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

When Savitri at last meets her secret soul, she sees a being standing ‘immortal in transience’. Immortality and Transience may seem to be contradictory opposites, but they are only contradictory to the mind. The soul is immortal, ‘Deathless’, but in the manifestation it inhabits these transient ‘momentary things’ and dallies or plays with them. In the eyes of this immortal being, her secret soul, Savitri sees not only ‘tranquil happiness’, but also ‘pity and sorrow’. But the pity and sorrow cannot ‘abrogate’ or cancel out the happiness. Along with immortality in transience, this is another amazing quality of the soul: for it, all experience is bliss. Through the ‘wide eyes’ of the soul, ‘Infinity’, turns its gaze to look at the ‘finite shapes’ of the changing world; and ‘Eternity’ observes or watches Time, ‘the silent steps of the hours’. The secret soul is infinite and eternal, but it does not cancel out the limited forms or the manifestation or anything that happens in Time. Savitri sees that the soul is supporting, upholding all the acts of every minute, and all the ‘passing scenes’ of the drama that the Everlasting One is playing out in Space and Time.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

In the mystery of its selecting will,
In the Divine Comedy a participant,
The Spirit’s conscious representative,
God’s delegate in our humanity,
Comrade of the universe, the Transcendent’s ray,
She had come into the mortal body’s room
To play at ball with Time and Circumstance.

This Being, Savitri’s secret soul, has accepted to enter into a human body that is ‘mortal’ and will have to die, in order to ‘play at ball with Time and Circumstance’. It has agreed to participate in ‘the Divine Comedy’. A ‘comedy’ is a drama with a happy ending – in contrast to a ‘tragedy’ which ends with the death of the hero. The Divine Comedy is a complex drama in which many tragic things may happen, but it will end well, for it is the game of the Lord in manifestation. The soul is ‘The Spirit’s conscious representative’, the part in us that consciously represents the will and wisdom of the Spirit; it is ‘God’s delegate in our humanity’ – a ‘delegate’ is one who has been chosen and given the mission to represent a higher authority; the soul is delegated to represent the Divine in our evolutionary development from life to life. Savitri’s soul has entered a mortal incarnation in order to play an interactive game with the conditions of this evolutionary creation: ‘Time and Circumstance’. As such She is a ‘Comrade’, a playmate or co-worker ‘of the universe’; but at the same time She is ‘the Transcendent’s ray’ – a beam of Light from the Transcendence that is beyond all the limitations of time and space and manifestation. ‘In the mystery of its selecting will’ the soul chooses to participate in this game of the Lord.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

All things she saw as a masquerade of Truth
Disguised in the costumes of Ignorance,
Crossing the years to immortality;
All she could front with the strong spirit’s peace.

The soul can enjoy all the contrasting experiences of the world because she sees everything as ‘a masquerade of Truth’. In a ‘masquerade’ everyone puts on disguises so that they cannot be recognised as they play and enjoy themselves. The soul sees ‘All things’ – everything in the universe – as ‘a masquerade of Truth’: a big fancy-dress party in which the participants cannot recognise each other, and cannot even recognise themselves. But the soul is aware of all this and sees it all and enjoys the game. She sees that Truth is playing this game, disguised in ‘the costumes of Ignorance’, and that all the players, whatever happens to them as they cross through the years of Time, are on their way to the state of ‘immortality’. Because the soul knows that everything that happens here, whether pain or pleasure or whatever, is all part of this masquerade of Truth, she can face it all ‘with the strong spirit’s peace’. The soul is not disturbed by anything that happens here. The outer being gets shaken and distressed or excited and delighted, but the soul within is always at peace.

This is the true soul, the Central Being. But that Central Being delegates a representative to be within each of us and help us in our humanity:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

But since she knows the toil of mind and li
As a mother feels and shares her children’s lives,
She puts forth a small portion of herself,
A being no bigger than the thumb of man
Into a hidden region of the heart
To face the pang and to forget the bliss,
To share the suffering and endure earth’s wounds
And labour mid the labour of the stars.

