But Savitri answered to the radiant God:
“In vain thou temptst with solitary bliss
Two spirits saved out of a suffering world;
My soul and his indissolubly linked
In the one task for which our lives were born,
To raise the world to God in deathless Light,
To bring God down to the world on earth we came,
To change the earthly life to life divine.

This is Savitri’s answer to the glorious godhead: she says, “Why are you tempting us with ‘solitary bliss’?” She wants all the gifts which he is offering her, not for herself, not even for herself and Satyavan, but for the whole world, ‘for earth and men’. So she says, “It is useless for you to try tempting us as ‘Two spirits’ – Savitri and Satyavan – ‘saved out of a suffering world’. That is not what we want. My soul and his soul, Satyavan’s soul, are ‘indissolubly linked’. They cannot be separated.” ‘Indissoluble’ comes from the verb ‘to dissolve’. If something is indissoluble it cannot be dissolved. The souls of Savitri and Satyavan are linked together forever. They cannot be separated. And they have taken human lives on earth for ‘one task’ which has two aspects: ‘To raise the world to God in deathless Light’ – to uplift this suffering and imperfect material world to the godlike state of never-ending immortal light, and also ‘To bring God down to the world’, to establish the Divine Presence in this world. “That is why we came on earth”, she says: ‘To change the earthly life to life divine’. What a beautiful reply!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Whence came this profitless wilderness of stars,
This mighty barren wheeling of the suns?
Who made the soul of futile life in Time,
Planted a purpose and a hope in the heart,
Set Nature to a huge and meaningless task
Or planned her million-aeoned effort’s waste?
What force condemned to birth and death and tears
These conscious creatures crawling on the globe?

The word ‘whence’ means ‘from where’. We look up and out from our world into the vastness of space and see a ‘wilderness of stars’ scattered across what seems to be empty space. Savitri seems to be mocking the glorious godhead, asking him “Where has this vast universe come from? Is it ‘profitless’? Is it useless, purposeless? Is it barren?” ‘Barren’ means ‘sterile’ or ‘infertile’ so that nothing will grow there. “Is this huge universe, full of ‘This mighty barren wheeling of the suns’, all these billions and trillions of suns that are whirling in our universe, without any purpose? If so, ‘Who has made the soul of futile life in Time’? Who could possibly make the soul of a life that would be useless, futile, that would have no purpose ‘in Time’? Who has ‘Planted a purpose and a hope in the heart’ of every human being? Has the one who has created all this really ‘Set Nature to a huge and meaningless task’ which has no aim, no purpose, no significance? Who has planned the ‘waste’ of Nature’s ‘million-aeoned effort’, this effort which has lasted for so many aeons?” ‘Aeons’ are immensely long stretches of time, and there have been millions of them. “Is it all a complete waste? Who has done this? Who would have done this? ‘What force’ has deliberately ‘condemned to birth and death and tears / These conscious creatures’ who seem to be just ‘crawling’ about like ants on our earthly globe? Can it really be like that, as you seem to be saying?” And Savitri goes on to give her own very different version of the creation and purpose of the universe:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

If thou and I are true, the world is true;
Although thou hide thyself behind thy works,
To be is not a senseless paradox;
Since God has made earth, earth must make in her God;
What hides within her breast she must reveal.

She says, “If you, O blissful godhead, ‘are true’ and I am true, if we really exist, then this world that we exist in must also be true. You are hiding yourself, disguising yourself, behind all these appearances that you have made. But I am sure that existence ‘is not a senseless paradox’.” A ‘paradox’ is something that seems to contradict itself. Savitri insists that the world is not like that. It is not meaningless. It is not self- contradictory. There is a deeper meaning in it. Because ‘God has made earth’, the material world, ‘earth must make’ God in herself. She must evolve to reveal the divinity that is hidden within her: ‘What hides within her breast she must reveal’.

[Shradhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

I claim thee for the world that thou hast made.
If man lives bound by his humanity,
If he is tied for ever to his pain,
Let a greater being then arise from man,
And the Immortal shine through earthly forms.

