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.
[Narad had made the prophecy of
Satyavan’s death after one year after the marriage with Savitri. The year is
now coming to a quick close and Savitri, after considering all the prospects,
has kind of resigned herself to the impending doom. Her “grief’s self” has
become calm and she is ready to accept whatever be the verdict of the fiery
struggle and the issue that is connected with it. But a Voice commands to her
to find her soul and get up to conquer the adversary Death. She is reminded
about the purpose of her birth and, to accomplish it, she must first establish
the divine Force in it. Savitri accepts the command and her Yoga of the
Conquest of Death begins. At first she witnesses the cosmic Past, all the
karmic load that is weighing on the soul of man. This must be dissolved. She
sees how in the indeterminate formlessness of Self creation took its first
mysterious steps, how Matter learned to think. A consciousness looked out at
the inconscient Vast, and pleasure and pain stirred the insensible Void. Out of
the subconscient life arose surface consciousness. Soon came Mind with a
thousand queries and got busy with the commerce of the world. But there is a
whole mysterious world which remains locked within. Also Man’s lower nature
hides awful guests, and these must be dislodged. Not only that. Death and his
hunters stalk a victim earth, and the terrible Angel smites at every door.
Ghastlier than all this is the almighty Evil, and he has straddled the straight
path of Nature. But Savitri also gets an assurance that there is a guardian
power, there are Hands that save. Behind this calamitous present is the look
and concern of the divine Calm. Savitri knows that all this is only Matter's
first self-view, a scale and series in the Ignorance, that this is not all we
are or our entire world. There are domains beyond it and there are prospects
also for this world of ours to grow and expand. The cosmic Past, passing through
the Present has to give way to the cosmic Future, the evolutionary future in
terms of the higher manifestation with its own ascending grades of
possibilities. That is also the evolution of the incarnate Savitri, the divine
Power in the earth-consciousness. But in the present state of hers, what will
exactly be the nature of the outcome, that she does not know, cannot know. It
could be this humanity moulding into God’s own shape, or it could be the
discovery of a new felicitous world, or else it could be the creation of a
world of beatitude. In any case, earth must transform herself and equal heaven
or else heaven descend into earth’s mortal state and work out things in it.
This vast spiritual change is already built into the scheme of things and it is
the process of Time that must see it done. What is it that we can do to
participate in it, participate in a meaningful way? We must first discover our
soul and make it an agent for this transformative action. But let us read the
passage from Savitri.]
Our greater self of knowledge waits
for us,
A supreme light in the
truth-conscious Vast:
It sees from summits beyond
thinking mind,
It moves in a splendid air
transcending life.
It shall descend and make earth's
life divine.
Truth made the world, not a blind
Nature-Force.
For here are not our large diviner
heights;
Our summits in the superconscient's
blaze
Are glorious with the very face of
God:
There is our aspect of eternity,
There is the figure of the god we
are,
His young unaging look on deathless
things,
His joy in our escape from death
and Time,
His immortality and light and
bliss.
Our larger being sits behind
cryptic walls:
There are greatnesses hidden in our
unseen parts
That wait their hour to step into
life's front:
We feel an aid from deep indwelling
Gods:
One speaks within, Light comes to
us from above.
Our soul from its mysterious
chamber acts;
Its influence pressing on our heart
and mind
Pushes them to exceed their mortal
selves.
It seeks for Good and Beauty and
for God;
We see beyond self's walls our
limitless self,
We gaze through our world's glass
at half-seen vasts,
We hunt for the Truth behind
apparent things.
Our inner Mind dwells in a larger
light,
Its brightness looks at us through
hidden doors;
Our members luminous grow and
Wisdom's face
Appears in the doorway of the
mystic ward:
When she enters into our house of
outward sense,
Then we look up and see, above, her
sun.
A mighty life-self with its inner
powers
Supports the dwarfish modicum we
call life;
It can graft upon our crawl two
puissant wings.
Our body's subtle self is throned
within
In its viewless palace of veridical
dreams
That are bright shadows of the
thoughts of God.
In the prone obscure beginnings of
the race
The human grew in the bowed apelike
man.
He stood erect, a godlike form and
force,
And a soul's thoughts looked out
from earthborn eyes;
Man stood erect, he wore the
thinker's brow:
He looked at heaven and saw his
comrade stars;
A vision came of beauty and greater
birth
Slowly emerging from the heart's
chapel of light
And moved in a white lucent air of
dreams.
He saw his being's unrealised
vastnesses,
He aspired and housed the nascent
demi-god.
Out of the dim recesses of the self
The occult seeker into the open
came:
He heard the far and touched the
intangible,
He gazed into the future and the
unseen;
He used the powers
earth-instruments cannot use,
A pastime made of the impossible;
He caught up fragments of the
Omniscient's thought,
He scattered formulas of
omnipotence.
Thus man in his little house made
of earth's dust
Grew towards an unseen heaven of
thought and dream
Looking into the vast vistas of his
mind
On a small globe dotting infinity.
At last climbing a long and narrow
stair
He stood alone on a high roof of
things
And saw the light of a spiritual
sun.
Aspiring he transcends his earthly
self;
He stands in the largeness of his
soul new-born
Redeemed from encirclement by
mortal things
And moves in a pure free spiritual
realm
As in the rare breath of a
stratosphere.
A lost end of far lines of
divinity,
He mounts by a frail thread to his
high source;
He reaches his fount of
immortality,
He calls the Godhead into his
mortal life.
All this the spirit concealed had
done in her:
A portion of the mighty Mother came
Into her as into its own human
part:
Amid the cosmic workings of the
Gods
It marked her the centre of a
wide-drawn scheme,
Dreamed in the passion of her
far-seeing spirit
To mould humanity into God's own
shape
And lead this great blind
struggling world to light
Or a new world discover or create.
Earth must transform herself and
equal Heaven
Or Heaven descend into earth's
mortal state.
But for such vast spiritual change
to be,
Out of the mystic cavern in man's
heart
The heavenly Psyche must put off
her veil
And step into common nature's
crowded rooms
And stand uncovered in that
nature's front
And rule its thoughts and fill the
body and life.
Obedient to a high command she sat:
Time, life and death were passing
incidents
Obstructing with their transient
view her sight,
Her sight that must break through
and liberate the god
Imprisoned in the visionless mortal
man.
The inferior nature born into
ignorance
Still took too large a place, it
veiled her self
And must be pushed aside to find
her soul.
(Savitri, pp. 484-87)