“A secret air of pure felicity
Deep like a sapphire heaven our spirits breathe;
Our hearts and bodies feel its obscure call,
Our senses grope for it and touch and lose.
If this withdrew, the world would sink in the Void;
If this were not, nothing could move or live.

We should remember these beautiful lines. A ‘secret air’, a secret atmosphere of ‘pure felicity’, of pure happiness, like a deep blue sky: that is the atmosphere which ‘our spirits breathe’, a clear deep-blue air of pure bliss. ‘Our hearts and bodies’ feel the ‘obscure call’, the attraction of that atmosphere. ‘Our senses grope for it’, blindly trying to feel that ‘secret air’. They do touch it sometimes and then lose it again, but it is always there. If that secret atmosphere were not there, if it ‘withdrew’, this whole world would ‘sink in the Void’: drown in the nothingness of non-existence. If that atmosphere were not supporting everything, ‘nothing could move or live’. The secret air of pure bliss which our spirits breathe is keeping everything in existence: without it nothing could exist.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

He is beauty carolling in the fields of sound;
He chants the stanzas of the odes of Wind;
He is silence watching in the stars at night;
He wakes at dawn and calls from every bough,
Lies stunned in the stone and dreams in flower and tree.

He himself is the beauty of birdsong, ‘carolling in the fields of sound’. A ‘carol’ is a joyful song; ‘carolling’ means ‘singing joyfully’. He is also the voice of the Wind, chanting the grandiose ‘stanzas’ or verses of ‘the odes of Wind’. An ‘ode’ is a long celebratory poem meant to be sung or chanted which has very beautifully crafted ‘stanzas’ or verses. Each stanza is a beautiful creation in itself. ‘The All-Wonderful’ himself is the poet who chants the stanzas of the great odes which the Wind sings. He is also the very special silence of the middle of the night when we can look up and see the stars silently watching us. Every morning he wakes up at dawn ‘and calls from every bough’, from every branch of every tree. Even in cities, birds wake up before sunrise and sing; they are expressing his delight. In every rock and stone ‘The All-Wonderful’ is lying unmoving as if ‘stunned’: as if he has fallen on his head and lost consciousness. Then in the plants, ‘in flower and tree’, he wakes up a little and begins to Dream.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Life brings into the earthly creature’s days
A tongue of glory from a brighter sphere:
It deepens in his musings and his Art,
It leaps at the splendour of some perfect word,
It exults in his high resolves and noble deeds,
Wanders in his errors, dares the abyss’s brink,
It climbs in his climbings, wallows in his fall.

So far, Savitri has been speaking about the hidden Bliss which lies at the root of things. Now she speaks about us, we earthly creatures and the experiences which Life offers We are born on earth, but we are not purely material beings. Life brings us a touch of ‘glory from a brighter sphere’:
a higher realm of existence embodying a greater light of consciousness. It comes to us like a flame, a ‘tongue’ of fire. That first touch deepens and becomes more intense when the human creature begins to muse, to go deeply within himself and explore his thoughts and deeper feelings, particularly about the meaning of things; and it deepens ‘in his Art’. It seems that as far back as we can see in history human beings have been doing and making things that do not have any purely utilitarian function, creating things in response to another urge, another kind of satisfaction and delight than that given by our physical needs and functions: we find powerful paintings and sculptures and evidence of musical instruments. Why do human beings do this? It is an expression of a contact with ‘a brighter sphere’ of existence. That ‘tongue of glory’ flames up with excitement and appreciation ‘at the splendour of some perfect word’ such as a line of Savitri which thrills and delights us. When human beings set out to do great deeds in response to high resolves, when they decide to face some great challenge or do something very noble, that ‘tongue of glory’ ‘exults’, feels an intense joy in these great efforts. But it remains with us even when we are lost, when we are erring, wandering about from place to place, making mistakes, not finding our way. It is even ready to accompany us to the very edge of the abyss, and maybe even to fall in. It climbs with us in our higher aspirations and efforts; but italso ‘wallows’ with us when we fall back into the mud of the lower levels of existence.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri,  Book 10]

At last the soul turns to eternal things,
In every shrine it cries for the clasp of God.
Then is there played the crowning Mystery,
Then is achieved the longed-for miracle.