She continues: “I am claiming you for this world that you have made. And if it is really true what I have been told”– Death told her, and now this godhead also seems to be telling her – “that human beings cannot become anything else but human beings,” she says, “if it is really true that ‘man’, the human race ‘lives bound by his humanity,’ limited always to be only human, if human beings are ‘tied for ever to’ their pain, their suffering, then you must enable greater beings to arise”: ‘Let a greater being then arise from man’. From humanity another nobler species must emerge so that there will be superhuman beings on earth who can mate with ‘the Eternal’, so that the Immortal can ‘shine through earthly forms’, the material forms we experience here. There has to be a transformation of earthly forms to reveal the immortal divinity that is within them.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Else were creation vain and this great world
A nothing that in Time’s moments seems to be.
But I have seen through the insentient mask;
I have felt a secret spirit stir in things
Carrying the body of the growing God:
It looks through veiling forms at veilless truth;
It pushes back the curtain of the gods;
It climbs towards its own eternity.”

“Otherwise,” she says, “if the earth is not able to reveal the divine being, the divine presence that is hidden within her, then this whole creation would be in vain and this great world would just be an illusion, ‘A nothing’ that only ‘seems’ to exist in the succession of the ‘moments’ of Time.” “But”, she says, “I know that it is not like that, because ‘I have seen through’ this ‘mask’, this disguise of ‘insentient’ matter.” ‘Insentient’ means ‘without senses’, without any conscious awareness. If we look at brute matter it seems to be like that. But Savitri insists, “This appearance of matter is only a mask that you have put on to disguise yourself, to hide yourself. I have seen through that mask of matter and I have experienced that in all material things ‘a secret spirit’ is stirring, moving, and that ‘secret spirit’ is ‘Carrying the body of the growing God’, the God who is growing within all of us as the earth evolves.” The idea that God may be growing is unfamiliar to us. But if he has disguised himself as all this insentient, inconscient nothingness, he is also growing up in it and through it, at first in very simple forms, then in more complex and conscious ones, and then in thinking animals like human beings. Savitri insists, “Within all this, behind the disguise of insentient Matter, I have felt the movement of a ‘secret spirit’, which is carrying this whole process forward. Through all these forms, these disguises and veils, that secret spirit is seeing the unveiled truth which is within them and pushing back ‘the curtain of the gods’, the veil of appearances which the cosmic powers have drawn over things. It is revealing the truth – the presence that is behind the curtain. That secret spirit is climbing ‘towards its own eternity’, towards the full revelation and manifestation of its own eternal and infinite transcendent state.” What a wonderful reply! What a wonderful and powerful expression of Sri Aurobindo’s vision of things!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

In the impetuous drive of thy heart of flame,
In thy passion to deliver man and earth,
Indignant at the impediments of Time
And the slow evolution’s sluggard steps,
Lead not the spirit in an ignorant world
To dare too soon the adventure of the Light,
Pushing the bound and slumbering god in man
Awakened mid the ineffable silences
Into endless vistas of the unknown and unseen,
Across the last confines of the limiting Mind
And the Superconscient’s perilous border line
Into the danger of the Infinite.

He warns her not to be in too much of a hurry, telling her “Do not push humanity and the earth’s evolution forward too quickly.” He says, “I know you want to do that because of your ‘heart of flame’. In your fiery aspiring heart there is an ‘impetuous drive’ towards the future, towards new achievements.” “But”, he says, “in your passion ‘to deliver’, to liberate ‘man and earth’ do not feel ‘Indignant’. Do not become angry ‘at the impediments of Time’.” ‘Impediments’ are obstacles, obstructions which prevent us from moving freely and quickly. ‘Time’ places ‘impediments’ in front of us. We cannot fulfil all our dreams immediately; ‘the tardy process of the pace of Time’ also seems to be part of the ‘world-plan’ so that evolution moves very slowly, with ‘sluggard steps’. A sluggard is a lazy slow-moving person. A slug is an animal like a snail without a shell; it moves around very slowly leaving a trail of silver slime as it eats up the vegetables in your garden.

Q: We have the word ‘sluggish’.

Yes, exactly: if you are feeling sluggish you are reluctant to move. So the godhead warns Savitri: “You feel that evolution is sluggish and that it is moving too slowly and taking far too long. But be careful: do not ‘Lead … the spirit in an ignorant world’ – this ignorant world of humanity which is not ready for further advance – ‘To dare too soon the adventure of the Light’“: the demanding adventure of the higher consciousness. Things have to be prepared. They have to take their time. Asleep within human beings there is a god, a divine being. But he is slumbering. He is sleeping and he is bound. He is tied up, limited. He cannot move freely. So “do not push that ‘bound and slumbering god in man’ to wake up too quickly – to wake up and find himself in the middle of the ‘ineffable silences’ of the higher realms.” ‘Ineffable’ means ‘unable to be grasped or described by the mind’. “Do not wake him up too soon, to find himself in the vast emptinesses of space, waking up to the vastness of the universe, the ‘endless vistas of the unknown and unseen’. Do not push him ‘Across the last confines of the limiting Mind’” – ‘confines’ are limits, borderlines, frontiers.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Arise upon a ladder of greater worlds
To the infinity where no world can be.
But not in the wide air where a greater Life
Uplifts its mystery and its miracle,
And not on the luminous peaks of summit Mind,
Or in the hold where subtle Matter’s spirit
Hides in its light of shimmering secrecies,
Can there be heard the Eternal’s firm command
That joins the head of destiny to its base.

