Overman Foundation

Dear Friends,

Sri Aurobindo had started working on the earliest draft of Savitri in August 1916. Nirodbaran, who has portrayed how Savitri reached its final form in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo, writes about this draft:

“The draft exists in two sections. The first comprising Book I and a few pages of Book II… Book I is complete, Book II unfinished. The spelling of the three chief characters is: Savithri, Uswapathy, Suthyavan. In the first Book, after a short description of Night and Dawn, there is a very brief account of the Yoga done by Uswapathy, then Savithri is born, grows up and goes out, at Uswapathy’s prompting, to find her mate. She finds Suthyavan. In the meantime Narad comes down to earth and visits Uswapathy’s palace. There is a talk between the two; Savithri returns from her quest and discovery, and a talk takes place among the three.” (pp. 173-174, 1995 edition)

We are happy to announce that Overman Foundation has received permission from Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust to publish the earliest draft of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri in its online forum. We are extremely grateful to Shri Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, for giving us the said permission.

The first six installments of the earliest draft of Savitri were published in the online forum of Overman Foundation on 4 April, 9 April, 16 April, 23 April, 29 April and 5 May 2013 respectively. The seventh and final installment is published here.

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee

Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

SÂVITHRÎ

BOOK II

(Continued)

So on they journeyed still through happy mists,
And faster now all fled as if perturbed,
Escaping from the clearness of her soul.
Then Death cried high,—a vaguer, brighter form
He bore now like a night that smiles at dawn:
“Because thou hast the wisdom to transcend
Both veil of forms and the contempt of forms,
Arise delivered by the seeing gods,
Rest in thy freedom satisfied alone
Nor seek for others’ joy they have not won:
Let each soul to its rapture be enough.
Though thou art strong by the dread Goddess moved
Cease, mortal, to compel the deathless powers.
Highest wisdom find that guards its strength and knowledge
Unused, unspoken lest the world should perish
By wisdom and be overthrown by power,
Dragged like a ship by bound leviathan
Into the abyss of his stupendous seas.
For far too swift the aeons would stumble on
If strength were given to imperfect souls,
If veilless knowledge smote the unfit brain.
Therefore God hid His face and seemed to err.
Aim not at dangerous swift-foot victories,
Sheltered by smallness only such steps desire
As earth can bear in her frail denser moulds.
If thou art strong with the dread Goddess filled,
Use not thy strength like the wild Titan souls,
Touch not the ancient lines, the seated laws;
Respect the calm of great established things.”
But Sâvithrî replied to the vague god:
“What is the calm thou vauntest, O Lord, O Death?
Is it not the dull-visioned tread inert
Of monstrous energies chained in a vast round
Soulless and stone-eyed with mechanic dreams?
What were earth’s ages if they grey restraint
Were never broken and glories sprang not forth
Bursting their obscure seed nor man’s slow life
Leaped hurried into sudden splendid paths
By divine words and human gods revealed?
I trample on thy law with living feet
For to arise in freedom I was born.
If I am mighty, let my force be unveiled
Equal companion of your dateless powers
Or else let my frustrated soul sink down
Unworthy of godhead in the original sleep.
I ask not, I demand, O gods of Time,
My will immortal.” He replied, “Yet choose
Another turn than this that thou pursuest.
Art thou so strong and free? Then canst thou take
Thy pleasure upon wayside flowering fields
Yet falter not from thy proud journey’s goal.”
And Sâvithrî: “Even such my choice, O Death.
What liberty has the soul which feels not freedom
Unless stripped bare and cannot kiss the bonds
The Lover winds around his playmate’s limbs,
Nor choose his tyranny crushed in his embrace,
Smiling in golden chains, most bound, most free?
To seize him better with her boundless heart
She accepts the circle of his limiting arms.”
“Prove yet thy absolute force to the wise gods
By choosing thy own joy; for self desire
And yet from self and its gross chain be free.
Know fear of bondage for thy last fine snare.
Show me thy strength and freedom from my laws.”
And Sâvithrî to Death: “Thus can I take
Who claim upon the flowering fields of life
My earthly pleasures, never mine but his,
Or mine for him. Fulfil on the sweet earth
Whatever once the living Suthyavân
Desired in his heart for Sâvithrî.”
Death bowed his sovereign head and made reply:
“Long days I give of thy unwounded life,
Daughters of thy own seed in heart and mind,
Fair hero sons and sweetness undisturbed
Of union with thy husband dear and true
And thou shalt know in thy life’s house where love’s
Oneness shall reign of many gathered hearts
Felicity of thy surrounded eves
And happy service to the heart’s desired
And loving empire over all thou lov’st.
Win easily by love all fruits
Which hardly with great labour high-tasked souls
By difficult virtue ripen tilling earth.
Return, O woman, to thy conquered world.”
But Sâvithrî to Death, “Thy gifts resist.
Void are thy words if lonely I return.”
Then Death sent forth once more his angry cry
As chides a lion his escaping prey.
“What knowst thou of earth’s rich and changing life
Who thinkst that one man dead all joy must cease?
Hope not to be unhappy till the end!
For grief dies soon in the tired human heart
And other guests the vacant chambers fill.
Rich as a holiday painting on a floor
Traced for a moment’s beauty love was made.
Or if a voyager on the eternal trail,
Its objects fluent change in its embrace
Like waves to a swimmer upon infinite seas.”
But Sâvithrî replied to the vague god,
“Give me back Suthyavân, my only lord.
Thy thoughts are vacant to my soul that feels.”
Death answered her, “Try then thy soul, return.
Soon shalt thou find appeased that other men
On lavish earth have beauty, strength and truth.
And when thou hast half forgotten one of these
Shall wind himself around thy heart that needs
A fellow heart. Then Suthyavân shall fade,
A gentle memory pushed away from thee
By new love and thy children’s tender hands
Till thou shalt wonder if thou loved’st at all.
Such is the life earth’s travail has conceived.”
But Sâvithrî replied to eternal Death:
“Thou mockst the mind’s and body’s faltering search.
For what the immortal spirit shall achieve
I have discovered, nor such trials need.
For now at last I know beyond all doubt
The great stars burn with my undying fire
And for its fuel life and death were made.
Life only was my blind attempt to love;
Earth was its struggle, heaven its increase,
And when transcended both shall join and kiss
Casting their veils, a deathless birth is ours.
Earth shall seize all that heaven strives to give
Nor anything be lost the soul has seen.”

But as she spoke the body of Death was changed.
His darkness and his soul-destroying might
Abolishing for ever and disclosing
The mystery of his high and violent deeds
Epiphanies of immortal life arose.
Her senses thrilled in a sweet rapturous world,
Twilight and mist were ended. Perfect heaven
Smiled down from undreamed sapphire, sincere gold
Of sunlight lavished strong riches on the eyes
That suffered without pain the absolute ray
And saw immortal clarities of form.
Perfected all the images of earth
Were thoughts the senses could live in glad, unbound
The soul could use for freest joy of form;
Creations large of God’s victorious mind,
They dwelt like living scenes sublimely born
In a calm beauty of creative joy,
Orchards and valleys, gleaming lakes and hills,
Pastures and woodlands of celestial bliss
And villages and cities of delight
Where luminous lived the nations of the blest.
Above her rhythmic godheads whirled the spheres,
Around her melodies and enchantments flowed:
From the glad bosom of a griefless world
Songs thrilled of birds upon unfading boughs,
Music not with these striving steps of sound
Aspired, that labour from our human strings,
From every note claimed richer ecstasies
For a changed bliss that kept each sweetness old.
For ever faultless instruments were heard
And high-eyed chantings inexpressible,
Strains trembling with the secrets of the gods.
From marvellous flowers imperishably sweet
Immortal fragrance filled the unquivering air:
To live was sweetness and to breathe was song.
And on a sense made pure to seize all tones
And to feel on untired intensest things
Heaven’s subtleties of touch unwearying forced
More vivid raptures than the mind can bear.
What would be suffering here was mighty bliss.
Delivered from the limits of her mind,
Grey limping judgment dead, the sight unbarred
Entered the mysteries of the Artist’s craft.
She saw all Nature wonderful without fault.
These were the decorated doors of worlds
Nobler, yet as felicitously fair.
There every thought like a sweet radiant god
Climbed strong without endeavour to the sight
Of the All-blissful; feelings were waves of light,
Rose from each other in a tranquil surge.
Deep, candid, a sweet-natured wisdom grew
The bright beneficent sunlight of the soul,
Or sheer wild rounds inviolably pure
Swayed linked in moonlit revels of the heart
Knowing their riot for a dance of God.
Calm seers and poets heard the absolute thoughts
That now come travelers pale deformed with toil
From their large heavens to our clouded minds,
Spent in their journey, changed with broken wings,
Seized perfect words that here are frail sounds caught
By difficult rapture on a mortal tongue.
The strong who stumble and sin grew clear, great gods.
And where she stood in ever-flowering groves
Carolling thrilled response to united hearts
She saw the clasp which is denied to earth,
Felt a rapt candid passion of the soul
And viewed the unending joys of veilless love.
Then spoke the god, a figure sweet, august
And on his lips the smile that wear unmasked
The immortal secret helpers of the soul.

[The short piece is a part of the projected Epilogue. It is taken from the second of the two exercise books containing the first fair copy.]

Concluding Passage

“Because thou hast rejected my great [1] calm
I lay upon thy neck my mighty yoke
And hold thee without refuge from my will.
Now will I do by thee my glorious works
Giving thee for reward and punishment
Myself in thee a sweetness and a scourge.
Unsheltered by dividing walls [of mind] {2},
Naked of ignorance’ protecting veil
And without covert from my [3] radiant gods
Thou shalt be hunted through the world by love.
No form shall screen thee from divine desire,
Nowhere shalt thou escape my living eyes.
A vision shall compel thy coursing breath.
Thy heart shall drive thee on the wheel of time;
Thy mind shall urge thee through the flames of thought,
To meet me in the abyss and on the heights,
To feel me in the tempest and the calm
And love me in the noble and the vile,
In beautiful things and terrible desire.
My fiercest masks shall my attractions bring,
Music shall find thee in the voice of swords,
Beauty pursue thee through the core of flame.
The pains of hell shall be to thee my kiss,
The flowers of heaven persuade thee with my touch,
The [myriad] {4} forces of my universe
Shall cry to thee the summons of my name.
Thou shalt know me in the rolling of the spheres,
Thou shalt meet me in the atoms of the whirl.
Delight shall drip down from my nectarous moon,
My fragrance seize thee in the jasmine’s snare,
My eye shall look upon thee from the sun.
Mirror of Nature’s secret spirit made,
Thou shalt not shrink from any brother soul
But live attracted helplessly to all,
Drawn to me on the bosom of thy friend
And forced to love me in thy enemy’s eyes.
Thou shalt drink down my sweetness unalloyed
And bear my ruthless beauty unabridged
Amid the world’s intolerable wrongs,
Mid the long discord and the clash of search,
Thou shalt discover the one and quivering note
And be the harp of all its melodies
And be my splendid wave in seas of love.
Insistent, careless of thy lonely right,
My creatures shall demand me from thy heart.
All that thou hast shall be for others’ bliss;
All that thou art shall to my hands belong.
I will pour delight from thee as from a jar
And whirl thee as my chariot through the ways
And use thee as my sword and as my lyre
And play on thee my minstrelsies of thought.
And when thou art vibrant with all ecstasies
And when thou livst one spirit with all things,
Men seeing thee shall feel my siege of joy,
And nearer draw to me because thou art.
Enamoured of thy spirit’s loveliness,
They shall embrace my body in thy soul,
Hear in thy life the beauty of my laugh,
Know thy thrilled bliss with which I made the world.
This thou shalt henceforth learn from every thought, [5]
That conquering me thou art my captive made,
And who possess me are by me possessed.
For ever love, O beautiful slave of God.
Cast from the summits of thy visioned spirit,
Return to life with him thy soul desired,
In whom I lay in wait for thee at first,
Satisfied in him of oneness and convinced
And gather to thee myriad unities
With all my endless forms and divine souls.
From thy beginning in earth’s voiceless bosom
Through life and time and will and grief and death
I have led thee onward to the golden point,
From which another sweeter gyre shall start.”

