan and his rescue by Savitri? That divine love once born in earth life of humanity will be secured immortally by Savitri by manifesting New Creation?

See the Agenda

Jan 22 1961

Savitri is really a condensation, a concentration of the universal Mother - the eternal universal Mother, Mother of all universes from all eternity - in an earthly personality for the Earth's salvation. And Satyavan is the soul of the Earth, the Earth's jiva. So when the Lord says, 'he whom you love and whom you have chosen,' it means the earth. [37] All the details are there! When she comes back down, when Death has yielded at last, when all has been settled and the Supreme tells her, 'Go, go with him, the one you have chosen,' how does Sri Aurobindo describe it? He says that she very carefully takes the SOUL of Satyavan into her arms, like a little child, to pass through all the realms and come back down to earth. Everything is there! He hasn't forgotten a single detail to make it easy to understand - for someone who knows how to understand. And it is when Savitri reaches the earth that Satyavan regains his full human stature.

July 28, 1961

Let's take Savitri, which is very explicit on this: the universal Mother is universally present and at work in the universe, but the earth is where concrete form is given to all the work to be done to bring evolution to its perfection, its goal. Well, at first there's a sort of emanation representative of the universal Mother, which is always on earth to help it prepare itself; then, when the preparation is complete, the universal Mother herself will descend upon earth to finish her work. And this She does with Satyavan - Satyavan is the soul of the earth. She lives in close union with the soul of the earth and together they do the work; She has chosen the soul of the earth for her work, saying, 'HERE is where I will do my work.' Elsewhere (Mother indicates regions of higher Consciousness), it's enough just to BE and things Simply ARE. Here on earth you have to work.

Mother has had two specific comments for who Satyavan was:
1. Satyavan is the Divine Love who plunged directly into the inconscient Void. (As per RYD in a comment above)
2. Satyavan is the soul of the earth.

So should we understand that soul of earth is Divine Love who plunged directly into inconscient void? And that it is this soul of earth or Divine Love which is the unique specialty of earth substance, being supported by the quality of Divine Love, which forces every being on earth to progress?

Thanks Auroman for your responses, an excellent job done.

About understanding Savitri, in fact any spiritual writing, there has to be faith and openness. Let me quote Sri Aurobindo:

If one has faith and openness that is enough. Besides there are two kinds of understanding—understanding by the intellect and understanding in the consciousness. It is good to have the former if it is accurate, but it is not indispensable. Understanding by the consciousness comes if there is faith and openness, though it may come only gradually and through steps of experience. But I have seen people without education or intellectuality understand in this way perfectly well the course of the yoga in themselves, while intellectual men make big mistakes, e.g. take a neutral mental quietude for the spiritual peace and refuse to come out of it in order to go farther.

It is necessary to curb the mind's impatience a little. Knowledge is progressive—if it tries to leap up to the top at once, it may make a hasty construction which it will have afterwards to undo. The knowledge and experience must come by degrees and step by step.

~ RYD

Let us first read the full text of the passage under discussion. It is as follows: (pp. 526-27)

A being stood immortal in transience,
Deathless dallying with momentary things,
In whose wide eyes of tranquil happiness
Which pity and sorrow could not abrogate
Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes:
Observer of the silent steps of the hours
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.

A joy in the world her master movement here,
The passion of the game lighted her eyes:
A smile on her lips welcomed earth's bliss and grief,
A laugh was her return to pleasure and pain.

All things she saw as a masquerade of Truth
Disguised in the costumes of Ignorance,
Crossing the years to immortality:
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.

Through this she sends us her glory and her powers,
Pushes to wisdom's heights, through misery's gulfs;
She gives us strength to do our daily task
And sympathy that partakes of others' grief
And the little strength we have to help our race,
We who must fill the role of the universe
Acting itself out in a slight human shape
And on our shoulders carry the struggling world.

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.

In body weak, in its heart an invincible might,
It climbs stumbling, held up by an unseen hand,
A toiling spirit in a mortal shape.

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.

Before we proceed further, let us trace the background leading up to this passage. Savitri has begun her life in the hermitage, and she is happy in the company of her husband, Satyavan. But she also has the foreknowledge about his death one year after the marriage. Naturally, she in her human state is caught up in the deep psychological conflict. She weighs all the pros and cons, and finally leaves everything to the working of fate. But in the process she has also acquired a yogic poise, her sense of positive resignation belonging to the quality of deep samatā which does not make her sway, that her grief’s self has become absolutely calm. That is a poise in which her guiding spirit can take her full charge and direct her on the way.

