Yet was all nothing then or vainly achieved?
Some great thing has been done, some light, some power
Delivered from the huge Inconscient’s grasp:
It has emerged from night; it sees its dawns
Circling for ever though no dawn can stay.

To the question “Has nothing at all been achieved? Has there been no progress at all? Really? Has all this effort of the millennia been in vain?”, there comes the admission that ‘Some great thing has been done’; ‘some light, some power’ has been ‘Delivered’, set free, from the ‘grasp’, the clutch of ‘the huge Inconscient’. Life ‘has emerged’, consciousness ‘has emerged’. If life is speaking, that awareness will be there in its voice. ‘It has emerged from’ the ‘night’ of the Inconscience. And every day it experiences the arrival of a new dawn coming unfailingly, the new light coming again and again and again even though none of those dawns remains. Several times in the poem Sri Aurobindo describes the beautiful magical light of a new day starting, coming out of the darkness, bringing new hope, new possibilities. And as I have mentioned several times already, Savitri’s name is connected with the dawn, since it signifies the sun before it has risen above the horizon: she represents the new light of hope coming every day again and again. The poet also describes how that miraculous dawn- light fades away to become ‘the common light of earthly day’, but then a new dawn follows. If the ‘earth-mind’ recognises and acknowledges that fact, it represents some hope and confidence in the future. That element of possibility is also now there in the voice of Death as he speaks.

[Shraddhavan’s Enlish of Savitri, Book 10]

The great voice surging cried to Savitri:
“Because thou knowst the wisdom that transcends
Both veil of forms and the contempt of forms,
Arise delivered by the seeing gods.

First he admits that Savitri has true knowledge, the ‘wisdom that transcends / Both veil of forms and the contempt of forms’. He has to acknowledge that she is neither deceived by material appearances, nor does she despise them as illusions. She knows that all appearances are in fact disguises or expressions of the Divine. Because she has shown him that she possesses this truth-knowledge, he tells her, ‘Arise delivered by the seeing gods’ – rather patronisingly, since in fact she is already fully liberated.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

The wise are tranquil; silent the great hills
Rise ceaselessly towards their unreached sky,
Seated on their unchanging base, their heads
Dreamless in heaven’s immutable domain.

Death says that ‘The wise are tranquil’, calm and quiet and still: they do not have passionate, impatient hearts. They are like great mountains, rising ‘ceaselessly’ upwards, towards the ‘sky’ of higher consciousness – although they never reach it. They are firmly ‘Seated on their unchanging base’. Their ‘heads’, their peaks and summits, do not dream, and do not need to dream ‘in heaven’s immutable domain’ where nothing ever changes: There everything remains silent and calm, fixed and changeless. The truly ‘wise’, the sages, the great rishis are not restless and passionate, but calm and undisturbed like ‘the great hills’. This is what he says.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

On their aspiring tops, sublime and still,
Lifting half-way to heaven the climbing soul
The mighty mediators stand content
To watch the revolutions of the stars:
Motionlessly moving with the might of earth,
They see the ages pass and are the same.

Then he says that these great calm sages are ‘mighty mediators’, between earth and heaven. They lift up ‘the climbing soul’ which reaches their summits ‘half-way to heaven’, to a sublime unmoving state; and although their tops are ‘aspiring’ and seem to be always reaching higher, the ‘mighty mediators’ themselves are content with their position: without moving, they are moved around ‘Motionlessly’ by the movement of the earth. They are content ‘To watch the revolutions of the stars’, the way that ‘the stars’ seem to go around and around and around. ‘They see the ages pass and are the same’: they watch immense tracts of time pass, but they themselves do not change. Death is presenting this to Savitri as an ideal, telling her that she too could have been calm and tranquil and unmoved like those wise beings, if only she were not so much driven by her ‘violent and passionate heart’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Mighty art thou with the dread goddess filled,
To whom thou criedst at dawn in the dim woods.
Use not thy strength like the wild Titan souls!
Touch not the seated lines, the ancient laws,
Respect the calm of great established things.”`

He tells her, “I know that you are ‘Mighty’, that you are carrying a great deal of power in you because you are ‘filled’ with ‘the dread goddess’, the supreme mother ‘To whom thou criedst at dawn in the dim woods’.” Savitri began the day by praying to Durga. Death is aware of that. But he warns her, “Do not use your strength ‘like the wild Titan souls’ who do not obey the divine law but only follow their own will. Do not disturb ‘the seated lines, the ancient laws’, the lines of development and the laws that the Creator has established: ‘Respect the calm of great established things’: they have a meaning, they are the firm base of everything. Do not be in too much of a hurry to disturb them. Show ‘Respect’ for these ‘great established things’.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

But Savitri replied to the huge god:
“What is the calm thou vauntst, O Law, O Death?
Is it not the dull-visioned tread inert
Of monstrous energies chained in a stark round
Soulless and stone-eyed with mechanic dreams?