The measure of that subtle music ceased.
Down with a hurried swimming floating lapse
Through unseen worlds and bottomless spaces forced
Sank like a star the soul of Sâvithrî,
[…] {6} mid a laughter of unearthly lyres,
She heard around her nameless voices cry
Triumphing, an innumerable sound
And bore the burden of infinity
And felt the stir of all ethereal space
Pursuing her in her fall implacably sweet.
A face was over her which seemed a youth’s
Crowned as with peacock plumes of gorgeous hue
Framing a sapphire, whose heart-disturbing smile
Insatiably attracted to delight.
Often it changed, though rapturously the same,
And seemed a woman’s dark and beautiful,
Turbulent in will and terrible in love,
A shadowy glory and a stormy depth,
Like a mooned night with drifting star-gemmed clouds.
Eyes in which Nature’s deaf ecstatic life,
Sprang from some Spirit’s passionate content,
Missioned her downwards to the whirling earth.
Like a bird held in a child’s satisfied hands,
Her spirit strove in an enamoured grasp
Admitting no release till Time should end.
Like a flower hidden in the heart of spring,
She kept within her strong embosoming soul
The soul of Sutyavân drawn down by her
Inextricably heavens in a thronging flight
Soared upward past [her] as she fell; then near
Came the immense attraction of the earth;
Till in the giddy proneness of the speed
Lost, overcome, sinking she disappeared
Into unconsciousness as in a pool,
Like one descending from a breathless height
Into the wonder of abysmal depths.
Above her closed the darkness of great wings
And she was buried in a Mother’s breast.

Fragment of Epilogue

“I am the Madran, I am Sâvithrî,
Thy slave and lover, thy delight and friend,
Thy prone possessor, sister of thy soul
And mother of thy wants. O thou my world,
My god, O earth and heaven my arms embrace,
Whose every limb my answering limbs desire,
Whose heart is key to all my heartbeats! This
I am and thou to me, O Suthyavân;
No gladness lost, but everything fulfilled
Divinely. Let us go through this new world
Which is the same, for it is given back
And it is known, a playing ground of God
Who hides himself in bird and beast and man
Sweetly to find Himself again by love,
By oneness, absolute in us for ever.
Now grief is dead and serene bliss remains.
Let us go back, for eve is in the skies.
[Thy father waits who will not eat of food
Unless he knows us seated at his side.] [7]
Lo, all these beings in this wonderful world!
Let us give joy to all, for joy is ours!”

*

[1] Alternative: far
[2] These two words cancelled without substitution.
[3] Written over “the”, or vice versa.
[4] This word cancelled without substitution.
[5] Marginal alternative: thy heartbeats.
[6] Blank in Manuscript.
[7] Square brackets in the original.

THE END

Dear Friends and Well-wishers of Overman Foundation,

We are happy to announce that Overman Foundation has taken up the distribution of two notable books namely Georges Van Vrekhem’s Preparing for the Miraculous and Dr. Ananda Reddy’s first book in Bengali Madhumoyee Ma Antare Bahire.

The late Georges Van Vrekhem (1935—2012), was a Flemish speaking Belgian journalist, poet and playwright who became acquainted with the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in 1964. He joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram as an inmate in 1970 and shifted to Auroville in 1978. A recipient of the prestigious ‘Sri Aurobindo Puraskar’ he is best known for his books like Beyond Man, The Mother: The Story of Her Life, Overman—The Intermediary Being between the Human and the Supramental Being, Patterns of the Present and Hitler and His God. His books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian.

Preparing for the Miraculous contains the edited versions of eleven talks Georges Van Vrekhem gave at Auroville in 2010 and 2011 the themes of which are as follows:

• Adam Kadmon and the Evolution
• The Development of Sri Aurobindo’s Thought
• Preparing for the Miraculous
• What Arjuna Saw: the Dark Side of the Force
• 2012 and 1956: Doomsday?
• Being Human and the Copernican Evolution
• Bridges across the Afterlife
• Sri Aurobindo’s Descent into Death
• Sri Aurobindo and the Big Bang
• Theodicy: “Nature Makes no Mistakes”
• The Kalki Avatar.

What is the meaning of our existence in the cosmic scheme? Is there a divine purpose in life or is it merely the mechanical playing-out of competing “greedy genes”? Do we live in a blind universe aimlessly running its course from Big Bang to Big Crunch or is there a higher purpose in evolution? If there is a conscious guiding intent, why does it allow evil to exist? How do we transcend the limits of a blind “scientism” locking itself out of a vaster understanding by refusing to admit the existence of any factors outside of its self-imposed limits of “scientific” verifiability? Can these questions be tackled without landing in the other extreme of religious dogma? Is our planet Earth special in the universe? Do we human beings have a special role in evolution? In Preparing for the Miraculous Georges Van Vrekhem explores these and other timeless questions in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary concept and casts a refreshing new look on issues that have been the lasting preoccupation of seekers throughout the ages.

Published by Stichting Aurofonds Preparing for the Miraculous comprises of 240 pages and is available at a price of Rs. 255 (Two Hundred and Fifty Five) only. Please note that this edition consists of a limited number of copies.

Dr. Ananda Reddy joined the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, at the age of 11 years, in 1958. Born to a family of philosophies, his father Prof. V. Madhusudan Reddy, who did his PhD on Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of evolution, brought him out to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and left him in the care of the Mother. From 1958 to 1969, Ananda Reddy was student of the Ashram School where he studied passionately most of the works of Sri Aurobindo. Inspired by the ideals of the New Consciousness and the New World, as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Ananda joined, with the Blessings of the Mother, Auroville. He looked after the Aspiration School in its initial stages until he went away in 1976 to Hyderabad to pursue higher studies. On completing his Masters in Literature and in Philosophy in 1978, he pursued his M.Phil at Osmania University with a view to attempt PhD in Sri Aurobindo’s thought. However, his aspiration was fulfilled only in 1988. He joined the Post-Doctoral studies and taught for almost two years at Pondicherry University in the Sri Aurobindo School of Eastern and Western thought. On getting an opportunity to teach philosophy at Assumption University, Bangkok, he left India and experienced teaching in a foreign university from 1992 to 1995. On his return to India, he started his dream project at Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Centre of Advanced Research (SACAR), in 1996. On 29th February 2000, SACAR was inaugurated by Nirodbaran. In 2008, the Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU) invited SACAR to become its Recognised Research Centre for conducting different programmes in Sri Aurobindo Studies. Apart from conducting workshops and participating in International Seminars all over Europe and the United States, Dr. Reddy took regular classes for adults at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, giving them explanations of Sri Aurobindo’s books: The Life Divine, Savitri, Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita. Along with these classes, he also gave weekly classes at Savitri Bhavan, Auroville, on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s vision. He is at present the Director of SACAR and also looks after the Institute of Human Studies as its Chairman. Apart from his regular teaching at SACAR and Savitri Bhavan, he is also a teacher at “Knowledge”, the higher course division of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. He is a recognised scholar in Sri Aurobindo’s thought but he cherishes to be acknowledged more as a sincere child of the Mother.

Madhumoyee Ma Antare Bahire is the first book written by Dr. Ananda Reddy in Bengali. In the first part of this anthology he has beautifully illustrated his life with the Mother while the second part comprises of the text of his thought-provoking talks on the themes of Friendship with the Divine, Various Aspects of Bhakti (Devotion) etc. This anthology testifies how the Mother works for Her children, shapes their destiny and leads them to Light and Bliss. It is a stupendous treat to all Bengali readers.

Published by Sri Aurobindo Centre of Advanced Research, Madhumoyee Ma Antare Bahire comprises of 145 pages and is available at a price of Rs. 130 (One Hundred and Thirty only).

To place an order for these aforesaid books, please write to the following email address:

overmanfoundation@gmail.com

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee

Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

Dear Friends,

9 May 2013 marks the 152nd Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. As our humble tribute to the great poet, a set of rare photographs of Rabindranath Tagore has been published in the online forum of Overman Foundation. All these photographs—with the exception of the first snapshot (taken in Japan) and the last two taken at Pondicherry in 1928 in which Tagore is seen descending from the ship on his way to meet Sri Aurobindo—have been sent to us by Mr. Nilesh Nathwani. We take the opportunity to thank him for his generous gift.

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee

Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

With the Mother and Paul Richard in Japan in June 1916.

Rabindranath Tagore during his tour of the West in 1921.

With Helen Keller in 1930.

With Albert Einstein in Caputh near Berlin on 24 August 1930.

Photograph of Rabindranath Tagore taken by S.P. Bhide on 25 December 1932.

With Jawaharlal Nehru in Santiniketan on 4 November 1936.

With his granddaughter and grandnephew in Santiniketan on 10 April 1934.

With Mahatma Gandhi in Santiniketan on 20 February 1940.

With Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi in Santiniketan on 20 February 1940.

With Sir Maurice Gwyer and Dr. S. Radhakrishnan at Sinha Sadan after the Oxford University Convocation on 7 August 1940.

Tagore in his bed in a railway compartment at Howrah Station (Kolkata) on 22 November 1940.

Tagore on his way to meet Sri Aurobindo (1)

Tagore on his way to meet Sri Aurobindo (2)

*

Dear Friends,

Sri Aurobindo had started working on the earliest draft of Savitri in August 1916. Nirodbaran, who has portrayed how Savitri reached its final form in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo, writes about this draft:

“The draft exists in two sections. The first comprising Book I and a few pages of Book II… Book I is complete, Book II unfinished. The spelling of the three chief characters is: Savithri, Uswapathy, Suthyavan. In the first Book, after a short description of Night and Dawn, there is a very brief account of the Yoga done by Uswapathy, then Savithri is born, grows up and goes out, at Uswapathy’s prompting, to find her mate. She finds Suthyavan. In the meantime Narad comes down to earth and visits Uswapathy’s palace. There is a talk between the two; Savithri returns from her quest and discovery, and a talk takes place among the three.” (pp. 173-174, 1995 edition)

We are happy to announce that Overman Foundation has received permission from Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust to publish the earliest draft of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri in its online forum. We are extremely grateful to Shri Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, for giving us the said permission.

The first five installments of the earliest draft of Savitri were published in the online forum of Overman Foundation on 4 April, 9 April, 16 April, 23 April and 29 April 2013 respectively. The sixth installment is published here.

