Book 7, Canto 5 – The Finding of the Soul, Section 3

But now the half-opened lotus bud of her heart
Had bloomed and stood disclosed to the earthly ray;
In an image shone revealed her secret soul.

But a great change has come about in her: ‘the half-opened lotus bud of her heart’, the heart-chakra which had been only half- open has ‘bloomed’ and opened fully, and is now ‘disclosed to the earthly ray’ – no longer hidden deep within, but visible to her surface consciousness. Now she can see within her heart ‘an image’ of ‘her secret soul’. When she looks into herself, she can see where her soul is and what it looks like.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

There was no wall severing the soul and mind,
No mystic fence guarding from the claims of life.
In its deep lotus home her being sat
As if on concentration’s marble seat,
Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds
To make this earthly tenement her house.

Now there is no wall separating her mind from her soul. ‘Severing’ means ‘separating’ or ‘cutting off’. There is no longer any ‘mystic fence’ defending the inner being from the outer ‘claims of life’. The inner and the outer parts of her being have been unified, and she is aware of her being, of her whole self, seated ‘In its deep lotus home’. Here the word ‘lotus’ is being used for the chakras, the energy centres in the subtle body. Savitri’s whole being is gathered together in the deep heart centre, seated ‘As if on concentration’s marble seat’. In several places in the poem, Sri Aurobindo uses the word ‘marble’ to suggest the meaning ‘fixed’, ‘immovable’; and interestingly enough the Mother has mentioned in connection with the Matrimandir that in the gardens there should be marble seats for people to sit on for concentration. Marble is a very dense rock which is valued by sculptors and architects for its pure white or pink colour; and perhaps when we go into a very deep state of concentration, the whole body may become so still and unmoving as if made of marble. Savitri’s whole being is gathered into intense concentration, calling to her higher self, ‘the mighty Mother of the worlds’ to come and make ‘this earthly tenement’, the body, ‘her house’; she is invoking the supreme Mother to take possession of her physical body. The word ‘tenement’ is normally used for a building full of small   or flats which can be rented cheaply for a short stay. Sri Aurobindo is comparing the human body to a not very desirable residence where the soul stays awhile. But now Savitri is calling to her highest self, ‘the mighty Mother of the worlds’ to come and inhabit her mortal body.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Then at the crown it joined the Eternal’s space.
In the flower of the head, in the flower of Matter’s base,
In each divine stronghold and Nature-knot
It held together the mystic stream which joins
The viewless summits with the unseen depths,
The string of forts that make the frail defence
Safeguarding us against the enormous world,
Our lines of self-expression in its Vast.

When it reaches the crown of the head, the serpent joins ‘the Eternal’s space’. Each of the chakras, these centres in the subtle body, represents a door onto a plane of existence. Through each of them, we are in contact with a different plane or level of existence: the one at the base of the spine opens to the inconscient, the basic material plane, ‘the unseen depths’. When the serpent has billowed its way up, touching each chakra in turn and opening them all up, through the crown chakra above the head it joins ‘The viewless summits’ of existence, the transcendent realm, beyond the manifestation, ‘the Eternal’s space’. Thus it forms a continuous ‘mystic stream’ of subtle energy connecting ‘the flower of the head’ with ‘the flower of Matter’s base’, connecting ‘The viewless summits with the unseen depths’, and linking all the centres in between, which he refers to as a ‘string of forts’. A ‘fort’ is a strong building from which a few warriors can defend themselves and the surrounding area. The chakras are like a string of connected forts. Each of them is a ‘divine stronghold’, the base of a divine energy and power; and each of them is also a ‘Nature-knot’ where powers of nature are held together in a strong connection. This string of forts and the mystic stream of subtle energy connecting them with the summits and the depths, together form ‘the frail defence / Safeguarding us against the enormous world’. For us to exist as individualised beings, we need this line of protection formed by the chakras to defend our vulnerable individualities from the full force of the universal powers and energies. These lotus-centres allow to flow into us only as much of the universal energies as we can use for our growth and life and development. That is why the tradition warns that it is very dangerous for them to be opened up prematurely, before the individual is sufficiently developed and purified, because there is the risk of being swept away by the universal forces and losing all individualised control. At the same time as protecting us, they also form ‘Our lines of self-expression’ within the vastness of the Universe, enabling us to relate to and express our soul in the universal movement.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

An image sat of the original Power
Wearing the mighty Mother’s form and face.
Armed, bearer of the weapon and the sign
Whose occult might no magic can imitate,
Manifold yet one she sat, a guardian force:
A saviour gesture stretched her lifted arm,
And symbol of some native cosmic strength,
A sacred beast lay prone below her feet,
A silent flame-eyed mass of living force.

