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That Night, which is a symbol of ”a relapse into Inconscience”,
Seen from the angle of Night as the aeonic night or as the diurnal one, what is obvious is that there is a ’fundamental fall’ which
constitutes the God-oblivious state on a cosmic scale, as well as on the level of the earth-consciousness. The opening scene of Savitri is in fact a clear and graphic depiction of this fundamental relapse, this fall both on the general and particular levels, the primal Night and the night preceding the day Satyavan must die.
As it happens every night, earth is ‘thrown back once more’ into the night when like ’a shadow, it spins through a soulless Void’, ’abandoned in the
hollow gulfs’ and even ’forgetful of her fate’. What is important to see is if this ’soulless Void’ is the original Inconscience or not and if so, how could earth be ’thrown back once more’ into it?
Obviously, the soulless void is the Inconscient which is very close to the ’mute featureless semblance of the Unknown’ but without the
divine consciousness. Can we say that earth and cosmos are ’thrown back’ into such a kind of void and that from that Void of Inconscience there is an emergence of the cosmos into Light! Can we say that there is ”an
aeonic vision, directly expressed, of destruction and creation on a cosmic scale’ in the opening account of Savitri?
Amal Kiran is of the view that this kind of a relapse into Inconscience is not a cyclic evolution on a cosmic scale but that it is only on a
temporal and earthly level. He argues: ”When Sri Aurobindo says that ’from a dark immense Inconscient this material world arises and out of it a soul that by evolution is struggling into consciousness’, he conceives
the process to he not repetitive at all but absolutely unique. For, considering the Why of it, he observes: ’To the human mind one might answer that while in itself the infinite might be free from those
perturbations ... yet once manifestation began infinite possibility also began and among the infinite possibilities which it is the function of the universal manifestation to work out, the negation, the apparent
effective negation – with all its consequences – of the Power, Light, Peace, Bliss was very evidently one.’ ... Sri Aurobindo unequivocally affirms that to work out a Divine Emergence from the very opposite of the
Divine was just ’one’ possibility out of an infinite number. The remaining possibilities were all different from this. There can be no question of a cyclic evolution on a cosmic scale from a stark Inconscience in a
struggling pain-fraught gradual manner through the ages. Savitri’s opening account, if it directly expressed an aeonic vision of this sort of universal destruction and creation, would he absolutely non-Aurobindonian.” (Sri Aurobindo – The Poet, P. 181-82).
Thus, the focus is on the particular night, the particular day, the earth-consciousness though this ’particularity’ is in itself like the Vedic dawn,
Usha, who in "her scope harmonises the dawns that shone out before and those that now must shine. She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her illumination she enters into
communion with the rest that are to come.”
From the fall into ’The abysm of the unbodied Infinite’, earth has to slowly regain her ’God-memory’ of which she has been forgetful’ ”ultimately
leading to a god-realisation in terms of an embodied existence within the very cosmos where the emergence, the evolution, takes place.” (Ibid., p. 183) Sri Aurobindo is interested in earth’s fate, her evolutionary
march from the Inconscience, ’the formless stupor without mind or life; to the Superconscient on the earth in the name and form of supramental light and consciousness which shall transfigure not only Mind and
Life-force but matter itself. And, Savitri is destined to bring back Satyavan from the clutch of Death, the living symbol of Inconscience, and give to earth the immortality of the Superconscient light of that great
prophecy, the very beginning of its realisation, begins on that very day when Satyavan must die.
It is the beginning of the fulfilment of Sri Aurobindo’s prophecy for the earth that is being described in the second part of the opening
lines of Savitri starting with the lines:
Then something in the inscrutable darkness stirred,
A nameless movement, an unthought Idea
Insistent, dissatisfied, without an aim,
Something that wished but knew not how to be,
Teased the Inconscient to wake ignorance.
and ending with the lines:
And, leader here with his uncertain mind,
Alone who stares at the future's covered face,
Man lifted up the burden of his fate.
This beginning of the fulfilment is symbolised in Dawn and its several phases or transitions or steps of self-revelation. ”There is first a
black quietude,” writes Sri Aurobindo,” then the persistent touch, then the first ’beauty and wonder’ leading to the magical gate and the ’lucent corner.’ Then comes the failing of the darkness, the simile used (a
failing cloak) suggesting the rapidity of the change. Then as a result the change of what was once a rift into a wide luminous gap... Then all changes into a ’brief perpetual sign’, the iridescence, then the blaze
and the magnificent aura.” (Savitri, 1954, p. 82-89)
The first 29 lines of the canto describe the ’black quietude’ that Sri Aurobindo refers to in his letter. The different epithets like ’mind
of Night’, ’unlit temple’, ’eyeless muse’ ’fathomless zero’, ’the last Nothingness’, ’the tenebrous womb’, ’Vacant Nought’, ’featureless semblance of the Unknown’, ’the cosmic drowse’, ’trance of space’, – all
intensify the image of ’black quietude’ or the ’Inconscience’.