This play of light and dark and shade and many different forms has been made to nourish the growing soul, for it to experience and enjoy until at last it is ready to turn ‘to eternal things’. Then it sees each and every material appearance as a ‘shrine’, a dwelling-place for the Divine, and then it cries out for ‘the clasp of God’, aspiring to feel God’s embrace in everything. ‘Then is there played the crowning Mystery’: the ultimate Mystery gets revealed and realised. The miracle which we are all longing for is achieved: the miracle of experiencing ‘the clasp of God’, the embrace of the Divine in everything.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Then leaving to its grief the human heart,
Abandoning speech and the name-determined realms,
Through a gleaming far-seen sky of wordless thought,
Through naked thought-free heavens of absolute sight,
She climbs to the summits where the unborn Idea
Remembering the future that must be
Looks down upon the works of labouring Force,
Immutable above the world it made.

When the soul of Bliss which has been sleeping in unconscious matter wakes up, it abandons our world, leaving the human heart to its grief, leaving far behind ‘speech and the name- determined realms’: all the names and forms that we label the universe with. She goes beyond the realm of speech, the mental realm and this world which is determined by names. If you do not have a name for something you cannot really grasp it until you give it a name. This is a requirement of our mind. So name and form go together and it is very difficult to separate them. But when the soul awakens, the hidden bliss moves away from this realm where all our thinking and perception is determined by forms and names for them. She rises up through ‘a gleaming far-seen sky of wordless thought’, a high level of consciousness where thought is ‘wordless’ and does not need to express itself in words, and then even higher, through ‘naked thought-free heavens’ where thought ceases entirely because it can enjoy a direct perception, an ‘absolute sight’ where whatever is known or perceived is seen and known directly without any covering and without any intervention of thought. She rises even higher until she reaches ‘the summits’, the very highest levels where ‘the unborn Idea’, the original conception of the creation, is looking down on the world. Manifestation starts in the form of an ‘Idea’ which determines the whole destiny of the creation. Above this world of ours is the high realm of the original creative Idea. The ascending soul of Bliss perceives that ‘unborn Idea’ ‘Remembering the future that must be’: the intended and destined future of the universe. Because of that remembrance, all that has to be fulfilled is gradually being manifested, because a very high level of consciousness is perceiving what has to A complete Idea of the manifestation was the beginning of this creation; that was thrown out as a kind of seed into the realm of possibility, and from that seed everything is developing towards the complete fulfilment of the original Idea, guided by the power and the gaze of the creative Consciousness and being worked out by the Supreme Conscious-Force which is driving and guiding Nature. All that development, which we call evolution, is described as ‘the works of labouring Force’. The Conscious-Force in Nature is working to realise, to manifest that idea. But the idea itself is immutable. It does not change. There it is, looking down, ‘Immutable above the world it made’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

A mystic slow transfiguration works.
All our earth starts from mud and ends in sky,
And Love that was once an animal’s desire,
Then a sweet madness in the rapturous heart,
An ardent comradeship in the happy mind,
Becomes a wide spiritual yearning’s space.

Savitri sums up what she has been telling Death and revealing to us. She says, “This is the nature of our earth: here everything ‘starts from mud’, from unconscious matter. But because Spirit has charged this ‘unknowing matter’ with its force, a ‘mystic slow transfiguration’ is at work here. ‘Transfiguration’ has a similar meaning to ‘transmutation’ and ‘transformation’, but it implies especially ‘turning something (or in this case everything) into its most divine appearance’. This mystical change happens very slowly, but it is gradually carrying everything here in the material universe up from its base in Matter to its fulfilment in ‘sky’, the heavenly levels of higher existence. Savitri says that this ‘mystic slow transfiguration’ is happening to all our earthly qualities; she gives the example of Love, which in its lower forms is expressed as ‘an animal’s desire’, but evolves to become an intense human emotion: ‘A sweet madness in the rapturous heart’; or it may take the form of an ‘ardent comradeship in the happy mind’, the close friendship of two minds in empathy.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Then shall the business fail of Night and Death:
When unity is won, when strife is lost
And all is known and all is clasped by Love
Who would turn back to ignorance and pain?