She must rise beyond even the greater Life, even beyond ‘the luminous peaks of summit Mind’ and the realm of subtle Matter. He says, “You are going to have to rise ‘upon a ladder’ with many steps, a ladder of worlds, ‘greater worlds’. And you will have to rise beyond the top of that ladder and enter ‘infinity’: the transcendent state beyond all limits and limitations and determinations, ‘where no world can be’ because only there can ‘the Eternal’s firm command’ be heard, the command which connects the material realm, the ‘base’ of the manifestation, with ‘the head of destiny’. Aswapati also climbed up this ladder and explored the World of Subtle Matter, the subtle physical world ‘where subtle Matter’s spirit / Hides in its light of shimmering secrecies’: a world of unbelievable beauty of forms. He entered into The Worlds of the Greater Life and reached the highest levels of Mind: ‘the luminous peaks of summit Mind’. But the Godhead tells Savitri that in those worlds the Eternal’s ‘firm command’ cannot be heard, the word of the Supreme which connects ‘the head of destiny’, the highest level, where destiny is decided, ‘to its base’: the material world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

In an immense and world-destroying pause
She heard a million creatures cry to her.
Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts
Immeasurably the woman’s nature spoke:
“Thy oneness, Lord, in many approaching hearts,
My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls.”

After she hears the voice there is a kind of pause, a silence in which it seems as if that silence will destroy all world, all manifestation, all expression, all form. But in that pause Savitri hears all the individual creatures calling out to her: ‘She heard a million creatures cry to her’. It is a kind of an appeal. She is not thinking. Her thoughts are completely silent. ‘Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts’ her nature, her human ‘woman’s nature spoke’, but ‘Immeasurably’, limitlessly. She says, “Yes, Lord, please give me your Oneness! But I want it in these ‘many approaching hearts’, in these many, many ‘numberless souls’.”

This pattern is repeated each time. The first time she is offered Peace, the peace of cessation and extinction. She replies, “Yes, Lord, give me your peace, but I want it within me and within the hearts of all human beings, to protect human beings in all the turbulent ‘roar and ruin of wild Time’. The soul of man on earth needs your peace to support and protect him.” The second time she is offered Oneness, and she replies, “Yes Lord, I want your Oneness ‘in many approaching hearts, / My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls’.” It is not a characterless infinity, but a ‘sweet infinity of numberless souls’: an infinity of love and sympathy and relationship, a relationship of oneness between all the ‘numberless souls’ of the Divine.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

But Savitri answered to the radiant God:
“In vain thou temptst with solitary bliss
Two spirits saved out of a suffering world;
My soul and his indissolubly linked
In the one task for which our lives were born,
To raise the world to God in deathless Light,
To bring God down to the world on earth we came,
To change the earthly life to life divine.

This is Savitri’s answer to the glorious godhead: she says, “Why are you tempting us with ‘solitary bliss’?” She wants all the gifts which he is offering her, not for herself, not even for herself and Satyavan, but for the whole world, ‘for earth and men’. So she says, “It is useless for you to try tempting us as ‘Two spirits’ – Savitri and Satyavan – ‘saved out of a suffering world’. That is not what we want. My soul and his soul, Satyavan’s soul, are ‘indissolubly linked’. They cannot be separated.” ‘Indissoluble’ comes from the verb ‘to dissolve’. If something is indissoluble it cannot be dissolved. The souls of Savitri and Satyavan are linked together forever. They cannot be separated. And they have taken human lives on earth for ‘one task’ which has two aspects: ‘To raise the world to God in deathless Light’ – to uplift this suffering and imperfect material world to the godlike state of never-ending immortal light, and also ‘To bring God down to the world’, to establish the Divine Presence in this world. “That is why we came on earth”, she says: ‘To change the earthly life to life divine’. What a beautiful reply!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Whence came this profitless wilderness of stars,
This mighty barren wheeling of the suns?
Who made the soul of futile life in Time,
Planted a purpose and a hope in the heart,
Set Nature to a huge and meaningless task
Or planned her million-aeoned effort’s waste?
What force condemned to birth and death and tears
These conscious creatures crawling on the globe?