This black quietude is broken in stages, as it were. There is first the inscrutable stirring:
This stirring or ’a quivering trace’ was caused by ’A nameless movement, an unthought Idea’ which "Teased the Inconscient to wake
Ignorance’, Here, we need to note the sensitive use of the word ’teased’. When we get caught up with an idea – which is not very clear, still vague, ambiguous, without a proper distinctiveness, – we are
awake, alert trying to focus on the full content and meaning of the idea. Similarly, the cosmic drowse of the Inconscient is just quickened, made a little alert by the insisting ’unthought Idea’. With this very
first signs, motion and movement, a desire is born in the Inconscient, ’an old tired want’ is born. It is the desire for ’absent light’. In fact this desire is part of ’Vanished memory’ because the Inconscient, is
after all the neither aspect of the Superconscient, it is only
Because of this ’buried past’,
This first touch of the Divine Idea, Ray, the ’throe that came and left a quivering trace’ is supported by a very homely simile: it is just
like the soft delicate finger of a child touching its mother in an attempt to wake her up so that the sleeping mother may look at the child:
As if a child like finger laid on a cheek
Reminded of the endless need in things
The heedless Mother of the Universe, ...
It is as if in response to the yearning of the unshaped consciousness, that there comes from the other side of boundlessness, ’an eye deity’
which pierces the ’dumb deeps’ of the Inconscience bringing into it ’a breach’, a ’pallid rift’. This ’eye of deity’ is nothing but Dawn, Usha, the ’scout from the sun’. Dawn’s first rays penetrate into the mindless
universe, bringing to it a message from the sun and
The message and the call, though they meet at first with a ’reluctant hush’ from Inconscience, they are ultimately successful in getting a
’renewed consent’:
A sense was born within the darkness depths,
A memory quivered in the heart of Time
As if a soul long dead were moved to live.
But, this contact of the Light with the Darkness is only a brief one, for the Ray of Light is as if swallowed up by Darkness, as a pebble is
sucked in by a muddy pond. Apparently, all the resistance and reluctance of the Inconscience that was destroyed by the first impact of the Light has to be rebuilt
But,
This wonderful line stands out like a sudden bolt in the dark sky! It seems to be an interruption of divine Revelation: such is the power,
the promise, the hope that is packed into this line. With God beside us nothing seems to be impossible - be it on the individual human level or on the cosmic and universal level. In times of trouble, depression and
desolation, if one can remember to repeat this line in the depths of one’s being, surely it can change the troublesome circumstances and lead one out of the darkness. The line is Mantric in its transforming power
and its elevating vision.
The phrase ’god-touch’ reminds us of the Blessings that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo used to give us by touching us on our heads with their
gentle ’touch’. ’God-touch’ is the Ashirwad; with His Ashirwad nothing in the world can stand on our way.
The word ’touch’ is again very significant because ’touch’ is something on the physical level only. So the touch of God would refer to the
Avatar’s touch; God descended as the Avatar. Surely, an Avatar comes to lead man beyond his present incapabilities and difficulties, making possible what is apparently impossible.
Lastly, the preposition ’if adds a different dimension of meaning to the whole Sentence. If a devotee, by his deep surrender, can please the Lord, then
alone does he get the god-touch and not otherwise. So, a divine longing in the heart of the devotee is a prerequisite for getting the ’god-touch’.
After this contact between Dawn and the Night, there is a rift, a ’pallid rift’ in the Darkness, but which closes up again. But, there is a
second attempt:
and, this persuasion results in –
The ’fields of god’ are the ’inert black quietude’. They get ’disturbed’ says the poet, by the beauty and wonder of the ’transfiguring touch’. The word
’disturbed’ is again used in a special sense; it is not used in a negative sense, but a positive one. When there is a ”persistent thrill’ continuously persuading Darkness, then Darkness gets quickened, awake,
receptive to the higher light. And again, the transfiguring touch is the ’god-touch’, it has the capacity to change, to transform.
’Wonder’ is again an expression of joy, the joy of discovery, the joy of the ’thrill’. So, with the focussing of beauty and joy, the Night
opens up once again –
Fixed with gold panel and opalescent hinge
A gate of dreams ajar on mystery’s verge.
A lucent corner windowing hidden things
Forced the world’s blind immensity to sight.
This forcing of ’the world’s blind immensity to sight’ results in the failing of the darkness with a quick rapidity,
as seen in the simile:
With the failing of the darkness –
The ’revelation and the flame’ is the Dawn in its fullness. The first vision of Dawn is indeed like a ’revelation’ for it is full of a
magnificent glory, like ’God’s own head’. It is indeed like a ’flame’ when the sky’s darkness is broken up and the bright light spreads itself conquering the resistant skies. Like a revelation that brings to us
messages or glimpses of the Truth, so too Dawn brings us the message of the coming sun, sun which symbolises the supramental Truth:
A message from the unknown immortal light
Ablaze upon creation’s quivering edge,
Dawn built her aura of magnificent hues
And buried its seed of grandeur in the hours.
This is how, in phases of self-revelation, Dawn comes forth and builds her ’aura’ ’upon the quivering edge’ of the horizon as well- as buries its ’seed
of grandeur in the hours’.
What is ’the message’ from the immortal Light? What is the ’seed of grandeur’? We can understand this secret if we look at this whole process of Dawn
in the light of Nolinikanta Gupta’s explanation: ”These are the successive dawns of which the Vedic Rishis speak, through which the light of consciousness in the dark inconscience gradually grown, increases in
volume and strength. The continued descent of the light into earth brings about the change upon earth, that is called evolution, that is to say, the transformation of the dark inconscience here below into the
original super-light of which it was the shadow cast out because of the original separation from the source.
Savitri represents one such divine dawn at a crucial moment of earth-life. She embodies creation’s entire past and shows in her life how
that past is transformed through the alchemy of Divine grace to a glorious future – the inevitable destiny that awaits man and earth.”
(Col. Vol.: 4, P. 306-7).
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