This is the experience of seeing that the whole world is known and clasped by Love. When this unity, this oneness has been won, when all strife and conflict are lost, because we see the whole world being governed and embraced by the divine’s love, ‘Who would turn back to ignorance and pain?’ This is the intended fulfilment. This is the reason why we are all here. This is the reason why we have agreed to leave the original blissful Oneness: to experience the great adventure of involution and separation and then the return journey of evolution to the oneness of the Many. Now perhaps we may wonder why our souls have agreed to undertake this hazardous adventure, but when we have passed through the whole process and reached the fulfilment, we shall know for sure that it has all been worthwhile.

Savitri has been answering all the things that Death had said to belittle love, truth, ideals, beauty. He had been trying to convince her that all these things are worthless and meaningless, and she from her side has been insisting that this is not true and that they all have a much deeper meaning. She is pointing out to him and to us that what he has been saying is not correct. That is not the way things really are. Now Savitri continues her reply to Death.

[Shraddhavan’s English Of Savitri, Book 10]

“O Death, I have triumphed over thee within;
I quiver no more with the assault of grief;
A mighty calmness seated deep within
Has occupied my body and my sense:
It takes the world’s grief and transmutes to strength,
It makes the world’s joy one with the joy of God.

Savitri continues by telling Death, ‘I have triumphed over thee within’, and she uses the old second-person singular form ‘thee’. We have seen that Sri Aurobindo does this throughout the poem whenever a speech is addressed to a single person rather than to two or more people. Her words are continuing the dialogue, the ‘colloquy’, the debate between Love and Death. Savitri is claiming her inner victory over the power of Death, that she is stronger than he is, and she is going to prove it. She says ‘I quiver no more with the assault of grief’. To ‘quiver’ means ‘to tremble’: the body is shaken by tiny uncontrollable movements that indicate fear or intense emotion. When Death first took Satyavan from her, for a moment Savitri was shaken with grief; but now she says, “I am no longer quivering, shaken by that attack of grief. Now ‘A mighty calmness’ has taken over my body and my senses. That powerful calm is firmly seated deep within me. It is so powerful that it can take all the grief of the whole world and turn it into strength. At the same time, it unites all joy in the world with God’s joy.” This is the calm, the deep quietness that comes from the soul. Savitri has overcome Death’s attacks, his challenges to her. She is experiencing this great calmness and strength and this wonderful knowledge. So she has no fear of death and is not deceived by his attempts to mislead her understanding. These are the signs of her victory: the calm and the strength, the clear knowledge and the joy. And now again she will speak about Love.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, B10]

My love eternal sits throned on God’s calm;
For Love must soar beyond the very heavens
And find its secret sense ineffable;
It must change its human ways to ways divine,
Yet keep its sovereignty of earthly bliss.

Love must first become throned on God’s calm and then it must ‘soar’, rising to higher and higher levels. It has to Love‘find its secret sense’, its significance. What is this marvellous thing we call ‘Love’? Savitri says that the true secret essence of love is something ‘ineffable’: it cannot be put into words. We can only experience it when our love soars high enough. Our ways of feeling and expressing love must change from our human ways, which are appropriate to our present level of development, but the origin of our love is much higher than that, so ‘It must change its human ways to ways divine’. But Savitri says that this does not mean that it cannot go on feeling its earthly bliss, the way that we experience the bliss of love here in our humanity. It should ‘keep its sovereignty of earthly bliss’: the way that love rules us in our humanity – not as something turbulent and passionate but as a very, very sweet tenderness – more than sympathy – a oneness. I think that Sri Aurobindo uses this word ‘sovereignty’ because love is one of the most powerful forces that rule human beings; it has great power over us because it brings us ‘earthly bliss’, and Savitri says that it can continue to do that even when it changes ‘its human ways to ways divine’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Our lives are God’s messengers beneath the stars;
To dwell under death’s shadow they have come
Tempting God’s light to earth for the ignorant race,
His love to fill the hollow in men’s hearts,
His bliss to heal the unhappiness of the world.