But in response, Savitri asks him “What is this calm that you are praising so highly, ‘O Law, O Death?’ “ The ‘huge god’ she is confronting is not only the god of Death, Yama, but also the god of cosmic ‘Law’, Dharmaraja, who keeps everything in its place and time in the universe. She challenges him: “This calm of the great hills which you are telling me that I should aim for – Isn’t it really only the inertia and unconsciousness of Matter: ‘the dull-visioned tread inert / Of monstrous energies chained in a stark round’ “? ‘Inertia’ is one of the fundamental properties of Matter: it does not move unless it is pushed or driven. “Aren’t the hills calm and still because they cannot be anything else? Matter is ‘dull-visioned’, without consciousness; its formidable energies are ‘chained’ – they cannot move freely, but only follow the ‘stark round’ dictated by the movement of the earth, or the universe. They are ‘Soulless’ and ‘stone-eyed’ – blind. If they have any dreams, they are mechanical, driven by material habit.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Vain the soul’s hope if changeless Law is all:
Ever to the new and the unknown press on
The speeding aeons justifying God.

“The human soul’s unquenchable conviction of and hope for the possibility of a better condition, a higher life and new realisations would be meaningless if the unchanging Law of Matter is really the only power that is at work in the universe. But it is not,” she says. “Time is pressing on towards ‘the new and the unknown’, new possibilities are emerging as ‘The speeding aeons’ pass.” ‘Aeons’ are immensely long stretches of time – or that is what it looks like to our limited human vision, because our life-span is so short; but if we look from the prospect of eternity, we can begin to grasp that as ‘The speeding aeons’ pass, evolution is constantly producing new and unpredictable wonders ‘justifying God’, the Creator and his vision.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Impose not upon sentient minds and hearts
The dull fixity that binds inanimate things.
Well is the unconscious rule for the animal breeds
Content to live beneath the immutable yoke;
Man turns to a nobler walk, a master path.

Savitri tells Death that the laws of Matter, which bind ‘inanimate things’, should not be applied to ‘sentient minds and hearts’ which are living and conscious. The ‘dull fixity’ of the laws of physics applies to inanimate objects; there is also a set of rules which applies to ‘the animal breeds’ who feel no urge to escape from the ‘immutable yoke’ which binds them to the nature of their species. But these laws do not apply to human beings: ‘Man turns to a nobler walk, a master path’ – a higher nature which aims at conscious self-mastery.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

I trample on thy law with living feet;
For to arise in freedom I was born.

Savitri says “I am a human being, full of divine possibilities; I do not have to respect your ‘law’ of ‘great established things’. I will throw it down and tread on it with my ‘living feet’ because ‘I was born’ ‘to arise in freedom’. That is the law, the dharma of human beings. That is what human beings are supposed to do. We are not animals or trees or rocks: we are ‘sentient minds and hearts’, who have to grow into ‘human gods’ and bring about a divine life here on earth.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Why drew he wide his scheme of mighty worlds
Or filled infinity with his passionate breath?
Or wherefore did he build my mortal form
And sow in me his bright and proud desires,
If not to achieve, to flower in me, to love,
Carving his human image richly shaped
In thoughts and largenesses and golden powers?

Savitri asks, “Why has God made this ‘scheme of mighty worlds’? Why has he ‘filled infinity with his passionate breath’, his ‘breath’ that is full of life and intensity? Why has he given me a human form and planted in me, like a gardener or a farmer, the seeds of ‘his bright and proud desires’, all the glorious things I dream of and want to achieve? Why would he do that unless he wants those seeds ‘to flower in me’, unless he wants me ‘to love’? When God made me he was creating a human image of himself, and he made it ‘richly shaped / In thoughts and largenesses and golden powers’. He has planted all these possibilities in me and he wants me to fulfil them.”

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Is not the spirit immortal and absolved
Always, delivered from the grasp of Time?
Why came it down into the mortal’s Space?
A charge he gave to his high spirit in man
And wrote a hidden decree on Nature’s tops.

She continues: “Is not ‘the spirit’ always ‘immortal’? It is always free, ‘absolved’: free from sin, free from limitation and mortality, ‘delivered from the grasp of Time’. So why did the ever-free Spirit come down into this ‘Space’ which is meant for mortals, which is in the grip of ignorance and death? It has come down to earth because the Lord has given ‘A charge’, a responsibility, a mission to his own ‘high spirit’ in human beings; and on ‘Nature’s tops’, on the highest levels of Nature, he has written ‘a hidden decree’, a secret command which has to be fulfilled by the Lord’s ‘high spirit in man’.” And then she tells him what true freedom really is:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

Freedom is this with ever seated soul,
Large in life’s limits, strong in Matter’s knots,
Building great stuff of action from the worlds
To make fine wisdom from coarse, scattered strands
And love and beauty out of war and night,
The wager wonderful, the game divine.

