Accustomed only to read outward signs
None saw aught new in her, none divined her state;
They saw a person where was only God’s vast,
A still being or a mighty nothingness

Human beings are accustomed, used to reading ‘outward signs’: we see only surfaces and appearances and do not usually notice what is going on within the people around us unless they give some outer sign that they are suffering or happy or anxious. So the people living around Savitri do not notice her inner state; nobody notices anything different about her, none of them gets any sense of what she is experiencing. ‘To divine’ means ‘to guess’ or sense or get some subtle intuition. There are people who can walk across a field and feel that there is a good source of water below the surface. We call them ‘water diviners’. They do not seem to be using any of our usual senses: sight or hearing or touch or smell or taste. To divine something means to perceive it in some subtle way without using the physical senses. This English word is connected with the French word ‘deviner’ which means ‘to guess’, but usually this divining is not guessing but knowing in some direct inner way. So none of the people around her feels that Savitri is in any way different from before. They see her, as usual, as a person; but in fact there is no longer any limited person there, but ‘only God’s vast’. While her outer appearance remains unchanged, her inner consciousness has become ‘A still being or a mighty nothingness.’ The outer form continues to behave just as usual, but her consciousness has become vast and impersonal.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

There was no will behind the word and act,
No thought formed in her brain to guide the speech:
An impersonal emptiness walked and spoke in her,
Something perhaps unfelt, unseen, unknown
Guarded the body for its future work,
Or Nature moved in her old stream of force.

Although outwardly Savitri is moving and acting and speaking without any apparent change, inwardly there is no will deciding what she should say or do; there is no thought forming in her brain to guide her speech. Within is only an ‘impersonal emptiness’. So what is guiding her speech and action? Perhaps ‘Something’ of which she is not aware, something that is ‘unfelt, unseen, unknown’ to her is keeping the body alive ‘for its future work’, or perhaps Nature is only continuing to move in its habitual way, following ‘her old stream of force’. The old traditions tell that when a person reaches this state of silent emptiness, the force of Nature just goes on doing what it has always done.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Perhaps she bore made conscious in her breast
The miraculous Nihil, origin of our souls
And source and sum of the vast world’s events,
The womb and grave of thought, a cipher of God,
A zero circle of being’s totality.

Perhaps Savitri is carrying within her, ‘made conscious in her breast’, the Nothing or Nothingness, ‘The miraculous Nihil’, from which everything has emerged: all individual souls, all that has ever happened in the universe, from which Thought has been born and in which Thought will be dissolved, ‘a cipher of God’. A ‘cipher’ can mean any of the Arabic numerals but most often it refers to the numeral zero, a sign of emptiness, of nothingness, in this case, the Nothingness from which all existence has emerged and which all existence adds up to: ‘A zero circle of being’s totality’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Thus was she lost within to separate self;
Her mortal ego perished in God’s night.

In this way, Savitri loses her inner sense of ‘separate self’, so that her human ego-formation is completely dissolved: ‘Her mortal ego perished in God’s night’. This is the spiritual realisation. The Mother has written about the distinction between the psychic realisation and the spiritual realisation as follows:

One can say that the psychic life is immortal life, endless time, limitless space, ever-progressive change, unbroken continuity in the universe of forms. The spiritual consciousness, on the other hand, means to live the infinite and the eternal, to be projected beyond all creation, beyond time and space. To become conscious of your psychic being and to live a psychic life you must abolish all egoism; but to live a spiritual life you must no longer have an ego.

We read about Savitri’s psychic realisation in Canto 5 and the beginning of Canto 6. Now we have seen how, in the last section of Canto 6, and here in the first section of Canto 7, Savitri has been totally liberated from the ego, lost all ego sense: now ‘Her mortal ego’ has ‘perished in God’s night‘.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Only a body was left, the ego’s shell
Afloat mid drift and foam of the world-sea,
A sea of dream watched by a motionless sense
In a figure of unreal reality.