First she is reminded about the purpose for which she had taken the mortal birth. She is asked to find her soul, harbour in it the divine Shakti, and conquer Death. At once she steps into the dream-consciousness, swapna, leaving behind the surface personality, and no more surface soul comes into picture. In this dream-state she reviews the entire cosmic past, and also recognises the future possibility of a new world appearing in the scheme of things. How that shall be, of that she has no idea at the moment. In any case, the first thing that must happen is, the heavenly Psyche should come out openly and step into the process.

Savitri enters into the inner countries, meets the triple soul-forces, and is now on the verge of discovering her soul. She was told to take the great winding road when she would see the Fire burning on the bare stone in the deep cavern of her secret soul. Savitri has taken the great winding road and is now in the innermost chamber; then, crossing a wall of doorless living fire, she meets her secret soul.

What the nature of her secret soul is that is first described in our passage. It is a being immortal in transience, the Vedic Agni who is the Immortal in the mortal. He looks upon transient things, accepts their anguish and their suffering, their joy and their sorrow. He becomes the leader of the evolutionary march. The divine Savitri, the supreme transcendental Shakti, has condescended to pass through the “portals of the birth that is a death”, and she has identified herself with the human plight, that thus alone could she change their lot; she comes as God’s delegate. Indeed, she knows the toil of man, and feels the pang and misery of this miserable creature. She has stepped into the mortal body’s room to bring to it the immortality of her spirit and her being. It is the part of the divine Shakti who is here, accepting the human condition of toil and suffering and pang. She has put forth a small portion of her own self, aumśamātra or anguşţhmātra puruşa of the Upanishad seated deep in the hidden cave of the heart, hŗdayaguhā, or aumśasanātana, the eternal portion, or mamaiaumśa of the Gita, the immanent divine, an exceptional privilege of ours which even the great gods don’t have. It is not the surface soul although it suffers the stroke and exults in victory. It is the growing soul itself who accepts the travail of the evolutionary manifold. It participates in this process of growth, in fact, it is the alchemic agent who works out the alchemy of transformation of the unregenerate nature of man, the purpose for which it is here. How can that happen if it does not experience these difficulties? This small little being no bigger than the thumb of man, the immortal in the mortal, the divine Agni is the pilgrim soul, Christian of John Binyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress set on the spiritual journey. He laughs and weeps in us, suffers the stroke and exults in victory. The phrase ‘laughs and weeps’ is from Pilgrim’s Progress and occurs thrice in Savitri, once in the present context and again in the context of the advice by Savitri’s mother to her to find another youth as her lover after Narad’s disclosure of the short life of Satyavan, p.433; the last occurrence is on p. 659 when at last there is the spiritual awakening, when in the heart’s cave there is the secret rendezvous with God.

It is this breathtaking rendezvous of the secret soul in the heart of the human and the transcendental Shakti, of the Soul and Oversoul, of Nara and Narayana, that marks the beginning of fulfilment to the whole creative-manifestive process. In the present case it is Savitri and the Supreme Shakti who identify with each other and become one, here her struggling part and the calm immortal supporting the struggling part—they rush with magic transformation’s speed and become one.

Savitri has to house in her soul the Power of the Divine that thus alone can she meet Death and conquer him. That is the foundation of the Shakti Yoga of Savitri.

~ RYD

1. So could one say that the whole process of finding of the Soul by Savitri is her 'struggling soul' disengaging its identification from the surface being first and then successively disengaging from subliminal subtle-physical, vital, mental and the three soul-powers to finally identify with her 'secret soul'?

Or using the word 'disengaging' would be inappropriate because Savitri's is a Shakti Yoga where she is unifying or tying the powers of Being at different levels?

2. Further up in the Yoga of Savitri I get the impression that first Savitri achieves Yoga with Cosmic Purusha and then to Cosmic Self. And with the preparation until that point she confronts Death and during the course of that confrontation the Transcendental Being takes full control of her transformed instrumentation. Am I on the right line of understanding?

3. Also I have major confusion with these three: five sheaths, three bodies made with material of five sheaths (gross, subtle and causal) and our subliminal levels and planes? How do they fit in.