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee

Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

SÂVITHRÎ

BOOK II

(Continued)

Then the dire god inflicting on her soul
The immortal calm of his tremendous gaze:
“Yet since no victory in heaven’s order is lost
And thou hadst strength to journey on unslain
Through the brute void which never shall forgive
The primal violence that fashioned thought
Forcing the immobile vast to suffer and live,
Thou hast a claim upon the living gods.
The gods who watch the earth with unmoved eyes
And lead its giant stumblings through the void,—
They gave to man the burden of his mind,
And forced on his unwilling heart their fires
He shall not quench, their storms he may not rule.
Troubling his transience with their infinite breath,
They gave him hunger that no food can fill.
He is the cattle of the shepherd gods.
Therefore he feels incurable unrest
Nor knows his cause nor wherefore he was born.
The gods who hope by him to live for ever,
They gave the wisdom that is mocked by Night,
They breathed the courage that is met by Death—
He planning travels still his obscure road,
Tireless his journey that foresees no goal.
Not easily shalt thou, O soul, prevail
Nor lay thy yoke upon eternal Death,
Nor yet thy ancient longing flame fulfilled
The hopes which shake the order of my worlds.
Yet since I am law and life and its rewards
Take from me natural boons which death-bound hearts
Can soar at.” But she spoke, she answered now:
“Why speakest thou of the order of thy worlds
And offerest boons of which thou art the lord?
All I can take in my own strength, O god,
For I have come who am your kindred birth.
Yet that thy words may not have breathed in vain
Since they are flames of the eternal Truth
I bind thee by its Will thou canst not break,
Not for my own joy but the soul I love,
To give on earth whatever Suthyavân,
My husband, waking from the forest’s charm
And from his long pure childhood’s solitude
Desired and had not for his beautiful life.”
Death swayed his dreadful brows in vast assent,
“I give indulgent to the dreams I break
Such close of life as transient men desire
To his blind father. Rich morns and fortunate eves
I give and the brief kingdom he has lost,
To see with gladness of his unsealed gaze
Bright forms of grandsons, beautiful, brave and wise,
And gather them into ungroping arms
And see again the cheerful light of earth.
For that this man desired. Back to thy world
Return swift-footed lest to slay thy life
The great laws thou hast violated, moved,
Open at last on thee their dreadful eyes.”
The woman answered, “Me thou shalt not slay,
Neither with seas nor with celestial flame;
They have no strength to make my being vain:
For in me the invincible goddess lives.
And neither can my mortal purpose fail,
Nor my immortal spirit be destroyed.
My soul exceeds the laws whose might thou vauntst.
My will too is a law, my strength a god
And trembles not before their awful gaze.
Out of thy shadow, give me back again
Into earth’s flowering spaces Suthyavân
In the sweet transiency of human limbs
To do with him my burning spirit’s will.
Else where thou leadst him me too thou shalt lead.
Long I pursued him through the tracts of Time,
Parted and found, breaking the bars of life.
Now I behind him seek whatever night
Or dawn tremendous.” And to her replied
A voice of puissance and tremendous scorn,
The almighty cry of universal Death.
“Frail creature with the courage that aspires,
Hast thou the wings or feet to tread my stars
Which I have made before thy thoughts were formed?
I, Death, created them out of my void
And all that lives within them I made for food
And Love and Strength and Wisdom for my prey.
I, Death, am god and Hunger is my name.
Mortal whose spirit is my wandering breath,
Whose transience was imagined by my smile,
Go clutching thy poor gains to thy hurt bosom
Scourged by my pangs. Turn yet before attempting
Forbidden luminous spaces thou perceive
Lightnings unknown and from the wrath of God
Terrified flee like a forsaken deer
Sobbing and hunted by the shafts of heaven.”
And Sâvithrî made answer, scorn for scorn,
The mortal woman to the dreadful Lord:
“Who is this God, imagined by thy Night,
Contemptuously creating worlds disdained,
Who has anger and treads down high-aiming souls?
Not He who has built His temple in my heart.
The God I adore flames here within my breast,
He has wed me,—to His kiss I bore the worlds.
Who shall prohibit or hedge in His course,
The Wonderful, the Charioteer, the Swift?
Equal my strength behind my husband’s steps,
Whether I press the sword-paved courts of Hell
Or over luminous flowers in Heaven I walk.
The wings of Love have power to fan thy void,
The eyes of Love gaze starlike through the night,
The feet of Love tread naked all the worlds.”
But Death made answer to the human soul:
“O seeker of heaven, by thy earth obscured,
What is thy hope? to what dost thou aspire?
This only is thy keenest earthly joy
For a few more years to please thy faltering sense
With honey of physical longings and embrace
The brilliant idol of a fugitive hour.
And thou, what art thou, soul, thou glorious dream
Of brief emotions made and fluttering thoughts,
A dance of fireflies speeding through the night
Or dragon-wings upon the inconstant stream?
Wilt thou claim immortality, O heart,
Crying against the eternal witnesses
That thou and he are endless powers and last?
One endless watches the inconscient scene
Where all things perish, as the foam the stars.
One is for ever! There no Suthyavân
Changing was born and there no Sâvithrî
Claiming her ancient joy from grief. There Love
Came never with his fretful soul of tears.
No gaze, no heart that throbs, It needs no second
To aid Its being and to share Its joys,
But lives apart immortally alone.
If thou desirest immortality,
Be thou alone. Sufficient to thy days
Live in thyself. Forget the man thou lov’st;
Think him the wandering vision of a dream.”
But Sâvithrî replied for man to Death:
“O Death who reasonest, I reason not;—
Reason that doubts and breaks and cannot build.
I am, I love, I will.” Death answered her:
“Know also! Knowing, thou shalt cease to love
And cease to will, delivered from thy heart.
Then shalt thou rest for ever and be still,
Consenting to the impermanence of things.”
But Sâvithrî replied for man to Death:
“When I have loved for ever, I shall know.
I know my being is a flame self-lit;
I know that knowledge is a vast embrace;
And man was born beneath the monstrous stars
Dowered with a mind and heart to conquer thee.
For one who lives in us, came masked by death.”
Death swayed his awful brows and ceased from speech;
Through the long fading night by her compelled,
Gliding half-seen on their unearthly path,
Phantasmal in the distance moved the three.
But not for long the darkness’ reign endured.
For as they moved all widened, all grew pale.
The dismal twilight brightened now its hues
And soon the sorrow of the Night was dead.
Into a happy misty twilit world
Surprised by a blind joy with gripping hands
She slipped,—vague fields, vague hedges, rainy trees,
An air that dared not suffer too much light
And scenes dim-hearted in a drifting haze
Vague cattle white roamed glimmering through the mist;
Vague spirits wandered with a bodiless cry;
Vague melodies touched the soul and fled pursued
Into harmonious distances unseized
Wishing no goal for their delightful steps.
Through vague ideal lands strayed happily
Or floated without footing or else paced
Led by a low far chanting as of gods
Forms and half-luminous powers. In this sweet chaos
A strange consistency of shapes prevailed;
A victory of initial light was born,
A spirit of purity and elusive presence
Of faery beauty and ungrasped delight
That sweeter seemed than any ecstasy
Earth or all-conquering heaven can quivering seize.
Their bold formations are too absolute;
Carved by an anguish of divine endeavour
They stand up sculptured on the eternal hills
Or quarried from the living rocks of God
Win immortality by perfect form.
They are too clear, too great. This only touched
The flying feet of exquisite desires,
Strange sweet beginnings of perfection, first
Happy imaginings of a heavenly world,
Which rest in a dim passion of pursuit
Thrilled with their first far joys that will not cease.
All in this world was shadowed forth, not limned,
Like shapes of colour in a tinted blur
Or fugitive landscapes of suggested forms,
A glimmering Eden full of faery gleams.
Here in its magic lanes that fled her feet,
Past vanishing hedges, hurrying hints of fields,
Assailed by sweetness of its voices dim,
Treading she found no end. Then turned the god
And cried, “Into a void eternity
Escapes this world, for never has it lived.
Shadowing out glories it shall never seize
It builds up images illusion feeds
With cloudy colours and aerial hues
To escape from the coarse cruelty of things.
Hope begets hope, the old bright vainness new,
Cloud gratifies happy cloud, phantom by phantom
Sweetly is chased. O child of earth, behold
Thy infinite seeming of desires enjoyed!
Vainly thou torturest, vain soul of man,
The hour’s delight to reach infinity’s
Long void and fill its gulfs. Chastise thy heart
With noble knowledge and unhood to see
Thy nature raised into clear living heights,
The Heaven-bird’s view from unimagined peaks.
But if thou give thy spirit to a dream
Soon harsh necessity will smite thee awake.
Coarse, fleeting are the happiest human things.
Thy passion is a sensual want refined,
Thy love a hunger and one day shall cease
By bitter treason, or wrath with cruel wounds
Separate, or thy unsatisfied will to others
Depart, when first love’s joy lies stripped and slain.
Purest delight began and it shall end.
Then shalt thou know thy heart no anchor swinging
Thy happy soul moored in eternal seas.
How can the winging aeons clamp their flight
To one, a helpless wanderer like thyself? Ah, cease!
Vain are the cycles of thy brilliant mind.
Renounce, forgetting hope and joy and tears,
Thy passionate nature in the bosom profound
Where Love lies slumbering on the breasts of peace.”
And Sâvithrî replied to the dim god:
“Another language now thou usest, Death,
Melting thy speech into harmonious pain.
But I forbid thy voice to slay my soul.
Allowed by Heaven and wonderful to man
Passion sweet fiery rhythms chants to Love,
And when the strains are hushed to high-winged souls,
Into empyreans vast its burning breath
Survives beyond, the core of heavenly suns,
A flame for ever pure. Surely I know
One day I shall behold my great sweet world
Put off the dire disguises of the gods,
Unveil from terror and disrobe from sin.
One who has love and lover and beloved
Is the sweet cause of all our bitter griefs.
From the bright vision of his soul a Child
Eternal built himself a wondrous field
And wove the measures of a marvellous dance.
There in its circles and its magic turns
Attracted he arrives, repelled he flees.
Bearing a sweet new face that is the old
His bliss laughs to us or it calls concealed
Like a far-heard, unseen, entrancing flute
From moonlit branches in the throbbing woods
Tempting our angry search and passionate pain.
In the wild devious promptings of his mind
He tastes the honey of tears and puts off joy,
Repenting, and has laughter and has wrath,
And both are a broken music of the soul
That seeks out reconciled its heavenly rhyme.
He for my heart was always Suthyavân.
Has he not lain in wait for me through lives
Unnumbered, in the thickets of the world
Pursued me like a lion through the night
And clasped me like a happy ruthless flame
And touched me like a soft persuading breeze,
Sometimes with wrath and sometimes with sweet peace
Desiring me since first the world began?
And if there is a happier greater God,
Then let him wear the face of Suthyavân
And let his soul be one with him I love,
So let him seek me that I may desire;
Since one heart only beats within my breast
And one God sits there throned. Advance, O Death,
Beyond the phantom beauty of this world,
Of its vague citizens I am not one,
Nor has my heart consented to be foiled.
I cherish, god, the fire and not the dream.”

(To be continued)

Dear Friends,

Sri Aurobindo had started working on the earliest draft of Savitri in August 1916. Nirodbaran, who has portrayed how Savitri reached its final form in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo, writes about this draft:

“The draft exists in two sections. The first comprising Book I and a few pages of Book II… Book I is complete, Book II unfinished. The spelling of the three chief characters is: Savithri, Uswapathy, Suthyavan. In the first Book, after a short description of Night and Dawn, there is a very brief account of the Yoga done by Uswapathy, then Savithri is born, grows up and goes out, at Uswapathy’s prompting, to find her mate. She finds Suthyavan. In the meantime Narad comes down to earth and visits Uswapathy’s palace. There is a talk between the two; Savithri returns from her quest and discovery, and a talk takes place among the three.” (pp. 173-174, 1995 edition)

We are happy to announce that Overman Foundation has received permission from Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust to publish the earliest draft of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri in its online forum. We are extremely grateful to Shri Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, for giving us the said permission.