Everything that was ‘Savitri’ has perished, dissolved in this night of God, this mysterious unknowable Nothingness. Only the body is left, the shell, the outer covering of the ego. The ego is gone: only its shell is left; and that shell, the physical body, is left ‘Afloat’, floating amidst the ‘drift and foam of the world-sea’. It is not guiding itself but being carried along by the movements of the world-ocean. The silent and unmoving consciousness which Savitri has now become, ‘a figure of unreal reality’, is observing that ‘sea of dream’ without moving or responding to it in any way. Whoever or whatever is watching is inhabiting ‘a figure’, a shape or image ‘of unreal reality’. I cannot say anything about this paradoxical phrase, except that Sri Aurobindo presents us with such apparent contradictions in many places in the poem, challenging us to open ourselves to a higher understanding beyond the reach of the surface mind.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

An impersonal foresight could already see,—
In the unthinking knowledge of the spirit
Even now it seemed nigh done, inevitable,—
The individual die, the cosmos pass;
These gone, the transcendental grew a myth,
The Holy Ghost without the Father and Son,
Or, a substratum of what once had been,
Being that never willed to bear a world
Restored to its original loneliness,
Impassive, sole, silent, intangible.

‘Foresight’ is ‘prescience’, seeing in advance what can or will probably happen. In an impersonal way Savitri becomes aware that she, ‘the individual’ will cease to exist and the whole universe too will dissolve. ‘In the unthinking knowledge of the spirit’, the direct knowledge which she is now experiencing, this extinction seems already almost done. ‘Nigh’ means ‘nearly’. This dissolution seems to have almost happened, to be ‘inevitable’: the individual is going to die; the cosmos is going to dissolve. The Supreme Reality expresses itself in three modes: transcendent, universal and individual. If the individual and the universe are gone, then the transcendent, extra-cosmic aspect of the Supreme also becomes something completely unreal, ‘a myth’: ‘The Holy Ghost without the Father and Son’. This refers to the Christian Trinity, God the universal Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the formless Transcendent. But if there is no Son, no individual divine soul, no Father, no universal Spirit, what kind of reality can the eternal and infinite Transcendence have, ‘the Holy Ghost’? Perhaps when these things are gone, there  remains ‘a substratum of what once had been’. ‘Stratum’ is the Latin word for a level or layer. Geologists study the ‘strata’ of rocks to investigate the history of the earth’s formation. A ‘substratum’ is an underlying layer, a layer underneath. When the individual and the universe and the transcendent have been stripped away, perhaps there remains an underlying level of pure existence: ‘Being that never willed to bear a world’ – a state of pure existence without will, which never intended to create, manifest or support a universe. If the world is dissolved, that state of pure being would be ‘Restored to its original loneliness’, its original featureless existence: ‘Impassive, sole, silent, intangible’, without feelings or responses, alone, silent, untouchable. Savitri feels as if this dissolution has almost happened, that it is ‘inevitable’, bound to happen.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

There was some high surpassing Secrecy,
And when she sat alone with Satyavan,
Her moveless mind with his that searched and strove,
In the hush of the profound and intimate night
She turned to the face of a veiled voiceless Truth
Hid in the dumb recesses of the heart
Or waiting beyond the last peak climbed by Thought,—
Unseen itself it sees the struggling world
And prompts our quest, but cares not to be found,—
Out of that distant Vast came a reply.

Not everything has become extinct, something remains, ‘some high surpassing Secrecy’: something secret, hidden, mysterious, something that is high, ‘surpassing’, higher than anything else, beyond everything else. At night, as Savitri sits alone beside Satyavan, her mind is still and unmoving, ‘moveless’, while his, like ours, is seeking and struggling. In the ‘profound and intimate’ silence of the night Savitri turns towards that ‘high surpassing Secrecy’, looking for ‘the face of a veiled voiceless Truth’ which she feels must be hidden in ‘the dumb recesses of the heart’ or ‘waiting beyond the last peak climbed by Thought’. A ‘recess’ is a small private space off a larger room, perhaps hidden by curtains. Deep within the heart there may be such quiet hidden places. Or perhaps that Truth is waiting to be discovered somewhere far above, far beyond the reach of Thought. That Secrecy is ‘Unseen’ but she feels that it sees everything that goes on in our ‘struggling world’, and that by its very existence it is encouraging us, prompting us to search for it: it ‘prompts our quest’. But it is not eager for us to find it: it ‘cares not to be found’. Yet when Savitri turns towards that ‘high surpassing Secrecy’, that ‘veiled voiceless Truth’, there is a response: ‘Out of that distant Vast came a reply’. When I read these words, I think of Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri Mantra:

                                            Tat savitur varam rupam jyoti parasya dhimahi
                                                                  yannah satyena dipayet.

