Aloof and standing back detached and calm,
A witness of the drama of herself,
A student of her own interior scene,
She watched the passion and the toil of life
And heard in the crowded thoroughfares of mind
The unceasing tread and passage of her thoughts.

‘Standing back detached and calm’, ‘Aloof’, as if at a distance from her inner scene, as a ‘witness of the drama of herself’, Savitri simply watches and studies what is happening within her. The Mother has told us that she started doing that when she was a child of five. She had a little chair of her own, which we can see in some of her early photographs, and she used to sit quietly in it and watch ‘her own interior scene’, observing and studying what was going on there. She has said that for her this was the most interesting way of spending her time. Her father wanted to take her to the circus or she was supposed to go and play with some friends, but for her this inner self- observation was much more interesting. That is what Savitri is doing now, watching the intense feelings and efforts, ‘the passion and the toil’ of the life parts and hearing the ‘unceasing tread and passage of her thoughts’ endlessly passing through ‘the crowded thoroughfares of mind’. ‘Thoroughfares’ are streets where people and traffic can pass through. The Mother tells us that the mind is like a crowded city street or a noisy marketplace where many thoughts are constantly coming and going. That is the first thing that we notice when we start observing ourselves. I remember that one day when I was about twelve years old I told my mother that I wished I could stop this constant flow of thoughts going on in my mind, and she replied “Yes, but unfortunately we can’t”. She did not know enough to be able to tell me, “If you stand back and watch you will be able to stop it”; it was only 15 years later that I came into contact with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and learned that this is possible.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Thus following the complex human play
She heard the prompter’s voice behind the scenes,
Perceived the original libretto’s set
And the organ theme of the composer Force.

By quietly observing, ‘following the complex human play’, the complicated drama of our inner life, Savitri is able to notice ‘the prompter’s voice behind the scenes’. In a theatre when actors are performing a drama, hidden below or behind the stage is a ‘prompter’ whose job is to help them if they forget the words they are supposed to say or remind them of what they are supposed to do next; quietly, so that the audience does not notice, the ‘prompter’ murmurs some instructions. As she watches quietly and attentively Savitri notices that in the course of ‘the complex human play’, someone or something is suggesting what should happen next, ‘the prompter’s voice behind the scenes’. She notices that there is a ‘libretto’; this Italian word means ‘little book’ and refers to the words that are sung in a musical drama or an opera. Savitri sees that what happens in our inner drama has been written out beforehand; it is planned and prepared. Looking deeper she becomes aware of ‘the composer Force’ who has written the libretto and ‘the organ theme’, the music for this complex human drama. An ‘organ’ is a huge and complicated wind instrument with many keys; some are played like a piano with the hands, others are played by pressing pedals with the feet, and in addition there are also stops which can be selected to give the sound of different musical instruments. Savitri becomes aware that the complex drama which is played out in our human lives and thoughts has been created, written and composed by a ‘Force’, an original creative energy.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

But most her gaze pursued the birth of thought.
Affranchised from the look of surface mind
She paused not to survey the official case,
The issue of forms from the office of the brain,
Its factory of thought-sounds and soundless words
And voices stored within unheard by men,
Its mint and treasury of shining coin.

Savitri is quietly observing everything that is going on within her. ‘But most her gaze pursued the birth of thought’: she is especially looking to see where thoughts are born, where they are coming from. Now she is ‘Affranchised from the look of surface mind’, set free from the way that our surface mind sees things; so she does not pause ‘to survey the official case’, the official version of what is happening, that might be put out to the public in the newspapers or on TV; she wants to know what is really going on, so she does not pay any attention to the official ‘forms’ that are being issued ‘from the office of the brain’. The brain is like a government office that issues standard forms in which ideas have to be formulated or like a factory that manufactures standard products that come to the surface consciousness as ‘thought-sounds and soundless words’, as ‘voices’ stored in the mind, ‘unheard by men’. These products are the brain’s ‘mint and treasury of shining coin’. A ‘Mint’ is a factory where coins are produced; the verb ‘to mint’ means ‘to produce coins’; a ‘treasury’ is the place where the coins are stored after they have been minted until they are issued through the banks. The brain mints standardised thought-coins or counters, and stores them to be brought out as needed. Savitri is not paying attention to these things because she realises that they are not very significant.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Oft from her soul stepped out a naked thought
Luminous with mysteried lips and wonderful eyes;
Or from her heart emerged some burning face
And looked for life and love and passionate truth,
Aspired to heaven or embraced the world
Or led the fancy like a fleeting moon
Across the dull sky of man’s common days,
Amidst the doubtful certitudes of earth’s lore,
To the celestial beauty of faith gave form,
As if at flower-prints in a dingy room
Laughed in a golden vase one living rose.

