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