Even while he stood on being’s naked edge
And all the passion and seeking of his soul
Faced their extinction in some featureless Vast,
The Presence he yearned for suddenly drew close.

In his quest, Aswapati had reached a frontier, a ‘naked edge’, where existence itself seems to come to an end. Beyond it there seems to be nothing but ‘some featureless Vast’: a great limitless state in which there are no features, no qualities, no colour, no form. All the intensity of his aspiration, and all the ‘seeking of his soul’, which have led him on his great journey, were facing the possibility that they must become extinct, extinguished in that ‘featureless Vast’. Suddenly, the adorable powerful Presence that he had been longing for – without which everything seemed meaningless and worthless – ‘drew close’: unexpectedly, it came very near to him.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

A moment’s sweetness of the All-Beautiful
Cancelled the vanity of the cosmic whirl.
A Nature throbbing with a Heart divine
Was felt in the unconscious universe;
It made the breath a happy mystery.

Now Aswapati has experienced ‘A moment’s sweetness of the All-Beautiful’; and that moment cancels out the sense he was having before, that everything in the universe is an illusion and has no real value, has no reality. Instead of ‘the vanity of the cosmic whirl’ he feels ‘A Nature throbbing with a Heart divine’: a divine Nature which is alive, whose divine heart is felt beating everywhere in what seems to us ‘the unconscious universe’. When Aswapati experiences the entire universe full of Wisdom and Power and Bliss and throbbing with life, then even breathing, the drawing in and out of the breath, becomes ‘a happy mystery’ – because what is being breathed in and out but the ‘breath’ of the Divine Presence? What a blissful experience!

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

Affirming in life a hidden ecstasy
It held the spirit to its miraculous course;
Carrying immortal values to the hours
It justified the labour of the suns.

The Presence of the Supreme Divine Mother affirms that life has a value and holds ‘a hidden ecstasy’. Her love holds ‘the spirit to its miraculous course’: ‘the spirit’ which is involved in this adventure of evolution is held to its ‘course’, the way that it must follow, by her love and presence. We read in Book One, Canto Four that the Mother’s breath drives and guides the spirit onward through the whole voyage in time and space to its fulfilment. The Presence of the Mother brings ‘immortal values to the hours’: time is measured in seconds and minutes and hours and sometimes we feel “Oh, where is it all going? Is life worthwhile?” But now Aswapati experiences that all the movements of time, all the minutes and hours, are part of the divine journey and are filled with the Presence of the Divine Mother; then all ‘the hours’ have an everlasting value, an ‘immortal’ value, that justifies all ‘the labour of the suns’. If we look out at this miraculous universe which we live in, we may wonder what use all this immense expenditure of energy serves. As Sri Aurobindo says, it looks like ‘a useless miracle: it does not seem to have any meaning. But now, when Aswapati feels the blissful presence of the divine Mother carrying everything, guiding everything, pervading and living in everything, he knows that all the labour of all those billions of suns is justified.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

The Enigma ceased that rules our nature’s night,
The covering Nescience was unmasked and slain;
Its mind of error was stripped off from things
And the dull moods of its perverting will.

An ‘Enigma’ is a mystery, a riddle, a puzzle that we cannot solve. But now for Aswapati, when he experiences the presence of the supreme divine Mother, ‘The Enigma ceased’. When we look at our world, we cannot understand it at all; in our present state of ignorance and unconsciousness, ‘our nature’s night’, we seem to be ruled by an ‘Enigma’, amystery we cannot understand; but now for Aswapati, through this experience, everything suddenly makes sense. The ‘Nescience’, the state of not knowing which covers up and hides the reality of things, ‘was unmasked’: a mask is a disguise; when it is taken away you see who is wearing it, how things really are; for Aswapati now that ‘covering Nescience’, that state of not knowing, is ‘unmasked and slain’ – destroyed. The state of ‘Nescience’ causes a ‘mind of error’. Our present human mind is a ‘mind of error’: we have to make choices all the time, but because of the nescience we do not have the full and correct information with which to decide, so we are almost always choosing wrong. But Aswapati sees this ‘mind of error’ ‘stripped off from things’, along with all the ‘dull moods of its perverting will’: the will that comes from that ‘mind of error’, which twists and spoils things, making us feel unhappy and grey and dark: all this just gets wiped away for him by the Presence of the Mother.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

Illumined by her all-seeing identity
Knowledge and Ignorance could strive no more;
No longer could the titan Opposites,
Antagonist poles of the world’s artifice,
Impose the illusion of their twofold screen
Throwing their figures between us and her.