‘Oft’ is a short form of ‘often’ which is used in poetry. Savitri sees that often ‘a naked thought’ steps out from her soul. It is naked because it is absolutely pure. It is ‘Luminous’ – full of light. Each thought has a face: lips full of mystery and ‘wonderful eyes’. These thoughts come from her soul. Other thoughts emerge from her heart. Their faces are ‘burning’, intense and flaming. These thoughts are looking for ‘life and love and passionate truth’. Some of them ‘Aspired to heaven’ while others ‘embraced the world’. Some of them led the imagination, ‘the fancy’ or fantasy; those thoughts are like a ‘fleeting moon’ coming and going behind clouds; that moon, even though it is fleeting, lights up ‘the dull sky of man’s common days’, the greyness of ordinary life. Other thoughts from the heart expressed ‘the celestial beauty of faith’ which, in the midst of ‘earth’s lore’, the accepted truths of the earth- mind which are only ‘doubtful certitudes’, has a life-giving power. ‘Lore’ is knowledge that we have learned. We have learned it in school or from books or from other people. It is not something that we know from our own experience. But those certitudes are doubtful, even if everyone tells you that they are true. They do not convince our whole being though they may convince the mind perhaps. But if faith comes, if a thought from the heart lights up that doubtful lore with the heavenly beauty of faith, that brings a living experience and conviction. Sri Aurobindo expresses the difference between earth’s ‘doubtful certitudes’ and the living experience of faith in a beautiful image. He says it is like being in ‘a dingy room’, a grey dusty room where there is not much light. On the walls of that room ‘flower-prints’ are hanging: not even original paintings of flowers, but faded copies of flower paintings. As if laughing at those pale reproductions, ‘one living rose’ is shining in all its beauty in ‘a golden vase’. That is the difference between ‘the celestial beauty of faith’ and ‘the doubtful certitudes of earth’s lore’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

A seeing will pondered between the brows;
Thoughts, glistening Angels, stood behind the brain
In flashing armour, folding hands of prayer,
And poured heaven’s rays into the earthly form.

Savitri becomes aware of ‘A seeing will’ pondering, as if in concentration, in the chakra between the eyebrows which is the seat of vision and of will; and she sees powerful thoughts, ‘glistening Angels’, messengers from the Divine who come to help and protect human beings. They are clothed in shining armour, their hands are folded in prayer, and by their concentration they are pouring rays of heavenly light ‘into the earthly form’ through that centre ‘between the brows’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Imaginations flamed up from her breast,
Unearthly beauty, touches of surpassing joy
And plans of miracle, dreams of delight:
Around her navel lotus clustering close
Her large sensations of the teeming worlds
Streamed their dumb movements of the unformed Idea;
Invading the small sensitive flower of the throat
They brought their mute unuttered resonances
To kindle the figures of a heavenly speech.