“This is true ‘Freedom’: to be free with an ‘ever seated soul’, a ‘soul’ that is always poised and undisturbed; to succeed in living largely even within the limitations set by earthly life; to show strength even while we are tied up here in the ‘knots’ and restrictions of Matter and in this condition to build ‘great stuff of action’, to achieve great things, using the resources of all the ‘worlds’ of this manifestation, not only the physical one. ‘To make fine wisdom from coarse, scattered strands’: ‘strands’ are ‘threads’; the materials we are given for our work are not always gossamer fine and strong – often they are coarse and rough, like coco-fibre or jute or hemp, and we may have to gather them from here and there, wherever we find them ‘scattered’; but whatever the materials we find or are given, our task is to make them into ‘fine wisdom’; this is part of our human mission. The Lord also wants us to create ‘love and beauty out of war and night’.” Savitri says that this challenge is ‘The wager wonderful, the game divine’ which the Lord has set for us as his representatives here on earth. A ‘wager’ is a bet; it implies taking a risk – the outcome is uncertain, it is not clear whether you will win or lose. And this is precisely why we enjoy games – whether we play them or whether we bet on them: if we would always know who will win, that would not be much fun. My beloved mentor Amal Kiran, who had been a gambler in his youth, told me once that God is also a gambler who enjoys taking chances. The soul’s acceptance of the uncertainties of earth-life and the challenges of overcoming all the obstacles it offers to the spirit: this is ‘The wager wonderful, the game divine’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]

What liberty has the soul which feels not free
Unless stripped bare and cannot kiss the bonds
The Lover winds around his playmate’s limbs,
Choosing his tyranny, crushed in his embrace?
To seize him better with her boundless heart
She accepts the limiting circle of his arms,
Bows full of bliss beneath his mastering hands
And laughs in his rich constraints, most bound, most free.
This is my answer to thy lures, O Death.”

Death has accused Savitri of neglecting the quest for true freedom and the eternal’s path in her insistence on regaining the life of Satyavan. This is her answer. She has just given a wonderful definition of true freedom, and now she points out that one aspect of true freedom is the capacity to willingly accept the limitations of earthly life out of love for the Divine who inhabits all these material forms. What kind of ‘liberty’ does ‘the soul’ have if it only feels free when it is ‘stripped bare’ and has no coverings or ties of any kind? Shouldn’t ‘the soul’ be able to ‘kiss the bonds’ that the divine ‘Lover winds around his playmate’s limbs’? The Lord plays with ‘the soul’ – they are playmates; ‘the soul’ which feels truly free will enjoy the limitations of earth life as part of their game. She will gladly accept even the ‘tyranny’ or despotism of the Lord who crushes her in ‘his embrace’. Here ‘She’ is ‘the soul’. The soul which knows that it is always free, delights in this play of the Lord. In order to be closer to her beloved Lord, ‘To seize him better with her boundless heart / She accepts the limiting circle of his arms,’ when he embraces her. She ‘Bows full of bliss’ at the touch of ‘his mastering hands’, and whatever limitations and restrictions he subjects her to, she enjoys: she ‘laughs in his rich constraints, most bound, most free’.

Death was trying to divert Savitri from her mission, reproaching her and saying “I am taking Satyavan to paradise – why are you trying to force him back to all the difficulties of earth, when the generous gods have given him this possibility of an early escape from all the troubles of earth?” And Savitri replied “I have to do what God makes me And I do that with joy, with freedom. I am not compelled. This is the relationship of the lover and the beloved. And all these exchanges are possible between us. ‘This is my answer to your lures, O Death’.” So many seekers through the centuries and millennia have felt that in order to become spiritually realised it is necessary to strip oneself bare of all earthly attachments; and perhaps it is a very important stage for the soul to pass through in its growth. But to fulfil God here on earth we must do as the Isha Upanishad tells us: ‘All this is a habitation for the Lord … By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy’: You should wish to go living and working like this for a hundred years, for a full lifespan, and in this way no karma will cling to you. You will be free: ‘Na karma lipyate nare’. If you have no personal attachment, if you live in the awareness that everything you do is done for the sake of the Lord, there will be no binding karmic consequences to hold you back. That is what Savitri is recommending. In this way things which we consider trivial earthly joys can become sacred offerings to the Lord.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 10]