She is One with all this cosmos and she sees it all as a part of herself; that seeing and that oneness lights everything up. As a result of the illumination which comes to Aswapati through feeling the presence of the Mother, he no longer feels any opposition between Knowledge and Ignorance. When these two words are given capital letters and contrasted, they express an opposition between knowing the One, the Supreme, by becoming one with him, and the dim and partial knowing that we ignorant human beings normally have. These seem to be two mutually contradictory states: in order to know the One it seems that we must forget our knowledge of the world; when we are aware of the world and identified with it, we find that it veils from us the knowledge of the One. But here in the Presence of the supreme Divine Mother, Aswapati experiences that there is no longer any opposition between these two states: they are not disputing and struggling any longer: ‘No longer could the titan Opposites / Impose the illusion of their twofold screen’. The world as we perceive it with our ‘mind of error’ is a world of duality: whatever we can think of has an opposite, and whenever you agree or approve and say ‘yes’ to something, you find yourself saying ‘no’ to something else; our world seems to be ruled by these powerful ‘titan Opposites’: the One and the Many, Knowledge and Ignorance, Truth and Falsehood, Right and Wrong, Good and Bad, Black and White, Hot and Cold and any other set of opposites that you can think of. Sri Aurobindo refers to them as ‘Antagonist poles’. Our earth has a north pole and a south pole; a magnet also has poles, a positive and a negative pole; these things seem to be opposites, pulling and pushing in opposite directions – but in fact you cannot have one without the other. They seem to be ‘antagonists’, enemies or opponents; and this polarity, this separation, this duality creates the ‘artifice’, the artificialness of our world. The world as we experience it is not true and real and right, because it is separated in this way. But once the nescience is removed, the antagonist poles can no longer ‘Impose the illusion of their twofold screen / Throwing their figures between us and her’. Their separation is really an illusion: in fact they belong together; but the illusion of separateness and opposition creates a ‘twofold screen’. If you place a screen between two people, they can no longer see each other. This screen of duality is hiding the reality from us: these ‘figures’ of duality and opposition come ‘between us and her’ – between us human beings and the divine Mother who is all that is.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

The hidden Word was found, the long-sought clue,
Revealed was the meaning of our spirit’s birth,
Condemned to an imperfect body and mind,
In the inconscience of material things
And the indignity of mortal life.

‘The hidden Word was found’: in this poem when we find ‘Word’ written with a capital ‘W’, Sri Aurobindo is usually referringto the original Word of Creation, the command that has given rise to the entire manifestation. That is what Aswapati has been looking for: the supreme creative Power which has the capacity to change the way things are in this imperfect world. Now at last he is feeling the presence of that Mother Might, the highest Wisdom, who embodies the creative Word of command. This is the ‘long-sought clue’ which he has been seeking since the beginning of his quest, the solution tothe problem which he set out to find. Now the significance and purpose for which our spirit has taken birth in the material world is revealed to him. This is the fundamental question that all thinking and sensitive human beings have to ask themselves at some point: “ “Why am I here and why are things like this?” “If I am really an immortal spirit, if I am a soul, how is that I have been born into this ‘imperfect body’, with this ‘mind of error’ which seems incapable of true knowledge?” The spirit has taken birth here, into this material world amid ‘the inconscience of material things’, where it is surrounded by things that are unconscious, and into a body that has only a limited consciousness, and it experiences ‘the indignity of mortal life’ – why? It is not that human life as such lacks all dignity; but why should the pure and immortal spirit accept to leave its original state of absolute liberty, of omnipotence, of bliss, to inhabit this imperfect body and life with all the problems and incapacities human beings have to face? For the spirit this is an ‘indignity’, ‘the indignity of mortal life’ – why should it accept that? Now at last Aswapati feels that the answer to that mystery has been revealed to him.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

A Life from beyond grew conqueror here of death;
To err no more was natural to mind;
Wrong could not come where all was light and love.

Now Aswapati experienced another kind of ‘Life’: not the life that we know in the material universe, but ‘A Life from beyond’: a Life with a capital ‘L’, which belongs to another world and is so powerful that even here in the material world it can conquer death itself. Mind was also changed: to us, in our present state, it is natural to ‘err’, to make mistakes: there is a saying, “to err is human”; it is natural for human mind to err, because human consciousness is limited and necessarily ignorant. But in that Presence, Aswapati experiences that it is no longer ‘natural to mind’ to make mistakes: ‘Wrong could not come where all was light and love’: there is no possibility for anything wrong or false or crooked to exist in the Presence of the supreme Mother, for there is only ‘light’ – full consciousness – and ‘love’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;
The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.