Also from the heart region rise up flaming imaginations, bringing ‘Unearthly beauty’ such as we do not see here on the earth. They bring ‘touches of surpassing joy’, intense delight beyond anything we normally experience here. They also bring ‘plans of miracle, dreams of delight’, detailed imaginations of how miraculous and glorious things could be brought about. This is a very important function of our imagination: to help us to see new possibilities and to bring closer things that seem impossible. The ‘navel lotus’ is the centre of our sensational life and the contact between the inner and outer worlds. Now in Savitri not only physical sensations are clustering there, but also much wider larger sensations ‘of the teeming worlds’ from the uncountable subtle realms beyond the reach of our physical senses are streaming into her awareness, bringing ‘their dumb movements of the unformed Idea’. These dumb movements are carrying Ideas with them, but these Ideas are not yet formed, they are still only potential. Clustering around the navel centre, they surge upward to invade the throat chakra, ‘the small sensitive flower of the throat’. This is the centre of expression. These unformed Ideas, movements and sensations ‘brought their mute unuttered resonances’. They are dumb, they do not speak, they do not utter any sound or word, but their resonating vibrations enter the throat chakra

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Only to the inner mind they speak direct,
Put on a body and assume a voice,
Their passage seen, their message heard and known,
Their birthplace and their natal mark revealed,
And stand confessed to an immortal’s sight,
Our nature’s messengers to the witness soul.

As long as we remain imprisoned in outer mind, we will not be able to see what these thoughts are or where they are coming from and what they have to say to us. They only reveal themselves ‘to the inner mind’. Behind the surface mind that is turned outward lies our inner mind. The thoughts coming from the subtle worlds or from our body can speak directly to the inner mind and ‘Put on a body and assume a voice’. ‘Their passage’, the journey they have made and where they have come from, can be seen, and ‘their message’ can be ‘heard and known’. They may even reveal where they were born, their origin, and ‘their natal mark’ – a distinguishing birthmark. Then to the immortal part in us, to the soul, they ‘stand confessed’, undisguised, showing what they really are, sharing a message from our nature ‘to the witness soul’ which is standing back, detached and observant. Savitri has stepped back from her outer nature and has identified with the witness soul, so she can see all these messengers as they really are, without any concealment or disguise and understand the message they are sharing.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

So man evolving to divinest heights
Colloques still with the animal and the Djinn;
The human godhead with star-gazer eyes
Lives still in one house with the primal beast.
The high meets the low, all is a single plan.

Because of that ‘unbroken totality’ and ‘deep solidarity’, we human beings who are evolving upwards towards the highest heights of divine consciousness are still in communication with the lower levels from which we have come, the level of animal consciousness and the level of the Djinn. ‘To colloque’ means ‘to speak with’. ‘Djinn’ is an Arabic word referring to a race of subtle beings in Islamic mythology. In the Arabian Nights stories we read about them as spirits who have been imprisoned in a bottle or a lamp, who have to obey the person who frees them and fulfil all their wishes. It is said that the Djinn are the first children of our father Adam, born to his spirit wife Lilith before God created a human mate for him; so we human beings are related to those pre-human subtle beings, and may be unconsciously in communication with them. The ‘human godhead’, our divine soul which looks up to the many higher truths above us, ‘Lives still in one house with the primal beast’. Our human body is the house where all our different parts live. Our divine soul, ‘The human godhead with star-gazer eyes’, is sharing the house with ‘the primal beast’ – our most primitive animal part. In us human beings, the highest levels of existence meet the lowest levels: ‘The high meets the low, all is a single plan’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Often our thoughts are finished cosmic wares
Admitted by a silent office gate
And passed through the subconscient’s galleries,
Then issued in Time’s mart as private make.

Here the poet is following out the image of a factory, saying that our thoughts often come to us readymade. They are ‘finished cosmic wares’, produced or created in the universal consciousness. They are not produced in the brain-factory itself, but only smuggled in through ‘a silent office gate’. Then they are passed through the passages and galleries of the subconscient, without our conscious awareness. If you are a merchant, collecting products from many different people, you will have an office where the various things will be received and then they will be passed on. Perhaps they will be modified before they are sold under your label, as if you had made them yourself. Here it is something like that. These thoughts come to us out of the universal field all readymade. There is a secret office gate that allows them to enter our individual consciousness where they get passed through ‘the subconscient’s galleries’ into our surface mind and from there we express them, issuing them out of our mind-factory to be exchanged in ‘Time’s mart’ – the bazaar of Time – as if we had produced them ourselves. If you observe yourself carefully, you may begin to become aware of this process happening.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Our tasks are given, we are but instruments;
Nothing is all our own that we create:
The Power that acts in us is not our force.

