At the end of the previous canto we read that Savitri could feel ‘the silent nearness of the soul’. But in this canto we shall read how, before reaching the home of her soul, she encounters three goddesses, symbolic figures representing three powers or qualities of the soul. Sri Aurobindo will introduce each of them to us in turn.

Accepting the universe as her body of woe,
The Mother of the seven sorrows bore
The seven stabs that pierced her bleeding heart:
The beauty of sadness lingered on her face,
Her eyes were dim with the ancient stain of tears.

This is ‘The Mother of the seven sorrows’. She has accepted that this whole material universe will be ‘her body’, and it is a ‘body of woe’. ‘Woe’ is the opposite of joy: ‘sorrow’, ‘suffering’. The image of a heart which is ‘pierced’ by seven swords is sometimes seen in Christian iconography. Perhaps the number seven refers to the major levels of universal existence, each of which experiences a particular kind of suffering, so that there are ‘seven sorrows’ represented by the ‘seven stabs’ piercing ‘her bleeding heart’: a symbol of suffering on all the levels of universal existence. So while her face is beautiful and ‘moon-bright’, it is a ‘beauty of sadness’ that is lingering, remaining, ‘on her face’. ‘Her eyes’ are ‘dim with the ancient stain of tears’: she has been weeping tears of compassion for a very long time.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

“O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.
To share the suffering of the world I came,
I draw my children’s pangs into my breast.
I am the nurse of the dolour beneath the stars;
I am the soul of all who wailing writhe
Under the ruthless harrow of the Gods.

First, she tells Savitri ‘I am thy secret soul’, and then she explains her mission, her task, which is tom  ‘share the suffering of the world’. She has accepted the material universe as her body, so all beings in the world are her children and she is taking their pain into her breast. She is the ‘nurse’, caring for the ‘dolour’, the pain and grief of all who are suffering here on this earth ‘beneath the stars’. She says that she is even ‘the soul’ of those who are suffering, those ‘who wailing writhe’. When we suffer, we may often give expression to our grief or pain by ‘wailing’, weeping or crying out. ‘To writhe’, means ‘to twist the body in great pain’. The Madonna says that she suffers with all the beings who are writhing, as a wounded worm or snake will ‘writhe’, ‘Under the ruthless harrow of the Gods.’ A ‘harrow’ is the pointed part of a plough that is driven through the ground to make a furrow where the farmer can plant his seeds. Small creatures in the soil will get hurt and ‘writhe’ when the farmer is ploughing his field. ‘The Gods’ are the cosmic powers who take care of the universe and sow the seeds of the future. To do that, they have to plough their furrows in space and time in order to allow new possibilities to grow; their ‘harrow’ is ‘ruthless’, without pity, for the ‘Gods’ do not care who gets hurt as they plough. Then the Madonna of Sorrow gives a picture that is quite touching and familiar to us, of the ways in which women in particular suffer:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

I am in all that suffers and that cries.
Mine is the prayer that climbs in vain from earth,
I am traversed by my creatures’ agonies,
I am the spirit in a world of pain

She is in everything that is suffering, everything ‘that cries’ out in pain. She hears and accepts as her own all the prayers that are sent up by people on earth towards higher powers, apparently ‘in vain’, without getting any response. She feels all earthly creatures as her children, and all their suffering passes through her. ‘Traverse’ means ‘to pass through or across’. ‘I am the spirit in a world of pain.’ She tells Savitri very clearly who she is and what her role is.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Heavy on my shoulders weighs the yoke of Time:
Nothing refusing of creation’s load,
I have borne all and I know I still must bear:
Perhaps when the world sinks into a last sleep,
I too may sleep in dumb eternal peace.

A ‘yoke’ enables you to carry a load. The Madonna is carrying a great load of passing Time and all the suffering that has been going on as if forever and seems endless. It is as if she is carrying the load of the entire creation. She has been carrying that burden for a long time, and she knows that she must go on carrying it. That is her role; her mission is to share, to help support all the suffering in the world. She is not looking forward to any immediate release. Perhaps when the world comes to an end in its ‘last sleep’ then she too may be allowed to fall asleep ‘in dumb eternal peace’. That is the only end which she can foresee for her suffering.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Yet have I cried not out against his will,
Yet I have not accused his cosmic Law.

