Narad’s Arrival at Madra by RY Deshpande is a book based on the opening passage of 81 lines of the Book of Fate of Savitri. It has, inter alia, aspects of this evolutionary creation of ours advancing towards what Sri Aurobindo envisaged as the supramental manifestation in plenitudes of the transcendental reality. Chapters XII-XVI of the book see the related issues from various angles. These are as follows:

·          The Story of Creation

·          Evolution—Scientific and Occult-Yogic Aspects

·          Evolution—A Metaphysical Discussion

·          Evolution—The Spiritual-Gnostic Possibilities

·          Towards the Intermediate Race—the Supramental Change is a Thing Decreed

The expectation is that these themes will be of considerable interest to the readers of the Mirror of Tomorrow and therefore it is thought quite pertinent to post them on it. The book was published in April 2006 under the auspices of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and it is heartening to see that it has been received enthusiastically in the Aurobindonian circles. It is now hoped that it will, through the Internet, become accessible to a much wider readership which can see the process and objective of the terrestrial evolution in terms of spiritual verities. Such an interest in it could be particularly rewarding because of the deep and fundamental positions that are available to the discernible and the perceptive; these will make them aware of the thousandfold possibilities of the spirit entering into this creation, the growing possibilities that can, in fact which must come into the operative dynamics of the earthly scheme. Going beyond the immediate intellectual-intuitive grasp of the issues involved in it are the profounder things of the occult-yogic kind and to be aware of them and to participate in them as far as possible to us is to prepare ourselves in the greatness of what they hold for us. It is with this view in mind that I am posting these five chapters as a set of articles one after another.

As an extension of the discussion we had in Narad’s Arrival at Madra, we shall now look into the passages dealing with the theme of Evolution in Savitri. These appear in the epic at different places in different contexts, which to a reader in hurry may give the impression that the author is constantly repeating himself. But this is true in the least. On the other hand, each time Sri Aurobindo is writing about this theme, he is actually bringing out the varied, the newer shades and nuances that are present in it, they indicating the richness of the subject matter that is of good concern to us in diverse respects. This kind of presentation by the author has the advantage of wide globality which cannot be otherwise embraced or conveyed by the standard inflexible professional or constrained metaphysico-philosophical mode of discussion. It also illustrates the expositive art of Sri Aurobindo, he as a master-essayist in poetry and yet supremely truthful to the intuitive-revelatory sublimity of knowledge that is behind it in both occult and spiritual details and dimensions. It must be well appreciated that Sri Aurobindo is not writing a PhD thesis on Evolution but is describing a Mystery’s Process being worked out in the mode and logic of the Consciousness-Force operating infallibly in her own way. The infallibility of the process not from a mental but spiritual point of view has built into it the divine manifestation in an evolutionary scheme and purpose. A stage has now arrived when the transition between the mental being and the superman is a distinct prospect, a realizable eventuality. But this is a prospect, a vision of the not-too-distant a future that has emerged principally because of the unceasing yoga-tapasya done by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, long and arduous yoga-tapasya done by them in the unyielding depth of the earth-consciousness. Savitri gives hints of that secret work that has gone in its realization.

[Here is set into motion the process of creation through the agency of the Absolute’s Force, the primordial transcendental Shakti, she being commanded by that Absolute himself, the Non-Manifest, the Avyakta, the Positive Nothing. To begin with, he can thus be called the Alone, the Single, he being without any manifestation, not even the Sachchidanandaic manifestation being there, he holding within himself all the seed potentialities, the luminous and vigorous possibilities. If these have to emerge, have to become manifest, come into world-wide play, then his own creative dynamism, his determined and untiring Force, must swing into operation. So the next step for the non-manifest Absolute is to enter into space through her. With his will-to-be, to be many, with his deep samkalpa of becoming multifold, bahusyām prajāyeyeti, he starts living in these million all. It is now entirely the working of the divine Consciousness-Force herself, it is now her sport, Chid-vilas, he yet remaining perfect and immune from all that has arisen, untouched by it. But with what intention or rationale is this whole undertaking being effected? It is with a solitary purpose of becoming many, to be in his divine measure everywhere, in every bit and moment. He thus kind of forsakes his own divinity, his lone majesty and grandeur, forsakes to claim it back multiply, in countless ways. In it there is a definite plan to lift the finite to the infinite, as much as make possible that infinite to dwell in the acceptable finite. That’s the debt which mutually binds man and the Supreme, engages them with each other for a fruitful gain. Yes, we are the sons of God and must be even as he is; we must grow divine in divine qualities, in their richness and in their multiple abundance. Grow divine—but how? This may rather look paradoxical, but then our life is a wonderful paradox with God himself for the golden key.]

The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone

Has called out of the Silence his mute Force

Where she lay in the featureless and formless hush

Guarding from Time by her immobile sleep

The ineffable puissance of his solitude.

The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone

Has entered with his silence into space:

He has fashioned these countless persons of one self;

He has built a million figures of his power;

He lives in all, who lived in his Vast alone;

Space is himself and Time is only he.

The Absolute, the Perfect, the Immune,

One who is in us as our secret self,

Our mask of imperfection has assumed,

He has made this tenement of flesh his own,

His image in the human measure cast

That to his divine measure we might rise;

Then in a figure of divinity

The Maker shall recast us and impose

A plan of godhead on the mortal's mould

Lifting our finite minds to his infinite,

Touching the moment with eternity.

This transfiguration is earth's due to heaven:

A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme:

His nature we must put on as he put ours;

We are sons of God and must be even as he:

His human portion, we must grow divine.

Our life is a paradox with God for key.

[2] Savitri, p. 67