PART I My Savitri Work with the Mother tat savitur varam rūpam jyotiḥ parasya dhìmahi, yannaḥ satyena dipayet Savitri is Sri Aurobindo's mantric epic. He says in one of his letters: Savitri is the record of a seeing, of an experience which is not of the common kind and it is often very far from what the general human mind sees and experiences. The work of illustrating the whole of Savitri through paintings was given to me by the Divine Mother on 6th October 1961. It was so great, so beyond the capacity of little instrument she had summoned, that only her Grace working in Sri Aurobindo's Lig

Perspectives of Savitri The New Millennium Series Sri Aurobindo and the New Millennium R Y Deshpande Perspectives of Savitri in Ed: R Y Deshpande All Life In Yoga A Brief Biography of Sri Aurobindo R Y Deshpande Further volumes planned on Savitri, Vedic Studies, Spiritual, Literary, Cultural reviews and prospects. Sponsoroed and published by Aurobharati Trust, Pondicherry. Perspectives of Savitri Volume Two Editor R Y Deshpande Aurobharati Trust Pondicherry R Y Deshpande Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondich

Savitri: Some Aspects of its Style 1 The end-stopped line beginning the story is a marked departure from the traditional invocation. The opening is also a little too long, much longer than the 26 line invocation of Paradise Lost, which gives a clear clue to Milton's theme. Sri Aurobindo takes time to state the gist of the theme, which may be gathered from the following lines: Her self and all she was she had lent to men, Hoping her greater being to implant That heaven might native grow on mortal soil.1 This is just a hint. The full significance of the story may only be known reaching the end of the poem. Milton

PART II The Book of Beginnings: Savitri as a Path of Initiation Our journey starts in the morning, the hour of the "symbol dawn". Turn the first page of Savitri and a door opens within. On this threshold pause, while Sri Aurobindo's vision unfolds to the inner eye. Around us the star-field stretches to infinity, but now look down to where, far below, a dark planet moves ponderously in its orbit around the sun. Sri Aurobindo is showing us our earth "abandoned in the hollow gulfs". He calls upon all the resources of the English language as if to counterbalance with the weight of his words the sullen inertia of the circling g

  Section Four THE FOUNDATION OF SADHANA THE FOUNDATION OF SADHANA I It is not possible to make a foundation in yoga if the mind is restless. The first thing needed is quiet in the mind. Also to merge the personal consciousness is not the first aim of the yoga: the first aim is to open it to a higher spiritual consciousness and for this also a quiet mind is the first need. *  *  *  The first thing to do in the sadhana is to get a settled peace and silence in the mind. Otherwise you may have experiences, but nothing will be permanent. It is in the silent mind that the true consciousness can be built.     A quiet mind does not m

Section Two INTEGRAL YOGA AND OTHER PATHS INTEGRAL YOGA AND OTHER PATHS I I do not agree with the view that the world is an illusion, mithya. The Brahman is here as well as in the supracosmic Absolute. The thing to be overcome is the Ignorance which makes us blind and prevents us from realising Brahman in the world as well as beyond it and the true nature of existence. *  *  * The Shankara knowledge is, as your Guru pointed out, only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Existence. It was because he went by this side only that Shankara was una

Section Five SADHANATHROUGH WORK SADHANA THROUGH WORK I The ordinary life consists in work for personal aim and satisfaction of desire under some mental or moral control, touched sometimes by a mental ideal. The Gita's yoga consists in the offering of one's work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature. Men usually work and carry on their affairs from the ord

Envoi Ite hillc, Camenae, vos quoque ite jam, sane Dulces Camenae, nam fatebimur verum Dulces fuistis, et tamen meas chartas Revisitote sed pudenter et raro. Pale poems, weak and few, who vainly use Your wings towards the unattainable spheres, Offspring of the divine Hellenic Muse, Poor maimèd children born of six disastrous years! Not as your mother’s is your wounded grace, Since not to me with equal love returned The hope which drew me to that serene face Wherein no unreposeful light of effort burned. Depart and live for seasons many or few If live you may, but stay not here to pain My heart with hopeless passion and

The Meditations of Mandavya ONE O joy of gaining all the soul’s desire! O stranger joy of the defeat and loss! O heart that yearnest to uplift the world! O fiercer heart that bendest o’er its pain And drinkst the savour! I will love thee, O Love, Naked or veiled or dreadfully disguised; Not only when thou flatterest my heart But when thou tearst it! Thy sweet pity I love And mother’s care for creatures, for the joys I love thee that the lives of things possess, And love thee for the torment of our pains; Nor cry, as some, against thy will, nor say, Thou art not. Easy is the love that lasts Only

-61_“I”.htm “I” This strutting “I” of human self and pride Is a puppet built by Nature for her use, And dances as her strong compulsions bid, Forcefully feeble, brilliantly obtuse. Our thinking is her leap of fluttering mind, We hear and see by her constructed sense; Our force is hers; her colours have combined Our fly-upon-the-wheel magnificence. He sits within who turns on her machine These beings, portions of his mystery, Many dwarf beams of his great calm sunshine, A reflex of his sole infinity. One mighty Self of cosmic act and thought Employs this figure of a unit nought. Omnipresence He is in me,