It is understandable that some people feel like shaking their fist at God and shouting, “What are you doing? Why have you made the world like this?” Sri Aurobindo has told the story of his grandmother who used to say “If I could get hold of God, I would tell him how to run this world better!” Her husband replied, “He has arranged things in such a way that as long as you feel like that you cannot get anywhere near him”. But still we might feel that things could surely have been arranged better. The Mother has said “That is how it is now; that is how it has been; but I feel,” she says, “that it is time for things to change”. That is what she was working for. Here the Madonna says, “I have not cried out or protested against God’s divine will, I have ‘not accused his cosmic Law’”. She has not said, as some people have, that God is a great criminal.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

“I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he
Who is nailed on the wide cross of the universe;
To enjoy my agony God built the earth,
My passion he has made his drama’s theme.

Christ is often referred to as ‘the Man of Sorrows’, the divine being in human form who has taken upon himself all the sufferings of the world. But in Sri Aurobindo’s correspondence he mocks this Man of Sorrows. Nirodbaran had a gloomy and self-pitying tendency and Sri Aurobindo used to try and laugh him out of it, saying “Get rid of this man of sorrows who acts as if he has to bear all the suffering of the world!” This Man of Sorrows is full of self pity: he says, “I am the one ‘Who is nailed on the wide cross of the universe.’” It is a mystical idea. Many Christian mystics have felt or experienced that the whole material universe is the cross on which Christ is nailed suffering until the earth is fully redeemed. This being says, “God has created the world only to enjoy my sufferings: ‘To enjoy my agony, God built the earth.’ He has made ‘My passion’, my intense suffering, the theme of his drama, of his play in the material manifestation.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

I loosen with my blood my servitude’s seal
And shake from my aching neck the oppressor’s knees
Only to seat new tyrants on my back:
My teachers lesson me in slavery,
I am shown God’s stamp and my own signature
Upon the sorry contract of my fate.

He says, “Like a slave or a serf, I may make a great effort and manage to get rid of my oppressors: ‘I loosen with my blood my servitude’s seal’.” There have been revolts of slaves and serfs who with great effort and sacrifice managed to get rid of the people who were oppressing them. But then what happens? ‘Only to seat new tyrants on my back’: new oppressors come along and enslave them again. He says, “I ‘shake from my aching neck the oppressor’s knees’”. You are carrying some heavy tyrant on your back. You cannot get rid of him because he is holding on to your neck with his knees. You make a great struggle and manage to throw him off, but in no time a new one will come and take his place. “There are teachers who try to teach me, to show me a higher light, but they only teach me to be a better slave: ‘They lesson me in slavery’. They do not want to teach me to become free; instead they teach me to accept my slavery. They even show me a ‘contract’, a document which says that I accept this situation; there is God’s stamp on it and it seems I have signed it myself, this ‘sorry contract of my fate.’” A contract is an agreement which both parties have to sign for it to be valid; but this poor being feels that he has been tricked into a ‘sorry contract’, a dreadful, unacceptable agreement. This is how the ‘Man of Sorrows’ lodged in the lower levels of our nature feels about his situation; this is how he experiences the world. Sometimes when things are very difficult, we can feel him there, growling and weeping and complaining and wondering why he has to suffer so much. We might say that while the Madonna is a power of the soul, this man of sorrows is a distorted reflection of the same power in the human ego. While she is full of patient compassion and pity for the sufferings of others, he is full of egoistic self-pity and resentment about his own sorrows.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Each in himself is sole by Nature’s law.
So God has made his harsh and dreadful world,
So has he built the petty heart of man.