The word ‘whence’ means ‘from where’. We look up and out from our world into the vastness of space and see a ‘wilderness of stars’ scattered across what seems to be empty space. Savitri seems to be mocking the glorious godhead, asking him “Where has this vast universe come from? Is it ‘profitless’? Is it useless, purposeless? Is it barren?” ‘Barren’ means ‘sterile’ or ‘infertile’ so that nothing will grow there. “Is this huge universe, full of ‘This mighty barren wheeling of the suns’, all these billions and trillions of suns that are whirling in our universe, without any purpose? If so, ‘Who has made the soul of futile life in Time’? Who could possibly make the soul of a life that would be useless, futile, that would have no purpose ‘in Time’? Who has ‘Planted a purpose and a hope in the heart’ of every human being? Has the one who has created all this really ‘Set Nature to a huge and meaningless task’ which has no aim, no purpose, no significance? Who has planned the ‘waste’ of Nature’s ‘million-aeoned effort’, this effort which has lasted for so many aeons?” ‘Aeons’ are immensely long stretches of time, and there have been millions of them. “Is it all a complete waste? Who has done this? Who would have done this? ‘What force’ has deliberately ‘condemned to birth and death and tears / These conscious creatures’ who seem to be just ‘crawling’ about like ants on our earthly globe? Can it really be like that, as you seem to be saying?” And Savitri goes on to give her own very different version of the creation and purpose of the universe:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

If thou and I are true, the world is true;
Although thou hide thyself behind thy works,
To be is not a senseless paradox;
Since God has made earth, earth must make in her God;
What hides within her breast she must reveal.

She says, “If you, O blissful godhead, ‘are true’ and I am true, if we really exist, then this world that we exist in must also be true. You are hiding yourself, disguising yourself, behind all these appearances that you have made. But I am sure that existence ‘is not a senseless paradox’.” A ‘paradox’ is something that seems to contradict itself. Savitri insists that the world is not like that. It is not meaningless. It is not self- contradictory. There is a deeper meaning in it. Because ‘God has made earth’, the material world, ‘earth must make’ God in herself. She must evolve to reveal the divinity that is hidden within her: ‘What hides within her breast she must reveal’.

[Shradhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

I claim thee for the world that thou hast made.
If man lives bound by his humanity,
If he is tied for ever to his pain,
Let a greater being then arise from man,
And the Immortal shine through earthly forms.

She continues: “I am claiming you for this world that you have made. And if it is really true what I have been told”– Death told her, and now this godhead also seems to be telling her – “that human beings cannot become anything else but human beings,” she says, “if it is really true that ‘man’, the human race ‘lives bound by his humanity,’ limited always to be only human, if human beings are ‘tied for ever to’ their pain, their suffering, then you must enable greater beings to arise”: ‘Let a greater being then arise from man’. From humanity another nobler species must emerge so that there will be superhuman beings on earth who can mate with ‘the Eternal’, so that the Immortal can ‘shine through earthly forms’, the material forms we experience here. There has to be a transformation of earthly forms to reveal the immortal divinity that is within them.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Else were creation vain and this great world
A nothing that in Time’s moments seems to be.
But I have seen through the insentient mask;
I have felt a secret spirit stir in things
Carrying the body of the growing God:
It looks through veiling forms at veilless truth;
It pushes back the curtain of the gods;
It climbs towards its own eternity.”

“Otherwise,” she says, “if the earth is not able to reveal the divine being, the divine presence that is hidden within her, then this whole creation would be in vain and this great world would just be an illusion, ‘A nothing’ that only ‘seems’ to exist in the succession of the ‘moments’ of Time.” “But”, she says, “I know that it is not like that, because ‘I have seen through’ this ‘mask’, this disguise of ‘insentient’ matter.” ‘Insentient’ means ‘without senses’, without any conscious awareness. If we look at brute matter it seems to be like that. But Savitri insists, “This appearance of matter is only a mask that you have put on to disguise yourself, to hide yourself. I have seen through that mask of matter and I have experienced that in all material things ‘a secret spirit’ is stirring, moving, and that ‘secret spirit’ is ‘Carrying the body of the growing God’, the God who is growing within all of us as the earth evolves.” The idea that God may be growing is unfamiliar to us. But if he has disguised himself as all this insentient, inconscient nothingness, he is also growing up in it and through it, at first in very simple forms, then in more complex and conscious ones, and then in thinking animals like human beings. Savitri insists, “Within all this, behind the disguise of insentient Matter, I have felt the movement of a ‘secret spirit’, which is carrying this whole process forward. Through all these forms, these disguises and veils, that secret spirit is seeing the unveiled truth which is within them and pushing back ‘the curtain of the gods’, the veil of appearances which the cosmic powers have drawn over things. It is revealing the truth – the presence that is behind the curtain. That secret spirit is climbing ‘towards its own eternity’, towards the full revelation and manifestation of its own eternal and infinite transcendent state.” What a wonderful reply! What a wonderful and powerful expression of Sri Aurobindo’s vision of things!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