4. "The Divine Plan" published - along with short essays by Sri Aurobindo, in the little booklet The Hour of God has four distinct hierarchical categories of levels - Avayakta Paratpara, Eternal Manifestation, Manifestation in Eternal Time and Manifestation in Temporal Time- Can these four categorizations be elaborated upon? Also it would be very helpful if Savitri can be put in perspective in context to the diagram. (especially the Book XI)

Question 3. Also I have major confusion with these three: five sheaths, three bodies made with material of five sheaths (gross, subtle and causal) and our subliminal levels and planes? How do they fit in.

Various scriptures have combined these things differently to confuse the spiritual aspirant!

The five sheaths combine to make the three bodies.
a) Some Pranamaya + full Annamaya = Gross body or Sthula Sharira inhabiting the Virat or Vaishvanara world
b) Some Pranamaya + full Manomaya = Subtle body or Sukshma Sharira inhabiting the Hiranyagarbha world
c) Vijnanamaya + Anandamaya = Causal body or Karana Sharira inhabiting the Prajna world.

About the worlds mentioned above, Letters on Yoga, p257 planes and parts of the being you will find

These two sets of three names each mean the same things.
Visva or Virat = the Spirit of the external universe,
Hiranyagarbha or Taijasa (the Luminous) = the Spirit in the inner planes,
Prajna or Ishwara = the Superconscient Spirit, Master of all things and the highest Self on which all depends.

We are supposed to have 7 sheaths corresponding to the 7 planes of the world (Sat, Chit, Ananda, Vijnana, Manomaya, Pranamaya, Annamaya) but we lack the two top ones (Sat and Chit) because of lack of evolution. Only the liberated soul fully experiences the Anandamaya Kosha. Maybe some future race will come endowed with these two higher sheaths.

The Mother said she and Madame Theon in their occult explorations discovered themselves going from one body after another 12 times which means they had discovered 12 sheaths, so it is quite possible that there are finer gradations of these 7 sheaths.

4. "The Divine Plan" published - along with short essays by Sri Aurobindo, in the little booklet The Hour of God has four distinct hierarchical categories of levels - Avayakta Paratpara, Eternal Manifestation, Manifestation in Eternal Time and Manifestation in Temporal Time- Can these four categorizations be elaborated upon? Also it would be very helpful if Savitri can be put in perspective in context to the diagram. (especially the Book XI)

The Mother has described the origin of this diagram in the Agenda July 28 1961

In The Hour of God, there's a whole diagram of the Manifestation made by Sri Aurobindo [[Cent. Ed., Vol. XVII, p. 28 ff. ]] : first comes this, then comes that, then comes the other, and so forth - a whole sequence. They published this in the book in all seriousness, but I must say that Sri Aurobindo did it for fun (I saw him do it). Someone had spoken to him about different religions, different philosophical methods - Theosophy, Madame Blavatski, all those people (there was Theon, too). Well, each one had made his diagram. So Sri Aurobindo said, 'I can make a diagram, too, and mine will be much more complete!' When he finished it, he laughed and said, 'But it's only a diagram, it's just for fun.' They published it very solemnly, as if he had made a very serious proclamation. Oh, it's a very complicated diagram!

Notwithstanding the humour, there may be some truth in that diagram but all I can say right now is that the answer to this question may only be found after we reach a certain level of consciousness.

Thanks for this valuable piece of information. A persistent query has found a restful pause.

Your enclyclopaedic information prompts me to request you to help compile a savitri dictionary of certain words (specially ones starting with capital letter like Permanent, Imperishable, Immutable, Self, Ineffable etc.), phrases (like unbounded finite) and concepts (like 'no bigger than the thumb of man') which occur elsewhere in Vedas, Upanishads etc, in the words of Sri Aurobindo. A lot of these definitions and elaborations I find in Life Divine but there are many which I cannot find. It would be great if someone like you can compile this enormous dictionary. (Maybe a page can be started on this site where we all can make contributions as and when we find new ones). There are two works which I am aware of with very limited utility in this regard: A Savitri dictionary (compiled by Rand Hicks) and Dictionary of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga (compiled by M. P. Pandit)

But where is the time to do all that, though perhaps desirable? I know Narad has prepared a dictionary related to Savitri-words and he is awaiting some formalities to be cleared. Hope he will be soon able to bring it out. Have you yourself made any attempt? If yes, I can serialize it here.