An English poet has written “No man is an island”, but in fact our ego feels very much alone, cut off from others so that each one has to stand up for himself, because we feel that nobody else is going to look after us. The Man of Sorrows blames this state of affairs on God, saying “This is the way that ‘God has made’ this ‘harsh and dreadful world’, this world that is full of cruelty and suffering; and this is the way he has made our human hearts. Who is responsible for making us like this with our petty limited selfish hearts? It is all God’s Fault.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Only by force and ruse can man survive:
For pity is a weakness in his breast,
His goodness is a laxity in the nerves,
His kindness an investment for return,
His altruism is ego’s other face:
He serves the world that him the world may serve.

He says that the individual can only survive in this ‘harsh and dreadful world’ by ‘force’, assertive strength, ‘and ruse’, trickery, cunning. ‘Pity is a weakness’ in man, a failure of strength; ‘goodness’, generosity and kindness, ‘is a laxity in the nerves’, some looseness or slackness in the nerves that prevents a person from being strong: human beings are good and kind to their fellow beings only because they are not strong or courageous enough to do or say what they really want. He says that in human beings ‘kindness’ is ‘an investment’: you are only kind because you expect some kindness in return. You do a kind deed and expect that there will be a ‘return’, that people will be kind and generous in return. We normally use the word ‘altruism’ in a positive way, meaning being unselfish and doing things for the good of other people or humanity as a whole; but often altruism is just another kind of egoism, serving the world in order that you may be served by the world. People are not con164scious of this and their service may be offered with good intentions; but they may be ‘doing good’ because it makes them feel valued and appreciated.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

And Savitri heard the voice, the echo heard
And turning to her being of pity spoke:
“Madonna of suffering, Mother of grief divine,
Thou art a portion of my soul put forth
To bear the unbearable sorrow of the world.
Because thou art, man yield not to their doom,
But ask for happiness and strive with fate;
Because thou art, the wretched still can hope.

At the beginning of the canto, when the Madonna introduced herself to Savitri, she said, ‘O Savitri, I am thy secret soul’. Here, Savitri corrects her, saying ‘Thou art a portion of my soul’, a part or an aspect of the soul, emanated with a particular mission: ‘To bear the unbearable sorrow of the world’. Savitri tells her, ‘Because thou art’, because you exist, human beings do not simply give way to misfortune; they do not yield to the painful things that happen to them. Because you are there, they go on asking for happiness and making efforts to overcome their miseries. Because you exist, ‘the wretched’, the people who are living in very unhappy and miserable conditions, still go on hoping and aiming for better things.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Thy love shall be the bond of humankind,
Compassion the bright key of Nature’s acts:
Misery shall pass abolished from the earth;
The world shall be freed from the anger of the Beast,
From the cruelty of the Titan and his pain.
There shall be peace and joy for ever more.”

“That love of yours, that universal sympathy and compassion, will become the connecting link between all human beings.” Compassion will become the key to natural behaviour; spontaneous behaviour will be based on compassion. The word ‘key’ has various suggestions: a key can unlock a door, or if you have the key you can find the answer to a mystery; but there are also keys in music. When a composer is creating a piece of music, he will choose a particular key or raga that has a special atmosphere to communicate. Savitri promises that the whole tone of nature’s action will be based on divine compassion, and that ‘Misery’ will be ‘abolished from the earth’. Some people have to live under dreadful conditions, in physical misery; human beings also experience psychological misery that is based on or leads to the egoistic self pity we saw expressed by the Man of Sorrows. Savitri promises that there will no longer be any misery on the earth, because the world will be set free from the anger of that Man of Sorrows with all his resentments and hatred, from the cruelty of the titan and from his pain. The titan hates and is violent and mean and cruel because he is suffering. All this will be ‘abolished’, so that ‘There shall be peace and joy for ever more’. This is Savitri’s promise to her soul-force, the ‘Madonna of suffering, Mother of grief divine’.

We can see a structure to this first section: first, there is a description of the Madonna and her symbolic surroundings; then she introduces herself to Savitri – her mission and her limitations; then we hear the perverted echo from the lower levels of nature; and finally Savitri answers the Madonna with her promise. We shall find this structure repeated in the following sections of this canto which introduce us to the other two soul-powers.

[Shraddhavan’s English Of Savitri, Book 7]