When Savitri says ‘Our lives’ of course she means the lives of Satyavan and herself; but perhaps her words can also be applied to the lives of all human beings: ‘Our lives are God’s messengers beneath the stars’. In this huge material universe perhaps our earth is the only place where there are evolved beings like this; or at least this is what we are concerned with at the moment – the life of humanity on earth. Definitely Savitri says, ‘we’, meaning that she herself and Satyavan are on earth as messengers of the divine on earth; but perhaps it is true in a sense that all of us are representatives of the divine in the material world. We live here in the material world under the shadow of death and we are all in the grip of ignorance, but we would not be here unless we had accepted to come here, and by coming, what we are doing is ‘Tempting God’s light to earth’. If you want to tame a wild animal, a squirrel or a bird, you will do it by putting out some food for You will attract it to make friends with it. That is the way the word ‘tempt’ is used here. The purpose of our human lives is to entice the light of divine consciousness to descend on earth because there are beings here who are potentially conscious, who can receive and carry that light. That light needs to come to earth to cure all of us of our ignorance. The human race is an ignorant race. All of us are looking for knowledge, even growing in knowledge, but we are still ignorant. There is so much that we do not know. That is one of the basic characteristics of humanity. There is a proverb because we do not have total knowledge; we never can. But if we evolve further and grow in God’s light then we can come nearer to the higher knowledge by which everything can be known. Human beings need God’s light to help us to grow more conscious, less ignorant. So our lives have come to earth as God’s messengers. They have come to attract God’s light into this material world for this ignorant race of human beings. And they are not only attracting his light, his light of consciousness. They are also attracting his love. His love should come ‘to fill the hollow in men’s hearts’. Anything that is ‘hollow’ has an empty space in the middle of it. Sometimes a tree will be hollow and it is living still although there is an empty space in its core; we can also say that somebody’s words are ‘hollow’, meaning that he says things which he does not mean. The other thing that our lives need from God is his bliss, his power of delight ‘to heal the unhappiness of the world’. There is so much unhappiness and suffering. It is as if we do not really know how to be happy for more than a moment at a time. So we need God’s bliss, which is everywhere and unalienable, to come and heal us. If somebody is sick or wounded they need to be healed. All the unhappiness of the world needs to be healed.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

For I, the woman, am the force of God,
He the Eternal’s delegate soul in man.
My will is greater than thy law, O Death;
My love is stronger than the bonds of Fate:
Our love is the heavenly seal of the Supreme.
I guard that seal against thy rending hands.

Here again Savitri is speaking about the mission of herself and Satyavan. As a woman, she represents ‘the force of God’, the divine Conscious-Force of the Supreme, while Satyavan represents the ‘soul’ sent as a ‘delegate’ to represent the Eternal in humanity. Savitri is an incarnation or emanation of the Supreme Divine Mother, the dynamic conscious power of the Supreme while Satyavan is the ‘soul’, God’s representative in each individual being. That is why the lives of men and women are important. And then Savitri says “Because I am the Conscious-Force of the Supreme, ‘My will is greater than thy law, O Death.” In the Vedic tradition, which is the basis of this symbolic story, Yama is not only the god of Death but also the guardian of universal Law, of Dharma: the one who keeps everything in its place in the cosmos. If Savitri can show him that her will is in accord with the Law of Truth which governs the universe, he will have to obey her.

Q: We call him ‘Yamadharma’.