But there are plenty of things to be done with Savitri and it will be wonderful if a team can get formed. We need volunteers who have gone into Savitri deeply and have perceptive touch with it. Even otherwise there are plenty of routine things to be done, and it will be nice if it can happen.

~ RYD

I have not done this systematically but have felt the need all the time.

I can effectively do the first part: of compiling the words, phrases and concepts which need elaboration preferably in Sri Aurobindo's words or Mother's. But the elaboration part I probably may not have enough exposure to find quickly enough.

If a page can be opened then I can cover 5-10 pages of Savitri daily to list all required words etc. Or I can mail them directly to you which you can edit based on their non-redundancy factor.

[After the accident to his left thigh bone in November 1938 Sri Aurobindo used to have regular brief sessions with his attendants in the evenings. These conversations were independently recorded by Purani and Nirodbaran and form an extremely valuable and rich source of details presenting Sri Aurobindo’s views on a large variety of topics. The following touches upon the psychic being and a few related things. I’m reproducing it in the context of our present discussion. ~ RYD]

Sri Aurobindo: How can one say that Hitler's voice is not right? He has seen that by following it he has been able to get Austria and Czechoslovakia and has been successful in many other things. As I said, the Cosmic Spirit may want him to go that way. Even from the standpoint of ethics, one can't say Hitler is immoral. He is very restricted as regards food, is supposed to have no wife or mistress and leads a very controlled life in all respects. He shows qualities which are considered moral. Robespierre was also a moral man and yet he killed many people.

Nirodbaran: Then what did you mean when you spoke of a true voice?

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, that is the psychic voice. But there can be many other voices from many planes. And how will you say which is right? What would you say of Lord Curzon's decision?

Purani: When the freedom of the Purusha is won, then does it become possible for the individual to look beyond the Cosmic spirit to the Transcendent?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes; that is to say, instead of being an instrument of ignorant Nature, you become the instrument of the Divine.

Purani: Do you mean by the Cosmic Spirit the Impersonal Consciousness?

Sri Aurobindo: No, the Cosmic Spirit is a personality but not in our narrow sense. It is both dynamic and static, Saguna and Nirguna, the Nirguna supporting the Saguna.

Purani: You have said that the psychic being is also a personality.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there is the psychic Purusha.

Purani: Does the psychic being develop from birth to birth?

Sri Aurobindo: It is not the psychic being itself that develops. But it guides the evolution of the individual by increasing the psychic element in the nature of the individual.

Purani: If the psychic being is a spark of the Divine, then its function is the same as that of the Vedic Agni as "the leader of the journey".

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, Agni is the god of the psychic and leads the journey upward.

Savitri’s Yoga is primarily aimed at the Conquest of Death—that is the Shakti Yoga. The Yoga of Transformation, Rupantara Yoga, will be another Book. In the very first Canto of the Book of Yoga she has already acquired the yogic poise that she can launch / can be launched on the path. In Canto Five Savitri’s supreme transcendental Soul, where from she has come, enters into the soul of human Savitri, the incarnation’s soul when nothing of the lower can obstruct its passage. There is now the rush of Mahakundalini, the rush of the divine Consciousness-Force into the various centres of the subtle body, from above downward. But this Force present now in her soul can be triumphantly operative only when all that is of Inconscience in her disappears. The Nirvanic experience described in the next Canto achieves it. A formless liberation comes upon her. The definable Being in the arms of indefinable Non-Being is cyphered out. It is therefore only the Will of the Supreme Lord that will use the human instrument with the divine Shakti housed in it. This is a Yoga specific to Savitri alone, and we as individuals will have our own yoga depending upon the swabhava of each one of us, the soul-characteristic of us as individuals.

~ RYD

How are the following two dawns different and related to each other in the sequence of dawns of earth:The Dawn of Supramental descent which occurred on 29th February 1956 and the Dawn of triumph over Death with descent of Krishna-Kali force?

It is the first which will bring about the second.

~ RYD

This means that triumph over Death is yet to take place?

Would the supermen arise prior, to bring about the divine Event of triumph of triumph over Death?

Or would triumph over Death will occur prior to coming of race of supermen? If this would be the case then would Mother's Avatar come again to effect that?

