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Savitri (A Legend, Symbol, the Mantric Epic of Sri Aurobindo), Lines 280 to 285

 Page 8, Savitri (A Legend, Symbol, the Mantric Epic of Sri Aurobindo), Lines 280 to 285:


Apart, living within, all lives she bore;

Aloof, she carried in herself the world:

Her dread was one with the great cosmic dread,

Her strength was founded on the cosmic mights;

The universal Mother’s love was hers.

Against the evil at life’s afflicted roots,

Her own calamity its private sign,

Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword.



Sri Aurobindo says: Although alone by herself, Savitri is experiencing the collective consciousness of all other lives. Even if withdrawn, she is enduring the fear and grief of an entire ignorant world. She shares the worry, concern and suffering of the Whole world. Yet she also has a universal power and immortal strength. Above all, she is carrying the energy of Divine Mother's universal love to assist her. 


Sri Aurobindo beautifully portrays creation as 'The great tree of life' which is being eaten away at its root by the worms of evil. The tree is slowly turning brown and drying. At the very roots of life in a material universe, the evil of materialism is bringing a slow death of of Satyavan (the soul descended into the grip of death and ignorance). It is the sign of Savitri's own personal crisis to overcome all by herself causing her sharp and shooting pain. It is like a sharp blade of sword piercing her emotionally. Savitri makes a weapon out of it which she will use to strike at the evil eating away those roots of the tree of life. Huta paints Savitri holding the poignant sword of her calamity.


Sri Aurobindo being a mystic (ray 2,4,6 line) indicates the ultimate goal of Savitri being a divine life for Satyavan. Whereas Blavatsky being an occultist writes that the Sword (of secret wisdom) when used to cut the tree of life itself (the trunk and upward) leads to final emancipation as follows:  


"Truly, then, one should study Occult philosophy before one begins to verify and seek the mysteries of nature on its surface alone, as he alone ʺwho knows the truth about the qualities of nature, who understands the creation of all entities . . . is emancipatedʺ from error. Says the ʺpreceptorʺ: ʺAccurately understanding the great tree of which the unperceived (Occult nature, the root of all) is the sprout from the seed (Parabrahman) which consists of the understanding (Mahat, or the universal intelligent Soul) as its trunk, the branches of which are the great egoism (Ahamkara, that Egoship or Ahamship which leads to every error), in the holes of which are the sprouts, namely, the senses, of which the great (Occult, or invisible) elements are the flower‐bunches,(The elements are the five tanmâtras of earth, water, fire, air and ether,the producers of the grosser elements.) the gross elements (the gross objective matter), the smaller boughs, which are always possessed of leaves, always possessed of flowers . . . . which is eternal and the seed of which is the Brahman (the deity); and cutting it with that excellent sword - knowledge (secret wisdom) - one attains immortality and casts off birth and death.ʺ This is the Tree of Life, the Asvattha tree, only after the cutting of which the slave of life and death, MAN, can be emancipated." - The Secret Doctrine Volume 1. 


A concrete mind with its fire of fragmentation will jump to conclude that Sri Aurobindo and Blavatsky gave different and confusing teachings. Yet for the one whose intuition (the faculty of synthesis, unity, harmony, fusion) is truly awakening a hint lies in the fact after higher initiations, seven distinct cosmic paths open for the initiate as taught by Djwal Khul. 

    


Image: A poignant sword symbolizing a sharp weapon of Savitri's pain. A Symbol Dawn at the Banyan tree, Matrimandir Auroville : the evil struck by Savitri at its root: a healthy growing tree of life free from the evil of soulless materialism.




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