Yes, in the tradition he has both these aspects. In this poem Sri Aurobindo does not refer to him by any name except ‘Death’, but he shows both these aspects: the aspect which is hunger, devouring, dissolution, destruction, but also his defence of the old established laws. He says “There is a law governing the material universe and that is my law, the law of death”, claiming that he is the ruler of the universe. But Savitri replies ‘My will is greater than thy law, O Death’: “There may be the law of Matter which rules this material universe but my will is stronger and higher than that law of yours; moreover I follow the law of Love, and ‘My love is stronger than the bonds of Fate’.” ‘Fate’ is the word we use for things that cannot be changed, for the way that things happen in the universe because of the laws of physics and the laws of karma. Things happen because of the laws of Nature, or they have to happen because of things that have happened in the past. But Savitri says “My love can change all that. It is stronger than ‘the bonds of Fate’, your ropes and chains of Law and Fate. ‘Our love’, this love between the supreme creative force and the human soul, is ‘the heavenly seal of the Supreme’.” Savitri says that the love between herself and Satyavan, the love between the creative force and the human soul has the sanction of the Supreme Lord. Death wants to disregard it and insist on his law, but Savitri insists that she will protect it against the ‘rending hands’ of death and that her love is stronger than his laws; ‘to rend’ means to ‘to tear apart’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Thus wilt thou hire the glorious charlatan, Mind,
To weave from his Ideal’s gossamer air
A fine raiment for thy body’s nude desires
And thy heart’s clutching greedy passion clothe?

He says, “Are you going to ‘hire the glorious charlatan, Mind’ to make a beautiful robe in which you can dress up your physical desires and the ‘greedy passion’ of your heart?” ‘To hire’ somebody means to pay them to work for you. Death tells Savitri, “It looks as if you want to employ Mind to ‘weave … / A fine raiment’ to cover the desires of your body and the passions of your heart: an attractive disguise made from the ‘Ideal’s gossamer air’, which is so fine and unsubstantial.” “But” he says, “Mind is just a showy ‘charlatan’.” A ‘charlatan’ is a person who sells fake medicines or goods on a fairground: they look shiny and attractive but they are not worth anything. A ‘charlatan’ offers things that have no real value. “The Mind”, says Death, “is like that: it may have a very attractive and convincing appearance, but it has nothing genuine or real to give you. Are you really going to call on his services ‘To weave from his Ideal’s gossamer air / A fine raiment’ to dress up your desires and passions and make them look very valuable?” ‘Gossamer’ is spider silk, the very fine threads that spiders weave. Nowadays the scientists tell us that it is one of the strongest substances known on earth, stronger even than reinforced steel, proportionate to its width; but the word suggests something very delicate and evanescent which can be easily broken or blown away. Death says, “Savitri, you are just trying to justify the passions of your body with all these high thoughts about the value of love and to dress up your heart’s clutching, greedy passions. You just want to eat Satyavan up with your so-called love, but it is only a ‘greedy passion’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri. Book 10]

But Savitri replied to the dire God:
“Yes, I am human. Yet shall man by me,
Since in humanity waits his hour the God,
Trample thee down to reach the immortal heights,
Transcending grief and pain and fate and death.

What a wonderful reply she gives him! She says, “ ‘Yes, I am human’ – it is true; but through me, man will be able to overcome you, Death, because in humanity God is dwelling and waiting his hour, waiting for the moment to come when human beings will be able to ‘Trample thee down’, using you as a stepping stone beneath their feet as they evolve and climb ‘to reach the immortal heights’. Then even human beings will be able to transcend ‘grief and pain and fate and death’.” To ‘trample’ means ‘to tread roughly on something’. Savitri is saying that human beings, because we all carry the divine presence within us, will be able to overcome death and use it as a stepping stone to reach the heights of the immortal consciousness and the immortal existence.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

I am the living body of his light,
I am the thinking instrument of his power,
I incarnate Wisdom in an earthly breast,
I am his conquering and unslayable will.
The formless Spirit drew in me its shape;
In me are the Nameless and the secret Name.”