How can the Superman be here if Death is still present? Conquest of Death is in the context of supramental manifestation upon earth. The conquest has already been made in the subtle-physical of the earth. If one can prepare one’s body in it one has immortality, one becomes evolutionarily chiranjiva. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are there, and they are doing their work from that station. There is another aspect also. The appearance of the supramental race does not mean that the whole of human race is going to cease, cease to be. It will be there even as the lower creatures continue to exist after the arrival of the mental being. It is a new manifestation which can influence the old and into which the ready can move. But Sri Aurobindo refused to be speculative about these matters and it is the higher or the supramental which is going to decide whatever is to be decided supramentally. Well, that is how I understand it.

~ RYD

(Please open an Open Page for August and take the queries there)

1. How would one reconcile the idea of conquest of death on subtle-physical of the earth with the following lines from Canto The Kingdom of Subtle Matter:
"Empty of opposition and of pain,
It was a world that could not fear nor grieve."
If there is no opposition then what is there to conquer over? And would that not mean that Death is not present there?

2. I also noticed that Aswapati notices that already on Subtle Physical bodies that outlast death and brith which are fit to endure the rub of Change and Time:
"As yet unwrapped in earthly lineaments,
Already it wears outlasting death and birth,
Convincing the abyss by heavenly form,
A covering of its immortality
Alive to the lustre of the wearer’s rank,
Fit to endure the rub of Change and Time."
Is there any reference towards immortal bodies?

3. You have talked about Supramental Descent being on the subtle physical of earth. How does this whole descents first in subtle physical and then in physical really correlate and link up? Please elaborate the role of subtle physical in Dawns of earth.

4. Also please elaborate on subtle physical's role on authorising our mortality:
"Its trance imposes earth’s inconscience,
Immortal it weaves for us death’s sombre robe
And authorises our mortality."

The Agenda entry of Jan 18 1963 has some of the answers to this question.

The subtle physical is referred to as the true physical because it is not subject to the lower subconscient forces. It is a template for things which then descend onto the Earth.

As I told you, Sri Aurobindo lives there permanently, as though in a house of his own: you can see him, you can stay with him, he is busy. It is very much like the physical, but a physical that would be less grating, you understand, where things are more harmonious and satisfying, less excited. There is less of that feeling of haste and uncertainty. In that house where Sri Aurobindo lives, life unfolds very, very harmoniously: people come and go, there are meals even.... But all that obeys more general laws, and a sense of security and certainty not to be found in physical life. And the symbolism is more exact (I don't know how to express it ...), the symbolic transcription of things is less distorted, more exact.

This is the subtle physical as I know it, I can't say if it is the same for everyone. Sri Aurobindo said, "There is a true physical," well, I have a feeling that this is what he calls the "true physical" - a subtler physical, the true physical which is behind.

But does it influence the whole earth?

Oh, yes! In general, these things are terrestrial. But probably it's still quite subjective, in the sense that each one has an impression of it according to what he is and his stage of development.

But does it exert a DIRECT action on the earth, just as the vital has an action on the earth?

I think that as the Supramental descends, the subtle physical will have a greater and greater action on earth, because it is the world where the new creation will be formed before it "descends," before it becomes absolutely visible and concrete.

> If there is no opposition then what is there to conquer over? And would that not
> mean that Death is not present there?

There is opposition here on Earth, the grossest plane where the subconscient, vital, mental forces vie with each other for dominance.

The subtle physical sheath is still subject to dissolution after the gross physical body has been shed. A sheath dissolves because it is not in Harmony with the Divine - with Sachchidananda. If you supramentalize a sheath, you can pick it up later (from cold storage) during your next incarnation.

This is from Purani's Evening talks.

What we do in our yoga is to bring down the Supramental plane so that the Soul may return with the full experience to the higher plane. The question is how far we can Supramentalise. If we can Supra-mentalise the mind and the vital being we can return with the memory of that experience and also with that ready formation in another manifestation. One can preserve, if he so chooses, his vital body after death and produce effects on the vital plane.

Now suppose we Supramentalise the body. In that case we can carry the full physical experience and return with the fullest physical, vital and mental force and manifest the Divine. That is what happens in the case of Avatars and Vibhutis, – there is full memory of the past vital and mental experience and in the case of the Avatar even of the physical experience. If we can Supramentalise the body it can be retained or thrown away at will – icchā mrtyu. And even when the body is thrown away, when the process of manifestation is undertaken the Soul has not to gather the physical and the vital and the mental from any of the formations of Universal Nature – as in the case of ordinary souls. In case these are Supramentalised, the whole being is quite ready ; one has simply to take up the ready formation and manifest the Divine.