In the impetuous drive of thy heart of flame,
In thy passion to deliver man and earth,
Indignant at the impediments of Time
And the slow evolution’s sluggard steps,
Lead not the spirit in an ignorant world
To dare too soon the adventure of the Light,
Pushing the bound and slumbering god in man
Awakened mid the ineffable silences
Into endless vistas of the unknown and unseen,
Across the last confines of the limiting Mind
And the Superconscient’s perilous border line
Into the danger of the Infinite.

He warns her not to be in too much of a hurry, telling her “Do not push humanity and the earth’s evolution forward too quickly.” He says, “I know you want to do that because of your ‘heart of flame’. In your fiery aspiring heart there is an ‘impetuous drive’ towards the future, towards new achievements.” “But”, he says, “in your passion ‘to deliver’, to liberate ‘man and earth’ do not feel ‘Indignant’. Do not become angry ‘at the impediments of Time’.” ‘Impediments’ are obstacles, obstructions which prevent us from moving freely and quickly. ‘Time’ places ‘impediments’ in front of us. We cannot fulfil all our dreams immediately; ‘the tardy process of the pace of Time’ also seems to be part of the ‘world-plan’ so that evolution moves very slowly, with ‘sluggard steps’. A sluggard is a lazy slow-moving person. A slug is an animal like a snail without a shell; it moves around very slowly leaving a trail of silver slime as it eats up the vegetables in your garden.

Q: We have the word ‘sluggish’.

Yes, exactly: if you are feeling sluggish you are reluctant to move. So the godhead warns Savitri: “You feel that evolution is sluggish and that it is moving too slowly and taking far too long. But be careful: do not ‘Lead … the spirit in an ignorant world’ – this ignorant world of humanity which is not ready for further advance – ‘To dare too soon the adventure of the Light’“: the demanding adventure of the higher consciousness. Things have to be prepared. They have to take their time. Asleep within human beings there is a god, a divine being. But he is slumbering. He is sleeping and he is bound. He is tied up, limited. He cannot move freely. So “do not push that ‘bound and slumbering god in man’ to wake up too quickly – to wake up and find himself in the middle of the ‘ineffable silences’ of the higher realms.” ‘Ineffable’ means ‘unable to be grasped or described by the mind’. “Do not wake him up too soon, to find himself in the vast emptinesses of space, waking up to the vastness of the universe, the ‘endless vistas of the unknown and unseen’. Do not push him ‘Across the last confines of the limiting Mind’” – ‘confines’ are limits, borderlines, frontiers.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Arise upon a ladder of greater worlds
To the infinity where no world can be.
But not in the wide air where a greater Life
Uplifts its mystery and its miracle,
And not on the luminous peaks of summit Mind,
Or in the hold where subtle Matter’s spirit
Hides in its light of shimmering secrecies,
Can there be heard the Eternal’s firm command
That joins the head of destiny to its base.

She must rise beyond even the greater Life, even beyond ‘the luminous peaks of summit Mind’ and the realm of subtle Matter. He says, “You are going to have to rise ‘upon a ladder’ with many steps, a ladder of worlds, ‘greater worlds’. And you will have to rise beyond the top of that ladder and enter ‘infinity’: the transcendent state beyond all limits and limitations and determinations, ‘where no world can be’ because only there can ‘the Eternal’s firm command’ be heard, the command which connects the material realm, the ‘base’ of the manifestation, with ‘the head of destiny’. Aswapati also climbed up this ladder and explored the World of Subtle Matter, the subtle physical world ‘where subtle Matter’s spirit / Hides in its light of shimmering secrecies’: a world of unbelievable beauty of forms. He entered into The Worlds of the Greater Life and reached the highest levels of Mind: ‘the luminous peaks of summit Mind’. But the Godhead tells Savitri that in those worlds the Eternal’s ‘firm command’ cannot be heard, the word of the Supreme which connects ‘the head of destiny’, the highest level, where destiny is decided, ‘to its base’: the material world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

In an immense and world-destroying pause
She heard a million creatures cry to her.
Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts
Immeasurably the woman’s nature spoke:
“Thy oneness, Lord, in many approaching hearts,
My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls.”

