Skip to main content

Savitri Book 1: Canto Two, Solitude and Environment

 Page 13, Savitri (A Legend, Symbol, the Mantric Epic of Sri Aurobindo): 


Around her were the austere sky-pointing hills,

And the green murmurous broad deep-thoughted woods

Muttered incessantly their muffled spell.

A dense magnificent coloured self-wrapped life

Draped in the leaves’ vivid emerald monotone

And set with chequered sunbeams and blithe flowers

Immured her destiny’s secluded scene.


There had she grown to the stature of her spirit:

The genius of titanic silences

Steeping her soul in its wide loneliness

Had shown to her her self’s bare reality

And mated her with her environment.



Sri Aurobindo conjures up such beautiful image of forests surrounding the hermitage where Savitri dwelled in her solitude reminding us of those secluded meadows in the Himalayan foothills. He says: Surrounding her were huge rigid and rocky hills pointing skywards. In the valleys are these soft, green, extensive woods which seem to be in deep contemplative thoughts casting their soothing magical charm. A self-absorbed, unaware of the outer world and vividly coloured life of Savitri was decorated by a rare leaf-green monotone and set with contrasting bright and dark sunbeams and carefree sunny flowers. Such a marvellous scene surrounded her momentous destiny.


It was here in seclusion that Savitri grew to the full maturity and mighty heights of her spirit. The spiritual genius of enormous silence steeped her soul in its wide solitude. Savitri has soaked up that still vastness of austere hills. It has revealed to her that essential reality of her true self behind those superficial appearances. Becoming one with her environment She has grown to full stature of her spirit.    


Djwal Khul also points out same path of solitude (or isolated unity) for the disciples to grow in the stature of their Spirit:


"One of the primary conditions that a disciple has to cultivate, in order to sense the plan and be used by the Master, is solitude. In solitude the rose of the soul flourishes; in solitude the divine self can speak; in solitude the faculties and the graces of the higher self can take root and blossom in the personality. In solitude also the Master can approach and impress upon the quiescent soul the knowledge that He seeks to impart, the lesson that must be learnt, the method and plan for work that the disciple must grasp. In solitude the sound is heard." - A treatise on white magic.


"Themes For Meditation. One for each month, to be reviewed year by year -

1. The nature of solitude.

2. The difference between solitude, loneliness, separateness and isolation. I would refer you to

Patanjali (The Light of the Soul, who speaks of "isolated unity.")

3. Solitude and the daily life.

4. Solitude and the soul.

5. Solitude as a quality of the interior life of an Ashram.

6. The solitude of spiritual perception.

7. The solitude necessitated by the service of the Plan.

8. Solitude as the background of a radiant life.

9. Solitude and contact with the Master.

10. The rewards of solitude.

11. The voices heard in the silence of solitude.

12. The silence of the Spheres.


In this solitude there is no morbidness, there is no harsh withdrawing, and there is no aspect of separateness. There is only the 'place where the disciple stands, detached and unafraid, and in that place of utter quiet the Master comes and solitude is not.'"- Discipleship in New Age volume 2.


Image: A hermitage in the Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows in the Barun Valley of Nepal




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Yoga of Synthesis Diary Leaves 4

 Album The Yoga of Synthesis  Dated 22 January 2025 The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali give us four stages of meditation and when applied on symbols we find: 1. First, as the form is pondered upon, the realisation begins to dawn that it is but a symbol of an inner reality. 2. Second, there is a recognition of the quality or nature of the form—its subjective energy, the quality of the force that seems to flow through it, the emotion that the symbol arouses. 3. Third, as we concentrate on considering the quality, we arrive next at the purpose, the motive, and the idea that the symbol has held concealed. 4. Fourth, in the final stage of identification, one becomes at one with the symbol; one shares its quality; one participates in its purpose, and through these stages one arrives at a unity with the creator of the form. When applied to the four symbols (of Helena Blavatsky, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Alice Bailey, and the category-theoretic model of Cause-Meaning/Quality-Effect), we...
Post a Comment
Read more

A synthesis of Savitri and Theosophy - Painting No 15

 Today we continue to contemplate on the remaining lines from Page 5 of the Symbol Dawn of Savitri.  "Here too the vision and prophetic gleam Lit into miracles common meaningless shapes; Then the divine afflatus, spent, withdrew, Unwanted, fading from the mortal’s range. A sacred yearning lingered in its trace, The worship of a Presence and a Power Too perfect to be held by death-bound hearts, The prescience of a marvellous birth to come." 'Here' stands for our ordinary human world where the vision and prophetic brief light of Goddess lit the ordinary shapes miraculously into divine meaning for few moments. But then the divine creative impulse or inspiration was spent and feeling unwanted withdrew and faded from the range of mortal men. Once gone it left behind a sacred yearning in the hearts of those later realized what had happened. The presence and Power of Divine Goddess was too perfect to be worshipped to be held steady by death-bound hearts of ordinary mortals. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Seeds of synthesis

Some of the seeds of synthesis I have discovered (experiments are ongoing to give fair consideration and enlighten ourselves) so far between sciences, religions, philosophies are listed below for the lovers of truth and wisdom - Synthesis of mathematics - Category theory (Grothendieck, Saunders Maclane) Synthesis of religions - Theosophy (Helena Blavatsky) (A mathematical expression of the law of Karma or cause and effect is in my thesis) Synthesis of philosophies and Human Knowledge itself - A treatise on seven rays (24 Books of Djwal Khul and Alice Bailey) Synthesis of pyschology - Psychosynthesis (Roberto Assagioli), Humanistic astrology and soul-centred psychology (Dane Rudhyar, Alan Oken) Synthesis of ancient systems of Yoga - Synthesis of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo),Auroville (Experiment of synthesising city), Agni Yoga (Nicholas and Helena Roerich) Synthesis of agriculture - Permaculture (Masanobu Fukuoka) Synthesis of signal representation - Functorial Signal Representation Synthesi...
Post a Comment
Read more