Seated in Savitri’s heart is an image of ‘the original Power’, the supreme conscious force, the Chit-Shakti aspect of Satchidananda, who in Indian feeling and thought is worshipped as the supreme Divine Mother. The form and face of the image described here is that of Goddess Durga. She is ‘Armed’ with a weapon, a trident or thunderbolt, and she is also armed with a ‘sign’ which has an ‘occult might’, a secret power which ‘no magic can imitate’. I suppose that many occultists or magicians are trying to imitate the power of the supreme Mother in one way or another; but she has her own sign which cannot be duplicated by anyone else. ‘Manifold yet one she sat’: the Divine Mother has many different aspects. In his little book The Mother Sri Aurobindo has described some of the main ones; we also met projections of some of her aspects as the Madonnas representing the Triple Soul-Forces in Canto Four. Now in Savitri’s heart she is taking a protective form, as ‘a guardian force’. In images of the Supreme Mother she is often shown with many arms, indicating her many powers and aspects. Here, one arm is lifted in a ‘saviour gesture’, and as a symbol of ‘some native cosmic strength’, ‘A sacred beast lay prone below her feet’. Durga is often depicted seated on the back of a tiger or a lion. Here the beast lies prone, and she has placed her feet upon his back. He is ‘A silent flame-eyed mass of living force’, symbol of the pure majesty and power of the supreme Mother.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

In the country of the lotus of the head
Which thinking mind has made its busy space,
In the castle of the lotus twixt the brows
Whence it shoots the arrows of its sight and will,
In the passage of the lotus of the throat
Where speech must rise and the expressing mind
And the heart’s impulse run towards word and act,
A glad uplift and a new working came.

Here Sri Aurobindo tells us about the realms of the three upper lotuses. First comes ‘the country of the lotus of the head’ which in us is the ‘busy space’ dominated by ‘thinking mind’. The Mother has talked about the active surface mind being like a bustling noisy bazaar, the marketplace of the mental; this is not the crown lotus which lies above the top of the head, but the centre in the brain. Then there is the centre which lies in the space between the eyebrows: ‘the castle of the lotus twixt the brows’ which is the chakra of vision and of will, from where – ‘whence’ – we shoot arrows of ‘sight and will’: arrows of sight towards things that we want to see and arrows of will towards things that we want to happen. Then comes ‘the passage of the lotus of the throat’, in the space at the base of the throat, which is obviously where the voice comes from when we express ourselves through speech, but it is also the centre through which mind expresses itself through creation and action and where impulses from the heart and lower centres rise up to find the expression in speech and action. Into all these three centres, ‘A glad uplift and a new working came‘.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

A channel of the mighty Mother’s choice,
The immortal’s will took into its calm control
Our blind or erring government of life;
A loose republic once of wants and needs,
Then bowed to the uncertain sovereign mind,
Life now obeyed to a diviner rule
And every act became an act of God.

Since the Mother has taken charge of all the centres, the centre of Will becomes a ‘channel of the mighty Mother’s choice’ so that ‘The immortal’s will took into its calm control’ all the movements of the life force. The ordinary human ‘blind or erring government of life’ which began as a ‘loose republic’ of ‘wants and needs’ without any central ruling will or direction and which then accepted the domination of mind, which is an ‘uncertain sovereign’, a wavering and unsure leader, ‘now obeyed to a diviner rule’, so that ‘every act became an act of God.’ Our will is always stumbling and erring because of the imperfection of our mind. If the mind is pure and occupied by the immortal’s thoughts, the action of the life-force will also become clear and pure and unerring. The poet says that the life-force as it normally is in human beings is ‘a loose republic … of wants and needs’. In a republic there is not one king or ruler. People decide for themselves. Similarly in our life there are needs and desires of many different kinds and they all have to somehow compromise with each other. And then perhaps we develop further to a level where mind controls life to a certain extent, although it can never control life completely – it is not strong enough for that. In that case the life might bow to the ‘uncertain sovereign mind’. A ‘sovereign’ is a king or ruler. But now in Savitri, the life ‘obeyed to a diviner rule’ so that ‘every act became an act of God.’ As the result of this transformation, a divine rule now governs her entire life.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri,  Book 7]

In the kingdom of the lotus of the heart
Love chanting its pure hymeneal hymn
Made life and body mirrors of sacred joy
And all the emotions gave themselves to God.