After she hears the voice there is a kind of pause, a silence in which it seems as if that silence will destroy all world, all manifestation, all expression, all form. But in that pause Savitri hears all the individual creatures calling out to her: ‘She heard a million creatures cry to her’. It is a kind of an appeal. She is not thinking. Her thoughts are completely silent. ‘Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts’ her nature, her human ‘woman’s nature spoke’, but ‘Immeasurably’, limitlessly. She says, “Yes, Lord, please give me your Oneness! But I want it in these ‘many approaching hearts’, in these many, many ‘numberless souls’.”

This pattern is repeated each time. The first time she is offered Peace, the peace of cessation and extinction. She replies, “Yes, Lord, give me your peace, but I want it within me and within the hearts of all human beings, to protect human beings in all the turbulent ‘roar and ruin of wild Time’. The soul of man on earth needs your peace to support and protect him.” The second time she is offered Oneness, and she replies, “Yes Lord, I want your Oneness ‘in many approaching hearts, / My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls’.” It is not a characterless infinity, but a ‘sweet infinity of numberless souls’: an infinity of love and sympathy and relationship, a relationship of oneness between all the ‘numberless souls’ of the Divine.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

But Savitri answered to the radiant God:
“In vain thou temptst with solitary bliss
Two spirits saved out of a suffering world;
My soul and his indissolubly linked
In the one task for which our lives were born,
To raise the world to God in deathless Light,
To bring God down to the world on earth we came,
To change the earthly life to life divine.

This is Savitri’s answer to the glorious godhead: she says, “Why are you tempting us with ‘solitary bliss’?” She wants all the gifts which he is offering her, not for herself, not even for herself and Satyavan, but for the whole world, ‘for earth and men’. So she says, “It is useless for you to try tempting us as ‘Two spirits’ – Savitri and Satyavan – ‘saved out of a suffering world’. That is not what we want. My soul and his soul, Satyavan’s soul, are ‘indissolubly linked’. They cannot be separated.” ‘Indissoluble’ comes from the verb ‘to dissolve’. If something is indissoluble it cannot be dissolved. The souls of Savitri and Satyavan are linked together forever. They cannot be separated. And they have taken human lives on earth for ‘one task’ which has two aspects: ‘To raise the world to God in deathless Light’ – to uplift this suffering and imperfect material world to the godlike state of never-ending immortal light, and also ‘To bring God down to the world’, to establish the Divine Presence in this world. “That is why we came on earth”, she says: ‘To change the earthly life to life divine’. What a beautiful reply!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Whence came this profitless wilderness of stars,
This mighty barren wheeling of the suns?
Who made the soul of futile life in Time,
Planted a purpose and a hope in the heart,
Set Nature to a huge and meaningless task
Or planned her million-aeoned effort’s waste?
What force condemned to birth and death and tears
These conscious creatures crawling on the globe?

The word ‘whence’ means ‘from where’. We look up and out from our world into the vastness of space and see a ‘wilderness of stars’ scattered across what seems to be empty space. Savitri seems to be mocking the glorious godhead, asking him “Where has this vast universe come from? Is it ‘profitless’? Is it useless, purposeless? Is it barren?” ‘Barren’ means ‘sterile’ or ‘infertile’ so that nothing will grow there. “Is this huge universe, full of ‘This mighty barren wheeling of the suns’, all these billions and trillions of suns that are whirling in our universe, without any purpose? If so, ‘Who has made the soul of futile life in Time’? Who could possibly make the soul of a life that would be useless, futile, that would have no purpose ‘in Time’? Who has ‘Planted a purpose and a hope in the heart’ of every human being? Has the one who has created all this really ‘Set Nature to a huge and meaningless task’ which has no aim, no purpose, no significance? Who has planned the ‘waste’ of Nature’s ‘million-aeoned effort’, this effort which has lasted for so many aeons?” ‘Aeons’ are immensely long stretches of time, and there have been millions of them. “Is it all a complete waste? Who has done this? Who would have done this? ‘What force’ has deliberately ‘condemned to birth and death and tears / These conscious creatures’ who seem to be just ‘crawling’ about like ants on our earthly globe? Can it really be like that, as you seem to be saying?” And Savitri goes on to give her own very different version of the creation and purpose of the universe:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

If thou and I are true, the world is true;
Although thou hide thyself behind thy works,
To be is not a senseless paradox;
Since God has made earth, earth must make in her God;
What hides within her breast she must reveal.