Savitri can say this in a special sense because she has become conscious of her divinity. Essentially it is true of all of us, but until we find and unite with our soul we are not aware of it. She says, “ ‘I am the living body of his light’, of God’s consciousness; ‘I am the thinking instrument of his power’.” Human beings are mental beings: we think. God uses our thoughts as ‘an instrument of his power’. She says, “Yes, here I am in a human body, but in this human body ‘I incarnate Wisdom’; and ‘I am his conquering and unslayable will’.” Especially she is this Will. In this debate between Love and Death Savitri represents the divine Will and Truth, which is sure to conquer and which cannot be destroyed.

For now, Savitri clearly declares her truth-knowledge to Death, saying: ‘The formless Spirit drew in me its shape’. Spirit is not limited by any form, it is boundless and eternal and infinite; but it can and does create forms to express itself  Savitri says that her human form has been created by the formless Spirit – for a reason, with a purpose. And then she makes an even greater declaration: ‘In me are the Nameless and the secret Name’. She claims identity with the Supreme in his impersonal Namelessness beyond all name and form as well as in his personal aspect, as the bearer of ‘the secret Name’.

Q: What is the difference between spirit and soul?

Sri Aurobindo has written that the word ‘soul’ is used in many different senses, but we could say that the soul is our individual divinity. Spirit is not individualised: it is formless and unlimited and eternal and infinite. Here Savitri is saying that Spirit, which is beyond form, beyond any limitation, has created an individual shape for itself in her. Out of its own unlimited and formless substance it has created individual forms for itself. Spirit has drawn countless shapes for itself and it is inhabiting, living in, each of them; none of them could exist if Spirit were not pervading and animating it.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

He who would turn to God, must leave the world;
He who would live in the Spirit, must give up life;
He who has met the Self, renounces self.

Death continues with his argument about the incompatibility of Matter and Spirit. This is a kind of doctrine. It is even a spiritual doctrine that ‘He who would turn to God, must leave the world’, will have to ‘leave the world’. People who are very serious about finding God feel that they have to give up ordinary life in the world to become a sannyasi or a monk or nun and join a monastery or an ashram or find a remote cave in the Himalayas. Sri Aurobindo does not fully agree with this but it is a long-held conviction, and it is a spontaneous feeling in us when we turn towards the soul: “Oh, I have to get away from all this other stuff!” Sri Aurobindo and the Mother tell us just the opposite: that if we want to collaborate with the unfolding of evolution towards the Divine Life upon Earth, it is more helpful to find the divine in the circumstances of daily life. But here Death is proclaiming the old idea that whoever wants to turn towards God will have to leave the world. Whoever wants to live in the spirit ‘must give up life’. He says that the two things are incompatible and adds that when you have ‘met the Self’, the one self of all, you will have to give up even your individuality: you will have to cease to exist as an individual. But Sri Aurobindo shows us that loss of ego does not mean losing your true individuality because the ego is just an outward projection of your true eternal individuality. The ‘self’ with a small ‘s’ is just you and me, but behind it there is the true Self. When the true Self is found, then the limited ego will disappear; then, like Aswapati and Savitri you will become a conscious centre of the divine oneness.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

But Savitri replied to mighty Death:
“My heart is wiser than the Reason’s thoughts,
My heart is stronger than thy bonds, O Death.
It sees and feels the one Heart beat in all,
It feels the high Transcendent’s sunlike hands,
It sees the cosmic Spirit at its work;
In the dim Night it lies alone with God

Savitri is claiming the supremacy of the heart’s insight, prompted by the deep soul, over Reason, which is an abstract power of the mind. Reason is a kind of light, but Sri Aurobindo tells us that in some ways the insights of the heart are truer and deeper, more reliable than those of the mind. That is the truth which Savitri is affirming here. Her heart, of course, is free from the kind of misleading delusions and impulses that make us feel that we cannot always rely on the heart’s leading, so she can say this: “ ‘My heart is wiser than the Reason’s thoughts’ ”; and she says “ ‘My heart is stronger than thy bonds, O Death’, stronger than the limitations that you place on mortal beings”. She says, “My heart ‘sees and feels the one Heart beat in all’.” Because of the realisations she has experienced, which have been described in Book Seven, Savitri has the insight to feel the loving divine omnipresence, the one heart that is beating in every form in the universe. She says that her heart not only feels that cosmic heart within the universe, it also feels the hands of the Transcendent, the Supreme which are warm and caressing like sunlight. “My heart”, she says, “can see ‘the cosmic Spirit at its work’ and ‘In the dim Night it lies alone with God’, very closely and intimately connected to the divine.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

It can drink up the sea of All-Delight
And never lose the white spiritual touch,
The calm that broods in the deep Infinite.”