The first four installments of the earliest draft of Savitri were published in the online forum of Overman Foundation on 4 April, 9 April, 16 April and 23 April 2013 respectively.

The fifth installment—which marks the beginning of Book II of the epic—is published here.

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee

Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

SÂVITHRÎ

BOOK II

So she was left alone in the huge wood
By Death the god confronted, holding still
Her husband’s corpse on her abandoned breast.
She measured not her loss with helpless thoughts,
She rose not up to face the dreadful god,
But over him she loved her soul leaned out
From a far stillness. There into some heaven
Of birth and silence lifted all that here
Is hope and sorrow and trembling passion, changed,
Losing their natures and what was once her heart
Became a hushed eternity of love.
Not in her body they grew. A strain delivered
Vibrant great chords of Force by Nature tuned
For her eternal music yet unheard
Which the stars dream of listening as they wheel.
So one day all our nature’s sins shall find
Their strong redemption; slain they shall ascend
Into the purity from which they erred,—
Discords redeemed to help a music large,
Transfigured, lifted up on fiery wings.
Her mortal being seized by dreadful hands
Felt the last agony of passionate change
That was its quivering into godhead. It grew
A high and lonely ecstasy of will
That left her like a mighty eagle poised
In the void: thought perished and her mind seemed slain.
But from a growing secrecy of light
The greater spirit in some world within
Griefless above her, yet herself, unveiled
Its frontal glories and miraculously
Outlined its body of power. Leaned from above
Ancient and strong as on a wind-free summit,
Calm, violent, fiery-footed, puissant-winged,
Over the abyss one brooded who was she.
Sole now that spirit turned its mastering gaze
On life and things as if inheriting
A work unfinished from her halting past
When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled
And the crude instruments were blindly moved.
And like a tree recovering from the wind
She raised her noble head. Fronting her eyes
Something stood there unearthly, sombre, grand,
A limitless denial of all being
That wore the wonder of a shape. The Form
Bore the deep pity of destroying gods
In its appalling eyes. Eternal Night
In the dire beauty of an immortal face
Pitying arose, receiving all that lives
Into its fathomless heart for ever. Its limbs
Were monuments of transience and beneath
Brows of unwearying calm large godlike lids
Silent beheld the writhing that is life.
The two opposed each other with their eyes,
Woman and universal god. They seemed
Two equal powers that stand unconquered, left
The last huge-purposed among trivial things,
Scanning each other in the eternal lists
Like vast antagonists before they meet
In world-wide combat to possess alone.
Then to her ears silencing earthly sounds,
Forbidding the heart-strings with its iron cry
Arose a sad and formidable voice
That seemed the whole adverse world’s. “Unclasp,” it said,
“Thy passionate influence and relax, O slave
Of Nature, thy grasp elemental. Wrap no more
This spirit’s body in the abandoned robe
That with its texture coarse concealed the gods.
Entomb thy passion in its living grave,
Confess thy days an error and endure
The inevitable end of hope and love.”
It ceased, she moved not, and it spoke again
Lowering its mighty key to human chords,
“Woman, thy husband suffers.” Sâvithrî
Renounced the lifeless body from her clasp.
Softly she laid it down on the smooth grass,
As oft she had laid her living husband’s head
When from their couch she rose in the white dawn
Called by her daily tasks. So now as called,
Unknowing to what work, because her spirit
Above watched flaming silent still, she rose,
Waiting whatever impulse should arise
Out of the eternal depths and cast its surge.
Then Death the King leaned boundless down, as leans
Night over tired lands, and as if freed
Out of a physical dream, leaving uncared for
His mind forsaken of that poor dead earth,
Another Suthyavân arose and stood
Between the mortal woman and the god.
He was or else he seemed a shape of light
Found shadowy to the feeling out of mind
Which missed the warmth of bright material suns.
Thus each sees what transcends his conscious touch
And dreams things greater than himself are dreams:
Therefore heaven’s shapes are distant to our view,—
The gleam of hopes we hardly dare believe,
Far luminous symbols of a truth unseen
Kept for a happier sense in higher worlds.
So now her senses, though rebuked, believed
The dead corpse real, this a silent shade.
Still for a while was that bright Suthyavân,
Between two realms he stood, not wavering,
But in a quiet strong expectancy
Like one who, sightless, listens for a command.
But now he moved away. Behind him Death
Went slowly like a shadowy herdsman dark
Behind some wanderer from his mournful herds.
And Sâvithrî followed her husband’s steps,
Planting her human feet where his had trod,
Into the silence of that other world.
At first they seemed to her still on earthly soil
To journey strangely with unhuman paces
Through a thick stress of woods. For though to her vision
Only were offered in a spaceless dream
The luminous spirit gliding stilly on
And the great shadow travelling behind,
Her senses felt a vague green world of trees
Surround them and in troubled branches knew
Uncertain treadings of a fitful wind,
Earth stood aloof yet near; it offered her
Its sweetness and its greenness mid a dream,
Its brilliance suave of well-loved vivid hues,
Sunlight arriving at its golden noon,
The birds’ calling or the sweet siege of cries:
She bore dim fragrances, far murmurs touched
But then the god grew mighty and remote
In alien spaces and the soul she loved
Lost its consenting nearness to her life.
They seemed to enlarge away, drawn by some great
Pale distance, from the warm control of earth
And her grown far. Now, now they would escape!
Then flaming from her body’s nest alarmed
Her violent spirit soared at Suthyavân,
As in a terror and a wrath divine
A winged she-eagle threatened in her young.
So with a rush of pinions and a cry
She crossed the borders of dividing sense.
Her trance knew not of sun or earth or world,
She knew not of herself or Sâvithrî;
All was one boundless grasp of unnamed force
And absolute possession,— quivering, seized
Its prey, joy, origin, Suthyavân alone.
But when her mind awoke once more in Time,
Compelled to shape the lineaments of things
And live in borders, the three moved together
Alone in a new world where souls were not,
But only living moods. A strange, still, weird
Country was round her, strange far skies above,
A doubting space where dreaming objects lived
Within themselves their one unchanging thought.
Weird was that road which like fear hastening
To that of which it had most terror, led
Phantasmal between those two conscious rocks
Sombre and high, gates brooding, whose stone thoughts
Lost their huge sense beyond in giant night.
Nearer they grew like dumb appalling jaws,
Waiting upon her road cruel and still,
The muzzle of a black enormous world.
And where the shadowy marches now he touched,
Turning arrested luminous Suthyavân
Looked back with wonderful eyes at Sâvithrî.
Then Death pealed forth his vast abysmal cry:
“Let not the dreadful goddess move thy soul,
Its time-born passion dreamed the strength of heaven,
To enlarge its vehement trespass into worlds
Helpless, where it shall perish like a thought
Safe only in its stumbling limits poor
Where he can crown himself mock sovereign.
Dare not beyond man’s faltering force, but waking
Tremble amid the silences immense
In which thy few weak chords of being die.
Impermanent creatures sorrowful foam of Time,
Your transient loves bind not the eternal gods.”
His dread voice ebbed in a consenting hush
Which grew intense, around, a wide and wordless
Whisper and sanction from the jaws of Night.
The woman answered not. Her naked soul
Stripped of its girdle of mortality
Against fixed destiny and the grooves of Law
Stood up in its sheer will, the primal force.

So like arrested thoughts upon a verge
Where light begins to cease, they stood; vast Night
Beyond desired her soul. Then Sâvithrî
Compelled her foot towards the yawning mouth
And danger of the ageless waste. Moulding
Their grander motion on her human tread
They stirred. All as in dreams went gliding on.
So was the balance of the world reversed;
The mortal ruled, the god and spirit obeyed:
For she behind was leader of the march
And they in front were followers of her will.
They entered the dumb portals of the past,
They left the rock-gate’s doubting walls behind;
The twilit vestibules of a tenebrous world
Received them where they seemed to move and yet
Be still, nowhere advancing, yet to pass,
A dim procession in a picture dim,
Not conscious forms. Then huge and growing night
Cavernous, monstrous, in a strangling mass
Silent, devoured them like a lion’s throat,
The dumb spiritual agony of a dream.
The thought that strives in things failed there, unmade:
They ended, all their dream of living done,
Convinced at last that they had never been.
Huge darkness closed around her cage of sense
As round a bullock in the forest tied
By hunters closes in no empty night.
She saw no more the dim tremendous god,
Her eyes had lost their luminous Suthyavân
But not for this her spirit failed. It knew
More deeply than the bounded senses can
Which seek externally and find to lose,
Its object loved, as when on earth they lived
She felt him straying through the glades, the glades
A scene in her, their clefts her being’s vistas
Offering their secrets to his search and joy,
Because whatever spot his cherished feet
Preferred, must be at once her soul embracing
His body, suffering his tread. Slow years—
Time vacant measured itself by anguish long,—
Like one who walks resisting a black dream
Through an unreal darkness empty and drear
She lived in spite of death, stifled with void
As in a blindness of extinguished souls.
Then tardily a reluctant gleam drew near
Like promise of life to those who lie forgotten
By Nature, cast into her naked night.
The black and writhing gloom widened its coils,—
For now it felt its giant reign attacked—
And suffered shrinking from the approach of hope:
But tyrannous still in its huge soulless strength
Writhing and coiling ruled her struggling lids
Which slowly conquered back their brilliant right.
One felt once more the treading of a god
And out of the dumb darkness Suthyavân
Her husband grew into a luminous shade.
Death missioned forth once more his lethal voice:
“Hast thou beheld thy source, O transient heart?
Knowing from what the dream thou art was made,
Still dost thou always hope to last and love?”
The woman answered not. Her spirit repelled
The voice of Night that knew and Death that thought;
She knew the mighty sources of her life
And knew herself eternal without birth.

(To be continued)

Dear Friends,

Sri Aurobindo had started working on the earliest draft of Savitri in August 1916. Nirodbaran, who has portrayed how Savitri reached its final form in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo, writes about this draft:

“The draft exists in two sections. The first comprising Book I and a few pages of Book II… Book I is complete, Book II unfinished. The spelling of the three chief characters is: Savithri, Uswapathy, Suthyavan. In the first Book, after a short description of Night and Dawn, there is a very brief account of the Yoga done by Uswapathy, then Savithri is born, grows up and goes out, at Uswapathy’s prompting, to find her mate. She finds Suthyavan. In the meantime Narad comes down to earth and visits Uswapathy’s palace. There is a talk between the two; Savithri returns from her quest and discovery, and a talk takes place among the three.” (pp. 173-174, 1995 edition)

We are happy to announce that Overman Foundation has received permission from Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust to publish the earliest draft of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri in its online forum. We are extremely grateful to Shri Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, for giving us the said permission.

The first three installments of the earliest draft of Savitri were published in the online forum of Overman Foundation on 4 April, 9 April and 16 April 2013 respectively. The fourth installment which marks the end of Book I of the epic is published here.