This also answers the question "How did Vivekananda come to Sri Aurobindo in Alipore jail?" It was through the mental sheath. He has preserved the mental sheath and integrated it with his psychic. The Mother discusses this somewhere else.

Another query I have is regarding the necessity of Adhara for any divine manifestation.

What I understand is that first a Divine Power has to fully accept the bindings and conditions of Void, which more or less rule out its direct expression, to establish itself on Earth or Matter. Then by power of Sacrifice it links up with its Divine counterpart above (which is free of bindings and limitations) and effects its descent based on its foundation.

What I cannot understand is how the first descent was fully bound whereas the second supported descent is not as bound as the first?

The incarnate accept the conditions of terrestrial ignorance and suffering, the difficulties of mortality, that thus alone things can be worked out from below up. It is not by waving a magic wand up there in the transcendent that a change is brought about; that will be thaumaturgy and not evolution. It is at crucial junctures of evolution that special descents take place and they carry the movement forward. It is they who alone can do the needed qualifying yoga-yapasya, and without it nothing can happen. They come and do it. Our task is to grow in it, lend more and more of ourselves to it, be open and receptive to the force and light they bring.

~ RYD

I was asking this question from the perspective of ADHARA. The necessity of Adhara for divine descent.
It would be nice if you can elaborate on the concept of Adhara.

Why was this thread suspended? It would be great if the "Sessions with Savitri—Open Page" can be revived... This seems to be the appropriate place for a general discussion on Savitri.

It was not suspended, it got suspended—for want of participation. I consider it as something where any issue related with Savitri could be raised and answered by any reader. Going a step farther, beyond issue-related discussions, one could express whatever is striking to one in order to share it with others; these could be in the nature of comments, observations, appreciation of poetry, comparative studies, elucidation of occult-religious-spiritual matters, editing of Savitri, readings of Savitri, and so on. It is a free page for all the perceptive souls. Let’s see if it can be revived, if it can take a new birth.

~ RYD

That sounds great! As a first little step I would like to take some lessons in Savitri scansion from you.

I'm going to take the opening canto of Savitri and scan it here, 5 lines at a time. Please correct me at your leisure. Other readers are welcome to join in, and correct me too!

Here goes my scansion of the first five lines of the first canto of Savitri.

Some notation: I'll use "/" to separate the feet, and italics for the long (stress) syllable. I'll use boldface for an unstressed syllable that carries weight (quantity) to distinguish it from the usual short unstressed syllables. Here we go:

It was/the hour/before/the Gods/ awake./

Across/the path/of the/divine/Event/

The huge/forebo/ding mind/of Night,/alone/

In her/unlit/temple of/eter/nity,/

Lay stretched/ immo/bile up/on Si/lence' marge.

We quickly recall the names of the feet:

1. short-long is called an iamb.
2. short-short is called pyrrhic.
3. long-short is a trochee.
4. long-long is a spondee.
5. long-short-short is a dactyl.
6. short-short-long is an anapaest.

A couple of doubts: In the second line can we scan "of the" as a pyrrhic? Also, instead of scanning "temple of" as a dactyl, we can make "temple" a trochee and the next foot an anapaest. But the dactyl seems better to me.

Finally, an alternative scan of the third line is possible:

In herun/littem/ple of/eter/nity,/

Your comments and corrections are welcome!

<b>Let me just note down here a few simple and common feet in English poetry. The notation here uses the following symbols:   ^x   '  |

 

^x :short or unstressed or unaccented syllable, ti

' :long or stressed or accented, tum

| completion of a foot

 

The most common feet are:

  

iamb:   ^x '     (ti-tum)              |to ^xday' |

trochee:          ' ^x    (tum-ti)               |Mon'day ^x |

pyrrhic:           ^{x x}     (ti-ti)                  |of ^x the ^x |

spondee:         '  '     (tum-tum)          |strong' wind'|

anapaest:        ^{x x} '    (ti-ti-tum)          |as ^x a ^x star'|

dactyl:             ' ^{x x}   (tum-ti-ti)           |mirr' or ^x of ^x |

 

 