                                    Let us meditate on the best (most auspicious) form of the Sun,
                                                             the Light of the Supreme,
                                                    which  shall illumine us with the Truth.

The Supreme Sun takes many forms. Our physical sun which is the source of all material energy and movement in our solar system is one of its physical forms. But there are other forms of that Sun. If we meditate on its most auspicious form, the Light of the Supreme, it will illumine us with the Truth. So to me it seems as if Savitri is meditating on that Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth; although it remains hidden she feels its existence, and a reply comes to her from it when she turns towards it.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

In its might of irresponsible sovereignty
It seized on speech to give those flamings shape,
Made beat the heart of wisdom in a word
And spoke immortal things through mortal lips.

That unknown inscrutable Something is very powerful; using its ‘might of irresponsible sovereignty’ it uses speech to give shape to those ‘flamings’, those ‘lightning flashes’ of thought. ‘Sovereignty’ is the power of an absolute ruler, his mastery and control. The word ‘irresponsible’ is normally used in a negative sense about a person who, without thinking of the consequences, does things that affect others. I think that here Sri Aurobindo uses it to convey that this power is a truth which does not have to answer to any higher authority: it is itself supreme and can act spontaneously, with ‘irresponsible sovereignty’. That sovereign power of Truth causes Savitri to speak. It uses her power of speech to give form to the messages which it sends through her silent mind like flaming flashes of lightning. It makes ‘the heart of wisdom’ beat ‘in a word’ and makes her ‘mortal lips’ speak ‘immortal things’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

These thoughts were formed not in her listening brain,
Her vacant heart was like a stringless harp;
Impassive the body claimed not its own voice,
But let the luminous greatness through it pass.

Here Sri Aurobindo is again emphasising that these high thoughts which get expressed have not been formed in Savitri’s brain. Her brain is still and silently listening, and her heart is empty of all feelings and emotions: like a musical instrument from which the strings have been removed, it cannot be played. We speak of the heart-strings being cut when all attachments, all feelings have ceased. Savitri’s heart has become like a harp without any strings, on which no music can be played. It is absolutely silent and empty. Her body too is impassive, without reaction. It does not claim or identify with the voice which speaks: it simply allows those luminous words of wisdom to pass through it.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

As yet this great impersonal speech was rare
But now the unmoving wide spiritual space
In which her mind survived tranquil and bare,
Admitted a traveller from the cosmic breadths:
A thought came through draped as an outer voice.

‘This great impersonal speech’ by which high wisdom is spoken through Savitri without any personal participation from her is happening only rarely, not often. But now there is a new development: into ‘the unmoving wide spiritual space’ which Savitri has become, in which her conscious mind is still surviving ‘tranquil and bare’, calm, unmoving and empty, ‘a traveller from the cosmic breadths’ is allowed to enter. From the vast universal spaces ‘A thought came through’. Earlier we read about how thoughts were coming from an alien space, like ships approaching a familiar port, and how they were unable to enter her mind, because from the heights of her being, Savitri had established a will for silence in her whole being. This is the first time since that complete silence was established that something has been able to enter her. It takes the appearance of a voice coming from outside, as if she is hearing it: ‘A thought came through draped as an outer voice’. Sri Aurobindo will tell us in the next section what effect that voice has on Savitri. For now he only tells how it comes to her

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

No more shut in by body’s walls and gates
Her being, a circle without circumference,
Already now surpassed all cosmic bounds
And more and more spread into infinity.

Savitri’s being is no longer limited to the body, ‘shut in by body’s walls and gates’. She perceives it as a circle, but a circle that is not limited by any circumference, by any outer boundary. Savitri’s being is expanding outwards from that centre of pure perception: already it has ‘surpassed all cosmic bounds’, gone beyond the boundaries of the universe, and it is continuing to spread more and more ‘into infinity’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

There was no motion in this inner world,
All was a still and even infinity.
In her the Unseen, the Unknown waited his hour.

In her inner world nothing moves: ‘All was a still and even infinity’ without features or forms or responses. In her the Unseen and Unknown Reality is waiting for ‘his hour’, the time when his Will shall express itself. It is into this silent state that ‘a traveller from the cosmic breadths’ enters Savitri’s consciousness in the form of a thought which is ‘draped’ or disguised as ‘an outer voice’. In the next section we shall find out what effect this voice has on Savitri.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]