Yoga in Savitri
Yoga in Savitri
In the book Yoga in Savitri M.P. Pandit provides an overview of the yoga of Sri Aurobindo as explained and set forth in Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol. There is the yoga of Ashwapathi that calls down the response of the Divine Shakti, and there is the separate yoga of Savitri, as she prepares for her confrontation with and defeat of Death.
Book Details
Author: M.P. Pandit
Print Length: 172 pages
Publisher: Lotus Press
Sold by: Amazon.com
Book format: Kindle
Language: English
Price: $3.75
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Sample
I. The Call
Call
Heaven’s call is rare, rarer the heart that heeds;
(XI. 1, p.689)
Of the countless creatures on earth that are evolving in their consciousness, only some have reached a stage where they are ready for a transition from their human status into the divine. The perceiving Intelligence of the Divine in manifestation spots them out and a call goes forth to them to turn Godward. This call may take any form — from within, from without — through whatever instrumentation is at hand. But not all who are thus called, hear it in the midst of their life-turmoil; and even of those who hear, not all pay heed. Many are still enamoured of their chains, still attracted to the interests of the lower life; very few respond to the call and change the direction of their life.
Eternity Speaks
Eternity speaks, none understands its word;
(IV.3, p.371)
Men are so much engrossed in the crowded life of the senses that they are hardly aware of themselves as apart from the movements in which they are carried helter and skelter. Even the few who have become conscious of their mental selves and stand or try to stand aloof from external life-movements, are lost in the noise of their own thought- activity and emotional turmoils. They are not aware of their soul nor of the intimations that come from it. The soul, delegate of the Eternal in the evolution that is in progress in time and space, speaks in its own language — a language of certainty, real vision, truth, but the surface person is hardly ever attentive to it. And even when the word manages to catch the inner ear, the necessary understanding to comprehend it is not there. It is usually interpreted or misinterpreted in the inferior terms of the working mind. The message is lost.
Chosen
One among many thousands never touched,
Engrossed in the external world’s design,
Is chosen by a secret witness Eye
And driven by a pointing hand of Light
(I.5, p.80)
There is an overseeing Eye that ever regards this scene of evolution, the innumerable movements and forms that take shape and pass out of the field. It watches to see which soul among the millions that are striving to grow and develop is ripening, ready for the leap from the human to the divine stage. It chooses him and takes direct charge of his evolution. Whether he is aware of it or not, from the moment of this choice by the Divine, his life is guided and goaded towards one direction — the Divine. Slowly, through all circumstances and vicissitudes of life he is led by the guiding Hand to choose the Divine as his objective.
He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite. (Sri Aurobindo)
Why?
Remember why thou cam’st:
Find out thy soul, recover thy hid self,
In silence seek God’s meaning in thy depths,
(VII.2, p.476)
Life is not an empty dream, a senseless movement. There is a purpose, a goal towards which our journey points. Man as an awakened being, a thinking creature, owes it to himself to know why he is here. He is not merely a body, not even a living body. He is a being that lives in the physical body, that thinks with an embodied mind. He is a soul, an undying self that stands concealed behind the veils of nature. Man must withdraw his gaze from outside and direct it inwards to find his soul; he must shut his hearing to the noises of the world and in silence listen to the intimations that come from within in order to know the meaning and purpose of his existence on earth, to realise the mission entrusted by God to his soul.