' ^{x x x} '    (tum-ti-ti-ti-tum) is always a tricky affair. It can be ' ^x| ^{x x} '| (trochee-anapaest, tum-ti|ti-ti-tum) or     ' ^{x x}|^x '| (dactyl-iamb, tum-ti-ti|ti-tum)

 

In your example both could be possible. In her unlit temple of eternity:

 

In ^x her ^x | un ^x lit'| te'mple ^x | of ^x e ^x te'r|ni ^x ty ^x |

 

In ^x her ^x | un ^x lit'| te'mple ^x of ^x | e ^x te'r|ni ^x ty ^x |

 

If you do cold scanning both are perfect. But while reading or reciting the line, there occurs a small natural pause after ‘temple’, making ‘of’ go better with ‘eternity’; if you combine ‘of’ with ‘temple’ the movement becomes jerky—the smoothness is lost. Personally I’d prefer trochee-anapaest over dactyl-iamb combination. What did you notice in the several recitations you heard?

 

Let me give another example: Driven from within she followed her long road (p. 378)

 

 

Dri'ven ^x | from ^x with ^x in'| she ^x fol'|lowed ^x her ^x | long' road'|

 

Dri'ven ^x from ^x | with ^x in'| she ^x fol'|lowed ^x her ^x | long' road'|

 

Obviously the phrase ‘Driven| from within’ moves smoothly and occultly more meaningfully than ‘Driven from |within’ which has an unnecessary of rhetory in it: I’ll go for the trochee-anapaest combination, for tum-ti—ti-ti-tum.

 

~ RYD </b>

Thanks very much for the clear explanation and example!

I checked Amal's recitation there is a short pause after "temple". In Udar's recitation I couldn't discern the pause.

The pause is natural because the second syllable in "temple" has many consontants in it. I'll keep my ear alert to this point. I seem to be making this a "Lessons in Savitri" page! Here is the next set of
scanned lines. I've only marked the stressed (long) syllables (by ' following your notation):

Almost'/ one felt',/ opaque',/ im'pe/netra'ble,/

In the som'/bre sym'/bol' of/ her eye'/less muse'/

The aby'/sm' of/ the un'/bo'died'/ Infi'nite;/

A fath'/omless/ ze'ro'/ occ'upied/ the world'./

A pow'/er of fall'/en bound'/less self'/ awake/

Between'/ the first'/ and the/ last' No'/thingness',/

Re'call'/ing the/ tene'/brous womb'/ from which'/ it came',/

Turned' from/ the in'/so'luble/ mys'tery/ of birth'/

And the tar'/dy pro'/cess of/ morta'/lity'/

And longed'/ to reach'/ its end'/ in vac'/ant Nought'./

I've scanned the lines ending "impenetrable" and
"Infinite" with weak endings...

Look forward to your comments (at your convenience). Thanks again!

Here is another unusual line: (Savitri, p. 379)

 

Threaded through clamorous marts and sentinel towers

 

 

Thread'ed ^x through ^x | clam'or ^x ous ^x | marts' and ^x | sen'ti ^x nel ^x | tow'ers ^x |

 

Dactyl-dactyl-trochee-dactyl-trochee—all falling feet. We’ll have to hunt out if there are similar examples elsewhere in literature.

 

~ RYD

Interesting. I was thinking of a different scan of this line:

Thread'ed | through clam' |orous marts' | and sen' |
tinel towrs'|

Notice that I've elided towers to a single long (stress) syllable "tow'rs" like we can do to "flowers"...

Then we get trochee-iamb-anapaest-iamb-anapaest.

Would that be OK? Both ways the line rumbles like
the roll of chariot wheels!

I searched in the internet for an elision of "towers" and stumbled upon these famous breathtaking Shakespeare lines. I couldn't find elided "towers"
though...

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

The lines make one wonder if Shakespeare was a Mayavaadin!

[1] >>The lines make one wonder if Shakespeare was a Mayavaadin! >>
Here’s a tricky question: can one really say anything about a poet’s philosophy of life or of existence on the basis of his compositions? That should lead to questions such as: poetry in the service of philosophy? of metaphysics? life? religion? science? spirituality? politics? beauty? truth? love? of delight?, and so on. That should mean poetry for the sake of everything else except for itself. … I won’t feel happy about it.

Shakespeare in his poetic creations is simply a Witness Purusha observing the play of life. He remains aloof and untouched which, by a kind of poetic austerity, becomes for him yoga itself.