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee

Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

SÂVITHRÎ

BOOK I

(Continued)

In haste the father cried aloud, “O girl,
Around a fated head thy wings have flown.
Mount, mount thy car and travelling through the lands
Choose one more happy for thy fruitful couch.
Let not the obscure hand seal up too soon
The sweet perennial fountain of thy joys.
Not with this boy thy virgin life shall flower,
But the long glory of thy days lies dead
And vain the promise of the flaming gods.”
But Sâvithrî replied with steadfast eyes
That saw the forest verge and Suthyavân;
“Once I have chosen, once the garland fell.
Whether for death or life, for joy or tears,
Two hearts have joined and shall not be divorced
By human wills or by the gods’ strong hands.”
So spoke she from her sweet and violent soul
Awakened to dangerous earth; but Uswapathy
Made answer to her from the father’s heart:
“My daughter, who in this frail world belongs
To whom? Who is the husband? who the child?
Are they not shadows in thy dreaming mind?
The body thou hast loved, dissolved, is given,
Lost in the brute unchanging stuff of worlds,
To indifferent mighty Nature who shall make it
Crude matter for the joy of others’ lives.
But for our souls, upon the wheel of God
For ever turning they arrive and go
Vain atoms in the whirling cycles vain,
Married and sundered in the magic round
Of the great Dancer of the boundless dance.
Thy emotions are but sweet and dying notes
In his wild music changed compellingly
From hour to hour. To cry to an unseized bliss
Is the music’s meaning. Caught, the rhythm fades,
The sense has fled! only coarse-fibred joys
Are given us that abase with useless pain.
Sated the lax heart loathes its old desires;
Love dies before the lover. None belongs
Even to his nearest, but all to one far Self
Constant, alone and hushed who cares for none.
O child, obey not then thy clamorous heart’s
Insistence, thinking thy desires divine.
Live by a calmer law. Strengthen thy life
By work and thought, give succor to thy soul,
With rich utilities help others’ days,
So shalt thou greaten to abiding peace.”
But Sâvithrî replied with steadfast eyes,—
Calm now her heart and tender like the moon.
“Now have I known my glad reality
Beyond my body in another’s being;
I have perceived the changeless soul of Love.
How then shall I desire a lonely good,
Or slay, aspiring to white vacant peace,
The hope divine with which my soul leaped forth
From flame eternal, rapture of one vast Heart
And tireless of the sweet abysms of Time
Deep possibility always to love?
This, this is first, last joy, against whose throb
The riches of a thousand fortunate years
Feel poverty. What to me are death and life
And other men and children and my days,
Since only for my soul in Suthyavân
I treasure the rich occasion of my birth
And sunlight and the emerald ways he treads,—
If for a year, that year is all my life.
Once only can the die for ever fall
And, being thrown, no god can alter more
Its endless moment. Once the word leaps forth
And being spoken sounds immortally
For ever in the memory of Time.
Only once can my heart of woman choose.
For what my heart has seen, my lips can speak
That only and my servant body do.
This is the yoke that God has laid on me
And on the road He traced my life must run.”
She spoke and Nârad smiled and rising high
Sprang like a fire into his roseate heavens
Chanting the anthem of triumphant love.
So was it as the heart of Sâvithrî
Tender and adamant decreed. Her father
Journeying with brilliant squadrons and a voice
Immense of chariots bore her from her bowers
Of golden beauty to the rude bare hut
Of Dyumathsena in the dim-souled huge
Inhuman forest far from cheerful sound
Of man’s blithe converse mid his crowded days.
Leaving behind their glittering companies
The king and his two queens with thorns assailed
And stumbling feet on the faint gloomy path
Reached the rough-hewn ascetic hut and gave
Their cherished nurseling to the blind old king
And that poor labour-worn and ageing queen
To be their daughter and their servant there
Through the hard strenuous days. With tearful eyes
And a dull burden on their hearts they blessed
The brief-lived husband of her fatal choice,
Then went back to their life of vacant pomp
Empty of her. There for one year she dwelt
With Suthyavân and with his parents sole
In the tremendous wood amid the cry
Of crickets and the tiger’s nightly roar,
Defenceless to the forest’s whisper vast
And sunlight and the moonlight and the rain.
For now the grief she had trod down seized on her;
And though she served all diligently, nor spared
Strict labour with the broom and jar and well
And gentle personal tending and the piled fire
Of altar and kitchen, no task to others allowed
Her woman’s strength might do, not with these things
Her heart was, but with love and secret pain
She dwelt like a dumb priest with hidden gods.
Her spirit like a sea of living fire
Possessed her lover, clinging—one vast embrace
Around its threatened mate. Her quivering passion
Intolerant of the poverty of Time
Strove to expend whole centuries in a day.
Ever her mind remembered Nârad’s date
And, trembling sad accountant of its riches,
Reckoned the insufficient dawns between.
So feeding sorrow and terror with her heart
She lived in dread expectancy: or else
Fled from it vainly into abysms of bliss
To meet worse after-sorrow; for then she felt
Each day a golden page torn cruelly out
From her too slender account of joy. She uttered
No moan, but by her natural silence helped
Lived lonely in the secret clutch of tears.
Often she yearned to cry, “O Suthyavân,
O lover of my soul, give more, give more
Of love while yet thou canst to her thou lovst;
For soon we part and who shall know how long
Before the great wheel in its monstrous round
Restore us to ourselves?” For well she knew
She must not clutch that happiness to die
With him and follow seizing on his robe,
Travelling our other countries, voyagers glad
Into the sweet or terrible beyond,
Since that poor king and queen would need her long
To help the empty remnant of their life.
Strong she pressed back the cry into her soul
And dwelt within silent, unhelped, alone.
And still she knew that only surface seas
Were spume to these loud winds; a greater spirit
Calm-winged and watching all to every pain
Assented largely in its strength and joy.
Nor would she once have given tortured days
Half hell, half heaven, of terror and delight
For all the griefless bliss that Time could give
Without him. Suthyavân with the dim answer
Of our thought-blinded hearts perceived her clasp
Of love and anguish round him, vaguely knew
Some doom behind, and what his days could spare
From labour in the forest hewing wood
With his strong arm or gathering sacred grass
Or hunting food in the far sylvan glades
Or service to his father’s sightless life
He gave to her and strove to increase brief time
With lavish softness of heart-seeking words
And all the inadequate signs that love must use.
All was too little for her dreadful need.
Yet grew they into each other ever more
Until it seemed no power could rend apart
Since even the body’s walls might not divide.
For when he wandered in the forest, still
Her conscious spirit walked with his and knew
His actions as if in herself he moved.
He, less aware, thrilled with her from afar.
Grief, fear became the food of mighty love.
Tortured more fiercely, more her soul dilated
Till measureless it grew in strength divine,
An anvil for the blows of Fate and Time,
Unslayable like the gods. Last grief became
Calm, dull-eyed, resolute as if awaiting
Some unknown issue of its fiery struggle,
Some deed in which it might for ever cease
Victorious over itself and death and tears.
Fast the days fled. The rains rushed by; autumn
Hastened his pace serene; winter and dew
Their glories moist or cold ended too soon;
Spring bounded by armed with the cuckoo’s plaint,
Piercing her heart with beauty of his flowers.
Then summer like a stately king came in
In opulent purple and in burning gold.
She hated not his mornings and his eves,
But rather besought that they would linger out
Their careless glories, though he seemed to her
Indifferent doom in heartless splendour clad
Who hid with his bright hands the death of joy.
Swiftly the fated day came striding on.

Now it was here in this great golden dawn
By her yet sleeping husband lain she gazed
Into her past like one about to die
Looks back upon the sunlit fields of life
Where he too ran and sported with the rest,
Lifting his head above the huge dark stream
Before he plunges down. She lived again
The whole year in a swift and eddying race
Of memories. Then she arose and service done
Bowed down to the great goddess simply carved
By Suthyavân upon a forest-stone.
What prayer she breathed, her soul and Doorga knew.
Perhaps she felt in the dim forest huge
The infinite mother watching over her child,
Perhaps the shrouded Voice spoke some still word.
At last came to the pale mother queen
And spoke: “For one full year that I have served
Thee and the aged king and my dear lord
I have not gone into the silences
Of this great forest that enringed my thoughts
With mystery nor in its green miracles
Wandered, but this small clearing was my world.
Now has a strong desire seized all my heart
To go with Suthyavân holding his hand
Into the life that he has loved and touch
Herbs he has trod and know the forest flowers
And hear at ease the birds and scurrying life
That starts and ceases, rich far rustle of boughs
And all the mystic whispering of woods.
Release me now and let my heart have rest.”
She answered, “Do as thy wise mind decrees,
O calm child-sovereign with the eyes that rule.
I hold thee a strong goddess who has come
Pitying our barren days, so dost thou serve
Even as a slave might, so art thou beyond
All that thou doest, all our minds conceive
Like the strong sun that serves earth from above.”
So the doomed husband and the wife who knew
Went with linked hands into that solemn world
Together. Suthyavân walked full of joy
Because she moved beside him through the green.
He showed her all the forest’s riches, flowers
Innumerable of every colour and hue
And soft thick clinging creepers green and red
And strange rich-plumaged birds, to every cry
That haunted sweetly distant boughs, replied
With the shrill singer’s name more sweetly called.
He spoke of all the things he loved: they were
His boyhood’s comrades and his playfellows,
Coevals and companions of his life
Here in this world whose every mood he knew.
Their thoughts which for the common mind are blank,
He shared, to every wild emotion felt
An answer. Deeply she listened, but to hear
The voice that soon would cease from tender words
And treasure its sweet cadences beloved
For lonely memory. Little dwelt her mind
Upon their sense; of death, not life she thought.
Love in her bosom hurt with the jagged edges
Of anguish moaned at every step with pain
Crying, “Now, now perhaps his voice will hush
For ever.” Even by some vague touch oppressed
Sometimes her eyes looked round as if their orbs
Might see the dim and dreadful god approach.

But Suthyavân had paused. He meant to finish
His labour here that happy, linked, uncaring
They two might wander free in the green deep
Primeval mystery of the forest’s heart.
Wordless but near she watched, no turn to lose
Of the bright face and body which she loved.
Her life was now in seconds, not in hours
And every moment she economised
Like a pale merchant leaned above his store,
The miser of his poor remaining gold.
But Suthyavân wielded a joyous axe.
He sang high snatches of a sage’s chant
That pealed of conquered death and demons slain,
And sometimes paused to cry to her sweet speech
Of love or mockery tenderer than love.
She like a pantheress leaped upon his words
And carried them into her cavern heart.
But as he worked, his doom upon him came.
The violent and hungry hounds of pain
Travelled through his body biting as they passed
Silently and all his suffering breath besieged
Strove to rend life’s strong heart-cords and be free.
Then helped, as if a beast had left its prey,
A moment in a wave of rich relief
Reborn to strength and happy ease he stood,
Rejoicing, and resumed his confident toil
But with less seeing strokes. Now the great woodsman
Hewed at him, and his labour ceased. Lifting
His arm he flung away the poignant axe
Far from him like an instrument of pain:
She came to him in silent anguish and clasped,
And he cried to her, “Sâvithrî, a pang
Cleaves through my head and breast as if the axe
Were piercing there and not the living branch.
Such agony rends me as the tree must feel
When it is sundered. Let me lay my head
Upon thy lap and guard me with thy hands.
Perhaps because thou touchest, death may pass.”
Then Sâvithrî sat under branches wide,
Cool, green against the sun; not the hurt tree
Which his keen axe had cloven, that she shunned,—
But leaned beneath a fortunate kingly trunk
She guarded him in her bosom and strove to soothe
His anguished brow and body with her hands.
All grief and fear were dead within her now
And a great calm had fallen. The wish to lessen
His suffering, the impulse that opposes pain
Was the one mortal feeling left. It passed;
Griefless and strong she waited like the gods.
But now his sweet familiar hue was changed
Into a tarnished greyness and his eyes
Dimmed over, forsaken of the clear light she loved.
Only the dull and physical mind was left,
Vacant of the bright spirit’s luminous gaze.
But once before it faded wholly back
He cried out in a clinging last despair,
“Sâvithrî, Sâvithrî, O Sâvithrî,
Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die.”
And even as her pallid lips pressed his,
He failed, losing last sweetness of response;
His cheek pressed down her golden arm. She sought
His mouth still with her living mouth, as if
She could persuade his soul back with her kiss;
Then grew aware they were no more alone.
Something had come there conscious, vast and dire.
Near her she felt a silent shade immense
Chilling the noon with darkness for its back.
She knew that visible Death was standing there
And Suthyavân had passed from her embrace.