She says, “If you, O blissful godhead, ‘are true’ and I am true, if we really exist, then this world that we exist in must also be true. You are hiding yourself, disguising yourself, behind all these appearances that you have made. But I am sure that existence ‘is not a senseless paradox’.” A ‘paradox’ is something that seems to contradict itself. Savitri insists that the world is not like that. It is not meaningless. It is not self- contradictory. There is a deeper meaning in it. Because ‘God has made earth’, the material world, ‘earth must make’ God in herself. She must evolve to reveal the divinity that is hidden within her: ‘What hides within her breast she must reveal’.

[Shradhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

I claim thee for the world that thou hast made.
If man lives bound by his humanity,
If he is tied for ever to his pain,
Let a greater being then arise from man,
And the Immortal shine through earthly forms.

She continues: “I am claiming you for this world that you have made. And if it is really true what I have been told”– Death told her, and now this godhead also seems to be telling her – “that human beings cannot become anything else but human beings,” she says, “if it is really true that ‘man’, the human race ‘lives bound by his humanity,’ limited always to be only human, if human beings are ‘tied for ever to’ their pain, their suffering, then you must enable greater beings to arise”: ‘Let a greater being then arise from man’. From humanity another nobler species must emerge so that there will be superhuman beings on earth who can mate with ‘the Eternal’, so that the Immortal can ‘shine through earthly forms’, the material forms we experience here. There has to be a transformation of earthly forms to reveal the immortal divinity that is within them.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Else were creation vain and this great world
A nothing that in Time’s moments seems to be.
But I have seen through the insentient mask;
I have felt a secret spirit stir in things
Carrying the body of the growing God:
It looks through veiling forms at veilless truth;
It pushes back the curtain of the gods;
It climbs towards its own eternity.”

“Otherwise,” she says, “if the earth is not able to reveal the divine being, the divine presence that is hidden within her, then this whole creation would be in vain and this great world would just be an illusion, ‘A nothing’ that only ‘seems’ to exist in the succession of the ‘moments’ of Time.” “But”, she says, “I know that it is not like that, because ‘I have seen through’ this ‘mask’, this disguise of ‘insentient’ matter.” ‘Insentient’ means ‘without senses’, without any conscious awareness. If we look at brute matter it seems to be like that. But Savitri insists, “This appearance of matter is only a mask that you have put on to disguise yourself, to hide yourself. I have seen through that mask of matter and I have experienced that in all material things ‘a secret spirit’ is stirring, moving, and that ‘secret spirit’ is ‘Carrying the body of the growing God’, the God who is growing within all of us as the earth evolves.” The idea that God may be growing is unfamiliar to us. But if he has disguised himself as all this insentient, inconscient nothingness, he is also growing up in it and through it, at first in very simple forms, then in more complex and conscious ones, and then in thinking animals like human beings. Savitri insists, “Within all this, behind the disguise of insentient Matter, I have felt the movement of a ‘secret spirit’, which is carrying this whole process forward. Through all these forms, these disguises and veils, that secret spirit is seeing the unveiled truth which is within them and pushing back ‘the curtain of the gods’, the veil of appearances which the cosmic powers have drawn over things. It is revealing the truth – the presence that is behind the curtain. That secret spirit is climbing ‘towards its own eternity’, towards the full revelation and manifestation of its own eternal and infinite transcendent state.” What a wonderful reply! What a wonderful and powerful expression of Sri Aurobindo’s vision of things!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

In the impetuous drive of thy heart of flame,
In thy passion to deliver man and earth,
Indignant at the impediments of Time
And the slow evolution’s sluggard steps,
Lead not the spirit in an ignorant world
To dare too soon the adventure of the Light,
Pushing the bound and slumbering god in man
Awakened mid the ineffable silences
Into endless vistas of the unknown and unseen,
Across the last confines of the limiting Mind
And the Superconscient’s perilous border line
Into the danger of the Infinite.