In this passage, where Sri Aurobindo is trying to convey to us some of the magic and mystery of the Supreme Divine Mother, he is using a very compressed symbolic language. We find symbolic language throughout Savitri, but here it is particularly condensed and evocative, so we must try our best to grasp at least a little of what he is sharing with us. When he says ‘Hers is the mystery the Night conceals’, this Night with a capital ‘N’ may make us think of a deep darkness that prevents us from seeing things clearly, but at the same time it is concealing, hiding within it, a great mystery. Although we tend to think that darkness is negative and light is positive, nevertheless there is something intriguing and attractive about the mystery of the Night – we wonder what it is hiding. Here Sri Aurobindo says that the alluring ‘mystery’ of the Night is a power of the Mother, it belongs to her. Also, The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers’. The alchemists, the old chemists, were trying to find a way to turn ordinary metals into gold. Pure gold is precious because it does not decay, it is incorruptible, so for them gold was the symbol of immortality, the divine life. For Sri Aurobindo gold symbolises Truth. ‘The spirit’s alchemist energy’ is the energy that can transform everything into pure gold, making even ordinary things divine and pure and true: that ‘alchemist energy’ of the spirit also belongs to the Mother. Above all, ‘She is the golden bridge’. For human beings it is very difficult to connect the world of matter with the world of spirit: it is as if there is a huge gap between the two. Here Sri Aurobindo is telling us that the Divine Mother is the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, between the realms of the Absolute and the Relative. She is also ‘the wonderful fire’. We connect Fire with warmth, with heat, with light, with energy and intensity, and with purification: if we want to sterilise a needle, we will pass it through fire. We also connect fire with the upward-burning flame, the flame of love, of aspiration. The Supreme Divine Mother is all of these things.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

All Nature dumbly calls to her alone
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.

Everything in Nature is calling to her; there is an aspiration, a longing that is dumb, that cannot speak, but ‘dumbly’ it is calling to her to set her feet on the earth, because only the touch of her feet can heal ‘the aching throb of life’. In India, this is a very powerful image: the Divine touching the earth with its feet. When the incarnate divine Presence sets foot on earth then every suffering will be healed. Life in us is dependent upon the heartbeats; but since the heart is also the seat of emotion, often this throb is very painful, like a wound. Only if the feet of the Divine Mother touch all this, will Life here in the material universe be healed. At the same time, the touch of her feet will do two more things: it will ‘break the seals on the dim soul of man / And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things’. Our souls are sealed shut: they cannot open because they are under the domination of matter, life and limited mind. If the feet of the Supreme Mother touch the material world then the ‘seals’ on our souls will be broken, they will be able to open up and respond, and in the ‘closed heart of things’, within all these unconscious material objects, ‘her fire’ will wake the energy of transformation.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

All here shall be one day her sweetness’ home,
All contraries prepare her harmony;
Towards her our knowledge climbs, our passion gropes;
In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,
Her clasp shall turn to ecstasy our pain.

This is a promise that is based on the Truth at the very heart of things: everything here, one day, will be the home of the divine sweetness of the Supreme Mother. Sri Aurobindo assures us that ‘All contraries’ – the opposites and oppositions in the play of duality here, all the contradictions that are constantly being expressed so that every affirmation is met with a refusal, a denial – all that play of ‘contraries’ is actually preparing ‘her harmony’, in which each thing will find its true place and everything will complete and complement everything else. ‘Our knowledge’ is limited, but it is growing and climbing up towards a greater Light – her light; and ‘our passion’, all our intense feelings, are groping towards her. When there is no light and you cannot see, you have to ‘grope’, feeling your way through the darkness to find a source of light; that is what all our intense longings, desires and passions are doing: they are groping towards the light and delight which we feel must be waiting for us somewhere: the Presence of the Supreme Mother. Here it is promised that the day will come when all souls and all lives will be able to feel ‘her miraculous rapture’: the intense delight of living in herPresence; and then ‘her clasp’, her embrace, will turn all ‘our pain’ ‘to ecstasy’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

Once seen, his heart acknowledged only her.
Only a hunger of infinite bliss was left.
All aims in her were lost, then found in her;
His base was gathered to one pointing spire.