(To be continued)

*

Confessions, Upadesh and Talks: Author: Sadguru Omkar. Number of pages: 305. Price: Rs. 180 (Soft-cover). Distributor: Overman Foundation, Kolkata.

Kafka had said “If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skulls, then why do we read it?… A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.” Well…after reading Sadguru’s only available book, this is what I felt: Sadguru’s revolutionary ideas not only strikes your mind and wakes you up from a slumber to look at life through fresh eyes, but also makes you stand aside and observe events and people dispassionately.

As far as my knowledge goes this is the only book of Sadguru available in the market. It’s a collection of his earlier works “Upadesh” and “Selected Talks”. Another section “Confessions” which was never published is also included in the book. The book consists of 3 sections: Confessions, Talks and Upadesh, written and spoken during different phases of Sadguru’s life. Some of the contents were published as articles in “Organiser” and “Vedanta kesari”. The 3 sections clearly show the variation and change in perspective of Sadguru towards things and happenings as he evolved inside. The sections consists of talks arranged in paragraphs. “Confessions” was written when he was in prison on the margins of paper he was able to get there. They show the despair, pain and anguish he suffered during that period and the struggle to get out of it. The writings oscillate between faith and hopelessness, despair and joy, human limitations and the anger about the helplessness of being unable to over come it. Even though this may appear at first sight as an outpouring of despair and helplessness it contains pearls of wisdom and deep truths as rightly observed by Aurobindo, when Sadguru showed them to him.

The next two sections Upadesh and Talks cover the various discourses and talks delivered to disciples and general public over a wide period of time after reaching the ultimate. They cover a wide range of topics and problems faced by individuals and society in general. Here one can see Sadguru’s views on various isms, burning topics, human endeavours, goal of life, how to look at life and in general what life is all about. The contents are not arranged on subject lines but just listed one after another. After going through them one will realise that Sadguru has very much covered a wide range of topics and the matter in it is applicable to lot of areas. This makes the book a sort of philosophical treatise. Sadguru doesn’t prefer to call his teachings philosophy, as he feels that there can be no single philosophy suitable for every one, nor can it be stable so as to be applicable for all ages. His sayings are as relevant today as it was when they were spoken and will be relevant for times to come. The beauty, depth and relevance of its contents for times to come are what makes the book special.

Sadguru’s book is full of ideas and views seen from a different perspective. It’s not an analysis of people and events from a mental realm but from a reservoir of knowledge above it, which’s clearly a result of spiritual Sadhana. One will realise that seeing through the mind and analysing based on that is not sufficient. Mind is filled with its “isms”, biases, likes, dislikes and prejudices, so it sees and analyzes on that basis and not with out. Such an analysis will be always incomplete and incorrect.

Sadguru’s teachings are affirmative and all inclusive. He understood and respected each individual’s need, capability, strength and shortcomings and spoke accordingly. He taught Atma Vidya, which is the path of discovering one’s true nature and its potentialities. Throughout the book, the stress on Atma Vidya is evident and they form the crux of his teachings. A close look at the teachings show that they are influenced by Upanishads and based upon them. Repetition of thoughts and their stress on knowing one self is similar to the Upanishadic way. He does not believe in bracketing, labelling or blaming people. His teachings stress on knowledge and joy as the ultimate goals to strive for.

The beauty of the book lies in its clarity. Simple, powerful statements filled with deep insight are its highlights. His statements are precise and to the point. The depth of his understanding and the way it’s conveyed in a straight forward manner leaves one amazed. A good book should not only inspire, make a person think and take some action based on that, but also transform him. It should inspire him to inculcate, imbibe those ideals and work towards them. I feel his teachings have that potential.

B.V. Pramod
(Courtesy: http://www.sadguruomkar.blogspot.in)

*

Dear Friends,

Sri Aurobindo had started working on the earliest draft of Savitri in August 1916. Nirodbaran, who has portrayed how Savitri reached its final form in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo, writes about this draft:

“The draft exists in two sections. The first comprising Book I and a few pages of Book II… Book I is complete, Book II unfinished. The spelling of the three chief characters is: Savithri, Uswapathy, Suthyavan. In the first Book, after a short description of Night and Dawn, there is a very brief account of the Yoga done by Uswapathy, then Savithri is born, grows up and goes out, at Uswapathy’s prompting, to find her mate. She finds Suthyavan. In the meantime Narad comes down to earth and visits Uswapathy’s palace. There is a talk between the two; Savithri returns from her quest and discovery, and a talk takes place among the three.” (pp. 173-174, 1995 edition)

We are happy to announce that Overman Foundation has received permission from Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust to publish the earliest draft of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri in its online forum. We are extremely grateful to Shri Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, for giving us the said permission.

The first and second installments of the earliest draft of Savitri were published in the online forum of Overman Foundation on 4 April and 9 April 2013 respectively. The third installment of the epic is published here.

With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee

Founder,
Overman Foundation.

*

SÂVITHRÎ

BOOK I

(Continued)

But now to a Nature more remote, self-hidden
From all but its own vision deep and wild,
Attracted by the forest’s sombre call
Her chariot hastened, skirting prouder glades
Where the green stragglers lingered in the light
Behind immenser seas of foliage, rear
Of a tremendous solitude of trees.
Here in a lifting of the vast secrecy
Where plunged a narrow cleft, a track ran hewn
To screened infinities from a farewell space
Of sunlight, she beheld kingly youth
Magnificent in the morning of his force,
Clad in a rough robe sewn of forest bark,
Taming a wild horse to his gentle hand.
Still by its inner musings sealed from life,
Aware of Nature, vague as yet to man,
Her wandering gaze the splendid beast admired,
Not yet the master creature. Then it woke.
Half-turned to her over its tangled mane
She saw, she knew, as if oft seen before,
Eyes and a face rich, noble, high and swift
Like the gods’ morning. She cried out like a bird
Who hears her mate upon a distant bough
And by her musical bidding seized and stilled,
Hooves trampling fast and crashing chariot ceased,
The unwilling horses pawing yet for speed.
But Suthyavân who heard the liquid voice
Wedding the summer air stood marvelling:
Himself, his task, his victory forgot,
He left the rapid creature to its will.
It seemed to him vaguely as if the sweet call
Were to the chariot-horses of his life
Turning their speed towards a glorious goal.
He came, they met, wide wondering eyes gazed close
Into bright eyes and deep, their comrade orbs.
Touched by the warning finger of sweet love
The soul can recognise its answering soul
Across dividing Time. Upon life’s ways
Absorbed wrapped traveller, turning, it recovers
Familiar splendours in an unknown face
And thrills again to the old immortal love
Wearing a new sweet body for delight.
But the mind only thinks, “Behold the one
For whom my life has waited long unfilled!
Behold the sudden sovereign of my days.”
Love dwells in us like an unopened flower.
Roaming in his charmed sleep mid thoughts and things
The child-god is at play; but through it all
He lingers for the touch that he shall know
And when it comes, wakes blindly to a voice,
A look, a smile, the meaning of a face.
He seizes on some sign of outward charm
To guide him by the groping mind obscured,
Desires the image for the godhead’s sake
And takes the body for the sculptured soul.
Her heart unveiled, his now to meet her turned.
Attracted as in heaven star by star
They wondered at each other and rejoiced.

First Suthyavân: “Who art thou, virgin bright?
My mind might dream perhaps and my heart fear,
Risen on a morning of the gods thou drivest
Thy horses from the Thunderer’s luminous worlds.
For they have wandered in the silent hours
And lingered in the slumbrous noonday woods
And know that gods from heaven walk abroad.
If such thou art, pause once before thou fade
Like a bright thought too glorious for our hold.
But if thy heart was made for human love,
My eyes grow glad to know and my bosom rejoices
That mortal sweetness smiles between thy lids,
Thy heart can beat beneath a human gaze,
This golden body dally with fatigue
And the sweet taste and joy of earthly food
Attract thee. From thy journey cease; come down.
Close is my father’s woodland hermitage.
There follow me. Though rude and poor our life,
The woods are round it and the heavens above
Look down at a rich secrecy and hush.
The forest gods have taken it in their arms
And brightly apparelled it in green and gold.”
And the girl, musing, “I am Sâvithrî,
Princess of Madra. Who art thou? what name
Musical on earth? What trunk of ancient kings
Has flowered in thee upon its happy branch?
Why is thy dwelling in the pathless wood
Far from the deeds thy glorious youth demands?”
And he: “King Dyumathsen in Shalwa reigned
Through all the tract that from beyond these tops
Turns looking back towards the southern heavens.
But the bright gods recalled the gifts they gave,
Took from his eyes their glad and helping ray
And led the uncertain goddess from his side.
He sojourns in the deep and solemn woods.
Son of that king, I, Suthyavân, have lived
In their huge vital murmur kin to me,
Nursed by their vastness; Chitrâshwa too they name me;
For the early child-god took my hand to limn
The bright and bounding swiftnesses that stray
Wind-maned in our pastures. So my mind approached
Before I lived in its wide natural haunts
The dumb great animal consciousness of earth
Now grown so close. Gold princess Sâvithrî,
High is my life and happy I find my state
Possessing royally the earth and skies;
But I have seen thee; these seem not enough:
New rich deep things felicitous I desire;
And heaven and earth are in a moment changed.
O, if thou art the source, draw nearer yet
Down on this sward disdaining not our soil,
For here are spaces emerald to thy tread,
Descend, O happiness. Let thy golden feet
Enrich the rough floors on whose earth we dwell.”
She said: “My heart turns to my father’s house
And yet will stay here on this forest verge.
Now of more wandering it has no need.”
Down came she with a soft, bright, faltering haste,
Her gleaming feet upon the green-gold sward,
And like pale brilliant wandering moths her hands
Claimed from the sylvan verge’s sunlit arms
Bright comrades of the summer and the breeze
And twined a natural garland deep and pure
Fit for their love. This with glad unshamed eyes
Upraised in hands that trembled with delight
Lingering around the neck of him she chose,
She hung,—such the fair symbol of those days,—
Upon his bosom coveted by her love.
Nor with that equal bond ceased satisfied
Her heart, but as before a sudden god
She bowed down to his feet and touched the hem
Of his coarse raiment with her worshipping hands.
He took them in his own; the sweet first touch
Of all their closeness through long intimate years
Feeling each other for the soul behind,
Joined them for bliss upon his bosom. They parted,
She to her father’s rich and sculptured halls,
He to the cottage rude she hoped for, thatched
With leaves, built of hewn forest-boughs, where lingered
In toil and penury of their fallen state
His parents bearing patiently their days.
Thus were they wedded and the knot was bound.