Since the Central Being is aware of how difficult it is for each of us to labour through our lives supported only by the struggling ‘mind and life’, she has projected ‘a small portion of herself’. Sri Aurobindo confirms the description of this being given in the Upanishad, saying that it is no bigger than a human thumb and dwells in ‘a hidden region of the heart’. There, on our behalf, it forgets its original state of bliss and faces ‘the pang’, the pain of earth-life, sharing our suffering and bearing our wounds, and participating in the universal effort and labour that is going on throughout the universe. A trace of this knowledge remains in the fairy-tale of Little Tom Thumb, the smallest of many brothers and sisters, who nevertheless turns out to be the hero who can save them all, just as the soul can bring about the liberation and transformation of the other parts of the being.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

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

It is through this little being, this thumb-sized portion of the supreme soul, the individualised divine within us, that the Central Being sends us ‘her glory and her powers’. Through this soul she goes on driving and impelling us towards higher levels of consciousness, ‘wisdom’s heights’, through whatever gulfs or deep dark places of misery we have to pass through in our lives. Misery, deep unhappiness, may come to anyone at times, but some people really have to go through extremely miserable states and live under extremely miserable conditions. What keeps them going, what gives them the courage to go on living, to go on hoping, to go on working for a better life for themselves and their families, is the soul within. Through the soul ‘She gives us strength to do our daily task’. She gives us her soul-powers of courage and wisdom, of compassion and sympathy that can share the grief of other people. Because of the soul within us we do not only think about ourselves, even though our ego tends to be very much centred on ourselves or people closely connected with us. The soul-power of sympathy ‘partakes of’ or shares the suffering of other people, even of people we may know nothing about except that they are suffering. And she gives us whatever ‘little strength we have to help our race’: because of the guidance given to us through our souls perhaps each of us can do a little in our lives to help humanity move forward on its journey. And then Sri Aurobindo tells us about the role, the mission, of human beings: ‘We who must fill the role of the universe’. Each of us represents the whole universe which is ‘Acting itself out in a slight human shape’; each of us is carrying ‘on our shoulders’ part of ‘the struggling world’, and through the soul, the Supreme Mother sends us the strength to do that.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

This is in us the godhead small and marred;
In this human portion of divinity
She seats the greatness of the Soul in Time
To uplift from light to light, from power to power,
Till on a heavenly peak it stands, a king.

The individual soul, projected by the Central Soul to carry us through life, is a ‘godhead’, our inner divinity, but it is ‘small and marred’, imperfect. But nevertheless in this ‘human portion of divinity’ She, the Oversoul, ‘seats the greatness of the Soul in Time’, to uplift each individual godhead ‘from light to light, from power to power’ as it develops and grows from life to life, until at last it can stand ‘on a heavenly peak’ as ‘a king’, ruler of the whole individual nature and fate. That is what our ‘small and marred’ individual soul must eventually become.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

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

In its present state, the soul inhabits a weak and fragile human body; but it is carrying within its heart all ‘the greatness of the Soul in Time’, an ‘invincible might’, which cannot be conquered. Because of that ‘invincible might’ the soul goes on climbing, moving upward, ‘stumbling’, tripping and falling, but always supported, ‘held up by an unseen hand’. That is the present state of each human soul: ‘A toiling spirit in a mortal shape’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri: Book 7]

Here in this chamber of flame and light they met;
They looked upon each other, knew themselves,
The secret deity and its human part,
The calm immortal and the struggling soul.
Then with a magic transformation’s speed
They rushed into each other and grew one.

In this ‘chamber of flame and light’ which Savitri has reached after passing through the rock-temple of Matter and crossing ‘a wall of doorless living fire’, the two aspects of the secret soul meet and recognise each other and know themselves as ‘The secret deity and its human part, / The calm immortal and the struggling soul’. Savitri knows that she is the ‘human part’ and ‘struggling soul’ of that ‘calm immortal’, the ‘secret deity’ who is her origin and truest self. Meeting face to face, ‘with a magic transformation’s speed / They rushed into each other and grew one.’ Savitri has found and united with ‘her secret soul’. There is no longer any separation between the small human portion and its origin.

At the beginning of her search for her soul, Savitri was told that she must find her soul in Matter in order to show the way to the rest of humanity. The way that she has followed, going deeper and deeper into the inner being, all the way to the secret dwelling of the soul, is the way that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have recommended their disciples to follow in order to find the cave deep within the heart which is the soul’s dwelling-place.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]