Now Aswapati has seen the Supreme Divine Mother. You may remember that he was granted a glimpse of her earlier, at the end of Book Two, Canto Fourteen, on the plane of the World-Soul. It was as if her veil was parted for a moment, he caught a glimpse of her, and was so overwhelmed that he surrendered entirely to her and fell into a state of trance. As a result of that experience he was able to enter the Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge. Ever since then he has been missing her Presence and longing for it, and now he has really see her and deeply known who and what she is. Now that he has seen her, ‘his heart acknowledged only her’. This is the one he is in love with, the one who will guide his life. The only ‘hunger’ that is left in him is a hunger for her ‘infinite bliss’; all other longings have been completely lost: ‘All aims in her were lost, then found in her’. Whatever he has been aiming for in his quest is now abandoned, lost: his only aim is her; whatever he was aiming for has been found again in her, because she gives sanction and meaning to the aims he has been pursuing. So ‘his base’, his whole material base, even the subconscious, the inconscient, everything, is gathered up into ‘one pointing spire’. A spire is that tall pointed tower that we sometimes see on sacred buildings, a symbol of the flame of aspiration going up from the earth to the Supreme. Everything in Aswapati is gathered together into a pointing spire, aiming only for the Mother.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

But now his being was too wide for self;
His heart’s demand had grown immeasurable:
His single freedom could not satisfy,
Her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men.

Through all this great tapasya that Aswapati has performed, this entire journey that he has made, he has widened himself to the wideness of the universe; he has become a universal being and can no longer be limited to the small personal self. The demand of his heart has also become vast and ‘immeasurable’; it is no longer seeking the liberation of one individual soul: ‘his single freedom could not satisfy’ him. Now, ‘Her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men’. This phrase, ‘for earth and men’, occurs three times in the poem. Here it comes for the first time, as the formulation of King Aswapati’s highest aspiration; later on, this same aspiration will be voiced by Savitri. When she is offered the final choice, this is the prayer of her soul; and that is the fulfilment promised to her by the Supreme ‘for earth and men’. In Book One, we saw Aswapati’s individual realisation. Throughout Book Two, as ‘The Traveller of the Worlds’ he was exploring all the planes of existence as ‘atypical representative’, Sri Aurobindo says, of all humanity. Now that he has seen the supreme Mother, he is no longer aspiring for himself, but for ‘a universal realisation and new creation’: to bring down her transforming and fulfilling power into the material universe ‘for earth and men’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]

This Light comes not by struggle or by thought;
In the mind’s silence the Transcendent acts
And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.
A vast surrender was his only strength.

The transforming ‘Light’ cannot come about by any human effort, ‘by struggle or by thought’. It is when the mind becomes completely silent that ‘the Transcendent’, the power which is beyond manifestation, ‘acts’; and it is ‘the hushed heart’, the heart that is free of desire, quiet and receptive, that hears ‘the unuttered Word’: the creative Word of command which does not need to be ‘uttered’ or spoken out aloud. Aswapati’s ‘only strength’ is the capacity tomake ‘a vast surrender’. We can really only surrender what we are aware of and in control of in our own being; that is why sadhana and effort are so important for us, in order to gain some beginnings of awareness and control over our own movements. Only when we have that control, can we surrender. If we do not have control over these things, we may wish, we may offer them to the Mother, she may accept them also; but it is only when we have control over them that we can truly surrender them. Through all his efforts, Aswapati has widened so much that now he is able to make that ‘vast surrender’, and he knows that this capacity is the ‘only strength’ he has.

[Shraddhavan’s English Of Savitri; Volume 3]

All that denies must be torn out and slain
And crushed the many longings for whose sake
We lose the One for whom our lives were made.

These are very simple words, not difficult to understand. This is the effort of rejection that must be made in order to make the total surrender possible. ‘All that denies must be torn out and slain’: everything in us which refuses and resists and says ‘No’ to the action of the Power from the heights has to ‘be torn out’ of ourselves and ‘slain’ – it must be killed. In order to become able to make the total surrender we have to crush the ‘many longings’, all the life-longings, all the wishes and desires ‘for whose sake / We lose the One for whom our lives were made.’ Why are we here? We have been given life and breath in order to express that ‘One’; as long as we follow our many longings we shall be missing the One who is the real purpose and goal and meaning of our life. This is the necessary rejection: for the change to come about there must be aspiration and rejection, to enable the surrender to be made.

[ Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri; Volume 3]