Savitri – A revelation by Mona Sarkar
When I went to see the Mother on my 26th birthday, She spoke to me first about kindling the psychic flame. Then She spoke about Savitri. She had spoken to me about Savitri earlier, but this time, it was in a special way, for it was a complete teaching that She revealed. I remained as quiet and as concentrated as I could, in order to assimilate Her words. Back home, I wanted to note down what the Mother had explained to me about Savitri. But something within me kept saying that the task was too difficult, that I would not be capable of rendering it, that it was too beautiful and much too extraordinary and that I would spoil it all. So I put aside the idea of writing down what the Mother had explained. Years passed, but some phrases kept echoing in my mind, words like: “I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the infinite.” The Mother had spoken to me these magical words of Sri Aurobindo. And likewise there were many others which came floating in occasionally. But even then, I did not like the idea of noting them down. Then, one day, I was advised by Nolini-da to put down what the Mother had told me, and I began my work. However, seven years had passed.
It was a work which I would not have ventured even in my dreams to undertake. I could only try to be as docile and receptive an instrument as possible. I then concentrated and what the Mother had told me, began to come back gradually: “Each verse of Savitri is like a Mantra which surpasses all that man possesses by way of knowledge and is arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound which is OM…. It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible.” So, slowly, bit by bit, almost the whole of it was written down, in French.
Later on, I read to the Mother this report written from memory. She heard it and gave Her blessings. She intended to work anew on the text and make some changes. She started the work but perhaps the time to reveal everything had not come and the circumstances did not allow Her to finish. The Mother found this report— ‘Compte-rendu note de memoire’ as She called it—‘very useful.’ She once wrote to a disciple: “…years ago I have spoken at length about it to Mona Sarkar and he has noted in French what I said. Some time back I have seen what he has written and found it correct on the whole.” [In the following, we give the English translation of the conversation on Savitri.]
A report noted from memory
Do you read Savitri?
Yes, Mother.
You have read the whole of it?
Yes, Mother, I have read it twice.
Have you understood all that you have read?
Not much, but I like poetry, that is why I read it.
It does not matter if you do not understand Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and the lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you, the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you reread them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step. But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, the rhythms, the vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making an effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For one who wishes to follow this path, it is a visible help, as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds here its solution, indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga. *He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection. You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me *’I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.”* And you know what it was? It was—before beginning, I warn you in advance—it was his way of speaking, so full of humility and divine modesty. He never… *asserted himself.* And the day he actually began it, he told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, he wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and he had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended “en masse” from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with his genius only arranged the lines—in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and he has left them intact; he worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work he has created!
Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works—in Greek, Latin, English and of course in French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything like Savitri. All these literary works seem to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality—apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is.
What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal he has created. I tell you once again, there is nothing like it in the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What he has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything. It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, of the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide towards Immortality.
To read Savitri is indeed to practise Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of the Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one follows sincerely what is revealed here in each verse one will finally reach the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possesses by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a manner that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM. My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature; how the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny—all is there. You can find there all the answers to all your questions.
Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has expressed them in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But the mystery is well hidden behind the lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it.
All the prophecies, all that is going to happen is presented with a precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how he has opened the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there to transform it. He has shown the path, how to liberate oneself from the Ignorance to climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how one can scale them, how one can cross the very barrier of death and attain Immortality. You will find the entire route in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is what Savitri is, and yet much more. It is truly an experience—reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possesses, he has revealed them, as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depths of Savitri; but one must have the knowledge to discover them,—the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death.
He has noted all the stages, marked each step needed in order to advance in an integral way in the integral Yoga. All this is his own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is also my own experience. It is my sadhana which he has described. Each object, each event, each realization, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, the phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when he was writing he used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear him read Savitri, at night he would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something strange, that— day after day, the experiences he read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word for word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it, put by him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which he read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what he said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told him my experiences and that he had noted them down afterwards, no, he knew already what I had seen.
It is my experiences he has presented all along and they were also his experiences. It is, moreover, the picture of our adventure together into the unknown or rather into the Supermind. These are experiences lived by him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy and sorrow in a physical manner. He has walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighbourhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and he has emerged from the mud, the world-misery, to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He has traversed them all, these realms, borne the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like him. He has accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened, he is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is his whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga, it is for the first time that we see it appear in the earth-consciousness. And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The more one advances on the path of Yoga, the more one assimilates and better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which he has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined,—it is not in the mind or by the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed. And men have the audacity to compare it and find it inferior in inspiration to that of a Virgil or a Homer. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. It will be known what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with the new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri.
It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *superepic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines he has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is. There are no proper adjectives to describe what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value—spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come in contact with it, the higher will you be lifted up. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing he has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be known.
My child, everyday you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through that—the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you will do it with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as though Savitri were a being, a real Guide. I tell you, whoever wants to practise Yoga, if he tries sincerely and feels the necessity, he will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practise it anywhere. Savitri by itself will be his guide, for all that he needs he will find in Savitri.
If he remains absolutely quiet when he is faced with a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn in order to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and these incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains absolutely calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if led by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and the essential sincerity, he will reach the final goal. Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies, all human religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, everything, in its single body.
Savitri has an extraordinary power, it sends out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. Mother’s comments on the text After having heard the full text, the Mother said: It is good. Only, I do not remember what I had said. I never remember what I speak. When I speak, it comes down like this (gesture). I speak of things which come down, for the moment, like inspirations and then it is over. When I have spoken once, I do not remember at all. All disappears from my mind. It is so strange that I do not remember the thing that I have spoken just a moment ago. It is like this, my child. When I speak, I say many things which come at that moment, and the next minute—it is gone. That is why I do not remember what I had told you. Well, I do not know. I do not know what I had said. I do not remember anything at all.
But, Mother, how do You find this?
I find it very good. It is all right. Is it you who have written it?
Yes, Mother, I have noted down what You had told me.
Is it your French?
What You had told me, that I have written and then Nolini-da has corrected a bit.
It is good. As an appreciation of Savitri it is correct. This is Savitri. But I do not remember what I said. That is why, I can say nothing. But all that is said here seems to me correct. It is true. It is good, my child.
Ref: Sweet Mother: Luminous Notes, by Mona Sarkar, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 2010.