For the heart centre, ‘the kingdom of the lotus of the heart’, its native truest and deepest emotion is divine love. In its transformed state that is what is now ruling it: ‘Love chanting its pure hymeneal hymn.’ Hymen was the ancient Roman goddess of marriage, so a ‘hymeneal hymn’ is a marriage hymn, a hymn of consecrated union. Under the influence of that pure hymn of love and unity the life and body became ‘mirrors’ reflecting ‘sacred joy’, and ‘all the emotions gave themselves to God’: all the emotions became pure and sanctified. In Yoga the conversion of the heart centre can be a very powerful aid, for it enables us to see the presence of the divine lover everywhere and all actions and the feelings turn towards the Lord, the Mother, the Two-in-One.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

In the narrow nether centre’s petty parts
Its childish game of daily dwarf desires
Was changed into a sweet and boisterous play,
A romp of little gods with life in Time.

I am very fond of this description of what happens in ‘the narrow nether centre’s petty parts’. This centre is the home of all our small desires and feelings. In its transformed state, the play of these ‘daily dwarf desires’ gets changed ‘into a sweet and boisterous play’ which is ‘A romp of little gods with life in Time.’ A ‘romp’ is the boisterous play of children. In some of our south Indian temples we see images of little dwarfish beings, singing and dancing in a funny way and playing on drums and cymbals. These are the Ganas, ruled by Lord Ganesa or Ganapati. At the end of one of Sunil-da’s New Year’s compositions he shocked everybody by putting in a thumping romping dance of these little gods; it is very funny and quite unlike his usual style of composition, but I think that what it expresses is the joyful ‘romp of little gods with life in Time’ which happens when this ‘narrow nether centre’ gets transformed. Then life becomes full of innocent fun for the bodily senses in a way that was not possible before this great change.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

A secret soul behind supporting all
Is master and witness of our ignorant life,
Admits the Person’s look and Nature’s role.
But once the hidden doors are flung apart
Then the veiled king steps out in Nature’s front;
A Light comes down into the Ignorance,
Its heavy painful knot loosens its grasp:
The mind becomes a mastered instrument
And life a hue and figure of the soul.
All happily grows towards knowledge and towards bliss

Even in our ordinary ignorant life a soul is secretly supporting from behind all that we are and do. It is the true ‘master and witness of our ignorant life’. But it allows ‘the Person’s look and Nature’s role’: the observing gaze of the Purusha, the inner consciousness and the outer play of Nature. These are the two dominant powers in our existence until the psychic transformation happens. But once ‘the hidden doors’ in the deep heart are opened wide, then the ‘secret soul’, ‘the veiled king’ which is the true ruler of our being, ‘steps out in Nature’s front’ and takes control. Then ‘A Light comes down into the Ignorance’, the twilight state that we are living in. As a result, the ‘heavy painful knot’ of Ignorance loosens its grip. So ‘mind becomes a mastered instrument’, an instrument of the soul; Life too is mastered and becomes ‘a hue and figure of the soul’. ‘Hue’ means ‘colour’; we see seven hues in the rainbow. The Light of the soul may express itself in different hues. When the life becomes ‘a hue’ of the soul and not only ‘a hue’ but a ‘figure’, a form and representation of the soul, then naturally everything in the being begins to grow happily ‘towards knowledge and towards bliss’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

A divine Puissance then takes Nature’s place
And pushes the movements of our body and mind;
Possessor of our passionate hopes and dreams,
The beloved despot of our thoughts and acts,
She streams into us with her unbound force,
Into mortal limbs the Immortal’s rapture and power.
An inner law of beauty shapes our lives;
Our words become the natural speech of Truth,
Each thought is a ripple on a sea of Light