Attracted by the golden summer earth
Nârad the heavenly sage from Paradise
Came harping through the quivering lustrous air.
Rapturous and drunken with the wine of God
He poured upon the world his mighty chant
Casting the harmonies of his heaven-born voice
Unwearied. By the sweetness of his song
Earth the dumb sufferer was awhile appeased
And all heaven’s kindled regions shook, alight
With his heart’s ceaseless joy. He sang the name
Of Vishnu and the secret of the stars
And the beginnings of the conscious world.
He hymned Delight and Love that knows not death:
He sang the rapture of the Heart divine
That calls our spirits and of discords healed
And pleasure that shall die in a white bliss
And sin delivered from itself by love
And immortality surprising earth.
And as he sang, the demons wept with joy:
They dreamed of the defeat for which they hope
When with their chosen dreadful labour done
They shall return to him who sent them forth.
So harping, singing came the man divine
To men obscured on earth. The glory down
Like a persistent streak of lightning fell,
Nearing, until the rapt eyes of the sage
Looked forth from luminous cloud and, strangely limned,
His face, a beautiful mask of antique joy,
Appeared from light, descending where arose
King Uswapathy’s palace to the winds
In Madra, flowering up in delicate stone.
There welcomed by the strong and thoughtful king
Who ceased from common life and care and sat
Inclining to the high and rhythmic voice,
Seated on sacred grass the heavenly seer
Spoke of the toils of men and what the gods
Strive for on earth, and joy that throbs behind
The marvel and the mystery of pain.
He sang to him of the lotus heart of love
With all its thousand luminous buds of truth
That quivering sleeps veiled by apparent things.
It trembles at every touch, it strives to wake
And one day it shall hear a blissful voice
And in the garden of the spouse shall bloom
When she is seized by her discovered lord.
Even as he sang, came with a voice of hooves
As of her swift heart hastening, Sâvithrî.
Changed with the halo of her love she came,
Her radiant tread glimmering across the floor,
A happy wonder in her fathomless eyes.
And happily her stately head she bowed
Before her father and her shining gaze
Saw like a rose of wonder and adored
Sweetness and glory of that Son of Heaven.
But Nârad casting on her from his eyes
Celestial the unwounded light of heaven
Griefless, “From what wild border, Sâvithrî,
Turns back thy wheels’ far quest with wonderful earth
Satisfied, singing of sweet haste to bliss
As one who brings hushed treasure for his soul,
Rapt burdens and rich secrets from some shrine
Where sits a godhead mystic in the stone?
What divine floods bathed pure thy pilgrim limbs
And burdened heart? or as from marvellous lands,
Verges of wonder and horizons strange,
Landscapes of mystery, rivers of delight,
Flew once the Bird who from the flaming kings
Of pain ravished the ambrosia for the gods,
Exultantly—so fleest thou bright-winged back
Rejoicing with some flushed and heavenly fruit
Seized in the dangerous woodlands of desire?
Such light is seen beneath thy mortal lids.”
Then Uswapathy, “An unknown face one seeks
Among the indifferent visages of earth,
Known to the secret sense our clay conceals:
And when it opens, even such light can dawn!
For we are seekers of our hidden suns.
To find its own lord since to her through earth
He came not yet, this sweetness ventured forth.
Now she brings back her dedicated soul.
Reveal, my child, the name thy heart has learned.”
Shining she answered, “Suthyavân, an exile
In the huge and desolate forests, is my lord.
My father, I have chosen, this is done.”
And Uswapathy wordless for a space
Answered his child, “What thou hast chosen and done,
The silent god within thee shall approve.
In the rich commerce of this mystic world
Where all things given wonderfully return,
Life for its offering, bare of every claim
The heart has prostrated before the adored
Satisfied with its privilege to love.
Dimly it knows, descended from the skies,
Its sweet lost fortune by that gift restored,
Deep price at which the costly worlds were born
Self-giving the great merchandise of God.”
Sâvithrî answered not. Her happy eyes
Hooded with light from an immortal source
And finding hidden glories on the earth
Smiled at thought whispering, confident of bliss.

But Nârad now, the seer, lifted his voice
That sang the first thoughts of the new-born gods,
Turning on her the rapt celestial eyes
Bare to whose gaze Time toils, his unseen works
Detected: “Wilder-sweet thy curves, O life,
Following the stream of Time through the unknown
Than sealed thought dreams of! Wandering soul, thy wings
Strike hidden goals. A god’s tremendous touch
Seems pain unbearable to mortal nerves,
But high that agony climbs, the flower of flame
In whose fierce seed is the sweet tree of heaven.
Endurance first the ethereal kings trod out
Pacing the measures of the dateless road;
Serene rose next equality from the stars
Weaving her vast and rhythmed walk; thrilling
Their large third rapturous stride discovered bliss.
But blind and swift the great-maned life of earth
Alarmed by grief swerved from their dreadful path.
She dulled the pang to her children, heeding not
In the fond passion of her mother mind
That they who toil self-given into the hands
Of her great sorrows and arise grow gods,
Possessors of the eternal joys unseen,
The master souls who are for ever glad.
By pain there works a spirit from the clod;
By pain eternal Night gave forth the suns;
By pain the wise Immortals knew and chose
The leaders of the dark and mighty march,
The swift and radiant who shall help the world.
From sojourn in some high preparing skies,
From rapture in the worlds of flame and light
Obscured they come, down on the yearning earth,
Conscious of their lost heavens. Soul who hast lived
Guarded in thy sweet happy heavenly self
From life’s great hands,—but now the gods have touched,—
Awake by sorrow, daughter of the sun.”
But high the King cried back to the bright seer,
“Ominous thy thoughts are, Nârad, to our hearts
Which only ask brief joy for their brief life.
Flame not too high beyond the mortal’s ken.
What soul aspires to grief or uncompelled
Would taste of torture? If from joy to joy
Chanting man climbed, then might we grow to gods.
Too endless is the sad and stern ascent,
Too slippery and precipitous the path.
Rather if the thought silent in the wise
That knows its wisdom vain to help mankind
Close not thy lips, our blinded will succour,
That it may see the pitfall and the escape.
Because to our footsteps light has been denied,
Like children travelling to an unseen goal
In night-hung paths in forest or morass
We fearfully retrace some happy steps,
We call to each other at some doubtful bend
Guarding from winds some flickering torch of hope.
We wander. If the mist could once be rent,—
Chased never by the reason’s pallid light,—
Which from the first was settled round our way,
The dire immortal bows that ring our walk
Stringless would fall and Fate to Will be bound.
O Will is God concealed and Fate his bride.
But now in her immense and passionate mind
Shaping unruled the cycles of the stars,
With thoughts eternal, violent, large of pace,
She takes the little centuries in her stride
And holds him hooded in her mighty hands.
She knows without him all her strength were vain.
Two powers toil and meet in every field,
She clasps him bound lest he desert her arms,
She hides him in her breast to guide the suns.”
But Nârad still with that celestial gaze:
“Why vainly must thou ask for light in front?
Safe doors cry opening, but the doomed pass on.
None can renounce the chain his soul desires
Until a will eternal has been done.
Man by his nature to great grief is drawn;
For a mysterious Power compels his steps
And Life is stronger than the trembling mind.”
With troubled heart King Uswapathy heard;
He reined his rearing thoughts to make reply:
“Still must man seek for light and quest in front,
Chained to his passion on the labouring earth.
Yearning to clasp an enemy of her heart
Is cruellest grief for woman’s subject life,
A bitter think to love! Or two may cling
United yet some natural fault in him
Turn even their close daily tenderness
A cherished suffering and a tortured joy.
Which of these swords shall pierce my child, O sage?”
But Nârad smiling with immortal lips:
“Fear not such coarser trembling shall be struck
From spirits who are harps the gods have made.
Gentle as the soft bud the spring desires,
Pure like a stream that kisses lonely banks,
Like a hill high-gazing where a fruited grove
Has made a murmuring nest for southern winds,
Calm and delightful is young Suthyavân.
The Happy in their sweet ether have not hearts
More wide and blissful than this forest boy’s.
His nature deep and true lives with the god
In common things and that large-eyed communion
Has learned by which man’s veilless mind wakes free,
Griefless, uplifted; its wonderful domains
Grow luminous fields thronged with the tread of gods.
Alas, if death into the elements
From which his gracious envelope was built,
Shatter this vase before it breathe its sweets,
As if earth could not keep a divine thing!
In one brief year when this bright hour flies back
Through Time, the shrouded night surrounds his soul.”

(To be continued)

*

Dear Friends, 

Some time ago Overman Foundation had taken up the distribution of Sadguru Omkar’s book “Confessions, Upadesh and Talks” (ISBN 81-88643-25-4, Price: Rs. 180, pp. 305). Sadguru Omkar (1889—1978)—formerly known as Nilkantha Brahmnachari—was involved in national revolutionary activities from his school days. The group of which he was a part was closely connected with the Jugantar group of Bengal. Because of his revolutionary activities he had to take refuge in the French territory of Pondicherry. When Sri Aurobindo arrived at Pondicherry on 4 April 1910 Sadguru Omkar was among those who went to receive him. He was connected with the Mopla agrarian revolution in Kerala and imprisoned for more than eleven years for his involvement in the Ash murder case. In prison the transformation from a revolutionary to a spiritual Sadhaka took place as vividly described in his notes which he later collected as ‘Confessions on the way towards Peace’. After his release from prison he took the ‘Confessions’ to Sri Aurobindo who wrote a small foreword the next day. He settled down at the lower Nandi Hills in 1930 and built a small Ashram near a Shiva Temple.

For the benefit of the readers of our online forum, we are quoting some thought-provoking excerpts from Sadguru Omkar’s book.

With warm regards,

Anurag Banerjee

Founder,

Overman Foundation.

[1]

“Don’t attempt to reform life, my friend; you shall never succeed. You are a product of life and always influenced by it. Life knows when you soar high, how to bring you down to the normal level. Life always succeeds in reforming the reformers bringing them down to the normal level… understand life in all its grades of Satwa, rajas and tamas and all its aspects, give room to all, and live your own life, full, whole and perfect. Don’t try to become more virtuous than life. Life will take a terrible vengeance and inflict on you a corresponding vice for compensation and balance.

[2]

“Why do you fight shy of Atman? That it may lead you to religion and superstition? No, my friend. When Atman comes, religion goes. When truth comes, falsehood goes. When knowledge comes, superstition goes. Atman is personal experience and knowledge. What can be more truthful than personal experience? Discover Atman, my friend, by Sadhana; know the Atman and realize the Atman. By Sadhana you discovered and developed your mind potential including intellect. By Sadhana you can discover and develop your life potential, power potential, and joy potential. Say, “I am Atman of unlimited potential. I grow unlimited. I achieve unlimited. I enjoy unlimited.” Self-unlimited is Atman. Don’t be a mouse and say, “I am but body and mind tossed about by nature, subject to environment and end by becoming a nothing.” You are a master of nature, husband of the nature in you.”

[3]

“There is not one God, my friend, but many and mainly three. The first God resides in the imagination of men. He is creator, protector and destroyer. He gives his devotees all they want, forgives all sins, if penitent, provides them with heavenly joys after death and consigns their enemies to the blazing fires of hell. He is the most desirable, most agreeable and adaptable of all Gods. He is in demand by large sections of humanity. The second God resides in the reason of men. He may or may not be a person, but He is force, power, law and rhythm of the universe. His contact is neither possible nor necessary. Man has to do with the law and understand and adapt himself to it. The third God resides in the being of man. He is pure being out of which individual being arise, live and merge again. He is pure consciousness out of which individual consciousness arises. He is pure bliss out of which individual bliss arises. He is not personal or individual but cosmic, one without a second. No contact or knowledge of Him is possible. He is realized in the being of individual man as Atman. He is Brahman the whole.”