Our ‘tasks’, the things we have to do are given to us by Nature; we are only her ‘instruments’, the tools that she uses to get her work done. Even the achievements we feel most proud of arecnot entirely ours: ‘Nothing is all our own that we create’: ‘ThecPower that acts in us is not our force.’ It is not our energy, our strength that chooses the work and gets it done. Everything that we feel is our own action, creation or achievement is actually an expression of the universal force.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

The genius too receives from some high fount
Concealed in a supernal secrecy
The work that gives him an immortal name.

This is true even for the special people we admire for their great achievements, the people we refer to as geniuses, such as Shakespeare or Newton or Einstein. The work that makes them renowned and remembered through the centuries comes to them too readymade, but it comes from a very high source that is hidden in ‘a supernal secrecy’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

The word, the form, the charm, the glory and grace
Are missioned sparks from a stupendous Fire;
A sample from the laboratory of God
Of which he holds the patent upon earth,
Comes to him wrapped in golden coverings;
He listens for Inspiration’s postman knock
And takes delivery of the priceless gift
A little spoilt by the receiver mind
Or mixed with the manufacture of his brain;
When least defaced, then is it most divine

The inspiration which enables the genius to achieve his great creations comes to him from far above. ‘The word, the form, the charm, the glory and grace’, all the characteristics that make us admire his work have been sent to him. ‘Missioned’ means ‘sent’. They are small ‘sparks’ that have been sent to him, but their origin is ‘a stupendous Fire’ – an immense and powerful source of energy. He receives a ‘sample from the laboratory of God’, a sample product from the great original laboratory of creation. The genius ‘holds the patent’ for that particular divine product here on earth.

 God is the original creator and inventor, but he allows some special people here on earth the privilege of making and distributing copies or versions of his creative inventions. Those people are the ones we call ‘geniuses’. They have to keep listening carefully for the ‘postman knock’ of Inspiration so that they can receive the ‘priceless gift’ that God has sent them. When the gift is transmitted to the ‘the receiver mind’ the reception may not be perfect, there may be some interference that damages it slightly; and the individual may mix something manufactured by his own brain with the pure inspiration that was sent to him. The work of the genius is ‘most divine’ when it is ‘least defaced’, least damaged, least mixed with his own ideas.

This precious parcel is coming to him as a sample. There may be more or other samples. It is coming from the laboratory of God where the real inventor is working. But he, this genius, is the one who has been given the licence to produce this particular kind of sample on earth. He ‘holds the patent’, he has the right to produce this particular invention of God on earth. It is very often like that, the inventor is one person and the manufacturer is somebody else. The inventor has granted the manufacturer the license or permission to manufacture this particular product. The sample comes to him in a beautiful golden wrapping, delivered by the postman Inspiration. When the genius hears the postman-knock of Inspiration he has to be very careful as he takes delivery of the priceless gift. He has to take great care not to spoil it or add to it in any way; he has to pass it on in as pure a form as possible, whether in word or shape or action, preserving all its original charm, its glory and grace, for these have come from ‘some high fount’, they are ‘missioned sparks from a stupendous Fire’ of creative energy. We give a lot of respect and admiration to a genius because he or she has been able to receive that divine gift and pass it on to us. There are geniuses, outstanding beings, in all aspects of human activity, and the transmission process always works in the same way.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

This independent, once a power supreme,
Self-born before the universe was made,
Accepting cosmos, binds himself Nature’s serf
Till he becomes her freedman—or God’s slave.