Savitri is making a tremendous claim about the purity and strength of her heart. She says that it can not only bear all the suffering of the world, but it can also ‘drink up the sea of All-Delight’, taking into itself every form of delight that can possibly be; and it can accept and enjoy all those different forms of delight without ever losing ‘the white spiritual touch’: its contact with the pure presence of the divine spirit, and without losing the ‘calm that broods in the deep Infinite’. People who have dedicated their lives to the spiritual search often feel that they have to avoid certain forms of delight because they would distract or mislead them on their path; but Savitri is claiming that she has reached a state of such pure illumination and realisation that she can not only bear all the grief of the world, but also enjoy all the delight of the world without losing contact with pure spiritual touch of the divine presence and without losing the unshaken calm of the deep Infinite. This is an amazing fulfilment: to be so grounded in the direct and constant awareness of the divine presence that one can take all these different kinds of delight without ever losing contact with it. Death is still ‘incredulous’; he does not believe her:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Then will I give thee all thy soul desires,
All the brief joys earth keeps for mortal hearts.
Only the one dearest wish that outweighs all,
Hard laws forbid and thy ironic fate.
My will once wrought remains unchanged through Time,
And Satyavan can never again be thine.”

“I will give you everything your soul is longing for, all the short-lived joys that life on earth allows for ‘mortal hearts’, for beings who are going to die. But there is only one wish that I cannot grant you. I know that is the wish that is most dear to you, that means more to you than all others, but there are strict laws that prevent me from granting that, and there is your ‘ironic fate’, which seems to be fixed by some strange contradictory humour. ‘My will once wrought’, once a decision of mine has been carried out, it cannot be changed in Time; so ‘Satyavan can never again be thine’: it is decided – he is dead. That is the end of it. There is no way that you can get him back, however much you want it.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

But Savitri replied to the vague Power:

“If the eyes of Darkness can look straight at Truth,
Look in my heart and, knowing what I am,
Give what thou wilt or what thou must, O Death.
Nothing I claim but Satyavan alone.”

Savitri refuses to ask him for anything else. She says, “If your ‘eyes of Darkness’ are able to ‘look straight at Truth’, look at me, ‘Look in my heart’ and know ‘what I am’. Knowing what I am, give me whatever you like – or ‘what thou must’, what you have to give me because the laws of the universe compel you I am not claiming anything except the life of Satyavan.” She too is quite contemptuous in her way. She challenges him – ‘Give what thou wilt’, whatever you like – or ‘what thou must’: whatever you have to give me because you have no choice!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

A transient painting on a holiday’s floor
Traced for a moment’s beauty love was made.
Or if a voyager on the eternal trail,
Its objects fluent change in its embrace
Like waves to a swimmer upon infinite seas.”

“Human love” he says, “is like a painted decoration made on the floor for special festivals and celebrations – it is not meant to last long, it is only ‘Traced for a moment’s beauty’ – a Kolam or Rangoli that cannot last long. Or if you think of love as a traveller, always moving further ‘on the eternal trail’, the love may remain the same but its objects change and flow into other forms as it embraces them, as a swimmer in the sea embraces the waves of the ocean which change their forms as he swims.” ‘Fluent’ means ‘flowing’. “Love may be eternal, but the objects of love flow and change. The love flows to different objects, now one, and now another.” This is another example of how Death voices our thoughts and experiences. This is exactly what we think: ‘grief dies soon in the tired human heart / Soon other guests the empty chambers fill’: love is not meant to last forever; or if love is indeed eternal, its objects are constantly changing. But now Savitri is going to reply to Him.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

All shall be seized, transcended; there shall kiss
Casting their veils before the marriage fire
The eternal bridegroom and eternal bride.