[2] >>Threaded through clamorous marts and sentinel towers>>
You propose to scan it as follows: Thread'ed | through clam' |orous marts' | and sen' | tinel towrs'| But I suppose that would take away the natural spontaneous inspired unusualness of the line,—not that it was meant to be unusual. Possibly I’d have taken ‘tower’ to be monosyllabic in another situation, but the plural ‘towers’ does not easily allow that to happen here; the alliterative ‘s’-insistence in the line—add to it the ‘r’s and the ‘t’s and if you like the two ‘l’s— insists that we pay due attention to this ‘s’, as well as ‘rs’. I’m fascinated by the idea of all the falling feet in the line for which there’s no parallel elsewhere.

This should also take us back to the other problem—of three trochees in the middle of the line and frowned upon by Amal who at the instance, and insistence, of the editors of the Revised Edition of Savitri modified it; they supplied from their pockets an extra foot as follows: The original line “He has made a thick and narrowing hedge” is changed to “He has made into a thick and narrowing hedge”. But I thought the three trochees fit in so well into the movement that it gets spoilt by the addition of a “strong syllable” now coming from “into”. The proposed line looks rather artificial, a graft with odious surroundings. In any case, we’ve no business to correct Sri Aurobindo’s compositions. The original three-trochee line has the same natural spontaneous inspired unusualness as of the present case with all the five falling feet. Click here for details.


~ RYD

I was having some trouble scanning the five neighboring lines here:

He is sat'/isfied'/ with his comm'/on ave'/rage kind'/;
Tomorr'/ow’s hopes'/ and his/ old' rounds'/ of thought'/,
His old'/ fami'/liar int'/erests and/ desires'/
He has/ made' a/ thick' and/ narr'ow/ing hedge'/
Defend'/ing his/ small' life'/ from the In'/visible'/

How would you scan these lines?

It is interesting that the neighbouring lines all have
10 syllables each. That seems to make the lines themselves reflect a sort of narrowing effect.

How would the line get scanned with "into"? I guess:

He has made'/in'to a/ thick' and/ narr'ow/ing hedge'/

We have an opening anapaest here, followed by a dactyl? Does that signify something?

I'll dwell some more on this...

I have a question. In the Agenda Nov 25 1969, The Mother is saying

There is a difference between immortality and the deathless state. Sri Aurobindo has described it very well in Savitri.

The deathless state is what can be envisaged for the human physical body in the future: it is constant rebirth. Instead of again tumbling backwards and falling apart due to a lack of plasticity and an incapacity to adapt to the universal movement, the body is undone 'futurewards,' as it were.

There is one element that remains fixed: for each type of atom, the inner organization of the elements is different, which is what creates the difference in their substance. So perhaps similarly, each individual has a different, particular way of organizing the cells of his body, and it is this particular way that persists through all the outer changes. All the rest is undone and redone, but undone in a forward thrust towards the new instead of collapsing backwards into death, and redone in a constant aspiration to follow the progressive movement of the divine Truth.

But for that, the body - the body-consciousness - must first learn to widen itself. It is indispensable, for otherwise all the cells become a kind of boiling porridge under the pressure of the supramental light.

What usually happens is that when the body reaches its maximum intensity of aspiration or of ecstasy of Love, it is unable to contain it. It becomes flat, motionless. It falls back. Things settle down - you are enriched with a new vibration, but then everything resumes its course. So you must widen yourself in order to learn to bear unflinchingly the intensities of the supramental force, to go forward always, always with the ascending movement of the divine Truth, without falling backwards into the decrepitude of the body.

That is what Sri Aurobindo means when he speaks of an intolerable ecstasy'; it is not an intolerable ecstasy: it is an unflinching ecstasy.

Question on the first line. Where in Savitri is the difference between immortality and the deathless state outlined?

Let me try to answer it quickly in a single phrase: the yogic action of Savitri is the conquest of Death and not winning Immortality per se for the soul of man and for the soul of the earth.

By the way, the correct reference is Agenda 25 November 1959. “intolerant ecstasy” refers to Thoughts and Aphorisms: “Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy…” So immortal Death transfigured becomes immortal Life, both given to the aspect of manifestation in the mortal world, mŗtyuloka, of the life divine in the possibilities of the immortal spirit flourishing in the deathless spirit.

~ RYD