Now Sri Aurobindo will tell us more about the soul. The soul is ‘independent’. It was once, before entering manifestation, a supreme power, ‘Self-born before the universe was made’. But it has accepted to manifest as an individual being here in the material universe. By that acceptance the soul ‘binds himself Nature’s serf’, agrees to become the bonded labourer or slave of Nature. In the old Roman Empire there were natural born Roman citizens, most of whom owned slaves, and then there were ‘freedmen’ whose owners had made them legally free, so that they were allowed to become full citizens and their children would also be recognised as citizens. Here the poet says that this is what Nature does for the human soul: first it has to serve her, and it agrees to do so. But eventually, when it is ready, she sets it free, makes it ‘her freedman’. But the soul may also choose to become ‘God’s slave’. That is the highest destiny of all: to become the slave of the Divine.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

This is the appearance in our mortal front;
Our greater truth of being lies behind:
Our consciousness is cosmic and immense,
But only when we break through Matter’s wall
In that spiritual vastness can we stand
Where we can live the masters of our world
And mind is only a means and body a tool.

This is how it appears ‘in our mortal front’: in the limited outward physical being which is ‘mortal’, subject to death, the soul appears to be the serf of Nature. But behind that surface appearance lies ‘Our greater truth of being’: our immense cosmic consciousness. But in order to live in that vast universal consciousness which is our truer being, we have to break through ‘Matter’s wall’ – the dense wall of material appearances that separates us from our true being. Only then can we stand in ‘that spiritual vastness’ which is the greater truth of our being and live as ‘the masters of our world’ and know that ‘mind is only a means’, that is to be used for the soul’s purposes, and that the body too is ‘a tool’ to be used by our greater consciousness.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Then all grew tranquil in her being’s space,
Only sometimes small thoughts arose and fell
Like quiet waves upon a silent sea
Or ripples passing over a lonely pool
When a stray stone disturbs its dreaming res

In response to that command and that dedication Savitri’s whole being becomes ‘tranquil’, full of peace, quietness. In what she experiences as ‘her being’s space’, everything becomes still and peaceful, like a vast calm sea. Only sometimes a few small thoughts come and go like the movement of quiet waves on that silent sea; or her inner space is like ‘a lonely pool’ in a deserted landscape, and if thoughts come it is as if ‘a stray stone’ has fallen into it, disturbing its ‘dreaming rest’ and creating little ripples on its calm surface.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Then even those stirrings rose in her no more;
Her mind now seemed like a vast empty room
Or like a peaceful landscape without sound.

After a time, ‘even those stirrings’, those quiet ripples on the calm pool of her awareness no longer rise up in her. Her mind becomes like ‘a vast empty room’, perhaps like the chamber in Matrimandir, or like ‘a peaceful landscape without sound’, a wide, empty, silent space.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Even now some thoughts could cross her solitude;
These surged not from the depths or from within
Cast up from formlessness to seek a form,
Spoke not the body’s need nor voiced life’s call.

Even now some thoughts are able to enter Savitri’s ‘solitude’, her silent isolation. These are not coming up from the depths, the deep layers of consciousness nor from within herself. They are not being ‘Cast up’, as if from a deep ocean of ‘formlessness’; beyond this manifestation of forms there is an ocean of formlessness from which forms emerge as the sea casts up bits of wood and seaweed onto the shore; but these thoughts are not emerging like that out of the ocean of formlessness to look for a form, and they are not expressing the needs of the body or the calls of life. They are of a completely different kind.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

These seemed not born nor made in human Time:
Children of cosmic Nature from a far world,
Idea’s shapes in complete armour of words
Posted like travellers in an alien space.

Unlike the thoughts which Savitri had observed earlier, these thoughts do not seem to have been either born or manufactured ‘in human Time’. They seem to be ‘Children of cosmic Nature from a far world‘, originating in a world very far away from ours. They appear as fully formed Ideas wearing a protective covering of words: ‘complete armour of words’. They come ‘posting’ like travellers in a hurry. In the old days when people rode by horseback, this was called ‘posting’, travelling quickly. These thoughts seem to be travelling ‘in an alien space’, as if they do not belong to our universe. The word ‘Idea’ here has a capital letter because it comes at the beginning of the line, but I think that even if it were not at the beginning of the line, it would have a capital letter. Sri Aurobindo uses the word ‘Idea’ to indicate the original creative conception of things that precedes manifestation.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

As smoothly glides a ship nearing its port,
Ignorant of embargo and blockade,
Confident of entrance and the visa’s seal,
It came to the silent city of the brain
Towards its accustomed and expectant quay,
But met a barring will, a blow of Force
And sank vanishing in the immensity.