[4]

“The patriot turns into a politician for power and profit. The beloved leader of the people becomes a tyrant and plays havoc with people’s wealth and lives. The ardent lover becomes husband and master of body and mind of the wife. The wandering Sanyasi becomes Mahant with thrones and chariots and endless jagirs. The period of struggle brings out the best in man. The period of fruition the worst. Perpetual struggle keeps you ever in trim. Struggle for self, my friend, which is endless and ever progressive and the higher you reach the better you become.”

[5]

“Become yourself first the whole of yourself. That is Atma-Vidya; that is Atma-Sadhana; that is Atma-Shakti; that is Atma-Ananda; that is a spiritual person. The spiritual is the only whole, the mental is a part, the physical is a part. Become spiritual first with knowledge of your unlimited potential, in contact with your unlimited potential. How can any person maintain wholeness and fullness without the backing of unlimited potential? That is your Atman. Realize your Atman first and become whole. Then your life will become full, whole and perfect. Then begin your career. Your career will find fulfilment. Then begin your sex-life. Your sex-life will find fulfilment. Then begin your family life, social life, national life. Then you find fulfilment in each. You are part so long as you live in the body and in the mind. You are whole when you reach the Atman. Become whole first my friend. 

[6]

“Effort is the real joy my friend, not realization. Man is a creative and working being in his core and nothing gives him more satisfaction than work and more work and always work. Looked at deeply, there is always an element of disappointment in consummation and seizing of the fruits of work. For, it robs you though for the time being, of the enthusiasm, pride and satisfaction, which work alone can generate in you.

Again the purpose of work does not stop with the enjoyment of its fruits. Enjoyment is not a dead end. All enjoyments and experience have a purpose within, that is, knowledge. The child not only enjoys the toy, but knows all about it and then throws it away demanding a better one. Knowledge is the purpose and result of all experience. Enjoyment is only incidental. Therefore it is said that desire, effort and knowledge—Ichcha, Kriya and Gnana—are the three constituent elements of human personality.”

[7]

“God sends equally noble souls with noble ideals to destroy a Nation as He does to construct one, for destruction is as much a planned and phased programme with GOD as construction.”

[8]

“You are seeing through your eyes. But you are not consciously seeing. Become conscious of your sight, bring your sight into the focus of your consciousness and your eyes sparkle. Bring your chest into the focus of your consciousness and your chest heaves and your heart becomes strong. Bring your belly into the focus of your consciousness and your digestion becomes stronger. Affirm and repeat again and again, countless times, “I am Atman, I am all energy. I am full of energy. I am made of energy. I am nothing but energy. I cannot lack energy.””

[9]

“When you feel frustrated and depressed as it happens to all of us some time or other, what do you do? You sit quiet and endure it till the mood passes and a brighter mood appears and you argue and argue within yourself as to the cause and remedy for the event which brought in the depression. Not so, the Atma-Vetta. When he feels the depression is likely to come upon him, he seeks a quiet place or room and sits comfortably in his usual Asana posture, does some breathing and then repeats: “I am Atman. I am all power. I am all success. I am all joy.” A practised Sadhaka gets over the mood very quickly and regains his brightness and cheer. And a perfected Sadhaka never gets depressed.”

[10]

“By the time you have learnt all the lessons of a virtuous and happy life you become old and will have to quit. By the time you master all the lessons of the fifth class your term comes to an end. You quit and go to the 6th. Life is a school where you are not allowed to stay after learning.”

[11]

“Why do you introduce problems where no problems are felt? To the young man who just begins to enjoy life, you may go and say that life is all sorrow; seek your remedy in Mukti. Allow him to carry on and discover the sorrow part of life himself and seek his own remedy in due course of his ripeness and maturity. Dharma, Artha, Kama and then Moksha is the correct order.”

[12]

“Troubles and sorrows. They keep you from falling; they keep you from being blown away. Troubles and sorrows are counter weights in life to keep balance.

Troubles and sorrows are like soap and water, without which you don’t keep pure and fresh. The baby dislikes soap and water-bath, resists and kicks. And so you do with troubles and sorrows.

Troubles and sorrows are a tonic. They provoke thought, provoke action and promote further growth. The will of destiny is not that we should be free from troubles and sorrows, but be clean, fresh, active and ever growing.”

[13]

“You are going to solve all problems of yours. Good. But do you realise that you are yourself a grand problem. You came as a problem, you grow as a problem, you proceed as a problem and you end as a problem. Your whole life is nothing but a series of problems. Existence is an ocean of problems on which you float for a while and you hug your two and a half problems and think of solving them once for all.

Problems are not such tame things for you to handle quietly in your laboratory. They are live forces and mightily complicated. Each is connected with many and the many are but parts and patterns of the whole and the whole is one mighty problem appearing, proceeding and solving itself. When you thus perceive the whole in the part and the part in the whole, then may you exclaim, “it is a grand leela, Brahman and Maya disport themselves eternally. Shiva and Shakti woo and unite and separate themselves eternally.” Then you may enter into the spirit of the game and lose your lonesome burden. Then may you say as I do, “I have no problems to solve.””

[14]

“Your faith does not depend on temples. Temples depend on your faith. You can make and unmake temples.”

[15]

“You think you are unlucky. You think again and again about your ill-luck, you fill your mind with ill-luck, your talks are always about ill-luck and you have smeared your looks deep with the colour of ill-luck. Where is the good luck going to come from? Good luck does not come near an unlucky face and front.

Forget your present ill-luck my friend and think and dwell more and more on the good luck you want and create and store a mass of good luck in your thought, word and looks and you see that good luck is at your command and service.”

[16]

“Pain and pleasure are not the criterion for good and bad in life. What is pain may be good and pleasure bad. Till you accept that pain is not an intruder but as necessary and legitimate a part of life as pleasure, your philosophy is not complete. Night and darkness are as much necessary and legitimate part of life as day and light. The world is well built, well balanced and well run my friend. Accept it as it is, as it was and as it is moving. Then you are in tune and happy, never otherwise.”

*

Dear Friends,

Sri Aurobindo had started working on the earliest draft of Savitri in August 1916. Nirodbaran, who has portrayed how Savitri reached its final form in his Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo, writes about this draft:

“The draft exists in two sections. The first comprising Book I and a few pages of Book II… Book I is complete, Book II unfinished. The spelling of the three chief characters is: Savithri, Uswapathy, Suthyavan. In the first Book, after a short description of Night and Dawn, there is a very brief account of the Yoga done by Uswapathy, then Savithri is born, grows up and goes out, at Uswapathy’s prompting, to find her mate. She finds Suthyavan. In the meantime Narad comes down to earth and visits Uswapathy’s palace. There is a talk between the two; Savithri returns from her quest and discovery, and a talk takes place among the three.” (pp. 173-174, 1995 edition)

We are happy to announce that Overman Foundation has received permission from Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust to publish the earliest draft of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri in its online forum. We are extremely grateful to Shri Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, for giving us the said permission.

The first installment of the earliest draft of Savitri was published in the online forum of Overman Foundation on 4 April 2013. The second installment is published here.

With warm regards,

Anurag Banerjee

Founder,

Overman Foundation.

*

SÂVITHRÎ

BOOK I

(Continued)

But on a morn when summer still was young

And the last cuckoo cried among the leaves,

While Uswapathy listened to the morn,

Out of the shadows of the white alcoves

Came Sâvithrî to his side burning in silence

Like a young torch of incense and of flames.

She bore her body like the sob of bliss

Of earth’s mute adoration towards heaven

Awakened in beauty’s living form. He saw,

Pensive, her sweetness woven of golden fire,

Carved like a nectar-cup for thirsty gods.

Then took the father on his knees the child;

Lifting her face he gazed down questioning

Into the wonder of her long veiled eyes,

Deep pools of thought and love as yet unstirred,

That marvelled still at life and saw things far.

There conscious of pure brooding depths he spoke,—

Those sister queens so willed who passionate watched

Their nursling with a tremulous delight,

Enamoured of her firm tender ways and words,

Her laughter, music of tranquility,

Her lustrous eyes waking in sweet large night,

Her limbs that were linked poems made of gold

And her slim moonbeam feet. “O child,” he said,

“Though sixteen years have ripened in thy brow

Thy life dreams still, shut in its own pure bud

Unburst by winds and ardent light. Fragrant

Thou bloomest like a lone forgotten flower

No hand has plucked to lay before the god.

The heavens perhaps guard thee for some great soul

Or too proud-missioned from a divine dawn

Thy light repels the common sons of men.

Go forth and bear the torch of a sweet quest,

Thy heart. For somewhere surely arrived on earth

Waiting unknown thy perfect comrade lives

Kept for thee by the recompensing gods.

Bird of the spaces, soul, I set thee free;

Venture into the world and find thy mate

Winging across far lands.” She went, obeying,

Like one who understands a form of words,

But waits to see their secret meaning dawn.

Her chariot rolled not among cities thronged,

Nor sought the clamorous markets of the land,

Nor sojourned in the palaces of kings;

But through green musing woods, past rough-browed hills,

Over wind-trod pastures and in happy groves

Glided its course like a swift lonely hope

Aware of a sweet mystery withheld

Among its dreams. Still were there remnants left

Of old primaeval spaces where one heard

The sweet and dumbly murmuring voice of earth

In the great passion of her sun-kissed trance

And quieted the all-seeking mind could feel

The unwearied clasp of her mute, patient love

And know for a soul the mother of our forms.

Vague-hearted, listening to a murmur long,

Rhythm of an immenser wordless thought

That gathers in the silence behind life

Like one who waits some sudden revealing stroke,

Through such bright scenes, her kindred spaces, led

By the veiled guardians of her deathless past,

She saw her road in her instinctive mind.

There the king-sages from their labour done

Lived happily with birds and beasts and dawn

And evening, watched with the bright constant stars,

Seeking the soul of things with boundless love,

Or sojourned inly with a voice profound

And a surprising light. Some sat aloof,

Pale hermits with the tiger-skin for robe.

Others with wives and children who grew built

Among these silent mighty influences

Into the towers of manhood they must be,

Unripe for burdens yet and wars, lived sparely

On the raw forest-fruits, kindled the flame

And chanted morn and eve the mystic’s hymn.

They dwelt like spirits from Time’s dull yoke released,

Once more as infants pure, their radiant thoughts

Expecting silence. Mid these haunts of peace

Welcomed by the great mild ascetics, sweetly

Cherished by the calm bright-eyed women pure,

Resting on plains or among mountains large

Through hushed tranquility of forest nights

And when the first cried of the woodland woke,

Watching high dawn break through the giant hills,

Swift-wheeled she journeyed; so far-roaming came

By river-banks and spaces lapped in gold

Into the country of the Shalwa kings

And on its borders solitary and grand

Saw woodland verges trodden by wild deer

And wandered over by the peacock herds.

Cool-perfumed and with pleasure-burdened feet

The morning breezes faltered among flowers;

Light flooded heaven’s regions, all the land

Life flooded. On green earth, in sapphire skies

The free hare bounded and the shrill kite wheeled;

Doves cooed untiring in the easeful shade,

The snow-white cranes toiled clanging through the air

And flame-winged wild-drakes swam in silvery pools.

Her chariot journeyed echoing through a wide

Uncultured earth strewn with deep glades divine

That screened their sheltered murmurs from the sun.

Primaeval peace was there and in its bosom

Held undisturbed wild life of birds and beasts:

Man the artificer had not arrived,

Nor formal labour claimed for dull great cares

Fields tenanted by sunlight and the rain

And pastures of the free life of the earth.

(To be continued)