Six Lines from Savitri

Behold, at noon leaving this house of clay

I wandered in far-off eternities,

Yet still, a captive in her golden hands,

I tread your little hillock called green earth

And in the moments of your transient sun

Live glad among the busy works of men.”

Contemplate, for a moment, this wondrous reply in six lines, of Satyavan to his father’s gentle scolding of Savitri.“at noon leaving this house of clay”, for in the epic his death in the forest takes place at noon, not a departure of an early morning soul or one who leaves enfolded in the dark rooms of night, but at a time when the sun is at its most brilliant, showering the earth with light.

Satyavan, as Sri Aurobindo writes, “…is the soul carrying the truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance;”.Descended into the grip of death and ignorance, the divine realized soul, does not become ignorance but descends into death and then is saved by Savitri, the Divine Mother. After leaving his body “this house of clay” and wandering “in far-off eternities”, all the while a captive in Savitri’s “golden hands” he returns and replies to his father,

“I tread your little hillock called green earth”

For the soul released from the grip of death and ignorance after travelling in “far-off eternities” , where, we cannot even hazard a guess, returning to earth ajoyous captive of the Divine Mother, the earth appears to be nothing more than a green hillock, and yet, Satyavan lives “glad” in the moments of a sun that is transient, “among the busy works of men.”

As Sri Aurobindo once wrote to Dilip Kumar Roy, (I paraphrase) ‘ The earth is a conscious being and the world is only the form it takes to manifest.’This statement of the Avatar, predating the GAIA theory by many years and far surpassing it in its infinite scope, promises an earth returned to beauty to manifest, unknown to man,an inconceivable perfection.

I once wrote to Mother with a question about what would happen to plants and flowers in the New Creation.Her reply filled me with joy and gratitude for She said that the flowers would be among the first to change (be transformed) because their entire life is an aspiration for light.Imagine the beauty to come with flowers brilliant with the Divine Light, colours such as never seen before, fragrances that can transform suffering and sorrow into a life free of pain and filled with joy.

This “little hillock” divinely ordained for the manifestation of the Life Divine must be nourished, protected, respected as divine and ultimately realized as a conscious being and through the sincerity, prayer and efforts of souls attuned to her infinite possiblity of perfection, saved from the destruction and devastation man has wreaked upon her.

Narad (Richard Eggenberger) May 20, 2013