That thought approaches ‘the silent city’ of Savitri’s brain like ‘a ship nearing its port’, gliding smoothly on a calm sea. It does not know that there is a ‘blockade’, that there is an ‘embargo’. If there is an ‘embargo’ no ships are allowed to come into the port, and on the land there will be a ‘blockade’ of guns to prevent any vessels from entering the harbour. This thought- ship does not know about the ‘embargo and blockade’ that Savitri has established to prevent thoughts from entering her. It is quite sure that it will be able to enter: all its papers are in order, it has the official seal on its visa. So it approaches ‘its accustomed and expectant quay’. The ‘quay’ (pronounced ‘key’) is the landing place where ships can anchor and tie up. That ship has its usual position, its accustomed place always waiting for it to come there. But as it approaches, it meets the ‘barring will’ that Savitri has put there, dedicating everything to God’s calm. The thought-ship comes and feels this ‘blow of Force’. It cannot pass. It sinks like a ship into the sea.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

But soon that commerce failed, none reached mind’s coast.
Then all grew still, nothing moved any more:
Immobile, self-rapt, timeless, solitary
A silent spirit pervaded silent Space.

After a few of them have sunk, they stop coming: ‘soon that commerce failed’. None of them reaches this coast of mind, this particular port any longer. Then in Savitri everything grows still: ‘nothing moved any more’. ‘Immobile’, unmoving, ‘self- rapt’, deeply absorbed within itself, ‘timeless’, beyond time, ‘solitary’, uncompanioned, all alone, ‘A silent spirit pervaded silent Space’. This is what Savitri’s consciousness has become: a ‘silent spirit’ pervading or spreading through ‘silent Space’.

What we have been reading in this section is based on Sri Aurobindo’s own experience. It corresponds to what he referred to as his first major spiritual experience. Sometimes he called it ‘my Nirvana experience’, and sometimes ‘the experience of the silent Brahman’. Brahman is the supreme reality, which expresses itself in both a silent and a dynamic form. The experience of the silent Brahman came to him in January 1908 when he was right in the midst of his most dynamic politically active period. Travelling around the country and giving political speeches he had just been attending a very significant session of the Indian National Congress in Surat. He took a few days off to return to the city of Baroda, the city where he had lived for thirteen years. He went there with a special purpose: to meet a yogi he had heard about from his younger brother Barin. He wanted to meet the yogi because he had become aware several years before that there is a power in the traditional Indian Yoga. He had been brought up in England. He was an atheist, he was a materialist; and he was determined to bring about the freedom of his country. When he had an experience which revealed to him that there is a great power in the Yoga tradition of India, he said, “I need that power for the independence movement, for the nationalist movement.” So he started practising Pranayama, which he learned from a friend of his. He later said that he experienced some interesting results, but after four years he had not achieved the results he was hoping for. His brother Barin told him about a Maharashtrian Yogi called Vishnu Bhaskar Lele and it was arranged that Sri Aurobindo should meet him after the Surat congress. When they met, Sri Aurobindo told Lele: “I do not want liberation and Moksha and silence and all that. What I want is divine power for the work.” And interestingly enough Lele replied, “It should be easy for you as you are a poet.” I do not know what Lele meant, but that is what he said. They were given a room in a friend’s house where they would not be disturbed. They spent three days there. Sri Aurobindo recounts that Lele told him “When you sit in meditation see the thoughts coming, and before they enter your mind, stop them.” Sri Aurobindo says that this was a completely new idea to him but he did not question it; he just did as he was told. He later said that within one day he had the principle, and within three days he experienced this complete silencing: ‘A silent spirit pervaded silent Space.’

This seems to imply that in his earlier practice of meditation Sri Aurobindo had already gone through the process of observing ‘the many births of thought’ and how thoughts are made, and had achieved a high degree of thought control, so that when Lele told him, “See the thoughts approaching the mind, and stop them before they enter” he was able to do it. The result was the experience of the silent Brahman which will be described further in the next section.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]