Savitri states with certitude that all the aspects of existence will be ‘seized’ and ‘transcended’, going beyond all their limitations and imperfect appearances to the eternal and infinite reality and Truth. There will be a marriage. In the Hindu marriage ceremony the fire is the witness and the bridegroom and the bride remove their veils in front of the fire. This will be the marriage of ‘The eternal bridegroom and eternal bride’: Spirit and Matter, Soul and Nature, Ishwara and Ishwari will remove their veils and reveal their true nature and unity.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Intent upon her silent will she walked
On the dim grass of vague unreal plains,
A floating veil of visions in her front,
A trailing robe of dreams behind her feet.

Savitri is ‘Intent upon her silent will’, fully concentrated on her will that Satyavan should be returned to earth and to life, as she walks on, treading ‘the dim grass of vague unreal plains’ in that dream-world, following a ‘veil of visions’ that floats before her, her feet followed by a ‘trailing robe of dreams’ as she moves.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

But now her spirit’s flame of conscient force
Retiring from a sweetness without fruit
Called back her thoughts from speech to sit within
In a deep room in meditation’s house.

As she moves, she becomes more and more concentrated within: ‘her spirit’s flame of conscient force’ draws back from the sweetness and beauty of that world because it does not give any fruit. She has ‘Called back her thoughts from speech’: she is not going to say anything more. She is concentrating within herself, ‘In a deep room in meditation’s house’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

For only there could dwell the soul’s firm truth:
Imperishable, a tongue of sacrifice,
It flamed unquenched upon the central hearth
Where burns for the high houselord and his mate
The homestead’s sentinel and witness fire
From which the altars of the gods are lit.

For only there, in that deep inner space, can her ‘soul’s firm truth’ dwell. There it is ‘Imperishable’, a flaming ‘tongue of sacrifice’, burning ‘unquenched’. To quench a fire you pour water on it; this sacrificial fire cannot be quenched: it is constantly burning on ‘the central hearth’, the fire altar in the very centre of her being, in honour of ‘the high houselord and his mate’. The image is of a feudal household ruled by the lord and his queen. We can understand them as ‘the eternal bridegroom and eternal bride’. That fire is the ‘flame of conscient force’ of Savitri’s spirit, which is both ‘sentinel and witness’: the protective guardian and the witness of ‘The homestead’, of her whole being. From that imperishable flame of sacrifice ‘the altars of the gods are lit’. Savitri is fully indrawn and concentrated on the essential consciousness of her soul. She has realised that everything in that world is beautiful and suggestive but ungraspable, unrealisable. She can express her knowledge there and she has done that; as a result, something has changed, but now she is simply concentrating on the realisation of her will for the return of living Satyavan.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

A heaven-bird upon jewelled wings of wind
Borne like a coloured and embosomed fire,
By spirits carried in a pearl-hued cave,
On through the enchanted dimness moved her soul.

This is the image of Savitri’s soul as it moves onwards ‘through the enchanted dimness’: it is like ‘A heaven-bird’ being carried by spirits ‘upon jewelled wings of wind’ through ‘a pearl- hued cave’. The spirits are carrying this heaven-bird like a fire, ‘a coloured and embosomed fire’, held in the heart.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

But not for ever endures this danger game:
Beyond the earth, but meant for delivered earth,
Wisdom and joy prepare their perfect crown;
Truth superhuman calls to thinking man.

This dangerous game of delighting in all possible kinds of enjoyments without discrimination does not last for ever. ‘Beyond the earth’, beyond the material world, ‘Wisdom and joy’ are preparing ‘their perfect crown’ for this imperfect earthly creature. This perfect crown is meant for ‘delivered earth’, earth set free from death and ignorance. ‘Truth superhuman calls to thinking man.’ Thinking man is being invited to grow into the superhuman state, the supramental Truth-Consciousness. This is the invitation and the promise which Savitri gives us.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]