Then ‘A divine Puissance’ or power takes the place of Nature. Instead of being driven by natural impulses, ‘the movements of our body and mind’ are pushed and impelled forward by that divine power. That ‘divine Puissance’ is the Mother, the Shakti. She takes possession of all ‘our passionate hopes and dreams’ and becomes the ‘beloved despot of our thoughts and acts’. A ‘despot’ is an uncontested ruler, who rules without any opposition. The Mother ‘streams into us with her unbound force’, her limitless energy and strength, and pours into these ‘mortal limbs’, the physical body, ‘the Immortal’s rapture and power’. Because of her force within us, ‘An inner law of beauty shapes our lives.’ When she is ruling the whole nature, ‘Our words become the natural speech of Truth’, and ‘Each thought is a ripple on a sea of Light’: the Mind becomes an ocean of Light and each thought is just a small expression of it. This is a very beautiful and powerful description of the Psychic Realisation and Transformation which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have advised us to aim for as the first step in their Integral Yoga.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Then sin and virtue leave the cosmic lists;
They struggle no more in our delivered hearts:
Our acts chime with God’s simple natural good
Or serve the rule of a supernal Right.

There are two difficult points about this sentence: first the poet says that ‘sin and virtue leave the cosmic lists’ – this has nothing to do with shopping lists, or lists of things that you need to do.The ‘lists’ is a space marked out for two combatants to fight each other. This unusual word appears four times in the poem. Here he speaks of ‘the cosmic lists’, implying that the whole universe is a field of combat, a battleground. In the human world there seems to be a constant conflict going on between ‘sin and virtue’, what we feel as right or wrong, good  and evil, what we feel brings us closer to the divine and what seems to separate us from Him. But here Sri Aurobindo says that when the psychic transformation of the whole nature has been established in a human being, then he or she no longer sees the idea of sin and virtue as part of the universal picture or way of things; these opposites no longer struggle in the heart which has been set free from this opposition. Instead, that person’s actions spontaneously ‘chime with God’s simple natural good’. Bells ‘chime’; bell-makers and bell-players want the bells to chime in a harmonious way; the expression ‘to chime with’ means ‘to be in harmony or in accord with’ somebody or something. As a result of the psychic transformation all our actions will either be in harmony with ‘God’s simple natural good’ or else they will ‘serve the rule of a supernal Right’, a Truth-action which is not a human virtue but belongs to a higher transcendent realm.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

All moods unlovely, evil and untrue
Forsake their stations in fierce disarray
And hide their shame in the subconscient’s dusk.

When the Mother is ruling the nature through the soul, all the bad moods that are ‘unlovely’, ugly, or ‘evil and untrue’ run away ‘in fierce disarray’, in angry disorder and confusion, leaving their habitual homes in our nature, ‘their stations’. They run away in shame. At this stage they may not get dissolved completely: they hide themselves ‘in the subconscient’s dusk’ – the shadowy realm beyond the control of our conscious mind. From there they may come up and bother us again if they get the chance. But for now that is where they go, down into the ‘dusk’, the darkness of the subconscient. When all this happens, the mind feels triumphant:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Even if the struggling world is left outside
One man’s perfection still can save the world.
There is won a new proximity to the skies,
A first betrothal of the Earth to Heaven,
A deep concordat between Truth and Life:
A camp of God is pitched in human time

Even if the individual in whom the psychic transformation has been established has very little contact or communication with the rest of the world, ‘Even if the struggling world is left outside’, the first stage of perfection which he or she has reached can help to save the world. Through that person ‘There is won a new proximity to the skies’, the earth has been brought closer to heaven. ‘Proximity’ means closeness, nearness; ‘the skies’ are the higher levels of consciousness. Through that individual, a ‘first betrothal of the Earth to Heaven’ has come about. A ‘betrothal’ is a promise or agreement that two people will marry each other. The transformation of this single individual marks an important step towards the union of the material world with the higher worlds. It also marks, he says, ‘A deep concordat between Truth and Life’: a ‘concordat’ is also a kind of agreement, an agreement of friendship and mutual support between two governments, often between the heads of different systems of government, a religious leader with a national leader for example. In our ordinary experience Truth and Life often seem to be struggling against or opposing each other, but with this realisation they can begin to work together in harmony. This achievement also enables the establishment of ‘a camp of God … in human time’. A camp is not a permanent place, but an army establishes a temporary camp, pitching their tents in a favourable position as a base for further conquest: ‘A camp of God is pitched in human time.’ Of course God has his tents pitched in many realms in subtle time, but this psychic realisation and transformation of a single human individual allows him to establish a base ‘in human time’ to support the earth’s evolution.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]