He warns her not to be in too much of a hurry, telling her “Do not push humanity and the earth’s evolution forward too quickly.” He says, “I know you want to do that because of your ‘heart of flame’. In your fiery aspiring heart there is an ‘impetuous drive’ towards the future, towards new achievements.” “But”, he says, “in your passion ‘to deliver’, to liberate ‘man and earth’ do not feel ‘Indignant’. Do not become angry ‘at the impediments of Time’.” ‘Impediments’ are obstacles, obstructions which prevent us from moving freely and quickly. ‘Time’ places ‘impediments’ in front of us. We cannot fulfil all our dreams immediately; ‘the tardy process of the pace of Time’ also seems to be part of the ‘world-plan’ so that evolution moves very slowly, with ‘sluggard steps’. A sluggard is a lazy slow-moving person. A slug is an animal like a snail without a shell; it moves around very slowly leaving a trail of silver slime as it eats up the vegetables in your garden.

Q: We have the word ‘sluggish’.

Yes, exactly: if you are feeling sluggish you are reluctant to move. So the godhead warns Savitri: “You feel that evolution is sluggish and that it is moving too slowly and taking far too long. But be careful: do not ‘Lead … the spirit in an ignorant world’ – this ignorant world of humanity which is not ready for further advance – ‘To dare too soon the adventure of the Light’“: the demanding adventure of the higher consciousness. Things have to be prepared. They have to take their time. Asleep within human beings there is a god, a divine being. But he is slumbering. He is sleeping and he is bound. He is tied up, limited. He cannot move freely. So “do not push that ‘bound and slumbering god in man’ to wake up too quickly – to wake up and find himself in the middle of the ‘ineffable silences’ of the higher realms.” ‘Ineffable’ means ‘unable to be grasped or described by the mind’. “Do not wake him up too soon, to find himself in the vast emptinesses of space, waking up to the vastness of the universe, the ‘endless vistas of the unknown and unseen’. Do not push him ‘Across the last confines of the limiting Mind’” – ‘confines’ are limits, borderlines, frontiers.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

Arise upon a ladder of greater worlds
To the infinity where no world can be.
But not in the wide air where a greater Life
Uplifts its mystery and its miracle,
And not on the luminous peaks of summit Mind,
Or in the hold where subtle Matter’s spirit
Hides in its light of shimmering secrecies,
Can there be heard the Eternal’s firm command
That joins the head of destiny to its base.

She must rise beyond even the greater Life, even beyond ‘the luminous peaks of summit Mind’ and the realm of subtle Matter. He says, “You are going to have to rise ‘upon a ladder’ with many steps, a ladder of worlds, ‘greater worlds’. And you will have to rise beyond the top of that ladder and enter ‘infinity’: the transcendent state beyond all limits and limitations and determinations, ‘where no world can be’ because only there can ‘the Eternal’s firm command’ be heard, the command which connects the material realm, the ‘base’ of the manifestation, with ‘the head of destiny’. Aswapati also climbed up this ladder and explored the World of Subtle Matter, the subtle physical world ‘where subtle Matter’s spirit / Hides in its light of shimmering secrecies’: a world of unbelievable beauty of forms. He entered into The Worlds of the Greater Life and reached the highest levels of Mind: ‘the luminous peaks of summit Mind’. But the Godhead tells Savitri that in those worlds the Eternal’s ‘firm command’ cannot be heard, the word of the Supreme which connects ‘the head of destiny’, the highest level, where destiny is decided, ‘to its base’: the material world.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]

In an immense and world-destroying pause
She heard a million creatures cry to her.
Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts
Immeasurably the woman’s nature spoke:
“Thy oneness, Lord, in many approaching hearts,
My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls.”

After she hears the voice there is a kind of pause, a silence in which it seems as if that silence will destroy all world, all manifestation, all expression, all form. But in that pause Savitri hears all the individual creatures calling out to her: ‘She heard a million creatures cry to her’. It is a kind of an appeal. She is not thinking. Her thoughts are completely silent. ‘Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts’ her nature, her human ‘woman’s nature spoke’, but ‘Immeasurably’, limitlessly. She says, “Yes, Lord, please give me your Oneness! But I want it in these ‘many approaching hearts’, in these many, many ‘numberless souls’.”

This pattern is repeated each time. The first time she is offered Peace, the peace of cessation and extinction. She replies, “Yes, Lord, give me your peace, but I want it within me and within the hearts of all human beings, to protect human beings in all the turbulent ‘roar and ruin of wild Time’. The soul of man on earth needs your peace to support and protect him.” The second time she is offered Oneness, and she replies, “Yes Lord, I want your Oneness ‘in many approaching hearts, / My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls’.” It is not a characterless infinity, but a ‘sweet infinity of numberless souls’: an infinity of love and sympathy and relationship, a relationship of oneness between all the ‘numberless souls’ of the Divine.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 11]