PRISMA Audio Books

Savitri enters her own vital being, the place of all the life energies, emotions, feelings and life impulses. Here she experiences the strength and power of the life energies that move us all. To her vision’s sight, the huge waves of vital energy moving inside her seem like a clamour of waters from unknown hills surging around a high and voiceless island. Savitri has not yet found her soul, so this part of her being is not governed by the peace and love and truth consciousness that comes with the realization of the soul. Nor is she high enough in her being to have the presence of the mind, which organizes things and brings order. Sri Aurobindo warns us of the dangers of an undisciplined life, governed by vital impulses and uncontrolled energies. He speaks of things we need to control in ourself and things we should avoid if we want to live in the higher qualities of our soul.

Savitri is married to Satyavan and now she lives with him in the sylvan forest hermitage. The clear sunny skies of summer become covered by the Monsoon rain clouds and the voice of mighty storms echos through the great forest. Savitri lives in the sound of fateful thunder and sobbing rain. Her rapture and happiness turn to grief as she remembers Narad’s prediction and the day of Satyavan’s death draws near. She lives a life of inner self-torture and ever-increasing love, doing everything she can to be closer and closer to Satyavan. She only wants to love him and to receive his love. Her grief becomes the food of mighty love; it fills her whole life. Her soul is hidden behind her sorrowing heart and helpless will. Sri Aurobindo writes, “Still veiled from her is the silent being within who sees life pass with unmoved eyes, supports the sorrow of mind and heart and bears in human breasts the world and fate.”

Savitri’s parents bring her back to the wild Shalwa forest to marry Satyavan. She will leave her luxurious life as a princess in a great palace to live the simple ascetic forest life with a prince whose father, once a mighty king, has lost his kingdom. Savitri’s heart had chosen and forced the long curve of fate to its issue. Her past receded and her future neared. Her parents, helpless against the choice of Savitri’s heart, and unwilling to separate from their beloved daughter, finally part from her with pain-fraught, burdened hearts, and leave her to her rapture and her doom. Savitri puts behind her all that once was her life and welcomes all that will be Satyavan’s life and her own, and abides with him in the wild woods. Apart with love, she lives for love alone.

Narad tells Savitri and her parents; “Ït is decreed and Satyavan must die, the hour is fixed, chosen the fatal stroke”. He explains that our fate is not the events that meet us on the road of life, our fate is the goal we choose and the road we take to get there. In the Radio broadcast of Mother’s Questions And Answers, December 26, 1956, Mother speaks about the first experience we have which shows us our goal and our path. Then she teaches in detail about how important it is to choose from our inner truth every minute. Narad tells Savitri’s mother, the Queen not to try to change the secret Will and not to intervene in Savitri’s destined deep struggle. Alone Savitri must conquer or alone she must fall. God-given, her strength can battle against doom. His Divine message given, Narad leaves, vanishing into the light of the Unseen.

Narad, the heavenly sage, tells the Queen, “O mortal who complainst of death and fate, accuse none of the harms thyself has called; this troubled world thou hast chosen for thy home, thou art thyself the author of thy pain.” Then he describes how the immortal soul chooses to leave the boundlessness and truth and consciousness and light of the Self to take the giant fall into the Abyss and descend into matter’s rigid, hard unconsciousness. The soul assimilates all it needs from its last life and yearns for rebirth. He says that heaven’s wiser Love rejects the mortal’s prayer to be saved from the pain he has chosen, and this wiser Love keeps for Savitri her privilege of pain. Then he explains that man’s mind cuts the boundless truth into strips and takes each strip for all the heavens, so he cannot see the working of an all-wise Force or feel the mystic Mother’s heart, or know the will of the Timeless working out in time in the free absolute steps of cosmic Truth.

Narad Speaks about the invincible World-Redeemer, who lives through the opposition of Earth’s Powers and Nature’s ambushes and the world’s attacks. His task is to save mankind from darkness and ignorance. He must enter the eternity of Night and know God’s darkness as he knows his sun. Imperishable and wise and infinite he still must travel Hell the world to save. Then Narad describes the Titan, the ancient adversary force whose influence slows down human progress and make life difficult. Narad advises the Queen not to take the Titan’s road. In the Radio broadcast of Mother’s Questions And Answers, 12/12/56, Mother teaches about the influences that form us and move us. She divides them into three orders. The third order is the Titan. She teaches in detail about why and how this enters us, how it moves us and how to recognize it and avoid it.

Narad tells the Queen that her grief is a cry of darkness to the light which she cannot experience because she is living in ignorance. Her mind’s light hides from her the Eternal’s thought, her heart’s hopes hide from her the Eternal’s will, earth’s joys shut from her the Immortal’s bliss. Where Ignorance is, there suffering too must come. Therefore the dread teacher, pain is necessary. Pain is the hammer of the Gods to break a dead resistance and inertia in the mortal’s heart. The Great who came to save this suffering world must pass beneath the yoke of grief and pain. They must bear the pang they came to heal because they cannot cure the ills they never felt. Man must overcome an ancient adversary force; the hidden foe lodged in the human breast. This is the inner war without escape.

Last time Savitri’s mother told her to go out and find another husband because Satyavan was fated to die in one year. Savitri refused, saying her love was Eternal and beyond death. Now the Queen expresses all the misery and discontent of the surface soul of common man and his revolt against his ignorant fate, because her daughter’s future seems doomed and she cannot understand why. She complains about the evil that makes the mind suffer and the illness that makes the body suffer and the suffering of life because it can’t get anywhere. She says humanity is doomed to pain, danger, illness and death and man is his own worst foe. Finally the Queen gives various reasons for why it all is and why we are here and asks if they are true.

Savitri’s Mother, the Queen, tells her to leave Satyavan and find another mate because he is fated to die in one year. But Savitri says once her heart has chosen and will not choose again. Her heart has sealed its troth to Satyavan. Fate and death cannot dissolve the seal of her promise. She is stronger than death and greater than her fate. The Queen tries to convince her that she is mistaken in believing these things; life and love are always changing. She tells Savitri not to follow her own will against the eternal will. She should make her way through life to timeless peace in a reasonable manner. Savitri responds that she has found the deep, unchanging soul of love and she cares only for Satyavan and their eternity together. Now she knows why her spirit came on earth. She has seen the Eternal in Satyavan.

Savitri’s Mother, Aswapathy’s Queen is worried about Savitri’s fate if she marries Satyavan because Narad, the all-knowing messenger of the Gods has spoken a veiled prediction of Doom and the King has asked if fire must always test great souls. When Narad says that nothing can turn Savitri from her destined path, the Queen opens her doors to grief and complains about the cosmic law that gives Savitri an adverse fate. She asks Narad to reveal the future and not to hide their doom. He gives the truth and his words set free the spring of cosmic Fate.